Photographer Finds Locations Of 1960s Postcards To See How They Look Today, And The Difference Is Unbelievable



Not long ago an old matchbook laying on photographer Pablo Iglesias Maurer's desk caught his eye. Or rather, it was the postcard-like picture on it, of a resort complex built in the 1960s. It got Pablo wondering how the place looked now, and the answer has led him to make an amazing photo series called Abandoned States.

The picture came with the title How to Run A Successful Golf Course, but when Maurer got to the place, it was clear the owner of Penn Hills Resort didn't follow that advice. He pointed the camera at the decaying building at roughly the same spot and did a '5-decades-after' shot of the place.

Ever since then, Pablo was hooked. He ordered more 60s postcards from eBay and started going around the country capturing these once beautiful buildings that now stand abandoned only as faint memories of what once was.

"The postcards, have their own haze—the places were never as nice as they look. I often struggle to get the two images to line up, as well. But time blurs the difference, and brings everything into focus." (special thanks to Greta)

WARNING: The images are in GIF format so you might need to wait a bit for them to load.

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The Homowack Lodge now sits abandoned on the southern edge of the famed “Borscht Belt.” On its lower level, maybe the highlight of the place, a four-lane Brunswick bowling alley. It has seen better days. The resort closed in the mid-2000’s but lived on briefly, first as a Hasidic resort and lastly as the site of a summer camp—one which was forced to shut down after the NY Department of Environmental Conservation deemed it uninhabitable. (source)

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(source)

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Sunbathing and swimming in the Poconos. Postmarked, 1967. “Dear Jonnie: If you were only here, I would take you out for a horse-back ride – or else we could go golfing. Be good until I see you. Dr. Waterman.” (source)>

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The indoor pool at Grossinger’s, which opened in 1958. Elizabeth Taylor attended the pool’s opening, and Florence Chadwick – the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions – took the first dip in it. From Ross Padluck’s excellent “Lost Architecture of Paradise”: “…The new indoor pool at Grossinger’s was the zenith of the Catskills. Nothing quite like it had ever been built, and nothing ever would be again. It represented everything about the Catskills in the 1950s-style: extravagance, luxury, modernism and celebrity.” (source)

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