Well, it is actually Take Ivy meets Field & Stream magazine. This 1951 film on the Dartmouth Outing Club could be the ultimate ACL video (thanks to Beau for sending it my way). Camping, Hiking, Hunting, Fishing, Skiing and don’t forget the Winter Carnival. The Winter Carnival is a big party! — hundreds of girls, two dozen or more dances, Christmas lights on Main Street — it’s the social event of the year. The 11 minute Dartmouth recruiting film takes you on a journey of what it is like to be an Ivy League man, learning the ways of the outdoors. This video could be the purest manifestation of 1950s privileged Ivy League Americana meets Norman Rockwell. Enjoy!

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Gadi Gelan’s antique lighting store B4 It Was Cool has been at 89 East Houston Street for over 20 years. When Gadi moved his collection of vintage American lighting and other industrial style furniture to the area, no one cared what was happening on Houston near the Bowery. “Back when I moved in none of these buildings even had addresses.” Gadi told me while the ACL Films crew staked out his shop. “You could just make up whatever address number you wanted. No one gave a shit about this street.” How times have changed. These days Gadi’s place is an easily missed shop between luxury condos and a soon to be completed multi-million dollar Keith McNally brick-oven pizza restaurant. The second in a three part series of films presented by Cole, Rood & Haan Co., ACL Films takes a trip through Gadi’s unrivaled offerings of American industrial lighting.

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Since my first discovery of the blog Secret Forts, the site and its author James Wilson have been a bit of an enigma. Recently, the soft-spoken Tennessee native sat down with us to shed some light on his well curated corner of the internet. With the launch of the company’s new collection, ACL teamed up with Cole, Rood & Haan Co. to produce a series of short films covering a group of interesting people and places in and around New York.

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