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Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

The former Manufacturers Trust Company Building, erected in 1953-54 on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and West 43rd Street, was one of the first buildings in the United States to introduce International Style modernism to bank design. Planned by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with Gordon Bunshaft serving as chief designer, the building is an important early work by one of the country's leading architectural firms, best known for its pioneering International Style business buildings that provided a potent symbol of corporate America in the post-World War II period. A five-story glass box, featuring clear glass window-walls, thin polished aluminum mullions, and dark gray facings, the monochromatic building is notable for the spare elegance and refinement of its design. The design's transparency and the articulation of the underlying skeletal structure of the building led the Architectural Forum to praise it as "the first big building truly to fulfill architects' immaculate drafting board idea of glass as an invisible material."

The modernity and openness of the design reflect the concerns of Manufacturers Trust president Horace C. Flanigan who had wanted this prominently sited branch building to present a modern image and an "inviting look" in keeping with contemporary trends in the banking industry that emphasized customer service. The novel aspects of the design elicited extensive press coverage and attracted 15,000 visitors to the bank in its first week of operation. By proving that good modern design was a lure to customers, the Manufacturers Trust Company Building led many other New York City banks to create similar glass-walled banks in the 1950s, and by the 1960s such banks were found throughout the country.

History of the Site

In the late nineteenth century, Fifth Avenue between 34th Street and 59th Street was the most fashionable residential street in New York. The blockfront on the west side of the avenue between West 42nd and West 43rd Streets was occupied by the Hotel Bristol and the homes of several wealthy businessmen, among them financier Russell Sage who lived at No. 506 in the 1880s and 1890s. West 43rd Street and vicinity contained a number of private clubs and associations: the Columbia Club at No. 4 (Clarence S. Luce, 1890-91); the Century Association at No. 7 (McKim, Mead & White, 1889-90); the Racquet & Tennis Club at No. 27 (Cyrus L.W. Eidlitz, 1891); and the Academy of Medicine at No. 17 (R.H. Robertson, 1889). By 1900, the character of the neighborhood on the blocks north of 42nd Street began to change with the construction of, or the conversion of private residences to, exclusive retail shops, restaurants, and office buildings.

The eight-story Hotel Bristol at 500 Fifth Avenue became the Bristol Building in 1902 with offices in its upper stories and stores at street level. A few blocks to the east, the construction of the present Grand Central Terminal and the electrification and submergence of the railroad tracks along Park Avenue in 1903-13 spurred the development of an important hotel and business district. By 1923, so many banks and trust companies had established uptown branches in the Grand Central vicinity and on the blocks of Fifth Avenue north of 42nd Street, that Rider's New York City guide reported the area was popularly known as "Little Wall Street." Forty-second Street, which linked this business district to Times Square, became one of the busiest thoroughfares in New York while Fifth Avenue remained the most fashionable shopping street in the city, leading the Real Estate Record & Guide to declare the Bristol Building parcel at 500 Fifth Avenue, at the northwest corner of 42nd Street, as "the most valuable building site on Manhattan Island north of Wall Street. "

The demolition of the Bristol Building and subsequent construction of the office building at 500 Fifth Avenue had a significant impact on the eventual development of the adjacent Manufacturers Trust Company, because its planning affected the zoning of the entire Fifth Avenue blockfront. In 1922, Gerry Estates, Inc. entered into an agreement with Walter J. Salmon, one of the most successful real estate developers in the midtown business district, to redevelop the site at 500 Fifth Avenue. With other projects in the works, including the adjacent Salmon Tower at 11-27 West 42nd Street, Salmon delayed beginning work on the corner site until the summer of 1929. At that time he announced plans for a fifty-eight-story building with frontages of 100 feet on Fifth Avenue and 208 feet on 42nd Street to be built to the design of Shreve, Lamb & Harmon. The zoning code permitted a taller building on 42nd Street than on Fifth Avenue, so Salmon acquired a long-term lease on the adjacent four-story converted dwelling at 508 Fifth Avenue in 1927; by merging the zoning lots of this twenty-five by 102-foot building and that of 500 Fifth Avenue he was able to build a higher tower than would have otherwise been possible. No. 508 Fifth continued to be subleased to various concerns, including the Gotham Silk Hosiery Company and Huyler's confectionery store. The adjacent eight- story Ziegler Building, at 510-514 Fifth Avenue, constructed c. 1900, housed the tobacconist Alfred Dunhill of London, as well as numerous lawyers, accountants, and insurance brokers in the 1920s and 1930s. Both properties were owned by the Mutual Insurance Company in 1941 when Manufacturers Trust Company — then occupying a branch at 513 Fifth Avenue — began negotiations to lease them as a site for a new bank building. Wartime restrictions on building supplies kept the project from going forward immediately, but in October 1944 the two institutions entered into a lease in which Mutual Life agreed to construct a new bank building to the specifications of Manufacturers Trust. A corollary agreement with Walter Salmon permitted Manufacturers Trust Company to sublease (and ultimately redevelop) 508 Fifth Avenue, provided that during the time Salmon's lease remained in effect (1944-65) any building erected on the portion of the lot at No. 508 would not exceed the height of the then-existing building (sixty-three feet) or otherwise interfere with 500 Fifth Avenue. Thus, the height of the new bank building was effectively limited to four or five stories.

Manufacturers Trust Company and Its Fifth Avenue Branch

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

The Mechanics Bank of Brooklyn, the parent organization of the Manufacturers Trust Company, was organized in 1853 to serve the business

community in Brooklyn's Fourteenth Ward. In 1865, it reorganized as a national bank under the name Manufacturers' National Bank of New York with offices in the Wall Street area. After financial reverses in 1867, the bank moved back to Brooklyn. In 1914 it merged with another Brooklyn institution, the Citizens Trust Company (established 1904), to create the Manufacturers-Citizens Trust Company, which changed its name to the Manufacturers Trust Company in 1915. From the beginning the bank emphasized neighborhood banking services, acquiring numerous branches by purchasing and merging with such institutions as the West Side Bank (1918), the Ridgewood National Bank (1921), the North Side Bank of Brooklyn, the Industrial Savings Bank (1922), the Columbia Bank (1923), the Yorkville Bank, the Gotham Bank, the Fifth National Bank, and the Commonwealth Bank of New York (1927). By 1944 Manufacturers Trust had sixty-seven branches in addition to its main office at 55 Broad Street and was committed to further expansion. Many new services were introduced during the late 1930s and early 1940s, including personal loans, property improvement loans, special checking accounts, construction loans, and industrial credit for manufacturers. The bank's Annual Report for 1944 noted that "the rapid growth of many of our offices, furthered by the various new services we are extending to our customers and by the special services incident to the war effort, will soon call for additional expansion of quarters." The situation was particularly acute in the firm's midtown branch at 513 Fifth Avenue, which was "second only to the Head Office in the amount and importance of its business." According to a document prepared by the bank in 1944, this small branch had begun to approach its limit almost ten years before when it was serving approximately 7,500 customers and since then had added 10,000 new accounts."

In December 1944, the architectural firm of Walker & Gillette filed plans with the Department of Buildings for a four-story building "in what has been called the Federal Classic style of architecture." Construction was delayed due to government restrictions on building materials and rent control provisions which prevented Mutual Life from dispossessing the commercial tenants from the existing buildings on the site. In 1948, the bank announced it had cancelled its plans for the new Fifth Avenue branch, but after considerable negotiation the project was revived in July 1950. Walker & Poor, the successor firm to Walker & Gillette, was retained to revise the plans and in

January 1951 the insurance company delivered the Ziegler Building free of tenants to Manufacturers Trust. The day after the last of the office tenants vacated the building, new federal restrictions were imposed on the use of steel and other critical materials in response to the Korean War effort. Faced with the prospect of paying rent on an empty eight-story building, Manufacturers Trust leased the Ziegler Building to several government agencies. Finally, in July 1952, after eight years of delay, the government released the steel needed for the new building. New plans were filed with the Department of Buildings in April 1953. However, the new designs were not by Walker & Poor, which had been dismissed by the bank in 1951 after a dispute over an unusually high bill for professional services, but by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, a firm that had just established a place for itself at the forefront of modernist design with its revolutionary Lever House building.

The International Style and the Manufacturers Trust Company Building

The modernism exemplified by the Manufacturers Trust Building is that of the second wave of the International Style which flourished in this country in the post-World War II period. This style was given its name in 1932 when architect Philip Johnson and historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock organized a momentous exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in which they presented a body of avant-garde modernist architecture that they argued represented a new "International Style" within the modernist movement.

A worldwide depression in the 1930s, the rise of authoritarian governments in Germany, Russia, and Italy which favored conservative architecture, and later the disruptions caused by World War II, severely restricted the number of new buildings produced by avant-garde architects in Europe; however, the widespread publication of existing works and the emigration of such key figures as Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, both of whom found academic positions at architecture schools in the United States, inspired a new generation of architects and presaged the broad acceptance of the International Style in the post- World War II period.

Gordon Bunshaft was among this younger generation of architects in America, which also included Eero Saarinen, Wallace K. Harrison, I.M. Pei, and Philip Johnson, who were particularly influenced by European modernism. Mies, himself, had a successful career in the United States, producing a number of buildings in Chicago which were to have a major impact on American architecture. At the Armour Institute (later the Illinois Institute of Technology, master plan 1939- 41, buildings 1942-56) and Lake Shore Drive Apartments (1948-51), Mies sought to reduce his buildings to skeletons of polished metal with glass "skins" which achieve their beauty through a clear articulation of structure and proportional relationships, and refined detailing. Mies's American buildings were especially influential for Gordon Bunshaft in his design for the Manufacturers Trust Building. Among the particularly Miesian elements of Bunshaft's design was the use of thin vertical mullions, projected ten inches from the curtain walls, to create shadows "that provide texture and depth to the glass wall" and emphasize the skeletal construction of the building. Because Manufacturers Trust was partially shielded from direct light by taller, surrounding buildings, Bunshaft used clear rather than tinted glass; this, coupled with the controlled lighting of the interior allowed him to achieve an ideal envisioned by Mies in the early 1920s, the transparent building. (In contrast, the glass at Lever House is tinted blue- green and the mullions are raised only one-and-one quarter inch from the glass, so that the wall reads as a taut, impenetrable skin.) Thus, the Architectural Forum considered Manufacturers Trust, "the first big building truly to fulfill architects' immaculate drafting board idea of glass as an invisible material" and concluded that "at last the deeply sculptural feeling of a steel frame under construction has been retained in the completed building." In addition, the Forum believed the lack of color in the glass and the monochrome palate of the Manufacturers facade created a greater sense of "severity and dignity than [at] Lever."

Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore. Owings & Merrill The firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was established in 1936 in Chicago by Louis Skidmore (1897-1962) and Nathaniel Owings (1903-84). By 1950, in addition to the original headquarters, the firm had established offices in New York City, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon. Although the offices were managed individually, professional expertise was shared among them, and they followed a common approach to building design and project management. Organized along the model of a large business enterprise with numerous employees trained in a variety of disciplines, the firm was able to offer a complete package of architectural, interior and environmental design, engineering, planning, and project management. Among its major innovations within the field of architecture was the use of a team approach, in which a core group consisting of an administrative partner, a design partner, a project manager, senior designers, and technical personnel remained constant on a project in order to ensure consistency and integrity of design. From its inception, the firm made the ideological commitment to design only in the modern mode and "embraced the belief that architecture could improve the quality of human life."

The New York office of the firm opened in 1937, when Skidmore and Owings were offered a commission for alterations to the New York offices of the American Radiator Company, on the condition that a partner remain in New York to supervise the work. By 1939, the partners decided to keep two non-centralized offices, with Skidmore at the head of the New York branch and Owings in charge of the Chicago office. Specialists were hired in varied disciplines in order to take on larger commissions. One of these specialists was John O. Merrill, an architectural engineer who joined the firm as a limited partner in 1939. Two years earlier, Gordon Bunshaft had been hired as a designer. His imprint was eventually to shape the design image of SOM.

Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1909 to Russian immigrant parents, Gordon Bunshaft was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in architecture and came under the influence of a young professor, Lawrence B. Anderson, who fostered an appreciation of modernist design. Bunshaft worked briefly for Edward Durrell Stone and Raymond Loewy before beginning his forty-two year career at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. In his early years with the firm he designed buildings for the New York World's Fair of 1939-40 and Hostess House, a hospitality center for cadets at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois (1941-42). After serving in the Corps of Engineers during World War II, Bunshaft rejoined SOM in 1947. Later that year he transferred to the firm's New York office; he became a full partner in 1949. It was as chief designer for Lever House (1950-52) that Bunshaft first earned renown. In the words of architectural critic, Paul Goldberger, this twenty- four story office tower was "New York's first major commercial structure with a glass curtain-wall (only the United Nations Secretariat preceded it), and it burst onto the stuffy, solid masonry wall of Park Avenue like a vision of a new world."

Following Lever House, Bunshaft was involved in the design of a number of outstanding buildings, including the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company headquarters (1957) in Bloomfield, Connecticut; the Pepsi-Cola Building (1958-60) on Park Avenue; the United States Air Force Academy (1959) in Colorado Springs; the Chase Manhattan Bank Headquarters and Plaza (1960-61) and 140 Broadway (1964-67) in lower Manhattan; the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (1963) at Yale University; the W.R. Grace Building (1973) on West 42nd Street; the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library (1971) at the University of Texas, Austin; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1974) in Washington, D.C.; and the National Commercial Bank (1983) in Jedda, Saudi Arabia.

Gordon Bunshaft was awarded the Brunner Prize of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1955, and its gold medal in 1984. He also received the Medal of Honor from the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. He was awarded the Pritzker Prize, often called the architectural equivalent of the Nobel Prize, in 1988, two years before his death.

The Design of the Manufacturers Trust Building

In an interview with architectural historian Carol Krinsky, Gordon Bunshaft indicated that Manufacturers Trust Company first consulted SOM about plans for a new Fifth Avenue branch in 1953 on the recommendation of Lou Crandall, a member of the Board of Directors at Manufacturers Trust, who headed the Fuller Construction Company which had built Lever House. It should be noted, however, that Manufacturers Trust had already established a relationship with Louis Skidmore (head of the New York branch of SOM) who had been serving on the advisory board of the bank's 57th Street branch since 1950. Skidmore's longstanding friendship with Horace C. ("Hap") Flanigan, who had been elected president and chief executive officer of Manufacturers Trust Company in September 1951, may well have been a factor in securing the commission for SOM. Initially, the bank requested that SOM review Walker & Poor's plans to see if the design could be improved while retaining the structural drawings. According to Krinsky, only an hour after their initial meeting, "Bunshaft called to convince Crandall that it would be unwise to try to save a small amount of money on engineering fees when a better building might result from a fresh start."

In creating a new design for the bank, SOM had to take into account certain programmatic restrictions that were written into the 1953 agreement between the Mutual Life Insurance Company and Manufacturers Trust, amending the lease of 1944. This agreement required Manufacturers to erect a new building that would have "no less than 25,000 and no more than 70,000 square feet of floor space at or above street level," would "occupy the entire legally permissible street frontage on Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street" at street level, and would "be planned as to make available for banking purposes the major portion of the street floor." In contrast to the original agreement of 1944, the entire cost of the building was to be borne by Manufacturers Trust, though Mutual Life agreed to loan the bank $1,000,000 toward demolition and construction. The covenants regarding 508 Fifth Avenue remained in effect, limiting the height of the building on at least one quarter of the site. In addition, Horace Flanigan expressed several major requirements for the design. First, the design had to be adaptable for some other type of business, since as a banker during the Depression he had come to realize how difficult it was to sell or lease a traditional bank building when a branch closed. Second, the building had to be capable of serving a high volume of retail and commercial customers, and have offices and a conference room where the bank president and officers could meet with clients who found it inconvenient to travel downtown. Most of all, the building had to present a modern image and "an inviting look" in keeping with the bank's emphasis on customer service, as epitomized in its advertising slogans "Everybody's Bank Just Around the Corner" and "Come and See Us, You'll Be Very Welcome."

"Sensing the opportunity for a masterpiece," Louis Skidmore followed a procedure he had initiated for the firm's World's Fair projects, sponsoring an informal, weekend competition among the young designers in the firm to produce conceptual sketches. According to Nathaniel Owings, "they were encouraged to come up with whatever popped into their heads, and the history and tradition of banking be damned." Designer Charles Evans Hughes III placed first with a sketch that contained several elements which were eventually incorporated into the executed bank building. Hughes envisioned a glass-walled building of four stories, with two principal floors given over to customer services and a penthouse story surrounded by a roof garden for the executive offices. A principal feature of the design was a massive bank vault that could be viewed easily from the street through the bank's clear glass walls. Hughes's design underwent many modifications as the firm's experts in design, materials, and construction developed the project, but his basic concept remained. Responsibility for this prestigious project was given to the firm's senior designer Gordon Bunshaft and to William S. Brown, an expert on modern pre-fabricated materials, who served as project coordinator.

The resulting building is a transparent, luminous clear glass box which architectural critic Louis Mumford likened to a lantern. Occupying the entirety of its 100 by 125-foot site, it has curtain walls of clear glass on both Fifth Avenue and West 43rd Street. Thin, polished aluminum mullions and horizontal rails hold the glass in place (the panes on the second story, measuring 9 feet-8 inches x 22 feet and weighing 1,500 pounds, were the largest ever installed in a building at the time). Dark gray spandrel panels of polished opaque wire-glass conceal the floor slabs. Treated as an uninterrupted expanse of clear glass, the Fifth Avenue facade originally was designed with no entrance or signage, but rather the building's use was to be indicated solely by the gleaming polished steel vault visible through the plate glass window. The entrance to the banking space is on West 43rd Street; it originally was marked only by a discrete aluminum sign with white lettering. A second entrance at the west end of the 43rd Street facade provides access to the elevator corridor at the rear of the building.

Supporting the building are eight interior columns set eleven feet from the Fifth Avenue building line and twenty feet from the West 43rd Street building line. Concrete floor slabs are cantilevered over the relatively short spans from the columns to the clear glass walls. At the second story, the cantilevered floor is pulled back from the exterior wall, so that the main banking areas appear to be contained within one forty-foot-high space. The concrete slabs were deliberately kept thin both to meet the building height limitation and to create an impression of extreme lightness. This aesthetic of lightness is enhanced by the thinness of the external metal skeleton which the construction superintendent for the project described "as more like jewelry than building." At the same time, the illumination produced by thousands of cathode tubes concealed behind thin plastic panels dematerializes the surface of the ceiling, contributing to the sense that the slabs are weightless and floating. This high level of illumination was intended to counteract the natural reflectivity of the clear glass walls. As the

Architectural Forum noted it is "an old merchandizing trick" to put more illumination inside a store window than outside the clear glass to ensure that the contents can be seen,

But doing this to a five-story building is new and surprising, a true landmark in the delineation of space. It makes a glass wall into something it has not been before, an invisible control instead of a mysterious barrier.

The International Style as a Corporate Symbol

In addition to its aesthetic appeal, the design of the Manufacturers Trust Company Building also created just the "inviting" impression Horace Flanigan had requested from the architects. The striking difference between this modern clear glass- walled bank and "the ponderous stone piles which banks have traditionally inhabited" was viewed by Manufacturers Trust as being symbolic of the institution's commitment to modern banking service. This was acknowledged by Flanigan in a news release published by Manufacturers in conjunction with the bank's opening in September 1954: These walls give the bank a wide-open, inviting look and turn it, day and night, into a giant showcase. . . . The building will be its own best salesman, a merchandising concept new in banking and one that we believe pioneers the way to better customer service.

Gordon Bunshaft conceived of his building in terms of a department store:

This is a store type of operation, . . . open, departmentalized, efficient. Downstairs on street level we put the special checking division where the main volume of business is handled — the 10 cents-a-check department where you go in, cash a check, and get out fast. On paydays the traffic is terrific.

The emphasis on new services and customer relations had been central to Manufacturers Trust's growth from the late 1930s. In this the bank was one of leaders of a general trend in the banking industry known as "the rise of department store banking," a term coined by R.W. Goldschmidt, a student of American banking, in 1933 to describe the trend for commercial banks to take on the traditional roles of savings, trust, and investment banks in order to offer their customers an ever expanding variety of services. The increasing role of federal and state regulatory agencies in fixing rates of interest and terms of loans had also played a part in Manufacturers' expansion of service, since it was through customer service that banks could most effectively compete with one another. It had long been realized that attractive architecture was good advertising for a bank and a lure to customers. In fact, even before World War II certain experts on bank architecture had urged the adoption of features found in the Manufacturers Trust Company Fifth Avenue branch: bright lights, a friendly atmosphere, and "large windows to permit the public to see into the bank." But with a few exceptions (most notably the PSFS Building in Philadelphia), the prewar designs that incorporated these features remained architecturally traditional. It was the post-war generation of architects, led by SOM, who were to provide an idiom that would convey the modem image desired by the banking industry. As Carol Krinsky writes:

Some clients chose the ostensible fiinctionalism of modernism because it was practical; others chose it out of a heightened aesthetic sensitivity or the desire to appear progressive. 'We never had to sell modernism to anybody,' said Bunshaft. 'You have to understand the time. It was a unique and marvelous thing, the situation after the war. Lots of young architects, disciples of Mies and Corbusier, had just finished their training and were anxious to do something new. At the same time, the heads of these big corporations needed new facilities and they all wanted something new-looking. I'm sure these corporate presidents all lived in colonial houses in Connecticut, but for their offices they wouldn't consider anything but modern. They all wanted buildings they could be proud of.

Manufacturers Trust's new Fifth Avenue branch building was an immediate success. The modern style, then so novel for banks, the transparent walls so at odds with traditional bank imagery, and such remarkable features as the 1.000 ton Mosier safe "ten feet from the sidewalk" and "the largest plates of glass ever made in this country" evoked vast press coverage and public response. The New York Times, New Yorker, Life, Saturday Evening Post, and Fortune were among the publications that covered the opening of the building, which attracted 15,000 visitors. Buildings, Lighting, Office Management, and Management Methods also covered novel aspects of the building design for their specialized audiences and the Architectural

Forum, Architectural Record, and Progressive Architecture were united in their praise for the design. For the bank, the greatest praise came from the depositors — nine months after the new branch opened the Times reported that the branch's savings accounts had tripled and special checking accounts and commercial accounts had doubled since moving across the street from its old location. Harold Miner, the vice-president in charge of the branch, credited "it all to the sparkling, nearly all-glass building that has caught the eyes of bankers, business men, and architects the world over."

With such strong evidence "that modern banking premises are a strong attraction for new accounts," Manufacturers Trust stepped up its program of modernizing and redecorating its branch offices in the modern style. Within a few years, many New York City banks opened similar glass-walled banks employing International Style design. By the 1960s such banks were found throughout the country.

Description

Five stories high, including a setback penthouse for executive offices and mechanical equipment, the Manufacturers Trust Company Building has frontages of 100 feet on Fifth Avenue and 125 feet on West 43rd Street. Curtain walls of clear glass are employed for both the Fifth Avenue and West 43rd Street facades. The arrangement of the two facades is asymmetrical; at the south end of the Fifth Avenue facade a narrow strip of polished Canadian black granite sheathes the building's side wall, and at the western end of the West 43rd Street facade, the blank wall of the corner fire stair is also sheathed in black granite (inscribed with the names of the architects, "Skidmore Owings & Merrill," and of the builders, "George A. Fuller Company"). Black granite is also employed for the plinth that runs along the base of the building. Above this plinth is a polished aluminum sill that supports the slender polished aluminum mullions and horizontal rails that hold the panes of clear glass in place.

Dark gray spandrel panels of polished opaque wire- glass conceal the floor slabs and provide horizontal accents to counter the strong vertical rhythm established by the mullions (these panels survive intact on the West 43rd Street facade; many have been replaced on Fifth Avenue with dark, non- reflective panels). The clear glass window panes are extremely large for the period, those at the double- height second story measuring 9 feet-8 inches x 22 feet.

At the fifth story, the T-shaped penthouse is divided into office and mechanical sections. Located in the eastern portion of the penthouse, the office suite is faced with clear glass curtain walls and has an overhanging roof which is trimmed with a wide cast-stone and aluminum coping that provides a strong horizontal accent to crown the building. The mechanical section at the west end of the penthouse is faced in gray brick and abuts the eastern side wall of the adjacent building. This penthouse is partially screened from view by an aluminum and translucent glass parapet which is set back from the edge of the fourth-story roofline. As with its design for Lever House, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill provided a special window cleaning gondola that was lowered from the fourth-story roof. Small movable brackets are used to suspend the gondola. A pair of flagpoles projects from the roof at the south end of the Fifth Avenue facade.

At the ground story, the Fifth Avenue facade has no entrance, although the building's use is indicated by the gleaming polished steel vault visible through the clear plate glass windows. On West 43rd Street, at the east end of the facade, the entrance to the banking space occupies the second, third, and fourth bays. The second and fourth bays each contain three glass doors with vertical stainless steel door pulls, while the third bay is filled by a polished granite panel which is fitted with a circular steel night deposit door. An aluminum Chase Bank sign with a white logo spans the three entrance bays. A second entrance at the west end of the 43rd Street facade, providing access to the elevator corridor, also has three glass doors and a non-historic metal band with the numerals "510" applied to a non-historic black panel.

Subsequent History

The Manufacturers Trust Company Building was awarded the Architectural League's Gold Medal for Architecture and the Municipal Art Society's Plaque of Commendation in 1955, and the Fifth Avenue Association's Award for Excellence in 1956.

Today, the building's exterior remains intact except for the changes in signage, alterations to the West 43rd Street entrances, the replacement in kind of several clear glass panels, and the replacement of many of the dark gray glass spandrel panels on the Fifth Avenue facade with dark, non-reflective panels. In the years since the building opened, Manufacturers Trust continued to grow, merging with Hanover Bank in 1961 to create the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company. According to a representative of that bank, the Fifth Avenue branch office remained "from a business perspective . . . one of the most important in the branch system. With balances of more than $160MM, it serves the hub of the midtown market, and — for decades — has been a lynch-pin in our Manhattan system."

In February 1992, Manufacturers Hanover acquired full ownership of the land beneath the building from Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York. Manufacturers Hanover Trust later merged with Chemical Bank, which subsequently merged with Chase Manhattan Bank, which was renamed Chase Bank in 1996. The building remains in banking use, with the addition of retail use on West 43rd Street.

- From the 1997 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Hounslow Chamber of Conference meeting inside the hotel.

Brentford

Justine Greening, UK Development Secretary, (centre) addresses the focus event on education at the Supporting Syria and the Region conference.

BACKGROUND

The Supporting Syria and the Region conference took place in London on 4 February 2016.

It brought together world leaders in a bid to raise the money needed to help the millions of people whose lives have been torn apart by the devastating civil war in Syria.

Syria is the world's biggest humanitarian crisis. Billions of dollars in international aid are needed to support people caught up in the conflict.

The UK, Germany, Kuwait, Norway, and the United Nations co-hosted the conference to raise significant new funding to meet the immediate and longer-term needs of those affected.

The conference also set ambitious goals on education and economic opportunities to transform the lives of refugees caught up in the Syrian crisis - and to support the countries hosting them.

This event alone cannot solve all these problems. Ultimately a political solution is necessary to bring the Syrian conflict to an end.

Find out more: www.supportingsyria2016.com

FREE-TO-USE PHOTO

This image is in the public domain and free-to-use, as long as you credit the source as: Rob Thom/Crown Copyright

December 23, 2013- Hajvery University (HU) hosted a lecture on The Role of Youth in Nation's Development by Honorable Mr. Asad Umar, Member National Assembly, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. HU as part of its Great Minds Visit HU! Series invites accomplished individuals from all walks of life to share their success stories with the students and inspire them to follow their dreams at a time when the youth of Pakistan have too many reasons to be demoralised and not enough to become agents of change.

Mr. Asad Umar, MNA and Senior Member of PTI, gave an energized talk to the HU Students on the positive mindset required by today's youth to overcome the numerous challenges that Pakistan faces. He encouraged students to focus on the Entrepreneurial Mindset and use the skills learned at the University to start their own businesses. He further added that the Students must become agents of change in their individual capacities if they want to see Pakistan as a prosperous nation in the future. He stressed that Education is the driving force of a Knowledge based Economy and the students sitting here today in the HU Auditorium are as bright and intelligent as any other student in the world.

“I’ve had the good fortune of travelling the world and being associated with some of the best Organisations & Universities world over and I can reassure you that the students sitting here today in the Hajvery University’s Auditorium are as bright and intelligent as any other student in the world!

Mr. Asad Umar also took oath from 30 male and female students who formed the new Executive Counsel of the HU Student Societies, an initiative by the University to give students a platform to hone their unique talents various fields. The 5 Student Societies are mentioned below. Each consists of a President and 5 Vice Presidents.

1) HU Debating Society (HUDS)

2) HU Performing Arts & Dramatics Society (HU PADS)

3) HU Photography Society (HUPS)

4) HU Career Development Society (HU CDS)

5) HU Newsletter & Year Book Society ( HU NLYBS)

More Students Societies Executive Councils will be finalised in the upcoming weeks.

Mr. Asad Umar also officially Launched 2 Portals, HU Student Life Portal and HU Campus Beat Blog both of which are aimed at showcasing and sharing the Student led activities of Hajvery University to the rest of the world. Dr. Muhammad Khalid Pervaiz, Rector HU, expressed that students are keen to play an active role in Nation’s Development and such events allow them to take inspirations.

Mr. Fahd Sheikh, Director, HU while speaking on the occasion expressed that encouraging these students to play a positive role in nation building is pivotal to the success of the country. The University is taking initiatives such as Great Minds Visit HU! Series to continually invite such people who can have a positive impact of these students mindsets. He also expressed gratitude on behalf of the University to Mr. Asad Umar and his team members who very kindly graced the occasion and had an engaging session with the students. The event concluded with refreshments.

Official group photographs of the attendees at the GAVI Global Alliance Saving Children's Lives pledging conference in London, 13 June 2011

Left-right: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President of Liberia; Seth Berkley, incoming CEO, GAVI Alliance; Bill Gates, philanthropist; David Cameron, Prime Minister of Great Britain; Andrew Mitchell, Secretary of State for International Development; Dagfinn Høybråten, Chair of the GAVI Alliance board

Picture: Ben Fisher/GAVI Alliance

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➡️ Of Man and Environment

April 12, 2014 - WASHINGTON DC. 2014 IMF / World Bank Group Spring Meetings. Development Committee Meeting. Development Committee Chair Marek Belka; World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim; IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde. Photo: Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank

Developmental psychology is the logical learn of modify that occur in person being over the route of their life.

Susan Teltscher, Head, ICT Data and Statistics Division, ITU speaking at the WTIS 2014, International Coordination of ICT Measurement, 10th Anniversary of the Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development, Tbilisi, Georgia.

©ITU/ R.Farrell

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The mills are an important feature of Maynard's development. The earliest saw and grist mills were built in the early 18th century. Two of the earliest mills were the Puffer Mill and the Asa Smith's Mill, which were located on Taylor Brook and Mill Street, respectively. These were the first mills to use the Assabet River for power; therefore, they were very slow and sluggish. The grist and saw mill were then followed by paper mills, which were built starting in 1820.

The Mill is easily Maynard's most prominent feature. The complex takes up 11 acres in the middleof what we call downtown. The Mill complex began in 1847 as set of wooden buildings used to manufacture carpets and carpet yarn. Amory Maynard helped construct this mill. His partner, William H. Knight, helped him build a dam across the Assabet and dug a canal channeling a portion of the river into what is called Mill Pond. The Mill changed hands a few times but it would eventually become the largest woolen factory in the world till the 1930s.

The 1950's ushered in a change from textiles to businesses like computer manufacturing. With the start of the final decade of the century the Mill is on the cusp of being transformed again.

It is said that "as the Mill goes, so goes Maynard". While the town isn't as dependent on the Mill as it was in 19th century it continues to play an important role in shaping the character of the town.

We hope you enjoy this historical perspective of the Mill. It has been pieced together from a variety of sources and continues to be enriched as we discover new materials to include, increase the number of hyperlinks and add pictures, diagrams, and sound..

The Mill from 1847 to 1977

The site of the mill was once part of the town of Sudbury, while the opposite bank of the Assabet River belonged to Stow. The present town, formed in 1871, was named for the man most responsible for its development, Amory Maynard.

Born in 1804, Maynard was running his own sawmill business at the age of sixteen. In the 1840's, he went into partnership with a carpet manufacturer for whom he'd done contracting. They dammed up the Assabet and diverted water into a millpond to provide power for a new mill, which opened in 1847, producing carpet yarn and carpets. Only one of the original mill buildings survives: it was moved across Main Street and now is an apartment house.

Amory Maynard's carpet firm failed in the business panic of 1857. But the Civil War allowed the Assabet Manufacturing Company, organized in 1862 with Maynard as the managing "agent", to prosper by producing woolens, flannels and blankets for the army. This work was carried on in new brick mill buildings.

Expansion of the mill over many years is evidenced by the variations in the architecture of the structures still standing.

The oldest portion of Building 3 dates from 1859, making it the oldest part of the mill in existence today, but several additions were made afterwards. Buildings constructed in the late 1800's frequently featured brick arches over the windows, and at times new additions were made to match neighboring structures.

The best-known feature is the clock donated in memory of Amory Maynard by his son Lorenzo in 1892. Its four faces, each nine feet in diameter, are mechanically controlled by a small timer inside the tower. Neither the timer nor the bell mechanism has ever been electrified; custodians still climb 120 steps to wind the clock every week- 90 turns for the timer and 330 turns for the striker.

Amory Maynard died in 1890, but his son and grandson still held high positions in the mill's management. The family's local popularity plummeted, however, when the Assabet Manufacturing Company failed late in 1898. Workers lost nearly half of their savings which they had deposited with the company, since there were no banks in town. Their disillusionment nearly resulted in changing the town's name from Maynard to Assabet.

Prosperity returned in 1899 when the American Woolen Company, an industrial giant, bought the Assabet Mills and began to expand them, adding most of the structures now standing. The biggest new unit was Building 5, 610 feet long which contained more looms than any other woolen mill in the world. Building 1, completed in 1918, is the newest; the mill pond had been drained to permit construction of its foundation. These buildings have little decoration, but their massiveness is emphasized by the buttress-like brick columns between their windows.

The turn of the century saw a changeover from gas to electric lights at the mill. Until the 1930's the mill generated not only its own power but also electricity for Maynard and several other towns. For years the mill used 40-cycle current. Into the late 1960's power produced by a water wheel was used for outdoor lighting, including the Christmas tree near Main Street. The complex system of shafts and belts once used to distribute power from a central source was rendered obsolete by more efficient small electric motors, just as inexpensive minicomputers have often replaced terminals tied to one large processor.

As the mill grew, so did the town. Even in 1871, the nearly 2,000 people who became Maynard's first citizens outnumbered the people left in either Sudbury or Stow. Maynard's first population almost doubled in the decade between 1895 and 1905, when reached nearly 7,000 people. Most of the workers lived in houses owned by the company, many of which have been refurbished and are used today. The trains that served th town and the mill, however, are long gone - the depot site is now occupied by a gas station.

Most of the original mill workers had been local Yankees and Irish immigrants. But by the early 1900's, the Assabet Mills were employing large numbers of newcomers from Finland, Poland, Russia and Italy. The latest arrivals were often escorted to their relatives or friends by obliging post office workers. The immigrants made Maynard a bustling, multi-ethnic community while Stow, Sudbury and Acton remained small, rural villages. Farmers and their families rode the trolley to Maynard to shop and to visit urban attractions then unknown in their own towns, including barrooms and movie houses.

Wages were low and the hours were long. Early payrolls show wages of four cents an hour for a sixty hour week. Ralph Sheridan of the Maynard Historical Society confirmed that in 1889 his eldest brother was making 5 1/2 cents an hour in the mill's rag shop at the age of fourteen, while their father was earning 16 1/2 cents per hour in the boiler room. (As of 1891 one-eighth of the workers were less than 16 years old, and one-quarter were women.)

Sheridan's own first job at the mill, in the summer of 1915, paid $6.35 for a work week limited to 48 hours by child labor laws. The indestructible "bullseye" safe still remains in the old Office Building.

Sheridan remembers the bell that was perched on top of Building 3:

"...the whistle on the engine room gave one blast at quarter of the hour, and then at about five minutes of the hour the gave one blast again. And everyone was supposed to be inside the gate when that second whistle blew. And then at one minute of the hour this bell rang just once, a quick ring- and we referred to it as "The Tick" because of that..... everybody was supposed to start work at that time, at that moment."

A worker was sent home if he'd forgotten to wear his employee's button, marked "A.W.Co.,Assabet".

The millhands really had to work, too. Sheridan recalls one winter evening when there was such a rush to get out an order of cloth for Henry Ford that the men were ordered to invoice it from the warehouse, now Building 21, instead of from the usual shipping room:

"There was no heat in the building, never had been. And it was so cold that I remember that I had to cut the forefinger and the thumb from the glove that I was wearing in order to handle the pencil to do the invoicing....the yard superintendant at the time brought in some kerosene lanterns and put 'em under our chairs to keep our feet warm."

Building 21, built out over the pond, remained unheated until DIGITAL took it over.

As in most Northern mill towns, labor relations were often troubled. In 1911 the company used Poles to break the strike of Finnish workers. When no longer able to play off one nationality against another, management for years took advantage of rivalries between different unions. The Great Depression hit the company hard, however. In 1934 it sold all the houses it owned, mostly to the employees who lived in them; and New Deal labor laws encouraged the workers to form a single industrial union, which joined the C.I.O.

World War II brought a final few years of good times to the woolens industry. The mill in Maynard operated around the clock with over two thousand employees producing such items as blankets and cloth for overcoats for the armed forces. But when peace returned, the long-term trends resumed their downward drift, and in 1950 the American Woolen Company shut down its Assabet Mills entirely. Like many New England mills, Maynard's had succumbed to a combination of Southern and foreign competition, relatively high costs and low productivity, and the growing use of synthetic fibers.

'Til then a one-industry town, Maynard was in trouble. In 1953, however, ten Worcester businessmen bought the mill and began leasing space to tenants, some of which were established firms, while others were just getting started. One of the new companies which found the low cost of Maynard Industries' space appealing was Digital Equipment Corporation, which started operations in 8,680 square feet in the mill in 1957.

A Mill Chronology

1846 Amory Maynard and William Knight form Assabet Mills.

1847 Maynard and Knight install a water wheel and build a new factory on the banks of the Assabet River.

1848 The Assabet Mills business is valued at $150,000.

The Lowell and Framingham Railroad carries passengers over branch road.

1855 The Mill now has three buildings on the site. Massachusetts is producing one-third of the textiles in the United States.

1857 Assabet Mills collapses after a business panic. The Mill complex is sold at an auction.

1862 The Mills are reorganized as Assabet Manufacturing Company. This involve replacing wooden buildings with brick, and the installation of new machinery. To fulfill contracts to the government during the Civil War production is switched from carpets to woolen cloth, blankets, and flannel.

The first tenement for employees are also constructed.

1869 Millhands peition President Ulysses S. Grant for a shorter work week ... 55 hours.

1871 The Town of Maynard incorporates. The population stands at 2,000

1888 A reservoir is installed for $70,000 to supply a growing population.

1890 The Assabet Manufacturing Company is valued at $1,500,000.

1892 Lorenzo Maynard donates clock in his father's name.

The Mill Complex contains seven buildings.

1898 Assabet Manufacturing Company declares bankruptcy. Many people in town lose much of their savings as banks have not yet been established.

1899 American Woolen Company purchases the Mill complex for $400,000. This company would eventually control 20% of the woolen textile market in the U.S. Wool was shipped all over the country to keep up with demand.

1901 160 additional tenements are constructed with their own sewage system. The streets are named after U.S. presidents.

The first electric trolley in Maynard begins service.

Building Number 5, the Mill complex's largest, is built in nine months. Electric power is introduced with the addition of dynamos on site.

1906 The Mill complex now has 13 buildings.

1910 The Mill complex grows to 25 buildings. Floor space is at 421,711 square feet. The property takes up 75 acres.

1918 With the addition of three new buildings the American Wollen Company and the Mill are in their heyday. The fortunes of the industry begin to decline over the next 30 years.

1947 After a brief spell of prosperity during World War II, the Mill phases out production as demand for woolen goods declines.

1950 Mill closes. 1,200 employees lose their jobs.

1953 Maynard Industries, Inc. purchases the Mill for $200,000. Space is rented to business and industrial tenants.

1957 Three engineers set up shop on the second floor of Building 12. With $70,000 and 8,600 square feet of rented space Digital Equipment Corporation is formed.

1960 Over thirty firms are located within the Mill complex.

1974 Digital Equipment Corporation purchases the entire Mill complex for $2.2 million. The Mill has over 1 million square feet in 19 buildings residing on 11 acres.

1992 The 100th anniversary of the Mill Clock is celebrated.

1993 Digital Equipment Corporation announces that it plans to leave the Mill complex. A search for a new tenant is started.

1995 Franklin Life Care purchases the Mill. Digital continues to rent space in Building 5.

1998 Mill purchased by Clock Tower Place.

Sources

* "Digital's Mill 1847-1977", a brochure published by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1977.

* "A Walk Through the Mill...", published by Digital Equipment Corporation for the Mill Clock Centennial.

In 1962, the US Navy issued a requirement for an eventual replacement for the A-4 Skyhawk. Of the proposals submitted by various companies, Vought’s design won the competition in February 1964. What became the A-7 Corsair II was based on the already successful F-8 Crusader fighter, a decision which figured heavily in the Navy’s selection of the aircraft. The A-7, however, was smaller and shorter, with a much less sleek fuselage but a larger wing. It was the first operational American aircraft to use a turbofan engine, a HUD, and an internal INS linked to the bombing radar, permitting very accurate bombing in all weathers. After a remarkably trouble-free development, the YA-7A first flew in September 1965 and entered service a year later, with a combat debut in December 1967 over Vietnam. Because the A-4 was more maneuverable, the A-7 only supplemented the Skyhawk in US Navy service until the early 1980s; likewise, it was not chosen by the US Marine Corps for the light attack role, as the Marines preferred upgraded A-4s and later the AV-8A/B Harrier series.

The USAF, however, would acquire the A-7 in large numbers, at first as an interim to bridge the gap between the F-105 Thunderchief and the F-111 Aardvark, and to replace the ancient A-1 Skyraiders then serving as COIN, close air support, and rescue support aircraft. The A-7D made a number of changes, including USAF-style boom/plug refueling port, the more reliable and powerful Allison TF41 engine, and deletion of the A-7A’s twin 20mm cannon for a single M61A1 Vulcan 20mm gatling cannon. The A-7D entered USAF service in September 1968, and its combat service over Vietnam impressed the US Navy enough that the follow-on A-7E Corsair II incorporated both the TF41 engine and the M61A1 gun armament. Aside from the two-seat TA-7C/A-7K conversion trainers and EA-7L electronic warfare trainers, the A-7E was the penultimate Corsair II variant. Vought proposed an advanced, supersonic long-range strike variant, the A-7F, but this only went to the prototype stage.

The A-7 served in every conflict the United States entered into from 1968 to 1991, including Vietnam, operations against Lebanon, Libya, and Iran in the 1980s, and the First Gulf War. The latter was the swansong for the type in US service, with only two US Navy A-7E squadrons seeing service. With the drawdown of the 1990s, the A-7D was rapidly retired from USAF and Air National Guard units in favor of the F-16 Falcon; the A-7E left US Navy service in favor of the F/A-18 Hornet. The aircraft was exported in the 1970s to Greece as the A-7H and Portugal as the A-7P, both of which saw service in the Third World War. Thailand received ex-US Navy A-7Es in the mid-1990s. Greece retired the last operational A-7s in the world in 2014.

(The following is a fictional history of a fictional naval air arm.)

With the adoption of the US Navy-style carrier battlegroup by the FIRN/FIRNAA in the late 1970s, the FIRNAA also adopted the Navy-style carrier air wing of F-14 Tomcats, A-6 Intruders, and A-7 Corsair IIs. The latter were deemed to be of low priority, with the FIRNAA acquiring and upgrading ex-US Navy A-4E Skyhawks, and there was some controversy over the need to buy the A-7 at all. The sale went through because of the A-7’s ability to carry more ordnance further, and the first order for 36 A-7Es and five two-seat TA-7Cs were placed in 1985. As the A-7 production line had closed by that time, these came from ex-US Navy stocks and were refurbished before delivery; the only addition to the aircraft was a Pave Penny laser designator, which allowed the A-7E to drop precision guided weaponry. TA-7Cs were also in short supply, so instead Vought converted five ex-USAF A-7Es to A-7K standard, though these aircraft had a bulged refuelling probe and were designated TA-7K. (The TA-7K retained its boom/plug system, making it a “hermaphrodite.”) The first FIRNAA A-7E entered service in August 1986 with NAS-17, and both it and NAS-18 were fully operational with the Corsair II before the end of the Third World War. The last batch entered service with NAS-19, with the last being delivered in July 1988. These aircraft would provide yeoman service during the First Gulf War.

Though the United States was rapidly retiring the A-7, the FIRNAA decided to keep the aircraft due to its range instead of acquiring more F/A-18 Hornets. Because of its lack of speed and the desire to keep the aircraft in service at least until 2005, the FIRNAA commissioned a study to upgrade its Corsair IIs. Vought had gone out of business by this time (1993), but the A-7F study was resurrected and the contract given to Predator Propulsion. Initially designated A-7P (for Predator Propulsion, but dropped due to confusion with the Portuguese A-7Ps) and then A-7S, this upgrade included completely updating the avionics, with a new HUD system, LANTIRN compatibility, the ability to carry the AGM-84 Harpoon and AGM-84E SLAM, and most importantly, the A-7F’s Pratt and Whitney F100 turbofan. Since the A-7S lacked the lengthened fuselage and modified tail of the A-7F, the engine was derated to 24,000 pounds, though the afterburner was retained. This increased the top speed and range of the A-7E, as the F100 was more fuel efficient. The first A-7S flew in July 1994 and entered service in December 1995; by 1996 the entire fleet had been upgraded.

Despite the expense of the upgrade, the A-7S’ career was to be brief. The decision to acquire the F/A-25 Rafale to replace it was made only two years after the A-7S entered service, and it began to be withdrawn from service in 1999. The outbreak of war in Afghanistan and Iraq only delayed withdrawal for a short time, though the A-7S would fly combat missions in what was the Corsair II’s final combat deployment. Both NAS-17 and NAS-18 would convert to the Rafale, while NAS-19 retained it’s A-7s until the squadron’s disbandment in 2004. The last FIRNAA Corsair IIs made a four-ship flypast of Viper Lake IFAAS in August 2004, marking 18 years of faithful service. Eleven A-7s were lost during the aircraft’s career, six in combat during the Third World War and the First Gulf War, and the remainder in accidents; these were replaced from US Navy stocks, making total procurement 52 aircraft.

(Back in the real world...)

Though I prefer 1/144 scale for my own personal models, there is not yet a 1/144 kit of the A-7; Tamiya, however, makes a 1/100 kit. After finding one in Indiana in 2010, I built it out of the box as a standard A-7E. I used a darker gunship gray over medium gray color scheme (which would probably be unworkable for carrier operations in real life). I used kit decals, but the tailcodes and crocodile tail motif were hand-painted. It is armed with 12 Mk 82 750-pound bombs and two AIM-9B Sidewinders, which were not as difficult to put on as I had originally thought.

Highbridge, The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States

Noonan Plaza Apartments, in the Highbridge section of the Bronx, is one of the most impressive Art Deco style apartment complexes in the borough. Built in 1931 for Irish-born developer Bernard J. Noonan, it was designed by the firm of Horace Ginsberg, with the exterior credited to Marvin Fine. The prolific Ginsberg and Fine helped to provide the Bronx with one of its architectural signatures, the urban modernist apartment building, including Park Plaza Apartments (1929-31) on Jerome Avenue. Noonan and Ginsberg had previously collaborated on a number of speculative 1920s apartment buildings in Highbridge, prior to Noonan Plaza.

Situated on a large sloping site, with frontages along Ogden and Nelson Avenues and West 168th Street, the complex is six-to-eight stories with a sophisticated site plan – it is divided into units with exterior perimeter light courts and an interior garden court, an arrangement that provided for apartment layouts with multiple exposures for maximum light and air. The building is clad in tan ironspot brick, with a vertical emphasis consisting of continuous piers contrasting with brown-and-black brick spandrel panels and black brick and geometric pattern accents on the top story. The main entrance, at the corner of Nelson Avenue and West 168th Street, has an angled portico leading into the garden court, flanked by towers (originally with ornamental lanterns) with corner windows.

Apartment Buildings in the Bronx in the 1920s-30s

Noonan Plaza Apartments (1931), in the Highbridge section of the Bronx, is one of the most impressive Art Deco style apartment complexes in a borough characterized by its number of significant urban modernist apartment buildings. The enormous growth of New York City’s population in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was accompanied, after World War I, by a housing shortage. As observed by Carla Breeze in New York Deco (1993),

Manhattanites turned to suburbs in Queens and the Bronx where reasonably priced apartments and houses were available, often in more pastoral surroundings. The garden apartment complex, built around a green commons, was appealing in comparison to the vertical congestion of Manhattan. ... The Bronx became a viable suburb as railroad and subway lines opened vast tracts of land to development. Open space was assiduously protected, and six major parks were within reach of the major new projects along the Grand Concourse.3

Many of these Bronx apartment buildings, for professionals and upwardly mobile middle-class families, were among the best in the city in terms of architecture, planning, size of living space, and amenities. Housing historian Richard Plunz identified the garden apartment as a short-lived phenomenon in New York City development, reaching its apogee in the 1920s. It was (and still is) among the most liveable housing in New York. It set a standard of urban housing that has remained unmatched since. Fundamental to the success of the garden apartment was the balance between building mass and open space so that a level of proximity was maintained which involved a strict definition of the public realm to be shared by neighbors.

Important to this neighboring was a sense of theater, which required use of architectural language bordering on the scenographic. The language of the “garden” of the garden apartment, together with its enclosing facades, was critical to the transformation of housing from a consequence of economic formulas to a unique environment. This entered a realm of fantasy, providing every building with an identity that called forth particular places or tenants. The garden was a critical symbol of arrival for the new middle class, while also facilitating the making of a kind of public theater in which the most joyous myths of urban existence could be acted out.

The conception and development of speculative garden apartments was influenced by two movements in New York City by the beginning of the 20th century: the “model tenement,” or improved housing, movement, and “Garden City” movement. Exemplars of these were the City and Suburban Homes Co. Estates, First Avenue (1898-1915) and Avenue A (1900-13), Manhattan, and Sunnyside Gardens (1924-28, Clarence Stein and Henry Wright), Queens. Architect Andrew J. Thomas, in the Jackson Heights neighborhood in Queens in the 1910s-20s, developed by the Queensboro Corp.,5 and elsewhere, was one of the masters of garden apartment design in a wide variety of styles. Plunz wrote that

Jackson Heights... [was] unusual for the notable concentration of a wide range of garden apartment types, but similar building was prominent throughout the city for moderate-income private housing development until the end of the 1930s. The “garden” spaces tended to become more elaborate as time went on. The Queens, Bronx, and Manhattan versions varied, however, with coverages reflecting their differing conditions of density.6

During the housing boom in the Bronx of the 1920s, the design of apartment houses evolved from simpler brick-clad buildings in historical revival styles of previous decades towards more luxurious and ornamented structures and complexes. Around 1929, influenced in part by Manhattan skyscraper, apartment, and commercial design, variations on “Art Deco,” “Moderne,” or “modernistic” styles came to dominate Bronx apartment buildings through the 1930s.

Park Plaza Apartments (1929-31, Horace Ginsberg and Marvin Fine), 1005 Jerome Avenue, is usually considered one of the first and most influential in the borough in the Art Deco style.7 Many of the apartment architects in this period were recent immigrants from Europe, and European modernist trends seen in social housing and other projects, were also incorporated in the borough’s buildings. An example is the United Workers’ Cooperative Colony second complex (1927-29, Herman Jessor with Stefan S. Sajo), 2846-2870 Bronx Park East, reflecting Northern European Expressionist influences.

Among the hallmarks of the 1930s modernist modes in apartment houses were decorative and polychrome brickwork (usually lighter in palette), vertical and horizontal patterning, abstracted decoration, streamlined elements, curved walls, recessed spandrels, corner windows, and “Machine Age” materials such as steel, chrome, and glass brick. As observed by Paul Goldberger of the New York Times,

Art deco was style built largely on the image of a new kind of elegance – sleek and streamlined. It was not so much truly modern as romantically evocative of the modern, using modernism as a decorative theme rather than as a justification for the absence of decoration. Thus the art deco buildings of the Bronx are full of striped metal ornament, abstract geometric patterns on the door and radiator grilles, and vertical stripings of brick.9

The west Bronx, like Miami Beach, became renowned for the large number and variety of apartment houses in the modernist styles of the 1930s; though there was not a distinct Bronx district of these buildings per se, many are located along the Grand Concourse and environs. Located near the Grand Concourse, Noonan Plaza, with its elaborate garden court and impressive Art Deco style, exemplifies the significant trends of this neighborhood and era.

Horace Ginsberg and Marvin Fine, Architects

Among the leading and most prolific architects of apartment house design in the Bronx were Horace Ginsberg and Marvin Fine. Ginsberg (originally Ginzberg) (c. 1897-1969),11 born near Minsk, Russia, of Jewish descent, immigrated to the U.S. as a boy. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School, attended the Cooper Union and Columbia University, and worked for the architectural firm of Jacob Gescheidt & Co. before establishing his own architectural firm by 1921. Ginsberg (he changed his name to Ginsbern c. 1933) was especially active in the design and layout of hundreds of apartments in the Bronx from 1924 to 1940.

The task of designing the facades of these buildings, however, was assigned to Marvin Fine after he joined Ginsberg in 1928. Born in Harlem and raised in Upper Manhattan, Fine (1904-1981) was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (1929), where he was influenced by the work of architect Paul Cret. Early in his career, Fine had worked as a draftsman for Cass Gilbert (1925-26) and George and Edward Blum (1927-28). After the Park Plaza Apartments (1929-31), Fine’s first major job with the Ginsberg firm, they produced designs for numerous modernist apartments on the Grand Concourse and elsewhere throughout the city. Fine is known to have been directly influenced by the contemporary work of architects Raymond Hood and William Van Alen, who were responsible respectively for the American Radiator and Daily News Buildings, and the Chrysler Building.12 Carla Breeze in New York Deco opined that the Ginsberg firm “developed a unique style featuring streamlined forms with modernistic detailing. His [sic] experiments in brick, while planer [sic] rather than three-dimensional, rival those of Ely Jacques Kahn.”13 Noonan Plaza is significant as one of the earliest Ginsberg and Fine collaborations, as one of their early works in the modernist/Art Deco vein, and as a large apartment project with a highly sophisticated planning scheme.

Ginsbern participated in the design of the Harlem River Houses (1936-37, in association with Archibald Manning Brown and other architects), Harlem River Drive and 151st - 153rd Streets, the first federally-funded, -built, and -owned housing project in New York City, constructed to house African-American residents of Harlem, and was architect of the Chock Full O’ Nuts restaurant chain. Horace Ginsbern & Assocs. was organized in 1944, with Fine; Ginsbern’s son, Frederick Morton Ginsbern (1919-1986), a graduate of New York University (1942); and Jules Kabat (1913-1991). Kabat, born in Brooklyn, graduated from New York University (1934), worked as a draftsman and designer for Ginsbern (1934-41), and practiced independently and for Kindland & Drake (1941-45). Horace Ginsbern & Assocs. lasted until 1986.

Bernard J. Noonan

Bernard J. Noonan (c. 1875-1943), the Bronx developer of Noonan Plaza Apartments (1931, Ginsberg and Fine), was born in Edgeworthstown, County Longford, Ireland. He emigrated in 1886, lived in Pennsylvania, and attended St. Bonaventure’s College in Allegany, N.Y., prior to moving to New York City, where he was first listed in a city directory, and naturalized, in 1899. From 1901 until 1918, he was a saloon proprietor, in Greenwich Village, then Hell’s Kitchen, and later, the Upper West Side. For a few years (c. 1919-21), Noonan was working as a dry goods merchant -- through relatives, he became owner of “Flood’s Department Store” on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village.

After venturing into real estate in Yonkers, he acquired several Manhattan apartment buildings, then decided to become involved in real estate full-time around 1921, both as developer and insurance broker. Noonan selected the Highbridge neighborhood in the Bronx as “the most desirable location”15 in New York City for constructing better apartment buildings, and by 1925 had moved his office to one of his buildings there.

The village of Highbridge (originally Highbridgeville) had developed on the high ridge of land along the Harlem River located to the east of High Bridge (1838-48, John B. Jervis, engineer), which was constructed as part of the Croton Aqueduct system that brought New York City its first adequate fresh water supply. The Bronx shore of the Harlem began to be subdivided in the 19th century for building lots along the main thoroughfare, Highbridge (now Ogden) Avenue.

The village was initially settled by the workers who built the Croton Aqueduct and High Bridge, as well as the railroad along the river. Almost entirely Irish originally, these workers were followed later by Jewish immigrants. Development of large apartment buildings was spurred by the Jerome Avenue elevated railroad in 1918 and the subway (with a stop at the Grand Concourse and 161st Street) in 1933. Remnants of the earlier days of Highbridge include the Union Reformed Church of Highbridge (1887-90, Alfred E. Barlow), 1272 Ogden Avenue, and Public School 91 (1889, George W. Debevoise), 1257 Ogden Avenue.16

Noonan’s apartment projects in Highbridge, at first centered in the southern portion of the neighborhood around West 162nd and 163rd Streets, appear to have mostly been collaborations with Horace Ginsberg as architect. Bernard Noonan served as president of the various real estate firms responsible for their construction, including the Manonga Realty Corp., R&B Building Corp.,

Woodycrest Building Corp., and Killsalough Realty Co., and in 1925 he also served as a director of the Broadway Central Bank. Noonan constructed Bernard Court (1921; demolished), 942-948 Woodycrest Avenue; Maryknoll Terrace (1924, Ginsberg), 957-965 Woodycrest Avenue; Wynne Terrace (1925-26, Ginsberg), 963-975 Anderson Avenue; Rose Terrace (1927, Ginsberg), 950 Woodycrest Avenue; Summit Lodge (1927, Ginsberg; demolished), 979-981 Summit Avenue; Noonan Towers and Annex (1924-28, Ginsberg), 939 Woodycrest Avenue and 930 Ogden Avenue, called by the New York Times in 1937 “one of the largest apartment properties in the Bronx;”17 and Noonan Manor (c. 1930), 1001 Woodycrest Avenue. In 1923, Noonan also purchased No. 1130 Woodycrest Avenue (demolished).

Noonan Plaza Apartments

After the mid-19th century, descendants of the James Anderson family began to sell parts of their Highbridge property, previously a farm and then an estate called “Woody Crest,” with a villa at today’s Anderson Avenue and West 164th Street. Following the death of Andrew Anderson, his executors in 1925 sold a large (312 by 288 feet) parcel on the sloping site at West 168th Street and Nelson and Ogden Avenues to real estate investor Stanley Murray for $42,500. This parcel was transferred in July 1930 to Walter J.M. Donovan, a wealthy real estate operator and stockbroker, for $100 subject to the $35,000 mortgage.

In October, the newly-chartered Nelden Corp. (Bernard J. Noonan, president; Morris E. Gallo, treasurer) acquired the property, also for $100 subject to the mortgage, of which $25,000 was due. In March 1931, a ten-year, $1 million dollar first mortgage was obtained for the construction of an apartment complex that came to be known as Noonan Plaza. The Times announced that the six-to-eight-story building, of the garden apartment type, would contain 283 apartments, including suites ranging from one-and-one-half to five rooms (the larger units having two baths), with the layout permitting “at least two exposures for each apartment,” 14 stores, and a “garden court 125 by 110 feet.” The Nelden Corp.’s prospectus, stating that “the style of architecture is modernistic,” boasted that

Noonan Plaza, as planned, represents the highest development in the art of the modern apartment house design and construction. The quality of workmanship used in the structure is unquestionably perfect, showing the finest type of craftsmanship possible. ... One may confidently choose NOONAN PLAZA as one’s permanent home, with the assurance that an attractive and perfectly planned apartment has been selected in a location destined to remain ever free from mediocrity.

A later advertisement claimed that Noonan Plaza and Noonan Towers were the “most modern apartment houses in the Bronx.” Noonan Plaza was touted as convenient to transportation, via bus, New York Central Railroad, subway, and elevated lines; nearby public and parochial schools; and “the Heights shopping and theatre section.”

With principal frontages along Ogden and Nelson Avenues and West 168th Street, Noonan Plaza is clad in tan ironspot brick with a vertical emphasis consisting of continuous piers contrasting with brown-and-black brick spandrel panels and black brick and geometric pattern accents on the top story. The complex, with a sophisticated site plan, is divided into eight units (each with an elevator) with exterior perimeter light courts and an interior garden court – this arrangement provided for apartment layouts with multiple exposures for maximum light and air.

The stores in the building were originally accessible from the interior of the complex. The main entrance, at the corner of Nelson Avenue and West 168th Street, features an angled “portico” (with cast-stone elements) with a gate lodge (“protect[ing] tenants from unwelcome passers-by”),23 and steps and a walkway leading to the interior terraced and landscaped Garden Court. Richard Plunz called the “courtyard entry at Noonan Plaza... one of the best-known examples of the [garden apartment] genre.”24 This entrance is flanked by twin towers with corner windows, intended as “an outstanding landmark of distinction,” which were originally ornamented with etched-glass lanterns (flanked by fins, according to original drawings).

The large Garden Court, onto which all of the interior apartments look and which has five building entrances, originally featured “mosaic” patterned cement walks, trees and shrubbery, statuary, a pond (with fish and swans) crossed by rustic wooden bridges, a lighthouse, and a waterfall in one corner. The complex contained a ballroom and community room, as well as a roof garden promenade (protected by a high balustrade) and playground with sand boxes, swings, and games. Noonan Plaza was assessed at $950,000 in 1931, at a reported investment of $2 million.

The New York Irish (1996), edited by Ronald H. Bayor and Timothy J. Meagher, stated that, despite Bernard Noonan’s heritage as an Irish immigrant and the fact that the Highbridge neighborhood was heavily Irish, Noonan Plaza was rented to upper-middle-class Jewish tenants until they began moving out in the 1950s.26

Later History

Noonan Plaza Apartments was continuously owned by the Nelden Corp. until 1962, when the complex was sold to Southern Assocs., Inc., an entity of what the New York Times called the “largest real estate empire in New York City,”28 that of partners Alex DiLorenzo, Jr., and Sol Goldman. The building’s mortgage (originally $1 million), held by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., was assigned to the Union Life Insurance Co. of Cincinnati, which consolidated it with a second mortgage of $580,000. At the time of DiLorenzo’s death in September 1975, the DiLorenzo-Goldman holdings encompassed over 400 apartment and office buildings just in Manhattan, including the Chrysler Building, as well as hotels, shopping centers, and industrial structures.

The partners were notorious for shielding their ownership through a variety of corporate names – Noonan Plaza was later owned by their Oxford Associates, Inc., Chatham Associates, Inc., and Avon Associates, Inc. The Times reported in May 1976 that Goldman had been “forced by financial reversals and the legal problems of Mr. DiLorenzo’s estate to relinquish more than 40 properties” and that his “setbacks have consequences not only for himself and his late partner’s heirs but also for the banks that hold mortgages on his properties, for tenants – 10,000 live in his apartment buildings and hundreds of thousands work in his office structures – and for the city government, which is owed taxes, and further affected by a drop in property values.”

At the same time as the reverses in the fortunes of the DiLorenzo-Goldman real estate empire, the west Bronx, including the area of the Grand Concourse, was suffering a severe decline that had begun after World War II. The rapid de-industrialization of the city, increasing suburbanization, heavy-handed urban renewal policies, disinvestment by area landlords, and the redlining of much of the Bronx by local banks all contributed to the economic downturn of the area. In the 1970s, many apartment buildings were abandoned by their owners and were set on fire, and the neighborhood suffered a catalogue of ills until it began to stabilize in the 1980s. The demographic composition of the Highbridge neighborhood also underwent substantial changes. The area’s residents, largely of European Jewish extraction, began to move to suburban areas, and the west Bronx became a diverse urban community as African-Americans and Latin Americans settled here.

After the DiLorenzo-Goldman interests defaulted on Noonan Plaza, in 1976 the property fell under the receivership of the Union Central Life Insurance Co., holder of the mortgage. The apartment building was featured in an exhibition that year organized by Donald G. Sullivan and Brian J. Danforth (with the Hunter College Graduate Program in Urban Planning) spotlighting the Art Deco style apartment houses of the Bronx, in which they called Noonan Plaza “nearly devastated” and “represent[ing] the worst that can happen to our fragile housing stock when it is left unprotected.”

This referred to charges of stocking the building with welfare families, followed by squatters, drug dealers, vandals, and hundreds of housing code violations. The New York Times observed that “vandalism has destroyed much of the art deco detailing that once made the building... one of the prides of the Bronx.”

A rescue of Noonan Plaza was attempted in 1976 by the Settlement Housing Fund, a nonprofit housing development corporation, with plans to rehabilitate the complex and convert it into a coop, with the participation of the Noonan Plaza Tenants Association and financing from the New York City Dept. of Housing Preservation and Development. Title to the property was taken by the Highbridge Development Corp., and in 1977 by the Highbridge Housing Development Fund Corp. By 1980, however, the situation reached its nadir, with only six families living there; the Settlement Housing Fund, too beleaguered by the project’s problems and costs, was forced to petition to sell the property, a decision followed by another round of vandalism.

In 1980, the property was acquired by Noonan Plaza Assocs., an entity of Glick Development Affiliates. A $9 million rehabilitation for federally subsidized apartments was completed in 1982 by Glick Construction Co., with the participation of Frederick Ginsbern, son of the original architect. This project received a 1982 Certificate of Merit Award from the Municipal Art Society of New York. Ownership passed in 2004 to Noonan Plaza Assocs., L.P., then in 2005 to Noonan Plaza LLC.

Description

With principal frontages along Ogden and Nelson Avenues and West 168th Street, Noonan Plaza is six to eight stories due to its sloping site, and has a sophisticated site plan, divided into units with exterior perimeter light courts (there are four sections and three light courts along Ogden Avenue; three sections and two light courts along West 168th Street; and two sections and one light court along Nelson Avenue) and an interior garden court. Storefronts are located at the corner of Ogden Avenue and West 168th Street.

The complex is clad in tan ironspot brick with a vertical emphasis consisting of continuous piers contrasting with brown-and-black-brick spandrel panels (above the third through seventh stories), brick patterning, and black brick and geometric pattern accents on the top story. The windows of the end bays of each section have polygonal-shaped heads (with brown-and-black-brick spandrels) on the second story, and historic ornamental wrought-iron railings on the third story. Some windows in the light courts on the second and uppermost stories have polygonal-shaped heads (with brown-and-black-brick spandrels). The original three-over-three double-hung metal sash were replaced by one-over-one double-hung anodized aluminum sash (1980-82). Fire escapes are placed in the light courts. Metal mesh grilles have been placed over the lower story windows. The walls are terminated by metal coping (1980-82). Ogden Avenue Facade: The base has stepped sections of brown-and-black-brick retaining walls (with concrete coping) with historic wrought-iron fencing with a geometric design.

The front of the northern light court has a low tan brick wall (with concrete coping), and non-historic wrought-iron fence and gates. The central light court has concrete steps, non-historic wrought-iron fence and gates, and concrete courtyard paving; a tunnel to the interior Garden Court has a geometric-design black-brick entrance surround. The southern section has an exterior fire escape. The southern light court and southern section of the building have five small shopfronts (all with non-historic entrances, windows, rolldown gates, and awnings); a section of historic black-brick cladding survives, with three windows (two with metal mesh grilles and one with a metal panel) and a geometric-design panel.

West 168th Street Facade: The two western sections and the western light court have continuous shopfronts (all with non-historic entrances, windows, rolldown gates, and awnings); significant portions of the historic black-brick cladding survives. There is a visible roof bulkhead above the western light court. The front of the eastern light court has a low tan brick wall with posts (all with concrete coping), and non-historic metal mesh fence and gates. A concrete ramp with metal railings leads to a basement entrance with non-historic metal doors; basement windows have been covered with metal. The eastern section has an exterior fire escape.

The openings of the base of the eastern section of the building have a non-historic metal door, four windows covered with metal, and the rest with metal mesh grilles. Nelson Avenue Facade: Many of the windows of the base have been covered with metal; the others have metal mesh grilles. The southern section has an exterior fire escape. The front of the light court has a low tan brick wall with posts (all with concrete coping), and non-historic wrought-iron and metal mesh fence and gates. Bluestone steps (with metal railings) lead to a sunken courtyard, paved with asphalt.

The upper portion of the wall of the unarticulated setback northernmost portion of the complex has been parged with concrete. North Facade: This facade, at the rear of the property, consists of four sections and three light courts (having fire escapes), as well as the northern side of a section along Nelson Avenue (which has a rubble stone base). The tan brick walls are unarticulated. There are concrete steps and a non-historic metal gate at Ogden Avenue; a concrete walkway along the building with a chainlink fence; and a concrete ramp with a metal railing leading to the basement, with a metal mesh gate and chainlink fence, at Nelson Avenue. Entrance Portico and Towers: The complex’s main entrance, at the corner of Nelson Avenue and West 168th Street, features an angled “portico” set on a concrete base with tan-brick piers and geometric-design parapets (with cast-stone elements) supported by steel plates above the openings; the red-brick edging of the parapets and piers dates from 1980-82.

There are non-historic wrought-iron security gates (1980-82). The portico has an historic geometric-patterned ceiling, a section of surviving historic concrete paving with a geometric pattern, and end walls with black-and-brown­brick geometric-patterned panels. Several signs and functional boxes have been placed on the walls. In the center of the interior side of the portico is a round gate lodge, clad in tan brick, with historic multi-pane metal windows, and (on the interior side) a curved metal door (1980-82).

The entrance portico is flanked by twin “towers” with corner windows (originally with multi-pane steel casements, now paired one-over-one double-hung anodized aluminum sash (1980-82)); the lintels of these windows have been re-built. The towers were originally terminated by etched-glass lanterns (flanked by fins, according to original drawings); the bases have been parged (1980-82). These are flanked by sections of historic ornamental wrought-iron railings. Garden Court: Beyond the entrance portico is an angled two-level forecourt, paved in concrete, with a polygonal balcony (with tan brick walls (with metal vents), concrete coping (now painted), and historic ornamental wrought-iron railings), two sets of concrete steps and a later (1980-82) concrete ramp (with metal railings) flanked by similar tan brick walls with historic railings, leading to another set of concrete steps, flanked by similar brick walls (now painted) with historic railings and lamp bases, and the central walkway, which is lined with chainlink fencing set on concrete edging and planting strips.

Originally, the landscaped Garden Court featured a large polygonal pond, crossed by rustic wooden bridges, with a lighthouse and a waterfall in one corner. Today, there is a central round planted area (edged with concrete and a chainlink fence) and a circular concrete walkway with benches, radial walks to the apartment entrances, and outer planting areas with chainlink fencing. In the northwest corner is the altered rubble stone remnant of the waterfall, with a stone archway with a metal mesh door.

Garden Court Facades: The five entrances are ornamented with geometric brown-and-black-brick surrounds with molded openings with polygonal heads, piers with brick patterning supporting historic ornamental wrought-iron balcony railings (that at the northwestern corner is missing), historic milk glass transoms with wrought-iron decoration, and historic metal-and-glass double doors. The original entrance sconces are missing; there are modern light fixtures and brick patching. The tunnel leading to Ogden Avenue has a simple geometric black-brick surround with historic wrought-iron brackets, and non-historic wrought-iron gates. The walls follow a scheme similar to those on the exterior of the complex, with continuous piers contrasting with brown-and-black-brick spandrel panels and panels between windows, brick patterning, and black brick and geometric pattern accents on the top story. There are bowed brown-and-black-brick panels below some second-story windows. Fire escapes are placed on three sides of the court.

- From the 2010 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

A107

(L:R) World Bank Director of Corporate Communications Richard Mills, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, President of the National Bank of Poland and Development Committee Chairman Marek Belka, and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde at the Development Committee press briefing during the 2013 World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings at IMF Headquarters, Washington, D.C., October 12, 2013IMF Photo

Photo by Christopher Ulrich

Photo: Susan Allen/ Stockton University

As easy and effortless as it sounds, custom software development complex and requires you as the developer to juggle through various tasks simultaneously. From choosing the technology to understanding the user to studying the market and even the existing systems, the developers have to face tough situations while managing the custom solution. Read More

The development of Porto Sokhna on 4 February 2011 after all work was stopped on the development during Jan25 Revolution. Probably the first time ever that this development could be seen in clarity as there was not a speck of dust flying in the air. The sound of silence as no trucks on the road, no equipment digging, no dynamite blasting, and basically all terrorizing of the earth came to a standstill. Three attached buildings in the shape of the 3 pyramids

The historic old Federal Office Building is at the corner of 14th and Dodge. With the renovations of the 1960's Federal Building completed, this was declared excess property and sold by the government at auction. The current owners are converting it into a downtown Residence Inn Hotel. Should be opening in a month.

Posted via web from b-rad's posterous

After the Millennium Development Goals, the 150+ members of United Nations crafted a new 15-year agenda that fight social injustice, poverty, and climate change called as the Sustainable Development Goals. There are 17 goals tackling economic progress, education upgrade, social fairness, and environmental protection.

I took this photo during the SDG Bayanihan Summit in FEU Institute of Technology, Manila #SBS2019.

Medium: Canon EOS 4000D

Date Taken: October 26, 2019.

Copyright 2019. All Rights Reserved.

Reference:

About the Sustainable Development Goals. (n.d.). Retrieved November 9, 2019, from United Nations Sustainable Development: www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development...

A-50 Prototype

/ Ground

/ Photo by KAI (2003)

한국항공우주산업

Director General of Revenue of Somalia Jafar Mohamed Ahmed, Director General of Somalia National Bureau of Statistics Sharmarke Farah, Senior Economist Vincent de Paul Koukpaizan, and Deputy Division Chief of the IMF Statistics Department Zaijin Zhan participate in a Capacity Development Talk titled Building Capacity in Fragile States moderated by Noha El-Gebaly at the International Monetary Fund.

IMF Photo/Cory Hancock

12 April 2022

Washington, DC, United States

Photo ref: CH220412066.arw

Container Home In Houston, Texas

Real Estate Development At Indirapuram

Social Networking has become the new way of communicating with people. Social Networking Integration with iPad Application will help you at the best to spread the words. www.indianic.com/ipad-social-networking-application-devel...

April 18, 2015 - Washington DC., 2015 World Bank Group / IMF Spring Meetings.

Photo: Yuri Gripas / World Bank

September 24, 2011- Washington DC., 2011 World Bank Annual Meetings. Realizing the Demographic Dividend: Challenges and Opportunities for Ministers of Finance and Development. Panelists:David Bloom , Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography, Harvard University, United States; Melinda Gates , Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United States; Maria Kiwanuka , Minister of Finance, Uganda; Andrew Mitchell , Secretary of State for International Development, United Kingdom; Thirachai Phuvanatnaranubala , Minister of Finance, Thailand (shown); Rajiv Shah , Administrator, US Agency for International Development, United States.

Photo: © Simone D. McCourite / World Bank

Photo ID: 092411-DemographicDividend_040F

Executive Strategic Dialogue on Broadband for Sustainable Development

©ITU/ I.Wood

E.K.Yap, the MPA & MPAS multi-award winning photographer, has created many iconic masterpieces and photographed covers & campaigns for influential publications & luxury brands. His projects include Patek Philippe, Breguet, Chopard, Bvlgari, Cartier, Chanel & Franck Muller to name a few.

With his wide-ranging experience in art as a creative director in the advertising & publishing industry, he consistently achieves the best results with his precision skill, specialising in luxury projects particularly jewellery, timepiece, product, interior, portrait & fashion.

PHILOSOPHY

“I'm passionate in capturing more than just a beautiful image, I like to craft an inspiring masterpiece with soul & meaning”

AWARD

Advertising/Advertorial/ Editorial - MPA Far East

Architecture/ Cityscape/ Interior - MPA Far East

Illustrative & Creative - MPA Far East

Fashion - MPA Far East

Still Life - MPA Far East

Best Cover - MPAS

PROJECT

A. Lange & Söhne/ Audemars Piguet/ Azimuth/ Aston Martin/ ABN Ambro/ Arium Collection/ Arcatel/ Anlene/ Aqua Culture/ Adidas/ Aries Gold/ Bvlgari/ Breguet/ Bottega Veneta/ Boucheron/ Blancpain/ Breitling/ Baker Furniture/ BBDO/ Borobudur/ Bonhams/ Berggren Jewellery/ Cartier/ Chanel/ Chopard/ CitiGold/ Carat Club/ CapitaLand/ CLIO/ CEL Development/ Coty/ Confetti by Mui/ Canon/ Dolce & Gabbana/ Distillery/ D Editors/ Dell/ Franck Muller/ Flower Diamonds/ Fujitsu/ Fuchsia Lane/ Farm Best/ Ferrari/ Girard-Perregaux/ Genting/ Green Chapter/ Gucci/ Geyer/ Harry Winston/ Hassell Studio/ Hilton Hotel/ Heeton/ Hublot/ Hassell Studio/ HDB/ Hermès/ I.D.Department/ IWC/ Image Bank/ ICI Duluxe/ Inoue Japan/ Jobstreet/ Jaeger-LeCoultre/ Johnny Walker/ JOID/ Kwanpen/ Krieit Associate/ KrisShop/ KFC/ K-Suites/ Louis Moinet/ Levi’s/ Lalique/ Luminox/ Lloyd’s Asia/ Ladurée/ Lush Radio/ Louis Vuitton/ Leonard Drake/ Livita/ Lifelink/ Manolo Blahnik/ Montblanc/ Mediacorp/ MCL Land/ Mirinda/ Marc Anthony/ Maxis Mobile/ Novetel Hotel/ NTU/ National Geographic/ Omega/ Patek Philippe/ Piaget/ Philips/ Playboy/ Prada/ Pepsi/ Pure Earth/ Richard Mille/ Rolex/ Roger Dubuis/ Resort World Sentosa/ Richemont/ Reebonz/ SkysShop/ Singland/ Splendor/ Sarcar/ Sinn/ Shangri-La Hotel/ SIA/ Shelton/ Sally Hansen/ Skin Science/ StarAsia/ Skin79/ Sally Hansen/ Sports Toto/ Spritzer/ 7-Up/ The Mill/ Tag Heuer/ Tiffany/ Transware/ The Hour Glass/ Tudor/ TV3/ Universal Studio/ Ulysse Nardin/ UOI/ UOB/ Vihari Jewels/ Vacheron Constantin/ Van Cleef & Arpels/ Wild Rice/ Zenith

EDITORIAL

August Man/ Affluent/August Women/ Appetite/ Adore/ Awesome/ Business Time/ Baccarat/ Business Craft/ Crown/ CitaBella/ Esquire/ ELLE/ Fiori/ Golf Vacations/ Harper’s Bazaar/ Inspire Travel/ Jewels & Time/ Jewellery Craft/ L’Official/ Luxury Guide/ Luxury Insider/ Luxx Jewellery/ Legacy of Singapore/ Men’s Folio/ Man Stuff/ OASiS/ Prestige/ Prestige Lifestyle/ Pen Craft/ PC World/ PC Magazine/ Robb Report/ RWS Invites/ Solitaire/ Style/ Tatler/ Tatler Wedding/ Tatler Home/ Time Craft/ TiCTalk/ World of Watches

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States of America.

Tennessee known as the Volunteer State, has many symbols.

The tulip poplar was designated as the official state tree of Tennessee

Tennessee has two state flowers. The Purple Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) is the state's wildflower and the iris is the state's cultivated flower.

Tennessee has played a critical role in the development of many forms of American popular music, including rock and roll, blues, country music, and rockabilly.

Tennessee has nine official state songs

1. My Homeland, Tennessee, by Nell Grayson Taylor (words) and Roy Lamont Smith (music)

2. When It's Iris Time in Tennessee, by Willa Waid Newman

3. My Tennessee, by Frances Hannah Tranum, is the state's official public school song

4. Tennessee Waltz, by Redd Stewart and Pee Wee King

5. Rocky Top, by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant

6. Tennessee, by Vivian Rorie

7. The Pride of Tennessee, by Fred Congdon, Thomas Vaughn and Carol Elliot

8. Smoky Mountain Rain, a song written by Kye Fleming and Dennis Morgan that became a hit for Ronnie Milsap, was added to the list of state songs

9. Tennessee, written by John R. Bean of Knoxville

For more information about visiting Tennessee

www.tnvacation.com/

Tennessee trip:

After breakfast, we will travel into the state of Tennessee to take a ride on the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway into Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In the evening, we will travel to Pigeon Forge, TN to the famous dinner show, Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede, where we will enjoy some real southern cuisine.

Great Smoky Mountains, TN

Great Smoky Mountains Park This 520,000-acre park on the eastern border of Tennessee is a United States National Park and UNESCO World Heritage. It is the most-visited national park in the United States, and is renown for the beauty of its landscapes.

Ober Gatlinburg Aerial Tramway The Tramway takes 120 passengers 2.1 miles up the Great Smoky Mountains. Large windows offer magnificent views of the area. At night, passengers can see the lighted visages of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge as well as the nearby parkway.

Pigeon Forge, TN

Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede This Wild-West-Revue-type performance features animals such as pigs, horses, and chickens and is punctuated by a riding competition. The show starts an hour before dinner, with a musical act on the "Carriage Room" before guests are escorted into the arena.

In the morning, we will make our way to Chattanooga, TN and Lookout Mountain to see the Ruby Falls and Rock City. We will also take the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway.

Chattanooga, TN

Ruby Falls The Ruby Falls are a naturally-occurring underground waterfall in the appropriately-named Ruby Falls Caverns not far from Chattanooga, Tennessee. They are located underneath Lookout Mountain and are adjacent to the Lookout Mountain Caverns, although not connected.

Lookout Mountain Incline Railway The Incline Railway traces its history to 1895, when the a railway called "The Incline" opened to cart passengers to and from the peak of Lookout Mountain. It bills itself as one of the steepest railways worldwide.

Lookout Mountain This historic hilltop on the southern border of Tennessee has a colorful history as a place of importance during wartime. Most notably, it was the centerpiece of the Battle of Lookout Mountain during the American Civil War.

4-Day Tennessee, Smoky Mountain Tour from New York/New Jersey Tour Code: 272-227

Take Tours bus trip

Visit eight states:

New York - drive through with tour guide

New Jersey - drive through with tour guide

Pennsylvania - Welcome Center visit

Maryland - drive through with tour guide

West Virginia - Welcome Center visit

Virginia - USA

Tennessee - USA

Georgia - USA

For more info on 4-Day Tennessee, Smoky Mountain Tour from New York/New Jersey trip visit:

www.taketours.com/new-york-ny/4-day-tennessee-smoky-mount...

For more information on Take Tours visit:

www.taketours.com/

Hashtag metadata tag

#Tennessee #Ten #Tenn #Tennessean #Chattanooga #Nashville #Memphis #South #Southern #TheSouth #TheSouthHasRisen #Country #Music #CountryMusic #VolunteerState #USState #state #states #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesofAmerica #America #American

Photo

Tennessee, United States of America, North America

June 13th 2014

(wool and cotton) --- --- Olga de Amaral (born 1932) is a Colombian textile and visual artist known for her large-scale abstract works made with fibers and covered in gold and/or silver leaf. Because of her ability to reconcile local concerns with international developments, de Amaral became one of the few artists from South America to become internationally known for her work in fiber during the 1960s and ‘70s. She is also considered an important practitioner in the development of postwar Latin American Abstraction. She currently lives and works in Bogotá, Colombia. (Wikipedia)

April 16, 2016 - WASHINGTON DC., 2016 World Bank / IMF Spring Meetings. Development Committee. Photo: Grant Ellis / Word Bank

Photo ID: 041616-DEV COM-228_F

Emma lights incense sticks at Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon on the Buddhist full moon festival of Thadingyut.

On her visit to Myanmar, Emma Thompson met with Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and a range of community and political leaders against a backdrop of increasing change in the country. Along with her adopted son Tindy and ActionAid International Chief Executive Joanna Kerr, she was in Myanmar to see ActionAid’s innovative development work with young people and to learn about the current political and economic reforms.

Commenting on her visit Emma Thompson said: “There are difficulties and a large number of challenges. A tiny percentage of government spending has been spent on health and education for example. There are also ethnic divisions that exacerbate problems. I saw deep, wrenching poverty but felt that there is a genuine dialogue beginning to start between the people and the government. The trip left me feeling hopeful."

ActionAid has worked in Myanmar for eleven years supporting local initiatives concentrating on helping women and young people. The anti-poverty agency specifically trains young volunteers to work with some of the poorest communities. The volunteers help people identify their priorities such as new schools, water sources, health services or peace processes and then network with local government and others to help achieve this.

In the changing political context of Myanmar, ActionAid has worked hard to encourage investment in education, health, agricultural services and social cohesion that benefits ordinary people and to address the social and economic differences that exist in the country.

ActionAid believes that change is coming in Myanmar and that there are strong indications that it is real.

PHOTO: Christopher Davy/ActionAid

www.actionaid.org

Logos of a variety of key Web Development Technologies

9501

April 18, 2015 - Washington DC., 2015 World Bank Group / IMF Spring Meetings.

Photo: Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank

Photo ID: 041815-DevelopmentCommitte127f

Korean Utility Helicopter Prototype KUH-1 Surion

/ On the Flair Test

/ Photo by KAI (2010)

한국항공우주산업

Development Application For:

National Park Seminary

Site Plan Number 82005024-B

Minor changes and upgrades required

by various county agencies.

For process and hearing information please contact:

The Maryland National Capital Park And Planning Commission,

8787 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20910

www.mc-mncppc.org/development

(301) 495-4595

Istanbul (Turkey)