Dodge Street, Omaha.
Manhattan side of Brooklin-Battery tunnel.
Interstate bridge over Columbia River.
Newport Beach, California.
Route 2 in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.
Images taken from the US National Archives Flickr page. Slightly color-corrected for this post.
This all brings a tear to my eyes .
-Nate
From the smog and exhaust fumes? Or just the joy of sitting in a traffic jam?
Paul, Very true. If you are behind one of those old cars in traffic today, you realize how much more the older cars polluted. You can tell by the smell of the pollution of the car. I’d rather have modern emissions and car efficiency but miss those old cars quite a bit. Love the 60s and 70s cars I grew up with.
Totally agree. I have a classic ’69 cruiser. Completely rebuilt to original. My wife refuses to ride in it because of the fumes…she’s right, it’s pretty bad. Unbelievable to think that all the cars in these pics were burning our eyes the same way and we didn’t think twice about it. Thank god someone did!
Juan tear shared between both eyes? How do you do that??? 😛
Factory training, it’s a secret .
-Nate
In four of the five photos there is a light blue Beetle. It is like a “Where’s Waldo”.
Haha, that’s crazy!
A reality check from today’s earlier post about The Joy of Driving. No wonder the SUV boom took off about this time.
A Citroen DS is in the last picture; not a common sight.
I was thinking the same thing. Was there even a Citroen dealership in Puerto Rico, ever??
Probably not; but given that all cars have to be imported to PR, it’s not a stretch to think that someone decided to float one over from France or the mainland US at some point. It probably provided a better than average ride over some of the pretty deteriorated roads on some parts of the island.
And what looks awfully like a Mk.3 Cortina GXL next to the DS.
Looks like a US-version Capri to me. Which were imported to the US, unlike the Cortina Mk.3.
Ah yes, hence the round headlights, that’s it. And after ’72 all Capris had that bulge in the bonnet. Thanks.
I was surprised to see a Citroen in the Puerto Rico picture. I think I never saw one in the years I lived on the island.
Speaking of heavy, chaotic traffic, yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the August, 14, 2003 Blackout.
“The Northeast blackout of 2003 was a widespread power outage throughout parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, and most parts of the Canadian province of Ontario on Thursday, August 14, 2003, beginning just after 4:10 p.m. EDT. The outage, which was much more widespread than the Northeast blackout of 1965, affected an estimated 55 million people, including 10 million people in southern and central Ontario and 45 million people in eight U.S. states.”
The first photo is of my city–Omaha NE.! It was taken in 1973 facing east on Dodge St. (our main drag) at 72nd St. I used to work at the ‘Hinky Dinky’ supermarket you can see the sign for on the left! And nowadays, traffic is a little lighter than this due to more people working from home post-pandemic. Every business you see in this photo is now gone–an F4 Tornado came through 5/4/75 and wiped alot of this out. It’s all rebuilt now.
I thought of the 75 tornado, too. Just a two years after this photo but didn’t realize it hit this part of town, thought it was further east.
That Chrysler on the “bridge of the Columbia” is a beaut!!
Have been in many traffic jams. Worst was Massive snow ❄ storm Valentines Day 1990 Lake Shore Drive. Cars were abandoned on LSD .Finally rerouted through side streets. Normal trip took about 20 minutes. After 4.5 hours Finally reached destination to find no available parking space. Parked overnight at a McDonald’s and walked two blocks. In photos shown, great to see CARS, other than Semis. Good old days before the era of SUVS and crossovers! 🤮 🤮
Lovely color on the Town and Country wagon in the Omaha picture. I’ve always liked that yellowish-cream color much better than the browns and greens more often seen.
I can tell the biggest scene to have changed in those pictures would be Newport Beach.
In the Omaha photo, there’s a brand new 1973 Monte Carlo in the lower right, partially obscured in shadow. Reminds me of my mother’s 73 Monte Carlo in a nicer color of dark blue metallic.