Centuries aside, people are people

A modern photo from a movie set?
 Hardly. It's from the 1920s.

The past few weeks have been hectic. I'm in need of a battery recharge. So excuse my excuse of a post here.

Take a close look at the photo that's with this blog post. At first glance, it seems to be from a modern costume drama or the set of a period movie or TV show. It appears to have been taken recently. 

But no. It's actually a screengrab from a short video that's about 100 years old. The women in the picture were relaxing on the beach during a sunny day in Palm Beach in the 1920s. 

Then, as now, Palm Beach was the playground of the 1 percenters. The two visitors pictured here had plenty of leisure time and enough money to carefully craft fashion-casual attire. Resort wear, it used to be called.

The original black-and-white video has been restored to a remarkable level. Most significant, to me, is how the bright color and sharp quality of the restored film erases time. You could imagine having seen these people yesterday, at the beach or on the street or at the grocery store. The intervening years disappear. 

One hundred years, one thousand years, people are people. Filled with dreams, dealing with life, snatching fun, doing the day-to-day, just as we all do today. 

External cultural and social trappings evolve and change with time. But the essence that makes us human connects people from one epoch to another. When a restored video brings that idea closer to home, it's a win for all mankind.

Here's the video link in case the one attached to the photo doesn't work: https://youtu.be/jCWJYZM9yeU

First magic kingdom?

From the Henry Plant Museum video:
  'The Tampa Bay Hotel: Florida's First Magic Kingdom'

In the 19th century, Florida was portrayed elsewhere in the nation as an exotic, tropical locale. So developers gave people what they expected. A case in point is railroad magnate Henry Plant, whose resort hotel is dubbed in the accompanying video as Florida's first magic kingdom.

One of the speakers in the Henry Plant Museum video suggests that 19th century travelers' expectations of the extraordinary is one reason Plant gave his resort hotel a Moorish look. His Tampa Bay Hotel even had minarets.

I've written about the Tampa Bay Hotel in the past - or rather, about the museum housed within the building. The National Historical Landmark is now part of the University of Tampa. Today's post shares the link to the video about the hotel's history. The 15-minute video goes into architectural detail about the structure and explains what happened to it after the glitterati of the 19th century moved on to other playgrounds.

The hotel story is replete with superlatives that are eye-opening when compared to the lives and houses of the average 19th century Floridian. The hotel had 500 rooms on 6 acres, and was furnished with European goods shipped to the site in 41 trainloads. The goods included 30,000 square yards of carpet. According to the video, the Tampa Bay Hotel was Florida's first all-electric, steam-heated and fireproof hotel. The grounds included tropical landscaping, a horse track, golf course and spaces for musical and theatrical performances.

All this glamour was unveiled on Feb. 5, 1891, at an opening ball for 2,000 guests. The New York Times covered the gala.

Enjoy this look at an increasingly distant past:

Not a theme park in sight

Florida's popular image is wrapped around palm trees, beaches, ocean waves, sunshine, and theme park fantasy lands. The real portrait is truly all that, but also includes congested highways, housing development, and millions of people.

Such images make it difficult to imagine how different Florida was in recent history. Our beautiful state parks, national parks, state forests, and museums help preserve a slice of that past. So do things like this video slideshow by a YouTube user named tj3usa. I don't know who this person is, but I thank him or her for uploading this portrait of an earlier era. Enjoy.