The Gardens of the Nations,  the Rockefeller Center in New York and the Derry and Tom's Roof Garden (Derry Gardens) in London were popular with the general public as soon as they opened their doors to visitors in the 1930's.  And those visitors, who flocked to these magnificent attractions in their thousands, wanted to send the ubiquitous postcard to family and friends at home and abroad.

The following images are some of those postcards.  There is no doubt that tens of thousands were produced, written and sent over the years.  

The postcards show how the gardens once looked in their heyday, during the Second World War in London - this card actually shows the bomb damaged bell tower in the Spanish Garden - hit by a 250 pound bomb,  and the 1000 pound bomb that failed to explode near the Sun Pavilion - and the Derry Gardens in the 1960's.  The early London cards were black and white photographs, some hand-coloured. The majority of those early ones from New York were no more than drawings printed on linen paper. The later ones were mostly coloured photographs.

Some of these postcards are blank. That "greetings from..."  message never ever having been written.  Others, like the one depicting Derry Gardens sent to a Miss Danby of Hampshire (written on Mothering Sunday in 1956) from Betty tell of  "...nice sun today but a cold wind."   Brief moments in our lives, captured for all-time.