If you haven't heard, Old Man Winter smacked the East Coast this weekend. Washington, D.C. was hit hard, with authorities declaring a state of emergency and urging people not to drive. What was it like 90 years ago?
This, that's what. Historic photo blog Shorpy recently posted a shot of a snow-covered Pennsylvania Avenue circa 1918. The landscape is both startlingly familiar and eerily alien.
Photography geeks, be warned: The images here are much-shrunk scans of a very large glass-plate negative. If you've got a few minutes (hours?) to kill, we suggest taking a look at the insane high-res version, which can be found here. Due to the negative's massive size, the detail is immense; at full resolution, you can make out individual links in the chains of the car on the far right. Maybe we're just high on Pyrocat fumes, but this is fascinating stuff.
For a similar geek-out, check out this shot of cars parked on New York City's snow-covered F Street, also taken in 1918. Low-res versions of both images can be found here and here. For Shorpy's time-sucking "Cars+Trucks" tag, click here.
[Shorpy]