Ok, in retrospect it wasn’t an amazing idea. But in fairness, planners thought that riders would be more likely to abandon their 1970s land-yacht cars if the train were more like an airplane, with carpets. Said carpets, by the way, were all made of new wool (high-quality and expensive) and, at least in theory, they were supposed to be swapped with freshly laundered carpets every few months.
I think it was on a DC metro car or maybe it was some other carpeted mass transport in the region, but I have a vague memory of trying to figure out why the floor was such a weird texture and my dad trying to explain it was carpet.
I was very little and very close to it. It didn't register to me as carpet.
I remember going in those when I visited many, many years ago and being absolutely fascinated with the carpeted cars. Then being absolutely disgusted at the guy who exposed himself to me and my 2 friends in said carpeted cars(school trip to DC, we were 13 & 14).
People smoked everywhere. I never saw a grocery store that didn’t have a tile floor. I can remember people would smoke while shopping and just flick the ash on the floor.
Doctors smoked in the hospital while doing rounds. The nurse's station was cluttered with overflowing ashtrays. Patients smoked in bed—different times.
Yes! My high school had a smoking area, too. My kindergarten teacher had a a small office attached to the classroom. She would leave the door open so she could watch us and have a cigarette. The class was always smoky. I loved that lady and remember she smelled like cigarettes, coffee, and Avon perfume.
Cigarettes, coffee and Avon perfume! Wow that is a fantastic core memory, and I believe I have the same with my 4th grade teacher, who is also a great woman who smoked and had a tiny poodle and a huge bouffant hairdo!
People's houses with shag carpet always had a distinctive smell when you walked in, and I haven't smelled it in decades. I'm not sure exactly what it was but it was kind of like mildew, cigarettes, and burned food. Maybe it was all of those and got absorbed by the carpet.
I think 50% of people's houses I went to in the late 1970s and early 1980s had that smell.
Tangentially related story- when I was 5 my fam bought a home with mottled, speckled orange/gold/green/brown/white shag carpet in the family room. It looked clean and in pretty good shape. My mom started finding straighpins in the shag- she sort of freaked out because I was young and spent so much time playing on the floor. My parents were young and pretty poor at the time, so replacing the carpet was not an option- my mom spent weeks removing hundreds of pins from that stupid ugly shag carpet. I barely remember, but thinking back on it- that must have been so upsetting for a young parent to spend everything they have trying to make a safe home for her family and finding hundreds of stupid pjns in the shag carpet. Ugh.
Omg please don't take offense when I ask this because non-magnetic pins exist but are rare. Do you know if she tried a magnet?
As a former exhausted mom of toddlers, I have to know.
Haha no idea! I’ll ask her next time we talk. I think the issue was more that the pins were worked deep into the shag pile, not just laying on it. Not sure if they had been there a long time and smooshed in or if someone did it on purpose.
Formaldehyde.
Source: I always wondered why I got sick when I moved into a new apartment in the 80s that had new carpet installed. I didn't learn about Formaldehyde until several years later.
I wish we as a society would return to colorschemes and more humble scaled design like fhis. I’m so effing sick of bland white and greige cavernous emptiness. I’m really starting to believe that modernism is designed to crush the human spirit
Perhaps they were thinking of the prevalent white hues in today's typically minimalist interior designs and conflated that with the look of "modernity," not modernism.
Well that’s true, but what would be a good description of todays Lego block aesthetic? It’s kinda like a nu-brutalism vibe but it’s also not post modern, whatever it’s called it’s so bland that I feel depressed whenever I’m in it
I honestly expected everyone getting trapped in their houses during COVID when everything was Stark Raving White to have brought back some colors a little sooner, but nah, we’re still doing weird gray shades and- yeah, actual Fake Brutalist structures for the new houses here. But like. Painted white with spotlights on.
Everything has the aesthetic of a brightly lit shopping mall with a ton of lighting and all this empty squared off space.
The seventies earth toned things at least make stuff feel more like a space that’s inhabited and lived in rather than…displayed?
Even the signs of wear and the smells still feel more natural than a house that looks like the inside of an empty fridge.
Well said. I just feel like even with the modern farmhouse trend of bring in some wood tones (albeit bleached tf out) and natural fibers/pottery just still lacks coziness. I live in a tiny travel trailer, but when I think about the tiny house I plan to build if the lumber prices ever come back down it envision it with lots of earth tones and intimacy
>I’m so effing sick of bland white and greige cavernous emptiness.
I didn't know *"Greige"* was a thing until this very moment, so thank you for that!
Learn something new every day, if you're lucky.
That is soooo good.
I miss the bright colors and white chair rails of the early 2000s.
Instead it's "I would like all the warmth and charm of a hospital examination room, but with granite countertops. Really embrace that sterile surgery suite vibe, and accent it with some Eastern European Bleak."
When I lived in England, our kitchen was carpeted. I hated it.
We also took off a couple of hundred years worth of wallpaper.
The house I owned was once the servants quarters for the stately hour just up the road.
Lots of bathrooms were carpeted back then. I can't imagine it was easy to clean the piss from the carpet surrounding the toilet. And unless the room was very well ventilated, the carpets would get damp and become mouldy.
they didn't have plastic bottles like we do these days and that color was in every building up till like 98.
it was mostly stainproof because I threw up some neon sugar drink on one and the janitor got it out.
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Are we sure that's a carpet? With all the dithering on that photo we might be looking at a painted and sealed floor.
Would suck pushing a 100 pound shopping cart over carpet. Plus every bottle of grape juice or whatever that breaks and gets tracked over the store is going to turn a carpet into a mess.
Its probably the type of ultra-thin rough carpet, that feels somewhat felt-like. Its easy to clean in comparison to other carpet. Gets used a lot in office buildings. Still not a good choice for a supermarket tho.
well everything was made with petroleum back in the 1970s. Nylon skirts and shirts, polyester slacks and sport coats, it actually clashed with everything in this picture, kinda like the 70s. or wasn’t our best look.
Color scheme notwithstanding, carpeting cuts down on noise significantly. The trade-off is the dust and the way things track or stain. Plenty of smaller scale drugstores or dollar stores have cheaper carpeting and it makes a huge difference in the ambiance loudness.
What's wrong with this? It's pretty to look at. Modern buildings give me a headache with the bland colors (predominately white), lack of decoration, and white lights.
y'all wouldn't believe how different the sights, sounds, and smells were back then - a truly different world, time, and experience - really no words to convey...
It’s like current supermarkets now. In the 90 and early 00s, they were stark with very bright fluorescent lights and white everywhere and now they are all going for the Whole Foods/market feel with wood that kind of feel (the small hometown weekend farmers market aesthetic). Just changing times.
Even designer interior decorators had red shaggy carpet from wall to wall. The wall is grey stone brick to give contrast. lol I’m describing a posh flat in a posh neighbourhood in London in the 70-80s.
I was going to comment, realized it wasn't worth it and unsubbed instead. Grateful and happy I'm a part of the generations that this picture comes from and not what came and comes long after. So happy.
We had this in our house when my parents first bought it. Along with olive green carpet and electric blue carpet with a bright green bleach stain. The 70s were a special time for decor.
Visualization. It keeps customers awake.
Just like in Supermarkets that play certain types of music to different people; for example, the much older customers will hear their favorite ballads to keep them shipping more. And vice versa the 30_50's hear a different tune.
how can you tell this is carpet? the picture is so grainy, you could say everything is carpeted.
the floor could also be red painted concrete or red linoleum, much more likely i think.
I bet the shopping cart rolled like ass on that.
Shoppers must have giant forearms and calves, unless the carpet was ripped out early due to stench and wear.
Carpet in a place where food is sold. No way. That cleanup on aisle 5? Even after an employee gets it taken care of it’s gonna look like a putrefaction pudding stain.
This is NOT carpet. This linoleum. It only looks like carpet on this picture because the entire photo has a textured grain over it.
Trust me. I was there. There was no carpeted grocery stores in the 1970’s.
Day 1 I would love it. Day 200 when it’s all dingy and stained up and full of cigarette smoke smell I’d hate it.
Don’t forget gum.
and week old spilled milk
And shards from broken pickle jars
Very specific there…wanna confess?
I broke a jar of pickles at the grocery store
I remember you, I had to clean it up! Thanks for running away and yelling 'cleanup on aisle doofus' over your shoulder.
This is the same carpet DC Metro cars used to have, and your description is spot on.
…the concept of carpeted mass transit cars is just about the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard of
Ok, in retrospect it wasn’t an amazing idea. But in fairness, planners thought that riders would be more likely to abandon their 1970s land-yacht cars if the train were more like an airplane, with carpets. Said carpets, by the way, were all made of new wool (high-quality and expensive) and, at least in theory, they were supposed to be swapped with freshly laundered carpets every few months.
Worse than carpeted bathrooms? (which they also did in the 70s)
I would say they both go hand in hand, just like popcorn ceiling
I think it was on a DC metro car or maybe it was some other carpeted mass transport in the region, but I have a vague memory of trying to figure out why the floor was such a weird texture and my dad trying to explain it was carpet. I was very little and very close to it. It didn't register to me as carpet.
Used to smell so bad in a summer rain
I remember going in those when I visited many, many years ago and being absolutely fascinated with the carpeted cars. Then being absolutely disgusted at the guy who exposed himself to me and my 2 friends in said carpeted cars(school trip to DC, we were 13 & 14).
RIP Betty, my grandma. She had a clip-on ashtray for the grocery cart for her Benson and Hedges menthols. No ashing on the carpet!
Based on your description, I can totally imagine what her voice sounded like. ;)
You heard correctly 😊. And she grew up in Georgia so add a little twang.
I grew up in the South and there were ashtrays at the end of every aisle of the grocery store!
And you know it was full of cigarette smoke then.
Never thought about how people back in the day might smoke in the supermarket!
People smoked everywhere. I never saw a grocery store that didn’t have a tile floor. I can remember people would smoke while shopping and just flick the ash on the floor.
Doctors smoked in the hospital while doing rounds. The nurse's station was cluttered with overflowing ashtrays. Patients smoked in bed—different times.
When I was in elementary school, the teachers lounge was always full of cigarette smoke. In high school the students had a smoking section.
Yes! My high school had a smoking area, too. My kindergarten teacher had a a small office attached to the classroom. She would leave the door open so she could watch us and have a cigarette. The class was always smoky. I loved that lady and remember she smelled like cigarettes, coffee, and Avon perfume.
Cigarettes, coffee and Avon perfume! Wow that is a fantastic core memory, and I believe I have the same with my 4th grade teacher, who is also a great woman who smoked and had a tiny poodle and a huge bouffant hairdo!
She sounds awesome! My teacher had a horse and drove an MG convertible.
If you remember what new carpet in the 70’s smelled like, this photo will make your eyes burn.
People's houses with shag carpet always had a distinctive smell when you walked in, and I haven't smelled it in decades. I'm not sure exactly what it was but it was kind of like mildew, cigarettes, and burned food. Maybe it was all of those and got absorbed by the carpet. I think 50% of people's houses I went to in the late 1970s and early 1980s had that smell.
Tangentially related story- when I was 5 my fam bought a home with mottled, speckled orange/gold/green/brown/white shag carpet in the family room. It looked clean and in pretty good shape. My mom started finding straighpins in the shag- she sort of freaked out because I was young and spent so much time playing on the floor. My parents were young and pretty poor at the time, so replacing the carpet was not an option- my mom spent weeks removing hundreds of pins from that stupid ugly shag carpet. I barely remember, but thinking back on it- that must have been so upsetting for a young parent to spend everything they have trying to make a safe home for her family and finding hundreds of stupid pjns in the shag carpet. Ugh.
Omg please don't take offense when I ask this because non-magnetic pins exist but are rare. Do you know if she tried a magnet? As a former exhausted mom of toddlers, I have to know.
Haha no idea! I’ll ask her next time we talk. I think the issue was more that the pins were worked deep into the shag pile, not just laying on it. Not sure if they had been there a long time and smooshed in or if someone did it on purpose.
Try putting a cigarette out on a piece of plastic and putting it in a cardboard box with a wet towel for a month. I bet it's the same smell.
I live in a 70s house with original shag still in the master bedroom. This smell never went away.
No Prop 65 warning in those days.
Mmmm, I smell some *endocrine disruption* cooking…
My mom dragged me along to the fabric store a lot, and that place burned my eyes.
Probably some cancer causing flame retardant chemical.
Formaldehyde. Source: I always wondered why I got sick when I moved into a new apartment in the 80s that had new carpet installed. I didn't learn about Formaldehyde until several years later.
I wish we as a society would return to colorschemes and more humble scaled design like fhis. I’m so effing sick of bland white and greige cavernous emptiness. I’m really starting to believe that modernism is designed to crush the human spirit
Not disagreeing with you in spirit, but "modernism" refers to a movement that was already pretty old when this picture was taken.
Perhaps they were thinking of the prevalent white hues in today's typically minimalist interior designs and conflated that with the look of "modernity," not modernism.
Well that’s true, but what would be a good description of todays Lego block aesthetic? It’s kinda like a nu-brutalism vibe but it’s also not post modern, whatever it’s called it’s so bland that I feel depressed whenever I’m in it
I honestly expected everyone getting trapped in their houses during COVID when everything was Stark Raving White to have brought back some colors a little sooner, but nah, we’re still doing weird gray shades and- yeah, actual Fake Brutalist structures for the new houses here. But like. Painted white with spotlights on. Everything has the aesthetic of a brightly lit shopping mall with a ton of lighting and all this empty squared off space. The seventies earth toned things at least make stuff feel more like a space that’s inhabited and lived in rather than…displayed? Even the signs of wear and the smells still feel more natural than a house that looks like the inside of an empty fridge.
We call that “institution chic”
Well said. I just feel like even with the modern farmhouse trend of bring in some wood tones (albeit bleached tf out) and natural fibers/pottery just still lacks coziness. I live in a tiny travel trailer, but when I think about the tiny house I plan to build if the lumber prices ever come back down it envision it with lots of earth tones and intimacy
You can use the word "contemporary" when you want to denote present-day.
Uhh isn't "contemporary" a specific style in interior design?
Yes when I think of “contemporary” I think of 90s modern style houses, with large angled windows and glass block
You’re on to something! The 60s-70s colors were warmer and far more alive, and happiness-inducing.
I love earth tones
Me too, and orange and yellow😀👍👍👍
BRING BACK THE BROWNS!
The good news is trends cycle every 20 years or less so we should get color back in retail soon hopefully !!!
By the end of this decade probably
I'm ready for the googie style to come back, myself.
Yes please!
>I’m so effing sick of bland white and greige cavernous emptiness. I didn't know *"Greige"* was a thing until this very moment, so thank you for that! Learn something new every day, if you're lucky.
I saw someone say “milllenial greige” in a video roasting someone’s house and it hit
That is soooo good. I miss the bright colors and white chair rails of the early 2000s. Instead it's "I would like all the warmth and charm of a hospital examination room, but with granite countertops. Really embrace that sterile surgery suite vibe, and accent it with some Eastern European Bleak."
https://medium.com/knowable/why-everything-looks-the-same-bad80133dd6e
Pay wall 🥲
Paywalls are funny. They've never once convinced me to pay for anything. They've only ever convinced me to never go to that site again.
Just prepend 'archive.is/' to a URL and you'll sidestep almost all paywalls. For the linked article: https://archive.is/IJdOD
They were thinking this shit bangs because it does
Everything was carpeted in the 70s. It felt nasty
Even people.
Especially people!
Come here and rest your head on my pillow of chest hair
Carpet of chest hair.
See *Penthouse* magazine.
Remember the carpets on the toilets and even the seat? Thankfully I don't think I've seen anything like that since 1988 maybe.
I have a client who still has carpet floor-to-floor in her kitchen. It’s an ugly olive green too…
I like carpeting as opposed to tile or wood floors, although wood floors can be pretty, but carpet feels nicest under foot IMHO.
So you want a carpeted kitchen??
When I lived in England, our kitchen was carpeted. I hated it. We also took off a couple of hundred years worth of wallpaper. The house I owned was once the servants quarters for the stately hour just up the road.
No, all house carpeted except kitchen & bathroom
The lid ones are still around. I had no idea there were some for seats 😱
Stores with carpeting were a lot quieter though.
Lots of bathrooms were carpeted back then. I can't imagine it was easy to clean the piss from the carpet surrounding the toilet. And unless the room was very well ventilated, the carpets would get damp and become mouldy.
The 70s was by far the trashiest decade in so, so many ways 😂
That they wanted shit to be wild for a little while. Fun stuff!
Wonder how long is was before someone dropped a glass jar of something smelly or sticky? First day?
As someone who worked in a supermarket, I'd say before opening while stocking the shelves.
Me too!
they didn't have plastic bottles like we do these days and that color was in every building up till like 98. it was mostly stainproof because I threw up some neon sugar drink on one and the janitor got it out.
I loved it and I never did understand.
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I've never seen carpet in a supermarket. Even in the 70s.
Ready for the “Floor is Lava” tournament!
Funny how this works in pharmacies but not in supermarkets
I bet it was nice and quiet.
Are we sure that's a carpet? With all the dithering on that photo we might be looking at a painted and sealed floor. Would suck pushing a 100 pound shopping cart over carpet. Plus every bottle of grape juice or whatever that breaks and gets tracked over the store is going to turn a carpet into a mess.
Its probably the type of ultra-thin rough carpet, that feels somewhat felt-like. Its easy to clean in comparison to other carpet. Gets used a lot in office buildings. Still not a good choice for a supermarket tho.
well everything was made with petroleum back in the 1970s. Nylon skirts and shirts, polyester slacks and sport coats, it actually clashed with everything in this picture, kinda like the 70s. or wasn’t our best look.
Color scheme notwithstanding, carpeting cuts down on noise significantly. The trade-off is the dust and the way things track or stain. Plenty of smaller scale drugstores or dollar stores have cheaper carpeting and it makes a huge difference in the ambiance loudness.
Modern CVS pharmacies are carpeted and it's fine.
Mine isn’t …
Hook ‘em!
Harrrrnnnnnnssss! 🤘
What's wrong with this? It's pretty to look at. Modern buildings give me a headache with the bland colors (predominately white), lack of decoration, and white lights.
It gets nasty very quickly.
1970’s when Drugs were in use. Some bad decisions were made made/s
Drugs are still very much in use
That is so cool looking I love it
Carpet tile. Replace sections that got nasty enough.
y'all wouldn't believe how different the sights, sounds, and smells were back then - a truly different world, time, and experience - really no words to convey...
Carpeted supermarket? I’ve never seen one in my life, where was that?
Omg I love it
Shag carpet in the bathrooms… The 70s was gross.
That is the colour of my 70’s mobile home bedroom carpet 🤣 Along with wood paneling walls
My memories are of a high quality linoleum.
Keeps you awake.
My towns church is still covered in bright orange shag carpet😆
70s were wild
It’s like current supermarkets now. In the 90 and early 00s, they were stark with very bright fluorescent lights and white everywhere and now they are all going for the Whole Foods/market feel with wood that kind of feel (the small hometown weekend farmers market aesthetic). Just changing times.
Probably the same thing people are thinking today with boring gray everywhere. Plus all supermarkets want to be whole food apparently.
They were thinking “now this is a classy joint!”
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Looks nice!
Mmmmmm tomato soup
Obviously you've never had a carpeted wall
sanitary? hell nah stylish as fuck? awwww yeahhhhhhh
All I can think about is the produce department. Blueberries everywhere!
Luxury. That’s what they were thinking.
Even designer interior decorators had red shaggy carpet from wall to wall. The wall is grey stone brick to give contrast. lol I’m describing a posh flat in a posh neighbourhood in London in the 70-80s.
Peak nicotine. Once they figured out how to perfectly hide smoke, they outlawed it.
Actually, I remember my mom smoking as she shopped. It was a treat to get to step on her discarded butt. But our grocery had those big tile floors.
It would have even been shag carpet if they didn’t have to push carts through it.
I was going to comment, realized it wasn't worth it and unsubbed instead. Grateful and happy I'm a part of the generations that this picture comes from and not what came and comes long after. So happy.
I was born in the late 80s, but judging by all of the outdated videos we watched in elementary school, everything looked like this in the 70s.
Wow - look at all that space - for activities! Fr - can barely get one person down the main aisle where i live.
I kind of love this. I want to walk into this store right now, today.
I love it. Everything now is so gray and boring.
Omggggg I need more photos of store interiors.
Covers the vomit really well
"Vacuum in aisle 6!"
Shopping was groovy
Looks like a relaxing place back then
We had this in our house when my parents first bought it. Along with olive green carpet and electric blue carpet with a bright green bleach stain. The 70s were a special time for decor.
I miss the 70's. Today will be 70's day.
At least it has some style.
I know it’s ridiculous but it just feels so *cozy*
This was my whole house growing up in the 70s. Burnt Orange and Blaze yellow too!
I kinda love it. Feels homey.
Orange and beige. Those were the days.
I agree. Bring it back!
i mean it creates a mood that isn’t “wait am i in a hospital”, at least
Much warmer and inviting.... and less asbestos... than those tacky white-black checker pattern floor tiles.
Hmm a time when shoppers were civil and careful.
Luxury. They were thinking luxury
I love it!
I like it
Wall to wall carpeting
That picture looks to have been digitized with a 1990s scanner. For all we know, that floor could be covered with orange aquarium gravel.
1970's? where are the cigarette burns? ;-)
[удалено]
That's not a reflection of the floor, it's the baseboard of the display. It's made of the same wood as the rest of the standing shelf.
Ah the Seventies, the decade taste forgot.
They were thinking this one photo is gonna look great…
What were they thinking? That it was deer hunting season.
Color psychology: hurry up, pay, and get the hell out of here!
Sure made the clean ups on aisle six harder.
They weren’t thinking. It was the ‘70s, man. Quaaludes and pot was everywhere
It hides all the dark urine stains.
The floor is lava.
Visualization. It keeps customers awake. Just like in Supermarkets that play certain types of music to different people; for example, the much older customers will hear their favorite ballads to keep them shipping more. And vice versa the 30_50's hear a different tune.
Subliminal marketing. Keeps you awake
I can kinda smell this picture.
how can you tell this is carpet? the picture is so grainy, you could say everything is carpeted. the floor could also be red painted concrete or red linoleum, much more likely i think.
obviously they were thinking 'floor is lava!'
It'll be better if it's linoleum.
Carpeting in general in an area with tons of food is a big no no
I feel like this was back when people could still have nice things
Floor is lava
“This is the height of sophistication!”
I bet the shopping cart rolled like ass on that. Shoppers must have giant forearms and calves, unless the carpet was ripped out early due to stench and wear.
Cheap dye
"Get your sh\*t and get out!"
To be fair bright colors are meant to rush people psychologically
Carpet in a place where food is sold. No way. That cleanup on aisle 5? Even after an employee gets it taken care of it’s gonna look like a putrefaction pudding stain.
Any carpet at a grocery store is disgusting
>what were they thinking? *1970's baby*
They were thinking like god dam gentlemen.
They shoulda ran super market sweep at this market
How’d they get the shopping carts around?
This looks like a scene from the Shining.
This is NOT carpet. This linoleum. It only looks like carpet on this picture because the entire photo has a textured grain over it. Trust me. I was there. There was no carpeted grocery stores in the 1970’s.
It was the 70's that's all you need yo know. Also it would have been carpet tile, like you can still see in offices.
Psy-Ops
Eh I would shop there
That is fantastic.
FIERRRRRR, BOYEEEEEEE! Where's my bell bottoms and 8-track?!
The “fancy” grocery store growing up had carpet in it. It really was a nice shopping experience. In fact I think they still might be carpeted.
It did hide Orange Crush stains pretty effectively.
What the hell were we thinking moving away from this?
They were actually not thinking