“Backyard of a brick house in the suburbs with picnic table and barbecue,” location unknown, 1959, by Marion S. Trikosko, via U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Central Park
Children climbing on monkey bars in Central Park playground, New York City, October 1942, by Marjory Collins, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
During the early 1940s, Collins recorded American life on the home front for the U.S. Office of War Information. At the time of this photo, she was following the Wynn children, Janet and Marie, (lower left) for a project on Czech-American immigrants.
Sindelfingen, Germany
Fence on top of a low retaining wall between sidewalk and playground, Sindelfingen, Germany, yesterday morning.
Blackwell’s Island, N.Y.
“Children’s roof garden,” Metropolitan Hospital Training School for Nurses on Blackwell’s Island (now Roosevelt Island), New York City, between 1915 and 1920, by Bain News Service, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Click on the image for a larger view.
Pasadena, California
A repeat post from July 2013. . .
Unidentified garden in Pasadena, California, 1930, by Diggers Garden Club, via Archives of American Gardens, Garden Club of America Collection, Smithsonian Institution Commons on flickr.
Simple, elegant, and a little mysterious. . .
The Diggers Garden Club was founded in 1924 and still exists today. It is a member of the Garden Club of America (which celebrated its centennial in 2013).
At its 75th anniversary, the GCA donated 3,000 glass lantern slides (of which this is one) and over 30,000 film slides to the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Gardens. Its members continue to contribute to the collection, which now has over 60,000 images.
Many of the gardens pictured in the Archives’ slides are unidentified. The Smithsonian is asking the public’s help in finding names and locations. Click here to view its “Mystery Gardens Initiative.”
I do think a garden should be seductive. The strength of any garden is its ability to take you away.
— David L. Culp, in “3,000 Plants, and Then Some,” The New York Times.
enclos*ure 