Sunday, February 2, 2014

Flint Postcards: The Future of Flint


A 1920 postcard presenting a futuristic 1925 vision of Flint, Michigan, with a population of 200,000, a Manhattan-like skyline, blimps galore, and floating ships with sails and oars.






at 10:37 AM
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8 comments:

  1. Mike ButlerFebruary 2, 2014 at 10:56 AM

    This looks like a drawing from Winsor McCay's "Little Nemo in Slumberland"-and I mean this as a huge compliment. If this was drawn only 5 years before the 1925 Flint it predicted, it must anticipated quite a boom time. Very cool, though I think it was fantasy, and not at an attempt at a realistic expectation by the artist.

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  2. Gordon YoungFebruary 2, 2014 at 11:18 AM

    I'm guessing this was a postcard that had dozens of other cities stamped on the bottom for sale in other locales. But still a great image. What's up with the ship with sails and oars, with an assist from a blimp?

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  3. Golden TaintFebruary 2, 2014 at 5:52 PM

    They actually built the penis tower, but it blew over after a wind storm.

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  4. AndymanFebruary 3, 2014 at 11:14 AM

    Cool picture! I agree, I don't think that was done specifically for Flint. That a lot of progress in 5 years!

    BTW-I think those are loading ramps not oars. The sails, however...maybe 5 years was too soon for a reliable engine?

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  5. JWillyFebruary 3, 2014 at 4:50 PM

    The tower...ummm...by counting building stories in the foreground and scaling to the most distant tall buildings, it would have been about 2500 feet tall.

    The tallest man-made structure in the world in 1927 was the Eiffel Tower, at 1063 feet.

    Methinks the artist wasn't an architect or engineer, and maybe was a bit over-optimistic.

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    Replies
    1. Gordon YoungFebruary 5, 2014 at 9:26 AM

      Ha! Definitely some artistic interpretation going on here!

      Delete
  6. unclebuckFebruary 4, 2014 at 1:49 PM

    Looks like a Slow Loris creation.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.

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