Dude, who even knows.

1st April 2021

Post with 44 notes

Thomas Guide Maps: The Rise And Fall of LA's Directional Holy Grail
There was a time you wouldn't dare leave your house without a Thomas Guide. Here's the history of this beloved tome.
LAist

Remembering pre-smartphone LA, where you were expected to bring a reference book with you everywhere in order to know where anything was

  1. dataanalyzer said: We used to use key maps (keymaps.com)
  2. lacquiparle reblogged this from slatestarscratchpad and added:
    Born in the early 70's. Washington DC had Alexandria Drafting Company book maps that showed all the streets, but weren't...
  3. nightpool said: I’m pretty sure in new york people just used the street grid. in rural areas everyone just gave directions to each other
  4. kontextmaschine reblogged this from slatestarscratchpad and added:
    I mean, we would have maps in our car but they'd be like, accordion-folded paper maps of the highways of Eastern...
  5. xxxsalklover42069xxx reblogged this from slatestarscratchpad and added:
    not really, in Ann Arbor I just... knew where everything was, relative to my body, so I just went there. I’ve since...
  6. spacific-sunrise reblogged this from eightyonekilograms
  7. eightyonekilograms reblogged this from shacklesburst and added:
    “What kind of maniac would design a city that even its own residents need a map to— oh, right, Los Angeles.”
  8. dank-mishima said: (Pre-smartphone times Londoner here) From the sound of it, the London A to Z was once similarly used :).
  9. shacklesburst reblogged this from slatestarscratchpad and added:
    maps were virtually unknown around the world outside of LA -- that’s the reason it’s actually short for Lost Angeles!
  10. slatestarscratchpad reblogged this from kontextmaschine and added:
    Was that unusual? Didn’t everyone everywhere have to do something like this before Mapquest and Google Maps?