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whats the closest thing to Traveling back in Time? to get a feel of times past?

Stearmen

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,202
Oh no ! Polo & I are serious.
1si4nm.jpg

Ok...now let’s see yours ! :rolleyes:
Oh God, I'm blind!:confused:
 

p51

One Too Many
Messages
1,119
Location
Well behind the front lines!
Ride the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. For that Golden Age feel, take a ride in an open cockpit biplane, over farm land!
Better yet, go to the other end of the former D&RGW 3-foot railroad to Chama, NM. Walk down the embankment with the parking lot and the state highway behind you. You'll truly feel like you've stepped into the mid 1950s or earlier.
RoadTrip20121178-1.jpg
 
Messages
17,190
Location
New York City
^^^ Good one. My girlfriend and I have probably done half-a-dozen or so vintage steam train trips (usually very local routes from a half hour to a few hours) and you really can feel a bit of time travel in the better ones.
 

tropicalbob

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,954
Location
miami, fl
I just started rereading Joyce's "Ulysses." It's June 16, 1904, and you're walking down Eccles Street in Dublin on a beautiful morning on the way to the butcher shop. Any great novel takes you to another time and place, and you see and feel it through a person who was there. That's time travel. Last week I was with Turgenov in Russia in the 1860's. Amazing.
 
Messages
17,190
Location
New York City
I just started rereading Joyce's "Ulysses." It's June 16, 1904, and you're walking down Eccles Street in Dublin on a beautiful morning on the way to the butcher shop. Any great novel takes you to another time and place, and you see and feel it through a person who was there. That's time travel. Last week I was with Turgenov in Russia in the 1860's. Amazing.

This is one of the reasons reading is my favorite hobby - a book can take you anywhere (and, IMHO, better than movies, video games, TV shows, etc.).
 

Annie B

New in Town
Messages
22
also since they didnt have air conditioning back in the Old days , they used to build houses with extra high ceilings so the warm air would rise and help keep the temperature a little cooler, I use to live in an old wooden two story house built back in the 1870's- 1880's and the temperature was extra hot upstairs during the summer, so we had to sleep downstairs during the summer to try and keep cool

and the walls had no insulation , so it was very cold and drafty during the winter, I remember going to the dining room on a cold day and you could see condensation when you breath or talk because it was almost like being outside.

some of the doors still had the old skeleton keys, so living in an old house is kinda like experiencing some of the past or old days.
Sounds like the house I grew up in! No insulation. We just had the woodstove for heat, so the bedrooms were COLD in winter! I still can't sleep in a warm bedroom. Often the old houses had a screened porch for sleeping in the summer.
 

highway66blues

One of the Regulars
Messages
123
Location
Rural Western Penna.
Me ?
I Live It...at least as close as I can.
I rent an apartment in a building built in 1913, in a Lil' rural Western Penna. town NE of Pittsburgh.
My home STILL HAS the original hard wood floors (mostly), original 5 panel doors on their original hinges (can go into better detail later)....I use oil lamps and candles every eve (electric sparingly)...
Air Cond.... HaHaHa... I have a pair of French Doors in my meager "Living room"...
THAT has been my A/C for this past summer (AND it worked WELL..VERY Well)

have NO television or Web
(internet=use public access)... cathedral radio that gets me KDKA Radio (AM1020) same as the Television station with the Same News top of Every hour, 24 hours a day
I also dress in a Vintage way....Everyday...early 1930's...
WHOLE "wardrobe" is Just THAT

...

Want to know more ??
 
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Messages
17,190
Location
New York City
Dickens and Steinbeck are my two favorite choices for this type of "time travel." Perfect evocations of time and place.

Dickens, Edith Wharton and Victor Hugo fully embed me in their time periods. I viscerally feel the meaning - to the world of that time - just thinking about Quasimodo furiously running, delicately carrying Esmeralda, popping in and out of view on the galleries and platforms of Notre-Dame, screaming sanctuary. For that moment, I am in 15th Century Paris. Also, one of the most powerful scenes I've ever read.
 

Pat Spade

Familiar Face
Messages
71
Location
Ruhr Area
...well, living in an old house (about 300 years old) stuffed with old things and furniture, having adopted a kind of old fashioned way to dress and avoiding the 21th century wherever possible is my daily travell back. One of my ultimate "kicks" is entering my 60 years old car (Peugeot 203). The scent of oil and gas, old leather and wool, dust and time...pulling the choke knob and pulling(!) the starter knob, and with a light toe on the throttle let it burst into live with a decent roar (quite impressive those old lions, using just four in a row with humble 1300cc...:eek:) )...fidling into first on the column...and off we go. Riding thru little countryside backlaness makes me always feel like decades back...
 

Yesteryear

One of the Regulars
Messages
240
I like to go up to the park with an antique portable phonograph and enjoy the music. My local park usually isn't too crowded, and features some beautiful gardens. It's also far enough from any major roads that you don't hear loud traffic noise; only the peaceful sights and sounds of nature.

Here's a video I took there once:
 
Messages
17,190
Location
New York City
I like to go up to the park with an antique portable phonograph and enjoy the music. My local park usually isn't too crowded, and features some beautiful gardens. It's also far enough from any major roads that you don't hear loud traffic noise; only the peaceful sights and sounds of nature.

Here's a video I took there once:

Central Park in NYC was designed in the 1850s and, over the last 30 years, has been restored to look very much like it did when it opened. Since I am very familiar with old drawings, painting and pictures form the park over the years it's been open, I can get a very time-travel feel sometimes as I'm walking through it and see a landscape that is all-but unchanged from 150+ years ago. Sometimes, if there aren't many people in it - hence, no modern clothing or sounds - the effect is even stronger.
 
Messages
17,190
Location
New York City
Central Park in NYC was designed in the 1850s and, over the last 30 years, has been restored to look very much like it did when it opened. Since I am very familiar with old drawings, painting and pictures form the park over the years it's been open, I can get a very time-travel feel sometimes as I'm walking through it and see a landscape that is all-but unchanged from 150+ years ago. Sometimes, if there aren't many people in it - hence, no modern clothing or sounds - the effect is even stronger.

I was in Central Park earlier this week and snapped these shots to give you a sense of what I mean. With the rowboats, the 19th Century Pavilion and pre-war apartment houses in the background, I feel like I am looking at the exact same scene someone would have been looking at if they were standing in my spot in the '30s or '40s. Has a very time-travel feel to it.

Separately, and I have no idea why, but I love being in the Park, amidst the beautiful nature, but seeing all the pre-war apartment buildings peaking in. Having grown up in NJ, you didn't see that in the parks I knew as a kid. Also, and again, I don't know why, but I love old water towers on the tops of buildings.



 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
I go to small towns that have no malls. Where there’s only one main street
that has a barber shop, hardware store with wood floors & buildings from the
early part of the 20th century.
I drive my ’46. I have my old Schwinn in the truck bed which I ride downtown
& stop at my favorite local diner for the lunch special.
The drivers don’t speed & the people are friendly.
I’m lucky that there are still a few places left that I enjoy so much .
 

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