Today’s gallery of vintage images is a mix of casual daily life with some traffic of the period. The images have been slightly color-corrected for this post, and come from the Documerica project, found in the National Archives. The lead pic was taken in East Boston, in 1973.
South Pittsburg, Tenessee, 1972.
Lake Meadows Shopping Center, Chicago, 1973.
Staten Island, New York, 1973.
Leakey, Texas, 1973.
Philadelphia, 1973.
Key West, Florida, 1975.
Brookside Mine Co., Harlan County, Kentucky, 1974.
Downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1974.
The somewhat excessive body lean in that Buick in the lead photo seems evident to me. When compared to today’s cars, body lean on even low speed turns was much greater.
They were that soft. I had a sedan version of that same car, a ‘73, that I bought used my senior year of high school in 1978 from the dealership I worked at. I shortly discovered it couldn’t handle 4 or 5 passengers, and promptly lost a muffler over a bump.
Replaced the springs and shocks with heavy duty units, bigger tires, and it became remarkably well-behaved over bumps and in the corners, yet still had a great ride.
My 77 Chevelle sedan (cousin to the 73 Regal in the lead pic) is a soft mess when it has the standard springs in it. I’ve put the stiffer heavy duty springs and sway bars in it, and rides really nicely, it’s a bit choppy unloaded but put a couple people in it and smooths out and has no head toss, unlike my 2005 Buick, it just soaks up the road but yet it can take corners like a much more capable car.
Tommy ;
Fully thing that ~
Most vehicles can be easily improved handling wise by searching out the same chassis/platform’s station wagon, police or taxi version and using it’s springs, sway bars, shocks and so on .
I typically replace all the soft rubber suspension bushings with red (hard) polyurethane, this tightens things up a lot over stock but also ads NVH issues I don’t care about but many seem to .
-Nate
Tommy ;
Funny thing that ~
Most vehicles can be easily improved handling wise by searching out the same chassis/platform’s station wagon, police or taxi version and using it’s springs, sway bars, shocks and so on .
I typically replace all the soft rubber suspension bushings with red (hard) polyurethane, this tightens things up a lot over stock but also ads NVH issues I don’t care about but many seem to .
-Nate
More terrific photo collecting and editing Rich. These pics capture the ’70s grittiness, we didn’t see in the earlier ’50s and ’60s pics. Laid back feel of the pre-technology times.
I believe that is a Ford Maverick with the new for ’72, Luxury Decor Option in the first pic.
I can’t quite make out the nomenclature on the Cat track-type-tractor, but will take a guess that it’s a D6C, made from 1968-1972. You can see the whole Cat TTT lineup in this movie of the Cat Power Parade of 1973:
Thanks very much for the Caterpillar film!
Neptune Rd. & Frankfort St.–almost nothing recognizable:
You beat me to it. That intersection is right out by Logan airport and it was cleared of the classic triple-deckers (as you can see in the original picture) due to airport and highway expansion in the 1980s and early 1990s. Quite a few folks lost their housing in East Boston in the 10 years or so after this picture was taken.
The guys playing cards on the hood of the car takes me back. You just don’t see stuff like this anymore.
Y no la verás. Si te subes a un coche hoy….abollarías todo. Ya no se construyen coches así. Además el tipo parece ser pesado. Jajaja.
Pesado? un poco, tal vez
The hood would collapse, for one thing…
I wonder what that car actually is. If it was another GM (as the other two cars in the picture), I personally can vouch for the fact those early 70s hoods could easily take the weight of several full grown adults and not be that much worse for wear sheetmetal-wise at least.
I will guess its a 1966 or 67 Fairlane.
Agree.
Most likely that street in Philadelphia has either been completely abandoned, or completely gentrified.
That Philadelphia street sure looks bleak. Then it is 1973 and I’m sure it was along with other cities such as Newark and Baltimore which I do recall.
The 2nd photo (fireworks stand).
Just north of NOLA on I-10 is a fireworks stand with a giant inflatable gorilla (15 to 20 ft tall) near Slidell.
Because its outside city limits, it can skirt the city regulations against fireworks and is mobbed during the holidays.
I understand the gorilla has flown away on one occasion during a windstorm.
Here’s the Google map photo, but I guess the gorilla was on his lunch break!!
https://www.google.com/maps/@30.2160398,-89.7893903,3a,75y,119.43h,102.75t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sBKbzUOTNib_ur3zv7FaobQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
That second photo brings back memories. Pennsylvania’s laws covering fireworks were some of the strictest in the nation when I was young. Whenever we went to Virginia, we would always buy sparklers and small firecrackers to set off on the 4th of July.
In Virginia, we went to South Carolina for actual fireworks. Firecrackers were illegal in the 70s.
Those houses in Staten Island are unusual–my first thought was Canadian design.
Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me, but I remember my father buying small firecrackers when we went to Virginia. We also bought sparklers, which were illegal in Pennsylvania during the 1970s.
These photos remind me how quickly cars fell apart. It looks pretty silly now when watching movies set during that time, to see spotless shining cars that the movie producer picked up for the movie from collectors. A car looked new for about a year or two, then the rust started showing up behind the wheel wells. Those vinyl roofs did not always age well, and if they were “padded” and cracked – they soaked up rain, expanded and caused rust and more roof damage. Those side spears? Cars rusted around the rivets holding those onto doors and fenders.
How long did a muffler last? In Chicago – about a year if you’re lucky. There was a reason we had hundreds of muffler shops throughout Cook county. That was a legit business at one time, and plenty of mufflers were found along the sides of every roadway having fallen off their cars.
Even in California, mufflers didn’t last very long; in the pre-catalyst days cooler exhaust temps meant there was a lot of moisture sitting around and of course nothing was stainless steel. Muffler shops were so common in commercial strips along major roads, along with mattress stores and liquor stores. The latter remain, but muffler shops have almost disappeared.
Yeah, those holes drilled into cars to attach chrome trim, and especially the ones around the lower edge of a vinyl roof where a piece of trim was installed, were notorious to start rusting out. My Polara had an issue with a few of those on the Dutchman panel. While my Cougar, whose vinyl was added by the dealer and had that trim glued on, has never had an issue.
VanillaDude wrote:
“These photos remind me how quickly cars fell apart…”
Yep, growing up in the rural Midwest, and then moving to Chicago, it took only a relatively short time for cars to go from new to “beater” status. In 1976, my first car was a ’68 Catalina. Don’t remember that it was especially high mileage, but my dad thought it was “in good shape for an old car” – and it can be best described as a rusted – out beater; it lasted about six months…
In 1969, the average automobile on the road was just 5.1 years old. As of 2022, the average automobile is 12.2 years old, and the average car is 13.1 years old according to a motor vehicle survey by Standard and Poors:
https://www.spglobal.com/mobility/en/research-analysis/average-age-of-vehicles-in-the-us-increases-to-122-years.html
You can see the trends over time in this table published by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics; the table starts at 1969:
https://www.bts.gov/content/average-age-automobiles-and-trucks-operation-united-states
The Albuquerque pic is at a moment of transition, with the Santa Fe Railroad advertising itself on its’ overpass while the train passing is Amtrak, whose takeover (relief of) passenger rail service from the increasingly freight-focused private operators ended their need for such general-public-facing ads.
The Philadelphia picture shows the phenomenon of parking on (or halfway on) sidewalks in these narrow residential streets.
The featured picture seems to be from North Philadelphia – the streets there look much the same these days, though many of the houses have either burned or been razed. But the parking is the same. I’ve often wondered when the Streets Department repaves the roads, do they install very low curbs so that residents can continue to park on the sidewalks? There’d be a revolt if regular 5″ curbs were installed in neighborhoods.
These neighborhoods would actually benefit from curbless streets.
A current StreetView of a similar neighborhood is below (and notice the pair of shoes thrown up onto the power lines in the upper-left of the StreetView image… that’s another Philadelphia tradition). Google link is here:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/gegVUfN7X5nahUaK7
Parking partway on the sidewalk — reminds me of Benwood Avenue, Stowe Township, PA (Pittsburgh suburb) about a mile from where I grew up.
Everything wasn’t as dilapidated then as it is today!
I’d like to try a Key Lime float. Sounds tasty and refreshing. Do they still make them down there?
Firecrackers were banned by the mid-seventies in Alberta. Too many kids getting hurt. So we usually bought them in BC or Saskatchewan or brought some up from Montana if someone’s family did a road trip south.
What happened – they discovered that children living in Alberta are markedly dumber than kids in BC or Saskatchewan?
Thank you for posting this. The street looks cleaner, but, if one looks closely at the “today” photo, it’s possible to see that some of the houses have been abandoned.
Here’s a then-and-now shot of the Staten Island neighborhood photo – not much has changed. The houses in the background were built in 1968, so they were virtually new when the photo was taken.
StreetView here:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZRkL2fRs4H3EKuUu7
The top photo is an interesting comparison – a low trim version of the car everyone considered near-luxury next to a high trim car everyone considered a cheap econobox. Ford’s “LDO” version of the Maverick was an incredible upgrade on that car, one that made it pleasant to live with. Those were far more common than strippo A body Buicks. I wonder how far apart their sticker prices were – not much, I’ll bet.
The interior of the Maverick LDO was very nice…it had “European” style arm rests, and thick carpeting. It was probably nicer than the interior of the top-of-the-line Buick Century.
The LDO version also included standard steel-belted radial tires, which was a big deal at the time.
My 72 LDO was about a week old and ready to be driven to California when this pic was taken. The LDO also had a major amount of sound insulation – T-Bird style – that made it incredibly quiet when it was new (before it and other Mavericks and Mustangs of the era developed the upper control arm bushing “squawk”). I always found it ironic that Ford put that same deep pile carpeting on the package shelf that substituted for a glove box, the absence of which was one of the ways the original Maverick was kept at a very low entry price. Over time the car aged badly like many 70’s cars. The cooling system could not cope with the 302 and A/C (a badly placed bypass hose cooked and burst several times and the radiator was crap). The funny thing is that the original, notorious Firestone 500 radial tires lasted for years without incident and were replaced only due to LA smog-induced sidewall cracking.
We had the 4-door Comet version of the same car. Yes, the LDO upgrade was well worth the money. Ours had a set of B.F. Goodrich Lifesaver radials, ER70-14, yes they were 70 series! They still had decent tread when we got rid of it at 43,000 miles. Reliability wasn’t great. The brakes, including linings and master cylinder, had to be replaced with less than 20,000 miles. The rest of the problems were all HVAC and cooling system related. Blown bypass hoses, stuck thermostat, and the water valve for the AC-Heat system got stuck in middle of winter, leaving us with little heat.
Hey, Roger – yes, that all sounds familiar. These cars were great when new but did not hold up well at all. I had a friend whose father bought a new 73 Comet LDO and he experienced the same. The heating and cooling systems were just crap. This YouTube video just appeared today. Amazing survivor car. The interior is the same color as my car and will bring back memories. The car must have had a very loving owner to keep it on the road for so long. I sure enjoyed the kid’s enthusiasm.
Oh, and here’s the window sticker for JPC to compare:
I saw my car ! Downtown Albuquerque, the light blue ’60 Valiant. Mine was the same year, same color. A V-100 with a three speed on the floor. Drove it all over the Bay Area, as far as Monterey. Lots of great memories.
Nice pictures but remind me why I don’t want the ‘good old days’ to come back .
Cheap mufflers that rusted out and flaccid shocks that failed or began to leak oil were parts and parcel of the initial co$t cutting by the manufacture’s .
There’s still plenty of muffler shops everywhere I see .
-Nate
So gold in the mid 60s to mid 70s was like silver and gray today? Lots of gold cars shown, including the ’67 Cutlass with the mismatched fender in the Chicago photo.
Was surprised to see two/three, old rides in the “Chicago pic”. Cars there must not have rusted away as quick as they did in the mid Atlantic states.
H’mmm.
I used to find it an unusual juxtaposition as a little kid, when cars like the Buick in the first pic, would have luxury touches like whitewall tires and chrome rocker panel moldings. While also wearing basic dog dish hub caps.
I remember the guys at work playing cards on payday – some poor fool always ended up going home to explain that he’d “lost” his wages…
My Dad was a supervisor at a local dairy in the 50s and 60’s. Several wives would come on payday to pick up the checks to assure the money made it home. He said it was the same group of women every time!!
The Albuquerque photo shows a 1966 VW blue Beetle from what I can make out. Looks like a “1300” emblem. Some owner loved that one I think. Looks to be in beautiful condition.