Some months ago I shared an image gallery showing rather heavy traffic in the 1970s. On that occasion, I sensed I unintendedly brought up too many ‘stuck in traffic’ memories to our readers. Not quite what I intended… so I’ll give it a different spin this time.
So, for this series, I made sure to pick images with moving traffic. As always, the fun in these is to compare today’s locations with the past, particularly for those familiar with the sites. The images come from the Documerica Project of the National Archives, and have been slightly color-corrected. The lead pic is in Las Vegas (where else?), taken in 1972.
Main Street, Moab, UT, 1972.
I-676, Philadelphia, PA, 1973.
H-1 Freeway, Honolulu, HI, 1973.
Rifle, Garfield County, CO, 1973.
C1 Highway, East Boston, MA, 1973.
H-1 Freeway, Honolulu, HI, 1973.
East Boston, MA, 1973.
I’m very familiar with the Philadelphia photo – it’s of the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76) at the point where I-676 breaks off from it. It’s been years since I’ve been there, but when I was growing up, that road was part of my father’s daily commute. I used to love going into work with Dad when I was a kid, and later on I worked near there too, so I’d been on that road innumerable times.
The black high-rise in the background was the PECO Building (PECO an acronym for Philadelphia Electric Company) – my aunt worked there for many years. The building’s most notable feature was that the top of the building contained a huge electronic display where the company would flash messages (like “HAPPY NEW YEAR” or “GO EAGLES” etc.). Sounds corny today, but it was neat at the time.
Philadelphia’s skyline was distinctive in the 1970s because there was a gentleman’s agreement (as unbelievable as that sounds) that no building would be taller than the statue of William Penn on top of the City Hall Tower, which was 550’ high. (Barely visible from the feature photo’s angle.) Developers pressured the City to officially permit taller buildings in the 1980s, and after that the City gained a lot of building space, but lost a distinctive characteristic.
A comparison of that shot with a current Google SV image is below.
I worked as a mechanical engineer for PECO and was involved with the maintenance and operation of the Main Office Building. Originally the crown messages were changed by going out on the window washing rig and screwing in individual light bulbs. Now there is a modern digital display.
A distinctive feature of the building is that heat was provided by the lights. On cold nights the whole building would be lit up. Actually the design intent was for a “tower of light” that would be lit all the time with a three story crown of lights at the top. When the 1973 energy crisis hit that seemed conspicuously wasteful, so off hours the lights were only used as needed for heat.
Automotive content: The five story building at the base of the tower was originally a truck factory in the early 20th century.
Thanks Art – I didn’t know that the building’s heat was intended to be provided by the lights. I do remember seeing the PECO Building fully lit up on occasion, but I just assumed the electric company could do that because they didn’t have to pay the electric bill. Never thought there was an actual purpose!
Didn’t know about the former truck factory there either.
I work in One Liberty Place, the first building whose developer (the late Bill Rouse) decided to breach the gentleman’s agreement, in 1984 or thereabouts. Today, One Liberty is hardly visible from that spot, the view being blocked by even taller buildings (although you can see the companion building Two Liberty). The two tallest buildings were both developed by Comcast. The top of the one on the left looks like a USB drive from certain angles, and the other one appears to be giving Philly the finger (or, if you are more charitable, it looks like a cigarette pack with one cigarette sticking out).
The traffic in the current photo is more representative of the traffic level of the “Sure-kill” today — on a light to moderate traffic day.
Looks like an aircraft carrier in the background of the Vegas pic. The infamous Tailhook convention was held there–coincidence?
I count maybe 4 or 5 Japanese cars, all in Hawaii (what’s the red one?), and a couple of Beetles. How the mighty have fallen.
I think that red one (heading away) is a Fiat 850 coupe series 2.
That first picture brings back memories of Roscoe Blvd. and Van Nuys Blvd. of the mid-60s in the San Fernando Valley. It was a jungle out there with all those signs. Also reminds me of the view when first driving through Las Vegas, from Baltimore to the Valley, in June 1966. Heck, the whole picture screams 1966-68 to me.
What’s the stairway for in the final pic? I don’t see a street under it. Did Boston have canals or (short) above ground railways?
It’s a pedestrian bridge over a railroad track. Here’s another picture of it below.
The entire neighborhood doesn’t exist any longer – I think it was demolished years ago to extend the buffer around Logan International Airport.
Yup. A picture of this area came up a few months ago in one of these photo collections. That area looks totally different now and not at all residential and welcoming as it does in the photo in this post.
Sorry, to answer Ralph L’s question, the track that stairway crosses over is the MBTA (our subway system, even though most of it is above ground) Blue line from Wonderland to Bowdoin Station. The overpass is near the current “Wood Island” station.
In the 1970s, I suspect (others can confirm I’m sure) that this section of the line was overhead electrified. Now it’s all 3rd rail.
Much of Boston’s subway system consists of former trolley lines. There are still parts that utilize overhead lines. Until 2022, we had a few lines of trackless trolleys (electric buses) that utilized overhead wiring.
Of course, for most of us Bostonians, we don’t care how our trains are energized…we’d just be happy if they ran and passengers weren’t regularly killed. 😉
Must be Ford week on CC. Just about every one of these photos has a full size Ford included. One that does not has a Pinto wagon.
Nice shots!
In those days, “full size Fords” were indeed ‘everywhere”.
It’s a good bet that the pictures of East Boston were taken on a Sunday. The Blue Laws were still in effect which meant that almost all stores were closed on Sunday and most people had the day off. That would explain why there was so little traffic in such a usually busy place.
It looks like a residential neighborhood, but it’s covered in signs for businesses (with handy arrows).
Virginia repealed its blue laws around then and legalized liquor by the drink. A thousand nice restaurants bloomed in NoVa. There had been very few when we first lived in Alexandria in the mid 60s, and Old Town was still shabby (the western half of downtown was downright seedy–massage parlors and car dealers).
Believe it or not, a few of those seedy car dealers in Old Town Alexandria survived there until modern times. The last car dealer on King Street (shown below) closed in 2016 – the Google StreetView image below is from 2015.
That lot is now vacant, while another dealer on the same block closed at about the same time, and that site is now condos or something.
Now the area around “Braddock Rd/Quaker Ln/King St”, in Alx has become a “hood”.
“Bradlee Shopping Ctr” is kind a in the “heart of it all”.
This picture of the highway is what we now think of/call “1A” in East Boston. It’s the elevated section of roadway that exits Logan Airport heads to Revere. It rides along/above fuel tank farms (for the airport, gasoline and heating oil distribution for all of New England), long term parking lots, mountains of stock-piled road salt (delivered for nearly all of New England by barge to this area), and various airport-related businesses. It’s actually a real wasteland that looks much worse nowadays than it apparently did in 1973.
If you’ve ever stayed in one of the hotels close to Logan – either because you were flight crew or simply unlucky enough to have to stay unexpectedly overnight near Logan – you’ve probably ridden over this bit of road.
What’s with the black streaks in the middle of the lanes in all the pictures? Motor oil?
Yup! The exhaust , emissions then were pretty “noxious” too.
Not “oil leaks” per se.
You’re seeing the fading remnants of discoloration caused by road-draft tube crankcase ventilation. The noxious fumes were “sucked” out of the engine, and deposited on the roadway between the wheel tracks via a metal tube leading from the engine down to the lower edge of the oil pan, or a bit below. The air rushing past the tube created a vacuum that would draw the fumes out of the engine.
THAT CRAP was the reason that Driver’s Training classes included the warning about highways being the slickest just after the rain starts–before the loose oil was washed into the gutter by the water. Until then, the oil was splashed around into the tire paths.
GOD BLESS THE PCV VALVE and associated plumbing. Coming on-line in the early 1960s, there were still plenty of older cars to discolor the roadway ten years later.
So is “roads are slickest when it’s just started to rain” no longer true? That was a question on my driving test exam when I got my first license in Maryland (then a full license at 16 years old).
Cars still leak to a certain extent today, more often engine or transmission oil than anything else — look at a big parking lot after a rainstorm and you’ll see a rainbow sheen in puddles, a sign of oil. Still, leaks are far less common; all of my cars from the early 2000s and later remained dry as a bone on their undersides during the time I owned them.
It is definitely still true, if there hasn’t been any rain in a long time, but it certainly is no where near as bad as it used to be in my experience.
I think you are correct about motor oil. It also could be transmission fluid or rear end gear lube. In the last 50 years, gaskets and seals on engines, transmissions and differential housings have really been improved. 50 years ago vehicles leaked a lot of fluids and people just accepted it.
Just lovely photos .
-Nate
Thing that’s most changed from the first two photos are the large numbers of independent motels and hotels their used to be. Now nearly all of them are part of a chain or franchise (including the Best Western seen here with an old logo, though Best Westerns are more loosely attached and decentralized than most hotel chains).
I have been noticing the new Best Western logo – how awful. It does nothing to suggest either lodging or the American west, but if your glasses are not up to snuff it is hard to distinguish from the Dairy Queen logo.
A new Best Western (a Best Western Plus, whatever that connotes) opened a few years back near where I live; I don’t think it had been there two years before they already had to change their sign to the new logo.
Still, the all time worst hotel logo debasement remains Holiday Inn, which replaced these legendary and awesome signs:
…with these atrocities:
I nonetheless can understand how it happened. Between the time something is new and when it looks cool and retro, there is a time it just looks old and dated in a bad way, and I remember seeing the classic Holiday Inn Great Sign (their official name) when we were travelling in the mid-’70s, my first exposure to Holiday Inn, and I just thought those signs looked gaudy and like an old run-down motel, of which there were many by that time, and all too many I stayed at as a kid. All that flashing neon wasn’t a good look in the ’70s when newer places had more restrained fluorescent-backlit signs, so I can see why Holiday Inn ripped them all down around 1982. All that neon and flashing incandescent bulbs cost a lot to run and maintain as well. It may not have been a good look in 1976, but it’s a great look today and I’m not the only one who wishes they kept a few around (it’s the same thing with old architecture). Stationary images don’t do it justice; you have to see it in motion, always pointing you toward the hotel and that big star on top; I’m sure it’s on Youtube somewhere.
I notice the big Rexall sign in the Rifle, CO shot. I guess it’s kind of a CC effect because last evening I stumbled online across a random broadcast of the Phil Harris – Alice Faye radio show from probably the late 1940s. It was sponsored by Rexall, and included all of the old ads.
About the Rifle ,Co shot, it’s east 3rd Street looking west. The tree in the foreground was my front yard til a year ago.