Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryeguy_24 | Hacker News Reader

I just figured out why I think these photos are so interesting. I thought about these photos all day and couldn’t stop wondering why.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an old photo of people that weren’t posing. I feel like these photos are a magical window into life back then. It’s so amazing and eerie at the same time. Look at them tip their hats to greet the man. Look at these people walking down the street, petting their cats, and enjoying life. But yet they are all gone and don’t know how the world changed. Amazing.

View on HN

Look at how clean those streets are! Is there someone from Oslo who can comment on these streets now? Are they still as clean (because they're in the political district?) or did we make our cities more dirty since then?

Are you American? Streets in plenty of European cities still look like that.

London based now, but in Belgium they sure didnt. And I visited Stockholm and Alesund but didnt notice such cleanliness.

In Vienna they did. And the joke goes that the Swiss say the Austrians are dirty :P

Oslo is a very clean city, but it also feels a lot busier now than it looks in these pictures.

A lot of the photos were taken around the parliament buildings, the royal palace, and the national theatre, which may explain why the streets are so clean and the standard of attire is so high.

He’s mostly walking up and down the Main Street of central Oslo, you can try it your self - use Google Street View on “Karl Johans Gate”.

Notable buildings in the shots are Stortinget (Parlament), the University of Oslo and in one of the shots, the Royal Castle

Our streets look similar to this, I rarely see any litter unless after a really big event or similar.

Background: I'm not in Oslo but I'm living in Gothenburg which is both close by (roughly 3 hours with bus) and roughly the same size. I live on the main Avenue (avenyn) walk to and from work so I see much of the central inner city every day.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com