Introduced in 1923, Kellogg’s Pep cereal was one of the first products to be infused with vitamin additives, beginning in the 1930’s. It was a strong point of their advertising campaign, along with the “mildly laxative” effects, and the product was a sponsor of the long-running radio serial “the Adventures of Superman” (1940-1951). Despite its purported health advantages, public tastes changed, and by the late 1970’s the product was discontinued.
For decades this old mansion was decaying under our watchful eyes; our family holiday flat looks out over this building (from the image below, our flat would be behind the dome) on the shores of Lake Lugano, Switzerland. A few years ago someone began renovating it, and over the years we’ve watched the progress. I’ve been watching it as a writer, and have developed a novel around it, so its progress is especially interesting to me!
Last week, we were again there on holiday, and saw that at least one of the flats is now occupied; most of the windows are still boarded over, or shuttered with a air of permanence – at least until they are sold and renovation on them can thus be completed. By that I mean that, until a flat is to be lived in, there’s no point in finishing it; when we bought our own flat in a small town outside of Zürich, the building had been completed and the other flats occupied four years before we came along; for that time, our flat was just a concrete shell, so that we as the new owners could choose the flooring and other fixtures such as tiles and cabinets and stairs; likely the same principle is being applied to the flats in Helios.
To learn something about the history of the building, please click here.
It’s hard to imagine an assembly line of human page pushers in this automated age, when books are printed on demand and most cumbersome mail-order catalogues have gone the way of the dinosaur in lieu of online shopping; but in 1942, here’s proof that Sears, Roebuck & Co. was doing their fair share of employing. The first catalogue was published in 1888. To read more about the history of Sears, click here.
History Undusted 