A gleaming yellow-and-green electric tram glides along the Westzeedijk — one of Rotterdam's grandest pre-war boulevards — past a cathedral's soaring Neo-Gothic spire and a canopy of summer trees, as cyclists and pedestrians in Edwardian dress go about their unhurried business in this beautifully hand-coloured street-scene postcard sent from Rotterdam in January 1920. The message on the back, penned in a neat hand, was addressed to a woman named Edgar's wife — a Mrs. Edgar — in Middletown Springs, Vermont, U.S.A., and reads in part: "…was glad to hear from you. We'll write you tonight. Love." The Westzeedijk and much of this neighbourhood was obliterated in the German bombing of May 1940, making pre-war Rotterdam street views documents of a lost city of extraordinary architectural richness. The red Dutch Queen Wilhelmina stamp at 5 cents ties the mailing precisely to the immediate post-WWI period.