I am not sure whether copper telephone wires will survive, I am sad about Kodachrome and I wonder about the revival of vinyl records. Will newsweeklies make it? Not sure why they should, but they can if they aren’t as boring as Newsweek. And the video store? Well that’s sort of hopeless, but not completely. They just need to have some deep selection, not greatest hits. Internal combustion? Well, not if some in D.C. agencies get their way. Cigarette machine? Well, they will certainly survive somewhere, though they will never be as they were before, though we will imagine many places will require them just for atmosphere. Electric trolleys? They are back too, along with American made muscle cars.

The reality is that while people often pronounce the end of an industry, it usually survives somehow, if in a niche fashion. Hunting safaris hunt until the animal is endangered, and then they become photo hunting safaris. Candlemakers, so discussed in the Ayn Rand book Anthem, can survive; Ireland’s Rathborne’s have been around since the middle ages. They just have to sell to gift shops (or churches) and smell good.

That being said, I do know for certain a few other time un-tested things that will survive:

1. Printed Checks: I got an email from some folks who say that while paper checks are declining overall, the majority of payments that an average corporation, municipality, or utility company receives are still made with checks. ACH is currently used by commercial and government sectors and can supplement current payment options, 1.6 billion ACH web transactions in just Q3 of 2009. CheckAlt works for the customer side by ensuring a secure bank-to-bank electronic transfer and for the vendor by providing a low flat-fee service that is based on transaction volume without any set-up, maintenance or subscription charges.
2. Copper pipes: The Copper Development Council is promoting how easy it is to build outdoor showers and such with copper. They call it a “durable option that is easy to work with, with an incomparable look and style. When using copper, you’ll need tubing cutters and a propane or other hand-held torch, flux and solder for soldering the joints for the shower.”
3. Books: Yes, you can put books on iPad, but it is not restful to read long fiction electronically. Do you bring electronics to the beach, or a cheap paperback that gets BETTER with sand and Coppertone. Some can, and that is great, but the ease of a book, that won’t go away. Further evidence. As a child, I was taught to never write in a book, except your name in the cover. Today, that practice has changed because books, particularly paperbacks, have gotten cheaper. Schools now teach kids to underline and write in margins. The book today becomes something different; a special thing that gives you ideas, hope, advice or inspiration. The future of book-selling? Tiny direct to store wholesaler Choice Books of Bristow, Virginia. They sell smart little inspirational books from publishers like Strang at places like grocery stores. They avoid the nightmare of book wholesalers (tell me again why they still exist?) Sold for cheap prices in handy sizes, books are irresistible.
4. Magazines/Newspapers: Lately, I’ve really been enjoying Adam Moss’ New York magazine. It’s tightly written, tightly edited and packed with smart graphics. It’s a package, and it does more than an iPad could ever do. Even better, it functions as a coffee coaster in between readings. Magazines like New York are the future of the industry; they do something that could never be done electronically. Someone said recently that seeing National Geographic on iPad was a revelation. That might be true, but the data-packed readable magazine; cheap, efficient and packed with actionable information, will always have a place. Won’t we all have an iPad instead of newspapers? The central idea of sitting down quietly with a newspaper has great appeal to millions of Americans, and there is evidence that many begin to pick up the habit as they get older. Newspapers have survived Morse code, telephones, radio, television and the Internet. They will certainly survive, but become a niche product.
5. Cigarettes: Never bet against Philip Morris. By the way, I have been seeing an increasing number of Millennials smoking pipes. Not alot, mind you. But enough that its got me thinking that Dr. Grabow pipes and Dill’s pipe cleaners still have a market. Just please no Borkum Ruff near me at dinnertime!
6. Vinyl Records: They will survive, though few doubt this these days. But the real reason is that they sound different than an MP3, and they are easy to use. They are cheap, amusing, and can easily survive as niche products. The market for music is vast. After all, they still make harpsicords, right? The most fascinating evidence I find of the survival of the vinyl record is the Youtube videos that show an old record being played on an old record player. It’s like the song only survives if the medium survives too.
7. Grass Landing Strips: Did  you know there was a movement to preserve grass landing strips? The Vintage Aircraft Association encourages it, as it saves on tires. In our poverty stricken era, I wonder if there will be more of this sort of thing as it is eco-friendly and cheap.

This also dovetails into a recent post on the the status of a ballpark in Richmond, Va., and the prospect of building a new one in a historical area known for its flooding. The need for a new baseball field, or at least a serious renovation, in Virginia’s capital has its merits: The old venue began crumbling, with chunks of concrete falling from the structure, about a decade after it opened. The clubhouses are considered tiny, the seats very uncomfortable and the concourses are dank.

But there’s a civic tragedy in all this. When the place, known as The Diamond, opened for the 1985 season, it was considered the best minor-league park in the United States. It also captured an all-too-rare moment in the old Confederate capital of cooperation between the primarily black City of Richmond and the majority-white counties in the suburbs. Unfortunately, its sheen quickly dulled as the aesthetics of baseball changed. In 1988, the first proto-retro facility was built for the minor-league Buffalo Bisons and with the 1992 completion of the Baltimore’s Orioles Park at Camden Yards, the faux-antique park reached its full form, leaving The Diamond quickly obsolete as new stadia have sprouted across the United States ever since.

But now it’s over 20 years since the baseball began honoring its past with brick, steel and concrete. Mutterings have begun over the past six or seven years that the trend’s grown stale and flabby. Perhaps they’ll grow now that New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff criticized the movement as a “nostalgic funk” in his review of Citi Field and the new Yankee Stadium.

The Baby Boomers, who drove the nostalgia park wave by romanticizing the steel-and-girder baseball fields of their youth, will start dying soon. Could Generation Jones and Generation X, who grew up with the rather featureless multipurpose stadia, tire of this trend-only to have the next generation want retro-retro parks? Would Richmond, yet again, be holding the bag as it ends an architectural style for a park in what is effectively the city’s funnel during high rains?

There’s much to commend about the faux-nostalgia park, even if it often destroys real history for an “experience.” But it must be reinvented and utilize other forms of classic architecture such as one of the Modernist movements or-why not?-some Richardsonian Romanesque features. Isotopes Park (see above) in Albuquerque utilizes some wonderfully funky mid-century features, and plans for a new ballpark in Tulsa emphasize the city’s history of Art Deco design. If Richmond and other cities embark on a steel and brick design, in 10 or 20 years, tastes will evolve.

And the taxpayers will suffer.

L, Linoleum, Listen to Me. ‘Cause “L” is such a pretty letter..”

The song came back to us when we were reading today about the Congoleum bankruptcy case, which has not been settled. We thought my how we HADN’T thought about Congoleum, original maker of linoleum, for ages. And then, the old song started playing in our head. And we thought dang, this great brand has been in Chapter 11 since 2003.

Yesterday, a judge held up the settlement of the Congoleum bankruptcy over lawyers fees for asbestos claims. Three cheers for Judge Kathryn Ferguson for stalling the bankruptcy, saying that the $2 million to trial lawyers Joe Rice and Perry Weitz was not explained, and that all asbestos claimants weren’t treated equally. “The debtors offer no explanation for this munificence,” said Ferguson.

We think that could be the statement of the year. We wish other judges and SEC folk would use that line.

But that’s not the point of our writing. Our point is to point out the value in the Congoleum brand name, which is totally out of the public mind these days. In a time when people cannot afford to move, and consumers need a cheap and quick picker upper for the kitchen floor, Congoleum has potential.

Congoleum, based in Mercerville, New Jersey, was founded in 1886. It still makes a wide variety of floor coverings. Most folks think of Pennsylvania-based Armstrong first when they think of decorative flooring (it was founded in 1860), but it had roots in cork. Both companies pioneered all sorts of flooring, but Armstrong has been better known in recent decades. Even if you wanted real linoleum, you wouldn’t think of Congoleum. If a hipster wanted to be green to outfit a period house, they would probably not choose a Congoleum product but would instead choose Marmoleum, which advertises itself as being a type of linoleum and all made with natural materials.

We wonder if today, with environmental consciousness, this old idea of linoleum might have some market potential? After all, you can see early versions of painted floorcloths even in Colonial Williamsburg.

Above, an ad from the vintage paper seller on Ebay, Period Paper. It shows a Congoleum Nairn ad from early in the 2oth century.

Sidenote: By the way, if you are interested in how to do over a retro suburban house, take a look at the website Retro Renovation. It has all sorts of ideas for using old style products in your very tired old house.

Actually he doesn’t need to tell us that. We know it because just the name Hiawatha, from Longfellow, conjures up so much. The Hiawathas (plural) were a branded set of trains operated by the Milwaukee Road, mostly between Chicago and Minneapolis, though others went to the West Coast. Not only was the design first rate, some of the Hiawathas were designed by Brooks Stevens, who designed the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile. (The firm is still in business; look at their site for all manner of interesting projects and industrial design work.)

Above, we see a photo of the Hiawatha from a Flickr user named Vielles Annonces. Annonces has a brilliant collection of archival images, many from slides, of the train (go to her Flickr account to see it all. It’s quite addictive). It makes us think that Kodachrome is still a viable brand.

Some of the Hiawatha cars are still around, including a rear lounge car, which was sort of the iconic part of the train set. Amtrak would do well to bring back the rear observation lounge on some of its Chicago-based trains, at least for special events or once a year.

Trainshares Inc., which leases out old rail cars for rail-cruise trips, has a Hiawatha lounge car. A bit about the car:

The Cedar Rapids was built in 1948 as the “finishing touch to a perfect train” for operation on the Hiawatha operating out of Chicago. This skytop observation lounge Car was elegantly rebuilt in 1984 and updated in 2004.

One of the better known sellers is the Old Time Radio Catalog. BrandlandUSA caught up with Jon Folk, owner of Old Time Radio Catalog, who has made a business of old broadcasts of radio shows from radio’s golden age, from the 1920s to 1959.

The Lanexa, Kansas-based catalog has dozens of radio programs, as well as collections of radio speeches, including some from President Clinton. Most fascinating to BrandlandUSA are the brand names that are still represented in the collections:

• Tales of Fatima, with Basil Rathbone, sponsored by Fatima cigarettes
• Texaco Star Theater
• Ford Theater
• General Motors on Safari
• Lux Radio
• Redbook Dramas
• Skippy Hollywood Theater (apparently it made Skippy popular nationally)
• Carling Beer Shows and Challenge Into Space
• Old Gold Comedy
• Quaker Party, which started on WCAE and was sponsored by Quaker Oats
• Alka Seltzer Time
• Bell Telephone Hour
• Philco Summer Hour
• Philip Morris Playhouse
• Raleigh Kool Program

OTRCAT has posted thousands of radio episodes online. Visitors to OTRCAT.com can stream or download full episodes in Mp3 format as well as read detailed descriptions of the performers and series, which date from the 1920s to 1959.  In the ‘daily downloads’, there are the broadcasts of the day throughout history. Quick questions:

How did it start? I started the website as a trading website, and it has grown. Collectors wanted copies, and I then began converting them to mp3 files.

When did you start? I started the business a little more than 10 years ago. At the time, old time radio collecting was an expensive hobby and many of the shows were being stored on audio cassettes, reel-to-reels, and other audio devices that made collecting and sharing difficult.

What are best sellers? Right now, the best selling radio shows are all the horror shows.  I think that they are the most timeless and translate well to our time. Radio was the ideal medium for the horror genre because it uses the theater of the mind to create thrills and chills.

For more info, see www.otrcat.com

The ABC television drama Life on Mars with Jason O’Mara and Harvey Keitel is the perfect show for BrandlandUSA. Why did we like it? We could put it intellectually, that we liked the central theme about the overlap of past and present. And because it’s a good show.

But let’s get real. We watched the first and second episode to see what brands they scrounged from the 1970s. A few things they dredged up?

• Great music. Theme song “Life on Mars” by David Bowie. It was played on an 8-Track, the RCA logo quite visible.
• Fist fights! What happened to fist fights!
• The New York Daily News
• Chevy SS
• Plymouth
  
• A mention of Cream of Wheat
• A Flxible bus, from the GM (not Grumman) era
• A mention of the band Hall & Oates
• A screen shot of the CBS television show Cannon
• Roosevelt Hospital, with nurses in white, not bad-print shirts
• An unnamed reel-to-reel player
• Sloan Urinal Flush Valves
• Street scenes with 1970s Lincoln Continental 
• The police cars in episode two looked to be a Dodge and a Plymouth Belvidere or Satellite.
• A Mercedes, which looked at first glance to be a 300 SEL
• The World Trade Center. Gosh how we miss it and wish they were putting TWO square looking buildings back up.

The website is great. It has a video game (a sort of Pong), Sam Tyler’s soundtrack (some good Pink Floyd), and podcasts from the producer.

Good line from the show that applies to BrandlandUSA? “I am sick of this cosmic joke that everyone seems to be in on but me.”

The ads are great, and work with the show’s vintage theme. They include the Toyota Corolla, Cadillac, JCPenney and the like, though some ads might have been regional buys.