Real pic coming later

 

I kept thinking Empire Style.

Nikon D7000 w/Nikon 50mm f1.4

The Moreton Bay Courier

15 December 1860

 

PUBLIC WORKS AND IMPROVEMENTS.

 

SINCE the last summary there has been very little change to notice in our public works and improvements. Those which were in progress at the time referred to are going on favorably, but very few works of any importance have since been commenced. Several of the more prominent buildings in the city are approaching completion, particularly the new Joint Stock Bank, and the new offices and refreshment rooms in connection with the Parliamentary Chambers. Other buildings of a minor and private character are rearing their heads in various directions, but there are none calling for special comment. The sewerage of the city is progressing slowly, owing mainly to a variety of physical causes, but, as we intimated before, it will, when completed, prove a valuable acquisition to the more central part of the city. The market place is undergoing the process of levelling and gravelling, and has been let to Mr. Thomas Dowse for a period of two years at the annual rent of £43. The speculation is likely to turn out a very profitable one, as by the municipal laws nearly the whole of the locally consumable produce will have to pay tribute to the lessee. The reservoir has also been let for the same sum, and will probably realise the views of the lessee, Mr. A. Ballantyne. Tenders are likewise being invited for the erection of a shed on each side of the North and South Brisbane Ferry. This will be a great convenience to the inhabitants, without entailing any material expense on the municipal coffers. There are other improvements going on in the city, which we need not particularise, such as the levelling and formation of streets and the repairs of others. The result of these operations will tend materially to increase the utility as well as the ornamentation of the metropolis.

 

As we stated on a former occasion, tenders have been accepted for the construction of a telegraphic line connecting this colony with New South Wales, Victoria, and Adelaide, and also for the construction of a line connecting the metropolis with Lytton, the Custom-house Station, near the mouth of the river. At the time we wrote there bad been no Inspector of Telegraphs appointed, and consequently the work had not been commenced. Since then an Inspector has been appointed in the person of Mr. Austin, a gentleman of considerable experience, and there can be no doubt that henceforward the necessary operations will be vigorously proceeded with. The Lytton line will advantage the metropolis by enabling it to receive tho earliest intelligence of shipping arriving in the Bay, and the overland line to New South Wales will be the means of opening up speedy commercial intercourse with all the other Australian colonies, besides laying the foundation for a continuation line to the Gulf of Carpentaria, whereby a junction may be easily effected with Indian telegraphic communication, so as to shorten very materially the interchange between the new and the old world, The erection of the new government house is progressing rapidly. The main walls are at present upwards of 12 feet high, and it is confidently expected that although three months have expired, the work will be completed within the stipulated time, The settlement of the newly discovered port to the northward, named after Sir Wm. Denison, Governor-General of the Australian Colonies also a matter engaging considerable interest. The government have already made arrangements for the erection on the spot of a Crown Land Commissioner's residence, police barracks, store, lockup, &c, which will of course form the nucleus of the future sea port town. The settlement will comprise within its boundaries all the rich lands of the Burdekin or Kennedy district, and will have all the advantages of a tropical and semi-tropical climate. With regard to internal, or rather interior improvements, we might content ourselves by simply stating that matters are progressing favorably, because, since our last summary, there have been very few works of any importance undertaken. Plans for the erection of a Court-house at Toowoomba, lockups at Warwick and Leybourne are in course of preparation, and there is very little doubt that the several works will be commenced early in the course of the ensuing year. In the north there are a great many public works of a similar character to be carried out during the ensuing year, and in order to ensure efficiency in the execution, and economy in the public expenditure, a clerk of work will be despatched early in January on a tour of inspection.

 

Queensland State Archives Item ID 436389, Photographic material

 

Brisbane's recorded history dates from 1799, when Matthew Flinders explored Moreton Bay on an expedition from Port Jackson, although the region had long been occupied by the Yugara and Turrbal aboriginal groups. First Nations Australians lived in coastal South East Queensland (SEQ) for at least 22,000 years, with an estimated population between 6,000 and 10,000 individuals before European settlers arrived in the 1820s.

 

At this time the Brisbane area was inhabited by the Turrbal people, (Turrbal also being the name of the language they spoke) who knew the area that is now the central business district as Mian-jin, meaning "place shaped as a spike". Archaeological evidence suggests frequent habitation around the Brisbane River, and notably at the site now known as Musgrave Park.

 

The first convict jail was built in Redcliffe in 1824 and that was moved to the site of the present-day CBD in 1825. Officials believed the natural bend in the river provided an effective barrier against escape.

 

Read more about the Moreton Bay convict settlement in this article: blogs.archives.qld.gov.au/2021/10/05/moreton-bay-convict-...

 

Its suitability for fishing, farming, timbering, and other occupations, however, caused it to be opened to free settlement in 1838. Civilian occupation of the area began in 1842, and by the late 1880s Brisbane became the main site for commerce, and the capital-to-be began to develop distinct architectural features and culture.

 

With an abundance of sunshine and laid-back lifestyle, Brisbane quickly drew people eager to settle in its environs. The city grew steadily over the years and a turning point in its advancement was during World War II when it housed the main allied headquarters in the South Pacific for Australian and American service personnel.

 

The post-war population boom brought a spurt in industry and Brisbane staked a claim as the third-largest city in Australia.

 

Despite its rapid progress, Brisbane was often seen as lagging culturally behind Sydney and Melbourne. But two landmark events in the 1980s brought about a major change and accelerated Brisbane towards Australia’s new world city it is today.

 

The Commonwealth Games came to Brisbane in 1982, and this resulted in a massive injection of new infrastructure and sporting facilities. Then the eyes of the world turned to Brisbane in 1988 and thousands of visitors flocked to Expo 88. The subsequent birth of South Bank on the Expo site has resulted in a thriving cultural hub and Brisbane is more than matching it with its southern counterparts.

 

FIRST NATIONS HISTORY

Prior to European colonisation, the Brisbane region was occupied by Aboriginal tribes, notably clans of the Yugara, Turrbal and Quandamooka peoples. The oldest archaeological site in the Brisbane region comes from Wallen Wallen Creek on North Stradbroke Island (21,430±400 years before present), however, settlement would likely occurred well prior to this date.

 

The land, the river and its tributaries were the source and support of life in all its dimensions. The river's abundant supply of food included fish, shellfish, crab, and prawns. Good fishing places became campsites and the focus of group activities. The district was defined by open woodlands with rainforest in some pockets or bends of the Brisbane River.

A resource-rich area and a natural avenue for seasonal movement, Brisbane was a way station for groups travelling to ceremonies and spectacles. The region had several large (200–600 person) seasonal camps, the biggest and most important located along waterways north and south of the current city heart: Barambin or 'York's Hollow' camp (today's Victoria Park) and Woolloon-cappem (Woolloongabba/South Brisbane), also known as Kurilpa. These camping grounds continued to function well into historic times, and were the basis of European settlement in parts of Brisbane.

 

TOWN PLAN

Buildings were constructed for the convict settlement, generally at right angles to the river's shoreline in the direction of Queen Street, and along the shoreline south-east of today's Victoria Bridge. The outstanding surviving building is the Commissariat Store (1828-29), originally two storeys, in William Street. The street layout, however, developed from a thoroughfare from the river's edge running north-east to the prisoners' barrack near the corner of today's Queen and Albert Streets. When a town survey was done in 1840 that thoroughfare was chosen as the main street – Queen Street – and the grid pattern of square blocks moved out from the Queen Street axis. There were several versions of the town survey. The proposed streets varied in width from 20 to 28 metres but Governor Gipps, anticipating an inauspicious future for the settlement, trimmed them back to the lesser figure. Streets running parallel to Queen Street were named after British and related royalty, among them Queen Mary II, Queen Charlotte (wife of George III) and Queen Adelaide (wife of William IV). William, George, Albert and Edward Streets, running at right angles, had similar royal antecedents. Creek Street's position approximated the course of a minor stream, Wheat Creek.

 

The town survey occurred about three years after a select committee of the British Parliament had concluded that transportation had ceased to deter crime and, in any event, was tainted with inhumanity. By 1839 Moreton Bay was being transformed from a convict settlement to a free settlement, and in July 1842 the first sales of Brisbane land took place in Sydney. Nearly 60 allotments, each of 36 perches, in North and South Brisbane were offered. Twelve months later blocks in Kangaroo Point were sold. Little care was taken to reserve land or space along the river's edge for public purposes, but the government farm at the south-east end was kept and in time became the botanic gardens.

 

OUTER SETTLEMENTS

The scatter of urban land sales detracted from North Brisbane's role as a central place in Moreton Bay. Wharves were set up on both sides of the river, and there was an Ipswich-Cleveland 'axis' backed by rural interests which wanted the administrative centre and a port at those places. Probably it was the building of a customs house in 1849 on the river in North Brisbane which had a decisive effect: wharf interests moved, to be closer to the customs house, which in turn influenced the location of warehouses and merchandising. South Brisbane remained at a disadvantage until a permanent Victoria Bridge (1874) replaced ferry crossings.

 

Four years after the first land sales North and South Brisbane's populations were 614 and 346 respectively. The town was nothing much to look at: convict buildings were dilapidated, new structures had been roughly built and mainly it was the steady inflow of new inhabitants which held the best prospects for improvement. A Catholic school had been opened in 1845 and the Moreton Bay Courier weekly newspaper began publication in 1846, but it was not until the end of the decade that noticeable civic amenities emerged. Coinciding with the arrival of the Fortitude immigrants in 1849 (who were settled outside the town boundary, north of Boundary Street), an Anglican school was opened and a Wesleyan church built in Albert Street. A school of arts was established, moving into its own hall in Creek Street in 1851. Regular postal deliveries were introduced in Brisbane in 1852.

During the 1850s most Churches constructed substantial buildings: St Stephens Catholic in Elizabeth Street (1850), St Johns Anglican, William Street, Presbyterian, Ann Street (1857) and Baptist, Wharf Street (1859). There were three ferry services, to South Brisbane, Kangaroo Point and the 'middle' service from Edward Street, also to Kangaroo Point. The Brisbane Municipal Council was proclaimed, just before colonial self-government, in 1859.

 

There had been land sales well beyond the town boundaries, but in the early 1860s allotments were cut up for working-class cottages in Spring Hill, Petrie Terrace and Fortitude Valley. In 1861 a census recorded over 8000 people in Brisbane and another 5000 in adjoining areas. An Ipswich to Brisbane telegraph began operation and the unused convict windmill (1828) up in Wickham Terrace was converted to a signal station with a time ball.

 

TOWN IMPROVEMENTS

Municipal improvements were brought in with improved town lighting from the Brisbane gas works (1864) in Petrie Bight, north of the customs house, and the widely felt need for recreation space was officially recognised by a survey of Yorks Hollow (where the Fortitude migrants had been sent) for Victoria Park. Progress there was slow, with the council using the site for sewage disposal until 1886. Fires rid parts of Queen Street of time-worn commercial buildings in 1864, clearing the way for better structures built under the supervision of fire-protection bylaws. The council also found the need to divide its area into four wards, expanding it into six in 1865 (East, West, North, South, Valley and Kangaroo Point). The council also expanded to a new town hall in Queen Street (1866), by when a short-lived bridge to South Brisbane (1865-67) was in operation. The water supply ponds were hopelessly inadequate, and in 1866 a supply from Breakfast Creek, Enoggera, was turned on.

 

Gympie gold (1867) brought prosperity to the colony, but the rural-dominated legislature spent the money outside Brisbane, a prime example being the Darling Downs railway to Ipswich (1867) with the intent of having a port on the Bremer River. Legislative shenanigans could not stop the growth of the capital city's population (15,000 in 1871, 23,000 in 1881) nor that of the adjoining suburbs. Brisbane's 1881 population of 23,000 included South Brisbane. Ten years later, after South Brisbane had been made a separate municipality in 1887, their combined populations were 49,000. By 1891 Brisbane and suburbs had a population of over 100,000.

 

With population and export income from gold there came pressure for public buildings appropriate to the town's growing prosperity. The first of them was the general post office in Queen Street (1872), followed by the government printing office (1874) near the Commissariat Store in William Street. A torrent came in the 1880s, with the Queensland National Bank at the corner of Queen and Creek Streets, the Margaret Street Synagogue, Finney Isles Big Block emporium in Adelaide Street, and in 1889 the new Customs House, the Treasury Building in William Street and the Ann Street Presbyterian church. The legislature aspired to grandeur quite early, in 1868, with its Parliament House near the botanic gardens.

 

TRAINS AND TRAMS

The Ipswich railway line was joined to Brisbane by a bridge across the river at Chelmer and Indooroopilly in 1876. Ten years later a line to the South Coast was under construction, but the lines were at first organised with rural freight rather than suburban passengers in mind. Suburban transport services started with a horse tram out to New Farm (1885-86), and across the Victoria Bridge to West End. Electric powered trams began in 1887. Central Brisbane was crossed by a Queen Street tram, connected to termini at Newstead, West End and Logan Road at Buranda. The main shopping centre was around Queen, George and Adelaide Streets, competing with Brunswick and Wickham Streets in Fortitude Valley. The south side had shopping at Five Ways, Woolloongabba, and at South Brisbane, although the latter declined after the 1893 floods.

 

Northside tram lines from Red Hill, Kelvin Grove, Clayfield and Hamilton were opened during 1897-1902, coming into the city via Edward Street in most cases. By 1890 there were also suburban railway lines, to Sandgate via Nundah (1882), to Enoggera and to Cleveland (1889). Brisbane Central station (1889) brought northside travellers right into Brisbane, as before then the Sandgate line had ended at Roma Street via a cost saving line through Victoria Park. The line to Brisbane Central station also passed through busy Fortitude Valley.

With the addition of a tram line to Lutwyche and Kedron in 1913 the pressure of traffic led to the construction of a line along Adelaide Street (1915), which in turn required the Council to widen Adelaide Street by four metres between George and Creek Streets in 1922-23.

 

HOUSE SIZES

Since 1885 minimum house allotments had been set at 16 perches (10m x 40m). Residents could therefore look forward to more airy, spacious houses outside the city and its adjoining suburbs such as Spring Hill and Petrie Terrace. The better-off population invariably sought out the higher ridges on elevated sites overlooking the river, making Hamilton (with a tram in 1899) one of the most sought after suburbs. It was the new upper-working and middle-class suburbs, however, that showed the change most clearly.

 

CENTRAL CITY SHOPPING

Central Brisbane had grand department stores, Finney Isles, and Allan and Stark, but not as many as Fortitude Valley. A third one came later in George Street, near the Roma Street railway station: McDonnell and East built a low-rise emporium there in 1912. Commercial and government buildings, usually of a modest height, sometimes had a massive footprint. An exception to the prevailing height practice was the Queensland (later Commonwealth) Bank administration building of eight storeys at the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets (1920) clad with sandstone and granite. The CML building, next to the GPO, went to the legal limit of 11 storeys in 1931 and was exceeded in height only by the Brisbane City Hall tower (1930).

 

The changing commercial centre was thought to need a distinctive civic space and an Anzac Square was proposed in 1915. It was completed in 1930, coinciding with the City Hall and the construction of a second bridge out of the city, across the river to South Brisbane. Named after William Jolly, first Lord Mayor of the amalgamated Brisbane Metropolitan Council (1925), the bridge was opened in 1932. A third bridge was opened in 1940 from the other (eastern) end of the city across to Kangaroo Point. Neither bridge had trams, but each integrated with the metropolitan council's planned arterial road system.

 

The opening of the Story Bridge was followed by 20 years of building quietude in central Brisbane. The war and postwar recovery explains part of the inactivity, but central Brisbane made do with its prewar building stock during the 1950s. Suburban expansion was the focus of activity, exemplified by Allan and Stark building a drive-in shopping centre at Chermside in 1957. Another change was the removal of the wholesale food market from Roma Street to Rocklea in 1962.

After recovery from the 1961 credit squeeze, commercial pressure and interstate example succeeded in raising the building height limit. The Pearl Assurance building (1966) at Queen Street was 15 storeys and the Manufacturers Mutual Insurance building (1967), also in Queen Street, was 22 storeys. The SGIO building (1970) in Turbot Street was an even more significant structure.

 

A lack of building activity in central Brisbane in the 1950s did not detract from its role as a retailing destination. Central city shopping boomed while there were low postwar car ownership and strong radial public transport services. The 1953 retail census for metropolitan Brisbane showed that the city and inner suburbs (Fortitude Valley, Bowen Hills, South Brisbane etc) had 74% of total retail sales.

 

OFFICES AND SHOPS

Set against the decline in retailing was the growth in high-rise office and commercial buildings. By the late 1980s central Brisbane had about 1.75 million sq metres of office space, ten times the amount of retail floor space. Its share of metropolitan office space was over 70%, and fringe areas such as Spring Hill, Fortitude Valley, Milton and Woolloongabba had another 25%. The change in Brisbane's skyline was evident from across the river, an example being the view from Kangaroo Point to the Riverside Centre office building (1987) at Eagle Street. The eastern commercial end of Ann, Adelaide and Queen Streets began to resemble the closed in narrow streets of Sydney's office precinct.

In contrast to office high rise, the Queen Street retailing centre has kept many of its old buildings. The facades are partly concealed by pedestrian mall shade sails and other structures, but the shops and arcades generate plenty of activity. The most significant addition was the Myer Centre (1988) with eight cinemas and 200 other stores, bounded by Queen, Albert and Elizabeth Streets. It replaced Allan and Stark (Queen Street, opposite side) and McWhirters, Fortitude Valley, which had both been taken over by Myer several years before. When opened, the Myer Centre's retail floor area was nearly 108,000 sq m, 26% more than the largest competing regional drive-in centre, at Upper Mount Gravatt.

 

PARKS AND RESIDENTS

By the 1960s the growth of metropolitan population and motor traffic was putting central Brisbane's streets under strain. All three river bridges fed into the central business district, although the Centenary Bridge (1960) at Jindalee gave temporary relief. Closer in, relief came in 1969 with the widening of the Story Bridge approaches, and the opening of the fourth Victoria Bridge, often known as the Melbourne Street Bridge. The Riverside Expressway was completed in 1976, a close-in ring road along the western edge of central Brisbane, from Victoria Bridge to the new Captain Cook Bridge, and leading to the south-eastern suburbs. The Expressway decisively altered the appearance of Central Brisbane. The tram crossing had ceased to function when trams were replaced by buses, but a railway crossing came very belatedly with the Merivale Bridge, linking South Brisbane and Roma Street stations in 1978. Prior to that the lines from Beenleigh and Cleveland and the trunk standard gauge from Sydney terminated at the South Brisbane station.

Roma Street had been the site of the wholesale food market, and for decades the land had remained under-used. The central city had incrementally added open spaces to its fabric – King George Square enlarged in 1975 and the Post Office Square opened in 1984 – and in 2001-03 the largest addition, the 16 ha Roma Street Parkland was completed.

 

Along with Albert Park and Wickham Park, the Parkland gives inner city residents generous open space. The residential population of central Brisbane, however, changed little between 1981 and 2001. The inner city (approximately between Ann and Elizabeth Streets) had just 45 dwellings in 1981 and 689 in 2001. The resident populations for the respective years were 1174 and 976, a decrease. Apartments had replaced boarding houses and rooms. The rest of central Brisbane (including Petrie Terrace) also saw an increase in dwellings (758 to 1282) and a decrease in population (3511 to 1797). Single person apartments had increased, multi-person dwellings had decreased and some of each were not lived in full time, often being held for prospective capital gain. The boom in apartment building from 2001 has added thousands of apartments, many rented by overseas students.

 

The distinctive features of twenty-first century Brisbane are its increasing resemblance to other capital city office precincts, with forecourts, sub-tropical decorative plants and outdoor cafes. Queen Street's signature silver bullet trams last ran in 1969, but the street's unusual width (Andrew Petrie apparently persuaded Governor Gipps on this point) has provided for a signature shopping mall with generous outdoor seating and dining areas. Out of the central retail area elegant sandstone government and commercial buildings have survived, surely an iconic architectural form. Some buildings have removed their clerks and accountants, substituting hotel patrons, tourists and casino visitors. The historic customs house was purchased by The University of Queensland from the federal government, and includes meeting, dining and gallery space. The City Hall (1930), once the tallest building, has been dwarfed by surrounding skyscrapers, so its clock tower no longer affords a commanding view over Central Brisbane. In 2008 the Brisbane City Council agreed to underpin City Hall which was in danger of gradual sinking on inadequate foundations.

 

The gothic-style St Johns Anglican Cathedral, commenced in 1901-06, was finally completed in 2009. Bounded by Ann and Adelaide streets, the cathedral roof and other buildings sustained extensive damage in a storm in 2014.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane & www.visitbrisbane.com.au/information/about-brisbane/histo... & queenslandplaces.com.au/brisbane-central

 

Completion of the ISO rounds with rebranded Ferrania. I like this film. It's cheap.

 

Minolta SRTMC

Rebranded Ferrania Solaris 400 (Western Family)

Riverwalk nearing completion, Tampa, Florida

 

Please visit my website for more information floridaphotomatt.com/2015/03/27/tampa-riverwalk-nearing-c...

The New Mosque (Turkish: Yeni Cami, pronounced [jeni dʒami], originally named the Valide Sultan Mosque, Turkish: Valide Sultan Camii) and later New Valide Sultan Mosque (Turkish: Yeni Valide Sultan Camii) after its partial reconstruction and completion between 1660 and 1665, is an Ottoman imperial mosque located in the Eminönü quarter of Istanbul, Turkey. It is situated on the Golden Horn, at the southern end of the Galata Bridge, and is a notable Istanbul landmark marking the crossing from the old historic core of the city to the Beyoğlu (Pera) district. The mosque is a notable example of the Sultanate of Women period in Ottoman Empire.

 

The construction of the mosque began in 1597. It was ordered by Safiye Sultan, who was the wife of Sultan Murad III and later Valide Sultan (Queen Mother) of Sultan Mehmed III. She ordered the mosque in her capacity as Valide Sultan, two years after Mehmed III's ascension to the Ottoman throne in 1595, hence the original formal name "Valide Sultan Mosque".

 

The original architect was Davut Ağa, an apprentice to the great Mimar Sinan. However, Davut Ağa died in 1599 and was replaced by Dalgıç Ahmed Çavuş. The construction took more than half a century and was completed by another Valide Sultan, Turhan Sultan, mother of Sultan Mehmed IV.

 

The project was hampered by political disconnect, and its location and monetary implications created dissent in the court. Eminönü was the city's foremost commercial centre, and home to a predominantly Jewish population. In situating the mosque there, Safiye Sultan hoped to extend the sphere of Islamic influence within the city, capitalising on the growing discontent of both local and foreign merchants who were concerned by the increasing influence of their Jewish counterparts, which gave the Sultan an easy justification for confiscating their property. However, the vast monetary outlay drew sharp criticism. In particular, the Janissaries resented the growing political power of the Valide sultan, and believed the mosque to be an unnecessary expenditure. Safiye was forced to abandon the project upon Mehmed III's death in 1603. The new Sultan, Ahmed I, had no interest in pursuing the project after Safiye was relegated to the harem and the construction was abandoned.

 

After 1603, the partially constructed structure gradually fell into ruins; and was severely damaged during the Great Fire of 1660 which destroyed many neighbourhoods in the city. Later that year, the imperial architect Mustafa Ağa suggested that Turhan Sultan, mother of Sultan Mehmed IV, should complete the project as a work of piety. Turhan also ordered the construction of the nearby Spice Bazaar, which forms a part of the külliye of the New Mosque. Thus, in the last months of 1660, the construction of the mosque was resumed, while the construction of the adjacent bazaar began.

 

The mosque was finally completed in 1663, and inaugurated in 1665. It was renamed the "New Valide Sultan Mosque" (Yeni Valide Sultan Camii). In time, this name was informally shortened as the "New Mosque" (Yeni Cami) among the public.

   

May 27, 2021—New York City —Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, joined by Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa, Budget Director Robert Mujica, and MTA Chief Development Officer Janno Lieber, announces the completion of civil construction on East Side Access - the MTA's megaproject connecting the Long Island Rail Road to a new 350,000-square-foot passenger terminal under Grand Central Terminal. This is the largest new train terminal to be built in the United States since the 1950s and the first expansion of the LIRR in more than 100 years. The new connection will double the LIRR's capacity into Manhattan with up to 24 trains per hour and cut travel time for Queens commuters by 40 minutes per day. Afterwards, Governor Cuomo toured part of the new East Side Access Project with Mr. Lieber. (Kevin P. Coughlin / Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)

The kit:

Another vintage kit I built in my late youth in the late Eighties/earkly Nineties, but in this case it was not a restauration job but rather true working progress after a long break and completion of an idea I had in the late 90ies – the original build had never been finished!

 

This model is an original Takara Crabgunner kit, not one of the Revell re-releases as „Dromedin“. I am not cetrtain where I got it from - I suppose I found this kit at a comic shop or model kit fair. Anyway, a color illustration in Takara's assembly and painting guide showed a modified Crabgunner with extra rocket launchers on mounts located at the mid section's sides, and other changed details like a larger commander cupola, a different gun and differences on the hull. This inspired me to modify the kit into something similar - but half way down the construction path I did not finish it and it went to the basement...

Many moons later I just took up the project where it had entered the hiatus, and decided to move ahead with the grittier look of what I know today is a F44C, according to a Dougram source book called "Fang of the Sun Dougram - The Comprehensive" I had obtained during the years that had passede. From there, I also tried to translate its name's kanji, which should be "Fu-A-I-Ya-Gu-N-Na", so I supposed that this rather obscure Dougram mecha is officially called "Firegunner"?

 

Some details like extra weapon stations and armor reinforcement had already been added years ago, but I mostly changed and improved them. Anyway, despite these modifications to the F44A model as basis I found that something was missing, a personal twist... Snooping through the internet for ideas, I came across a 1:72 kit (from AER of Moldova, a manufacturer specialized in obscure Russian military vehicles) of the Egyptian self-propelled gun carrier SAU-122, which is actually a modified T-34/85 from the 80ies with a new huge, box-shaped turret, carrying a massive howitzer.

This turret and gun not only looked intimidating on the tank, it would also blend well into the F44's retro look and add some more teeth to justify its name! It would, by the way, also be a nice replacement for the relatively small original turret and its flimsy main gun - even though a "stock" F44C seems to retain it. But, heck, field modifications are common even in the Dougram world, so this personal assault version would not be totally off topic. And the turret just looeds cool...

I was lucky to get my hands onto the SAU-122 kit, which is, by the way, of very good quality; its turret parts were made from resin and very crisp. Implanting the new pieces was no problem, and even though the result IS bulky, I like the new look: heavy metal! The whole thing looks much beefier now.

 

Other kit modifications include the side weapon stations, which had to be built anew - I used spare parts from a 1:144 scale Gundam kit ("Serpent Custom", from Endless Waltz) and wheel parts from a 1:35 scale M4 Sherman. The resulting arrangement is not an exact replication of the original F44C's weapon carriers, but the overall impression is IMHO fine, since the turret is not original, either. Other details like the improvised reinforcements and storage boxes came from the scrap box, some ladders and steps on the hull were made from thin brass wire.

 

For painting I wanted to stay true to the anime-esque Dougram look: a single color finish, and then emphasize the lines and details through dry painting and weathering. I did not want another mecha from the F44 family in a sand or brown tone, though, but still an "ugly", murky tone. After long search and pondering I finally settled on RAL 7002 "Olivgrau" (Olive Grey) as main color. For shading and light effects I settled upon RAL 7006 "Beigegrau" (Beige Grey) for undersides/shaded areas, and RAL 6013 "Schilfgrün" (Reed Green) as highlight tone for upper surfaces - a lichen green which looks pretty much like sun-bleached olive drab.

 

Basic painting was done straightforward with rattle cans, including the shading. Then, a black ink wash was applied, and another thin washing with a mix of acryllic paint in black and raw umber, simulating dirt and dust. After drying and rubbing with a cotton towel to free surfaces from paint residue, decals from the original sheet were applied.

Hull details and wear were emphasized through dry painting with mixed Humbrol colors, 83 (Ochre) and 151 (Interior Green) respectively, plus a little 64 (Light Grey) at edges and corners. Finally, a matte varnish coat sealed everything in place.

For final touches, some dirt/mud was added to the kit's feet, with a mix of fine sand, white glue and acryllic paint, and light dry painting with silder was done on some edges, letting metal shimmer through. Rust and oil were painted with a fine brush, with acryllic paint in Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber. Some more dust was simulated with grinded artist chalks in some areas, but only sparesely. The figure finally comes from the original kit.

 

Compared with the former Dougram combat walkers, this F44C conversion is quite impressive and looks really mean - as far as I know, there is no official 1:72 kit of this F44 derivative (even though an 1:48 Takara kit seems to have been produced in the Eighties)? I am happy with the result!

A pair of Foremost Delta 3 vehicles just days away from testing.

 

GVWR: 59,300 lb.

Payload: 30,000 lb,

Power: 325 HP

Torque: 1095 ft-lb.

Maximum fording depth: 4.5 ft.

Maximum grade: 50%.

Eclipseのカッコの設定

Photo by Ryan Johnson

 

The completion of improvements at Murray Hill Community Center has made a big impact on the surrounding neighborhood.

 

Last fall, work began on the construction of a new press box, concession stand, outfield scoreboard, and most importantly, restrooms at the community center’s adjoining athletic field.

 

Previously, neighborhood and recreational events either had to forego restroom facilities or have portable toilets brought in to meet the needs of the attendees, limiting participation from the community. In addition, prior to two years ago, there were no youth athletics held within the neighborhood or the Murray Hill facility.

 

Today, the City’s Recreation Department has 135 participants in its Murray Hill youth baseball and softball programs and approximately 90 participants in its youth football program. The improvements to the facility are assisting in meeting the needs of the growing involvement from the community.

Heres information about central florida broadcast stations

 

Broadcast Tower,WFTT-TV is the Telefutura affiliate for Tampa Bay, owned by Univision and operated by Entravision, owners of WVEA-TV. The station, which broadcasts on UHF channel 50, is based at WVEA's studios on Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa, and transmits from Riverview. WFTT can be seen on cable throughout the Bay Area on Bright House channel 5, and on Comcast in Sarasota County on channel 23.

 

With the completion of the 442.550 repeater in Riverview at 805ft in January, the western pointing antenna on the 442.825 repeater caused a expected overlap that was unnecessary. Since 442.550 now blankets Hillsborough County, we have as of April 11th taken the antenna off the west leg of the Pebbledale tower site at 800ft and moved it to the east leg of the tower. What does mean for users? The tower has a 7 foot wide face, which creates a null that is created behind the antenna. This null used to face a huge portion of Polk County. By moving this antenna to the east, the null is now facing essentially Brandon/Riverview, where 442.550 is now located at 805ft. So far we have gotten incredible results from users in eastern Polk County. Some users in Sebring reporting almost full scale signal, and mobile users with hand helds on 27 at 5 watts can use 442.825 now. None of this was previously possible. So with this move, expect to hear more Polk, Osceola and I-4 corridor area users making it into the network.

 

A nother tower WVEA (channel 62) is Tampa Bay, Florida's first Spanish-language TV station, which had its start in the early-1980s as low-powered W50AC ch.50, which offered programming from the Spanish International Network (SIN), the forerunner of today's Univision. In 1988, to make way for new HSN flagship WBHS (now WFTT-TV), the station relocated to channel 61 and became W61BL. In the mid-1990s, the station was re-called "WVEA-LP". In 2000, WVEA's parent company, Entravision, acquired Sarasota English independent WBSV channel 62, with the intent of moving the transmitter from Venice to the antenna farm at Riverview. WBSV signed on May 3, 1991 as the Sarasota area's own independent station, designed to compete against WWSB and the other stations in the Tampa Bay and nearby Ft. Myers markets. Licensed to Venice, Florida the call letters stood for Bradenton, Sarasota, Venice, the three cities it primarily served. WBSV had a variety of syndicated and local programming, plus infomercials and home shopping programs. early on, they also had its own newscast. But, WBSV was eternally in red ink, and relied more on home shopping and infomercials to keep the station afloat....

 

And then,WTVT, channel 13, is a television station in Tampa, Florida. It is an owned and operated station of the Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsdiary of the News Corporation. WTVT's studios are located in Tampa, and its transmitter is located in Riverview, Florida.

 

Overall the WUSF (89.7 FM) is an NPR-member radio station licensed to Tampa, Florida, USA. The station is currently owned by the University of South Florida. WUSF signed on in 1963, seven years after USF's founding in 1956.

 

WOPX channel 56 is a television station based in Orlando, Florida, USA. An affiliate of the ION Television network, it transmits its analog signal on UHF channel 56 and its digital signal on UHF channel 48, both from a transmitter located near Holopaw. The station signed on the air in 1986.

 

WIWA (1160 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a Spanish language Christian format. Licensed to St. Cloud, Florida, USA, it serves the greater Orlando area. The station is currently owned by Centro De La Familia Cristiana Inc.

 

WAFZ-FM (92.1 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a Regional Mexican format. Licensed to Immokalee, Florida, USA, the station is currently owned by Glades Media Company LLC. WAFZ's programming is also heard on WAFZ AM 1490 in Immokalee.

 

WTVY or WTVY News 4 is a CBS-affiliated television station broadcasting on channel 4 in Dothan, Alabama, owned by Gray Television. The station's signal, originating from a transmitter in Holmes County, Florida, reaches large portions of Alabama, Georgia and Florida. WTVY is also the designated CBS affiliate for the Panama City, Florida market, where Gray also owns that city's NBC affiliate, WJHG-TV. In exchange, WJHG is available in Dothan on cable since Dothan does not have its own NBC affiliate. In fact, WTVY's transmitter is located within the Panama City market. WTVY-DT uses digital subchannels to operate MyNetworkTV affiliate My 4 and CW affiliate Dothan's CW.

 

WJED (91.1 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a Christian radio format. Licensed to Dogwood Lakes Estate, Florida, USA. The station is currently owned by Bethany Bible College.

 

WTVJ, channel 6, is the NBC owned-and-operated television station for South Florida, licensed to Miami. Its analog transmitter is located in Redland. The station's digital transmitter is located near Dolphin Stadium in north Miami-Dade County. Owned by NBC Universal, the station is sister to South Florida's Telemundo owned-and-operated station, WSCV. The two share studios at Peacock Plaza in Miramar.

 

WOIR (1430 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a Spanish News/Talk format. Licensed to Homestead, Florida, USA, the station serves the Miami area. The station is currently owned by Amanecer Christian Network, Inc..

 

WTLH is a Fox television affiliate licensed to Bainbridge, Georgia and serves the Tallahassee, Florida television market. It broadcasts its analog signal on UHF channel 49 and its digital signal on UHF channel 50. The station began operations on November 25, 1989. Its transmitter is located in Metcalf, Georgia. The Station is owned by CP Media, LLC. The station runs a duopoly with WFXU, The CW station in Tallahassee. WTLH programming is also seen on a low-powered, Class-A repeater, WBVJ-LP channel 35 in Valdosta.

 

WTXL-TV is the ABC affiliate station for Tallahassee, Florida, Thomasville, Georgia, and Valdosta, Georgia, broadcasting on channel 27. The station is owned by Calkins Media, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based mass media company that owns several small newspapers in Pennsylvania and two other television stations: WWSB in Sarasota and WAAY-TV in Huntsville, Alabama. It was previously owned by Media Ventures Management, and operated by the Sinclair Broadcast Group pursuant to an outsourcing agreement (See: [1]), the first of its kind in the United States. This agreement merged virtually all of WTXL-TV's operations with that of Sinclair's NBC affiliate WTWC. Denis LeClair, General Manager of WTXL-TV and WBXT-TV at the time, was made General Manager for WTXL, WBXT and WTWC under this agreement. He would be followed by Chris Butterick and then Bob Franklin. Eventually, Kim Urbuteit (who was fired in May, 2007) would be named General Manager of WTXL only as Bob Franklin (now in Mobile, AL) oversaw WTWC. Gary Wordlaw is the current General Manager of WTXL-TV.

 

WFSU is the callsign (or variations thereon) for public radio stations operated by Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. WFSU also operates 3 radio stations that serve northern Florida: * WFSU-FM 88.9 FM: Tallahassee-based news/talk/public affairs station carrying several NPR programs and overnight BBC World Service programming. Also heard on these low-powered repeaters: * 97.1 - Carrabelle * 106.1 - Marianna * 96.7 - Apalachicola * 93.7 - Downtown Tallahassee (necessary because the main WFSU transmitter must conform its signal to protect WTSU in Troy, Alabama) * WFSQ-FM 91.5 FM: Tallahassee-based classical music station. Also heard on WFSL-FM 90.7 in Thomasville, Georgia, and on low-powered 92.7 FM in the northeast portion of the city of Tallahassee. * WFSW-FM 89.1 FM: Panama City-based news/talk/public affairs station. Offers many of the same programs as WFSU. Also heard on low-powered 91.1 FM in the Port St. Joe area along the Gulf of Mexico, as well as 94.5 FM in Fort Walton Beach.

 

WESH is the NBC affiliate in Orlando, Florida. It is licensed to Daytona Beach, with studio facilities in Winter Park. It transmits its analog signal on VHF channel 2 and its digital signal on VHF channel 11, when viewed over the air PSIP will display 2.1 for WESH DT and 2.2 for WESH Weather Plus. It is currently owned by Hearst-Argyle Television along with the area's CW affiliate, WKCF. WESH's transmitter is located in Orange City, Florida. The tower is the tallest man-made structure in Florida, at 1,740 feet (530 m). The station also serves as the default NBC affiliate for the Gainesville market, and can be seen on the fringes of the Tampa Bay and Jacksonville markets. WESH was the first station in Orlando to carry an on-site RADAR facility, SuperDoppler 2 as opposed to relying on National Weather Service RADARs. It is installed on top of the tower located at the Winter Park broadcast studio. Today it also promotes a VIPIR 3D RADAR system, taking advantage of the fact that the RADARs at Melbourne, Tampa, Jacksonville and Miami can all reach Orlando, in addition to SuperDoppler 2. The primary news anchors at WESH are Martha Sugalski and Jim Payne....

 

WOMX is a radio station located in the Orlando, Florida area and broadcasts at 105.1. WOMX 105.1 plays the "Best MIX of the 80s, 90s and Today," though the station programming focuses mostly on rock and modern rock music from the 90's and 2000's. Every Friday from 5:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m., Mix 105.1 presents Friday Night 80's. The "Saturday Night Party MIX" airs every Saturday night from 7 p.m. to midnight. The "Saturday Night Party MIX" replaced the Orlando heritage show "Seventies Saturday Night" in 2005.

 

WOTF-TV Channel 43 is the TeleFutura station serving the Orlando/Daytona Beach/Melbourne, Florida television market. It is owned by Univision and managed by Entravision which owns Univision affiliate WVEN-TV 26 and radio station WNUE 98.1 FM and offers a Spanish language entertainment format featuring movies, dramas, comedy shows, and kids shows. The studios are located in Altamonte Springs which is also shared by WVEN.

 

WOFL, "Fox 35", is the Fox owned-and-operated television station serving the Orlando, Florida metropolitan area. It is licensed to Orlando, with studios located in Lake Mary. It broadcasts its analog signal on UHF channel 35, and its digital signal on UHF channel 22. Its transmitter is located in Bithlo, Florida. Its Digital TV transmitter has a power of 1,000 kW. Its Analog TV transmitter has a power of 2,570 kW. WOFL and sister station WTVT of the bordering Tampa market commonly share reporters and footage, as other station groups do.

 

WFTV channel 9 is a television station based in Orlando, Florida, affiliated with the ABC network. It transmits its analog signal on VHF channel 9 from a transmitter located in Bithlo, Florida, and its digital signal on UHF channel 39 from a transmitter located in Christmas, Florida. It is owned by Cox Enterprises along with independent station WRDQ TV 27. The primary news anchors at WFTV are Bob Opsahl and Martie Salt. They anchored the main afternoon newscasts from 1984 through 1994, when Ms. Salt transferred to WFTS, a TV station in Tampa (where she was known as "Martie Tucker"). She returned to anchor WFTV's news again with Opsahl in 2003. Opsahl is one of the longest-serving (at one station) local news anchors in Florida. Barbara West, a 20 year veteran at WFTV and the station's medical reporter is paired with Opsahl at 5:30. Marla Weech, a former anchor for WFTV, was paired up with Bob Opsahl during most of Salt's absence. Weech currently works for WKMG. Tom Terry is the "Chief Meteorologist". WFTV's Severe Weather Center 9 includes WFTV's own doppler weather radar station located at Joint Venture TV Tower Bithlo. Its radar has features that are...

 

WRBW-TV is the MyNetworkTV owned and operated station serving the Orlando/Daytona Beach/Melbourne, Florida television market. It is owned by the Fox Television Stations Group, along with Fox station WOFL Channel 35. Known on-air as "My65", the station offers sitcoms, cartoons, court shows, and talk/reality shows. Its transmitter is located in Christmas, Florida.

 

WNTF (1580 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a News Talk Information format. Licensed to Bithlo, Florida, USA, it serves the Orlando area. The station is currently owned by Rama Communications, Inc.

 

WBCC is an educational television station serving the Orlando television market. It broadcasts on UHF channel 68, with a digital signal on channel 30. It is one of the Orlando market's PBS member stations. WBCC's digital signal, on channel 30, offers programming from the University of Central Florida (channel 68.2) and BPS-TV from Brevard Public Schools (channel 68.3), in addition to WBCC's standard programming.

 

WRDQ, channel 27, is an independent television station in Orlando, Florida. Its analog transmitter is located in northeastern Osceola County. The station's digital transmitter is located in Christmas. Onwed by Cox Enterprises, WRDQ is sister to ABC affiliate WFTV. The two stations share studios on East South Street in downtown Orlando. WRDQ offers the Retro Television Network on its second digital subchannel. It can also be seen on Bright House digital channel 1028. Syndicated programming on WRDQ includes: South Park, Scrubs, Merv Griffin's Crosswords, Oprah, According to Jim, and George Lopez. The station can be considered an alternate ABC affiliate. As such, it may take on the responsibility of airing ABC programs whenever WFTV may not be able to do so as in a news-related emergency.

 

WXPX is a television station licensed to Bradenton, Florida. Operating on channel 66, it is an ION Television affiliate, owned and operated by ION Media Networks (formerly Paxson Communications), which has owned the station since its founding in 1994. Current programming on WXPX is virtually the same as other ION affiliates -- infomercials throughout the day and during the overnights, plus ION programming in the evenings. WXPX also shows Tampa Bay Lightning hockey, Orlando Magic basketball, some college football and Tampa Bay Rays baseball, though most of these games are in the evenings only, as WXPX tend to reserve non-prime-time hours for infomercials. Rays games air in high definition on WXPX in the 720p format, the same format as FSN Florida, the producers of the games (See: [1]). The only local programming on WXPX is i on Tampa (public affairs) and the aforementioned Rays and Magic games. The station once aired Miccosukee Magazine along with WPXM Miami and WPXP West Palm Beach, but no longer airs the program. (the latter two stations still do, along with WOPX Orlando) WXPX started in 1994 as WFCT, which featured infomercials at all hours under...

 

Wesh News Cast Bay News 9 Cast Weather Channel

Kristina

 

Abernathy

 

Stephanie

 

Abrams

 

Natalie

 

Allen

 

Tetiana

 

Anderson

 

Adam

 

Berg

 

Mike

 

Bettes

 

Vivian

 

Brown

 

Jim

 

Cantore

 

Jennifer

 

Carfagno

 

Kelly

 

Cass

 

Betty

 

Davis

 

Kristin

 

Dodd

 

Jorma

 

Duran

 

Dr Marcus

 

Eriksen

 

Paul

 

Goodloe

 

Ryan

 

Goswick

 

Rich

 

Johnson

 

Bill

 

Keneely

 

Danny

 

Lipford

 

Warren

 

Madden

 

Mark

 

Mancuso

 

Dr Anna

 

Marie

 

Julie

 

Martin

 

Jeff

 

Mielcarz

 

Jarod

 

Miller

 

Nicole

 

Mitchell

 

Samantha

 

Mohr

 

Jeff

 

Morrow

 

Carl

 

Parker

 

Kim

 

Perez

 

Sharon

 

Resultan

 

Kevin

 

Robinson

 

Marshall

 

Seese

 

Mike

 

Seidel

 

Alexandra

 

Steele

 

Heather

 

Tesch

 

Nick

 

Walker

 

Alex

 

Wallace

Dr Steve Lyons

 

Dr Greg Forbes

 

Dr Heidi Cullen

 

Stu Ostro

Aixa Diaz (NEWS ANCHORS

Jen Holloway

Al Ruechel

Leigh Moody

Erica Riggins

Rick Elmhorst

 

(METEOROLOGISTS)

Mike Clay

Juli Marquez

Josh Linker

Diane Kacmarik

Brian McClure

Alan Winfield

 

(NEWS REPORTERS

Jennifer Anderson

Dalia Dangerfield

Laurie Davison

Melissa Eichman

Samantha Hayes

Chuck Johnson

Troy Kinsey

Jason Lanning

Emily Maza

Carol Minn Vacca

Jonathan Petramala

Josh Rojas

Summer Smith

Kathryn Simmons

Melanie Snow

Melissa Sogegian

Anna Tataris

Ferdinand

Zogbaum

 

(EN ESPANOL

Lydia Guzmán

Roy De Jesús

Sandra Pinto

 

Jim Payne

Syan Rhodes

Martha Sugalski

Scott Walker

Eryka Washington

  

Weather:

Jason Brewer

Tony Mainolfi

Malachi Rodgers

Amy Sweezey

 

WESH.com Web Staff:

Jeff Cousins

Managing Editor

Jessica Seeley

   

Washington Reporters:

 

Sally Kidd

Nikole Killion

Laurie Kinney

 

Orlando Sentinel:

Roger Moore

Movie Critic

 

Sports:

 

Pat Clarke

Guy Rawlings

   

Reporters:

Danielle Bellini

Dan Billow

Greg Fox

Bob Kealing

Jeff Lennox

Craig Lucie

Dave McDaniel

Michelle Meredith

Claire Metz

Amanda Ober

Kendra Oestreich

Gail Paschall-Brown

Tim Trudell

Todd Wilson

 

Other Talent:

Jason Chepenik

Financial Analyst

Dr. Todd Husty

Dan McCarthy

Chopper 2 Pilot

Kimberly Williams

Traffic Reporter

PHOTO CAPTION: Construction work nears completion on three new Army Family Housing towers on Camp Humphreys. The towers are being built in anticipation of the move of U.S. Forces Korea from areas in and north of Seoul, to Humphreys. In the coming years, the number of mission personnel assigned to Humphreys will grow by 238%, from 6,657 to 22,497, and the number of Family members is expected to grow by 1,270%, from 1,883 to 25,846. During this period of rapid transformation, the garrison uses social media tools like Facebook and Twitter to communicate construction updates, road closures, service provider moves, grand openings and other construction-related news and information.

 

USAG Humphreys takes top honors for excellence in social media communications

 

Click here to visit the USAG Humphreys Social Media Network

 

Story and photo by Edward N. Johnson, USAG Humphreys, Public Affairs

 

CAMP HUMPHREYS, REPBULIC OF KOREA - The U.S. Army Installation Management Command recognized USAG Humphreys today with a first place award in the 2011 Maj. Gen. Keith L. Ware Public Affairs Competition for "Outstanding Initiatives in New Media."

 

"This award is a real testament to the success of our social media communications strategy and overall public affairs program," said Col. Joseph P. Moore, USAG Humphreys commander, "but what I'm most proud of is the teamwork across the garrison that went into achieving this accomplishment."

 

According to Moore, engaging the community via social media sites like Facebook and Twitter has made it easier for him to share news and information, announce post status updates, answer questions and work with community members to collectively resolve problems in an open and transparent online venue.

 

"In the past, community members might have had to wait for the next town hall meeting, before they could voice their concerns, and that often lead to frustration," said Moore. "By opening up lines of communication in the online world and addressing issues as they happen, Facebook has become the garrison's de facto, 24/7, town hall meeting -- and that's a good thing for everyone."

 

The ability to communicate rapidly via social media has proven particularly important for the garrison, as it transforms to become the largest Army installation in Asia.

 

Home to the 2nd Infantry Division's combat aviation brigade and the Army's most active airfield in the region, the number of Soldiers stationed at Humphreys is expected to grow in the coming years by 238%, from 6,67 to 22,497 and the number of families is on track to grow by1,270 percent.

 

As part of its transformation, U.S. Forces Korea will relocate from areas in and north of Seoul, to two enduring hubs south of the Han River; the northwest/Pyeongtaek hub, consisting mainly of USAG Humphreys and Osan Air Base; and the southeast /Daegu hub, comprised mainly of USAG Daegu and Chinhae Naval Base.

 

"We are now home to the largest construction site in the history of the Army," said Steven Hoover, the garrison's chief of command information and a Facebook aficionado. "During this period of rapid transformation, being able to effectively communicate construction updates, road closures, service provider moves, grand openings and other construction-related news and information would simply not be possible without using all of the social media tools at our disposal."

 

Hoover believes the role social media plays in distributing news and information will continue to increase on par with the growth of the garrison.

 

"Our newspaper remains an important part of our communications strategy, but it's only printed once a week and can't always keep up with the pace of activity on the installation," said Hoover. "We specifically designed the garrison's social media network in a modular fashion, to ensure it expands with the garrison and remains relevant throughout the transformation process."

 

According to Hoover, the overall success of the garrison's social media initiatives is due in large part to the active role taken by the garrison's commander, his deputy and other members of the garrison staff, in interacting with the community on sites like Facebook.

 

"On a daily basis, either the commander or someone else from the command group is on Facebook fielding questions from our community and responding to comments and concerns," said Hoover. "This active involvement by our leadership goes a long way in building trust and confidence with our audience, because they know their voices are being heard by the people who can help them."

 

Hoover also made the observation that the popularity and growth of the garrison's social media network's audience base appears to be accelerating.

 

"Over the past year our Facebook audience has grown by 70 percent and more members of the community are turning to social media for their news and information than ever before," said Hoover. "I'm really blown away by the number of people who are visiting our social media sites, joining our online discussions or sharing photos and videos from our online archives."

 

According to data collected by YouTube and Flickr, the garrison's online video channels and photo archives are among the most visited social media sites in the Army.

 

"We've now uploaded more than 22 thousand photos to our Flickr photo sites and they've been viewed more than seven million times. Our videos on YouTube are also being viewed at a rate of about 100,000 times a month - these are big numbers," said Hoover. "Just yesterday, we uploaded 234 photos from one of our weekend events, and they've already been viewed more than 12,000 times."

 

According to Hoover, one of the advantages of social media over traditional media platforms like newspapers, television or radio, is the ability to measure analytical data, site traffic, viewer preferences and trends.

 

"Being able to measure what works and what doesn't, has really helped us ensure we're providing the news and information people need - when and where they want it," added Hoover.

 

While the garrison's social media network was primarily designed with its local community in mind, it is also used to share news, information and multimedia products with a world-wide audience.

 

"We currently publish videos to several sharing sites like YouTube, Break and Dailymotion," said Cpl. Han, Jae Ho, a Korean Augmentation to the United States Army Soldier and member of the garrison's social media communications team. "These sites are really useful in distributing newcomer and welcome videos, and it's a lot less expensive to use them than producing and distributing DVDs the old fashioned way."

 

As part of his daily routine, Han is responsible for selecting and uploading photos to the garrison's Flickr image archive, as well as publishing content from the Morning Calm Newspaper to social media sites like Scribd and Facebook.

 

"These tools are really powerful and it's an honor to be serving as part of this team." said Han. "Working as a social media communicator has definitely opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me."

 

While the garrison's social media network has already proven to be a successful tool in communicating with local, regional and world-wide audiences, garrison officials say their work is far from over.

 

"We're currently expanding our social media infrastructure to meet the needs of our growing community and testing new automation tools to improve the way we update our sites and push out information," said Hoover. "But of course, it's not just about the technology, it's also about ensuring we do everything in our power to build open, honest, transparent and meaningful online relationships with our audiences here and around the world."

 

The garrison's social media entry, along with IMCOM's other winners, will now go on to compete alongside winning entries from other major Army commands, at the Department of the Army level.

 

Click here to visit the USAG Humphreys Social Media Network

 

Oct 1st, 2022 Acadia University Wolfville N.S. - Raymond field - AUS football

 

Duncan Patterson SMU qb #15 selected as the Subway player of the game

 

final: St Mary's Huskies 25 vs Acadia Axemen 23

 

***** Student-athlete community service award ****:

Duncan Patterson of the Saint Mary's Huskies is the 2022 AUS student-athlete community service award recipient. The 6'0", 200lb veteran quarterback played in all seven games for the Huskies and finished the regular season with the second-most completions (86), passing yards (1143), yards-per-game (163.3) and passing touchdowns (8) in the conference. He also had five interceptions and a 137.8 pass rating.

  

USports 2022 Russ Jackson Award (Athletics, Academics, Community Service) - Duncan Patterson, Saint Mary’s

 

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Some relevant School news clippings,

  

Feb 24, 2022 - Wolfville, N.S. Acadia University. The Acadia University Professors strike enters its 4th week ?

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/51901774104

 

Sept 30th 2022 - Acadia Axeman hockey at Andrew H. McCain Arena goes paperless ? The Official paper program is no longer handed out to the paying customer ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/52395343477

 

January 22, 2024 - Canada sets two-year cap on foreign students. The cap will result in a decrease of 35% in approved study permits.

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68059996

 

Dec 14,2021 - Don't all of the members matter ? Discrimination shown against active Acadia Athletics outside community members during Covi. A posted official notice at Acadia reads : "The Acadia Athletics complex will be closed to community drop-ins, community memberships, and external rentals until further notice , However,, Acadia staff, faculty and students, with proof of double vaccination, will continue to access the fitness center, the pool and the arena for skating. "

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/51748079885

 

International student fallout hits the bottom line.. Atlantic universities depend on international students for about 30 per cent of their enrollment.

universityaffairs.ca/news/international-student-fallout-h...

 

May 11th 2023 - A new policy has been announced at Acadia where almost half of seats for a new Course will be set aside and reserved only for members of certain racial or ethnic groups as specified by the University ? The PC Government announced that a new nursing program is to be offered at Acadia University where approximately 50 percent of the seats are reserved only for African, Mi'kmaq and Indigenous students. The total number of annual seats set to increase to 63 ? When bearing in mind the current health care worker crisis and an urgent need for nursing grads, is it really wise or responsible to install race or ethnic restrictions that could eliminate many of those wanting to apply ? www2.acadiau.ca/about-acadia/newsroom/news-reader-page/ac...

 

Dec 27, 2021 - Playing the race card ? The Liberal Provincial Government could be on a slippery slope by choosing to use race to determine which applicants will get preferential treatment during a short supply emergency situation in an international health crisis ?

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/51782360402/in/album-7...

 

The Supreme Court says colleges and universities can no longer take race into consideration as a specific basis for granting admission,

www.cnn.com/2023/06/29/politics/affirmative-action-suprem...

 

Free University for some ? B.C. university waives tuition for local First Nation students,

bc.ctvnews.ca/that-s-reconciliation-b-c-university-waives...

 

Aug 2023 - A new physician assistant program at Dalhousie U open to 24 students per year with preference given to applicants from Nova Scotia, atlantic.ctvnews.ca/n-s-invests-5-6-million-for-first-phy...

 

Oct 10, 2025 - R-Studio plays the race card ?

R-Studio, a local Halifax gym, initiates exclusive low price membership charge that is determined by what race you are ?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsHpxm3yb7c&t=20s

 

June 11, 2025 - Maritime students struggling to find scarce summer jobs in Canada,

www.ctvnews.ca/atlantic/article/mission-impossible-mariti...

 

Tim Horton's appears to use racial profiling in its hiring policies ? Why aren't the Liberals upset over this inequality ?

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54605482350/in/album-7...

 

Canada's Gen Z can't find jobs,, www.cbc.ca/news/business/youth-unemployment-rate-1.7549979

 

The Koncerned Kentvillian must ask, " why is it every time you gas up at Milne Court Petro-Can, New Minas Ultramar, KVille Ultramar and now the Big Stop, or go to the KFC for chicken, or Mary Browns, or the Burger King, or Subway, or all of the 3 Timmies for coffee, or Walmart, oe Needs, or receive a parcel from amazon, or attend the cash register post to pay a bill at many other stores, it feels like you're suddenly in a foreign country ? " What has happened to all of the friendly locals that used to hold these positions and were one of the main reasons that we all frequented these establishments ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54418705157/

 

Kody Bloise Liberal Party, 101A-24 Harbourside drive Wolfville, Nova Scotia B4P 2C1 Telephone: 902-542-4010 Fax: 902-542-4184

  

Is there an identity crisis looming in Kentville ?

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/52094330358/in/album-7...

 

Canada's post-secondary industry predicts storm ahead, as budget cuts shrink courses, staff,

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/post-secondary-cuts-1.7387175

 

July 1, 2021 - the Prime Minister of Canada will not be celebrating Canada Day this year claiming that for some Canada Day isn't a day to celebrate." Wha-a-a-a-t -t-t ??? www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-day-political-reaction-1....

 

U of T Toronto, Jun 27, 2023 - " She Sung it her Way "

Jully Black makes up her own personalized and politicized, 'our home on native land' version of the Canadian National anthem in her performance at Toronto university graduation. Black was asked to perform her way of singing Canada's national anthem to reflect the core values of the U of T law program ? www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/jully-black-tmu-law-school...

 

Dec 16th 2023 - O Canada is sung in Punjabi at the NHL Jets hockey game in Winnipeg Manitoba,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKifMtbbyJg

 

2026 Calgary Stampede - Punjabi cowboys at the Stampede ?

x.com/CelticAshes/status/2082533482106872200

 

March 18, 2025 - Professors, students say Nova Scotia university bill threatens academic freedoms,

www.ctvnews.ca/atlantic/nova-scotia/article/professors-st...

 

March 4th, 2025 - Trump issues a ban on 'illegal' college protests as he threatens students with arrest and deportation,

www.lbc.co.uk/usa/politics/trump-issues-ban-on-illegal-co...

 

April 9, 2025 - Trump administration freezes $1 billion in funding for Cornell University, $790 million for Northwestern University ,,

www.cnn.com/2025/04/09/us/cornell-northwestern-federal-fu...

 

Jan 20,2026 - Trump hates wind turbines ? ‘so pathetic and so bad .. You might notice that China makes and sells them but they will never use them .'

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wkHCSbSwkw

 

5th Mar 5th, 2025 - U.S. funding freeze affecting both American and international exchange students and major US scholarship funders

monitor.icef.com/2025/03/us-funding-freeze-affecting-both...

 

Trump protecting historic statues - enacts 10 years in jail penalty for harming or defacing historical statues,, www.cbsnews.com/video/trump-signs-executive-order-enactin...

 

February 10, 2025 - Acadia University announces permanent pool closure, discontinues varsity swim team - will close its swimming pool on June 15, 2025,

Students chose Acadia because of the swim team and many parents got calls “from their kids – in tears – devastated.”

Acadia Aquatics,

recreation.acadiau.ca/aquatics.html

 

How not to park at Hennigers farm Market Greenwich,

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54788130883

  

Sept 13th, 2025 - Acadia Axemen and Dal Tigers hockey teams cross the Dal strikers picket line to play an Exhibition game at Dalhousie University ?

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54784598896/in/photost...

 

Town of Wolfville breaking the law, obstructing traffic, while creating a safety hazard ? And making trip to and from hockey games a real challenge ?

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54710009955/in/photost...

 

Sep 29, 2025 - Wolfville now studying ways to solve traffic congestion along Main Street ?

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/wolfville-nova-scotia-...

 

Gambling in amateur Sport ? CBC has introduced gambling into the Olympic games coverage ? In a groundbreaking move and for the first time ever, CBC will include gambling in its live coverage of the 2024 Olympic games ?

Paris Olympics - It appears that CBC has partnered with one particular online Casino company and BetRivers is running sports betting ads during the televising of Olympic sporting events ? Is the inclusion of a Casino and a Sports betting parlor that runs sports betting during Olympic events appropriate to the principles and high moral standard exemplified by Olympic Games ?

 

Aug 22 2024, - the Minister of hypocrisy, oops, I mean the Liberal Minister of Health Mark Holland and his Government pass legislation that will enable access to massive gambling in Canada ? And now NHL heros past and present like Wayne Gretzky, Austin Matthews and Connor McDavid can be found in TV gambling commercials, online gambling ads, and pasted onto huge billboards that promote sports gambling ? But Holland seems more worried about Zonnic, a smoking cessation product that helps to quit smoking and is sold only to those over 19 and always kept hidden away from view under the counter in stores ? Its a bit rich when Holland attacks and bans the current sale of this quit smoking product Zonnic proclaiming when that, "All the stuff that's clearly designed to target youth — It's over !"

Fans confused ? After NHL Superstar heroes play starring roles in glamorous new bet MGM ads to promote gambling there were numerous complaints filed. And so they eased away from this image of a Sports hero who encourages and participates in gambling although McDavid's image itself was never separated from the gambling vice or the lucrative gambling industry ? A new corrected version now shows Connor as an ambassador for safe and responsible gambling when you gamble ? But isn't it still gambling ? see news article, "Connor McDavid's latest gambling ad with Bet MGM sparks outrage among his fans,"

www.sportskeeda.com/us/nhl/news-disgusted-started-gamblin...

 

Betano - A message to the kids from a mentor- "are you a good player, or a great player". Betano gambling ads associate words like 'good and great' with gambling ?

www.betano.ca

  

Jul 22, 2026 - In their ongoing quest for notoriety, the powers-that-be have ordered cigarette packages to be re engineered and re-designed not to make room for the addition of more product but instead to increase the showcase area size of the package cover ? The added space will be needed to accommodate a fresh new series of 13 upgraded ultra sickening pictures and warnings that are to be added to the existing 73 others that are now over-crowding current package covers ? Messages will also be added to the extended upper flap inside cigarette packages says Karine LeBlanc. Do these people really think that they are actually helping to find a cure for cancer by continually satisfying their own egos and exercising their own personal vendettas against one of the thousands of possible causes of cancer ?

www.cbc.f ca/news/health/canada-graphic-image-warnings-ciga...

 

What if they advertise a safe way to smoke cigarettes in order to obtain clients ? Sound ridiculous ? But is this not the same idea as advertising gambling as 'safe' gambling ? Do these safe gambling ads serve to welcome, endorse and normalize gambling which can be a dangerous and life altering highly addictive habit ?

May 25,2022-Big gambling companies run ads emphasizing 'limited play' and 'safe' gambling ? Is this not the same as the alcohol industry running drinking ads that encourage drinking alcohol by telling you how many beers that you can safely drink per day, or, how about the tobacco industry running ads promoting safe smoking thru a suggested amount of safely smoked cigs per day, or the marijuana industry recommending the number of joints to safely get high on each day ? Or, what if they spin : You're 'good' if you drink but You're 'great' if you safe drink, or, you're 'good' if you smoke cigarettes but You're 'great' if you safe smoke only so many cigarettes per day, or , you're 'good' if you smoke pot but you're 'great' if you only smoke this many grams per day ? ref, "All those sports betting ads you're seeing,, It's illegal says the Alberta gaming commission ?" www.cbc.ca/player/play/2302654019728

  

Are University student loans being gambled away ?

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54775209530/in/photost...

 

Targeting youth for gambling ? gambling ads - The aggressive marketing of a highly addictive social vice to sports fans both young and old ? www.cbc.ca/news/marketplace/sports-betting-gambling-adver...

 

Feb 4th 2025, Bell Let's Talk ? Abandoning your Unionized Maritimes telephone workers, refusing to talk to them and leaving them out on the Street for 5 Months does not contribute to good mental health ? U Ottawa Scotty suggests that the internet, mobile phones and Social media are taking a heavy toll on the mental health and overall mental well being of today's society ? And so maybe there's some hypocrisy shown by the giant media mogul Bell Canada who might just be the biggest contributor and profit taker from a national crisis ? www.youtube.com/shorts/31f3sZndK6w

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/51844732131/in/album-7...

 

This year Canadian Taxpayers will pay $1.5 billion dollars to subsidize the CBC ?

site-cbc.radio-canada.ca/documents/impact-and-accountabil...

 

June 28,2021, O Canada at Stanley Cup Finals ? CBC plays unflattering version of National Anthem on World stage ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/51829474529/in/album-7...

 

January 11-22, 2023 - CBC doesn't seem to want to push, promote or publicize male gender hockey like AHL, ECHL, U Sports University level or Men's Junior hockey ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/52640201721/in/datepos...

 

Halifax, Canada Jan 2023 - This time around the IIHF men's World Juniors hockey tournament will be held in Canada. No games were shown on CBC, and many Canadians were unable to watch Canada's finest male gender Junior hockey players incl Connor Badard play in their home Country and win Gold for Canada ?

However, although CBC has ignored and failed to televise all IIHF Men's junior hockey games played on T.V. they have made sure to make daily news reports and give loads of air time focused on an alleged past scandal involving a previous men's IIHF Junior hockey team ? cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/media-centre/official-broadcaster-...

 

Justin says Goodbye Don't cry for me O my Canada.

Jan 06, 2025 - Trudeau resigns as prime minister, Prorogues Parliament until March 24 2025,

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54385355629/

 

Caste system Canada ? The NDP caste system Leadership Convention - Is this really 2023 Canada ? It seems that the NDP Party has adopted a caste system ( like the system they use over in India ) ? Delegates here must wear caste identifiable yellow or white tags ? Master, Mistress, person or whatever of Ceremonies instructs those who declare themselves as white and male gender to get to the back of the line ? Other identities, or those with yellow tags can go to the front of the line and speak first ?

 

playing the race card ? Apr 3, 2026 - NDP Leadership Convention uses 'racial equity cards' to identify and categorize people by their race and color ? black and red before white after yellow or green etc, etc ?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMtHsUTBrt8

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDV7ImXwTPI

 

2026 NDP Leadership Convention - Was Hitler's hairdresser here ? Some pretty weird stuff going on,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqhIBsaHzCg

  

Lost in Space________Episode # 1_______Death to Deniers !

 

Danger - Will Robinson, Danger !

 

These fine ladies want prison sentences handed down to individuals who dare to be themselves and to think differently while calling anyone with a different opinion from theirs to be a denier or hater ?

No one denies the existence of residential schools. And so why are Leah Gazan (NDP), Lindsay Mathyssen (NDP), Nahanni Fontaine (NDP) and Kimberley Murray (Liberal Government investigator) so dissatisfied and why are they trying to force their own radical and ego-driven personal viewpoints based on hearsay and as yet unproven allegations on everyone else ? Why do they want you to think the way they think, believe what they believe, and be forced ( by law ) to accept their unique, extreme left wing, selfish and self-serving narrative, (that they get paid for) as being Gods' truth, and,, if you were to dare resist then you are to be labelled hater or denier and become a criminal that could be sent to jail for up to life in prison under the law enshrined in Bill C-63 or C-9 that they are all pushing for ?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZU7NEzs3Gk

 

Sep 27, 2024 - Death to Deniers - Winnipeg Superstar M.P. Leah Gazan wants you to think like she thinks and be just like her,, or else 'watch out' ?

Narcissistic NDP MP Leah Gazan has introduced her bill in Parliament that calls for criminal charges to be laid on all those who ‘deny’ her own (as yet unproven) Leah Gazan personal narrative relating to the discovery of 215 children' bodies found in a well hidden mass grave in Kamloops and that Canada is a genocidal nation ? Her Bill C-413 calls for the extremely serious charge of spreading hate to be placed on anyone who promotes hatred against the Indigenous peoples by challenging, questioning, denying or disagreeing with Leah Gazan's own unique personal position on this subject ?

www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-democrat-mp-introduces-bill...

  

What Is Truth ?

"If you are strictly one-sided with any opinion, you’re incredibly ignorant".

UBC Jan 22, 2026 - An entire generation of students that has grown up while attending the Canadian public school system during the Trudeau Liberal era ( 2015 thru 2025 ) have reached post secondary age and are arriving at University in a heavily indoctrinated state of mind with extremely one-sided only, uni-opinion attitudes that they express in a coercive and even threatening way ? Violent gangs of young masked and gagged orange shirted student protestors, tribalism, mind control, far left radical activism and propaganda posters hanging in an Authoritarian environment where free will, open debate or speaking the truth has become a crime was to be seen recently at the U of B.C. ? This might sound Orwellian, but actually it's the University of B.C. in Vancouver a Canadian institute of higher learning that gets over a billion dollars per year of public funding ? Frances Widdowson, "Without truth and without freedom, our Universities will die." www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihsLPodE9R0

 

Ace CBC reporter Jordan Tucker ? In her interview assignment for CBC with Professor Widdowson, Jordan Tucker says that around 6000 child bodies have been found so far at first nation reservation schools, and that to her, the truth is not really a top priority ? www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ik61NGwXas&t=58s

 

Residential schools. After three years of searching for bodies and a massive cost to taxpayers of $216.5 million, not a single set of human remains have been found ?

thecatholicherald.com/article/failure-to-find-bodies-ends...

 

U of Vic claims 215 but Frances and Dallas say Zero ?

What Is Truth ?

Dec 3rd 2025, Frances and Dallas visit the U of Vic in Victoria B.C. and discover a mass indoctrination of impressionable young minds ? Open free thinking and freedom of speech were discouraged here ? Asking questions that ruffle some feathers or challenge the status quo are not wanted on this campus ? Challenging what is taught here can get you abused or even carted off to jail ? www.youtube.com/watch?v=u53G5WBpVmc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSRn8BzpvLc

 

May 28th, 2026 - If we believe massive untruths that are told to us, then our democracies will collapse,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2pd8-F2p0A&t=17s

 

Feb 24th, 2026 - Lethbridge, "You're not welcome here !" Welcome to the University of Lethbridge where manners are ignored, etiquette is absent, and where students use threats of bodily harm, chant ancient tribal war cries and bang out continuous monotone loud drumming noise to drown out the opposition during debate ? www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2Moi7VM7xI

 

Apr 26th, 2026 - A whited sepulchre University set in the windy city of Lethbridge - Following yet another arrest and another trip in the paddy wagon, Frances Widdowson pleads with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to help re-enforce the basic rule of truth that is based on free and independent thinking in our public schools once again ? "Without truth and without freedom, our Universities will die."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfPix14aMIc

 

UBC Jan 22,2026 - Counter viewpoint reporters attacked and have to run for their lives ?

 

UBC zombie apocalypse, Jan 22,2026

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfIpTnyH_Zg

 

2021, Major Canadian Party leader Jagmeet Singh attacks his own Country calling it genocidal ? Jag says that 215 bodies have been found in hidden unmarked mass graves in Kamloops and this clearly shows that Canada is a genocidal nation ?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQb3GZx_ZR0

 

2021 - Dr. Timothy Rahilly, the President of Mt. Royal College in Calgary - When he learns of a story that many unmarked graves may have been found at a Kamloops B.C. residential school the President of Mt. Royal College quickly turns on his University PA system and immediately makes the official announcement to the entire student body that 215 children have just been found buried in a mass unmarked grave at the Kamloops B.C. residential school and that a shaken, shameful, and perhaps genocidal nation, is heartbroken ? One of the senior teachers at his University has asked for evidence to support such a monumental and newly discovered horrible allegation and he has fired her ? www.youtube.com/watch?v=esGhB3uNHwA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=esGhB3uNHwA

 

Mar 23,2026 - Mt. Royal College, " my spider sense is tingling "

Is Mt. Royal College in Calgary making the kids Crazy ?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPQNM063-lY

 

"What are they doing to our kids" ? Many Parents contribute for years into Registered Education Savings Plans that are to be turned over to Universities on behalf of their Children,

www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/education/education-sa...

 

Apr 29, 2026 - Vancouver School Board to introduce the Orwellian concept of 'unlearning' into their system ? They are also re-naming schools from their historical English names to instead Indigenous names that cannot be pronounced and use letters not found on a standard keyboard ?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrC4GB4wURI

 

Vancouver March 12, 2026 - Have Liberal backroom land transfer deals with first nations already transpired as the Eby provincial NDP government pretended to look the other way ? The Indians may now own property rights in and around Vancouver ?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT2DqPzulos

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/musqueam-rights-r...

 

March 12, 2026 - treachury or treason ? B.C.'s Eby Government may have been giving Canada away while insulting veterans who fought to secure and retain the Country ? Led by Spencer Herbert it seems the NDP party in B.C. want to give Canada away without first asking Canadians for permission ? www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVTzJWE86go

 

March 12, 2026 - What NDP Spencer Herbert is trying to do in B.C. was recently defeated in a fellow Province's Highest Court ? New Brunswick's supreme court ruled that Aboriginal Title Cannot Co-Exist with Fee Simple Title,, www.fasken.com/en/knowledge/2026/01/new-brunswick-court-o...

 

2025 Canadian Election - Democracy denied by double crossers ?

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/55228615842

 

March 09, 2026, Canada’s Bill C-3 "An Act to amend the Citizenship Act" - New Liberal legislation allows Canadian citizenship to be passed down over multiple generations back to as far as caveman days, and means many millions of non vetted individuals are now eligible to automatically be Canadian ? www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.7120945

 

March 30, 2026, Millions of Americans now eligible for Canadian citizenship and many are applying ‘just in case’

www.cnn.com/2026/03/30/travel/canadian-citizenship-by-des...

 

March 14, 2026 - Completely contrary to Canada, the country of Italy has restricted Italian citizenship for anyone born abroad. Italy has enacted a ruling that tells millions with Italian roots that they have lost the right to their citizenship,

www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/italy-ruling-tells-millions-...

 

March 12, 2026 - Acadia University reducing staff levels amid ‘financial pressures’? 31 Acadia positions eliminated. University monetary chaos affecting not only the institutions but also the broader economy. Financial difficulties stem from capped international student enrollments, increased costs of high-end employment, and draconian funding cuts by provincial government. These have all led to job cuts, program reductions, and even campus closures. The financial strain on universities is expected to continue, with further announcements of layoffs and program cuts are likely to come soon. www.ctvnews.ca/atlantic/nova-scotia/article/acadia-univer...

 

Mar 4th, 2026 - Canada grants $100 million in scholarships for students in India ? This comes on the heels of PM Carney's trip to India.

www.youtube.com/post/Ugkx1VHElLBjsSwpz5-CK3P4SsNdrZmGdelS

 

feb 25, 2026 - Drastic University cuts implemented in latest Nova Scotia Provincial budget. Tim Houston's PC government is reducing funding for all Universities incl the PhD programs in education at Acadia,

www.halifaxexaminer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Grant-R...

 

February 26, 2026 - Vulnerable hard hit starving Nova Scotia university students who struggle daily with the high cost of living in Nova Scotia prepare for a week-long strike to protest the provincial education cut, the cuts to advanced education grants, and they are demanding tuition reductions and divestment from fossil fuel dollars,

globalnews.ca/video/11708934/n-s-university-students-prep...

  

George Orwell's dark prediction has just come true.

London England, Apr 22,2026 - The British Parliament has just enacted legislation to install a form of Orwellian Totalitarian rule into the current democratic English society that allows for the installment of Government social control in the form of mandatory lifetime probationary orders to be placed on certain selected unwary citizens without asking their permission who will then be state monitored from birth to death to insure compliance is met on the legal lifetime probation order that is attached to them ? Rob Cunningham and his Cancer Society are boldly crusading for residents of his democratic home country of Canada to lose their current freedom and be forced into this same type of Orwellian social control system ? www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/uk-agrees-ban-on-cigarette-s...

 

Dec 13th, 2025 - this could be a bit rich ? The top doctor for Nova Scotia is advertising smoking for the liquor store ? Dr. Robert Strang Chief Medical Officer of Health now appearing in TV ads that endorse the (safe) smoking of pot while he represents the Provincially owned liquor stores ? It's also a bit rich that Rob Cunningham and his Cancer Society don't appear to have a problem with these smoking ads ?

www.facebook.com/watch/?v=4190201767960744

 

May 29th, 2026, Kentville Memorial Park, the ABF Friday night concert, ( Can the good ole days of dollar dogs and bargain Big 8 soda pop be over) ? High level tight security protocol established for an evening of food wagons and kids bouncy castles ? ( must have taken up most of their budget at the sacrifice of bringing in some quality outside live entertainment) ? Town calls in outside police to reinforce the local Kentville police, cordons off the entire ground zero event perimeter with road blocks, street barricades and manned guard check posts to enforce maximum level traffic control that unfortunately makes patrons including seniors, the disabled, toddlers, and Mothers carrying babies have to park and walk a fair distance to get to the park gates ? Also, in the past years the concert organizers have always brought in special outside guest rock bands, and had featured interesting games, demonstrations and displays, and there was a visit from the Queen Annapolisa Royal party following the prestigious coronation ceremony in Wolfville, However, unfortunately, the concert appears now to have deteriorated into some kind of a Children's outdoor romper room type family show featuring food trucks, inflatable air bouncy castles and a local band as the featured guest star main stage performer ? There's not much to do or see for those exceeding the elementary school level other than to maybe purchase some food from a food truck that charges upscale restaurant prices and then dine on a paper plate using plastic utensils while standing in a crowd of unruly kids and being lustfully observed by some nearby hungry saliva drooling pet dogs leashed to owners ? However, thanks to the heightened security and the manned barricade traffic control there was a report of one parking violator being successfully apprehended and a runaway pet was also captured and returned to its owner ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54558198569/in/photost...

  

A cultural genocide is going on in Kentville ?

Why is it always Kentville ? Now it's the library ? First came the loss of the Railway and Day-liner service back in 1989, then Kings council expropriated the local Airport and evicted the many other established aviation schools and businesses, they had tried to take Grand street parade away from Kentville in 2017, and then we lost the famous Cornwallis Inn logo and the 88 yrs old statue in Halifax was torn down, they then terminated Apple Blossom Princess Kentville and ended the 87 consecutive years of the Queen Annapolisa pageant. Kentville lost a massive amount of diversity provided by the many nearby villages that always participated in the Festival, as the well elimination of the Princess teas, the Coronation, and all of the popular mid-week public outdoor entertainment always held at Memorial Park during ABF week ? And now they appear to be after the popular long time Kentville Library ?

After the Town has terminated so many traditional sources of public enjoyment while never offering a similar replacement, and, as Kentville gradually approaches cultural ghost town status, it is noticeable that the downtown business core (in which the Mayor has a major private business interest ) has been totally renovated and restored to pristine condition by way of a complete 100 % makeover beautification program complete with new installations of street paving, street paint, new double sidewalks on both sides, new driveway entrances, new curb and gutter both sides, signage and flower pots ? And the other three surrounding streets making up this downtown business block have also been totally upgraded including Aberdeen Street (twice), Cornwallis Street and Main Street ?

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/annapolis-valley-libra...

www.ctvnews.ca/atlantic/video/2026/06/02/funding-cuts-lea...

 

May 09, 2026 A cyberattack has hit universities worldwide, including top Canadian schools. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canvas-cyber-attack-canadian-unive...

 

CBC News · Posted: May 12, 2026 - the boys are falling behind the girls in school. A new Quebec report says boys are systemically disadvantaged in the school system ? The high school dropout rate for boys is 27.1 per cent, while for girls it's 19.9 per cent.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/boys-falling-behind-in-school-9.71...

 

An ongoing deterioration of the Annapolis Valley Apple Blossom Festival in Kentville ? Bring back Eddies Basement to Memorial Park, and 'honey they shrunk the stage' ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/55295377420/in/photost...

  

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Some relevant main media news clippings,

 

PWHL - CBC provides new Pro Women's Hockey League with its full media support, lucrative amounts of air time, full advertising, coast to coast live game broadcasts each week, player bios and a live game complete with hosting and analysis,, "CBC/Radio-Canada is the official broadcaster of the Professional Women's Hockey League". However, CBC has shown a totally different attitude when it comes to supporting or televising the male pro sporting events such as the Grey Cup, the Calgary Stampede events, FIFA, Copa America international men's soccer football and men's IIHF World Juniors and so many Canadians were unable to watch male pro athletes like Acadia Axemen footballer Bailey Feltmate in the Grey Cup, or Nova Scotia's Jacob Shaffelburg in the Copa international Men's soccer tournament or Connor Badard in the IIHF World Men's Juniors hockey tournament ?

cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/media-centre/official-broadcaster-... cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/media-centre/official-broadcaster-...

 

CBC doesn't seem eager to televise any Men's soccer or Men's CFL pro football on T.V. ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/52512969092/in/album-7...

 

Jun 11, 2024 - CBC fully supporting new Women's Pro soccer league Halifax Tides. - CBC providing media support and all game coverage for the brand new start-up Women's gender Pro soccer league. CBC will broadcast eight regular-season matches. A "Game of the Week" will co-stream simultaneously on CBC Gem and NSL.ca,

www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/cbc-radio-canada-broadcast-agree...

Thanks to CBC, fans will now be able to follow female Acadia University athletes like Mya Harnish, who has just turned Pro . www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54482565652/in/photost...

 

This year the Canadian Taxpayer will pay out $1.5 billion dollars to subsidize CBC ?

site-cbc.radio-canada.ca/documents/impact-and-accountabil...

 

Breathtaking salaries at CBC/Radio-Canada ? CBC President and CEO Catherine Tait had a base salary range of $390,300 to $459,100 in 2019 ? Why should someone who is actually a public servant whose salary is paid by taxpayers make more than the Prime Minister of Canada ? tnc.news/2022/01/26/cbc-salaries-include-125-senior-direc...

 

Apr 04, 2025 - Mark Carney pledges a $150M boost to the 'underfunded' CBC ? And says a new Liberal government will make CBC funding statutory ? Last year CBC received an all time record 1.4 billion in taxpayer funding and their CEO Catherine Tait, made more than the Prime Minister ?

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mark-carney-cbc-funding-1.7501902

 

February 20th 2023 Jully " I Sung it My Way" Black makes headlines when changing the lyrics and singing her own personal 'our home on native land' politicized version of the Canadian National anthem at the NBA All-Star Game in Salt Lake City, Utah ?

www.iheartradio.ca/news/jully-black-sings-o-canada-with-s...

 

Calgary Stampede O Canada - the original "in all thy Sons command" National anthem before they changed it sung at the 2023 Calgary Stampede, www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/53044391089

 

July 2023 - Katherine Henderson is appointed to take over and thereby become the first female CEO and President of Hockey Canada ,

www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/katherine-henderson-hockey-canad...

 

No more hockey fighting : This league now plans to ban them dailyhive.com/vancouver/hockey-fights-ban-qmjhl

 

Skate Canada Dec 13, 2022 - Canada about to totally revolutionize international Sport ? Canadian trail blazers led by President Karen Butcher push to change historic Ice dancing rules from the separate male and female gender roles ?

theprovince.com/sports/other-sports/skate-canada-redefine...

 

A Federal audit has found that Hockey Canada did not use public funds for legal settlements.

discoverhumboldIcom/articles/federal-audit-finds-hockey-...

 

NHL moves away from Pride jerseys - advocates are disappointed, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nhl-special-jersey-announcement-re...

 

Nov 20th, Grey Cup 2022 - Many Canadian households unable to watch Toronto Argos win the 2022 Grey Cup game by a score of 24 to 23 because both CBC/Radio-Canada and the Bell media owned CTV did not (and never do) schedule or televise this iconic purely Canadian event for national T. V. viewing ? CBC instead scheduled an unknown variety show that was being held in the USA for this Grey Cup Sunday night time slot ?

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/52512969092/in/photost...

 

CBC quits Twitter when Twitter calls them, "a government-funded media" ?

www.cbc.ca/news/world/cbc-twitter-government-funded-media...

 

Apr 27th 2023 , Bill C-11 - A controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law. Bill C-11, which will force streaming platforms to contribute to funding Canadian content. Critics say the bill is too ambiguous, with many issues unresolved.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/c11-online-streaming-1.6824314

 

Nov 11th, 2023 - The Liberal Government has ordered the Canadian Military not to use or recite Christian prayers like the Lord's Prayer at this year's Remembrance Day ceremonies ? No such order has been given to the other religious denominations in the forces ?

www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/gunter-we-will-always-pray-f...

 

The Grey Cup Nov 19th 2023, Hamilton Canada - Why aren't both Canadian major media moguls CTV and CBC televising the 2023 Grey Cup game on public T.V. for Canadians to view on Grey Cup Sunday in Canada ?

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/53338415225

 

Religious intolerance ? Have a very Merry Christmas Canada ? The Canadian Human Rights Commission ( fully funded by the federal Liberal Government) declares that the celebration of Christmas is evidence of Canada’s colonialist religious intolerance. www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWmuDidYTiY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWmuDidYTiY

 

Dec 31 2023 - A question to the CBC about this year's New Years Eve celebrations ? Do they now view New Years Eve as a public holiday that has become inappropriate to celebrate in Canada ? For the first time ever in memory, CBC will not broadcast the traditional New Years Eve 2024 Party, the stage show or the countdown ? CBC says they can't afford it ? www.msn.com/en-ca/entertainment/other/cbc-to-skip-new-yea...

 

Bell Canada is a proud Canadian media mogul ? It's time for the annual Super Bowl LVIII in the USA and prior to the big game CTV has flooded North American airways with Superbowl ads promoting full CTV coverage of the upcoming game in Las Vegas Nevada. They will then broadcast 10 straight hours of prime time uninterrupted live T.V. coverage of this American sporting event to Canadians from the United States ? However, on the other hand, back home in their home country of Canada, they don't broadcast anything at all, nothing (zero) blanco, zilch, silencio, not even 1 minute of TV coverage of their own 2024 Canadian Grey Cup game for fellow Canadians to enjoy ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/53523500175/in/datepos...

 

Bell media places citizens of Atlantic Canada in jeopardy when choosing cost cutting over public safety ?

Feb 2024 - Halifax Nova Scotia, Bell media and CTV have eliminated crucial hours of local and community news reporting in Atlantic Canada ?

Recent Bell Canada Corporate decisions have left many Maritimers in a weak and vulnerable position ? The East Coast Provinces of Canada appear targeted for severe Bell media news cancellations that will leave many Maritimers without their crucial daily Noon hour news updates normally broadcast each and everyday during the week ? ATV viewers are now forced to tune into the other main media news station where CBC tends mainly to run world international news and only a small select choice of Provincial news, and also their lengthy live news conferences put on by the PM or other members of the Liberal party ?

Aside from terminating all weekday ATV Noon hour news shows, CTV has also downsized in half the very popular and iconic, 'ATV live at five' 5 P.M. local community news program, (prompting long time popular host Jason Baxter to seek early retirement) ? Adding to the devastating loss, Bell has also terminated all weekend Saturday and Sunday local news reports that currently run on ATV ? The cancellation and elimination of so much of the local news normally broadcast in Atlantic Canada will surely threaten the safety and security especially now that there will be a 24 hour local news blackout for 2 full days each and every weekend and as much as 3 consecutive days every holiday long weekend ? And so it seems that arch rival CBC has taken over the major share of prime time live local news programming in the Maritimes ? Meanwhile, Bell is blaming the Liberal Government's new Bill C-18 for having to slash many prime time hours of local and Provincial news coverage in the Maritimes ?

broadcastdialogue.com/most-noon-local-ctv-newscasts-cance...

 

Halifax, Feb 1st 2024 - Bell Canada blames Liberal Government Bill C-18 for having to slash so many hours of critical local and Provincial news coverage in the Maritime area ?

broadcastdialogue.com/most-noon-local-ctv-newscasts-cance...

 

CBC's Junos 2024, Halifax, Mar 24th - This Junos seems more interested in politics than music ? itsthe4thquarter.blogspot.com/2024/03/junos-2024-halifax-...

Angry Canadian - Canadian juno awards ? where ?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNieEg-_d1k

 

Is this a A Stanley Cup cruel joke ? Edmonton, June 2nd, 2024 ? Fans upset after CBC broadcasts the first 5 games of the Men's NHL Dallas vs Oilers series, and then, without warning and for no logical reason, CBC blacked out the critical and most important climactic final game that saw Edmonton win and gain entry into the Stanley Cup finals ? It remains unclear why CBC would do this ? Was it arrogance, or was it to be mean spirited, or was it a gender bias issue due to this being Men's pro hockey, or was it maybe a lesson given out to remind Canadians just who is running this Countries main media and who controls the programming ? www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&rct=j&url=...

 

The Koncerned Kentvillian must ask, "What kind of a Country shows sad and upsetting images of itself when playing their National Anthem on the World stage in front of an international audience ?" www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/44424045874/

 

July 5th, 2024 Jacob Shaffelburg (Pt Williams Nova Scotia) Men's soccer - Unfortunately, CBC doesn't seem to broadcast or sponsor men's soccer and will not televise the Men's Copa soccer tournament ? However, you can still enjoy women's gender soccer on CBC as they will be giving support and full television coverage to the Women's National team and the new Women's pro soccer league and soon to the new Women's pro basketball league ? www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/cbc-radio-canada-broadcast-agree... ? -

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/53839077022/in/photost...;

 

June 29th, 2024 - Bailey Feltmate (Acadia U, Wolfville N.S.) - CBC doesn't appear to support men's football anymore, and so most Canadians won't be able to watch graduating male gender university athletes like Bailey perform in the pros ? However, fans will be able to watch the graduating female gender athletes perform as CBC will provide cross Canada media support and live coverage of the new start-up Women's pro soccer league, and the new Women's pro hockey league, and also the upcoming Women's pro basketball league ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/53855066488/in/datepos...

 

Jun 11, 2024 - Mya Harnish (Acadia U, Wolfville N.S.) joins the Halifax Tides. CBC is to provide full media support and full coverage for the brand new start-up Women's Pro soccer league. CBC will broadcast eight regular-season matches. A "Game of the Week" will co-stream simultaneously on CBC Gem and NSL.ca,

www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/cbc-radio-canada-broadcast-agree...

Thanks to CBC, fans will now be able to follow female gender University athletes like Mya Harnish after they turn Pro . www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54482565652/in/photost...

 

2024 Paris Olympics - CBC's Olympic coverage seems to favor the female gender when giving full game coverage to female team events while the male gender athletes receive only limited coverage with short clips from their events ?

www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/program/olympic-games-paris-2024

 

Jul 25, the 2024 Paris Olympics - CBC airs the entire start to finish Women's team soccer games, the Women's beach-ball games, Women's rugby games, Women's basketball games, water polo and more ? Watch CBC live full game coverage of Womems team sports from St-Etienne, France heavy.com/sports/olympics/canada-soccer-bev-priestman-dro...

 

Grey Cup Nov 17th 2024 - Everyone else is here, but where's CBC ?

Once again this year CBC has distanced itself from a long running popular nation uniting Canadian sports tradition and will not cover or live broadcast the Grey Cup game to Canadians ? However, CBC has instead covered a relatively unknown Women's tennis sports event named after the Battle of Sexes winner and Women in sports advocate Billie Jean King that is being held overseas in another country ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54147303159/in/album-7...

 

March 30th Vancouver B.C. - Michael Bublé plugs his own private business products while hosting CBC's 2025 Juno Awards ? Is it appropriate for CBC to allow a salaried MC paid for by the taxpayer to take advantage of free advertising for his own personal outside businesses ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54607761592/in/album-7...

 

2025 2026 Calgary Stampede - CBC's refusal to cover the world famous Calgary Stampede ? CBC doesn't T.V. broadcast stampede events including the Parade ? You'll have to subscribe to a specialty channel if you are interested in this famous Canadian standard ? www.tomsguide.com/entertainment/sports/watch-calgary-stam...

July 13th 2025 - Pro Rodeo and chuckwagon fans left out ? CBC Sports programming does not include this years fifty thousand dollar rodeo finals of the world famous Calgary Stampede ?

 

Jul 13, 2025 - Men's World Cup soccer not broadcast on CBC T.V. ? FIFA Club World Cup Jun 15, 2025 – Jul 13, 2025 - Chelsea beats PSG 3-0 to win 2025 Club World Cup Coldplay and Trump and 81,000 attend the final but it is not scheduled for broadcast by CBC ?

apnews.com/live/psg-chelsea-club-world-cup-updates

 

May 18th, 2026 - CBC speak with forked tongue ? CBC lures unsuspecting RCMP members into a trap set by First Nations ? Ambushed by the CBC and First Nations, a music video ?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvZX06xmslA

  

June 20th, 2026 following the famous firing of Don Cherry a few years back, CBC is now proceeding to cancel the entire NHL Hockey night in Canada show after a 74 year Saturday night run ? Is CBC shifting its focus to women's gender sports ? Does CBC plan to move the current weekly broadcast of Womens's PWHL games on Saturday afternoon to the newly vacated Saturday evening time slot ?

   

designed by Siza Vieira

 

Since its completion in 1966 the Leça Swimming Pool complex, by Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza, has been an internationally recognized building. Still almost half a century later, it has gracefully retained its architectural integrity and remained a popular retreat. The Leça Swimming Pools is one of Siza’s greatest early works, and an example of his careful reconciliation between nature and his design.

 

The Leça Swimming Pools were one of Alvaro Siza’s first solo projects. After graduating from the University of Porto in 1955, he worked briefly with architect Fernando Tavora before setting up a studio as an independent architect. He is still practicing and has received various awards and accolades for his work, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1992.

 

The Leça de Palmeira beaches are on the northern coastline of Matosinhos, a small town to the north of Porto, as well as Siza’s birthplace. It is also the site of another early work of Siza’s, the Boa Nova Tea House. Both the Leça Swimming Pools and the Boa Nova Tea House were constructed and completed around the same time in the mid 1960s. They both use concrete and have a similar respect for the natural rocky coastline near Siza’s home.

New York's Grand Central Station nearing completion sometime around 1913. 8x10 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection.

a frame from a video

The James A. Farley Post Office building at Eighth Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets in New York City. The building was constructed in 1912, and was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead, and White.

 

The Wikipedia article (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Farley_Post_Office) on the building observes, in part, that "The James A. Farley Post Office Building is the main post office building in New York City. Its ZIP code designation is 10001, and it is commonly addressed on letters as JAF Station. Built in 1912, the building is famous for bearing the inscription: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. In 1982, the post office was officially designated The James A. Farley Building, as a monument and testament to the political career of the nation's 53rd Postmaster General. The Farley Post Office is home to "Operation Santa", made famous in the classic 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street and it is the inspiration for the post office in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, with its "Glom of nit" legend."

LUC has worked with a large multi-disciplinary team to deliver a sustainable infrastructure and development masterplan to guide the long term transformation of Shawfield in Glasgow’s East End. LUC also led the design and implementation of an advanced phase of public realm and landscape works that now forms a framework for new development to be realised over a 20-25year horizon.

 

Prior to construction the site was heavily contaminated and consisted of large areas of vacant and derelict land together with dated business and industrial premises. The site was completely cleared and underwent significant ground remediation in advance of the public realm works to ensure the site is ‘development ready’.

 

LUC developed a green infrastructure strategy to inform the masterplan design with an emphasis on integrated surface water drainage and pedestrian connectivity to surrounding communities, transport nodes and the River Clyde corridor.

The Clyde riverbanks have been manipulated to provide new pedestrian and cycling infrastructure and this now provides an extension to the strategically important Clyde Walkway.

 

An ecologically diverse mosaic of riparian woodland, grassland and wetland habitats has been created that will improve the biodiversity of the River Clyde corridor.

A new strategic pedestrian and cycling link has been created linking the new South Dalmarnock Smart Bridge with the centre of the masterplan site, improving connectivity in the area. In contrast with the more naturalistic riverside treatment this link is more formal in character with strong tree avenue planting, lighting and paving patterns.

  

For more information, visit: www.landuse.co.uk

Next up glosscoat, lettering and weathering.

Weeks from completion, a methane reactor with endothermic gasifier surrounds Doug Jernigan, a three-generation family farm owner (with his wife Aileen) and employer who, a few months earlier, refinanced a first of it’s kind, in the nation, swine-turkey waste to renewable energy system (RES), with the assistance of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development (RD) Renewable Energy for America Program (REAP) loan guarantee in Mt. Olive, NC, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2015.

 

Typical systems separate methane gas for energy, solids are disposed or repurposed and liquids are cleaned. This new system addition takes the watery manure effluent to a new and as Mr. Jernigan say’s “prolific profit” producing state through savings and sales. “There is an opportunity for the farm to make money doing a good thing for the environment.”

The system handles about 75,000 gallons of swine and turkey waste effluent each day. Piped to a series of tanks, and mechanical equipment that separates solids, and liquids. The current treatment facility biologically removes ammonia nitrogen with bacteria adapted to high-strength wastewater; removes phosphorus via alkali precipitation; and reduction emissions of odorant compounds, ammonia, pathogens, and heavy metals to the environment. The water is cleaned for reuse in the swine and turkey operations that wash more manure into the cycle of the system.

The new methane reactors (under the framework of what will be a C-span structure) use an endothermic gasifier that heats the waste solids to very high temperatures to the point that they release gases. The clean methane gas will fuel an engine that turns a 300KW electrical generator producing electricity; ethanol will help fuel farm equipment, and resulting potash solids can be used or sold for agricultural fertilizer. Excess amounts of electricity, that the farms cannot use, will be sold and transmitted to the local energy company, for use by residents and businesses; renewable energy credits (REC) are sold to a different energy company.

With a system that eliminates all ammonia and other odor creating compounds, Mr. Jernigan says, “What I’m doing is good for the environment; it’s good for the farm in the respect that you’re getting rid of waste that you’re creating in a high-tech way. There’s no footprint. It’s just gone.”

Doug and Aileen are lifelong farmers and they have three grown children that work in the farm operation. Their farm currently operates a 21,600 finishing farm operation, an eight house turkey operation, a 250 head cow /calf operation. The farm also consists of 2,400 acres of row crop production (cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat).

Doug Jernigan’s grandfather started farming here in 1941, and he continues the tradition with his business that began in 1974.

In talking about the greater potential of this technology and what others should consider, Jernigan says, “I see it as a win-win thing.”

For more information about USDA, RD and REAP please see: www.usda.gov, www.rd.usda.gov, and www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/rural-energy-america-pr...

USDA Photo by Lance Cheung

 

*The treatment system (without the methane reactor) was documented to remove, on a mass basis, approximately 99% of total suspended solids, 98% of COD, 99% of TKN, 100% ammonia, 100% odor compounds, 92% phosphorus, 95% copper, and 97% zinc from the flushed manure. Fecal coliform reductions were measured to be 99.98%

The extension of MetroTram M17 from Schöneweide to Adlershof sees the completion of the second stage of improving public transport connections to the WISTA Science and Technology Park in Berlin-Adlershof, the first stage of which was completed in September 2011.

The new section between S Adlershof and S Schöneweide which replaces bus route 163 over this section and which will also be re-routed to open up new areas, includes five new tram stops. It will be served by tram routes M17 and 61, with the 24/7 M17 running every 10 minutes between 06:00 and 21:00, as well as tram route 63 which will be extended to Johannisthal Landschaftspark.

 

Mit der Verlängerung der MetroTram M17 von Schöneweide nach Adlershof wird die zweite Stufe der Straßenbahnanbindung des Wissenschafts- und Technologieparks WISTA in Berlin-Adlershof abgeschlossen, deren erste Stufe im September 2011 fertiggestellt wurde. Der neue Abschnitt zwischen S Adlershof und S Schöneweide umfasst fünf Haltestellen und ersetzt auf diesem Abschnitt die Buslinie 163, die ebenfalls neu geführt wird, um neue Gebiete zu erschließen. Sie wird von den rund um die Uhr Straßenbahnlinien M17 und 61 bedient, wobei die M17 zwischen 06:00 und 21:00 Uhr im 10-Minuten-Takt verkehrt, sowie von der Straßenbahnlinie 63, die bis zum Landschaftspark Johannisthal verlängert wird.

   

Brickcon is only a week away form now!

MTA Chief Development Officer Janno Lieber, NYCT Senior Advisor for Systemwide Accessibility Alex Elegudin, and Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities Commissioner Victor Calise announce the completion of elevators at the 1 Av station on the L line, as well as the Bedford Av station, on Thu., August 6, 2020.

 

Bedford Av

 

Photo: Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit

Many thanks to Olav who kindly provided me the repartition of norwegian kommuner by area code.

The completion of the work to rehabilitate seven stations along the D Line in Brooklyn was marked on August 2, 2012, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by MTA leaders and local elected officials.

 

We installed great new artwork at each of the seven stations. Here are details for the artwork shown in this image and its location.

 

25th Avenue Station -

Artist: Amy Cheng

Title: Rediscovery

Date: 2012

Medium: Laminated glass

Location: Platform windscreens

Fabricator: Depp Glass, Inc.

 

Amy Cheng’s artwork entitled Rediscovery selected for the 25th Avenue Station is a tribute to the human longing for discovery, adventure and spiritual quests which form part of the immigrant experience. Most of this area is currently comprised of Chinese immigrants. For instance, there is a large Chinese supermarket next to the station as well as other Chinese restaurants and businesses. In addition, there are many other immigrants from Turkey and Latin America. Amy Cheng, a child of immigrants from Taiwan, aimed to depict mystery and adventure by illustrating an imaginative land and skyscapes. For immigrants living in a new country forms part of their “Rediscovery” and the imagery found in her proposal reflects these qualities of being dreamers, self starters and full of beautiful complexity. Her rich and colorful compositions reflect the cultural richness of this Asian American neighborhood.

 

For more information about art throughout the New York transit system, download the Meridian app.

 

Photo: MTA Arts for Transit and Urban Design.

The new track, sports field, grandstands, bus parking, playground and multipurpose room are nearing completion for use by the Kaiserslautern Raiders in Vogelweh, Germany April 11, 2013. The Department of Defense Dependents Schools-Europe project is 97 percent complete and will be ready for the DODDS-E track and field championships in late May. The state-of-the-art, all-weather running track surrounds a fully-lit turf soccer/football field. The field will require less water and maintenance than a traditional grass field. The project also includes a multipurpose room for the local elementary school. The MPR features a basketball court, rock climbing wall, performance stage and a fully-functional kitchen. In addition to this project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Europe District is working with DoDDS-E to build new 21st century high-, middle- and elementary schools on U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern, the largest U.S. community overseas. USACE is currently designing and building 21st century schools for DoDDS throughout Germany, Italy, Belgium and the U.S., for more information read the following article: www.usace.army.mil/Media/NewsArchive/tabid/204/Article/42... (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo by Jennifer Aldridge)

a colour shot of one of Walters rebuilt and refurbished Lorain cranes.it would seem that there is not much to do now to complete the transformation from USAF useage to one of Walters finished gems. behind the crane of note is the road tanker body that is being used as a fuel storage tank for Walters fleet.

Liking the darker reds, this will make a find stand-in for the otherwise older dinky Bloodthirster from the 90's (80's?).

 

100% Games Workshop components, and alarmingly easy to accomplish.

 

Details on how it was built and painted can be found at my blog: battle-brothers.blogspot.com

Simple Lines shawl is done. Due to poor lighting, there are only teaser-type images. :)

blogged:

mysistersknitter.typepad.com/my-blog/2013/06/off-the-need...

   

See Photos of the New Airport Gateway Sign Here

Nearing completion...you can guess where the Jagdpanther will be ^^^I've used up every single one of my last grass pieces...all 700 or so. I've still got to finish the tree and add the finest little details to the Jagdpanther, otherwise I'm basically finished...I'm also hoping for MFL to reopen so taht I can make an order for a pieces I can use to turn this setting into a Band Of brothers scene for the Let's go to the movies contest. Any tips on how to improve this?

42nd Street, Midtown Manhattan, New York City

 

The 35-story blue-green McGraw-Hill Building sitting in the midst of parking lots , tenements and a bus station on the west side of Midtown, has been unique since its completion in 1931. Since its creation, the building has been hailed as New York's first monument to the International Style, reclaimed by proponents of the Moderne, and decried as an ugly "green elephant. It has been thought the key to great developments on the west side, and lamented as an "overinprovement" for a hopelessly depressed area.

 

As a design, it was the product of the gradual shift in architectural taste from the machine-age abstract decorativeness of the Moderne or Art Deco style to the corporate-age utility of the International Style, and of the constantly innovative and growing architectural genius of Raymond Hood. As a real-estate venture it was the product of the forces of extraordinary corporate growth in the 1920s which saw the merger of two small independent specialist publishing houses into a giant institution, and of the efficiency and economy-mindedness of James H. McGraw.

 

McGraw-Hill

 

James Herbert McGraw (1860-1948) and John Alexander Hill (1858-1916) were pioneers in the publication of specialized journals for the electrical and engineering fields.- Hill, originally from Sandgate, Vermont, grew up in Mazcmanie, Wisconsin; after working as a railway engineer out west he came to New York City in 1888 to join the American Machinist Publishing Company.

 

He quickly became editor of Locomotive Engineer. buying it in 1891 and going on to build the Hill Publishing Company (formed in 1901) which, by the tine of his death, was publishing five major engineering journals: American Machinist, Power, Engineering News, Engineering and Mining Journal, and Coal Age. In 1914 he built the twelve-story Hill Building for his growing company at 469-473 Tenth Avenue at 36th Street, and incorporated into it several innovations—including an early version of air conditioning combined with unopenable windows.

 

McGraw and Hill first joined forces in 1909. Each had branched out into the publication of engineering books, and in that year they merged their side-line operations into tiie McGraw-Hill Book Company -- a flip of a coin determined that Hill would be its president and that McGraw's name would ccme first in the new company's name. Following Hill's death in 1916 the two journal-publishing companies, which had been major rivals, considered merging as well, and in 1917 the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company cane into being, with James H. MoGraw its president.

 

McGraw-Hill expanded tremendously over the next twelve years. The new company moved into the Hill Building at Tenth Avenue, and sold the McGraw ruilding to the United Publishing Corporation, although the Book Company .remained as tenant until 1921 when it moved into the Penn Terminal Building at 370 Seventh Avenue at 31st Street. With the United Publishing Corp. the company purchased the Newton Falls Paper Company in 1920. In 1926 McGraw-Hill Catalog and Directory Conpany, Inc., was formed.

 

By 1929 McGraw-Hill was publishing over thirty journals, and its branches were spread all over New York City. The publishing company was becoming cranped for space in the old Hill Building, even though a thirteenth story had been added. The building's elevators could not handle the increasing loads. Even after the freight elevators had been adapted for passenger use, a memo was sent out requesting employees to walk up one and down one or two flights to help free up the service.

 

Clearly a new building was called for. In October 1929, a new building committee was appointed by the Board of Directors which was now chaired by James McGraw. The following year the Annual Report announced:

 

The present headquarters building has long been outgrown; offices of the Book Company, McGraw-Hill Catalog and Directory Company, the Business Publishers International Corporation, the Circulation Department, and Atlantic District Sales staff of the Publishing company being located at different addresses in New York City.

 

For the purpose of bringing all these units under one roof and effecting substantial economies in operation and improved efficiencies in administration, a thirty-three story modem office building is now being erected by an associated company, in which we will be the principal tenants under a favorable lease. It will occupy a plot of ground containing approximately 50,000 square feet can West Forty-Second Street extending through to ^orty-First Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues and will provide every facility for the complete publishing operation

 

Site

 

The site of the McGraw-Hill Building is one of its peculiarities — the location of a tall office building west of Eighth Avenue was as much an anomaly fifty years ago as it is today. On the 42nd Street portion of the site were three four-story and two five-story tenement buildings; along the West 41st Street front were six four-story buildings.

 

Many of these had been converted to offices and stores by 1930. A 1940 real-estate assessment described the building's immediate neighbors on West 42nd Street as "old, obsolete structures, of limited, height.... cheap stores and restaurants.... poorer class lofts, offices

 

and teaming houses with considerable vacancies." Along Wast 41st Street, were "old mercantile and rooming house structures, commercial garages and parking lots." There were also a "local Greek settlement" and "tenements with colored occupancy."

 

Despite the depressed state of the area, however, developer John A. Larkin, head of the 330 West Forty-Second Street Corporation, had assembled over three years "one of the largest plottages under one control on the west side of midtown Manhattan" comprising roughly 47,500 square feet in tie middle of the block bounded by 42nd and 41st Streets and Eighth and Ninth Avenues. In 1926 he surprised the real-estate world by filing plans for a 110-story, $22*5 million skyscraper on the site. The project, like many in the later 1920s, came to nothing, and in 1930 larkin effectively gave away the property to McGraw-Hill, in exchange for the old Hill Building and its site.

 

McGraw-Hill's new building conmittee had been looking at real estate between 34th and 47th Streets from Second to Ninth Avenues. After several possibilities had been considered and rejected, two final sites were put forward: the Larkin property, and a plot just around the comer from it at the northeast comer of West 41st Street and eighth Avenue.

 

The reasons for locating a major business headquarters so far west of midtown were strictly practical and economic, involving considerations of zoning, transportation, and land costs. McGraw-Hill planned to house its printing plant on the Iower floors of the new building, something the city's zoning laws did not permit between Third and Seventh Avenues.

 

West 42nd Street, even so far over, was a major traffic artery, and the site had easy access to Grand Central Terminal and Perm Station, as well as to post offices. A 1931 advertisement for the building included a map showing the "8 minutes walk to Grand Central Terminal."

 

Another consideration was that various engineering societies were close by, especially the Engineers' Club on West 40th Street which McGraw frequented to keep to with developments in the world serviced by his journals. The move in any case was not entirely into new territory, as the Hill Building was o:ily a few blocks away at Tenth Avenue and 36th Street.

 

A final consideration was the high cost of land in Manhattan. Not only was land cheaper outside of midtown, but the committee had worked out the exchange arrangement with Larkin, and felt that, "If these figures work out as we anticipate, we will acquire this new building in which all our activities in New York can be housed under one roof without raising any new money except by mortgaging our new property. "

 

Two days after the memo, McGraw-Hill and Larkin came to an agreement; this was announced in the Times on May 30, 1930, and the final exchange took place on July 1.

 

McGraw-Hill used only part of the plot for its building, reserving the western portion for future expansion or sale. The buildings there were demolished with the intention of erecting in their place an "attractive locking 'taxpayer'"; ultimately the lot was left vacant, however, to be used for parking, and finally sold in 1951, at which time the present post office was constructed.

 

Having chosen an out-of-the-way site in a depressed part of the city, McGraw-Hill spokespeople developed a tradition of rosy optimism about the area's future. In 1932, Frank Gale, editor of the McGraw-Hill News, wrote in the New York Herald Tribune that only six of the 33 stories of the building remained unrented, and

 

that property values in the neighborhood were going up thanks to the presence of McGraw-Hill. He quoted E.D. Conklin, president of the 342 Wast 42nd Street Corporation, which owned the building, as saying:

 

Interesting plans are afoot for the improvement of West Forty-Second Street. These plans, should they go through may give to our building the distinction of being a key structure in a great architectural scheme involving development and beautification of the area. Such plans would fit in perfectly with the presence at the comer of Eighth Avenue and Forty-Second Street of the world's largest subway station.

 

Four years later, in a similar burst of enthusiasm on the occasion of the opening of a bank branch in the ground floor of the building, the McGraw-Hill Bulletin announced:

 

The opening of Clinton Trust Company's "McGraw-Hill Building Office" (that's what they have named it) is evidence of a vast change that is taking place in the West Side. Zoning laws recently enacted will, in the course of a few years, eliminate many of the dwellings in this section, opening the space to business and industry. As the elevated motor highway is extended up the Hudson, it will become the main artery of traffic leading to the North. The New York Central Railroad has plans under way to put its tracks in a subway and turn Eleventh Avenue into a boulevard.

 

Nothing of the kind ever happened, and the 1940 appraisal of the building concluded that "the McGraw-Hill Building as a real-estate enterprise is an ever-improvement for the location."

 

The area had not changed significantly by the time McGraw-Hill finally sold its headquarters in 1970 on moving to Rockefeller Center.

 

At the McGraw-Hill Building he carried the advertising notion to its logical conclusion by crowning the building with eleven-foot high terra-cotta letters spelling "McGRAW-HILL," making the conpany's nana an inljegral part of the design.

 

When McGraw-Hill approached Hood in 1930, he was at the height of his career. He had been appointed one of the eight supervising architects for the Chicago World's Fair; he was one of the architects for Rockefeller Center; and his Daily News Building was rising on East 42nd Street. Articles about him were appearing everywhere, and one summed up his position in the architectural world as follows:

 

Leading the New York modernists at this moment are Ralph Walker, Ely Jacques Kahn, and Raymond Hood. ....Raymond Hood possesses the position in architecture that he wants. He is its brilliant bad boy.

 

The Building

 

In accordance with James McGraw's instincts for economy and utility, and with Raymond Hood's business-like approach to architecture, the design and construction of the McGraw-Hill Building were to an extent the results of practical considerations: "Economy, efficiency and good working conditions were the three factors uppermost in mind when we first started plans."23 To McGraw-Hill's requirements for space, approximately 350,000 square feet, were added 150,000 to 200,000 square feet of rentable area, enough to "yield sufficient income to insure our occupancy at a rental of 90C per sq. ft. without putting us too far i^to the real estate business."24 n^e conpany decided against using the entire Larkin plot for its building, because that would have produced "a squat type of structure with larger areas in the lower floors than could be economically used by us or rented. "

 

Instead, 130 feet of frontage was taken on West 42nd Street leaving enough to allow reasonable development on the rest of the plot in the future. The floor area requirements of the company, in oonbination with the setback requirements of the zoning law resulted in a 32-story tower.

 

Inside, the McGraw-Hill Building, although intended to be the office headquarters of a major corporation, was designed not as as an office building but instead as a less expensive "ordinary better grade loft type" building. 26 Fouilhoux, Hood's partner, explained:

 

The requirements for large areas for manufacturing purposes in the lwsr stories, and for big clerical forces in the office floors in the upper portion, also the dimensions of the property, led us to plan floors in large units extending from street to street.

 

The plans for consolidation of all the various McGraw-Hill functions in one building included housing the conpany's presses on the fifth, sixth and seventh floors, although the printing operation ultimately proved uneconomical and was sold in 1933. The second through tenth floors were therefore designed for the extra heavy loads necessary for manfacturing and printing industries, and given extra high ceilings — throughout the building these range from 12 feet to 18 feet 6 inches. Within these spaces the departments were arranged in the most efficient order possible.

 

Hood and Fouilhoux insisted, as they had for the American Radiator and Daily News Buildings, that the profile of the McGraw-Hill Building was the result of zoning laws, internal lighting needs, and economic requirements.

 

The same laws and requirements, however, had faced the same architect in the same year ca the eastern edge of the same street for a similar type of client, the Daily News, but had produced a thoroughly different profile. Raymond Hood's notions about skyscrapers were changing, and he handled the design of the McGraw-Hill Building in what to his contemporaries was a very striking, unusual, and, to some, unsettling manner.

 

In fact, the building has two distinct profiles. The setbacks, just one bay wide, create "a pleasant [shape] as it is seen when approached from the east or west. " This is a Deco contour, not unlike tliat of the Chrysler or Empire State Buildings, of a broad base narrowing in steps, out of which rises a slender tower, crowned by the ribbed pylon-like narrow end of the McGraw-Hill sign. It is the shape seen in most photographs of the building, in views from either end of midtown, and especially in views from across the Hudson River, where it joins the outline of the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings as the major elements in the midtown skyline. But these setbacks "are not apparent from the north or south. "

 

Seen from those angles the building seams to be a slab rising straight up with no break to the crowning insignia — a classic International Style design.

 

The greatest amount of light possible was provided by the over 4000 double-hung windows: "every floor, whether it is the 28th, the 13th or the 6th, is wall lighted no matter what the position of the sun." Employees had adequate natural light from 40 to 60 feet away from tine windows, which were "placed as close to the ceiling of each floor as the building regulations would permit, and run down to about desk height from the floor. "

 

They were not arranged, however, in the standard Deco fashion of indefinitely long vertical strips, as for example in the Daily News Building, but rather as horizontal bands circling the mass of the building — the "ribbon windows" typical of the utilitarian International Style. They look, in fact, quite like factory loft windows. This arrangement gave the entire building a horizontal sense — even the individual windows were composed only of horizontal elements, narrow panes divided by muntins, with no mull ions used at all.

 

The vertical organization of Deco buildings vividly expressed the tallness of skyscrapers as compared to their surrounding lower neighbors. The horizontal organization of McGraw-Hill instead expressed the structure of the building, 33 floors laid one on top of another. The window bands are broken only on the eastern front, where two wide vertical brick strips run up the middle to meet the crowning ribbed pylon, accentuating the Deco profile of that side. The arrangement of its windows, more than any other single feature, marked the building for critics and historians as one of the first major examples of the International Style in New York City.

 

To the unusual profile and window arrangements of the McGraw-Hill Building Hood added the totally unexpected element of colored terra-cotta. Architectural terra-cotta had come into use in America following George B. Post's 1878 design for the Long Island Historical Society in Brooklyn Heights, and had been used to

 

face entire buildings, including the Bayard-Condict Building, the neo-Gotidc Liberty Tower and the Woolworth Building. McGraw-Hill claimed t)iat theirs was the "largest application of machine-made terra cotta on record."

 

The terracotta was manufactured by the Federal Seaboard Terra Cotta Corporation in South , Amboy, New Jersey.

 

When asked why steel and terra cotta were used on the face of the building instead of the usual brick or stone, Mr. Hood said that after six months or a year, the usual brick or stone facing begins to grow dingy and dank in appearance. Steel and terra Cotta are just as durable as brick or other materials usually used, and it has the decided advantage of not becoming dingy or nondescript.

 

The color of the terra-cotta sheathing, however, was completely without precedent. Many different colors were considered, including yellow, orange, green, gray, red, "and even Chinese red. "

 

The blue-green, or sea-green, finally chosen was said to be McGraw's own choice. Exactly what color it is was not unanimously agreed on: Rood called it blue, while McGraw-Hill has always called the terra-cotta green, and their headquarters "the Green Building," or "the Green Kremlin."

 

Hood's approach to the color, unlike his approach to the windows, was thoroughly Moderne and Art Deco in inspiration. The color has dimmed somewhat with time, but a contemporary account describes its original appearance in detail

 

This color was chosen because of its atmospheric quality, effective under all conditions of sky color and brightness, enhanced by the glazed reflecting surface. The metal covered vertical piers are painted a dark green-blue, almost black. The metal windows are painted an apple green color. A narrow band of Vermillion is painted on the face of the top jambs of the windows and across the face of the metal covered piers.

 

Vermillion is also used on the underside of the horizontal projections on the pent house and on the signs on the sides of the pent house and over the front entrance. The golden color of the window shades effectively complements the cool tone of the building. They have a broad blue-green vertical stripe in the center tying them into the general color scheme.

 

Their color is an unusually important element of the exterior design. The entrance vestibule is finished in sheet steel bands enameled dark blue and green alternately, separated by metal tubes finished in silver and gold. A portion of the main corridor adjoining the transverse elevator corridor is finished like the entrance vestibule. The walls of the main and elevator corridor are finished in sheet steel enameled a green color.

 

The color scheme was carried inside the building, where "experts have studied with interest the use of two shades of green for interior walls, a combination believed to give the maximum of rest to the eyes of office workers." Even the elevator cabs were finished in "green baked enamel an steel" and the elevator operators wore green uniforms with silver stripes.

 

Hood's own description of the exterior color gives away sctne of his true feelings about architectural color; he called it:

 

Dutch blue at the base, with sea green window bands, the blue gradually shading off to a lighter tone the higher the building goes, till it finally blends off into the azure blue of the sky. The final effect is a shimmery, satin finish, somewhat on the order of the body of an automobile.

 

The gradual shading of color — used also in buildings by Ralph Walker and others — and the reference to the automobile are both classic Art Deoo notions. The editor of the McGraw-Hill News continued the reference to the automobile, describing the colored steel bands at the entrance as being "lacquered like the body of a motor car, " and noting that in the future they would be "simonized, just like the old car."

 

The company was aware that its building's color was unusual, but was very proud of it, claiming its distinction as the largest polychromed building in the world:

 

We haw enough faith in the attractiveness and utility of color in business building exteriors and interiors to hcpe that our pioneering effort will set a good example for the designers of future tall bui.ldings.

 

The crowning "McGRAW-HILL" sign, Hood's final step towards making a building advertise its owner, was also a Moderne notion, adopted from the Russian Constructivist movement of the 1920s — a similar sign can be seen at the top of the PSFS Building in Philadelphia. Hood intimated that it was a terra-cotta version of the electric signs then prevalent on New York buildings.

 

Each letter, eleven feet high, was specially constructed of hand made hollow terracotta blocks. The main part of each letter was white, but each had an orange stripe inset into it in separate blocks. The sign served also to hide the building's viter tanks and other utility spaces. The horizontal ribs at the ends of the sign were also very much Moderne in inspiration, suggesting something of the German Expressionism of Eric Mendelsohn (cf. addition to the Rudolf-Mosse--Haus in Jerusalemer Strasse, Berlin, 1921-23).

 

Critical Evaluation

 

Critical response to the McGraw-Hill Building has depended to an extent on the importance attached by reviewers to its different stylistic aspects. In the 1930s, immediately following the building's completion, Moderne or Art Deco was the norm, and what struck reviewers most about the new building was its leaning, towards International Style forms.

 

The New Yorker in 1931 strongly disapproved of that leaning, expressing a dislike for the horizontal lines "which so many of our avant-garde have borrowed from Germany," and calling the colored terra-cotta "a rather dispiriting grayish-green tile." Its writer however noted approvingly that the design was "austerely free from any architectural ornament, since Mr. Hoed has adhered to his theory that ornament has no place m a business building any more than it has in a dynamo or a turbine."

 

Alfred T. North, writing in 1932, expressed seme of the general bewilderment about the building.

 

Today, it is necessary to establish new bases for appraising architectural excellence because the contemporary concept of architecture is new, as exemplified, for instance, in the recently constructed McGraw-Hill Building. Lacking all of the earmarks of historical architecture, this building is running the gauntlet of criticism.

 

....Mr. Hood undoubtedly has given an expression of his idea that architecture is the business of manufacturing shelter....

 

North saw its horizontality and practicality as major characteristics, but he was mostly taken with the building's colors, and described at length its changing hues at sunrise and sunset — which must have pleased Hood considering his interest in the "atmospheric qualities" of his choice. North ultimately postponed judgment, declaring the building to be "undoubtedly a decided step in a direction which, we cannot clearly distinguish at this time..."46

 

That direction was towards the International Style, and later that year the McGraw-Hill won the honor of being one of four American, buildings, and the only one in Mew York, to be included in Henry-Russell Hitchcock's and Philip Johnson's classic exhibition and book, The International Style. In the exhibition catalog, Hitchcock wrote:

 

Hood's latest important work, the McGraw-Hill Building, on West 42nd Street, built in 1931, marks a significant turning point in skyscraper design. It is the first tall commercial structure consciously horizontal in design executed by an architect since Sullivan's Schlesinger-Mayar Building in Chicago built in. 1903.

 

.... The continuous spandrels of the McGraw-Hill Building faced with sea green tiles, the vertical supports sheathed with dark green painted metal, and the wide groups of windows produce a standard wall pattern at once logical and agreeable.

 

In The International Style Hitchcock and Johnson praised the building for its "lightness, simplicity and lack of applied verticalism," but they ignored its coloring and Moderne entrance and lobby, and lamented the extraordinary McGraw-Hill sign, which they called "an illogical and unhappy break in the general system of regularity," suggesting that the body of the building was betrayed by an applied top and bottom.

 

By 1936, McGraw-Hill had accepted the label of "International Style" for its building:

 

The McGraw-Hill Building is what architects call the "International" Style, which was imported from Europe where it is popular in Holland and France.

 

----It is typical of this style to insist on the horizontal accent, and the late Raymond Hood emphasized that feature when he designed this building.

 

As the International Style became increasingly prominent, McGraw-Hill became more and more important as its first American example. Lewis Mumford t note in 1953 that it was "the first to discard vertical emphasis for horizontal bands of windows," observing that New York in the '30s brought the skyscraper "to its logical end: The Empire State Building, for its actual height, the Daily News for its proud verticality, the McGraw-Hill for its horizontal bands of windows, and the New York Hospital for its spacious setting."

 

Two years later, Emory Lewis wrote that post-war skyscrapers "have followed the pioneering McGraw-Hill building (1931) and discarded vertical emphasis for horizontal bands of windows."

 

Recent historians, however, in response to the revival of interest in Moderne and Art Deco, have claimed the McGraw-Hill Building as a Moderne or Deco creation:

 

In the McGraw-Hill Building of 1929-30 (sic) Hood turned to a machine aesthetic in tine streamlined lobby and ground floor exterior. Yet his surfacing material for the building above was the colored^craft material, terra-cotta, of the first Art Deco buildings.

 

In truth, the building is, in the words of Ada Louise Huxtable, "a unique blend of Moderne and International Style," a transitional step between the two approaches to architectural design.

 

The building's lobby and crowning sign, its "atmospheric" color, and its eastern and western profiles, are unmistakably Moderne in style. Even the "ribbon windows" are really a decorative illusion created by the painted metal dividers between the sets of double-hung windows. Yet it remains the first appearance of that type of window in a New York skyscraper, and the McGraw-Hill Building therefore has the double distinction of being both one of New York's major Moderne or Deco monuments, and the herald of the newly emerging International Style.

 

Conclusion

 

In 1970, McGraw-Hill left their 42nd Street building to move to new headquarters at Rockefeller Center, for precisely the same reasons they had originally moved to 42nd Street. The building was an embarrassment and its future uncertain. At the same time a growing awareness of its unique place in New York's architectural spectrum was eliciting pleas for its preservation. The company originally sold the building to the CRF Equity Corporation for $15 million; in 1973, however, CRF backed

 

out, leaving McGraw-Hill with a down payment and an empty building. McGraw-Hill maintained the building while proposals for using it as hospital space or housing ware considered.

 

It was filially bought in 1974 by Group Health Insurance, for use as its headquarters. As a result of that occupancy, the ' sign above the deer has been changed and the roof sign painted a dull color to obscure the terra-cotta letters. GUI recently sold the building, but remains as tenant.

 

Hopes for West 42nd Street and the Times Square area are rising again. The Port Authority Bus Terminal is building an addition directly abutting the McGraw-Hill Building to the east; theaters and actors' housing have been brought to 42nd Street wast of Eighth Avenue. As the West Side approaches what might be its long awaited revival, it is appropriate that this most conspicuous architectural gem receive its proper recognition.

 

- From the 1979 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Construction nears completion on a new junior high school building, housing grades 4-6, in Grumesa, Ghana July 22, 2013. The building, designed to accommodate more than 150 students, features three classrooms, a teachers’ room, storage space and a detached latrine facility. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Europe District is working in partnership with U.S. Africa Command and the local embassy to bring the school to fruition. The new classrooms will enable additional students from the district to attend school in Grumesa. The project, valued at $208,700 dollars, features local building materials including mahogany doors and decorative cement blocks, hand selected by the school headmaster. In addition, local masons, painters and other workers were hired as subcontractors. The Ghanaian subcontractors credit U.S. partners, and contractor, Dover Vantage, for their newly acquired knowledge of U.S. building and safety practices. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo by Jennifer Aldridge)

Built in 1905-1907, the Beaux Arts-style Cleveland Trust Company Building was designed by George B. Post as one of his last commissions prior to his death in 1913, stands at the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 9th Street in Downtown Cleveland. At the time of its completion, the building was the third-largest Bank Building in the United States, and was the largest bank building in Cleveland, and the first building built in the city for sole occupancy by a bank. The building was constructed for the Cleveland Trust Company, founded in 1894, which merged with the Western Reserve Trust Company in 1903, and subsequently outgrew its original offices. The bank continued to grow throughout the early-to-mid-20th Century, merging with various other banks around Cleveland, and being one of the first banks in Northeast Ohio to have branch locations. The historic Cleveland Trust Building is clad in white granite with a rusticated base featuring large arched bays with keystones and bronze doors and window frames, with corinthian porticoes at the central bays of the west and north facades along the two street frontages, which are topped by pediments featuring decorative friezes, with ornate sculptural reliefs, a small two-column portico at the building’s chamfered corner facing the intersection of the two streets, windows on the second and third floors featuring recessed metal spandrel panels, a cornice with modillions and dentils, a balustrade on the parapet, and a drum and dome atop the roof over the interior rotunda. The nearly excessive ornateness and quantity of the decorative sculptural reliefs, ornament, and friezes on the exterior facade, when compounded with George B. Post’s Beaux Arts background and design philosophy, places the building into the Beaux Arts style of architecture, despite having many similarities to the Renaissance Revival and Classical Revival styles, which have been attributed to the building by architects and architectural historians in the past. Inside, the building features a four-story rotunda below a large stained glass dome, crafted by the famous Nicola D'Ascenzo, with several murals, known collectively as "The Development of Civilization in America,” which ring the top of the third floor balcony. The murals, dome, columns, arches, cornice, and stone floor of the four-story banking hall remain intact, gracing one of the most impressive rotundas in the state of Ohio, and one of the most impressive rotundas of any building designed by Post, comparable to the scale and details to another late Post design, the Wisconsin State Capitol, with the Cleveland Trust Company Building being one of his best-preserved commissions. The rest of the interior was altered in the 1970s, but has been partially restored, including original staircases, elevator screens, and balcony railings, though other areas of the interior, including ceilings and offices in areas outside the rotunda, were heavily altered during the renovation, and were not restored during the most recent round of renovations.

 

In 1908-1910, the 13-story Swetland Building was built to the east along Euclid Avenue, and was designed by Searles, Hirsh & Gavin in the Classical Revival and Chicago School style. Complimenting its earlier neighbor, the taller structure is simpler in appearance, with a buff brick and terra cotta facade, three-over-three and one-over-one double-hung windows, a similar cornice featuring modillions and dentils, a terra cotta-clad base with Chicago windows and large street-level openings, and light wells on the east and west facades. In 1919, a tower was proposed to be built atop the structure, but was never constructed, which helped to preserve the building's original appearance and configuration until the 1970s, and prevented the loss of the grand stained glass dome and rotunda, which would have been heavily altered or removed to accommodate the structure for the additional floors. In 1968-1971, the Marcel Breuer-designed 29-story Brutalist building, known as the Cleveland Trust Tower, was constructed immediately to the south of the original building along East 9th Street. When it was completed, it towered over the original structure, dwarfing it with its massive scale, and featured a facade clad in dark concrete panels, with a grid of concrete-framed punched window openings on the upper floors, and relatively simple, unadorned facades at the top and bottom of the structure, with wide and tall openings on the ground floor. During the next two years, the original building was renovated and heavily altered on the interior in response to the addition of the new office tower, leaving only its most significant features intact. A second wing of the tower was planned at one point to mirror the constructed tower, but wrapping the east side of the original Cleveland Trust building, which would have led to the demolition of the Swetland Building. However, these plans were never carried out, in large part due to the economic and demographic decline of Northeast Ohio that began during the 1970s.

 

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The building remained in use by the Cleveland Trust Company until 1991, when the Cleveland Trust Company merged with Society National Bank. This was followed by an acquisition by Key Bank in 1993, which no longer needed the structure for banking purposes, and the final offices moved out in 1996, with all operations moved to the Key Tower. The building was largely empty and closed to the public until 2005, when it was purchased by Cuyahoga County, which intended to convert the complex into a new government center, a plan which was never realized. The county government then sold the complex in 2012, and the developer has transformed the Cleveland Trust Company Building into a Heinen's Supermarket, a local chain, with offices on the upper floors. The adjacent Swetland Building also became home to part of the supermarket, with market-rate apartments on the upper floors, while the Breuer-designed Cleveland Trust Tower was converted into a hotel and apartments. Now a thriving center of activity, the complex, now known as The 9 Cleveland, is one of the many bright spots of the revitalized and vibrant Downtown Cleveland.

To celebrate the completion of the telescope portion of the James Webb Space Telescope (as well as completion of NASA Goddard's test program on the telescope), NASA Goddard employees were invited to come see the telescope up close.

 

In the afternoon, project member spoke to NASA employees about the project. Present was astronomer Dr. Nancy Roman, the first woman to hold an executive position at NASA, she was key to the creation of the Hubble Space Telescope.

 

Credit: NASA/Jolearra Tshiteya

 

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The Desert Dace habitat restoration crew gathers for a group photo upon completion of the project.

All Saints, Gazeley, Suffolk

 

All Saints at Gazeley, near Newmarket, was the first church that I visited after an international team of scientists conclusively proved that God did not exist. Thus begins the original article about Gazeley parish church that I wrote for the Suffolk Churches site, back in May 2003. At that stage, I had visited more than 600 Suffolk churches, and the site was moving towards a kind of completion. The entries were becoming longer and tending more towards the philosophical. The acquisition of a digital camera meant that I could already see I would need to do the whole lot again, but that would be in the future. For now, I had Norfolk in my sights, and there was an end-of-term feel to what I was writing about Suffolk. I am afraid that All Saints, Gazeley, took the full brunt of it.

 

The article generated a fair amount of correspondence, as you may imagine. It was discussed on BBC Radio Suffolk. I was questioned rather cautiously about it by someone in the Diocese.

 

The parish themselves took it rather well. To be honest, I had caught them at a low ebb, and they welcomed the publicity. I had also visited them immediately before a time of great change, when heads had fallen, but loins were about to be girded, and the Church of England was stirring itself again in that lovely village. One of the advantages of visiting every parish church in East Anglia is that you also get to see every parish, of course, and I soon fell in love with these sleepy, fat villages along the Cambridgeshire border. I would move there tomorrow, quite happily.

 

However, the article still makes the point I was originally trying to make, and the contrast between then and now shows this special place in a light it thoroughly deserves, for this is one of East Anglia's loveliest churches, and deserves all the visitors it can get. Anyway, I thought so then, and I certainly think so now.

 

Here is what I wrote in 2003: 'All Saints at Gazeley, near Newmarket, was the first church that I visited after an international team of scientists conclusively proved that God did not exist. I was intrigued to know how a wealthy, reasonably large Suffolk village would respond to this challenge. What would they do with their church? I had a theory. I suspected that the old church buildings would continue to find a community use. Small groups of people would still congregate on a Sunday mornings to sing comforting songs and feel good about each other. The churches would still be used by secular couples wanting a fancy wedding, and the local villagers would still want to be buried in the graveyard. But the building would no longer have a Christian use.

 

It was with some dismay, however, that I arrived in Gazeley to discover that the rot had already set in. The first sign of this was the way in which the large windows facing onto the road had holes the size of small rocks in them. This was disturbing, especially because the east window at Gazeley is one of the most remarkable Decorated windows in East Anglia. The head of the window consists of two elegant overlapping trefoils, but there is no head to the arch, the head itself having cusps. You can see it in the left hand column; Cautley thought it was unique.

 

I went and tried the door, but of course it was locked. Ever since the announcement of God's non-existence, heads have dropped in the Anglican community, and many of them no longer have the will to welcome strangers and visitors. I went next door to the Rectory. I knocked on the door, rang the bell. Nobody came. Perhaps the Rector had fled town. I had tried phoning several numbers I had taken from the Diocesan website, but nobody had answered. There were keyholders listed in the church porch, but no phone numbers. Gazeley is a fairly large village, and we didn't have a street map, but by driving around (sorry about the carbon monoxide, folks) we tracked some of the houses down. Several cars were on the driveways outside (as I said, this is a wealthy village) but nobody came to the door. Perhaps they had given up in despair. I felt Gazeley's strange torpor beginning to settle on me like snow.

 

We found the house where the last address was supposed to be. I went to the side door, and eventually someone answered. "Yes?" he was very curt, so I don't know who he was expecting. I, however, was a model of charm and good manners, and explained my mission to see inside Gazeley church, and that I understood he was a keyholder, a churchwarden in fact. His wife came to the kitchen door behind him, to see who it was. I could smell cooking, and I assumed that they were both about to eat, the time being 5pm on a Saturday.

 

"The church is locked", he said. I agreed that this was the case, and wondered if access was possible. "It was open earlier today, you should have come then", he observed. I concurred that it would have been better, but that we had been visiting other churches, and had only just arrived in Gazeley. He thought for a second. "I'll have to come with you." The man checked that the twenty minutes I had suggested would not deprive him of his tea, and walked with me up to the church. On the way, the man explained how he and his wife had spent the day preparing the church for the harvest festival. I made a mental note that this was another event that had survived the death of God, as would Christmas probably.

 

We walked across the wide open graveyard, and I looked up at the great ship of Gazeley church. There is no doubt which county you are in; here, the complete rebuilding of the nave with clerestory and aisles was at the start of the 16th century, and as at Blythburgh they didn't get around to rebuilding the tower before the Protestant Reformation intervened. The huge chancel had been built on the eve of the Black Death, and has similarities with the one at Mildenhall. Perhaps a rebuilding was planned, but it never happened. The tower was largely reconstructed in the 19th century.

 

To my surprise, he took us not to either south or north porch, but to the great west door. This led us beneath the tower and behind the organ, and we stepped into darkness. Daylight was fading, but here it must be always gloomy, among the broom cupboards and stacks of junk. The churchwarden found the light switches, and we walked around the organ into the body of the church.

 

Back in the days when God still existed, I had been to Gazeley church before. It had been a bright, cold February morning in 1999, and I was cycling from Newmarket to Ipswich. I'd arrived in Gazeley to find the church open, and had thought it lovely. There was a delicate balance between respect for the medieval and the demands of the modern liturgy. It felt at once a house of prayer and a spiritual touchstone to the long generations. However, the slight crimp in all this was that, at the time, the regular Sunday congregation of Gazeley church had been reduced to single figures. The same was true of neighbouring Kentford. The Rector may not have been to blame; he was very energetic in in his pastoral activities in the village, and people still turned up for the big occasions. But I wondered what effect all this had had, and asked the churchwarden.

 

He was very candid. He told me that they had had a terrible time of it. The electoral roll had fallen to just three people, and this is not a small village. Nobody wanted to come to church any more. He had lived in the village for years, and had seen all this happen. It was only in the last year or so that he felt the church had been turned around by the new Rector (the one I had suspected of leaving town). Now, there were more than twenty of them, and they felt like a proper community again, he said.

 

I found this interesting. The previous Rector had been a Forward in Faith-supporting Anglo-catholic, and such a tradition was not terribly popular with the suits at Diocesan House. The new Rector had moved the church back towards the mainstream.

 

I looked around the vast open nave. All Saints is one of the biggest churches in the west of the county, and it must take a good five hundred people to make it feel full. I tried to imagine what it must have been like here, just three in the congregation.

 

The warden and his wife had tried hard to decorate the church for the harvest festival, and it looked particularly lovely towards the east. The greenery on the tombchest and piscina was very well done. But inevitably the fruit and vegetables were sparse, and there was no disguising the general air of shabbiness and decay underneath the decoration. I felt a bit sorry for the churchwarden, for he had stuck with the place through thick and thin, and clearly loved it. The chancel and central eastern part of the nave were clean and tidy, but all around were the encroaching shadows, and here lurked the dust and dirt.

 

The higher you looked, the filthier it became. The clerestory windows were coated in grime, and the lower parts cloaked in decades of cobwebs. The medieval cross beams are still in place, but the Victorian roof above is leaky, and areas of damp showed above the high arcades. It seemed unlikely that all this could have happened in the short time since the Geneva declaration of 2007 announced all faith in a Supreme Being to be 'utterly null and void'. Mortlock had commented on the poor condition of the royal arms as long ago as 1988. Could it be that they were in this state when this building was still in use for Christian worship?

 

Having seen the stone holes in the windows, I was mightily relieved that the Victorians had reset the medieval glass up in the clerestory. This seems a curious thing to have done, since it defeats the purpose of a clerestory, but if they had not done so then we might have lost it. The glass matches the tracery in the north aisle windows, so that is probably where they came from. I had seen them on my previous visit, but could not remember where they were, and when I asked the keyholder he did not seem aware that the church had any medieval glass. Eventually I found it. There are angels, three Saints and some shields, most of which are heraldic but two show the instruments of the passion and the Holy Trinity. I would not be surprised to learn that some of the shields are 19th century, but the figures are all original late 15th or early 16th century. The Saints are an unidentified Bishop, the hacksaw-wielding St Faith and one of my favourites, St Apollonia. She it was who was invoked by medieval people against toothache.

 

It struck me as I gazed up that many parish churches had much less to lose than Gazeley. At one time, these places were vibrant hubs of spiritual communities, but now they would be left to wither and die. Some would become houses of course, but Gazeley's church is much too big. Some might be kept as examples of our redundant belief systems, but here at Gazeley there would be too much to tidy up and sort out. So All Saints at Gazeley must be considered merely as a treasure house. Here, then, is a guide to why it must survive the 2007 Geneva Declaration.

 

Firstly, the chancel. Here, the space created by the clearing of clutter makes it at once mysterious and beautiful. Above, the early 16th century waggon roof is Suffolk's best of its kind. Mortlock points out the little angels bearing scrolls, the wheat ears and the vine sprays, and the surviving traces of colour. The low side window on the south side still has its hinges, for here it was that updraught to the rood would have sent the candles flickering in the mystical church of the 14th century. On the south side of the sanctuary is an exquisitely carved arched recess, that doesn't appear to have ever had a door, and may have been a very rare purpose-built Easter sepulchre at the time of the 1330s rebuilding. Opposite is a huge and stunningly beautiful piscina, and beside it are sedilia that end in an arm rest carved in the shape of a beast. It is one of the most significant Decorated moments in Suffolk.

 

On the floor of the chancel there is a tiny, perfect chalice brass, one of only two surviving in Suffolk. The other is at Rendham. Not far away is the indent of another chalice brass - or perhaps it was for the same one, and the brass has been moved for some reason. There are two chalice indents at Westhall, but nowhere else in Suffolk. Chalice brasses were popular memorials for Priests in the 15th and early 16th centuries, and thus were fair game for reformers. Heigham memorials of the late 16th century are on the walls. Back in the south aisle there is a splendid tombchest in Purbeck marble. It has lost its brasses, but the indents show us where they were, as do other indents in the aisle floors. Some heraldic brass shields survive, and show that Heighams were buried here. Brass inscriptions survive in the nave and the chancel, dating from the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

 

Piled up and decrepit in the south west corner are some extraordinary 14th century benches with pierced tracery backs. Some of them appear to spell out words, Mortlock thought one might say Salaman Sayet. The block of benches to the north appear to have been made using sections of the 15th century rood loft. Further north, the early 17th century benches may appear crude, but were almost certainly the work of the village carpenter.

 

The 14th century font is a stunning example of the tracery pattern series that appeared in the decades before the Black Death. They may have been intended to spread ideas at that time of great artistic and intellectual flowering before it was so cruelly snatched away. The cover is 17th century.

 

The place is absolutely glorious, but few people seem to know about it, and fewer seem to care. If it had been clean, tidy and open, Simon Jenkins England's Thousand Best Churches would not have been able to resist it. Should the survival of such a treasure store depend upon the existence of God or the continued practice of the Christian faith? Or might there be other reasons to keep this extraordinary building in something like its present integrity? It needs thousands spent on it, hundreds of thousands, but is this something that we as a nation or culture should consider worth doing? Will it be sufficient to photograph it all and then let it fall, or do we need to rescue this building before it is too late?

 

Increasingly, it seemed to me that what the parish needed was not condemnation for the state the building was in, but encouragement to put it right. I pointed out several of the features outlined above, but I think the poor man was beginning to register quite what a task he had on his hands, so I fell quiet. I did reassure him that the building really was the responsibility of us all, and not just the Church of England; it was the heart and touchstone of the whole village, and not just of his faith community.

 

We'd been there for nearly an hour. I took pity, and offered to lock up and return the key to his house. He thought about it for a moment. I guessed he was weighing up whether or not he trusted us to make the church secure, but he just said "you don't need to bring the key back, it's a yale lock. Just let yourself out, and let the door close behind you." And he said goodbye and went home - rather more thoughtfully, I fear, than he had left it.

 

It was dark. I put out the lights, and stood for a moment in the wide gloom, in the infinite stillness. I listened to the sound of my own breathing. I knew this was the most endangered building I had visited so far on my travels. But I'm determined we won't lose it.'

 

And that was that. At the end of the original article, I had pointed out that the 2007 Geneva Declaration on the non-existence of God was, of course, entirely fictitious. This was partly to reassure the good people of Gazeley, but also to save confusing any excitable Dawkinsites. Gazeley church was, after all, still in use for Christian worship. I also pointed out that the rest of the article was completely true as things had stood in May 2003. However, over the next few months I received a number of e-mails from people in the parish telling me how the church was being taken to task, tidied up, cleaned out, and, even more important, made accessible. Coming back in May 2008 I was delighted to discover than both the south and north doors were now open, and I stepped out of the sunlight into an interior which positively shouted its welcome to pilgrims and strangers. Perhaps it helped that it was such a beautiful day, for the interior was full of light falling across ancient stone and woodwork. Everything shone with love and care. Quite frankly, it lifted the heart. Perhaps the most moving sight was of the brightly coloured children's table and chairs, which have been given pride of place at the east end of the south aisle, rather than being tucked away under the tower or behind the font. Having once almost lost its congregation altogether, the community at Gazeley now puts its children's corner in a prominent position, where everyone can see it.

 

The wide open space of the chancel was still one of the loveliest interiors I knew in Suffolk, but now it had something else, a feeling of hope. Great things had happened here. I mentioned it afterwards to a Catholic Priest friend of mine, and he said he hoped I knew I'd seen the power of the Holy Spirit at work. And perhaps that is so. Certainly, the energy and imagination of the people here have been fired by something. I wanted to find someone to ask about it, to find out how things stood now. But there was no one, and so the building spoke for them.

 

Back outside in the graveyard, the dog daisies clustered and waved their sun-kissed faces in the light breeze. The ancient building must have known many late-May days like this over the centuries, but think of all the changes that it has known inside! The general buffeting of the winds of history still leaves room for local squalls and lightning strikes. All Saints has known these, but for now a blessed calm reigns here. Long may it remain so.