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Paraphrasing Infernal Overdrive's Facebook page:
Genre
Heavy Rock
Members
• Marc Schleicher- Lead Guitar and Vocals
• Rich Miele- Lead Guitar and Backing Vocals
• Mike Bennett- Lead Drums
• Keith Schleicher- Lead Bass Guitar
On the web
Photos of their shows
• O'Brien's, Allston MA, 16 Jul 2011
• Great Scott, Allston MA, 2 Apr 2011
• O'Brien's, Allston MA, 4 Sept 2010
• O'Brien's, Allston MA, 16 Jan 2010
Hometown
Red Bank, NJ
Record Label
Small Stone Records
About
Infernal Overdrive is a heavy rock and roll band formed in early 2008 when Marc Schleicher (fmr. Quintaine Americana [Wikipedia, MySpace, AllMusic], Cracktorch [MySpace], Antler, Liquor Tricks [MySpace]) of Allston , Mass. started jamming with Mike Bennett (fmr. Loud Earth [Reverb Nation, Facebook]) in Red Bank. Soon they got Rich Miele (fmr. Loud Earth [Reverb Nation, Facebook]) on board playing second lead guitar. During some of their early shows, Jake Metz (Godzero [MySpace]) joined the band on bass, but he was soon replaced by Keith Schleicher.
Their sound is a combination of their classic influences such as Led Zeppelin, Blue Cheer, Free, Grand Funk, Cactus, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd and newer heavy bands like Kyuss, Nebula, Soundgarden, STP, QOTSA and Monster Magnet.
Biography
Rumors abound that somewhere in the depths of New Jersey time stands still and it is always 1977. Trapped in this interstellar time warp, making electric amageddon is Infernal Overdrive. Fronted by the mysterious, oft reckless Marc Schleicher (Cracktorch [MySpace], Quintaine Americana [Wikipedia, MySpace, AllMusic], Antler) - a Boston native transplanted in time and space to this 4th dimension - summoned by the all-powerful duo of Mike Bennett and Rich Miele of Loud Earth [Reverb Nation, Facebook]. After a treacherous search to find his long lost brother, Keith Schleicher was sucked into the vortex to fulfill his destiny on bass guitar. They journey in the last of the V8 interceptors, proving themselves worthy of the Small Stone pedigree. Forces to be reckoned with on their own, as a group their wonder team powers activate to kick into Infernal Overdrive.
Armed with their wits, New Jersey dialect and a passion for surviving the likes of the Tall Man, flying orbs, giant sharks, the Turnbull AC's and an occasional family of albino zombies, Infernal Overdrive will be coming to an area near you soon. Can you dig it?
Current Location
Red Bank, NJ
Artists We Also Like
Cortez, Maegashira, Monster Magnet, Roadsaw, Pigs, The Brought Low
Influences
Delta Blues, Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk Railroad, Soundgarden, Monster Magnet, Cactus, Deep Purple, Nebula, Pink Floyd, Cream, Mountain, Kyuss, James Gang and shit loads of other bands.
Reviews
Review by The Obelisk / Stoner Rock:
Infernal Overdrive Kick into Gear
With production by Andrew Schneider (Throttlerod, The Brought Low, Hackman) and mastering by Nick Zampiello at New Alliance East in Boston, there’s no doubt that New Jersey riff rockers Infernal Overdrive are going for that Small Stone Records sound. The four tracks that comprise their new self-titled EP fall in line with the kind of straightforward guitar-led rock the Detroit label has proffered for well over a decade now, and with a similar southern/classic ‘70s influence to New York’s The Brought Low, Infernal Overdrive seem remarkably conscious of what they’re doing sonically. More so than you might expect for a band just releasing their first EP.
The story goes that when guitarist/vocalist Marc Schleicher (ex-Cracktorch [MySpace], Antler) moved from Massachusetts to central New Jersey, he got hooked up with drummer Mike Bennett and guitarist/backing vocalist Rich Miele (both ex-Loud Earth [Reverb Nation, Facebook]). Keith Schleicher (relation assumed) was added on bass and Infernal Overdrive began rocking out early 2008. The EP was recorded over two days in February and four in April, and though that seems quick, none of the songs feels rushed or underdone. Schneider, who also shows up on extra backing vocals, makes his mark sound-wise in the tone of Schleicher and Miele’s guitars and Bennett’s snare sound, which has the same pop Schneider has become known for – not too bright, but able to cut through the mix and propel the songs forward. Some of Schleicher’s leads, as on EP closer “Motor,” feel a little too thought out, too structured where what I’d like to hear is a little bluesy ‘70s recklessness, but they get the job done nonetheless, and the vocals are never out of place.
Although the highway for which it’s named runs down through the whole East Coast, there’s no question that when Infernal Overdrive open the EP with “I-95,” they’re talking about Jersey. The song is a southern-hued guitar rocker that sets the tone well for the three tracks that follow with an ear toward rock traditionalism and, once again, like-minded Small Stone heavy-hitters Sasquatch, Dixie Witch, et al. It’s hard to argue with the approach when it works as well as it does on the speedy “The Edge,” which forgoes central Jersey’s reputation for heavy psychedelia in the style of Monster Magnet in favor of Halfway to Gone’s stripped-down take on rock. “Duel” slows down the pace somewhat but still keeps a mid?paced groove that makes use of some well?placed lead lines that start the song reminding me of Iron Maiden filtered through Nebula’s druggy haze. Only “Motor,” which devolves into an extended jam that brings the track to a total of just under 12 minutes, is longer, as the songs on Infernal Overdrive go in order from shortest to longest. Whether or not that’s on purpose on the part of the band, I don’t know – I’d imagine at least putting “Motor” last is – but I suppose it’s as good a method of organization as any.
There’s a short message from the Devil after “Motor” finishes up, and that’s the end of the EP. Infernal Overdrive are out relatively quick when you consider their first release is only 26 minutes and three of the four songs take up about 11 of it. No complaints though, as the four-piece know precisely how to get the most out of their sound and show exactly that on these tracks. It’s a hell of an investment to make with a self-released debut to hook up with the likes of Schneider and Zampiello, but Infernal Overdrive make the most of Schleicher and co.’s collected experience, and come off sounding confident and notably mature for a band who’s been together less than three years. It may not be changing the game, but Infernal Overdrive is definitely worth checking out for anyone who wants to hook into some solid and unpretentious heavy rock.
Review by Cutting Edge Rocks:
A couple years ago we reviewed a strong up-and-coming Jersey band Loud Earth [Reverb Nation, Facebook]. Well, it seems they dissolved and morphed into Infernal Overdrive. The new band is two parts Loud Earth [Reverb Nation, Facebook] (drummer Mike Bennett and guitarist/backing vocalist Rich Miele), one part Cracktorch [MySpace], Antler (guitarist/vocalist Marc Schleicher) and one part brother (bassist Keith Schleicher). Mike contacted me letting me know the band formed after Marc relocated from Boston and set up shop in Jersey. He sent along the EP for my listening pleasure. And a pleasure it is! The songs are baked in southern ‘70s hard rock with catchy riffs and plenty of power rumbling in the pipes. The info is sketchy but according the record’s liner notes, the four-song EP was recorded this year in Brooklyn, NY over five days (Feb 27, 28 & April 17, 18, 24, 25). Production was handled by Andrew Schneider (Throttlerod, The Brought Low, Hackman) with mastering by Nick Zampiello. Fans of our site will immediately make the Small Stone connection and that seems to be where the band are heading as the vibe is defiantly Detroit retro.
Take for instance “I-95” which opens the disc with a solid guitar wail and foot-stomping drum beat. Tambourine is added for flavor but the song bellows like fellow Boston-natives Roadsaw, mixing biker thunder with a Pat Travers/Leslie West riff-fest. Second track, “The Edge” is pure old school Nugent, including the repeat riff and frantic, almost MC5 delivery. Schleicher voice is ragged and ready to rock. The drums hammer and the bass drives laying down a solid bed for some sexy solo leads. “Duel” has more Fu Manchu in the groove. It’s mostly in the chorus, but the build in the verse is still very Scott Hill/Brant Bjork. The track also boasts our favorite solo - frayed, not over played and sparked with cosmic energy. “Motor” is a 13-minute stoner masterpiece. A heavy bottom end brings to mind Sabbath, Sasquatch and Mountain. The riff is clean but thick with a layered solo painting in all the little nuances - perfect for a psychedelic ride. The echo on the vocals adds to the songs dripping mysticism while the guitar is allowed to float, pierce and melt the brain. Yeah, it only four songs, but dude, sometime that’s all you need when they’re this good.
Review by Heavy Planet
I recently had a chance to hear some new material from thee guys and I'll tell you right now, this is a band to be on the look out for. They're going places. Their sound is straight up southern stoner rock. If I had to compare them, I'd say they're a bit harder version of The Brought Low. Checkout the usual social media spots (links below) to hear what I'm talking about and keep up to date with all their happenings because you'll certainly be hearing from them again.
Paraphrasing Infernal Overdrive's Facebook page:
Genre
Heavy Rock
Members
• Marc Schleicher- Lead Guitar and Vocals
• Rich Miele- Lead Guitar and Backing Vocals
• Mike Bennett- Lead Drums
• Keith Schleicher- Lead Bass Guitar
On the web
Photos of their shows
• O'Brien's, Allston MA, 16 Jul 2011
• Great Scott, Allston MA, 2 Apr 2011
• O'Brien's, Allston MA, 4 Sept 2010
• O'Brien's, Allston MA, 16 Jan 2010
Hometown
Red Bank, NJ
Record Label
Small Stone Records
About
Infernal Overdrive is a heavy rock and roll band formed in early 2008 when Marc Schleicher (fmr. Quintaine Americana [Wikipedia, MySpace, AllMusic], Cracktorch [MySpace], Antler, Liquor Tricks [MySpace]) of Allston , Mass. started jamming with Mike Bennett (fmr. Loud Earth [Reverb Nation, Facebook]) in Red Bank. Soon they got Rich Miele (fmr. Loud Earth [Reverb Nation, Facebook]) on board playing second lead guitar. During some of their early shows, Jake Metz (Godzero [MySpace]) joined the band on bass, but he was soon replaced by Keith Schleicher.
Their sound is a combination of their classic influences such as Led Zeppelin, Blue Cheer, Free, Grand Funk, Cactus, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd and newer heavy bands like Kyuss, Nebula, Soundgarden, STP, QOTSA and Monster Magnet.
Biography
Rumors abound that somewhere in the depths of New Jersey time stands still and it is always 1977. Trapped in this interstellar time warp, making electric amageddon is Infernal Overdrive. Fronted by the mysterious, oft reckless Marc Schleicher (Cracktorch [MySpace], Quintaine Americana [Wikipedia, MySpace, AllMusic], Antler) - a Boston native transplanted in time and space to this 4th dimension - summoned by the all-powerful duo of Mike Bennett and Rich Miele of Loud Earth [Reverb Nation, Facebook]. After a treacherous search to find his long lost brother, Keith Schleicher was sucked into the vortex to fulfill his destiny on bass guitar. They journey in the last of the V8 interceptors, proving themselves worthy of the Small Stone pedigree. Forces to be reckoned with on their own, as a group their wonder team powers activate to kick into Infernal Overdrive.
Armed with their wits, New Jersey dialect and a passion for surviving the likes of the Tall Man, flying orbs, giant sharks, the Turnbull AC's and an occasional family of albino zombies, Infernal Overdrive will be coming to an area near you soon. Can you dig it?
Current Location
Red Bank, NJ
Artists We Also Like
Cortez, Maegashira, Monster Magnet, Roadsaw, Pigs, The Brought Low
Influences
Delta Blues, Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk Railroad, Soundgarden, Monster Magnet, Cactus, Deep Purple, Nebula, Pink Floyd, Cream, Mountain, Kyuss, James Gang and shit loads of other bands.
Reviews
Review by The Obelisk / Stoner Rock:
Infernal Overdrive Kick into Gear
With production by Andrew Schneider (Throttlerod, The Brought Low, Hackman) and mastering by Nick Zampiello at New Alliance East in Boston, there’s no doubt that New Jersey riff rockers Infernal Overdrive are going for that Small Stone Records sound. The four tracks that comprise their new self-titled EP fall in line with the kind of straightforward guitar-led rock the Detroit label has proffered for well over a decade now, and with a similar southern/classic ‘70s influence to New York’s The Brought Low, Infernal Overdrive seem remarkably conscious of what they’re doing sonically. More so than you might expect for a band just releasing their first EP.
The story goes that when guitarist/vocalist Marc Schleicher (ex-Cracktorch [MySpace], Antler) moved from Massachusetts to central New Jersey, he got hooked up with drummer Mike Bennett and guitarist/backing vocalist Rich Miele (both ex-Loud Earth [Reverb Nation, Facebook]). Keith Schleicher (relation assumed) was added on bass and Infernal Overdrive began rocking out early 2008. The EP was recorded over two days in February and four in April, and though that seems quick, none of the songs feels rushed or underdone. Schneider, who also shows up on extra backing vocals, makes his mark sound-wise in the tone of Schleicher and Miele’s guitars and Bennett’s snare sound, which has the same pop Schneider has become known for – not too bright, but able to cut through the mix and propel the songs forward. Some of Schleicher’s leads, as on EP closer “Motor,” feel a little too thought out, too structured where what I’d like to hear is a little bluesy ‘70s recklessness, but they get the job done nonetheless, and the vocals are never out of place.
Although the highway for which it’s named runs down through the whole East Coast, there’s no question that when Infernal Overdrive open the EP with “I-95,” they’re talking about Jersey. The song is a southern-hued guitar rocker that sets the tone well for the three tracks that follow with an ear toward rock traditionalism and, once again, like-minded Small Stone heavy-hitters Sasquatch, Dixie Witch, et al. It’s hard to argue with the approach when it works as well as it does on the speedy “The Edge,” which forgoes central Jersey’s reputation for heavy psychedelia in the style of Monster Magnet in favor of Halfway to Gone’s stripped-down take on rock. “Duel” slows down the pace somewhat but still keeps a mid?paced groove that makes use of some well?placed lead lines that start the song reminding me of Iron Maiden filtered through Nebula’s druggy haze. Only “Motor,” which devolves into an extended jam that brings the track to a total of just under 12 minutes, is longer, as the songs on Infernal Overdrive go in order from shortest to longest. Whether or not that’s on purpose on the part of the band, I don’t know – I’d imagine at least putting “Motor” last is – but I suppose it’s as good a method of organization as any.
There’s a short message from the Devil after “Motor” finishes up, and that’s the end of the EP. Infernal Overdrive are out relatively quick when you consider their first release is only 26 minutes and three of the four songs take up about 11 of it. No complaints though, as the four-piece know precisely how to get the most out of their sound and show exactly that on these tracks. It’s a hell of an investment to make with a self-released debut to hook up with the likes of Schneider and Zampiello, but Infernal Overdrive make the most of Schleicher and co.’s collected experience, and come off sounding confident and notably mature for a band who’s been together less than three years. It may not be changing the game, but Infernal Overdrive is definitely worth checking out for anyone who wants to hook into some solid and unpretentious heavy rock.
Review by Cutting Edge Rocks:
A couple years ago we reviewed a strong up-and-coming Jersey band Loud Earth [Reverb Nation, Facebook]. Well, it seems they dissolved and morphed into Infernal Overdrive. The new band is two parts Loud Earth [Reverb Nation, Facebook] (drummer Mike Bennett and guitarist/backing vocalist Rich Miele), one part Cracktorch [MySpace], Antler (guitarist/vocalist Marc Schleicher) and one part brother (bassist Keith Schleicher). Mike contacted me letting me know the band formed after Marc relocated from Boston and set up shop in Jersey. He sent along the EP for my listening pleasure. And a pleasure it is! The songs are baked in southern ‘70s hard rock with catchy riffs and plenty of power rumbling in the pipes. The info is sketchy but according the record’s liner notes, the four-song EP was recorded this year in Brooklyn, NY over five days (Feb 27, 28 & April 17, 18, 24, 25). Production was handled by Andrew Schneider (Throttlerod, The Brought Low, Hackman) with mastering by Nick Zampiello. Fans of our site will immediately make the Small Stone connection and that seems to be where the band are heading as the vibe is defiantly Detroit retro.
Take for instance “I-95” which opens the disc with a solid guitar wail and foot-stomping drum beat. Tambourine is added for flavor but the song bellows like fellow Boston-natives Roadsaw, mixing biker thunder with a Pat Travers/Leslie West riff-fest. Second track, “The Edge” is pure old school Nugent, including the repeat riff and frantic, almost MC5 delivery. Schleicher voice is ragged and ready to rock. The drums hammer and the bass drives laying down a solid bed for some sexy solo leads. “Duel” has more Fu Manchu in the groove. It’s mostly in the chorus, but the build in the verse is still very Scott Hill/Brant Bjork. The track also boasts our favorite solo - frayed, not over played and sparked with cosmic energy. “Motor” is a 13-minute stoner masterpiece. A heavy bottom end brings to mind Sabbath, Sasquatch and Mountain. The riff is clean but thick with a layered solo painting in all the little nuances - perfect for a psychedelic ride. The echo on the vocals adds to the songs dripping mysticism while the guitar is allowed to float, pierce and melt the brain. Yeah, it only four songs, but dude, sometime that’s all you need when they’re this good.
Review by Heavy Planet
I recently had a chance to hear some new material from thee guys and I'll tell you right now, this is a band to be on the look out for. They're going places. Their sound is straight up southern stoner rock. If I had to compare them, I'd say they're a bit harder version of The Brought Low. Checkout the usual social media spots (links below) to hear what I'm talking about and keep up to date with all their happenings because you'll certainly be hearing from them again.
Secretary of State John Kerry And Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio de Aguiar Patriota - After Their Meeting
FOREIGN MINISTER PATRIOTA: (Via interpreter) I was mentioning that he has a good knowledge of Portuguese in function of Mrs. Teresa Kerry. She’s also Portuguese.
But I would like to say that we had a meeting, a working meeting, this morning in this, which is the first visit of Secretary of State John Kerry to Brazil, to South America actually. He had a stopover at Bogota, which we consider to be very positive. It is our second meeting. I have kept a meeting with the Secretary of State in D.C. the past 20th of May. And moreover, the – aside from the meeting we had, we will receive him now for lunch in a short while, in which we will have also representatives from the legislative, the presidents of the foreign relation committees, as Senator Kerry has been, himself part of, also journalists, representatives from the civil society, and as all of you know, Secretary of State will be received by President Rousseff later this afternoon at the Planalto Palace.
Secretary of State John Kerry requires no presentation. He’s a known character to Brazil, a former candidate to the U.S. presidency, a senator of – from 1985-2013, president of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate between 2009-2013. And when he came to be the Secretary of State in the second term of President Obama, he is bringing with himself a commitment but several causes, which are extremely valued throughout Brazil: a commitment to sustainable development, all the agenda related to climate change, also a decisive support to the retaking of peace efforts in the Middle East, and we would like to congratulate the Secretary of State for his own efforts, which shall take us to a process within nine months’ time to be producing results.
In the last meeting this morning, we examined items in the bilateral agenda, which present, as all of you know, a robust trade and investment agenda. The U.S. are still the country with the largest stocks of investment in Brazil, the second largest partner of Brazil now with a growing deficit on the Brazilian side. We’ve also talked about that for over 30 bilateral mechanisms involving areas which go from energy to racial equality, gender equality, contact with the private sector, the universities, the civil society. Today, the United States is the largest destination of Brazilians within the Science Without Borders program. It’s 5,800 students. That is increasing every day.
Anyways, the potential of the relationship is even greater, especially now in a moment in many observers are referring to the relationship between Brazil and the U.S. as a relationship which is growing more and more. It’s getting more mature. But this maturity includes encompassing more relevant themes, especially in a moment we are about to redefine our contacts with a strategic partnership. President Obama in his letter to invite President Rousseff to visit, which will take place in October this year, referring to a strategic partnership with Brazil, President Rousseff responded with the same terminology.
At the same time, I should not forget to mention that we’re now facing a new type of challenge in our bilateral relationship. It is a challenge which has to do with wiretapping, telephone calls. And in case these challenges are not solved in a satisfactory way, we run the risk of casting a shadow of distrust on our work. We have established technical communication means, political channels are open as well. We have clarified everything that was requested. But these are not an end in themselves, so this doesn’t meet – accept the status quo. We need to discontinue practices which are an attempt to sovereignty in the relationship between the states and which can violate the individual freedoms that both of our countries are very much fond of.
Let me make it very clear that there is a broad space for us to advance. We have recently received the Secretary of Agriculture. We will receive the Secretary of Energy in a few days’ time. The mechanism with economic and commercial cooperation TECA is going to be meeting in September at the level of vice ministers. In September as well, we will have the third conference for innovation, Brazil and U.S, the working group for the scientific and technological committee. On the same theme and at the same time, we should not minimize the relevance acquired so far regarding espionage.
Within a few moments, we’ll keep on talking to Secretary Kerry in an environment which I believe is a symbol to our commitment with democracy, freedom, a good government, freedom of the press, opening with the civil society. And so this will be an occasion for us to hear a bit more of the last developments in this retaking of the peacemaking process between Israelis and Palestinians. Also, we had an opportunity to talk about Syria and other situations on my part.
As well, I shall be ready with a dispositioned and even interested of making an updated snapshot of a region, which as I have mentioned to Secretary Kerry today, I think we’re distinguished for being a space of democracy, economic growth, social justice with enough conditions which are unprecedented worldwide.
Thank you very much. Mr. Kerry.
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, bom dia. I’m happy to be here with everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you, Foreign Minister Patriota for hosting me here today. I’m very happy to be back in Brazil. I have great memories of my first trip here in 1992 to the Earth Summit in Rio, and I’m happy to be back here now and very grateful for the opportunity to continue the good dialogue that Antonio and I have had since the day we first talked on the telephone when I was appointed to this job.
Even when I came to Brazil back in 1992 for the Earth Summit, I could sense this incredible energy in Brazil, and I could feel firsthand the amazing commitment of Brazil to try to grab the future and particularly back then to address the issue, which was then even urgent, of climate change. I’m pleased to see that over the years Brazil’s commitment to environmental stewardship has continued right up until this day, and there have been very important efforts on the reduction of deforestation problems, alternative renewable energy problems, biofuels, other kinds of initiatives, but also very important, last year’s hosting of Rio+20.
And for those of us who have been involved in the challenge of climate change for all of that time, I think it was a bittersweet moment to measure 20 years, when the hopes of 20 years before we had to acknowledge had not yet been realized. So the challenge is ahead of us, for all of us, and I know that the United States has a great commitment under President Obama to take our own initiatives, not even to wait for congressional action, but to move administratively in order to do our part. I know we can continue to work with Brazil on this issue of climate, and we look forward to doing so.
Our mission is very, very clear. We need to inspire meaningful reform and action within the Major Economies Forum. We need to lead the effort to phase down hydrofluorocarbons in the Montreal Protocol. And together, Brazil and the United States need to join with other countries in an effort to negotiate a climate agreement in 2015 that is ambitious and flexible and that works for all of us.
Now, obviously we have also had some moments of disagreement, and I’m sure I’ll have an occasion in the questions to be able to address some of that with you. But the United States and Brazil – I want to emphasize, rather than focus on an area of disagreement – the United States and Brazil share a remarkable and dynamic partnership. Every single day we work together to advance economic opportunity, human rights, environment protection, regional peace and security, democracy, as well as major global challenges in the Middle East and elsewhere – Syria for instance and the question of the humanitarian challenge in Syria.
The United States respects and appreciates that Brazil is one of the world’s largest free market democracies, and our partnership is only made stronger as all of the world continues to grow. The United States recognizes and welcomes and greatly appreciates the vital leadership role, the increasing leadership role, that Brazil plays on the international stage – excuse me – and that ranges from its participation in global peace initiatives to its stability operations and promotion of human rights and its efforts to try to help either promote the peace or keep the peace in certain parts of the world.
Through the Global Peace Operations Initiative, we are working with Brazil and the United Nations to build the capacity of countries to be able to contribute themselves to peacekeeping operations. Brazil has provided more than 1,400 uniformed personnel to the stabilization mission in Haiti. We’re very grateful for that. And we’re also exploring opportunities for closer collaboration on peacekeeping in Africa.
It’s fair to say that protecting universal rights is at the very heart of the shared values between Brazil and the United States. And together, we remain committed to advancing those rights and to advancing the cause of equality for all people.
The United States also supports a very vibrant and active Organization of American States, and the OAS Charter reminds us of our responsibilities to offer our citizens liberty and to create the conditions in which all people can reach their aspirations, can live their aspirations. We believe that it is important that Brazil engage fully with the OAS and use its strong voice for a hemispheric vision of democracy and fundamental freedoms.
Now, our relationship is not only rooted in shared values, it is literally strengthened every single day by our citizens. Each year thousands of people travel between the United States and Brazil, forging new ties between our countries. Student exchanges under President Rousseff’s Scientific Mobility Program, which I had the privilege of visiting this morning and sensing firsthand the amazing energy and excitement and commitment of these young people, that’s something we share in common. And together with President Rousseff’s program and President Obama’s 100,000 Strong in the Americas Initiative, we are encouraging together approaches to address the shared concerns of our young people to include social inclusion and to work towards things like environmental sustainability.
Our exchange programs also ensure that today’s generation is going to be ready to respond to the enormous challenges of tomorrow and of the future. The vibrant and the growing connection between the United States and Brazil, between our governments and our citizens, is absolutely one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century. I said to Antonio, and I believe this and I know President Obama believes this and he communicated this when he came here recently, the future belongs to young people. Our job is to lay the groundwork for them, is to provide the opportunity for them to make the most of education and of the technologies and jobs that will define the future.
So I look forward, as President Obama does, not only to growing this partnership but to finding ways to work on our common values, our common interests, and our common hopes for our peoples. And we very much look forward to welcoming President Rousseff to Washington, D.C., for her meeting and a state visit with President Obama and our country in October. And with that, I’d be happy to answer any questions.
MODERATOR: (Inaudible.)
QUESTION: (Via interpreter) Secretary Kerry, we wanted – if you could, we wanted you to speak briefly about this issue of espionage and if by any chance Brazil – the United States will stop spying on the rest, and what guarantees the U.S. Government can give if the answer is no that you’re not going to stop spying, please what will you do? Do you think you can have deteriorated or hampered this relationship with Brazil?
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, obviously, first of all, I did not think it would be a surprise if I got a question on that subject, so I wanted to have a chance to be able to share some thoughts with you, and now I’m happy to address that and other things.
But very, very important, I ask the people of Brazil – and I will answer the question very directly. But I ask the people of Brazil to stay focused on the important realities of our relationship, the bilateral relations between our countries which continue to grow stronger and stronger. We share democratic values and we share a commitment to diversity and we share a determination to improve opportunities for our people. And the U.S.-Brazil relationship has the opportunity to provide extraordinary positive global impact if we continue to work together on these kinds of issues, on the environment and science and technology and sustainable energy, nonproliferation, on access to education, on disaster management, and our strong trade ties, our strong investment ties, our energy cooperation, our sustainable development cooperation. All of these things need to remain in the forefront of people’s minds as you consider this question of the national security revelations that have upset some people and created questions in others.
Let me be crystal clear: I can’t discuss with you operational issues, but I can tell you very definitively the Congress of the United States passed on a law after 9/11 when we were attacked by al-Qaida, and we began a process of trying to understand before they attacked us what these kinds of plots might be. The executive department of our government, after a law was passed by Congress which met our legal standards and passed the muster of law, then implemented the program with the supervision of our judiciary. So all three branches of the American Government have been involved in reviewing this particular program.
Now, we have engaged with the Brazilian Government very, very directly, and I want to express my appreciation to the Foreign Minister and to Brazilian officials who have visited with us in Washington, and we are here now and we will continue to have this dialogue. And we will have this dialogue with a view to making certain that your government is in complete understanding and complete agreement with what it is that we think we must do to provide security not just for Americans but for Brazilians and for people in the world.
Over the last years, regrettably, a number of countries – a number of groups – not countries – a number of groups in the world have individually targeted not just American interests but free interests in the world. There have been bombings in many places in the world. Innocent people have lost their lives. And what the United States has been trying to do is prevent these things from happening beforehand by knowing what others might be plotting.
So I would respectfully say to everybody that the United States, as the President said last Friday, the United States gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations in order to protect their citizens, in order to protect our citizens. And our activities are firmly based on law and they are subject to oversight by all of the branches of our government. We are convinced that our intelligence collection has positively helped us to protect our nation from a variety of threats, not only protect our nation but protect other people in the world, including Brazilians.
And so we have engaged now with the Brazilian Government, we will stay very closely engaged with the Brazilian Government, and I can promise you that President Obama is determined that the United States will live up to the highest standards both of cooperation, of transparency, and accountability, in keeping with our ability to be able to protect ourselves and to protect others in the world.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, Mr. Foreign Secretary, you have said that all the South American ministers are united in condemning the alleged spying, and Brazil was asked for a formal explanation from the United States on this. What explanation have you received today? And also, you mentioned that if this situation is not resolved in a satisfactory manner that it risks perhaps more distrust in the relationship. So what are you looking for the United States to do?
FOREIGN MINISTER PATRIOTA: (Via interpreter) Well, in a summarized way I believe that you do know of the fact that ever since the first moment when these news came to be, we did get in touch with the U.S. Government by means of Ambassador Thomas Shannon here in Brasilia, and also the Embassy in D.C., and we opened dialogue channels, communication channels, both technical and political, And at the same time, there have been individual protests in Brazil and other countries in the region, as you all said, and on July 12th, a meeting by MERCOSUR adopted a decision which did instruct the countries – Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, who had subscribed – to start with the UN Secretary General taking this to the Security Council at the UN.
These demonstrations took place. They do reflect a considerable concern, and I think it’s legitimate, by the region and the international community in general, what practices which may be an attempt to the sovereignty of the very countries and to the rights of individuals. There have been demonstrations regarding the violation of human rights, especially from the High Commissioner of the UN for Human Rights, Navi Pillay.
And as a matter of fact, this clarification process, as I have mentioned, it’s not an end in itself. What we do consider is that the United States will never find a better partner in the fight against international terrorism and several other threats to homeland security as they are taking forth in a transparent way. International partnerships, when they’re done fully transparently, they do strengthen the trust. And when there is a lack of knowledge or lack of information on the country they may weaken this trust, so what we want to avoid from happening.
SECRETARY KERRY: Can I just add, if I may, to that? We’re not surprised and we’re not upset that Brazil would ask questions. Absolutely understandable. And Brazil is owed answers with respect to those questions, and they will get them. And we will work together very positively to make certain that this question, these issues, do not get in the way of all the other things that we talked about. And we will guarantee that Brazil and other countries will understand exactly what we’re doing, why and how, and we will work together to make sure that whatever is done in a way that respects our friends and our partners, and that is what we’re going to achieve.
QUESTION: (Via interpreter) Flavia (inaudible) Sao Paulo. Let me change the subject here a little. I would like to know if the topic regarding the issue on some visas in – to Brazilians, did you two talk about it? And is there a deadline for the waiver of the visa, or exception from a visa? And if the visit – President Rousseff to D.C. in October can be decided on her trip coming October?
FOREIGN MINISTER PATRIOTA: (Via interpreter) Well, briefly I mentioned that there are several initiatives and also meetings that are programmed for the next few months, which are included within those prospective preparation of the state visit to the U.S.
In one of the works that we’re going to be developing will be exactly this issue of exempting the visas to Brazilians. As you all know, there is a proposal which is known as the Global Entry – in English – which is being discussed between the two sides, and I understand that the last counterproposal of Brazil of a language to accommodate a few of the issues we have over here is under exam right now. And a declaration can be agreed upon in September, coming September, in which we’ll then have a text during her visit. So we do consider that. In this term, progress has been encouraging, satisfactory, and we will have some results soon to come.
Now related to the elimination or the exemption of the visa itself is a more complex issue, which we’ll need more time for discussion.
SECRETARY KERRY: Let me just say that we are – is that on? Yes. We’re committed to as vast a visa application processing process as possible. And we’re very proud that we have streamlined our operations over the course of the last year. We very much want to see more Brazilians coming to the United States for business, for tourism, for study, visiting friends, relatives, and so forth. So it’s very much in our interest to facilitate this.
Last year, we processed about one million visa requests all across Brazil, and we have managed to make the appointment times – the wait for those visas is down to either five days or under – less than five days. We have spent millions of dollars to upgrade our facilities in order to try to make this happen more effectively, and we’re going to be opening new consulates in Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre. So we’re moving as much as we can to facilitate this.
And finally, we want to continue to consult very closely with Brazil in order to make sure we have legal statutory requirements that have to be met to allow for a reciprocal free visa travel under the visitors program. And we hope to get there. I’m confident we can, but we just need to continue to work together. But I promise you, we welcome as many people to come and visit and be able to move freely back and forth as is possible, and I’m confident we’ll get to the day when we have an open visa program.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, we understand that earlier today you spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu, including presumably about the settlements, which by some counts have reached 3,100 new or advancing units appeared in recent days. What can you tell us about that conversation and your message to the Prime Minister? Have you had a similar conversation with President Abbas? Are the Palestinians still on board for the peace talks? And finally, what would you say to those who say that the Israelis are doing this – they’re playing along with their initiative – but that they’re really too divided to make the hard decisions for peace? Thank you.
SECRETARY KERRY: No. Well, I – thank you. It’s a very appropriate question. It’s timely, obviously. Yes, I did speak with Prime Minister Netanyahu this morning, and I, first of all, conveyed to him my hopes for his speedy recovery. As you know, he’s just had surgery, and he’s dealing with these issues in the middle of that, and I can tell you that’s obviously not easy.
We had a very frank and open, direct discussion about the question of settlements. Let me make it clear: The policy of the United States of America with respect to all settlements is that they are illegitimate, and we oppose settlements taking place at any time, not just the time of the peace process.
But – here’s the but – that said, Prime Minister Netanyahu was completely upfront with me and with President Abbas that he would be announcing some additional building that would take place in places that will not affect the peace map, that will not have any impact on the capacity to have a peace agreement. That means that it is building within the so-called blocs in areas that many people make a presumption – obviously not some Palestinians or others – will be part of Israel in the future. He has specifically agreed not to disturb what might be the potential for peace going forward.
Now, we still believe it would be better not to be doing it, but there are realities within life in Israel that also have to be taken into account here going forward. President Abbas understood that coming into these talks. That’s why these talks are pressed into this time period of nine months. That’s why we all understand there is urgency, as I said yesterday, to getting to the discussion of borders and security. If you resolve the borders of Israel – and you can only do that also resolving the security issues for Israel – you have resolved any questions about settlements, because then you know what is in Israel and what is not. And so the sooner we get to that discussion the better.
I will be talking to President Abbas today. We have a call scheduled for later. And he is committed to continue to come to this negotiation, because he believes the negotiation is what will ultimately resolve this issue, not a temporary decision or restraint. So we will continue to work this very, very closely with Israelis and we will continue to work it very closely with Palestinians. And our hope is that we get to the real issues on which we ought to be focusing, which are the final status settlement – the final status issues. And I’m very hopeful we will get there very, very soon.
FOREIGN MINISTER PATRIOTA: (Via interpreter) Just briefly, at the same time that we support the efforts of Secretary Kerry and we are bringing up to the table the Israeli and Palestinian negotiation, we do – we do – we are against the Palestinian settlements, which are done against the UN Security Council resolutions, and they do represent a violation of the international law. We do consider that this kind of fact will not contribute for creating a propitious environment for the understandings of the whole international community, and Brazil specifically would love to see coming at the end of this nine month period time upon which negotiators will be working.
Let me also mention that I have encouraged Secretary Kerry to give more relief to the participation of the civil society in Israel and the Palestine along this peacemaking process. I was well impressed when I visited the region last year in October and when I saw that in the – among the civil society on both ends there are voices that are quite committed to peace and they do convey messages which are a bit different from the ones we’re used to seeing. These messages are in repudiation of violence and consumed facts and the establishment of settlements, which are not favorable for the understanding for peace.
SECRETARY KERRY: That’s it. Okay.
FOREIGN MINISTER PATRIOTA: (Via interpreter) Thank you.
# # #
August 13, 2013
Itamaraty Palace
Brasilia, Brazil
Town Hall Square (Vienna)
The inner part of the town square
Street sign town square
The Town Hall Square is located in the first District of Vienna, Inner City. It is named after the erected here (new) Vienna City Hall. Due to its size, design and architecture of the buildings bordering the square it is considered one of the most important places in the center of Vienna.
History
Vienna City Hall , View from 1891
In the area of today's town square was once the Josefstädterstraße Glacis, held as a free field of fire meadows before the walls of Vienna, and later the parade and parade ground of the Imperial Army. During the construction of the Ringstrasse from 1858 this military site remained untouched for some time until the army after long efforts of Mayor Cajetan Felder had abstained and the expansion of the city funds could develop a Baulinienplan (building line plan) for the area. During this time, other locations were considered for the Hall.
Now the Town Hall Square, the largest square in the recessed ring road zone was provided. The northern and southern part of the square shaped city gardener Rudolf Siebeck 1872/1873 as City Hall Park, the central square of the axis Town Hall-Burgtheater, was kept free. 1873, the foundation was laid for the construction of the New Town Hall. 1874, work began on the Town Hall at the former Franzensring opposite the Burgtheater and the south of the square adjacent parliament building (north side front: Town Square 6). From 1877 to the new main building of the University of Vienna (southern side front: Town Square 5 ) built. Are installed on the three sides of the square five blocks with nine home numbers (No. 1 to No. 9), the fourth side is bordered by the ring.
In course of time the name of the place changed four times. In 1870 he was created as Town Hall Square, renamed in 1907 after the incumbent Christian Social mayor in Dr.-Karl -Lueger -Platz. The dominant Red Vienna since 1919, this appeared to be inappropriate, as Lueger in Vienna had prevented the universal and equal male suffrage, in 1907 introduced at state level. Therefore, the of a private committee donated Luegerdenkmal under the rule of mayor Karl Seitz was not, as intended by the Committee, in the town square erected but built in 1926 on a previously unnamed square corner Wollzeile/Stubenring and this place in the same year Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Platz named. The town square was returned to its original name . In 1938, the place was again renewed to Adolf Hitler Platz, what was reversed in 1945.
Christmas Market at City Hall
The large space between City Hall and the Burgtheater was used by all the rulers for political rallies. Since 1921, with its current form dates back to 1929 and was interrupted from 1933 to 1945, it is the traditional final rally of the Vienna SPÖ Maiaufmarsches (May-Procession) on 1 In May at the Town Hall Square. In addition, the space is exploited for most of the year for cultural and social events. The most important of them since 1975, the Christmas market in November and December, the Vienna Ice Dream in January and February, the opening of the Vienna Festival in May and open-air cinema screenings with classical music in July and August. The Life Ball at Vienna City Hall refers also to the town square. Traditionally, a since 1959 every year from one of the states erected large Christmas tree as a gift to the federal capital.
Location and characteristics
The Town Hall Square is located between the extended Grillparzerstraße to the north, the University Ring to the east, the extended Stadiongasse in the south and the extended Reichsratsstrasse in the West. Except the ring on which there are no buildings on this street, bear the buildings that are on the place in the wake of these streets, house numbers of the town square. Stadiongasse and Grillparzerstraße end before the court, the Reichsratsstrasse is interrupted by the court.
About two- thirds of the space area of 40,000 m² are taken from the City Hall park, which is divided by a blocked to traffic, very wide access road between the Burgtheater and the Rathaus, which offers space for events, into a northern and southern half. The town square is lined by some of the most important monumental Ringstrassen-Zone in historicist style. In the square itself is a large number of monuments and statues. Thus, the town square is one of the most representative places in Vienna.
The tram lines 1 and D operate on the ring road and have at the City Hall Square opposite the Burg Theatre and at the corner of Parliament stops. Coming from the south and from the ring turning, operates tram line 2 on the southern edge of the town square to Stadiongasse. The individual passes through traffic heading north on the eastern edge of the square on the ring road in the opposite direction behind the Town Hall on the two-line (Zweierlinie). Cycling trails pass off on the ring road and at the Grillparzerstraße and Stadiongasse. Behind the town hall runs the subway line U2 to the City Hall with the subway station as shuttle to City Hall and City Hall Square.
Building
City hall
The central building in the middle of the west side of the town square is the City Hall, built in 1873-1883 by Friedrich von Schmidt, New Town Hall, Town Hall called only since about 1970. The powerful, dominating the square building was designed by the Dutch Gothic models. It should express the political power of the strengthened bourgeosie against the monarch and the aristocracy.
The City Council has at the Town Hall no main entrance or direct access to the arcade court, they are located on the side fronts of Felderstraße and Lichtenfelsgasse, another entrance is at the rear front at the Friedrich-Schmidt-Platz. The town hall itself is essentially the so-called People's Hall on the ground floor of the town hall via a staircase outdoors is accessible (inputs centered under the town hall tower and left and right). The People's Hall is occasionally used for exhibitions. The outlet is located at the corner of Felderstraße to City Hall basement.
Arcade, Town Hall Square 2-4
Foyer with ceiling painting Apotheosis of Vindobona, Town Hall Square 4
No. 2, 3 and 4: Arcade Shops
The block north of City Hall was built in 1880-1883 by Franz von Neumann. Plan requirement was to equip the buildings (such as on the west side of the Imperial Parliament Street, in the course of which they are) at the town square with arcades. Held in the old German style, houses have remarkable corner projections made with domes. At the central projection there are respectively balconies on herma. The attic floor is decorated with stucco relief female figures. The rib-vaulted arcades are painted with grotesques by Franz and Carl Jobst and equipped with cast iron lanterns. Particularly important are the foyers on No. 4 (and at the back of the block on the Ebendorferstraße 4). Frieze reliefs show the allegories of commerce, the arts and commerce. A large ceiling painting depicts the apotheosis of Vindobona. Lanterns and railings are made of wrought iron.
No. 5: University of Vienna, Main Building
Town Hall Square and front side of the university 's main building in 1900
The Town Hall Square side facing the front of the main university building today (2007 )
On the north side of the town square is the front side of the main building of the University of Vienna. The main work of the late phase of the strict historicism was built in 1873-1884 by Heinrich von Ferstel. The 29-axle side facade is broken repeatedly by risalits as well as by half and full columns. Statues of Anton Schmidgruber and Franz Koch standing in relation to the philosophical faculty. The building has no open entrance here .
No. 6: Parliament
On the south side of the town square is the side front of the parliament building, which was built as Reichsratsgebäude for Cisleithania. It is the most important work of the architect Theophil von Hansen, the latter founded 1871-1883 by ancient Greek models. At the Town Hall Square, the Parliament has a covered side entrance, originally a carriage way.
No. 7, 8 and 9 houses with arcades
Dome on the corner risalt, Town Hall Square 7
South of the Town Hall is located one block of houses with arcades, built 1877/1878 of City Hall architect Friedrich von Schmidt and Franz Neumann in old German forms. These were the first houses with arcades of City Hall district. Dominant are domes on corner risalit and central dome, bay windows, balconies, putti frieze and statues of Venus and Mars on the facade. In the rib-vaulted arcades are embedded gates with half column portals and acroterion figures. The lobbies are decorated with stucco ceilings, among other rich and grotesque painting. At No. 8 is located under the arcades the in City Hall circles famous café and pastry shop Sluka.
City Hall Park
At the request of Mayor Felder the City Hall Park was created as a complementary recreation area in the Ring Road zone. It is a strictly historicist Park, which was created as the city park of city gardener Rudolf Siebeck. The green area is north and south of a link road from the Burgtheater on the Ring to the City Hall laid out, which extends space-like in front of City Hall. In each of the two parts is a Rondeau Park with fountains, which are intended to highlight the two Viennese spring water lines and were financed by the builder Antonio Gabrielli.
Orientation plan
Under the old trees of the park there are five trees that are designated as natural monuments in Vienna. A lime in the southern part of the park was planted on the occasion of the 50th anniversary jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph I in 1898, an oak tree, also in the southern part of the park in 1906 for the then incumbent mayor Karl Lueger. Winding paths lead through the two parts of the park. The garden fence is original historicist. In the northern part of the park is a large children's play area. A 1890 in the southern part of the park built weather house, destroyed during the Second World War, was renewed in 1955 with mosaics of Mary Biljan-Bilger. The modern toilet facilities were designed by Luigi Blau.
Monuments
Waldmüllerdenkmal (Monument) by Josef Engelhart, 1913
The Town Hall Square is home of a number of monuments, they are described here from the ring road starting.
(Locked) Access from the Burgtheater to City Hall
At the beginning of this approach is, turning off the ring road, left the monument to Theodor Körner, mayor, then President of the Second Republic, by Hilde Uray, bronze statue, 1963,
right of the monument to Karl Seitz, first head of state of the First Republic, then mayor in Red Vienna, by Gottfried Buchberger, bronze statue, 1962.
Directly between the two parts of the park in 1902 eight stone monuments of significant figures in the history of Vienna were placed four at each park side facing each other. They had been established in 1867 on the balustrades of the former Elizabeth Bridge over the river (Wienfluss) on Karlsplatz. When in 1897 the bridge was demolished in this area because of the light rail construction and the resulting vaulting of the Wienfluss, the eight monuments first have been put along the then still in the incision extending new light rail line on the Karlsplatz, where they but heavily by the soot of steam locomotives polluted monuments were popularly called eight chimney sweepers. Therefore, they were transferred to the town square later:
left ( south side):
Margrave Henry II Jasomirgott from the House of Babenberg, by Franz Melnitzky
Duke Rudolf the founder of the House of Habsburg, of Josef Gasser
Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg, defender of Vienna (second Turkish siege), by Johann Baptist Fessler
Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Baroque architect, Josef Cesar
right (north side):
Duke Leopold the Glorious from the House of Babenberg, by Johann Preleuthner
Niklas Graf Salm, defender of Vienna (first siege of Vienna), by Matthias Purkartshofer
Archbishop Charles Leopold of Kollonitsch, spiritual leader of Vienna (second Turkish siege), Vincenz Pilz
Joseph of Sonnenfels, judicial and administrative reformer of Maria Theresa, by Hanns Gasser (replaced in the Nazi era in 1939 by a statue of the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, re-erected after 1945)
Next to the town hall (tower), outside of the southern part of the park: replica of the Vienna City Hall man at the top of City Hall tower in scale 1: 1, by Fritz Tiefenthaler, 1985
Southern part of the city hall park (towards Parliament)
At the corner of Park Ring/Parliament, addressed to the ring: Karl Renner, the first Chancellor of the First and first president of the Second Republic, portrait head of Alfred Hrdlicka on monument structure of Josef Krawina, 1965-1967
Josef Popper-Lynkeus, social ethicist, stone bust of Hugo Taglang, 1926. As artists and represented were Jews , the bust was removed in the Nazi regime in 1938, restored in 1951 according to the plaster model.
Johann Strauss (father ) and Joseph Lanner, statues of Franz Seifert, 1905, Art Nouveau, the bronze sculptures stand in front of a curved wall with marble reliefs of ball scenes and a poem by Edward von Bauernfeld. This concept and the architecture created Robert Oerley .
Northern part of the city hall park (towards the University)
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, marble monument of Josef Engelhart, 1913 , Art Nouveau
Ernst Mach, physicist, of Heinz Peteri, 1926
Adolf Schärf, vice chancellor, then president of the Second Republic, bronze bust of Alfred Hrdlicka, 1985
The most recent monument in the park, built in 1993, commemorates the wartime destruction of Vienna in 1945 and was by Hubert Wilfan under the title Yesterday - Today created from stone.
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathausplatz_(Wien)#Geschichte
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After many years than three attempts to see inside this year alone, finally, the door did open for me.
But, not at first, as the loack had two settings, the first did not work, a little bit of ompf and I was in.
A pleasantly small and simple church, with remains of wall paintings a simple rood screen.
My eye was taken by the roof and support beams, very nice.
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St Peter's is in a windswept location, in open farmland, with ancient yew trees and a patina of great antiquity. Abutting the north side of the tower, and entered from the church, is a rare medieval priest's house. The nave has a distinctly unusual atmosphere. It is lofty and plain, with much light flooding in from the large south windows. While there is no chancel arch there is a horizontal beam which carries the Royal Arms of George III. The three-crownpost roof is beautifully set off by whitewashed walls which are almost devoid of monuments. After the nave the chancel is something of an anti-climax, although there are traces of medieval wall paintings on the south wall.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Molash
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MOLASH
Is the next parish westward from Chilham; it is a parish which lies very obscurely among the hills, being little known, and having very little traffic through it. The village, which is straggling, is situated near the western boundaries of it, the parish of Wye joining close up to it. The church stands close on the north side of the village; there are about fifty houses, and two hundred and sixty-five inhabitants, the whole is much covered with coppice wood, mostly beech, with some little oak interspersed among it; the country is very hilly, and the soil of it very poor, being mostly an unsertile red earth, mixed with abundance of slints.
There is a fair held here on the 16th of July yearly, formerly on the Monday after St. Peter and St. Paul.
The Honor of Chilham claims paramount over this parish, subordinate to which is The Manor Of Bower, alias Flemings, which is situated in the bo rough of Godsole, northward from the church, it took the latter of those names from the family of Fleming, who were once the possessors of it; one of whom, John de Fleming, appears by a very antient courtroll of this manor, to have been owner of it, and in his descendants it probably continued for some time; but they were extinct here in the reign of Henry VI. in the 24th year of which, as appears by another antient court-roll, it was in the possession of John Trewonnalle, in which name it continued down to the reign of King Henry VIII. and then another John Trewonnalle alienated it to Thomas Moyle, esq. afterwards Knighted, and he owned it in the 30th year of that reign; and in his descendants it remained till the reign of Kings James I. when it was alienated to Mr. Henry Chapman; at length his delcendant Mr. Edward Chapman leaving three sons, Edward, Thomas, and James Chapman, they became possessed of it as coheirs in gavelkind, and afterwards joined in the sale of it to Christopher Vane, lord Barnard, who died in 1723, leaving two sons, Gilbert, who succeeded him in the north of England; and William, who possessed his father's seat at Fairlawn, and the rest of his estates in this county, having been in his father's life-time created viscount Vane, of the Kingdom of Ireland. He died in 1734, as did his only son and heir William, viscount Vane, in 1789.s. p. (fn. 1) who devised this manor, among the rest of his estates in this county and elsewhere, to David Papillon, esq. late of Acrise, the present possessor of it.
Witherling is a manor in this parish, situated likewise in the borough of Godsole. In the antient records of Dover castle, this manor is numbered among those estates which made up the barony of Fobert, and was held of Fulbert de Dover, as of that barony, by knight's service, by a family of its own name. Robert de Witherling appears to have held it in the reign of king John, as one knight's see, by the same tenure; in whose descendants it continued down to the reign of King Henry VI. When Joane Witherling was become heir to it, and then carried it in marriage to William Keneworth, whose son, of the same name, passed it away in the reign of Henry VII. to John Moile, of Buckwell, who died possessed of it in the 15th year of that reign, as appears by the inquisition taken after his death, and that it was held of Dover castle. His son John Moyle sold this manor, in the 4th year of Henry VIII. to Hamo Videan, descended of a family of good note in this county. There is mention made of them in the Parish Register, from the first year of it, 1557, to the present time; but they have been decayed a long time, and their possessions dispersed among other owners; but there is still a green in this neighbourhood, called from them Videan's, (by the common people Vidgeon's) forstal. In his descendants it continued till the reign of King Charles II. when it was conveyed, by a joint conveyance, from that name to Mr. Tho. Thatcher, whose daughter Mary carried it in marriage to Mr. Henry Bing, of Wickhambreux, whose son John Bing (fn. 2) sold it to Mr. Edward Baker, for the satisfying his sister's fortune, whom the latter had married; and on his dying intestate, this manor descended to his four sons, Thomas Baker, clerk, Edward, Henry, and Bing Baker, who joined in alienating it, about 1771, to Thomas Knight, esq. of Godmersham, whose only son and heir of the same name died possessed of it in 1794, s. p. and by will devised this manor to Edward Austen, esq. then of Rowling, but now of Godmersham, who is the present owner of it. A court baron is held for this manor.
Chiles, alias Slow-Court, is a small manor in this parish, which some years since belonged to the family of Goatley, which had been settled here from the time of queen Mary. One of them, Laurence Goatley, died possessed of it in 1608. He then dwelt at his house in this parish, called Bedles, and was lessee of the parsonage. Searles Goatley, esq the last of this family, was brought from Maidstone a few years ago, and buried in this church. Laurence Goatley devised this manor to his third son Laurence, one of whose descendants passed it away to Moter, and in 1661 Alice Moter, alias Mother, of Bethersden, sold it to John Franklyn, gent. of this parish, whose daughter carried it in marriage to Thomas Benson, of Maidstone, and he in 1676, by fine and conveyance, passed it away to Robert Saunders, gent. of that town, as he again did in 1703 to Esther Yates, widow, of Mereworth, whose executors in 1716 conveyed it to David Fuller, gent. of Maidstone, who dying s. p. devised it in 1751 by will to his widow Mary, who at her death in 1775, gave it to her relation, William Stacy Coast, esq. now of Sevenoke, the present proprietor of it.
Charities.
Simon Ruck, gent. of Stalisfield, and Sarah his wife, by indenture in 1672, in consideration of 35l. granted to Thomas Chapman, gent. and John Thatcher, both of Molash, a piece of land containing three acres, called Stonebridge, in this parish, for the use, maintenance, and relief of the poor of this parish for ever.
Thomas Amos, yeoman, of Ospringe, by will in 1769 gave 100l. in trust, to be laid out in the public funds, and the dividends to be yearly paid, on the day of St. Thomas the Apostle, to the churchwardens, to be distributed to the most necessitous poor of Molash; which, with other money of the parish was laid out in the purchase of 125l. three per cent. reduced Bank Annuities.
The poor constantly relieved are about nine, casually twenty. five.
This Parish is within the Ecclesiastical Juris diction of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Bridge.
The church, which is dedicated to St. Peter, is a small mean building, consisting of one isle and one chancel, having a pointed turret, shingled, at the west end, in which are three bells. There are several memorials of the Chapmans in this church, and in the isle is a stone, inscribed Pulvis Chapmannorum, under which is a vault, wherein several of them lie. In the chancel there is an antient gravestone, cossin-shaped, with an inscription round, in old French capitals, now, through time, illegible. The font is antient, having on it, Gules, three right hands couped, argent; a crescent for difference. In the Parish Register, which begins in 1558, are continual entries of the Videans, Goatleys, Franklyns, Thatchers, Chapmans, Moyles, and Wildish's, from that year almost to the present time. It is esteemed only as a chapel of ease to Chilham, and as such is not rated separately in the king's books.
¶The great tithes or parsonage of this parish were formerly a part of the rectory or parsonage of Chilham, and as such belonged to the alien priory of Throwley, on the suppression of which, anno 2 king Henry V. they were given to the monastery of Sion, which being dissolved by the act of 31 Henry VIII. they came, with the rest of the possessions of that house, into the king's hands, whence the parsonage of Chilham, which included this of Molash, was granted next year, together with the honor and castle, and other premises, to Sir Thomas Cheney, whose son Henry, lord Cheney, alienated the whole of them in the 10th year of queen Elizabeth, to Sir Thomas Kempe, of Wye, who in the 21st year of that reign alienated the parsonage or great tithes of this parish to William Walch, who held the same in capite, and he that year sold it to John Martyn, who as quickly passed it away to Richard Tooke, whose descendant Nicholas Tooke, in the 25th year of that reign, conveyed it in 1633, by the description of the manor of Molash, and all the glebes and tithes of this parish, to Sir James Hales, in which name it continued some time, till it was at length sold to Sir Dudley Diggs. who devised it to his nephew Anthony Palmer, esq. whose brother Dudley Palmer, esq. of Gray's Inn, in 1653, was become owner of it. It afterwards belonged to the Meads, and from them came to Sir Thomas Alston, bart. of Odell, in Bedfordshire, who lately died possessed of it, and his devisees are now entitled to it.
This church being a chapel of ease to that of Chilham, constitutes a part of that vicarage, the vicar of it being presented and institued to the vicarage of the church of Chilham, with the chapel of Molash annexed.
In 1585 here were communicants one hundred and twenty-six. In 1640 there were only forty communicants here.
St Helen is probably my favourite Kent church. At least from the outside. Alternating bands of flints and local stone give it a Christmas Cake effect, but in bright sunshine it looks stunning.
Inside, its no less impressive. Part of the wall paintings survive, as do geometric patterns on some of the supporting columns.
And it is huge, with a fine wooden roof, a replacement after a fire, but still works well, and the fabric of the church seems good.
Everywhere there are fabulous things to find; Aumbries, memorials, and so much more.
And I reeived a warm welcome from the warden who was waiting for visitors. Last time I was here, there was a display of how the estuary airport-cum-Boris Johnson vanity project seemed a real possibility. Now he is back insulting foreigners, and the airport is dead. But a new Thames crossing is being mooted, and it might run across Grain, which would be a shame to have the peace and quiet shattered.
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An absolute knockout of a church. From the first glimpse of the exterior, with its zebra-like stripes of flint and stone, you know that here is a church of great interest. In plan it consists of an aisled nave, transepts, chancel and west tower - all built on a prodigious scale. Although the church was heavily restored on two occasions in the nineteenth century there is still a great deal of interest and a visit here should not be rushed. The pillars of the nave have distinctive 'V' paintings contemporary with their fourteenth-century construction. The pulpit is of 1636 and shows some excellent carved arcading. Attached to it is a contemporary hourglass stand. The north transept has wall paintings depicting the martyrdom of St Edmund, but these were over-touched-up by Professor Tristram in 1932. Further paintings exist in the south transept and probably show the martyrdom of St Margaret. The base of the rood screen is fifteenth century while the rather insubstantial traceried top is an early twentieth-century addition. There is an elaborate tie-beam high in the roof with little quatrefoil piercings in the spandrels, but this could not have supported the rood as the remains of the rood loft staircase may be seen in its usual position. Outside the north chancel wall can be found a piscina and holy water stoup - all that remains of a medieval chantry chapel or anchorite's cell which has been demolished. The blocked-up doorway that originally gave access to it may be seen both inside and out. On the inside south wall of the chancel is one of the finest sedilia in Kent which together with its double piscina dates from the early years of the fourteenth century.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Cliffe
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THE Church at Cliffe is dedicated to St. Helen and bears the distinction of being the only church in Kent dedicated to that Saint. It stands in a prominent position at the edge of the Hoo peninsula overlooking the extensive marshes which at this point stretch some two miles to the Thames.
The village seems at one time to have been of greater importance than it is to-day. Lambarde describes it as a large town in his day in spite of a disastrous fire which had destroyed many of the houses about 1520, a fire from the effects of which it appears never to have recovered.
The Manor of Cliffe belonged from very early times to the Prior and Convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, who were also the owners of the advowson, and thus became concerned with the upkeep of the church. At the Dissolution the Manor passed to George Brooke, Lord Cobham, though the Archbishop of Canterbury is still the patron of the living. Among the Rectors of Cliffe were several men of distinction, some of whom probably never visited the parish. From an early date there seems to have been a perpetual vicarage attached to the church, but when it became merged in the Rectory is uncertain.
Of the first church at Cliffe there is no definite record. It is sometimes said to have been founded by Offa, king of Mercia, in the latter part of the eighth century, though the only evidence for this appears to be the presumed identification of the place with the Cloveshoo of the Saxon Chronicle, where various synods of the Saxon Church were held in the eighth and ninth centuries. Without attempting to suggest a solution of this very debatable point, it can only be said that the evidence in favour of Cliffe appears to rest on at least as good authority as that of the rival claimants—Abingdon in Berkshire, and Clifton Hoo in Bedfordshire. There is moreover good reason to think that Cliffe was less inaccessible than might be supposed in mediaeval times. There still remain traces of a causeway across Higham Marsh, which must at one time have led to a ferry, thus affording an easy means of approach from Essex and the Midlands.
The earliest undisputed documentary reference to a church at Cliffe is in the Domesday Survey. It was evidently a building of more than usual importance for it is expressly stated that two ministers were in charge. Of this building, however, not a vestige remains, though there can be little doubt that from it the present plan has, on more or less recognised lines, been developed.
The plan as it exists to-day is complete, and consists of a nave with wide aisles, north and south transepts, chancel, western tower and south porch. The church is one of the largest in Kent, and is a striking example of a parish church whose size and splendour could have borne but little relation to the actual needs of the locality. It was the product of an age whose zeal for church building was limited only by the funds available. The total internal length from east to west is 182 feet, while the width across the transept is 82 feet. The exterior has been the subject of somewhat extensive restoration, which has robbed it of much of its ancient appearance. The south aisle differs from that on the north in having an embattled parapet, similar to that of the porch. The walls of the tower and transepts are faced with flint rubble with little attempt at regular coursing. The later work of the nave and chancel, though extensively refaced, is composed of alternate courses of dressed flints and stone ; the latter, a soft ragstone from the lower green sand formation which, quarried probably from the outcrop a few miles to the south, has weathered badly in many places. A variety of other materials is noticeable, some of which appear to have been reused from the earlier church. A block of Caen stone in the east wall of the chancel, and several pieces in the north wall, have obviously been reused, while a single piece of calcareous tufa can be seen in the north wall of the transept; Reigate stone is also fairly abundant.
It is not till one enters the church, that its size is fully realised. The absence of pews over a large part of the nave, with the fact that the nave arcade is carried past the crossing without a break, and the absence of a chancel arch, all combine to emphasise its spaciousness. The impression
gathered from a superficial survey of the interior is that of a thirteenth century church with considerable additions in the fourteenth century, but a more careful inspection shows at least one trace of an earlier building. The arch from the north aisle into the transept, which has been partially cut away when the thirteenth century nave arcade was constructed, is certainly of late twelfth century date and must therefore have survived from an earlier church. Before, however, considering the development of the ground plan, it is necessary to refer briefly to the chief features of architectural interest which call for notice.
The porch is of a fairly common type, with an upper room, approached by a stair turret from the south aisle. It measures internally 11 feet 5 inches from east to west by 16 feet from north to south, and is apparently of late fifteenth century date. On the right of the inner doorway are the remains of a holy water stoup. The room above has been considerably modernised, and there is nothing to indicate its original use. Occasionally an altar is found in the porch chamber, which, however, in this case would seem more likely to have been used for storing the church goods.
The north and south aisles of the nave are 19 feet 10 inches and 18 feet wide respectively, and are thus considerably wider than the nave itself. They contain a fine series of Decorated windows, those at the end of either aisle being particularly interesting examples of three lights. The church as a whole is very rich in windows of this period, which form in themselves an interesting study in design. The south aisle has a stone bench running along its south and west walls.
The tower is entered from the nave by a plain thirteenth century arch, and measures approximately 15 feet 6 inches from east to west by 17 feet 6 inches from north to south (interior measurements). The lower stage, which is shut off from the church by a screen, and is now used as a vestry, is lit by three narrow lancets, one in each of the disengaged walls. The roof is a simple quadripartite vault, without any boss at the intersection of the ribs, which are carried on shafts supported on corbels set in the four angles. The lower part of the tower is apparently thirteenth century work, and somewhat earlier than the transepts. The flat, clasping buttresses appear to be original, though now entirely re-faced, and might in themselves suggest a transitional date for the base of the tower. The upper part has been rebuilt at a much later date, and contains a Perpendicular window. Like most towers of the period, it is probable that there was originally no structural stairway leading to the upper stages, access to which had to be obtained by means of a ladder, though the existing doorway to the modern stair turret appears to be of fairly early date.
The transepts deserve special consideration on account of the very interesting work which they contain. Their date cannot be later than about 1260 and there are some grounds for thinking that the south transept may be slightly the earlier of the two. The east wall of the south transept is
divided into two bays by blind arches, supported on slender banded shafts, with a narrow lancet window in the centre of each arch. A somewhat similar arrangement exists on the east wall of the north transept, though in this case the central shaft is not carried to the ground, but rests midway on a moulded bracket, below which is a piscina with a trefoil head of the same date. The treatment of the west wall of the north transept is very similar to that of the east, but the arches are much narrower, and the arrangement has been somewhat interfered with by a later widening of the nave aisle. In the south transept the arcading on the west wall is somewhat plainer, and the banded shafts have been dispensed with. Although similar in general design, certain details point to the south transept being slightly the earlier. The string course below the windows, which is continued round the shafts of the mural arcading, is a plain scroll moulding, while in the north transept a fillet is substituted, and the central bands on the shafts of the arcading are of a more elaborate character. The triple lancet windows at the ends of either transept are modern, and replaced two large fifteenth-century windows, which are shown in several early views.
The north transept was formerly shut off from the rest of the church by a screen, and used for holding the Rector's Court. In mediaeval times, and down to 1845, the Rector of Cliffe had a peculiar jurisdiction within his parish. He was exempt from all ecclesiastical authority other than personal visitation from the Archbishop of Canterbury. The wills of parishioners were proved in the local court, and the official seal of the Peculiar is still preserved in the Rochester Museum.
The chancel, which appears to have been rebuilt entirely in the middle of the fourteenth century, is complete, save for the insertion of a modern east window, which replaced an extraordinarily ugly eighteenth-century aperture of brick. The remaining windows are all fine examples of Decorated work, the tracery of which shows a distinctly Flamboyant tendency. The eastern pair affords interesting examples of Kentish tracery. All have good hood-mouldings with
grotesques at the ends. Beneath the windows is a stringcourse, which terminates at the altar rails with a grotesque head on either side. That on the north has been renewed, but the southern one represents the battered head of a monk.
The chief interest in the chancel, however, is its fittings. In the south wall is a series of three very beautiful fourteenth century sedilia, with a piscina of uniform character, recessed in the wall and ascending eastward. They are divided by slender buttressed shafts, supporting elaborately carved ogee canopies, and surmounted by crockets and finials. Beneath the canopies are trefoiled arches, and behind these the roof is carved in imitation of sexpartite vaulting.
Opposite in the north wall is a fine late-fourteenth century tomb of early Perpendicular character, which is often referred to as an Easter sepulchre, for which purpose it may well have been used. The wide cinquefoil arch is surmounted by an elaborate embattled cornice, supported on narrow
buttressed shafts, and terminating with a carved head at either end ; circles with internal cuspings fill the spandrils of the arch.
Immediately west of this tomb is a blocked doorway which led to an adjoining building, now demolished. The exterior wall at this point is of a different character from the rest of the chancel walls, and apparently of earlier date. It is composed of a variety of material, including pieces of Caen stone, which probably came from the earlier church, and suggests that this section of wall and the chapel, of which it formed part, survived the re-building of the chancel in the fourteenth century. The two adjoining buttresses have been constructed out of sections of the eastern and western walls of the chapel, and serve to indicate its approximate size. The position of its low roof is clearly shown by the stone corbels which remain at a height of 7 feet 8 inches from the ground. The floor must have been somewhat lower than the present ground level, as the small piscina in the exterior of the chancel wall is now only two feet from the ground. In the base of the westernmost of the two buttresses is a niche, now scarcely eighteen inches from the ground, which may originally have been used as a holy water stoup, since it was close to the entrance to the chapel. This small building probably served the joint purpose of a Sacristy and Chapel. That it contained an altar there can be no doubt from the piscina already noted.
It may possibly be referred to in the will of Richard Elys, who in 1468 left 12 pence to the light of the Blessed Mary in the chapel and 4 pence to the light of the Blessed Mary near the pulpit, though one of the transepts may of course have been here intended. Such evidence as there is on the other hand seems to point to the chapel having been pulled down at the time of the rebuilding of the chancel or soon afterwards. The blocked doorway in the chancel wall was originally carried down to the present ground level on the exterior, so that there must have been some steps in the thickness of the wall leading down into the chapel. The date of this doorway, which was probably contemporary with the building to which, it led, is uncertain. It is certainly earlier than the adjoining late-fourteenth-century tomb, as parts have been cut away when the latter was inserted, and the use of somewhat small stones points to an earlier rather than a later date. Its details on the other hand include the wave moulding which is usually taken to be characteristic of the Decorated period, or one might otherwise be inclined to think that it formed part of the thirteenth century chancel. The filling on the exterior is certainly not modern, and the fact that a plinth has been inserted when the doorway was blocked up, to match that round the rest of the chancel evidently with the intention, which was never carried out, of continuing it along the section of earlier walling where the chapel stood, seems to suggest that this work was undertaken about the same time as the rebuilding of the chancel.
We are now in a position to consider the probable development of the ground plan, which, though somewhat conjectural for the earlier period, has left some interesting and unmistakable traces of its later history. In the entire absence of remains of the early Norman church, one is forced to rely for the identification of its position on analogy with other buildings of similar type. The first church of which we have any record in all probability consisted of a simple nave and square- ended chancel. The three easternmost bays of the existing nave arcade would preserve the line of
the north and south walls of the church, while the chancel would occupy the interior of the present crossing. There is nothing to show the position of the west wall, but it would have been approximately in a line with the present north and south doors. Towards the close of the twelfth century north and south aisles, about half the width of the present ones, were probably added by piercing the original walls with arches, and about the same time a small chapel or aisle appears to have been built to the north of the original chancel, and the existing arch constructed so as to give access into it. This arch, which cannot be later than about 1200, is obviously much earlier than the present transept and must therefore have communicated with an earlier building on its site. Some evidence in support of this came to light during the restoration of the north transept in 1864. The foundations of an early wall four feet thick were found beneath the present floor running parallel and close to its eastern wall. At a distance of 15 feet from the chancel wall it appears to have been met by another wall at right angles to it. Unfortunately no further record was made of this discovery, but it establishes beyond doubt the existence of a building in this position, to which the arch in question opened. It is possible that this was the chancel arch of a late twelfth century church, and that the foundations were those of the former chancel, though such a theory would be more difficult to reconcile with the later development of the plan. Moreover on the assumption that there already existed a building on the north of the original chancel when the thirteenth-century builders decided to remodel the church, it is possible to account for the hitherto unexplained fact that the north transept is wider than the south by some three feet. The normal development of the thirteenth century produced a cruciform church. A new and longer chancel, and north and south transepts, were built around the small twelfth century chancel, while the nave and aisles were lengthened by the removal of the west wall some 20 feet further west, and a tower erected to the west of this. These extensive works could not of course have been simultaneous.
The tower appears to be somewhat earlier than the transepts, so that presumably the lengthening of the west end was undertaken first, and at the same time an Early English arcade, extending an additional bay westward, was inserted in place of the twelfth century arches. Contrary to what was frequently the case in churches of this type, there was clearly never any intention to erect a central tower over the crossing, since the abutments are far too weak to have supported the weight. This weakness would account for the presence of the strainer arch of oak, which must
have been inserted sometime in the fifteenth century.
With the completion of this work the early builders grew more ambitious. Almost immediately the work on the new chancel and transepts must have begun. A temporary hoarding was probably erected, shutting off the nave and the altar, transferred there until the new works were finished. The chancel and the south transept were probably first erected, as the sites were free of buildings ; the width of the latter being determined by the size of the former chancel and the chapel on the north. When the work was completed attention was directed towards the north transept, which, according to the usual practice, would have been rebuilt round the earlier building, the foundations of which were discovered in 1864, thus accounting for its slight extra width. Probably towards the end of the century the small chapel, the remains of which have already been mentioned, was built on the north of the new chancel.
Considerable alterations were undertaken in the fourteenth century, the principal of which were the rebuilding of the thirteenth century chancel, and the widening of the nave aisles. The latter was a very frequent form of improvement at this period, and was usually occasioned by the desire
for extra space to set up additional altars so as to meet the enormous increase in the popularity of Chantry bequests. At Cliffe the effect of this widening is clearly shown on the already completed design of the transepts. In the north transept one of the lancets was cut away, and a short pointed arch springing from shafts, which do not reach the ground, inserted in its place. The apex of the original lancet still remains in the wall above. In the south transept a similar alteration in plan is treated somewhat differently. A segmental arch, here reaching to the ground, and opening into the extended aisle, was inserted within the earlier bund arch in the west wall of the transept. This also necessitated the removal of an original lancet, the head of which can be seen occupying the space between the original arch and the later insertion. The windows in the nave all appear to be of this date. Probably contemporary with this extension of the aisles, was the heightening of the nave to allow for the clerestory with its row of single splayed lancets. The junction of this work with the old can be clearly seen immediately above the arcading. The thirteenth century roof of the nave was about on a level with those of the aisles, as the small window in the east face of the tower, which now looks into the church, must originally have looked out over the roof. The line of the fourteenth roof, which was erected at the time that the clerestory was added, can be seen on the wall of the tower, passing across the window opening. Below this the position of the third roof, erected 1732, can also be seen. This roof, which was almost flat, was replaced by the present one about forty years ago.
The rebuilding of the chancel would appear to have been undertaken at the same time as extension of the aisles, to judge from the similarity of the external stonework. This would again have necessitated the use of the nave for services, and it is probable that either at this time, or during the earlier work on the interior of the transepts, the round headed arch, which can be seen on the exterior of the north wall of the north transept, was constructed for the convenience of the masons while the ordinary entrances were not available. That this arch or doorway, which has sometimes been said to be of Norman origin, was really of a much later date, and of a purely temporary character, seems to be shown by a close inspection of its construction. The position is not in the centre of the wall while the arch itself is made up of a variety of material including large flints, pieces of Beigate stone and a single block of calcareous tufa, the latter doubtless coming from the early church. Further, the fact that the filling of the arch' seems to be of much the same character as the adjoining walls points to it only having been used for a comparatively short time. Everything in fact indicates that it was a purely temporary arrangement used during the construction of the transepts, or the later chancel, and filled up as soon as the work was completed. A somewhat similar, though smaller, arch in the exterior of the south wall of the tower was probably of a similar nature, though its purpose is conjectural, and it may have had some connection with original stairs to the upper floors. By the end of the fourteenth century the church was practically complete. The porch was added early in the following century, and the large Perpendicular windows, which formerly existed at the ends of the transepts, inserted. At the same time the upper part of the west tower was rebuilt. Certain work also seems to have been in progress about this time in the chancel, for in the will of the Rector in 1413 a sum of money was left towards that object. Exactly what resulted from the bequest one cannot say.
The subsequent additions were chiefly in the nature of modern insertions. The eighteenth century saw many acts of destruction which are duly entered in the parish registers. In 1730, during the Rectorship of George Green, the old high-gabled roofs were taken down, the lead recast, and an
almost flat roof substituted. Two years later the east window was demolished and a hideous brick opening substituted, and at the same time the old timber roof of the chancel, which, since it bore his arms, had probably been erected during the time of Archbishop Arundel, who occupied the See from 1396 to 1414, was pulled down, and both the nave and chancel ceiled. During this period also the two enormous brick buttresses, which are shown in some early views, were erected on the north and south sides of the tower. The church was in this condition when Sir Stephen Glynne visited it in 1857. Subsequent restorations have been extensive, though for the most part necessary. The brick buttresses to the Tower were removed shortly after Sir Stephen Glynne's visit, and the present circular stair turret erected in the place of the southern one. The chancel was restored in 1875, when traces of the original reredos were discovered, and the jambs of the original east window, which were of Reigate stone and about 15 feet apart, were found in situ. The present window was erected in place of the eighteenth century one in 1884, and at the same time the flat lead roofs of the nave and chancel were removed, and the present high-pitched tiled roofs substituted. Finally a small building, without any communication with the church, has been erected in recent years to the east of the north transept. During these successive restorations much of the external walls has been refaced from time to time, and the whole of the upper part of the east wall of the chancel which was pulled down in 1732, was rebuilt when the present window was inserted.
It is somewhat difficult now to picture the appearance of the interior of the church in mediaeval times. A brilliant colour scheme evidently played an important part in the general effect. Many of the piers of the nave arcades, which are apparently constructed of hard chalk, still show traces of a bold chevron pattern in red and yellow, and, together with the extensive wall paintings, slight traces of which still remain in the transepts, and the brilliance of the mediaeval glass, must have combined to give a very rich effect to the interior. Of the ancient glass very little remains. Dr.
Grayling mentions some fourteenth century borders in the chancel windows, which seem to have disappeared. In the central window of the north aisle is a small piece of ancient glass representing a ship with fish in the water beneath, which is said to have been found many years ago in a shed in the churchyard. In the top of the adjoining window is a fifteenth century figure of the Virgin and Child. A coat of arms in another window is mentioned by Thorpe, but this also seems to have disappeared. The wall paintings, though now very indistinct, were evidently much clearer until
comparatively recent times. On the east wall of the north transept, in the space between the southernmost of the two lancets and the arch in which it is placed, is one of these paintings, divided into five panels, depicting the Martyrdom of St. Edmund. Very little of it can now be made out, though the whole of this transept showed traces of colour at the time of the restoration of 1864. Some remains of a painting in a similar position in the south transept can still be seen, and are said to represent the Last Judgment.
Several bequests for the provision and upkeep of lights before the various altars add a little to our knowledge of the interior in mediaeval times. Of the various saints to whom lights were dedicated in the church Our Lady was of course the most popular. We have already seen that two altars
were dedicated to her. One of these is again mentioned in 1483, when Robert Qwikerell left 20 pence "to the Parish Church of Cleue and to the ligth of Our Lady besyde the pulpett there" and also a similar amount to the lights of St. Laurence and St. George. Richard Elys in 1469 also
mentions lights of St. Christopher, St. John and St. James, while in 1509 Steven Tudor bequeathed to the high altar of St. Elyn 20 pence, and to the light of St. Elyn 12 pence.
Of the position of these various lights one cannot speak with any certainty. That to St. Christopher would have been near the main entrance to the church, while the light of the patron saint, St. Helen, would have been in the Chancel, probably over the high altar. Remains of a piscina in four other places in the church prove the former existence of altars in these positions. That in the Sacristy has already been mentioned. At least one altar stood in each of the transepts, while a small piscina, apparently constructed of broken window tracery at the east end of the south aisle, testifies to another. An altar probably stood in a corresponding position in the north aisle. This disposition would exactly account for the number of lights mentioned in early wills. Besides the lights burning before the altars, there would also be a light before the great Rood over the entrance to the chancel. Some of the lower panels of the original rood screen survive. Above, and partly supported by, the screen was the rood loft, which was already in existence as early as 1413, when it is mentioned in conjunction with the great rood itself and its attendant figures in the will of Nicholas de Ryssheton, Canon of Sarum and Rector of Cliffe. The small fifteenth century doorway with a fourcentred arch, which gave access to it, can still be seen high up in the north wall just east of the entrance of the chancel, and the original stairs remain in good condition, though the entrance from the church has been blocked up and covered over with plaster.
The furniture in the church has suffered much from “restoration" and other causes. Six of the ancient stalls remain, three on each side of the chancel, though panelling at the backs and all the seats except two are modern. The sides terminate in carved heads, some of which have been
renewed, while the two original miserecords are carved with grotesques. The Communion rails are Jacobean, though somewhat repaired. They are of the fairly common baluster type with a central bulge. The pulpit is a very fine piece of Renaissance carving, and retains the original stand for the hour glass, though the glass itself is modern; on it is the date 1636.
Besides the fragments of the original rood screen there is another screen shutting off the vestry under the tower.
The font, which has been moved from its original position, is 3 feet 4£ inches in height, and apparently of late-fourteenth century date. The perfectly plain octagonal bowl has concave sides, around the lower edge of which is a hollow chamfer. The bowl is supported by an octagonal, buttressed stem on a plain base. On the westernmost pillar of the south arcade can still be seen the bracket and chain by which the font cover was raised, indicating its original position.
The monuments in the church are few, and call for little comment. In the floor at the west end of the north aisle are two flat coffin-shaped stones with early fourteenth century French inscriptions in Lombardic capitals. The one on the north is probably the earlier, judging from the very rough
characters which are now scarcely legible. It commemorated Eleanor de Olive, of whom nothing is known. The other stone shows traces of brass, and is inscribed in memory of Joan, wife of John Earn. These stones are described in the Gentleman's Magazine, and old rubbings of them exist among the collection of the Society of Antiquaries. There are three brasses of seventeenth century date, one of which is thought to have been engraved locally.
Two wills are of interest in connection with early burials in the church. In 1376 Robert de Walton, Rector of Cliffe, desired to be buried in the church of Olyve at the entrance to the quire. Some years later, in 1387, Thomas de Lynton, a subsequent rector, directed that he should be buried in the chancel near the entrance, and between the entrance to the quire and the tomb of Master Robert Walton, late Rector, and he ordered that a handsome marble monument should be placed over his body at the discretion of his executors. It seems not unlikely however that his executors favoured a brass monument. In the chancel is the stone matrix of what must once have been a very fine brass of about this period, representing a priest under a canopy. Another smaller matrix of an ecclesiastic is close to the pulpit.
Of the church plate the most important piece is a very beautiful paten of silver gilt of the early part of the sixteenth century. In the centre, worked in coloured enamels, is a seated figure of God the Father holding before Him a figure of the crucifixion. The extreme rarity of pre-reformation
plate is not generally recognised, and the example at Cliffe is one of the finest English patens in existence. At some period or other the paten at Cliffe served as a chalice cover, and it is even said to have been used as an alms dish, which would account for its numerous signs of wear. The other plate is of seventeenth century and later date, and of no particular interest.
It remains for me to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. F. O. Blliston Erwood for several suggestions and for the photographs which illustrate this paper. The present account is intended to supplement, but not to supplant altogether, an article on Cliffe Church, by the Rev. I. Gr. Lloyd, a former Rector, which appeared in Vol. XI. of Arch. Cant., where reference should be made for further particulars.
www.cliffehistory.co.uk/martin.html
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CLIFFE (St. Helen), a parish, in the union of North Aylesford, hundred of Shamwell, lathe of Aylesford, W. division of Kent, 5 miles (N. by W.) from Rochester; containing 842 inhabitants. The parish is bounded on the north by the Thames, and comprises 5660 acres, whereof 180 are woodland, about 2000 arable, and the remainder pasture, including a considerable portion of marshy land. The village, which is supposed to take its name from the cliff or rock on which it stands, was formerly of much greater extent, a great part of it having been destroyed by fire in 1520: it was the scene of several provincial councils. A pleasurefair is held on September 28th. The living is a rectory, valued in the king's books at £50; net income, £1297; patron, the Archbishop of Canterbury: the glebe contains 20 acres. The church is considered one of the finest in the county, being a large handsome cruciform structure in the early English style, with an embattled central tower, and containing several curious monuments and remains of antiquity, together with six stalls that belonged to a dean and five prebendaries, it having been formerly collegiate.
www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-dict/england/pp63...
2-16-08
My name is Lori Zarlenga- Blaquiere. I was born on September 14, 1961 in the state of Rhode Island. I am writing to you for your immediate help. My life is in immediate danger from orders issued by President George W. Bush and Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri to
assassinate/murder me. You can contact me at my email LoriZarlenga@gmail.com and
my space.com/lorizz Also, you can find me on “google” by entering my name as keyword. My case is legitimate. Please do not disregard my case.
I have evidence and tapes on top officials and law enforcement among others to support my
claims. The current Rhode Island Senators Sheldon Whitehouse , Senator Jack Reed and former Senator Lincoln Chafee, among others are covering up and will not help me.
I posted a diary on the Daily Kos website on August 12, 2007 with regard to my life being in immediate danger from orders issued by President George W. Bush and Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri to assassinate/murder me.
I continued to stay on the Daily Kos website until sometime after 5:00 am and received
comments from the Daily Kos members community. The Daily Kos has over 1 million
members on their website.
On August 12, 2007, I was uploading exhibits, photos, and evidence to the Daily Kos members that support my claims against the United States Government et al.
On August 12, 2007 at approximately between 5:00 am & 6:00 am a West Warwick
Police officer came out to my house at 101 Border Street West Warwick, R.I. and violently banged at the doors at my house and continued to violently bang at the doors of my house for a long period of time in a terrorizing manner. The West Warwick Police Officer was given orders to stop me from getting the truth out to the American public .
I Lori Ann Zarlenga state that on August 21, 2007, a West Warwick Police vehicle came
up behind the vehicle where I was located in the back seat with my 5 year
old granddaughter and my mother Victoria Zarlenga who was seated on the passenger
side and my son Michael Zarlenga who was driving the vehicle on Cowesett Avenue
West Warwick, R.I.
I Lori Ann Zarlenga state that the police officers proceeded to get out of their police
vehicles with their guns drawn and aimed at the vehicle where I was located in the back
seat of the vehicle along with my 5 year old granddaughter, my mother and son .
The Coventry police, East Greenwich Police, the Rhode Island State Police, and the West
Warwick Police were on the scene.
I Lori Ann Zarlenga state that a West Warwick Police Officer pulled me out of the
vehicle where I was located in the back seat near my 5 year old granddaughter, with my
mother and son in the front seat of the vehicle.
I Lori Ann Zarlenga state that the Police proceeded to slam me to the ground and force
handcuffs on me and force me in the back seat of the West Warwick Police Vehicle.
I repeatedly asked the West Warwick Police Officer why the police forced handcuffs on
me and forced me in the back seat of the police vehicle, but the West Warwick Police
Officer repeatedly ignored me.
I continued to ask the West Warwick Police Officer why the police forced handcuffs on
me and forced me in the back seat of the police vehicle, he then stated to me that he was
trying to protect me .
While I was in the West Warwick Police vehicle, I observed police officers saluting to
each other with regard to capturing me.
While I was in the back seat of the West Warwick Police vehicle, a West Warwick Police
Officer asked me if I was injured and if I needed to go to the hospital inorder to lure me
into consenting to go to the hospital.
I stated to the West Warwick Police officer that I did not need to go to the hospital.
The West Warwick Police Officer told me that the fire rescue was going to take me to the
hospital for a psych evaluation.
I stated to the West Warwick Police officer that I did not want to go to the hospital and
that I did not need a pych evaluation. However, the West Warwick Police Officer told me
that I had to get into the Fire Rescue and go to the hospital. As a result, I had no other
choice but be taken by fire rescue to Kent County Memorial Hospital for a psych
evaluation without my consent.
My mother told me that the police officers apologized to her and stated to my mother
that they made a mistake .
I was subsequently taken by ambulance and transferred
to Land mark Medical Center without my consent and held hostage in lock down mental
health unit against my will. All of the evidence that was in my favor was ignored
by the doctors, social workers, and psychiatrist at Kent County Memorial Hospital and
Landmark Medical Center. The doctors, social workers, and psychiatrist at Kent County
Memorial Hospital and Land mark Medical Center manipulated and skewed the true facts
to cause me harm in connection with helping law enforcement and United States
Government from preventing me from exposing the truth to the American people and
my case continuing on Appeal with regard to the criminal acts committed by law
enforcement and the United States Government.
My Mother stated to the psychiatrist and nurses at Landmark Medical Center that I was
not delusional or paranoid and that I have never been a danger to myself or others and
that I have no history of mental health, and that I have never had a history of being
prescribed psychiatric medication and that I did not need psychiatric medication
my complaints against law enforcement are legitimate.
However, Dr. Elahi disregarded my mother statements and proceeded to contact his lawyer to
discuss whether or not he should discharge me, despite all evidence in my favor.
My family member stated to me that nurses at Landmark Medial Center made
statements about being disgusted with Dr. Shahid Elahi for consulting with his lawyer
with regard to whether or not to discharge me and delaying my discharge.
The nurses at Landmark Medical Center stated to me that I did not belong at Landmark
Medical Center Mental Health Unit
I have never had a history of mental illness.
On September 4, 2007, I was discharged from Landmark Medical Center.
I have never had a history of being targeted by the United States Government, Federal
and State law enforcement, among others prior to my L-tryptophan lawsuit.
In August of 2007, I had an Appeal pending in the First Circuit United States Court of
Appeals with regard to my December 7, 2006 Complaint against the United States
Government et al. As a result, of being held hostage in the hospital from August 21, 2007
to September of 2007, along with intimidation from law enforcement, among others in
connection with the United States Government I was unable to respond important
deadlines set by the First Circuit United States Court of Appeals . As a result, my Appeal with the First Circuit United States Court of Appeals is in default/dismissed for lack of
diligent prosecution.
As a result of my ingestion of contaminated L-tryptophan manufactured by Showa
Denko K.K., I developed a disease Eosinphilia Myalgia Syndrome. There are
approximately 5,000 people who ingested contaminated L-tryptophan
manufactured by Showa Denko K.K., and developed a disease Eosinphilia Myalgia
Syndrome. There maybe more unreported cases of Eosinphilia Myalgia
Syndrome caused by ingestion of contaminated L-tryptophan .
The L-tryptophan problem is the fault of the FDA due to lack of enforcement of 172.320,
among other violations of the FDA rules. Therefore, the FDA permitted the continued
illegal use of L-tryptophan.
If the FDA had enforced action against Showa Denko K.K., for violation of the FDA
rules mentioned herein, then L-tryptophan would not have been on the market and sold
to the American Public and caused death and illnesses associated with the sales of L-
tryptophan .
On October 25, 1995, I filed a products liability lawsuit against the Defendants
Showa Denko, K.K., Showa Denko America, Inc. General Nutrition Centers (GNC), et al. in
the State of Rhode Island Superior Court.
My case was transferred to Rhode Island District Court, (Blaquiere v. Showa Denko, K.K.,
Showa Denko America, Inc. General Nutrition Centers (GNC), et al., C.A.No.1:95-629 ).
My case was subsequently transferred for discovery to (MDL) United States District Court
Columbia, South Carolina, C. A. No. 3:96-361-0.
My case (Blaquiere v. Showa Denko, K.K., Showa Denko America, Inc. General
Nutrition Centers (GNC), et al., (C.A.No.1:95-629 ) was remanded to Rhode Island
District Court in 2003.
I hired a lawyer Dennis S. Mackin in 2000/2001 who used my case to file discovery
motions in the(MDL) United States District Court Columbia, South Carolina, (C. A. No. 3:96-
361-0), damaging to the defendant ShowaDenkoK.K.,their lawyers,Cleary,Gottlieb,Steen,and
Hamilton, and the United States Government.
My former lawyer Dennis Mackin was paid off to withdraw from my case and to
not go forward with the discovery motions and depositions damaging to Showa
Denko K.K., their lawyers, and the United States Government.
The discovery sought in my case that my former attorney Dennis Mackin filed in 2001 in the(MDL) United States District Court Columbia, South Carolina, (C. A. No. 3:96-361-0) was to demonstrate that Showa Denko K.K. and its attorneys have been involved in a continuing conspiracy to not only circumvent the discovery process, but to manipulate any scientific examination of Showa Denko K.K.’s reckless and wanton conduct”.
The United States Government wiretapped my phones, hacked my computers, surviellanced me during my L-tryptophan litigation and to the present. The United States Government obstructed justice, unlawfully sabotage my case inside and outside of the court system at every level.
My former attorney Dennis Mackin stated in his October 12, 2001 Reply of Plaintiff to Defendant's Motion to Qaush Deposition of Kenneth Rabin , that "additional questions must be answered about political pressure brought to bear upon members of the South Carolina Congressional delegation."" What information was given to Senator Thurmond, Senator Hollings and Congressman Ravenell?"
Documents made by Showa Denko K.K. included a budget attached to their public
relation scheme which was an amount determined for congressional
contracts, including the South Carolina delegation which was for 16, 000.00.
My former attorney Dennis Mackin stated in his motions that, “ The research of
this Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome has been twisted by the endless
manipulations by Showa Denko K.K and their lawyers,Cleary,Gottlieb,Steen,and
Hamilton and their confederates”. “ Worst of all, the scientific literature now
contains representations by shills for Showa Denko K.K. that will cause erroneous
medical science in the future”.
The United States Government is involved in the cover up .
My former attorney Dennis Mackin informed me that a promoter of an EMS
support group was being surveillanced and that anyone that who was viewed as a
threat was being surveillanced and intelligence was gathered .
The defendant Showa Denko K.K. a corrupt corporate giant, their corrupt lawyers,
and the United States Government conspired with all the courts at every level to
sabotage my case and the L-tryptophan litigation.
Showa Denko K.K., their lawyers, and the United States Government view me as
a threat, since my lawsuit still remains open that is damaging against Showa
Denko K.K. and General Nutrition Centers (GNC), among others. Also, Showa Denko K.K., their lawyers, and the United States Government, President George W. Bush and Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri fear the threat of civil and criminal action against them for their unlawful criminal activities.
I pose a threat to Showa Denko K.K. and the United States Government since,
my L-tryptophan lawsuit could re-open previous settlements entered into by
2,000- 5,000 L-tryptophan litigants on the basis of fraudulent inducement and the
United States Government's involvement in the cover up.
They were entered into by L-tryptophan Plaintiffs who were unaware of the defendants fraudulent concealment and the United States Government's cover up.
Showa Denko K.K., the United States Government, President George W. Bush and
Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri fear a movie being made and publicizing
their criminal activities which has continued to date.
President George W. Bush's father former President George H. W. Bush Sr. was
President of the United States from 1989 to 1993 during the Eosiophilia Myalgia Syndrome epidemic.
I filed a Complaint on December 7, 2006 against the United States Government et al. in
the United States District Court of Rhode Island, CA. No. 06-534 ML. My complaint is
pending in the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The United States Government have hired
my family, among others as informants to surveillance and gather intelligence on me.
At the time that I filed my December 7, 2006 complaint against a number of defendants
who are employed by the United States Government, I was unaware of orders issued by
President George W. Bush and Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri to assasinate/
murder me.
I spoke to a state senator with regard to my circumstances of law enforcement on the state and federal level that have harassed, targeted, survillenced me and have come out to my house and follow me on a daily basis. Also, the West Warwick police have even parked at my grandchild’s school shortly after I exposed President George W. Bush orders to assassinate/murder me.
The state senator stated to me that federal law enforcement, the Attorney General of the United States, and the Department of Justice are employed by President George W. Bush.
Moreover, my case is not isolated by a small number of police and law enforcement targeting and surveillanceing me. There are to many law enforcement and police and government officials organized at the highest level on the federal and local level that have targeted and surviellanced me. The state senator stated that the orders to murder me are coming from the President George W. Bush .
Further, the Rhode Island State Police who have been targeting and surviellancing me are given orders from Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri
In June or July of 2007, President George W. Bush came to Rhode Island and went on a
private helicopter ride with Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri and had discussions.
Shortly after I filed my December 7, 2006 complaint against the United States
Government et al, two key defendants named in my complaint retired Captain Gregory
Johnson of the West Warwick Police Department and Supervisory Special Agent
Nicholas Murphy of the Federal Bureau of investigation of R.I., and there may be others
who have also retired.
I am targeted, followed, and surveillanced by police officers, among others in the towns and places I travel in the state of Rhode Island and out of the state of Rhode Island on a daily basis.
The level of intensity and the number of police targeting, surviellancing, and following me has increased after I filed my December 7, 2006 complaint. And now since I have exposed President George W. Bush who issued orders to assassinate/murder me, the level of intensity and the number of police surviellacing and following me has further increased.
My telephones are wiretapped. The United States Government is hacking my computers.
The Federal Bureau of investigation, among others covered up the investigation of the hacking of my computers.
The Federal Bureau of investigation, United States Attorneys Office , Attorney Generals office, Department of Justice, among others are covering up and aware of the fact that I was kidnapped and assaulted by a Warwick Police Officer Joseph Mee on January 22, 2006 that was organized at the highest level of United States Government to assassinate/ murder me.
Further, law enforcement, among others are covering up the fact that on December 15, 2005 and December 16, 2005, Captain Gregg Johnson and Officer Patrick Kelly and the Kent County Memorial Hospital Emergency Room Staff violated my constitutional rights and deprived me of liberty against my will and without my consent to cause me harm in connection with the United States Government and Showa Denko K.K.
On April 14, 2006, I spoke to Laura Lineberry who is Condalezza Rice's personal assistant. Laura Lineberry informed me that she could not help me with regard to my circumstances mentioned herein, and that I should leave a message with the Representative of Secretary of State. I left a message with the Representative of Secretary of State, but no one returned my call.
On April 14, 2006, I contacted the White House comments department in Washington, DC for help with regard to my circumstances mentioned herein, and spoke to a young lady number(77) who stated she would pass on my comments to her supervisor and that her supervisor would summarize my comments and give it to President Bush. On April 14, 2006, I was unaware that President George W. Bush issued orders to assassinate/ murder me.
President George W. Bush, Condalezza Rice's office , nor anyone associated with the White House, responded in any way shape or form to my plea for help with regard to my circumstances mentioned herein.
I have evidence of my telephone calls to the White House, among others.
The IP Addresses with regard to the hacking of my computers have been traced to Washington, D.C.
You can view my complaint at pacer.psc.uscourts.gov.
My login is: lz0129 My password is 3y6!pomz ( party name is under my married name of Blaquiere) December 8, 2006 thru December 8, 2007 is the date you would use to view my complaint, since December 8, 2006 is the date my complaint was entered by the United States District Court of Rhode Island.
The United States District Court of Rhode Island omitted my supporting exhibits on
Pacer website and have intentionally obstructed my case and deprived me of a fair judicial process, inorder to protect and insulate the United States Government et al.
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT DOES NOT INITIATE ACTION AGAINST SHOWA DENKO K.K. FOR THE FOLLOWING VIOLATIONS:
The L-tryptophan problem is the fault of the FDA due to lack of enforcement of 172.320, among other
violations of the FDA rules. Therefore, the FDA permitted the continued illegal use of L-tryptophan.
If the FDA had enforced action against Showa Denko K.K.,for violation of the FDA rules mentioned
herein, then L-tryptophan would not have been on the market and sold to the American Public and
caused death and illnesses associated with the sales of L-tryptophan in violation of the FDA rule.
In 1970 FDA considered L-tryptophan (amino acids) , when used as nutrients or dietary supplements, to
be generally recognized as safe (GRAS) for those uses, and published that fact in the code of Federal
Regulations.
In 1972 FDA engaged in rule making to withdraw and remove approximately twenty amino acids
including L-tryptophan from the GRAS list ( generally recognized as safe) and to regulate them as
approved food additives that could not be sold without FDA's prior approval in the form of a food
additive petition, (37 Fed. Reg. 6938; April 6, 1972).
In 1973 FDA promulgated a binding substantive rule that is presently on the books, the Food additive
regulation that makes all amino acids, when used as components of dietary supplements,
unsafe food additives that violate the adulteration provisions of Act. 21 C.F.R. 172. 320.
In 1977, FDA seized L-tryptophan tablets on the grounds that the L-tryptophan that they contained
was an unapproved food additive. The court, however, found for the manufacturer of the tablets
because L-tryptophan was still on the FDA's GRAS list, (FDA had failed to remove it after the 1973
rulemaking), and the manufacturer was acting in accordance with the FDA's regulation.
In 1977, FDA deleted the listing of twenty amino acids that were the subject of the 1973 rulemaking
form the GRAS list, ( 42 Fed. Reg. 56720; October 28, 1977).
The FDA never renewed its regulatory action against dietary supplements containing L-tryptophan .
The food additive regulation that the FDA adopted in 1973 does not list (approve) L-tryptophan for
this use, and foods that contain unapproved food additive are deemed to be adulterated (21 U.S.C. 342
(a) (2) (c)).
FDA has not brought an action since 1977 against an L-tryptophan dietary supplement.
The FDA sought to enforce the rule prohibiting the use of amino acids in dietary supplements in two
seizure actions against products containing L-tryptophan. Those seizure actions were not successful.
The U.S. Government voluntarily dismissed the second lawsuit because the lawsuit was controlled by
a very hostile judge and the government feared that it would obtain an adverse ruling that would
insulate all dietary supplements from regulation under the food additive provisions of the act.
The FDA has not made any efforts to regulate amino acids since 1982. FDA ignored the food additive
regulations since 1982. In 1990, there was evidence showing that 30 amino acids other than L-
tryptophan were being sold by at least 22 companies.
The FDA has failed to date to bring charges against Showa Denko K.K. Showa Denko K.K. was in
violation of the FDA Food additive regulation that makes all amino acids, when used as components of
dietary supplements, unsafe food additives that violate the adulteration provisions of Act. 21
C.F.R. 172. 320. FDA should have gone after Showa Denko K.K. on an adulteration charge that the
L-tryptophan in the supplements is an unapproved food additive under 21 U.S.C. 342 (a) (2) (c).
Also, FDA failed to bring charges against Showa Denko K.K. with regard to L-
tryptophan being unfit for food, ( 21 U.S.C. 342 (a) (3). L-trytophan associated with illness
Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome, is unfit for food.
The FDA could have gone after L-tryptophan supplements as drugs. The FDA could have
developed evidence that L-tryptophan used for therapeutic purposes to combat sleeplessness and PMS
which is what L-tryptophan was advertized for is considered a drug and the FDA finding L-tryptophan
had not met the FDA's rational food supplement test would permit the FDA to bring drug charges
against the product under either 21 U.S.C. 321(g) (1) (B) or (c), National Nutritional Foods
Association v. Mathews, 557 F.2nd 325, 334 ( 2d Cir. 1977).
If the FDA had enforced action against Showa Denko K.K.,for violation of the FDA rules mentioned
herein, then L-tryptophan would not have been on the market and sold to the American Public and
caused death and illnesses associated with the sales of L-tryptophan in violation of the FDA rule.
On the Rhode Island ACLU website, there is a lawsuit against the United States
Government for Illegally surviellacing individuals attending a peace group in Rhode
Island and in other states.
The United States Government has files on these peace groups and have labeled these
peace group individuals as a threat because their simply anti-war.
The illegal acts of our United States Government is not an example of democracy, it is a
Dictatorship ruled by a dictator President George W. Bush who has committed crimes
against humanity and has violated our human rights.
Representative John Conyers Jr, was the Chairman re: the July 18, 1991 hearing on the FDA oversight of L-tryptophan. Representative John Conyers Jr, is currently the Chairman of the U.S.
House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary who can call for an investigation and immediate congressional hearings into this matter.
Please help me by writing to congress and. to investigate and call for immediate congressional hearings into this matter. Also, contact Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Senator Jack Reed to investigate and call for congressional hearings into this matter. If the American people place enough political pressure to investigate and call for congressional hearings into this matter, then an investigation into this matter will go forward and the truth will be exposed to the American people.
Also, please contact Senate Majority Leader, Senator Harry Reid, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Senator Arlen Specter, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Senator John McCain, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Barack Obama, and all members of the Senate to call for investigation and congressional hearings with regard to law enforcement engaged in an ongoing organized crime to assassinate/murder me by orders issued by President George W. Bush.
President George W. Bush has scammed the American people into believing that the Iraq
war is a "just war" and that the United States military are fighting for democracy,
freedom and for our safety here at home, and yet at the same time President George W.
Bush is committing the worst crimes in american history against innocent american
citizens.
Please expedite the above and contact me at my email: LoriZarlenga@hotmail.com
You can view documents and obtain information about L-tryptophan and Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome on the National EMS Support Group website at www.nemsn.org
You can find me at myspace.com/lorizz
Also, you can find me at my website www.tiptopwebsite.com/lorizz.
I posted a letter explaining in more detail on my website and on my space.com/lorizz
If you have any questions or want to view my exhibits that support my December 7, 2006 complaint filed in the United States District Court of Rhode Island, then you can e-mail me and I will send you attachments you can view .
Thank You, Lori Zarlenga
Norwood, Bronx
Designed in 1900, and built from 1901 to 1902 by the New York architects Arthur J. Horgan and Vincent J. Slattery, the former 50th Precinct Police Station House is prominently sited at the intersection of Kingsbridge Terrace and Summit Place. Its style, scale, materials of construction, direct relation to the street, and ornament contribute to the monumental character, which distinguished the building from the surrounding two- and three-story frame structures of rapidly expanding Kingsbridge.
A symbol of the authority of the police force and of the presence of municipal government in early 20th century Kingsbridge, and an exemplar of Beaux-Arts principles of composition, the building should be seen within the context of the City Beautiful Movement.
Historical interest in the building further derives from its being among the best surviving works of an architectural firm that was very much in the public eye at the tum-of-the-century.
Development of the Kingsbridge Area
Coincident with the growth of the northwest Bronx generally, the modern development of Kingsbridge and of the area presently known as Kingsbridge Heights dates from the latter half of the 19th century.
Rural and sparsely populated, with a varied topographical character, the Bronx of the 19th century depended for its growth on the gradual subdivision of estates, on changed attitudes respecting the desirability of the area, and on the completion of the Harlem River Railroad, which provided a first impetus to the development of the "north side."
Kingsbridge formally began to take shape as a residential community in 1847 when the Macomb family's "Island Farm," an extensive tract, was surveyed and subdivided into building lots, which were then sold for development.
Notwithstanding its late development relative to communities on Manhattan Island, Kingsbridge has had a rich history beginning as early as 1609 with the arrival of Henry Hudson on the Spuyten Duyvil peninsula.
Apparently, the Dutch had considered siting their projected New Amsterdam colony at Kingsbridge.5 The plan was soon abandoned, but by the early 17th century, the Dutch were fanning areas, on Manhattan as far north as the flatlands of Harlem.
It was not long before they began to seek areas into which the population could expand; thus, in addition to disaffected New Englanders, among the first settlers of Westchester County (chartered in 1683) and the Bronx — the land "upon the Maine" — were the Dutch. Indeed, the earliest European settler of the immediate Kingsbridge area was the Dutchman Jonkheer Adrien Van der Donck in 1641.
Van der Donck's tract, known as de Jonkheers, included all of the land from Spuyten Duyvil north eight miles along the Hudson River and east to the Bronx River.
The construction of the Boston Post Road in 1673 facilitated travel and communication between Manhattan Island and the northern colonies. Originating in lower Manhattan, the route ran the length of the island, crossed the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, traversed Westchester County and Connecticut, and terminated in Boston.
Until 1693 and the construction of the King's Bridge by landowner Vredryck Flypsen, crossing of the Spuyten Duyvil was accomplished by ferry. From the bridge, the Boston Post Road ran to Albany Crescent (which is just north of the old West Farms/Kingsbridge town line), followed Boston Avenue (the original name for that block of Kingsbridge Terrace in which the police station is located), and then veered toward the northeast, crossing the Bronx River at William's Bridge.
Another of the early roads radiating from the location of the King's Bridge and moving north along Bailey Avenue, was the Albany Post Road (opened in 1669 as far as the Sawmill River and in 1700 to Albany), which then continued along the western side of the Van Cortlandt properties.
That the King's Bridge served as the principal passage from the northern tip of Manhattan Island to the Bronx mainland, underlines the significance of the greater Kingsbridge area during Revolutionary times. As the main military artery for the armies of both the British and the Americans, the bridge was under constant attack during those Revolutionary War years when New York City was subject to British occupation (1776-1783).
Boston Hill (the name for the rise in the immediate vicinity of Albany Crescent) was the scene of many battles in the years following 1776, and from 1777 to 1779, the British established a presence at the Van Cortlandt mansion (located on the eastern side of the Albany Post Road).
Early indications of the eventual residential development of the area can be seen in the period immediately fol lowing the Revolution, at which time, well-to-do New Yorkers focused on the natural beauty of the area with an eye toward moving northward.
The eventual annexation of the Bronx proceeded in piecemeal fashion and not without opposition: against the incorporation were those Bronx residents who thought that nothing would be gained by aligning themselves with heavily populated Manhattan, and those New Yorkers who saw no advantage to appropriating farmland.
Nevertheless, on 1 January 1874, the townships of Kingsbridge, West Farms, and Morrisania formally became the twenty-third and twenty-fourth wards of the City of New York; from that time until 1898, they were known
collectively as the "Annexed District". It was not until 1895, however, that the annexation of the Bronx east of the Bronx River was effected.
In 1897, the New York State Legislature passed a charter for the creation of Greater New York City; in 1898, twenty-four local governments including all the annexed districts north of the Harlem River, as well as the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond (Staten Island) were officially consolidated.
Commenting on building operations in the Bronx and noting a remarkable thirty-three percent increase thereof between 1898 and 1899, a dealer in real estate averred: "as to the future of the borough, that is assured, for the natural trend of the city's growth is northward, and the Bronx with all its proposed improvements will reap a golden harvest."
Corroborating his opinion, the Real Estate Record and Guide of 1901 observed that "more families continue to forsake their downtown neighbors for better homes and the purer air and ampler room above the Harlem and especially brisk in the matter of building is [sic] the upper and eastern sections of the Bronx, where both private and tenement houses are springing up."
In point of fact, just after 1895 and the annexation of the eastern section, booms in both real estate and population occurred. These were attributable to a combination of factors, the most important being inclusion into the metropolitan area, self-government, and the improvement of transportation.
Bronx Police History and the 50th Precinct
Bronx police history formally began in January 1866 when the Metropolitan Police District, created by an act of the New York State legislature in 1857, established a substation in the Village of Tremont in the Town of West Farms.
Previously, police activity in Kingsbridge had been under the jurisdiction of Manhattan's 32nd Precinct (currently the 30th), located at Amsterdam Avenue and 152nd Street.
Due to an increase in criminal behavior accompanying the immediate post-Civil War growth of the area, the residents of Yonkers and West Farms had favored incorporation within the Metropolitan Police District. Participation in the State's Metropolitan Police District was not long-lived, however; in 1870, as a result of the reorganization of local government according to the terms of the Tweed Charter, the City reclaimed control of the police department.
In the following year, Yonkers withdrew from the Metropolitan Police District and organized a police force of its own. In November 1871, the Yonkers police established a substation at Kingsbridge (the predecessor of the 50th) to serve the precinct extending from the West Farms town line to just south of the present Yonkers city line; an existir^ frame building, located at Verveelen Place, just east of Broadway and south of 231st Street, was adapted for use as a station house.
As a consequence of the separation of the Township of Kingsbridge from the City of Yonkers in 1872, the force headquartered at Kingsbridge was administered by a joint Board of Police Commissioners of Yonkers and Kingsbridge. Following annexation in January 1874, the district constituted of Kingsbridge, Morrisania, and West Farms was divided into two precincts and one sub-precinct of the New York Police Department.
Shortly thereafter, the sub-precinct, headquartered at Kingsbridge, came into its own as the 35th Precinct.18
With the consolidation of 1898, the Police Department of Greater New York assimilated eighteen small police agencies, and a move was initiated to conform the boundaries of police precincts to the lines of the individual townships. New precincts were created to serve newly annexed areas and to accommodate rapid population increases and building and commercial development in already established ones.
In accordance with the general objective of creating a flexible system that would provide for future expansion of the force, several renumberings of Bronx precincts occurred during the next thirty years. Upon consolidation in 1898, Kingsbridge was redesignated the 40th; in January 1918, the 74th; in April of the same year, the 57th; in 1924, the 26th; and on 1 August 1929, the 50th, which it remains to this day.
Despite its changed status upon incorporation into the Greater New York City Police Department, the 40th Precinct (subsequently the 50th) continued to occupy its makeshift quarters at Verveelen Place, which were enlarged in 1886 by taking possession of a two-story frame building to the east. This measure served only as a stopgap, however, for conditions had become progressively unsatisfactory and indeed unsavory.
Not only were the quarters cramped, but the basement of the building had flooded so often that the jail had settled out of plumb. A newspaper reporter of the time remarked that "no more unhealthier police station exists in the City of New York than this one,and in the late 1880s, the Board of Health condemned the building. Nevertheless, although a project for construction of a new facility finally was initiated in 1898, new accommodations would not be had until 1902 when " 'the shanty', as the frame building which . . . sheltered the blue-coat&i guardians ever since the 40th precinct was established [was] abandoned for a modem structure.
In a review of the official architecture of New York City, The Real Estate Record and Guide (November 1898) branded municipal architecture a disgrace, deplored its standards, and observed that there appeared to be a tendency to employ builders over professional architects.
This situation — in which "there is not even one architecturally decent police station"^ — began to improve as New York embarked on a citywide reconstruction and renovation campaign to modernize police facilities. The turn of the century enthusiasm for constructing civic monuments provided a further impetus.
Horgan and Slattery were commissioned to design a new 40th Precinct Police Station House sometime between 1898 and fall 1900, although the City of New York did not purchase the land on which the building is situated until 2 October 1900.
The firm estimated the construction costs for the station house, stables, and a prison, at $70,000. Plans were filed in December 1900, but approval to proceed was denied due to the omission of tie rods between the steel floor and the spruce beams of the one-story carriage house.
The New Building Application was approved on 9 January 1901 only after the architects filed a petition demonstrating that their use of the Roebling System of Fireproof Construction would constitute a sufficient tie in itself.23 construction began 18 March 1901 and was completed 16 April 1902.
Horoan and Slattery
From 1894, when The New York Times initially reported on the financial difficulties of the firm, until the period 1899 to 1903, when the newspaper regularly and eagerly followed the professional lives of Horgan and Slattery, the architects gained more and more notoriety.
While political patronage certainly was not an invention of the Tammany administrators, Mayor Robert Van Wyck was overly zealous about stamping the municipal architecture of New York City with the seal of his administration. It appears to have been Van Wyck's intention either to convey all city projects directly to Horgan and Slattery or to install them in a consulting capacity over more widely renowned architects such as John Thomas (Hall of Records) or Frederick Withers (City Prison).
The firm first achieved public recognition with the rehabilitation of the interior of the Democratic Club in 1897. Upon completion of that job, apparently ". finding. . .hundreds of odd jobs, large and small. . .for the favored architects."
Queries from a perhaps overly critical press respecting any architect's professional qualifications or lack thereof are not in themselves objectionable.
However, in the case of Horgan and Slattery, the situation was rather more complicated as the attacks became a vehicle for denouncing the Van Wyck administration generally and pertained very little, if at all, with a fair assessment of the firm's work. In order to bolster their charges of corruption in the Van Wyck administration, the press seized upon the seeming irregularity in the relationship between the architects and the administration, claiming that the firm name had become "a trademark of municipal disrepute and jobbery".
Horgan and Slattery were characterized as political pawns "who had no standing artistic, political, scientific, or financial [but were] used as the cat's paw of politicians anxious to get control of municipal building in New York. . ."
Despite the scandals surrounding the firm, political affiliations carried the day, for "on the death of the architect J.R. Thomas, the contract for the completion of the Hall of Records was granted to the favorite Tammany contractors Horgan and Slattery in spite of strong denunciation of such action."
Considered cogs in a great political machine and sarcastically dubbed the "universal solvents" or experts in all fields of architecture, the firm was taken to task for lapsed professional and moral responsibilities:
The new city administration has acted none too soon and with none too much severity in the cases of those two "devouring absurdities" Horgan and Slattery. Two self-respecting men in their places — but that is unimaginable. Two self-respecting men could never occupy their places. But two men with not more than twice the average thickness of skin would have got out, when Tammany was defeated, withqut waiting to be kicked out amid the cheers of the bystanders.
Upon his election in 1902, Mayor Seth Low called for the "dishorganizing and unslatterifying" of municipal architecture and insisted that "all business relations between the city and Horgan and Slattery, who received the award of all city contracts during the administration of Mayor Van Wyck should be terminated as soon as possible."
Mayor Low's administration adopted a hardline position according to which it would be preferable to pay damages in court than to honor any outstanding contracts with the architects.
Although ethics rather than aesthetics constituted the point of departure for the accusations in the local press — there having been very little critical coverage of the design work —the artistic capabilities of the architects were fair game as well.
Nevertheless, the firm's rise to prominence, even in the context of its alleged association with the great tum-of-the-century New York City Democratic party machine, cannot nullify the inherent value of their designs, which, in large part, combined classical vocabularies and Beaux-Arts principles of composition.
The Architects' and Builders' Magazine of January 1907 recognized that, "[J. R. Thomas'] work has been carried on in praiseworthy fashion by Messrs. Horgan and Slattery who have added to Mr. Thomas' brilliant conception much of the virility of design which characterizes their other well-known masterpieces."
Scant biographical information exists on the two architects. Photographs or drawings of a fair number of their projects were published in architectural journals, but accompanying text is rare. Arthur J. Horgan (1868-1911) and Vincent J. Slattery (1867-1939) entered into partnership in 1886. Until 1897, the New York City Directory listed them as builders; interestingly, in the 1898 edition, they emerged as architects.
Evidently, they had incorporated as such and were working out of an office at 1 Madison Avenue. Apart from Horgan's testimony in 1899^^ before the Mazet Committee that he had studied architecture for five years in the offices of his godfather, Colonel Arthur Crocks,35, virtually nothing is known about the professional educations of the architects.
Slattery testified that the "outside work" of the firm was his responsibility, while Horgan assumed the "inside work"; he also referred all technical questions to Horgan. In the absence of conclusive information concerning their respective positions in the firm, which would elucidate Slattery's statement, one may speculate either that Horgan was the principal designer and Slattery the business partner, or that Horgan dealt with structural questions and Slattery with interior embellishment.
Following Horgan's death in 1911, Slattery went into business for himself, retiring in 1934.
The Design
The former 50th Precinct Police Station House is a handsome example of Beaux-Arts classicism, a mode of design that characterized much public architecture at the tum-of-the-century and became the emblem of the City Beautiful Movement.
Although clearly indebted to the architectural styles of the past, the design does not endeavor to replicate historical models exactly, nor did such archaeological accuracy underlie the historicism of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Rather, the elements are derived from classical prototypes but are freely interpreted and ingeniously combined.
Typologically, the building refers to an Italian Renaissance urban palace; the ornament is eclectic.
Horgan and Slattery approached the design of this small (relative to the grandest examples of the style in New York City, among them the Public Library and Grand Central Station) but imposing building in an imaginative way. The building dominates its site; further, it is the dominant architectural feature on the primarily residential block. The architects' masterful handling is demonstrated in the sensitivity to the site, an
understanding of the rules of Beaux-Arts composition, the use of ornament, and the adaptation of an ancient but particularly appropriate building type to a modern use.
Their studied application of Beaux-Arts principles is evident in the clear articulation of the parts of the building, the bilateral symmetry, the clearly marked and elaborated openings, the hierarchy of constituent elements in the facades, the play of advancing and receding planes, and the consistency of the articulation.
The form of the building refers to two distinct phases in the evolution of the Italian Renaissance urban palace. The 15th-century palace, such as the Pitti or the Medici, with its massive presence, direct relation with the street, and rusticated base, is an appropriate model for the expression of such values as power, security, invulnerability, and monumentality, which, surely in the public mind, are associated with the police force.
Strengthening this association are the horizontal extension of the station house, which intensifies the image of its being firmly wedded to its site, and the battlements or crenel lations of the roof parapet.
The horizontal lines of the building are reiterated in the surface treatment on every level of the facades: by the granite base; by the continuous channels of the recessed brick courses; by the lines of the windows; by the projecting stringcourses; by the continuous cornice, which is distinguished from the fabric of the building both in color, texture and materials; by the roof parapet, which is defined as a series of advancing and receding planes.
In the 16th-century type, exemplified by the design for the House of Raphael by Bramante, the ground story rustication is mediated by the application of architectural ornament in the upper stories, which is also the case here.
Description
The Kingsbridge Terrace of today, which is rather an unprepossessing street lined with detached houses as well as low-rise apartments, does not figure prominently in the street system of the Bronx, or even of Kingsbridge. This was not always the case, however.
From the 18th century until 1913, that portion of Kingsbridge Terrace north of what is presently Albany Crescent, was known as Boston Avenue, the name deriving from its having been a segment of the Boston Post Road. As the east/west section of the almost elliptical Albany Crescent (running roughly perpendicular to the present Bailey Avenue) was also a part of Boston Avenue, and Bailey Avenue formed part of the Albany Post Road, the station house is in close proximity to the intersection of two historically significant roads, and at the crest of Boston Hill.
From the street, the building appears as a massive two-story masonry block. In plan, however, it is a "U", oriented southward such that its eastern arm forms the principal or Kingsbridge Terrace facade, and its base (at the north) constitutes the secondary or Summit Place facade.
The principal facade is 83 feet in length and two stories in height; the secondary facade is 119 feet in length and three stories in height, only two of which are expressed, corresponding to those on the principal facade.
The juncture of the eastern and northern facades is mediated by a curved comer treatment. This transitional element, the articulation of whose second story departs from those of both street facades, constitutes the focal point of the composition if the building is viewed obliquely from the northeast.
The focal point, shifts, however to the center bay of the principal facade if
the building is viewed directly from the east or obliquely from the south; from either vantage point, the comer construction is virtually invisible.
In both cases, the corner element and the axis of symmetry (formed of the entry, the parapet directly above it, the window in the second story, the plaque identifying the building) provide vertical accents in an otherwise horizontally disposed composition. The principal facade consists of five bays, the central three flanked by projecting end bays in the north and south.
This "ABA" rhythm is repeated in the secondary facade with the difference that the projecting end bays flank a central section of seven bays. Three bays define the curved comer section.
Gamboge bricks, which are variegated in hue and are laid in Flemish bond, constitute the veneers of the facades, including the southern wall of the eastern arm of the "U". The contrasting limestone members of the windows, door, stringcourses, and columns, the granite of the base, the terra-cotta ornament, and the green tin denticulated Doric cornice create an impressive polychromatic image.
Like the urban palaces of the Italian Renaissance, the two stories are differentiated in characteristic ways: a projecting stringcourse composed of a series of classical moldings (the lowermost of which is egg and dart) literally cuts the building in half horizontally; the elaboration of the second story contrasts with the relatively unadorned ground story; the individual bricks in the second story are slightly more saturated in color than those in the first; and the apparent rustication of the ground story, achieved by recessing one course in every seven, is abandoned at the first stringcourse, above which the wall is planar.
In keeping with the unadorned character of the ground story are the openings, which receive identical articulation in both facades, in the corner, and on the southern side of the eastern arm. They differ only in their proportions: those in the north facade are squatter than those in the projecting bays and in the principal facade, and those in the curved section and the eastern arm are more attenuated.
The sash is one-over-one double-hung aluminum surmounted by a fixed pane of glass. The openings are unframed, vertically-oriented rectangles with flat-arch brick lintels and limestone sills with classical contours. A console at either end of the sill provides support, and a console serves as keystone in the flat arch (the console keystone is omitted in the outermost bays of the curved unit).
There are three distinct window treatments in the second story, although the sash remains constant. While the same size as those in the east, the windows in the north side are the least elaborate, treated in much the same way as those on the ground story. Replacing the consoles, however, are wedge-shaped limestone keystones that are articulated in three dimensions.
One such opening marks the second story of the southern side of the eastern arm. The windows of the corner element are squeezed within the intercolumniations of four Roman Doric, unf luted columns on bases, the two end ones of which are engaged; a series of classical moldings constitutes the lintels.
The surface bounded by the upper edge of each lintel and the lower edge of the second story stringcourse is pierced by a round window enframed with a terra-cotta wreath; the comers are enlivened with foliate terra-cotta forms.
All windows in the second stories of both the principal facade and the projecting bays are aedicular in type.
The aediculae, which frame the windows, are constituted of a series of freely interpreted classical elements including flanking pilasters, which are articulated with deep channels running vertically from the base, a capital, impost block, and lintel of classical moldings.
The window sill is tripartite: at either end, a segment projects slightly to form a base for the pilasters. A console with pendant foliate and vegetal ornament decorates each pilaster from just above mid-height to the capital. The window extends from the sill to the top of the capital; in the space that is roughly the height of the impost block and extends from the capital to the egg and dart molding of the lintel, is a flat, blank plaque.
The panel duplicates on a reduced scale the one crowning the axis of symmetry in the principal facade, which is inscribed with the name of the precinct. Each aedicula of the projecting bays is enframed by a larger aedicula, which is vestigial in that it is composed of thick pilasters that are simply projections of the brick fabric. Elaborating each pilaster are a cartouche, festoon, and pendant foliate form, placed in series within a vertically-oriented rectangular panel.
The axis of symmetry in the principal elevation serves a dual function: it divides the facade into two equal and opposite parts, and it creates a strong central focus. The double doors are preceded by two granite steps set between granite blocks, upon which originally were lampposts.
Rectangular hollow metal double doors, which have been painted bright red, with a transom on which the name of the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center has been painted in white, are placed within a basket or depressed arch with prominent brick voussoirs. A large, elaborate stone cartouche serves as the keystone.
Flanking the arch, large ancones with foliate ornament, surmounted by impost blocks, support the stringcourse, which breaks forward from the plane of the building at the entry. Directly above, a parapet is elaborated by a blank panel flanked by two triglyph-like elements surmounted by scrolls.
The triglyph/scroll unit (which resembles a section of fluted pilaster) supports a projecting molding along the upper edge of the parapet. Flanking each of the triglyph/scrolls is an S-shaped scroll in bas-relief.
The uppermost element of the axis is a plaque identifying the building as the 50th Precinct Police Station House. The limestone plaque is a horizontally disposed rectangle; a continuous egg and dart molding serves as a border. A tripartite guttae-like feature dangles from each side of the lower edge of the panel.
A block with a console in its center projects from the center of the lower edge of the inscribed panel.
The facade of the western arm of the "U" is undistinguished and virtually invisible from any street. The brick wall is punctuated by windows in the second story.
Alterations to the exterior have been few and have not significantly affected the street facades.36 The police moved from the building to their current location at 3450 Kingsbridge Avenue in December 1974; the present tenant, the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center, took possession in summer 1975. In 1979, with funding from the New York City Capital Budget and the Federal Community Development Budget, the Community Center embarked on a major rehabilitative program, which was completed in 1981.
Undertaken by the New York architects, Edelman and Salzman, most of the alterations were in the nature of adapting the interior spaces to new uses and upgrading
systems. The architects were sensitive to the original exterior; the north and east facades of the building remain virtually untouched.
The terracotta band courses were partially repointed; the existing wooden entrance doors and frames were replaced with hollow metal doors and frame, and the transom was closed; a new wrought iron gate to the courtyard was installed at the south end of the Kingsbridge Terrace facade; the wooden windows were replaced with aluminum ones, and stainless steel security screens were placed on every opening.
Unfortunately, the material condition of the exterior appears to be steadily deteriorating. The cornice, a section of which is missing from the curved elevation, shows an advanced state of erosion especially on the underside. Spalling marks the limestone members of the windows, door, stringcourses, as well as the terra-cotta ornament, and large pieces of the window sills have broken off.
- From the 1986 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report
Många män lider av tidig utlösning, vilket kan leda till låg självkänsla, dåligt självförtroende och relationsproblem. Tidig utlösning av Malin Drevstam, Gothia Förlag, tar upp möjliga orsaker och hur problemet kan behandlas genom olika övningar, både med och utan partner.
Pictures taken in February 1983 - digitally captured from paper print.
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Borneo (/ˈbɔːrnioʊ/; Indonesian: Kalimantan, Malay: Borneo) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest island in Asia.[1] At the geographic center of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and east of Sumatra.
The island is politically divided among three countries: Malaysia and Brunei in the north, and Indonesia to the south. Approximately 73% of the island is Indonesian territory. In the north, the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak make up about 26% of the island. Additionally, the Malaysian federal territory of Labuan is situated on a small island just off the coast of Borneo. The sovereign state of Brunei, located on the north coast, comprises about 1% of Borneo's land area. Antipodal to an area of Amazon rainforest, Borneo is itself home to one of the oldest rainforests in the world. It is home to Bornean orangutans.
ETYMOLOGY
The island is known by many names; internationally it is known as Borneo, after Brunei, derived from European historical contact with the kingdom in the 16th century during the Age of Exploration. The name Brunei possibly was initially derived from the Sanskrit word "váruṇa" (वरुण), meaning either "ocean" or the mythological Varuna, the Hindu god of the ocean. Indonesian natives called it Kalimantan, which was derived from the Sanskrit word Kalamanthana, meaning "burning weather island" (to describe its hot and humid tropical weather).
Prior to that the island was also known by other names. In 977 Chinese records began to use the term Po-ni to refer to Borneo. In 1225 it was also mentioned by the Chinese official Chau Ju-Kua (趙汝适). The Javanese manuscript Nagarakretagama, written by Majapahit court poet Mpu Prapanca in 1365, mentioned the island as Nusa Tanjungnagara, which means the island of the Tanjungpura Kingdom.
GEOGRAPHY
Borneo is surrounded by the South China Sea to the north and northwest, the Sulu Sea to the northeast, the Celebes Sea and the Makassar Strait to the east, and the Java Sea and Karimata Strait to the south. To the west of Borneo are the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. To the south and east are islands of Indonesia: Java and Sulawesi, respectively. To the northeast are the Philippine Islands.
With an area of 743.330 square kilometres, it is the third-largest island in the world, and is the largest island of Asia (the largest continent). Its highest point is Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia, with an elevation of 4095 m.
The largest river system is the Kapuas in West Kalimantan, with a length of 1143 km. Other major rivers include the Mahakam in East Kalimantan (980 km long), the Barito in South Kalimantan (880 km long), and Rajang in Sarawak (562,5 km long).
Borneo has significant cave systems. Clearwater Cave, for example, has one of the world's longest underground rivers. Deer Cave is home to over three million bats, with guano accumulated to over 100 metres deep.
Before sea levels rose at the end of the last Ice Age, Borneo was part of the mainland of Asia, forming, with Java and Sumatra, the upland regions of a peninsula that extended east from present day Indochina. The South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand now submerge the former low-lying areas of the peninsula. Deeper waters separating Borneo from neighbouring Sulawesi prevented a land connection to that island, creating the divide known as Wallace's Line between Asian and Australia-New Guinea biological regions.
ECOLOGY
The Borneo rainforest is 140 million years old, making it one of the oldest rainforests in the world. There are about 15000 species of flowering plants with 3000 species of trees (267 species are dipterocarps), 221 species of terrestrial mammals and 420 species of resident birds in Borneo. There are about 440 freshwater fish species in Borneo (about the same as Sumatra and Java combined). It is the centre of the evolution and distribution of many endemic species of plants and animals. The Borneo rainforest is one of the few remaining natural habitats for the endangered Bornean orangutan. It is an important refuge for many endemic forest species, including the Borneo elephant, the eastern Sumatran rhinoceros, the Bornean clouded leopard, the Hose's palm civet and the dayak fruit bat.
In 2010 the World Wide Fund for Nature stated that 123 species have been discovered in Borneo since the "Heart of Borneo" agreement was signed in 2007.
The WWFN has classified the island into seven distinct ecoregions. Most are lowland regions:
- Borneo lowland rain forests cover most of the island, with an area of 427500 square kilometres;
- Borneo peat swamp forests;
- Kerangas or Sundaland heath forests;
- Southwest Borneo freshwater swamp forests; and
- Sunda Shelf mangroves.
- The Borneo montane rain forests lie in the central highlands of the island, above the 1000 metres elevation. The highest elevations of Mount Kinabalu are home to the Kinabalu mountain alpine meadow, an alpine shrubland notable for its numerous endemic species, including many orchids.
The island historically had extensive rainforest cover, but the area was reduced due to heavy logging for the Malaysian and Indonesian plywood industry. Half of the annual global tropical timber acquisition comes from Borneo. Palm oil plantations have been widely developed and are rapidly encroaching on the last remnants of primary rainforest. Forest fires of 1997 to 1998, started by the locals to clear the forests for plantations were exacerbated by an exceptionally dry El Niño season, worsening the annual shrinkage of the rainforest. During these fires, hotspots were visible on satellite images and the resulting haze affected four countries: Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore.
In 2010 Sarawak announced a plan for energy production, the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy, to try to establish sustainability.
HISTORY
EARLY HISTORY
According to ancient Chinese, Indian and Javanese manuscripts, western coastal cities of Borneo had become trading ports by the first millennium. In Chinese manuscripts, gold, camphor, tortoise shells, hornbill ivory, rhinoceros horn, crane crest, beeswax, lakawood (a scented heartwood and root wood of a thick liana, Dalbergia parviflora), dragon's blood, rattan, edible bird's nests and various spices were described as among the most valuable items from Borneo. The Indians named Borneo Suvarnabhumi (the land of gold) and also Karpuradvipa (Camphor Island). The Javanese named Borneo Puradvipa, or Diamond Island. Archaeological findings in the Sarawak river delta reveal that the area was a thriving trading centre between India and China from the 6th century until about 1300.
One of the earliest evidence of Hindu influence in Southeast Asia were stone pillars which bear inscriptions in the Pallava script, found in Kutai along the Mahakam River in East Kalimantan, dating to around the second half of the 4th century.
By the 14th century, Borneo was under the control of the Majapahit kingdom based in present-day Indonesia. Muslims entered the island and converted many of the indigenous peoples to Islam.
During the 1450s, Shari'ful Hashem Syed Abu Bakr, an Arab born in Johor, arrived in Sulu from Malacca. In 1457, he founded the Sultanate of Sulu; he titled himself as "Paduka Maulana Mahasari Sharif Sultan Hashem Abu Bakr". The Sultanate of Brunei, during its golden age from the 15th century to the 17th century, ruled a large part of northern Borneo. In 1703 (other sources say 1658), the Sultanate of Sulu received the eastern part of North Borneo from the Sultan of Brunei, after Sulu sent aid against a rebellion in Brunei.
DUTCH AND BRITISH CONTROL
The Sultanate of Brunei granted large parts of land in Sarawak in 1842 to the English adventurer James Brooke, as reward for his having helped quell a local rebellion. Brooke established the Kingdom of Sarawak and was recognised as its rajah after paying a fee to the Sultanate. He established a monarchy, and the Brooke dynasty (through his nephew and great-nephew) ruled Sarawak for 100 years; the leaders were known as the White Rajahs.
In the early 19th century, British and Dutch governments signed the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 to exchange trading ports under their controls and assert spheres of influence. This resulted in indirectly establishing British- and Dutch-controlled areas in Borneo, in the north and south, respectively. The Malay and Sea Dayak pirates preyed on maritime shipping in the waters between Singapore and Hong Kong from their haven in Borneo.
The British North Borneo Company controlled the territory of North Borneo (present-day Sabah) from 1882 to 1941.
WORLD WAR II
During World War II, Japanese forces gained control and occupied Borneo (1941–45). They decimated many local populations and killed Malay intellectuals, executing all the Malay Sultans of Kalimantan in the Pontianak incidents. Sultan Muhammad Ibrahim Shafi ud-din II of Sambas in Kalimantan was executed in 1944. The Sultanate was thereafter suspended and replaced by a Japanese council.[19] During the Japanese occupation, the Dayak played a role in guerrilla warfare against the occupying forces, particularly in the Kapit Division. They temporarily revived headhunting of Japanese toward the end of the war. Allied Z Special Unit provided assistance to them. After the Fall of Singapore, the Japanese sent several thousand British and Australian prisoners of war to camps in Borneo. At one of the worst sites, around Sandakan in Borneo, only six of some 2500 prisoners survived. In 1945, the Japanese were defeated by the Allies.
RECENT HISTORY
Borneo was the main site of the confrontation between Indonesia and Malaysia between 1962 and about 1969. The British Army was deployed against the Indonesians and communist revolts to gain control of the whole area. Before the formation of Malaysian Federation, the Philippines claimed that the eastern part of the Malaysian state of Sabah was within their territory. They based this on the history of the Sultanate of Sulu's leasing agreement with the British North Borneo Company.
In 1962 Brunei Revolt, Brunei People's Party wanted to reunify Brunei, Sarawak and Sabah into one federation known as North Borneo Federation or Kesatuan Negara Kalimantan Utara in Malay where the Sultan of Brunei would be the Head of State for the federation. This caused a civil war for few days in British Protectorate Stats of Brunei and Sarawak State.
DEMOGRAPHICS
Borneo has 19,8 million inhabitants (in mid-2010), a population density of 26 inhabitants per square km. Most of the population lives in coastal cities, although the hinterland has small towns and villages along the rivers. The population consists mainly of Dayak ethnic groups, Malay, Banjar, Orang Ulu, Chinese and Kadazan-Dusun. The Chinese, who make up 29% of the population of Sarawak and 17% of total population in West Kalimantan, Indonesia are descendants of immigrants primarily from southeastern China.
In Kalimantan since the 1990s, the Indonesian government has undertaken an intense transmigration program; to that area it financed the relocation of poor, landless families from Java, Madura, and Bali. By 2001, transmigrants made up 21% of the population in Central Kalimantan. Since the 1990s, the indigenous Dayak and Malays have resisted encroachment by these migrants: violent conflict has occurred between some transmigrant and indigenous populations. In the 1999 Sambas riots, Dayaks and Malays joined together to massacre thousands of the Madurese migrants. In Kalimantan, thousands were killed in 2001 fighting between Madurese transmigrants and the Dayak people in the Sampit conflict.
ADMINISTRATION
The island of Borneo is divided administratively by three countries.
- The Indonesian provinces of East, South, West, North and Central Kalimantan, Kalimantan
- The Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak (The Federal Territory of Labuan is located on nearshore islands of Borneo, on the island of Borneo itself.)
- The independent country of Brunei (main part and eastern exclave of Temburong)
WIKIPEDIA
DASAR-DASAR PUBLIC RELATIONS
Pengarang : Prof. Dr. Sholeh Soemirat, MS.
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Ilustración de "Relation du voyage de la mer du Sud aux côtes du Chili et du Pérou fait pendant les années 1712, 1713, et 1714" de Amédée François Frézier publicado en 1716.
En el siglo XIX Barros Arana sostuvo la teoría de que el palín habría sido introducido en Chile por los conquistadores españoles, basado en la existencia de la chueca, un antiguo juego popular de los labradores de Castilla, que todavía se practica en algunos pueblos de esa región. De hecho, todavía en fechas recientes es posible encontrar autores españoles que confunden ambos juegos (el castellano y el mapuche) como uno solo.
Pero, a la luz de la información disponible ahora, resulta mucho más exacto pensar que los españoles solo llamaron "chueca" al juego indígena en recuerdo de la competencia que ellos conocían en su propia tierra. Para esta conclusión bastaría considerar las notables diferencias entre las dinámicas de ambos juegos. O que, las crónicas coloniales tempranas, ya conocidas por Barros Arana, hablan de la enorme difusión y raigambre del palín mapuche entre la población de Chile. Sin contar que el palín era especialmente practicado en lo profundo del territorio indígena, que permaneció independientes del dominio español tanto como éste duró en Chile. Así como que el juego tenía un rol central dentro de la cultura de la etnia: como ámbito social y preámbulo a consejos políticos, instrucción física de los jóvenes y simulacro guerrero.
El golpe de gracia a la teoría de Barros Arana vendría con la publicación en 1966 de la crónica de Jerónimo de Vivar, conservada por azar en la Newberry Library (Illinois. EE.UUU). El manuscrito, que data 1558 y es obra de un testigo de la primera campaña española de conquista contra los mapuches (1550), dedica un capítulo a describir las costumbres indígenas. Allí Vivar señala que los mapuches eran a la llegada de los conquistadores "muy grandes jugadores de chueca". Sobra agregar que este pasaje es incluso anterior a la primera descripción sobre el juego español de la chueca, publicada recién en 1593.
Actualmente, los autores que estudian el palín lo consideran un juego mapuche autóctono de orígenes ancestrales.
Incluso hay ensayistas que lo ubica dentro de una misma tradición americana de juegos de pelota, que habría evolucionado en sus diferentes variantes: maya, aymará y mapuche.
Kingsbridge, Bronx, New York City, New York, United States
Designed in 1900, and built from 1901 to 1902 by the New York architects Arthur J. Horgan and Vincent J. Slattery, the former 50th Precinct Police Station House is prominently sited at the intersection of Kingsbridge Terrace and Summit Place. Its style, scale, materials of construction, direct relation to the street, and ornament contribute to the monumental character, which distinguished the building from the surrounding two- and three-story frame structures of rapidly expanding Kingsbridge.
A symbol of the authority of the police force and of the presence of municipal government in early 20th century Kingsbridge, and an exemplar of Beaux-Arts principles of composition, the building should be seen within the context of the City Beautiful Movement.
Historical interest in the building further derives from its being among the best surviving works of an architectural firm that was very much in the public eye at the turn-of-the-century.
Development of the Kingsbridge Area
Coincident with the growth of the northwest Bronx generally, the modern development of Kingsbridge and of the area presently known as Kingsbridge Heights dates from the latter half of the 19th century.
Rural and sparsely populated, with a varied topographical character, the Bronx of the 19th century depended for its growth on the gradual subdivision of estates, on changed attitudes respecting the desirability of the area, and on the completion of the Harlem River Railroad, which provided a first impetus to the development of the "north side."
Kingsbridge formally began to take shape as a residential community in 1847 when the Macomb family's "Island Farm," an extensive tract, was surveyed and subdivided into building lots, which were then sold for development.
Notwithstanding its late development relative to communities on Manhattan Island, Kingsbridge has had a rich history beginning as early as 1609 with the arrival of Henry Hudson on the Spuyten Duyvil peninsula.
Apparently, the Dutch had considered siting their projected New Amsterdam colony at Kingsbridge. The plan was soon abandoned, but by the early 17th century, the Dutch were fanning areas, on Manhattan as far north as the flatlands of Harlem.
It was not long before they began to seek areas into which the population could expand; thus, in addition to disaffected New Englanders, among the first settlers of Westchester County (chartered in 1683) and the Bronx — the land "upon the Maine" — were the Dutch. Indeed, the earliest European settler of the immediate Kingsbridge area was the Dutchman Jonkheer Adrien Van der Donck in 1641.
Van der Donck's tract, known as de Jonkheers, included all of the land from Spuyten Duyvil north eight miles along the Hudson River and east to the Bronx River.
The construction of the Boston Post Road in 1673 facilitated travel and communication between Manhattan Island and the northern colonies. Originating in lower Manhattan, the route ran the length of the island, crossed the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, traversed Westchester County and Connecticut, and terminated in Boston.
Until 1693 and the construction of the King's Bridge by landowner Vredryck Flypsen, crossing of the Spuyten Duyvil was accomplished by ferry. From the bridge, the Boston Post Road ran to Albany Crescent (which is just north of the old West Farms/Kingsbridge town line), followed Boston Avenue (the original name for that block of Kingsbridge Terrace in which the police station is located), and then veered toward the northeast, crossing the Bronx River at William's Bridge.
Another of the early roads radiating from the location of the King's Bridge and moving north along Bailey Avenue, was the Albany Post Road (opened in 1669 as far as the Sawmill River and in 1700 to Albany), which then continued along the western side of the Van Cortlandt properties.
That the King's Bridge served as the principal passage from the northern tip of Manhattan Island to the Bronx mainland, underlines the significance of the greater Kingsbridge area during Revolutionary times. As the main military artery for the armies of both the British and the Americans, the bridge was under constant attack during those Revolutionary War years when New York City was subject to British occupation (1776-1783).
Boston Hill (the name for the rise in the immediate vicinity of Albany Crescent) was the scene of many battles in the years following 1776, and from 1777 to 1779, the British established a presence at the Van Cortlandt mansion (located on the eastern side of the Albany Post Road).
Early indications of the eventual residential development of the area can be seen in the period immediately following the Revolution, at which time, well-to-do New Yorkers focused on the natural beauty of the area with an eye toward moving northward.
The eventual annexation of the Bronx proceeded in piecemeal fashion and not without opposition: against the incorporation were those Bronx residents who thought that nothing would be gained by aligning themselves with heavily populated Manhattan, and those New Yorkers who saw no advantage to appropriating farmland.
Nevertheless, on 1 January 1874, the townships of Kingsbridge, West Farms, and Morrisania formally became the twenty-third and twenty-fourth wards of the City of New York; from that time until 1898, they were known
collectively as the "Annexed District". It was not until 1895, however, that the annexation of the Bronx east of the Bronx River was effected.
In 1897, the New York State Legislature passed a charter for the creation of Greater New York City; in 1898, twenty-four local governments including all the annexed districts north of the Harlem River, as well as the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond (Staten Island) were officially consolidated.
Commenting on building operations in the Bronx and noting a remarkable thirty-three percent increase thereof between 1898 and 1899, a dealer in real estate averred: "as to the future of the borough, that is assured, for the natural trend of the city's growth is northward, and the Bronx with all its proposed improvements will reap a golden harvest."
Corroborating his opinion, the Real Estate Record and Guide of 1901 observed that "more families continue to forsake their downtown neighbors for better homes and the purer air and ampler room above the Harlem and especially brisk in the matter of building is [sic] the upper and eastern sections of the Bronx, where both private and tenement houses are springing up."
In point of fact, just after 1895 and the annexation of the eastern section, booms in both real estate and population occurred. These were attributable to a combination of factors, the most important being inclusion into the metropolitan area, self-government, and the improvement of transportation.
Bronx Police History and the 50th Precinct
Bronx police history formally began in January 1866 when the Metropolitan Police District, created by an act of the New York State legislature in 1857, established a substation in the Village of Tremont in the Town of West Farms.
Previously, police activity in Kingsbridge had been under the jurisdiction of Manhattan's 32nd Precinct (currently the 30th), located at Amsterdam Avenue and 152nd Street.
Due to an increase in criminal behavior accompanying the immediate post-Civil War growth of the area, the residents of Yonkers and West Farms had favored incorporation within the Metropolitan Police District. Participation in the State's Metropolitan Police District was not long-lived, however; in 1870, as a result of the reorganization of local government according to the terms of the Tweed Charter, the City reclaimed control of the police department.
In the following year, Yonkers withdrew from the Metropolitan Police District and organized a police force of its own. In November 1871, the Yonkers police established a substation at Kingsbridge (the predecessor of the 50th) to serve the precinct extending from the West Farms town line to just south of the present Yonkers city line; an existing frame building, located at Verveelen Place, just east of Broadway and south of 231st Street, was adapted for use as a station house.
As a consequence of the separation of the Township of Kingsbridge from the City of Yonkers in 1872, the force headquartered at Kingsbridge was administered by a joint Board of Police Commissioners of Yonkers and Kingsbridge. Following annexation in January 1874, the district constituted of Kingsbridge, Morrisania, and West Farms was divided into two precincts and one sub-precinct of the New York Police Department.
Shortly thereafter, the sub-precinct, headquartered at Kingsbridge, came into its own as the 35th Precinct.
With the consolidation of 1898, the Police Department of Greater New York assimilated eighteen small police agencies, and a move was initiated to conform the boundaries of police precincts to the lines of the individual townships. New precincts were created to serve newly annexed areas and to accommodate rapid population increases and building and commercial development in already established ones.
In accordance with the general objective of creating a flexible system that would provide for future expansion of the force, several renumberings of Bronx precincts occurred during the next thirty years. Upon consolidation in 1898, Kingsbridge was redesignated the 40th; in January 1918, the 74th; in April of the same year, the 57th; in 1924, the 26th; and on 1 August 1929, the 50th, which it remains to this day.
Despite its changed status upon incorporation into the Greater New York City Police Department, the 40th Precinct (subsequently the 50th) continued to occupy its makeshift quarters at Verveelen Place, which were enlarged in 1886 by taking possession of a two-story frame building to the east. This measure served only as a stopgap, however, for conditions had become progressively unsatisfactory and indeed unsavory.
Not only were the quarters cramped, but the basement of the building had flooded so often that the jail had settled out of plumb. A newspaper reporter of the time remarked that "no more unhealthier police station exists in the City of New York than this one, and in the late 1880s, the Board of Health condemned the building. Nevertheless, although a project for construction of a new facility finally was initiated in 1898, new accommodations would not be had until 1902 when " 'the shanty', as the frame building which . . . sheltered the blue-coat guardians ever since the 40th precinct was established [was] abandoned for a modem structure.
In a review of the official architecture of New York City, The Real Estate Record and Guide (November 1898) branded municipal architecture a disgrace, deplored its standards, and observed that there appeared to be a tendency to employ builders over professional architects.
This situation — in which "there is not even one architecturally decent police station"^ — began to improve as New York embarked on a citywide reconstruction and renovation campaign to modernize police facilities. The turn of the century enthusiasm for constructing civic monuments provided a further impetus.
Horgan and Slattery were commissioned to design a new 40th Precinct Police Station House sometime between 1898 and fall 1900, although the City of New York did not purchase the land on which the building is situated until 2 October 1900.
The firm estimated the construction costs for the station house, stables, and a prison, at $70,000. Plans were filed in December 1900, but approval to proceed was denied due to the omission of tie rods between the steel floor and the spruce beams of the one-story carriage house.
The New Building Application was approved on 9 January 1901 only after the architects filed a petition demonstrating that their use of the Roebling System of Fireproof Construction would constitute a sufficient tie in itself. Construction began 18 March 1901 and was completed 16 April 1902.
Horoan and Slattery
From 1894, when The New York Times initially reported on the financial difficulties of the firm, until the period 1899 to 1903, when the newspaper regularly and eagerly followed the professional lives of Horgan and Slattery, the architects gained more and more notoriety.
While political patronage certainly was not an invention of the Tammany administrators, Mayor Robert Van Wyck was overly zealous about stamping the municipal architecture of New York City with the seal of his administration. It appears to have been Van Wyck's intention either to convey all city projects directly to Horgan and Slattery or to install them in a consulting capacity over more widely renowned architects such as John Thomas (Hall of Records) or Frederick Withers (City Prison).
The firm first achieved public recognition with the rehabilitation of the interior of the Democratic Club in 1897. Upon completion of that job, apparently ". finding. . .hundreds of odd jobs, large and small. . .for the favored architects."
Queries from a perhaps overly critical press respecting any architect's professional qualifications or lack thereof are not in themselves objectionable.
However, in the case of Horgan and Slattery, the situation was rather more complicated as the attacks became a vehicle for denouncing the Van Wyck administration generally and pertained very little, if at all, with a fair assessment of the firm's work. In order to bolster their charges of corruption in the Van Wyck administration, the press seized upon the seeming irregularity in the relationship between the architects and the administration, claiming that the firm name had become "a trademark of municipal disrepute and jobbery".
Horgan and Slattery were characterized as political pawns "who had no standing artistic, political, scientific, or financial [but were] used as the cat's paw of politicians anxious to get control of municipal building in New York. . ."
Despite the scandals surrounding the firm, political affiliations carried the day, for "on the death of the architect J.R. Thomas, the contract for the completion of the Hall of Records was granted to the favorite Tammany contractors Horgan and Slattery in spite of strong denunciation of such action."
Considered cogs in a great political machine and sarcastically dubbed the "universal solvents" or experts in all fields of architecture, the firm was taken to task for lapsed professional and moral responsibilities:
The new city administration has acted none too soon and with none too much severity in the cases of those two "devouring absurdities" Horgan and Slattery. Two self-respecting men in their places — but that is unimaginable. Two self-respecting men could never occupy their places. But two men with not more than twice the average thickness of skin would have got out, when Tammany was defeated, without waiting to be kicked out amid the cheers of the bystanders.
Upon his election in 1902, Mayor Seth Low called for the "dishorganizing and unslatterifying" of municipal architecture and insisted that "all business relations between the city and Horgan and Slattery, who received the award of all city contracts during the administration of Mayor Van Wyck should be terminated as soon as possible."
Mayor Low's administration adopted a hardline position according to which it would be preferable to pay damages in court than to honor any outstanding contracts with the architects.
Although ethics rather than aesthetics constituted the point of departure for the accusations in the local press — there having been very little critical coverage of the design work —the artistic capabilities of the architects were fair game as well.
Nevertheless, the firm's rise to prominence, even in the context of its alleged association with the great turn-of-the-century New York City Democratic party machine, cannot nullify the inherent value of their designs, which, in large part, combined classical vocabularies and Beaux-Arts principles of composition.
The Architects' and Builders' Magazine of January 1907 recognized that, "[J. R. Thomas'] work has been carried on in praiseworthy fashion by Messrs. Horgan and Slattery who have added to Mr. Thomas' brilliant conception much of the virility of design which characterizes their other well-known masterpieces."
Scant biographical information exists on the two architects. Photographs or drawings of a fair number of their projects were published in architectural journals, but accompanying text is rare. Arthur J. Horgan (1868-1911) and Vincent J. Slattery (1867-1939) entered into partnership in 1886. Until 1897, the New York City Directory listed them as builders; interestingly, in the 1898 edition, they emerged as architects.
Evidently, they had incorporated as such and were working out of an office at 1 Madison Avenue. Apart from Horgan's testimony in 1899^^ before the Mazet Committee that he had studied architecture for five years in the offices of his godfather, Colonel Arthur Crocks, virtually nothing is known about the professional educations of the architects.
Slattery testified that the "outside work" of the firm was his responsibility, while Horgan assumed the "inside work"; he also referred all technical questions to Horgan. In the absence of conclusive information concerning their respective positions in the firm, which would elucidate Slattery's statement, one may speculate either that Horgan was the principal designer and Slattery the business partner, or that Horgan dealt with structural questions and Slattery with interior embellishment.
Following Horgan's death in 1911, Slattery went into business for himself, retiring in 1934.
The Design
The former 50th Precinct Police Station House is a handsome example of Beaux-Arts classicism, a mode of design that characterized much public architecture at the turn-of-the-century and became the emblem of the City Beautiful Movement.
Although clearly indebted to the architectural styles of the past, the design does not endeavor to replicate historical models exactly, nor did such archaeological accuracy underlie the historicism of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Rather, the elements are derived from classical prototypes but are freely interpreted and ingeniously combined.
Typologically, the building refers to an Italian Renaissance urban palace; the ornament is eclectic.
Horgan and Slattery approached the design of this small (relative to the grandest examples of the style in New York City, among them the Public Library and Grand Central Station) but imposing building in an imaginative way. The building dominates its site; further, it is the dominant architectural feature on the primarily residential block.
The architects' masterful handling is demonstrated in the sensitivity to the site, an understanding of the rules of Beaux-Arts composition, the use of ornament, and the adaptation of an ancient but particularly appropriate building type to a modern use.
Their studied application of Beaux-Arts principles is evident in the clear articulation of the parts of the building, the bilateral symmetry, the clearly marked and elaborated openings, the hierarchy of constituent elements in the facades, the play of advancing and receding planes, and the consistency of the articulation.
The form of the building refers to two distinct phases in the evolution of the Italian Renaissance urban palace. The 15th-century palace, such as the Pitti or the Medici, with its massive presence, direct relation with the street, and rusticated base, is an appropriate model for the expression of such values as power, security, invulnerability, and monumentality, which, surely in the public mind, are associated with the police force.
Strengthening this association are the horizontal extension of the station house, which intensifies the image of its being firmly wedded to its site, and the battlements or crenellations of the roof parapet.
The horizontal lines of the building are reiterated in the surface treatment on every level of the facades: by the granite base; by the continuous channels of the recessed brick courses; by the lines of the windows; by the projecting stringcourses; by the continuous cornice, which is distinguished from the fabric of the building both in color, texture and materials; by the roof parapet, which is defined as a series of advancing and receding planes.
In the 16th-century type, exemplified by the design for the House of Raphael by Bramante, the ground story rustication is mediated by the application of architectural ornament in the upper stories, which is also the case here.
Description
The Kingsbridge Terrace of today, which is rather an unprepossessing street lined with detached houses as well as low-rise apartments, does not figure prominently in the street system of the Bronx, or even of Kingsbridge. This was not always the case, however.
From the 18th century until 1913, that portion of Kingsbridge Terrace north of what is presently Albany Crescent, was known as Boston Avenue, the name deriving from its having been a segment of the Boston Post Road. As the east/west section of the almost elliptical Albany Crescent (running roughly perpendicular to the present Bailey Avenue) was also a part of Boston Avenue, and Bailey Avenue formed part of the Albany Post Road, the station house is in close proximity to the intersection of two historically significant roads, and at the crest of Boston Hill.
From the street, the building appears as a massive two-story masonry block. In plan, however, it is a "U", oriented southward such that its eastern arm forms the principal or Kingsbridge Terrace facade, and its base (at the north) constitutes the secondary or Summit Place facade.
The principal facade is 83 feet in length and two stories in height; the secondary facade is 119 feet in length and three stories in height, only two of which are expressed, corresponding to those on the principal facade.
The juncture of the eastern and northern facades is mediated by a curved comer treatment. This transitional element, the articulation of whose second story departs from those of both street facades, constitutes the focal point of the composition if the building is viewed obliquely from the northeast.
The focal point, shifts, however to the center bay of the principal facade if
the building is viewed directly from the east or obliquely from the south; from either vantage point, the comer construction is virtually invisible.
In both cases, the corner element and the axis of symmetry (formed of the entry, the parapet directly above it, the window in the second story, the plaque identifying the building) provide vertical accents in an otherwise horizontally disposed composition. The principal facade consists of five bays, the central three flanked by projecting end bays in the north and south.
This "ABA" rhythm is repeated in the secondary facade with the difference that the projecting end bays flank a central section of seven bays. Three bays define the curved comer section.
Gamboge bricks, which are variegated in hue and are laid in Flemish bond, constitute the veneers of the facades, including the southern wall of the eastern arm of the "U". The contrasting limestone members of the windows, door, stringcourses, and columns, the granite of the base, the terra-cotta ornament, and the green tin denticulated Doric cornice create an impressive polychromatic image.
Like the urban palaces of the Italian Renaissance, the two stories are differentiated in characteristic ways: a projecting stringcourse composed of a series of classical moldings (the lowermost of which is egg and dart) literally cuts the building in half horizontally; the elaboration of the second story contrasts with the relatively unadorned ground story; the individual bricks in the second story are slightly more saturated in color than those in the first; and the apparent rustication of the ground story, achieved by recessing one course in every seven, is abandoned at the first stringcourse, above which the wall is planar.
In keeping with the unadorned character of the ground story are the openings, which receive identical articulation in both facades, in the corner, and on the southern side of the eastern arm. They differ only in their proportions: those in the north facade are squatter than those in the projecting bays and in the principal facade, and those in the curved section and the eastern arm are more attenuated.
The sash is one-over-one double-hung aluminum surmounted by a fixed pane of glass. The openings are unframed, vertically-oriented rectangles with flat-arch brick lintels and limestone sills with classical contours. A console at either end of the sill provides support, and a console serves as keystone in the flat arch (the console keystone is omitted in the outermost bays of the curved unit).
There are three distinct window treatments in the second story, although the sash remains constant. While the same size as those in the east, the windows in the north side are the least elaborate, treated in much the same way as those on the ground story. Replacing the consoles, however, are wedge-shaped limestone keystones that are articulated in three dimensions.
One such opening marks the second story of the southern side of the eastern arm. The windows of the corner element are squeezed within the intercolumniations of four Roman Doric, unf luted columns on bases, the two end ones of which are engaged; a series of classical moldings constitutes the lintels.
The surface bounded by the upper edge of each lintel and the lower edge of the second story stringcourse is pierced by a round window enframed with a terra-cotta wreath; the comers are enlivened with foliate terra-cotta forms.
All windows in the second stories of both the principal facade and the projecting bays are aedicular in type.
The aediculae, which frame the windows, are constituted of a series of freely interpreted classical elements including flanking pilasters, which are articulated with deep channels running vertically from the base, a capital, impost block, and lintel of classical moldings.
The window sill is tripartite: at either end, a segment projects slightly to form a base for the pilasters. A console with pendant foliate and vegetal ornament decorates each pilaster from just above mid-height to the capital. The window extends from the sill to the top of the capital; in the space that is roughly the height of the impost block and extends from the capital to the egg and dart molding of the lintel, is a flat, blank plaque.
The panel duplicates on a reduced scale the one crowning the axis of symmetry in the principal facade, which is inscribed with the name of the precinct. Each aedicula of the projecting bays is enframed by a larger aedicula, which is vestigial in that it is composed of thick pilasters that are simply projections of the brick fabric. Elaborating each pilaster are a cartouche, festoon, and pendant foliate form, placed in series within a vertically-oriented rectangular panel.
The axis of symmetry in the principal elevation serves a dual function: it divides the facade into two equal and opposite parts, and it creates a strong central focus. The double doors are preceded by two granite steps set between granite blocks, upon which originally were lampposts.
Rectangular hollow metal double doors, which have been painted bright red, with a transom on which the name of the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center has been painted in white, are placed within a basket or depressed arch with prominent brick voussoirs. A large, elaborate stone cartouche serves as the keystone.
Flanking the arch, large ancones with foliate ornament, surmounted by impost blocks, support the stringcourse, which breaks forward from the plane of the building at the entry. Directly above, a parapet is elaborated by a blank panel flanked by two triglyph-like elements surmounted by scrolls.
The triglyph/scroll unit (which resembles a section of fluted pilaster) supports a projecting molding along the upper edge of the parapet. Flanking each of the triglyph/scrolls is an S-shaped scroll in bas-relief.
The uppermost element of the axis is a plaque identifying the building as the 50th Precinct Police Station House. The limestone plaque is a horizontally disposed rectangle; a continuous egg and dart molding serves as a border. A tripartite guttae-like feature dangles from each side of the lower edge of the panel.
A block with a console in its center projects from the center of the lower edge of the inscribed panel.
The facade of the western arm of the "U" is undistinguished and virtually invisible from any street. The brick wall is punctuated by windows in the second story.
Alterations to the exterior have been few and have not significantly affected the street facades. The police moved from the building to their current location at 3450 Kingsbridge Avenue in December 1974; the present tenant, the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center, took possession in summer 1975. In 1979, with funding from the New York City Capital Budget and the Federal Community Development Budget, the Community Center embarked on a major rehabilitative program, which was completed in 1981.
Undertaken by the New York architects, Edelman and Salzman, most of the alterations were in the nature of adapting the interior spaces to new uses and upgrading
systems. The architects were sensitive to the original exterior; the north and east facades of the building remain virtually untouched.
The terracotta band courses were partially repointed; the existing wooden entrance doors and frames were replaced with hollow metal doors and frame, and the transom was closed; a new wrought iron gate to the courtyard was installed at the south end of the Kingsbridge Terrace facade; the wooden windows were replaced with aluminum ones, and stainless steel security screens were placed on every opening.
Unfortunately, the material condition of the exterior appears to be steadily deteriorating. The cornice, a section of which is missing from the curved elevation, shows an advanced state of erosion especially on the underside. Spalling marks the limestone members of the windows, door, stringcourses, as well as the terra-cotta ornament, and large pieces of the window sills have broken off.
- From the 1986 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report
Kingsbridge, Bronx, New York City, New York, United States
Designed in 1900, and built from 1901 to 1902 by the New York architects Arthur J. Horgan and Vincent J. Slattery, the former 50th Precinct Police Station House is prominently sited at the intersection of Kingsbridge Terrace and Summit Place. Its style, scale, materials of construction, direct relation to the street, and ornament contribute to the monumental character, which distinguished the building from the surrounding two- and three-story frame structures of rapidly expanding Kingsbridge.
A symbol of the authority of the police force and of the presence of municipal government in early 20th century Kingsbridge, and an exemplar of Beaux-Arts principles of composition, the building should be seen within the context of the City Beautiful Movement.
Historical interest in the building further derives from its being among the best surviving works of an architectural firm that was very much in the public eye at the turn-of-the-century.
Development of the Kingsbridge Area
Coincident with the growth of the northwest Bronx generally, the modern development of Kingsbridge and of the area presently known as Kingsbridge Heights dates from the latter half of the 19th century.
Rural and sparsely populated, with a varied topographical character, the Bronx of the 19th century depended for its growth on the gradual subdivision of estates, on changed attitudes respecting the desirability of the area, and on the completion of the Harlem River Railroad, which provided a first impetus to the development of the "north side."
Kingsbridge formally began to take shape as a residential community in 1847 when the Macomb family's "Island Farm," an extensive tract, was surveyed and subdivided into building lots, which were then sold for development.
Notwithstanding its late development relative to communities on Manhattan Island, Kingsbridge has had a rich history beginning as early as 1609 with the arrival of Henry Hudson on the Spuyten Duyvil peninsula.
Apparently, the Dutch had considered siting their projected New Amsterdam colony at Kingsbridge. The plan was soon abandoned, but by the early 17th century, the Dutch were fanning areas, on Manhattan as far north as the flatlands of Harlem.
It was not long before they began to seek areas into which the population could expand; thus, in addition to disaffected New Englanders, among the first settlers of Westchester County (chartered in 1683) and the Bronx — the land "upon the Maine" — were the Dutch. Indeed, the earliest European settler of the immediate Kingsbridge area was the Dutchman Jonkheer Adrien Van der Donck in 1641.
Van der Donck's tract, known as de Jonkheers, included all of the land from Spuyten Duyvil north eight miles along the Hudson River and east to the Bronx River.
The construction of the Boston Post Road in 1673 facilitated travel and communication between Manhattan Island and the northern colonies. Originating in lower Manhattan, the route ran the length of the island, crossed the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, traversed Westchester County and Connecticut, and terminated in Boston.
Until 1693 and the construction of the King's Bridge by landowner Vredryck Flypsen, crossing of the Spuyten Duyvil was accomplished by ferry. From the bridge, the Boston Post Road ran to Albany Crescent (which is just north of the old West Farms/Kingsbridge town line), followed Boston Avenue (the original name for that block of Kingsbridge Terrace in which the police station is located), and then veered toward the northeast, crossing the Bronx River at William's Bridge.
Another of the early roads radiating from the location of the King's Bridge and moving north along Bailey Avenue, was the Albany Post Road (opened in 1669 as far as the Sawmill River and in 1700 to Albany), which then continued along the western side of the Van Cortlandt properties.
That the King's Bridge served as the principal passage from the northern tip of Manhattan Island to the Bronx mainland, underlines the significance of the greater Kingsbridge area during Revolutionary times. As the main military artery for the armies of both the British and the Americans, the bridge was under constant attack during those Revolutionary War years when New York City was subject to British occupation (1776-1783).
Boston Hill (the name for the rise in the immediate vicinity of Albany Crescent) was the scene of many battles in the years following 1776, and from 1777 to 1779, the British established a presence at the Van Cortlandt mansion (located on the eastern side of the Albany Post Road).
Early indications of the eventual residential development of the area can be seen in the period immediately following the Revolution, at which time, well-to-do New Yorkers focused on the natural beauty of the area with an eye toward moving northward.
The eventual annexation of the Bronx proceeded in piecemeal fashion and not without opposition: against the incorporation were those Bronx residents who thought that nothing would be gained by aligning themselves with heavily populated Manhattan, and those New Yorkers who saw no advantage to appropriating farmland.
Nevertheless, on 1 January 1874, the townships of Kingsbridge, West Farms, and Morrisania formally became the twenty-third and twenty-fourth wards of the City of New York; from that time until 1898, they were known
collectively as the "Annexed District". It was not until 1895, however, that the annexation of the Bronx east of the Bronx River was effected.
In 1897, the New York State Legislature passed a charter for the creation of Greater New York City; in 1898, twenty-four local governments including all the annexed districts north of the Harlem River, as well as the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond (Staten Island) were officially consolidated.
Commenting on building operations in the Bronx and noting a remarkable thirty-three percent increase thereof between 1898 and 1899, a dealer in real estate averred: "as to the future of the borough, that is assured, for the natural trend of the city's growth is northward, and the Bronx with all its proposed improvements will reap a golden harvest."
Corroborating his opinion, the Real Estate Record and Guide of 1901 observed that "more families continue to forsake their downtown neighbors for better homes and the purer air and ampler room above the Harlem and especially brisk in the matter of building is [sic] the upper and eastern sections of the Bronx, where both private and tenement houses are springing up."
In point of fact, just after 1895 and the annexation of the eastern section, booms in both real estate and population occurred. These were attributable to a combination of factors, the most important being inclusion into the metropolitan area, self-government, and the improvement of transportation.
Bronx Police History and the 50th Precinct
Bronx police history formally began in January 1866 when the Metropolitan Police District, created by an act of the New York State legislature in 1857, established a substation in the Village of Tremont in the Town of West Farms.
Previously, police activity in Kingsbridge had been under the jurisdiction of Manhattan's 32nd Precinct (currently the 30th), located at Amsterdam Avenue and 152nd Street.
Due to an increase in criminal behavior accompanying the immediate post-Civil War growth of the area, the residents of Yonkers and West Farms had favored incorporation within the Metropolitan Police District. Participation in the State's Metropolitan Police District was not long-lived, however; in 1870, as a result of the reorganization of local government according to the terms of the Tweed Charter, the City reclaimed control of the police department.
In the following year, Yonkers withdrew from the Metropolitan Police District and organized a police force of its own. In November 1871, the Yonkers police established a substation at Kingsbridge (the predecessor of the 50th) to serve the precinct extending from the West Farms town line to just south of the present Yonkers city line; an existing frame building, located at Verveelen Place, just east of Broadway and south of 231st Street, was adapted for use as a station house.
As a consequence of the separation of the Township of Kingsbridge from the City of Yonkers in 1872, the force headquartered at Kingsbridge was administered by a joint Board of Police Commissioners of Yonkers and Kingsbridge. Following annexation in January 1874, the district constituted of Kingsbridge, Morrisania, and West Farms was divided into two precincts and one sub-precinct of the New York Police Department.
Shortly thereafter, the sub-precinct, headquartered at Kingsbridge, came into its own as the 35th Precinct.
With the consolidation of 1898, the Police Department of Greater New York assimilated eighteen small police agencies, and a move was initiated to conform the boundaries of police precincts to the lines of the individual townships. New precincts were created to serve newly annexed areas and to accommodate rapid population increases and building and commercial development in already established ones.
In accordance with the general objective of creating a flexible system that would provide for future expansion of the force, several renumberings of Bronx precincts occurred during the next thirty years. Upon consolidation in 1898, Kingsbridge was redesignated the 40th; in January 1918, the 74th; in April of the same year, the 57th; in 1924, the 26th; and on 1 August 1929, the 50th, which it remains to this day.
Despite its changed status upon incorporation into the Greater New York City Police Department, the 40th Precinct (subsequently the 50th) continued to occupy its makeshift quarters at Verveelen Place, which were enlarged in 1886 by taking possession of a two-story frame building to the east. This measure served only as a stopgap, however, for conditions had become progressively unsatisfactory and indeed unsavory.
Not only were the quarters cramped, but the basement of the building had flooded so often that the jail had settled out of plumb. A newspaper reporter of the time remarked that "no more unhealthier police station exists in the City of New York than this one, and in the late 1880s, the Board of Health condemned the building. Nevertheless, although a project for construction of a new facility finally was initiated in 1898, new accommodations would not be had until 1902 when " 'the shanty', as the frame building which . . . sheltered the blue-coat guardians ever since the 40th precinct was established [was] abandoned for a modem structure.
In a review of the official architecture of New York City, The Real Estate Record and Guide (November 1898) branded municipal architecture a disgrace, deplored its standards, and observed that there appeared to be a tendency to employ builders over professional architects.
This situation — in which "there is not even one architecturally decent police station"^ — began to improve as New York embarked on a citywide reconstruction and renovation campaign to modernize police facilities. The turn of the century enthusiasm for constructing civic monuments provided a further impetus.
Horgan and Slattery were commissioned to design a new 40th Precinct Police Station House sometime between 1898 and fall 1900, although the City of New York did not purchase the land on which the building is situated until 2 October 1900.
The firm estimated the construction costs for the station house, stables, and a prison, at $70,000. Plans were filed in December 1900, but approval to proceed was denied due to the omission of tie rods between the steel floor and the spruce beams of the one-story carriage house.
The New Building Application was approved on 9 January 1901 only after the architects filed a petition demonstrating that their use of the Roebling System of Fireproof Construction would constitute a sufficient tie in itself. Construction began 18 March 1901 and was completed 16 April 1902.
Horoan and Slattery
From 1894, when The New York Times initially reported on the financial difficulties of the firm, until the period 1899 to 1903, when the newspaper regularly and eagerly followed the professional lives of Horgan and Slattery, the architects gained more and more notoriety.
While political patronage certainly was not an invention of the Tammany administrators, Mayor Robert Van Wyck was overly zealous about stamping the municipal architecture of New York City with the seal of his administration. It appears to have been Van Wyck's intention either to convey all city projects directly to Horgan and Slattery or to install them in a consulting capacity over more widely renowned architects such as John Thomas (Hall of Records) or Frederick Withers (City Prison).
The firm first achieved public recognition with the rehabilitation of the interior of the Democratic Club in 1897. Upon completion of that job, apparently ". finding. . .hundreds of odd jobs, large and small. . .for the favored architects."
Queries from a perhaps overly critical press respecting any architect's professional qualifications or lack thereof are not in themselves objectionable.
However, in the case of Horgan and Slattery, the situation was rather more complicated as the attacks became a vehicle for denouncing the Van Wyck administration generally and pertained very little, if at all, with a fair assessment of the firm's work. In order to bolster their charges of corruption in the Van Wyck administration, the press seized upon the seeming irregularity in the relationship between the architects and the administration, claiming that the firm name had become "a trademark of municipal disrepute and jobbery".
Horgan and Slattery were characterized as political pawns "who had no standing artistic, political, scientific, or financial [but were] used as the cat's paw of politicians anxious to get control of municipal building in New York. . ."
Despite the scandals surrounding the firm, political affiliations carried the day, for "on the death of the architect J.R. Thomas, the contract for the completion of the Hall of Records was granted to the favorite Tammany contractors Horgan and Slattery in spite of strong denunciation of such action."
Considered cogs in a great political machine and sarcastically dubbed the "universal solvents" or experts in all fields of architecture, the firm was taken to task for lapsed professional and moral responsibilities:
The new city administration has acted none too soon and with none too much severity in the cases of those two "devouring absurdities" Horgan and Slattery. Two self-respecting men in their places — but that is unimaginable. Two self-respecting men could never occupy their places. But two men with not more than twice the average thickness of skin would have got out, when Tammany was defeated, without waiting to be kicked out amid the cheers of the bystanders.
Upon his election in 1902, Mayor Seth Low called for the "dishorganizing and unslatterifying" of municipal architecture and insisted that "all business relations between the city and Horgan and Slattery, who received the award of all city contracts during the administration of Mayor Van Wyck should be terminated as soon as possible."
Mayor Low's administration adopted a hardline position according to which it would be preferable to pay damages in court than to honor any outstanding contracts with the architects.
Although ethics rather than aesthetics constituted the point of departure for the accusations in the local press — there having been very little critical coverage of the design work —the artistic capabilities of the architects were fair game as well.
Nevertheless, the firm's rise to prominence, even in the context of its alleged association with the great turn-of-the-century New York City Democratic party machine, cannot nullify the inherent value of their designs, which, in large part, combined classical vocabularies and Beaux-Arts principles of composition.
The Architects' and Builders' Magazine of January 1907 recognized that, "[J. R. Thomas'] work has been carried on in praiseworthy fashion by Messrs. Horgan and Slattery who have added to Mr. Thomas' brilliant conception much of the virility of design which characterizes their other well-known masterpieces."
Scant biographical information exists on the two architects. Photographs or drawings of a fair number of their projects were published in architectural journals, but accompanying text is rare. Arthur J. Horgan (1868-1911) and Vincent J. Slattery (1867-1939) entered into partnership in 1886. Until 1897, the New York City Directory listed them as builders; interestingly, in the 1898 edition, they emerged as architects.
Evidently, they had incorporated as such and were working out of an office at 1 Madison Avenue. Apart from Horgan's testimony in 1899^^ before the Mazet Committee that he had studied architecture for five years in the offices of his godfather, Colonel Arthur Crocks, virtually nothing is known about the professional educations of the architects.
Slattery testified that the "outside work" of the firm was his responsibility, while Horgan assumed the "inside work"; he also referred all technical questions to Horgan. In the absence of conclusive information concerning their respective positions in the firm, which would elucidate Slattery's statement, one may speculate either that Horgan was the principal designer and Slattery the business partner, or that Horgan dealt with structural questions and Slattery with interior embellishment.
Following Horgan's death in 1911, Slattery went into business for himself, retiring in 1934.
The Design
The former 50th Precinct Police Station House is a handsome example of Beaux-Arts classicism, a mode of design that characterized much public architecture at the turn-of-the-century and became the emblem of the City Beautiful Movement.
Although clearly indebted to the architectural styles of the past, the design does not endeavor to replicate historical models exactly, nor did such archaeological accuracy underlie the historicism of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Rather, the elements are derived from classical prototypes but are freely interpreted and ingeniously combined.
Typologically, the building refers to an Italian Renaissance urban palace; the ornament is eclectic.
Horgan and Slattery approached the design of this small (relative to the grandest examples of the style in New York City, among them the Public Library and Grand Central Station) but imposing building in an imaginative way. The building dominates its site; further, it is the dominant architectural feature on the primarily residential block.
The architects' masterful handling is demonstrated in the sensitivity to the site, an understanding of the rules of Beaux-Arts composition, the use of ornament, and the adaptation of an ancient but particularly appropriate building type to a modern use.
Their studied application of Beaux-Arts principles is evident in the clear articulation of the parts of the building, the bilateral symmetry, the clearly marked and elaborated openings, the hierarchy of constituent elements in the facades, the play of advancing and receding planes, and the consistency of the articulation.
The form of the building refers to two distinct phases in the evolution of the Italian Renaissance urban palace. The 15th-century palace, such as the Pitti or the Medici, with its massive presence, direct relation with the street, and rusticated base, is an appropriate model for the expression of such values as power, security, invulnerability, and monumentality, which, surely in the public mind, are associated with the police force.
Strengthening this association are the horizontal extension of the station house, which intensifies the image of its being firmly wedded to its site, and the battlements or crenellations of the roof parapet.
The horizontal lines of the building are reiterated in the surface treatment on every level of the facades: by the granite base; by the continuous channels of the recessed brick courses; by the lines of the windows; by the projecting stringcourses; by the continuous cornice, which is distinguished from the fabric of the building both in color, texture and materials; by the roof parapet, which is defined as a series of advancing and receding planes.
In the 16th-century type, exemplified by the design for the House of Raphael by Bramante, the ground story rustication is mediated by the application of architectural ornament in the upper stories, which is also the case here.
Description
The Kingsbridge Terrace of today, which is rather an unprepossessing street lined with detached houses as well as low-rise apartments, does not figure prominently in the street system of the Bronx, or even of Kingsbridge. This was not always the case, however.
From the 18th century until 1913, that portion of Kingsbridge Terrace north of what is presently Albany Crescent, was known as Boston Avenue, the name deriving from its having been a segment of the Boston Post Road. As the east/west section of the almost elliptical Albany Crescent (running roughly perpendicular to the present Bailey Avenue) was also a part of Boston Avenue, and Bailey Avenue formed part of the Albany Post Road, the station house is in close proximity to the intersection of two historically significant roads, and at the crest of Boston Hill.
From the street, the building appears as a massive two-story masonry block. In plan, however, it is a "U", oriented southward such that its eastern arm forms the principal or Kingsbridge Terrace facade, and its base (at the north) constitutes the secondary or Summit Place facade.
The principal facade is 83 feet in length and two stories in height; the secondary facade is 119 feet in length and three stories in height, only two of which are expressed, corresponding to those on the principal facade.
The juncture of the eastern and northern facades is mediated by a curved comer treatment. This transitional element, the articulation of whose second story departs from those of both street facades, constitutes the focal point of the composition if the building is viewed obliquely from the northeast.
The focal point, shifts, however to the center bay of the principal facade if
the building is viewed directly from the east or obliquely from the south; from either vantage point, the comer construction is virtually invisible.
In both cases, the corner element and the axis of symmetry (formed of the entry, the parapet directly above it, the window in the second story, the plaque identifying the building) provide vertical accents in an otherwise horizontally disposed composition. The principal facade consists of five bays, the central three flanked by projecting end bays in the north and south.
This "ABA" rhythm is repeated in the secondary facade with the difference that the projecting end bays flank a central section of seven bays. Three bays define the curved comer section.
Gamboge bricks, which are variegated in hue and are laid in Flemish bond, constitute the veneers of the facades, including the southern wall of the eastern arm of the "U". The contrasting limestone members of the windows, door, stringcourses, and columns, the granite of the base, the terra-cotta ornament, and the green tin denticulated Doric cornice create an impressive polychromatic image.
Like the urban palaces of the Italian Renaissance, the two stories are differentiated in characteristic ways: a projecting stringcourse composed of a series of classical moldings (the lowermost of which is egg and dart) literally cuts the building in half horizontally; the elaboration of the second story contrasts with the relatively unadorned ground story; the individual bricks in the second story are slightly more saturated in color than those in the first; and the apparent rustication of the ground story, achieved by recessing one course in every seven, is abandoned at the first stringcourse, above which the wall is planar.
In keeping with the unadorned character of the ground story are the openings, which receive identical articulation in both facades, in the corner, and on the southern side of the eastern arm. They differ only in their proportions: those in the north facade are squatter than those in the projecting bays and in the principal facade, and those in the curved section and the eastern arm are more attenuated.
The sash is one-over-one double-hung aluminum surmounted by a fixed pane of glass. The openings are unframed, vertically-oriented rectangles with flat-arch brick lintels and limestone sills with classical contours. A console at either end of the sill provides support, and a console serves as keystone in the flat arch (the console keystone is omitted in the outermost bays of the curved unit).
There are three distinct window treatments in the second story, although the sash remains constant. While the same size as those in the east, the windows in the north side are the least elaborate, treated in much the same way as those on the ground story. Replacing the consoles, however, are wedge-shaped limestone keystones that are articulated in three dimensions.
One such opening marks the second story of the southern side of the eastern arm. The windows of the corner element are squeezed within the intercolumniations of four Roman Doric, unf luted columns on bases, the two end ones of which are engaged; a series of classical moldings constitutes the lintels.
The surface bounded by the upper edge of each lintel and the lower edge of the second story stringcourse is pierced by a round window enframed with a terra-cotta wreath; the comers are enlivened with foliate terra-cotta forms.
All windows in the second stories of both the principal facade and the projecting bays are aedicular in type.
The aediculae, which frame the windows, are constituted of a series of freely interpreted classical elements including flanking pilasters, which are articulated with deep channels running vertically from the base, a capital, impost block, and lintel of classical moldings.
The window sill is tripartite: at either end, a segment projects slightly to form a base for the pilasters. A console with pendant foliate and vegetal ornament decorates each pilaster from just above mid-height to the capital. The window extends from the sill to the top of the capital; in the space that is roughly the height of the impost block and extends from the capital to the egg and dart molding of the lintel, is a flat, blank plaque.
The panel duplicates on a reduced scale the one crowning the axis of symmetry in the principal facade, which is inscribed with the name of the precinct. Each aedicula of the projecting bays is enframed by a larger aedicula, which is vestigial in that it is composed of thick pilasters that are simply projections of the brick fabric. Elaborating each pilaster are a cartouche, festoon, and pendant foliate form, placed in series within a vertically-oriented rectangular panel.
The axis of symmetry in the principal elevation serves a dual function: it divides the facade into two equal and opposite parts, and it creates a strong central focus. The double doors are preceded by two granite steps set between granite blocks, upon which originally were lampposts.
Rectangular hollow metal double doors, which have been painted bright red, with a transom on which the name of the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center has been painted in white, are placed within a basket or depressed arch with prominent brick voussoirs. A large, elaborate stone cartouche serves as the keystone.
Flanking the arch, large ancones with foliate ornament, surmounted by impost blocks, support the stringcourse, which breaks forward from the plane of the building at the entry. Directly above, a parapet is elaborated by a blank panel flanked by two triglyph-like elements surmounted by scrolls.
The triglyph/scroll unit (which resembles a section of fluted pilaster) supports a projecting molding along the upper edge of the parapet. Flanking each of the triglyph/scrolls is an S-shaped scroll in bas-relief.
The uppermost element of the axis is a plaque identifying the building as the 50th Precinct Police Station House. The limestone plaque is a horizontally disposed rectangle; a continuous egg and dart molding serves as a border. A tripartite guttae-like feature dangles from each side of the lower edge of the panel.
A block with a console in its center projects from the center of the lower edge of the inscribed panel.
The facade of the western arm of the "U" is undistinguished and virtually invisible from any street. The brick wall is punctuated by windows in the second story.
Alterations to the exterior have been few and have not significantly affected the street facades. The police moved from the building to their current location at 3450 Kingsbridge Avenue in December 1974; the present tenant, the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center, took possession in summer 1975. In 1979, with funding from the New York City Capital Budget and the Federal Community Development Budget, the Community Center embarked on a major rehabilitative program, which was completed in 1981.
Undertaken by the New York architects, Edelman and Salzman, most of the alterations were in the nature of adapting the interior spaces to new uses and upgrading
systems. The architects were sensitive to the original exterior; the north and east facades of the building remain virtually untouched.
The terracotta band courses were partially repointed; the existing wooden entrance doors and frames were replaced with hollow metal doors and frame, and the transom was closed; a new wrought iron gate to the courtyard was installed at the south end of the Kingsbridge Terrace facade; the wooden windows were replaced with aluminum ones, and stainless steel security screens were placed on every opening.
Unfortunately, the material condition of the exterior appears to be steadily deteriorating. The cornice, a section of which is missing from the curved elevation, shows an advanced state of erosion especially on the underside. Spalling marks the limestone members of the windows, door, stringcourses, as well as the terra-cotta ornament, and large pieces of the window sills have broken off.
- From the 1986 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report
File name: 10_03_001706a
Binder label: Agriculture
Title: Kendall's Spavin Cure - Dandy:-- 'Inform me, sir, why your quadruped should have the audacious effrontery to exhale his obnoxious, reprehensible, odious and offensive breath directly under my nostrils. Urchin:--'Can't you understand your relation better than that? He's only blowing for Kendall's Spavin Cure, 'cause it cured him of that awful spavin.' (front)
Created/Published: Rand McNally Co.
Date issued: 1870-1900 (approximate)
Physical description: 1 print : chromolithograph ; 11 x 17 cm.
Genre: Advertising cards
Subject: Men; Horses; Patent medicines
Notes: Title from item.
Statement of responsibility: B. J. Kendall Co.
Collection: 19th Century American Trade Cards
Location: Boston Public Library, Print Department
Rights: No known restrictions.
Pye is quite a common surname in Lancashire so I'm told, and Pye Commercials of Preston brought LFD964L, an Atkinson Borderer recovery to the Atkinson rally around 1988.
If I'm not mistaken the gentleman visible on the left is Mr Gordon Baron?
Relation are defined from the very beginning of mankind…..despite that definition some strange relation exists among us……some relation we don’t see often……these heart full , warm , affection are called Nature in a relation….these little boy and his friend (Goat) surprised me a lot.
Captured from Birulia,Savar, Bangladesh
Van Cortlandt Village, Bronx , New York, United States
Designed in 1900, and built from 1901 to 1902 by the New York architects Arthur J. Horgan and Vincent J. Slattery, the former 50th Precinct Police Station House is prominently sited at the intersection of Kingsbridge Terrace and Summit Place. Its style, scale, materials of construction, direct relation to the street, and ornament contribute to the monumental character, which distinguished the building from the surrounding two- and three-story frame structures of rapidly expanding Kingsbridge.
A symbol of the authority of the police force and of the presence of municipal government in early 20th century Kingsbridge, and an exemplar of Beaux-Arts principles of composition, the building should be seen within the context of the City Beautiful Movement.
Historical interest in the building further derives from its being among the best surviving works of an architectural firm that was very much in the public eye at the tum-of-the-century.
Development of the Kingsbridge Area
Coincident with the growth of the northwest Bronx generally, the modern development of Kingsbridge and of the area presently known as Kingsbridge Heights dates from the latter half of the 19th century.
Rural and sparsely populated, with a varied topographical character, the Bronx of the 19th century depended for its growth on the gradual subdivision of estates, on changed attitudes respecting the desirability of the area, and on the completion of the Harlem River Railroad, which provided a first impetus to the development of the "north side."
Kingsbridge formally began to take shape as a residential community in 1847 when the Macomb family's "Island Farm," an extensive tract, was surveyed and subdivided into building lots, which were then sold for development.
Notwithstanding its late development relative to communities on Manhattan Island, Kingsbridge has had a rich history beginning as early as 1609 with the arrival of Henry Hudson on the Spuyten Duyvil peninsula.
Apparently, the Dutch had considered siting their projected New Amsterdam colony at Kingsbridge. The plan was soon abandoned, but by the early 17th century, the Dutch were farming areas on Manhattan as far north as the flatlands of Harlem.
It was not long before they began to seek areas into which the population could expand; thus, in addition to disaffected New Englanders, among the first settlers of Westchester County and the Bronx — the land "upon the Maine" — were the Dutch. Indeed, the earliest European settler of the immediate Kingsbridge area was the Dutchman Jonkheer Adrien Van der Donck in 1641.
Van der Donck's tract, known as de Jonkheers, included all of the land from Spuyten Duyvil north eight miles along the Hudson River and east to the Bronx River.
The construction of the Boston Post Road in 1673 facilitated travel and communication between Manhattan Island and the northern colonies. Originating in lower Manhattan, the route ran the length of the island, crossed the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, traversed Westchester County and Connecticut, and terminated in Boston.
Until 1693 and the construction of the King's Bridge by landowner Vredryck Flypsen, crossing of the Spuyten Duyvil was accomplished by ferry. From the bridge, the Boston Post Road ran to Albany Crescent, followed Boston Avenue, and then veered toward the northeast, crossing the Bronx River at William's Bridge.
Another of the early roads radiating from the location of the King's Bridge and moving north along Bailey Avenue, was the Albany Post Road , which then continued along the western side of the Van Cortlandt properties.
That the King's Bridge served as the principal passage from the northern tip of Manhattan Island to the Bronx mainland, underlines the significance of the greater Kingsbridge area during Revolutionary times. As the main military artery for the armies of both the British and the Americans, the bridge was under constant attack during those Revolutionary War years when New York City was subject to British occupation .
Boston Hill was the scene of many battles in the years following 1776, and from 1777 to 1779, the British established a presence at the Van Cortlandt mansion .
Early indications of the eventual residential development of the area can be seen in the period immediately fol lowing the Revolution, at which time, well-to-do New Yorkers focused on the natural beauty of the area with an eye toward moving northward.
The eventual annexation of the Bronx proceeded in piecemeal fashion and not without opposition: against the incorporation were those Bronx residents who thought that nothing would be gained by aligning themselves with heavily populated Manhattan, and those New Yorkers who saw no advantage to appropriating farmland.
Nevertheless, on 1 January 1874, the townships of Kingsbridge, West Farms, and Morrisania formally became the twenty-third and twenty-fourth wards of the City of New York; from that time until 1898, they were known collectively as the "Annexed District". It was not until 1895, however, that the annexation of the Bronx east of the Bronx River was effected.
In 1897, the New York State Legislature passed a charter for the creation of Greater New York City; in 1898, twenty-four local governments including all the annexed districts north of the Harlem River, as well as the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond were officially consolidated.
Commenting on building operations in the Bronx and noting a remarkable thirty-three percent increase thereof between 1898 and 1899, a dealer in real estate averred: "as to the future of the borough, that is assured, for the natural trend of the city's growth is northward, and the Bronx with all its proposed improvements will reap a golden harvest."
Corroborating his opinion, the Real Estate Record and Guide of 1901 observed that "more families continue to forsake their downtown neighbors for better homes and the purer air and ampler room above the Harlem and especially brisk in the matter of building is [sic] the upper and eastern sections of the Bronx, where both private and tenement houses are springing up."
In point of fact, just after 1895 and the annexation of the eastern section, booms in both real estate and population occurred. These were attributable to a combination of factors, the most important being inclusion into the metropolitan area, self-government, and the improvement of transportation.
Bronx Police History and the 50th Precinct
Bronx police history formally began in January 1866 when the Metropolitan Police District, created by an act of the New York State legislature in 1857, established a substation in the Village of Tremont in the Town of West Farms.
Previously, police activity in Kingsbridge had been under the jurisdiction of Manhattan's 32nd Precinct , located at Amsterdam Avenue and 152nd Street.
Due to an increase in criminal behavior accompanying the immediate post-Civil War growth of the area, the residents of Yonkers and West Farms had favored incorporation within the Metropolitan Police District. Participation in the State's Metropolitan Police District was not long-lived, however; in 1870, as a result of the reorganization of local government according to the terms of the Tweed Charter, the City reclaimed control of the police department.
In the following year, Yonkers withdrew from the Metropolitan Police District and organized a police force of its own. In November 1871, the Yonkers police established a substation at Kingsbridge to serve the precinct extending from the West Farms town line to just south of the present Yonkers city line; an existir^ frame building, located at Verveelen Place, just east of Broadway and south of 231st Street, was adapted for use as a station house.
As a consequence of the separation of the Township of Kingsbridge from the City of Yonkers in 1872, the force headquartered at Kingsbridge was administered by a joint Board of Police Commissioners of Yonkers and Kingsbridge. Following annexation in January 1874, the district constituted of Kingsbridge, Morrisania, and West Farms was divided into two precincts and one sub-precinct of the New York Police Department.
Shortly thereafter, the sub-precinct, headquartered at Kingsbridge, came into its own as the 35th Precinct.
With the consolidation of 1898, the Police Department of Greater New York assimilated eighteen small police agencies, and a move was initiated to conform the boundaries of police precincts to the lines of the individual townships. New precincts were created to serve newly annexed areas and to accommodate rapid population increases and building and commercial development in already established ones.
In accordance with the general objective of creating a flexible system that would provide for future expansion of the force, several renumberings of Bronx precincts occurred during the next thirty years. Upon consolidation in 1898, Kingsbridge was redesignated the 40th; in January 1918, the 74th; in April of the same year, the 57th; in 1924, the 26th; and on 1 August 1929, the 50th, which it remains to this day.
Despite its changed status upon incorporation into the Greater New York City Police Department, the 40th Precinct continued to occupy its makeshift quarters at Verveelen Place, which were enlarged in 1886 by taking possession of a two-story frame building to the east. This measure served only as a stopgap, however, for conditions had become progressively unsatisfactory and indeed unsavory.
Not only were the quarters cramped, but the basement of the building had flooded so often that the jail had settled out of plumb. A newspaper reporter of the time remarked that "no more unhealthier police station exists in the City of New York than this one,and in the late 1880s, the Board of Health condemned the building. Nevertheless, although a project for construction of a new facility finally was initiated in 1898, new accommodations would not be had until 1902 when " 'the shanty', as the frame building which . . . sheltered the blue-coat&i guardians ever since the 40th precinct was established [was] abandoned for a modem structure.
In a review of the official architecture of New York City, The Real Estate Record and Guide branded municipal architecture a disgrace, deplored its standards, and observed that there appeared to be a tendency to employ builders over professional architects.
This situation — in which "there is not even one architecturally decent police station"^ — began to improve as New York embarked on a citywide reconstruction and renovation campaign to modernize police facilities. The turn of the century enthusiasm for constructing civic monuments provided a further impetus.
Horgan and Slattery were commissioned to design a new 40th Precinct Police Station House sometime between 1898 and fall 1900, although the City of New York did not purchase the land on which the building is situated until 2 October 1900.
The firm estimated the construction costs for the station house, stables, and a prison, at $70,000. Plans were filed in December 1900, but approval to proceed was denied due to the omission of tie rods between the steel floor and the spruce beams of the one-story carriage house.
The New Building Application was approved on 9 January 1901 only after the architects filed a petition demonstrating that their use of the Roebling System of Fireproof Construction would constitute a sufficient tie in itself. Construction began 18 March 1901 and was completed 16 April 1902.
Horoan and Slattery
From 1894, when The New York Times initially reported on the financial difficulties of the firm, until the period 1899 to 1903, when the newspaper regularly and eagerly followed the professional lives of Horgan and Slattery, the architects gained more and more notoriety.
While political patronage certainly was not an invention of the Tammany administrators, Mayor Robert Van Wyck was overly zealous about stamping the municipal architecture of New York City with the seal of his administration. It appears to have been Van Wyck's intention either to convey all city projects directly to Horgan and Slattery or to install them in a consulting capacity over more widely renowned architects such as John Thomas or Frederick Withers .
The firm first achieved public recognition with the rehabilitation of the interior of the Democratic Club in 1897. Upon completion of that job, apparently ". finding. . .hundreds of odd jobs, large and small. . .for the favored architects."
Queries from a perhaps overly critical press respecting any architect's professional qualifications or lack thereof are not in themselves objectionable.
However, in the case of Horgan and Slattery, the situation was rather more complicated as the attacks became a vehicle for denouncing the Van Wyck administration generally and pertained very little, if at all, with a fair assessment of the firm's work. In order to bolster their charges of corruption in the Van Wyck administration, the press seized upon the seeming irregularity in the relationship between the architects and the administration, claiming that the firm name had become "a trademark of municipal disrepute and jobbery".
Horgan and Slattery were characterized as political pawns "who had no standing artistic, political, scientific, or financial [but were] used as the cat's paw of politicians anxious to get control of municipal building in New York. . ."
Despite the scandals surrounding the firm, political affiliations carried the day, for "on the death of the architect J.R. Thomas, the contract for the completion of the Hall of Records was granted to the favorite Tammany contractors Horgan and Slattery in spite of strong denunciation of such action."
Considered cogs in a great political machine and sarcastically dubbed the "universal solvents" or experts in all fields of architecture, the firm was taken to task for lapsed professional and moral responsibilities:
The new city administration has acted none too soon and with none too much severity in the cases of those two "devouring absurdities" Horgan and Slattery. Two self-respecting men in their places — but that is unimaginable. Two self-respecting men could never occupy their places. But two men with not more than twice the average thickness of skin would have got out, when Tammany was defeated, withqut waiting to be kicked out amid the cheers of the bystanders.
Upon his election in 1902, Mayor Seth Low called for the "dishorganizing and unslatterifying" of municipal architecture and insisted that "all business relations between the city and Horgan and Slattery, who received the award of all city contracts during the administration of Mayor Van Wyck should be terminated as soon as possible."
Mayor Low's administration adopted a hardline position according to which it would be preferable to pay damages in court than to honor any outstanding contracts with the architects.
Although ethics rather than aesthetics constituted the point of departure for the accusations in the local press — there having been very little critical coverage of the design work —the artistic capabilities of the architects were fair game as well.
Nevertheless, the firm's rise to prominence, even in the context of its alleged association with the great tum-of-the-century New York City Democratic party machine, cannot nullify the inherent value of their designs, which, in large part, combined classical vocabularies and Beaux-Arts principles of composition.
The Architects' and Builders' Magazine of January 1907 recognized that, "[J. R. Thomas'] work has been carried on in praiseworthy fashion by Messrs. Horgan and Slattery who have added to Mr. Thomas' brilliant conception much of the virility of design which characterizes their other well-known masterpieces."
Scant biographical information exists on the two architects. Photographs or drawings of a fair number of their projects were published in architectural journals, but accompanying text is rare. Arthur J. Horgan and Vincent J. Slattery entered into partnership in 1886. Until 1897, the New York City Directory listed them as builders; interestingly, in the 1898 edition, they emerged as architects.
Evidently, they had incorporated as such and were working out of an office at 1 Madison Avenue. Apart from Horgan's testimony in 1899 before the Mazet Committee that he had studied architecture for five years in the offices of his godfather, Colonel Arthur Crocks, virtually nothing is known about the professional educations of the architects.
Slattery testified that the "outside work" of the firm was his responsibility, while Horgan assumed the "inside work"; he also referred all technical questions to Horgan. In the absence of conclusive information concerning their respective positions in the firm, which would elucidate Slattery's statement, one may speculate either that Horgan was the principal designer and Slattery the business partner, or that Horgan dealt with structural questions and Slattery with interior embellishment.
Following Horgan's death in 1911, Slattery went into business for himself, retiring in 1934.
The Design
The former 50th Precinct Police Station House is a handsome example of Beaux-Arts classicism, a mode of design that characterized much public architecture at the tum-of-the-century and became the emblem of the City Beautiful Movement.
Although clearly indebted to the architectural styles of the past, the design does not endeavor to replicate historical models exactly, nor did such archaeological accuracy underlie the historicism of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Rather, the elements are derived from classical prototypes but are freely interpreted and ingeniously combined.
Typologically, the building refers to an Italian Renaissance urban palace; the ornament is eclectic.
Horgan and Slattery approached the design of this small but imposing building in an imaginative way. The building dominates its site; further, it is the dominant architectural feature on the primarily residential block. The architects' masterful handling is demonstrated in the sensitivity to the site, an understanding of the rules of Beaux-Arts composition, the use of ornament, and the adaptation of an ancient but particularly appropriate building type to a modern use.
Their studied application of Beaux-Arts principles is evident in the clear articulation of the parts of the building, the bilateral symmetry, the clearly marked and elaborated openings, the hierarchy of constituent elements in the facades, the play of advancing and receding planes, and the consistency of the articulation.
The form of the building refers to two distinct phases in the evolution of the Italian Renaissance urban palace. The 15th-century palace, such as the Pitti or the Medici, with its massive presence, direct relation with the street, and rusticated base, is an appropriate model for the expression of such values as power, security, invulnerability, and monumentality, which, surely in the public mind, are associated with the police force.
Strengthening this association are the horizontal extension of the station house, which intensifies the image of its being firmly wedded to its site, and the battlements or crenel lations of the roof parapet.
The horizontal lines of the building are reiterated in the surface treatment on every level of the facades: by the granite base; by the continuous channels of the recessed brick courses; by the lines of the windows; by the projecting stringcourses; by the continuous cornice, which is distinguished from the fabric of the building both in color, texture and materials; by the roof parapet, which is defined as a series of advancing and receding planes.
In the 16th-century type, exemplified by the design for the House of Raphael by Bramante, the ground story rustication is mediated by the application of architectural ornament in the upper stories, which is also the case here.
Description
The Kingsbridge Terrace of today, which is rather an unprepossessing street lined with detached houses as well as low-rise apartments, does not figure prominently in the street system of the Bronx, or even of Kingsbridge. This was not always the case, however.
From the 18th century until 1913, that portion of Kingsbridge Terrace north of what is presently Albany Crescent, was known as Boston Avenue, the name deriving from its having been a segment of the Boston Post Road. As the east/west section of the almost elliptical Albany Crescent was also a part of Boston Avenue, and Bailey Avenue formed part of the Albany Post Road, the station house is in close proximity to the intersection of two historically significant roads, and at the crest of Boston Hill.
From the street, the building appears as a massive two-story masonry block. In plan, however, it is a "U", oriented southward such that its eastern arm forms the principal or Kingsbridge Terrace facade, and its base constitutes the secondary or Summit Place facade.
The principal facade is 83 feet in length and two stories in height; the secondary facade is 119 feet in length and three stories in height, only two of which are expressed, corresponding to those on the principal facade.
The juncture of the eastern and northern facades is mediated by a curved comer treatment. This transitional element, the articulation of whose second story departs from those of both street facades, constitutes the focal point of the composition if the building is viewed obliquely from the northeast.
The focal point, shifts, however to the center bay of the principal facade if the building is viewed directly from the east or obliquely from the south; from either vantage point, the comer construction is virtually invisible.
In both cases, the corner element and the axis of symmetry provide vertical accents in an otherwise horizontally disposed composition. The principal facade consists of five bays, the central three flanked by projecting end bays in the north and south.
This "ABA" rhythm is repeated in the secondary facade with the difference that the projecting end bays flank a central section of seven bays. Three bays define the curved comer section.
Gamboge bricks, which are variegated in hue and are laid in Flemish bond, constitute the veneers of the facades, including the southern wall of the eastern arm of the "U". The contrasting limestone members of the windows, door, stringcourses, and columns, the granite of the base, the terra-cotta ornament, and the green tin denticulated Doric cornice create an impressive polychromatic image.
Like the urban palaces of the Italian Renaissance, the two stories are differentiated in characteristic ways: a projecting stringcourse composed of a series of classical moldings literally cuts the building in half horizontally; the elaboration of the second story contrasts with the relatively unadorned ground story; the individual bricks in the second story are slightly more saturated in color than those in the first; and the apparent rustication of the ground story, achieved by recessing one course in every seven, is abandoned at the first stringcourse, above which the wall is planar.
In keeping with the unadorned character of the ground story are the openings, which receive identical articulation in both facades, in the corner, and on the southern side of the eastern arm. They differ only in their proportions: those in the north facade are squatter than those in the projecting bays and in the principal facade, and those in the curved section and the eastern arm are more attenuated.
The sash is one-over-one double-hung aluminum surmounted by a fixed pane of glass. The openings are unframed, vertically-oriented rectangles with flat-arch brick lintels and limestone sills with classical contours. A console at either end of the sill provides support, and a console serves as keystone in the flat arch .
There are three distinct window treatments in the second story, although the sash remains constant. While the same size as those in the east, the windows in the north side are the least elaborate, treated in much the same way as those on the ground story. Replacing the consoles, however, are wedge-shaped limestone keystones that are articulated in three dimensions.
One such opening marks the second story of the southern side of the eastern arm. The windows of the corner element are squeezed within the intercolumniations of four Roman Doric, unf luted columns on bases, the two end ones of which are engaged; a series of classical moldings constitutes the lintels.
The surface bounded by the upper edge of each lintel and the lower edge of the second story stringcourse is pierced by a round window enframed with a terra-cotta wreath; the comers are enlivened with foliate terra-cotta forms.
All windows in the second stories of both the principal facade and the projecting bays are aedicular in type.
The aediculae, which frame the windows, are constituted of a series of freely interpreted classical elements including flanking pilasters, which are articulated with deep channels running vertically from the base, a capital, impost block, and lintel of classical moldings.
The window sill is tripartite: at either end, a segment projects slightly to form a base for the pilasters. A console with pendant foliate and vegetal ornament decorates each pilaster from just above mid-height to the capital. The window extends from the sill to the top of the capital; in the space that is roughly the height of the impost block and extends from the capital to the egg and dart molding of the lintel, is a flat, blank plaque.
The panel duplicates on a reduced scale the one crowning the axis of symmetry in the principal facade, which is inscribed with the name of the precinct. Each aedicula of the projecting bays is enframed by a larger aedicula, which is vestigial in that it is composed of thick pilasters that are simply projections of the brick fabric. Elaborating each pilaster are a cartouche, festoon, and pendant foliate form, placed in series within a vertically-oriented rectangular panel.
The axis of symmetry in the principal elevation serves a dual function: it divides the facade into two equal and opposite parts, and it creates a strong central focus. The double doors are preceded by two granite steps set between granite blocks, upon which originally were lampposts.
Rectangular hollow metal double doors, which have been painted bright red, with a transom on which the name of the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center has been painted in white, are placed within a basket or depressed arch with prominent brick voussoirs. A large, elaborate stone cartouche serves as the keystone.
Flanking the arch, large ancones with foliate ornament, surmounted by impost blocks, support the stringcourse, which breaks forward from the plane of the building at the entry. Directly above, a parapet is elaborated by a blank panel flanked by two triglyph-like elements surmounted by scrolls.
The triglyph/scroll unit supports a projecting molding along the upper edge of the parapet. Flanking each of the triglyph/scrolls is an S-shaped scroll in bas-relief.
The uppermost element of the axis is a plaque identifying the building as the 50th Precinct Police Station House. The limestone plaque is a horizontally disposed rectangle; a continuous egg and dart molding serves as a border. A tripartite guttae-like feature dangles from each side of the lower edge of the panel.
A block with a console in its center projects from the center of the lower edge of the inscribed panel.
The facade of the western arm of the "U" is undistinguished and virtually invisible from any street. The brick wall is punctuated by windows in the second story.
Alterations to the exterior have been few and have not significantly affected the street facades.36 The police moved from the building to their current location at 3450 Kingsbridge Avenue in December 1974; the present tenant, the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center, took possession in summer 1975. In 1979, with funding from the New York City Capital Budget and the Federal Community Development Budget, the Community Center embarked on a major rehabilitative program, which was completed in 1981.
Undertaken by the New York architects, Edelman and Salzman, most of the alterations were in the nature of adapting the interior spaces to new uses and upgrading systems. The architects were sensitive to the original exterior; the north and east facades of the building remain virtually untouched.
The terracotta band courses were partially repointed; the existing wooden entrance doors and frames were replaced with hollow metal doors and frame, and the transom was closed; a new wrought iron gate to the courtyard was installed at the south end of the Kingsbridge Terrace facade; the wooden windows were replaced with aluminum ones, and stainless steel security screens were placed on every opening.
Unfortunately, the material condition of the exterior appears to be steadily deteriorating. The cornice, a section of which is missing from the curved elevation, shows an advanced state of erosion especially on the underside. Spalling marks the limestone members of the windows, door, stringcourses, as well as the terra-cotta ornament, and large pieces of the window sills have broken off.
- From the 1986 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report
One of the most revolutionary and popular Ferarri's of all time, the 355 was a force to be rekoned with in the sports world, and has often been credited as one of the best handling sports cars in the world.
The Ferrari F355 (Type F129) began production in 1994 as an ongoing development of the Ferrari 348 it replaced. The car is mid-engined for ideal weight distribution with rear wheel drive transmission. The 5V DOHC Tipo F129B & Tipo F129C V8-powered car came with the option of either a two-seat coupe, a targa, or a convertible Spider. Design emphasis for the F355 was placed on significantly improved performance, as well as drivability across a wider range of speeds and in different environments, primarily low-speed, stop/start city traffic.
Apart from the displacement increase from 3.4 to 3.5 L, the major difference between the V8 engine in the 348 and F355 is the introduction of a 5-valve cylinder head. This new head design allowed for better intake permeability and resulted in an engine that was considerably more powerful, producing 375hp.
The car is built on a steel frame monocoque with tubular steel rear sub-frame, with front and rear suspensions using independent, unequal-length wishbones, coil springs over gas-filled telescopic shock absorbers with electronic control servos and anti-roll bars. The car allows selection between two damper settings, "Comfort" and "Sport". Ferrari fitted all road-going F355 models with Pirelli tires, size 225/40ZR 18 in front and 265/40 ZR 18 in the rear.
Although the F355 was equipped with power-assisted steering for the purpose of improving city and low speed driving in relation to the previous 348, which could optionally be replaced with a manual steering rack setup by special order.
Aerodynamic designs for the car included over 1,300 hours of wind tunnel analysis. The car incorporates a Nolder profile on the upper portion of the tail, and a fairing on the underbody that generates negative lift when the car is at speed.
The car's standard seats are upholstered with hides from Connolly Leather, and are fitted asymmetrically in the car; this results in the driver being slightly closer to the car's center line than the passenger.
At launch, two models were available: the coupe Berlinetta priced at £78,000, and the targa topped GTS. The Spider version, priced at £82,500, was introduced in 1995, with cars taking around 3 months to build. In 1997 the Formula One style paddle gear shift electrohydraulic manual transmission was introduced with the Ferrari 355 F1, which added £6,000 to the dealer asking price. The F355 was the last in the series of mid-engined Ferraris with the Flying Buttress rear window, with lineage going back to the 1965 Dino 206 GT, unveiled at the Paris Auto Show.
This particular model is one of the earliest of the Berlinetta versions, introduced in May 1994 as the first in a successful series of F355 models. Initially, the 6-speed manual was the only transmission available. However, in 1997, the Berlinetta was the first ever road car to be equipped with the innovative F1-style gearbox management system. Derived directly from Formula 1, where it made its début in 1989 winning the Brazilian Grand Prix, the electro-hydraulic system was operated by paddles behind the steering wheel using the F355’s conventional 6-speed manual gearbox. The new transmission guaranteed faster gear changes, with the additional advantage that both the driver’s hands could stay on the wheel at all times.
Ferrari produced 4,871 road-going Berlinetta models during the entire production run, of which 3,829 were 6-speed and 1,042 were F1 transmissions.
Eventually the car was replaced by the Ferrari 360 in 1999, taking the design and making it generally more rounded like many manufacturers were doing at the time in the run up to the Millennium. In total, 11,273 F355's were produced, and are amongst the most common Ferrari's on the road today, with some making notable appearances in both films and celebrity ownership.
One of these cars appears in the 1995 James Bond film Goldeneye, challenging 007's Aston Martin DB5 to a skirmish race down the winding Monte Carlo roads (although the more eagle-eye car critic viewer types like myself would be quick to point out that the comparatively slow and lumbering DB5 would be less than a match against the F355 and it's world renowned handling. Sort of like putting a Gee-Whizz up against and F1 Car, it's just not going to happen!)
One of the more notable owners however is the continually controversial Jeremy Clarkson, who bought a new F355 F1 series in 1997 and then proceeded to laud the car on Top Gear and on his own series of shows, later dubbing it the 'Greatest Car ever made ever', before turning that around a few years later and saying the Jaguar E-Type was the best car ever made ever...
Hamilton Heights, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States
The story of the founding of the College of the City of New York begins with the story of Townsend Harris who was born in the viliage of Sandy Hill In Washington County, New York, on October 4, 1804. He grew up in this smait upstate agricultural community in a famtiy that was honest, industrious and resourceful. These qualities characterized Townsend Harris throughout his lifetime. He received only a moderate amount of education at the local school where he teamed the "three Rs" which at that time were considered enough for any country boy.
Harris was a man of great intelligence who was vitally interested in everything in the world around him. Exposure to the culture of New York opened new vistas for him. He fett very keenly his tack of higher teaming and, eventually, through his own personal efforts, he educated himself in college subjects. He was particularly interested in languages and he learned to speak fluent French, Spanish, Itatian, Dutch and Portuguese.
Harris was well received socially, and was quite active in civic affairs. He was a volunteer fireman, a member of the militia, a trustee of the Northern Dispensary, a member of the Board of Education and a commissioner of the Ninth Ward. He was elected President of the Board of Education for two terms, 1846-1848, and it was during this time that he proposed free education at college level for all young men who had graduated from the "common schools" of the City. This was a very novel idea and it was not received with universal enthusiasm. Harris was not to be deterred, however, and he enlisted the support of several influential men, among them James Cordon Bennett, editor of the Herald, and William Cullen Bryant, editor of the Evening Post. Both of these men strongly advocated the cause of the Free Academy in their editorials. Bryant wrote, "The Academy wi!i give us intelligent mechanics, whose influence among our people, extending throughout the Union, and reacting upon ourselves, cannot fait to elevate our national character." The way was not smooth by any means but It became easier as more and more publicity was given to the matter.
On February 23, 1847, the Townsend Harris Memorial and Draft of Bill were read into the Record in the State Senate and referred to the Committee on Literature. The bill was read out, referred to committee, reported upon and amended for serveral weeks. Finally, the bill was approved 63 to 30 in the Assembly and 20 to 0 in the Senate and on May 7, 1847, Governor John Young signed the bill, it became Chapter 206 of the Laws of 1847, subject to the approval of the people of New York City, In a referendum held Monday,June 7, 1847, the voters of New York went to the polls to render their verdict. When the votes were counted, 19,305 were in favor and only 3,409 were opposed.
Now that the Free Academy was an accomplished fact, things happened quickly. A site comprising sixteen tots on Lexington Avenue between 22nd and 23rd Streets was secured. This was an area somewhat uptown from the northern reaches of the populous city which then extended as far as 14th Street. By November 1847, the Board of Supervisors and the Common Council had agreed on the purchase of the site and the appropriation of funds to begin construction.
Construction of the Free Academy commenced in November 1847, and the building was completed by January 1, 1849. The design put forth by Renwick was somewhat simitar in feeling to that of the Smithsonian Institution which was in progress at the same time. The beautiful and meticulous rendering which he made for the Free Academy is now in the Library of the College of the City of New York. This handsome Gothic Revival edifice was to stand for 79 years, it was demolished in 1928,
It was stilt to be forty more years before City College as we know it today took form. it was beginning to appear that the graduates of the Free Academy were under a handicap because of the name of their school. Not that the quality of education was less than that offered by academies and Colleges in other parts of the country, but the word "academy" was beginning to be old-fashioned in relation to higher education and the term "Free" had connotations of charity. Graduates of the New York Free Academy were finding that other institutions and prospective employers were sometimes doubtfu) as to wheter the students had recetved a collegiate education or not.
This condition was remedied on March 30, 1866, when, under the laws of New York , the Free Academy of the City of New York was made a body corporate wtth the tttte of ''The college of the City of New York." Having renamed the Free Academy a college, the Legtstature went on to pass an act on April 17, 1866, which provided, among other things, that: "tt shatt be the duty of the Trustees hereinbefore named, to select a suitable site upon the lands of the Corporation of New York, north of Fortieth Street in satd City, for the future use of the college of the city of New York."
The Board of Trustees chose the site of the old Distributing Reservotr at 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue -; now Bryant Park - and the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund thereupon set this land aside for the use of City College. Two years later, on February 29, 1868, a bill was introduced in the Assembly to provide means for the erection of a new building for city college. Surprisingiy, this issue became quite heated and the bill was voted down, 53 to 41. This was to be the end of any further attempt to relocate the College to 42nd Street.
However, in 1870, the Board of Trustees was granted $35,000 for a two-story addition to the old building and to install a steam heating system throughout.
By 1889, the enrolment had. reached 1,466 students and the buildings were more crowded than ever. There still was no gymnasium aithouah the faculty had been trying for many years to get one. The old building was considered to be so unsafe that the Turstees fett compelled to take out fire insurance to the value of $100,000. Gradually, the College faculty realized that thetr situation was hopetess and that no amount of alteration—assuming that this might be at at! possible— could render the old building adequate for the ever-increasing needs of the years to come). Both New York University and Columbia University were making plans to move uptown to weil-chosen new locations and fine . new buildings. Taking note of this, the faculty, the trustees, and the aiumni of city college agreed that they should pursue the same course as the only way to pian for the future.
It was fell that the alumni of City College would be the most affective proponents of a new uptown campus, since they ware widely distributed and could work on several levels. in December, 1891, Professor Aifred G. Compton came to the fore to organize a strong alumni committee which would work vigorously to obtain an adequate appropriation, Their beginning was a bill Introduced in the $tate Legislature early in 1892 which would at tow the college to purchase a site and erect new buildings to the total amount of $1,000,000. A delegation of alumni then called upon Mayor Gilroy to seek his support only to find that he was hostile to the whole plan. It developed that not only was the Mayor opposed, but the Governor, Roswetl P. Flower, was unsympathetic and was determined to veto any legislation to appropriate money for city college, which he did.
The tide finally turned in November, 1894, when the elections produced a new reformist Republican Mayor, William L, Strong, and a new Republican Governor, the well-known Levi P, Morton, both in favor of aid for City College. Tammany Hall had been cleaniy swept out of office and all at City College were jubilant. On November 8, 1894, only two days after the election, the Board of Trustees voted to cause the previously vetoed bill to be re-intorduced into the Legislature.
This time success was assured. Early in 1895, the Assembly passed the bill by a vote of 85 to 1, and the Senate approved it unanimously. The newly approved bill which was to take effect immediately was munificent, authorizing the Trustees of City College to spend a total of $1,175,000. A suitable site was to be obtained within the City for not more than $600,000 and the remaining $575,000 was to be spent on construction.
Some forty different sites were investigated for the new campus. Eventually, as they were rejected for one reason or another, it became evident that the area Just north of the Convent of the Sacred Heart on St. Nicholas Heights was by far the most beautiful and impressive site, "it was a fateful choice and a wise one. The Trustees had selected a commanding elevation overlooking the Hudson and East Rivers, High Bridge, Washington Bridge, and a large part of the City. The rocky Heights of St, Nicholas stood .155 feet above tidewater and 90 feet above the avenue at their base. The unobstructed view from this eminence could scarcely be equalled in the City. Equalty important, it was accessible by all existing modes of transportation.The delay in confirming the decision and the many problems connected with acquiring the site took over a year and by that time the property had gone up in price. Early In 1897, the Legislature approved an additional $200,000 to be added to the $600,000 granted in 1895, and the St. Nicholas Heights site was purchased.
In July, 1897, the Trustees invited a number of prominent architects to participate in open competition for the contract to design the new buildings. By December of that year submissions had been received from eight architects and had been put on display at the College, On December 24, 1897, it was announced that the executive committee had voted to recommend the adoption of the plans submitted by George B. Post.
When George B. Post was chosen to be the architect for the new City college buildings, he prepared two different plans for the consideration of the trustees. Using the same elevation, he submitted one rendering in the neo-Ciassical style—actually quite simitar in feeling to his Manufactures and Liberal Arts building at the 1893 Wortd's Columbian Exposition—and an atternative rendering in English Gothic style. H Post is said to have preferred the neo-Classlcat verston, however, the trustees chose the Gothic. Perhaps, consciously or unconsciously, they wanted to be reminded of the original Gothic Revival City college building at 23rd Street, with which they were already comfortable. There is also the inescapable connection between Gothic architecture and. revered institutions of higher learning such as Oxford and Cambridge.
Post had originally drawn a plan for a single Gothic style building five stories in height to house all of the activities of the College. This plan was unique both as related to the total needs of the College and to the geographic limitations of the site, The building was to have been fan-shaped with inferior gardens and terraces, conforming to the rounded sweep of St. Nicholas Terrace.
An increase in funding resetted in expanded plans for a targe campus with several buildings and so, this original plan was never carried out. However, the concept remains as an exampte of the ortgtnattty and inventiveness of George B. Post. For many years afterward,Post was to complain that he never recefved the $5,000 he was to have been paid for this plan.
The site at St. Nicholas Terrace was truly impressive and even by 1897 academicians were referring to it as "the Acropolis." This was an apt comparison in many ways for in addition to the lofty beauty of the spot, it was a massive stone outcropping of the type of geneiss known locally as Manhattan schist with only the thinnest covering of soil and moss. This was to mean that much blasting and excavation would be required to grade the campus and to remove the stone from the construction sites. The great expense connected with the excavation of the stone was offset by the decision to use it in the construction of the buildings. Thus, the chief material to be used was already at hand.
Post decided, again for practical purposes, to use terra cotta as the other building component, it was a material easily molded to decorative forms which was also durable, light in weight, and easily transported. Post was wett acquainted with terra cotta as a building material having pioneered in Its use in the Long Island Historical Society building in 1875, and having used it subsequently in several other buildings. The terra cotta used in the buildings at City College was manufactured by the Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Company of Perth Amboy, New Jersey,who as successors to Alfred Hall & Son, opened a sales office at 170 Broadway in 1879.
The distinctive purpose of each of the five buildings was symbotlzed by the extensive use of characteristicatiy Gothic gargoyies and grotesques. More than six hundred figures were set up upon the watis of the different buildings, each intended to carry out the idea of the wall in which it was placed. On the Mechanic Arts Buftding, the grotesques could be seen pustty forging, planning,, chiseling. casting, boring; on the Chemistry Building, exaggerated chemtsts were working on all kinds of mysterious experiments; or. the Gymnasium merrymakers were enjoying every type of athletic exercise and game; while on the walls of the Main Buitdtng were a great variety of Iittle men, symbolizing in every case the particutar art or science lodged behind their special wall. On the towers and cornices stood strange gargoyles grotesques — startling, etcngated animats and monsters holding books or implements.
The combination of Manhattan schist and white terra cotta was quite dramatic. The idea of highly contrasting stones was not new, having been a common occurrence In the Ruskinian Gothic style buildings of the late 1860s. it is said that when the rock at the City College site was first quarried, it had a light cast due to the freshly exposed sillca and that there were some dark spots caused by discoloration from iron and other minerals., A description written In 1908 stated that on any fair day, the buildings at City College glowed warm and golden in the reflected tight of the rising or setting sun. Many people admtred this effect for when buildings are new, they must took new. Others had different opinions. Montgomery Schuyter wrote in 1910, "it would not be a bad notion for the City to permit the City College to burn soft coal for a season until the arch has been properly smoked,"
However, time has quite evenly darkened the stonework and today, it appears a rather sedate shade of deep grey, although still vividly highlighted by the white terra-cotta trim.
- From the 1981 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report
Ely Cathedral, Ely, Cambridgeshire
The narrative runs from right to left. The lights are described from left to right. In three of the lights, the Latin inscriptions appear to bear only a tenuous relation to the pictures above them.
i. David hears of the death of Absalom (II Samuel 18): dixit autem Nathan ad David tu es ille vir ('and then Nathan said to David you are the man', II Samuel 12:7)
ii. David takes the crown of the King of Rabbah (II Samuel 12): et tuli diadema quod erat in capite eius ('and I took the crown that was upon his head', II Samuel 1:10)
iii. David plays his harp to Saul: (I Samuel 16) et David fugit et salvatus est ('David fled and was saved', I Samuel 19:10)
iv. David is anointed by Samuel (I Samuel 16): tulit igitur Samuhel cornu olei et unxit eum ( 'Then Samuel took the horn of oil', I Samuel 16:13)
The nave aisle windows at Ely contain a cavalcade of 19th Century glass from no less than 14 different workshops. Some of it, in the south aisle in particular, was donated by the workshops themselves, in the hope of receiving the commission for the great east end windows. As such, this can be seen as a kind of Great Exhibition of 1850s workshops putting on their best show. In the end, William Wailes won the top prize.
Title: Memorial of Queen Liliuokalani in relation to the Crown lands of Hawaii, 12/19/1898
Creator(s): U.S. House of Representatives. Committee on Territories. (12/13/1825 - 1946)
Persistent URL: arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/ExternalIdSearch?id=306653
Letter from Liliuokalani, Queen of Hawaii to U.S. House of Representatives protesting U.S. assertion of ownership of Hawaii, December 19, 1898; HR 55A-H28.3; Records of the U.S. House of Representatives; Record Group 233; National Archives.
Access Restrictions: Unrestricted
Use Restrictions: Unrestricted
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Rita Ora has relation with son Tommy Hilfiger
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In this post I return to the subject of Hermeticism and its relation to Sufism, which I had been intending to do for some time. My earlier essay on the subject, “From Hermeticism to Sufism,” can be found in The Secret of Islam (2003) and also in the online book, Science, Knowledge, and Sufism, available elsewhere on this site. This post can be considered as an addition to that.ntroduction to his Hegel and Hermeticism (New York: Cornell University Press, 2001), Glenn Alexander Magee gives a concise summary of Hermeticism (Part 3: “What is Hermeticism?” pp.8-14). I wish to build on this by using quotations from the Grand Master of Sufism, Ahmet Kayhan. These can be found in my own Teachings of a Perfect Master (2012).
What Does God Need?
Pointing out that “Hermeticism is difficult to define rigorously”, Magee concentrates on “one essential feature that I shall take as definitive of Hermeticism.”
Hermeticism constitutes a middle position between pantheism and the Judaeo-Christian conception of God. According to traditional Judaeo-Christian thought, God utterly transcends and is infinitely distant from creation. Furthermore, God is entirely self-sufficient and therefore did not have to create the world, and would have lost nothing if He had not created it. Thus the act of creation is essentially gratuitous and unmotivated. God creates out of sheer abundance, not out of need. This doctrine has proved dissatisfying and even disturbing to many, for it makes creation seem arbitrary and absurd.
Pantheism, on the other hand, is equally dissatisfying, for in pantheism everything becomes God, and there is no God beyond the sum of all things.
Hermeticism is a middle position because it affirms both God’s transcendence of the world and his involvement in it. God is metaphysically distinct from the world, yet God needs the world to complete Himself.
In other words, God is both transcendent and immanent, or, to use the corresponding Sufic concepts, God is both incomparable to creation and similar to it. Hence, God has Attributes of incomparability (sifat al-tanzih) that set Him apart from created things, and also Attributes of similarity (sifat al-tashbih), from which the attributes of created things are themselves derived. So choosing only one of these complementary aspects neglects the other. One of Ibn Arabi’s favorite quotations from the Koran is the Sacred Verse: “Nothing is like Him. He is the Hearer, the Seer” (42:11). Here, in one single Verse, we have this complementarity in a nutshell.
But what about God “needing” creation? Master Kayhan puts it this way:
Why did God create the human being? In order to let Himself be found. So that the human may say, “God exists.”
God is not in need of anything. Yet He does have one need. What is that? Nobody knows God. God created man in order to be known.
Notice, first, that the question: “Why did God create the universe?” is being answered here. Another way of phrasing this question is: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” which is the fundamental question of philosophy.
Second, God “needs” to be known. And for this reason, human beings are created, for only human beings are endowed with the capability to know God fully, in the way He deserves to be known. No other sentient or conscious entity possesses this ability—not even angels, exalted though they are. It follows from this that the rest of the universe is created as a dwelling place for man, as a “supporting cast” for human beings. In Sufism, Homo sapiens is that valuable.
Of course, Master Kayhan is here referring to the well-known “Hidden Treasure” Holy Tradition, attributed to the Prophet (in which God speaks in the first person singular): “I was a hidden treasure. I desired to be known, hence I created Creation so that I would be known.” In the original, “desired to be known” occurs as “loved to be known” (fa ahbabtu an ‘urafa), so the entire universe was created out of this love. It is in this sense that the act of creation is a need, a desire, a longing.
As Master Kayhan explains,
He says, “I created everything for you, and you I created for Myself.”
And hence,
The universe has an owner. His name is God. Let’s eat, drink, have children, suffer their worries, and get out of here. Is this all we came here for? We came to search for the owner of the universe. You haven’t found the master of the house yet. We need to find the owner of the cosmos. And for this, calmness is necessary, patience is necessary, work is necessary.
In other words, the universe is the setting for a vast Treasure Hunt, in which the Hidden Treasure is God.
God-Knowledge
Now what does Hermeticism say about this? Back to Magee:
Hermeticists not only hold that God requires creation, they make a specific creature, man, play a crucial role in God’s self-actualization. Hermeticism holds that man can know God, and that man’s knowledge of God is necessary for God’s own completion.
This, of course, brings to mind the Sufic “arc of ascent.” God created the universe in an “arc of descent” (qaws al-nuzul), manifesting in entire creation. Now, the human being has to complete the return trip to God, and this is called the “arc of ascent” (qaws al-‘uruj). And how does one perform this ascent? Through God-knowledge (Gnosis: marifat-Allah) or knowledge of God, that is, by getting to know God.
Magee quotes from the third-century A.D. Corpus Hermeticum:
“For mankind this is the only deliverance, the knowledge of God… Who is more visible than God? This is why he made all things: so that through them all you might look on him.”
One is reminded here of a couplet by the famous Sufi poet, Niyazi Misri:
There is nothing more apparent than God
He is hidden only to the eyeless.
Magee quotes from Hermeticism scholar Garth Fowden:
“Not only does Man wish to know God, but God too desires to be known by the most glorious of His creations, Man.” In short, it is man’s end to achieve knowledge of God (or “the wisdom of God,” theosophy). In so doing, man realizes God’s own need to be recognized. Man’s knowledge of God becomes God’s knowledge of himself. …
In the standard Judaeo-Christian account of creation, the creation of the world and God’s command that mankind seek to know and love him seem arbitrary, because there is no reason why a perfect being should want or need anything. The great advantage of the Hermetic conception is that it tells us why the cosmos and the human desire to know God exist in the first place.
This Hermetic doctrine of the “circular” relationship between God and creation and the necessity of man for the completion of God is utterly original. It is not to be found in earlier philosophy. But it recurs again and again in the thought of Hermeticists…
Of course, Magee cannot be expected to know that Sufism had already spoken of these matters long ago, and that Hermeticism may be viewed as an earlier incarnation of Sufism.
Hermeticism is also very often confused with Neoplatonism. Like the Hermeticists, Plotinus hold that the cosmos is a circular process of emanation from and return to the One.
—In other words, the Sufic arcs of descent and ascent mentioned earlier.
As Fowden notes: “Hermetic initiation seems to fall into two parts, one dealing with self-knowledge, the other with knowledge of God.” It can easily be shown, simply on a theoretical level, that these two are intimately wedded. To really know one’s self is to be able to give a complete [account] about the conditions of one’s being, and this involves speaking about God and His entire cosmos. As Pico della Mirandola puts it, “he who knows himself knows all things in himself.”
Here we arrive at the famous Tradition of the Prophet: “He who knows his self knows his Lord.” For as we mentioned above, God created the entire universe as a life-support system for Man. This means that Man cannot be conceived or understood without the context of the universe. He cannot exist apart from the air, the sun, the water that sustains him, the earth below that nurtures him, the starry sky above. He is not a “bag of skin” isolated and divorced from the rest of existence. To repeat: “I created everything for you, and you I created for Myself.” Without knowing this, Man goes heedlessly from death to death. But knowing this, Man also knows his Lord.
Purification
Back to Magee:
Salvation for the Hermeticists was, as we have seen, through gnosis, through understanding. This could be attained only through hard work, and then it could be attained only by some.
And here is Master Kayhan:
Always work, serve, don’t stay idle. Together with knowledge. Always to work.
What does God say? “I love those who work. I help those who work.” That’s all. To work, both materially and spiritually. What do we need? We need to persevere. To continue in every task. Not to abandon it. To be brave and hopeful—“I’m going to succeed in this task!” If you do this, you will be successful. God says, “If you want from Me, work. Be more hopeful.” Be hopeful physically and spiritually.
From the Corpus Hermeticum:
“it is an extremely tortuous way, to abandon what one is used to and possesses now, and to retrace one’s steps towards the old primordial things.”
From the Koran:
“We have come from God and we shall return to Him” (2:156).
“God loves those who purify themselves” (2:222).
“As for those who struggle in Our cause, surely We guide them in Our paths” (29:69).
From the Corpus Hermeticum:
“All those who heeded the proclamation … participated in knowledge and became perfect [or “complete,” teleioi] people because they received mind. But those who missed the point of the proclamation are people of reason [or “speech,” logon]…”
In Sufism, we have the contrast between the Perfect Human (insan al-kaamil) and the People of Speech (ahl al-kaal). The first is truly realized, the latter are stuck at the level of mere words. They are the opposite of, more generally, the People of States (ahl al-hal).
In order to clarify this difference, let me relate a Sufi story, the first time I am putting it down in print. After the illustrious mystic Mawlana Rumi met up with Shams, Rumi was showing Shams some books he had studied from. At that time they were standing beside a pool. Shams snatched the books out of Rumi’s hands and threw them in the pool.
Rumi exclaimed: “What have you done? One of those books was given to me by none other than the author himself, the great Jami!”
“Oh, is that so,” said Shams, and pulled the books out of the pool. They were soaked. He made a pass with his hand above and beneath them, and handed them to Rumi. Now they were dry as a bone: not a drop of wetness, no smearing of the ink, not a sign of warping that comes from the immersion of paper in water.
Rumi couldn’t believe his eyes. “Master, what is this?” he asked.
“All this,” said Shams, pointing to the books, “is tittle-tattle (kiyl u kaal). Ours is the Science of States (ilm al-hal).”
Hermeticists do not rest content with the idea of an unknowable God. Instead, they seek to penetrate the divine mystery.
Master Kayhan:
My God, thank you for giving these seven organs [two each of eyes, ears and nostrils, one mouth]. This [the head] is the Mount Sinai of Moses [7:143]. From the neck upwards, there are seven visible organs. There are a thousand, a million, invisible organs. …
This head is the antenna of the eighteen thousand worlds, it’s the antenna of the Torah, the Psalms, the Gospel and the Koran. …
A Sacred Saying: “I did not fit in anyone’s Heart but the Heart of the Perfect Faithful.” Nobody says “Don’t do it,” He says, “Work and become,” for heaven’s sake! Work. Yes! Let’s work and do it. Don’t wait for God from afar, bring Him close.
As Above, So Below
For the Hermeticists, says Magee, everything is intimately connected. This finds expression in their famous maxim: “As above, so below.” This lays the basis for the unity of the cosmos.
The most important implication of this doctrine is the idea that man is the microcosm, in which the whole of the macrocosm is reflected. Self-knowledge, therefore, leads necessarily to knowledge of the whole.
Likewise, the sources of Sufism tell us that “the universe is man writ large, man is cosmos in the small.” As al-Qashani says, for example, “Man is a Small Universe, while the universe is a Big Man.” In a poem, Ali the Fourth Caliph expressed it this way:
Your remedy is within you, but you do not sense it.
Your sickness is from you, but you do not perceive it.
You presume you are a small entity,
but within you is enfolded the entire Universe.
Is Hermeticism Dead?
Many people may lament the fact that such an admirable system as Hermeticism is now extinct, that it has been consigned to the dustbin of history along with so many other schools and philosophies.
And yet, Hermeticism is not dead. It survives in its most sophisticated form. It lives on in Sufism.
I took this picture during "De Vestingdagen" in my home town. There are a few relations with Bart his toes photo. There are six feet in "a row", every feet have "five" toes and the weakest relation you can also travel by feet.
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Since 1979 Hellevoetsluis (a small city in the Netherlands close to Rotterdam) organizes every year a event called "De Vestingdagen". Every year a estimated amount of 200,000 people come to see this spectaculair event.
In the very beginning this event was started with a so called "Steam-weekend" close to the tramstation in Hellevoetsluis where a steamtram made his rides. The first event only existed of one day(Friday) but in the year after they already decided to extend this event to three days (Friday till Sunday)
A lot of different vessels and vehicles where present during this event where steam was the main subject. Nowadays there are still a lot of old vehicles to see and some old steam machines but there are more modern vessels present where you can take a look on.(police boats, coastguard boats, fire-brigade boats ect). You can hear music everywere there is a also a small market, a fun fair and spectaculair canon firing demostrations. When night falls there is life music and al bars and clubs(small) stay open until late in the night.
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Sinds 1979 worden in Hellevoetsluis jaarlijks de zogenaamde vestingdagen georganiseerd. Ieder jaar bezochten ongeveer 200.000 mensen dit gratis evenement. In eerste instantie werd het "Stoomweekend" georganiseerd ter hoogte van de Tramhaven in Hellevoetsluis waar toen ook nog een Stoomtram reed.
De eerste Vestingdagen waren feitelijk een Vestingdag. Alleen op de zaterdag was er een evenement. Het jaar erop werd besloten een evenement te organiseren van vrijdag tot en met zondag. Allerlei voer- en vaartuigen waren er te zien, waarbij de nadruk lag op stoom. Ook oude vrachtauto's en oude militaire voertuigen konden worden bewonderd. Er werd ook gedacht aan de muzikale invulling, verschillende bekende als onbekende bandjes en artiesten kwamen langs. Een ieder jaar terug kerend fenomeen waren The Amazing Stroopwafels voor het café "Het Barbiertje." De Vestingdagen trokken ook veel jongeren, vanwege de kermis, braderie en uitgaansgelegenheden 's avonds.
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For the people who are already lost in the project you can follow the two different relation lines by clicking the links shown below.
Follow: Bart's line
Follow: Mark's line
Oesterreichische Nationalbank
Logo of the Austrian National Bank
Headquarters Vienna, Austria
Central Bank of Austria
Currency€
To ISO 4217 EUR
website
Previous Austro- Hungarian Bank
List of Central Banks
Oesterreichische Nationalbank, at Otto-Wagner -Platz No. 3, Vienna
The Austrian National Bank (OeNB), Austria's central bank as an integral part of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and the Eurosystem. It is instrumental in the design of the economic development in Austria and in the euro area. Legally, the OeNB is a public limited company.. However, it is also subject to further enshrined in the National Bank Act regulations resulting from its separate position as a central bank. In the framework of the Eurosystem, the OeNB contributes to a stability-oriented monetary policy. At the national level, it cares about the preservation of financial stability and the money supply and manage foreign exchange reserves to hedge against the euro in times of crisis. The guideline values in terms of the tasks of the Austrian National Bank are "security, stability and trust".
Contents
1 History
1.1 1816 to 1818
1.2 1818 to 1878
1.3 1878 to 1922
1.4 1922 to 1938
1.5 1938 to 1945
1.6 1945 to 1998
1.7 From 1999
2 The OeNB as a modern central bank
3 Legal form and organs
3.1 Legal framework
3.2 organs
3.2.1 General
3.2.2 General
3.2.3 Board of Directors
4 Tasks
4.1 Monetary policy strategies and monetary policy decision-making process
4.1.1 Economic analysis
4.1.2 Production of statistical information
4.1.3 Contribute to international organizations
4.2 Implementation of monetary policy
4.2.1 use of monetary policy instruments
4.2.2 Reserve Management
4.2.3 Money Supply
4.3 Communication of monetary policy
4.4 ensure financial stability
4.4.1 Financial Stability
4.4.2 Payment System Stability and payments
5 The OeNB in the European System of National Banks
6 President / Governors
7 See also
8 Literature
9 links
10 Notes and references
History
1816-1818
As long as 50 years before the founding of the National Bank the Habsburgs carried out first experiments with securities in the form of paper money. Finally, in the 18th Century the issue of banknotes transferred to a state independent institution, while the issue of paper money called "Banco notes," founded in 1705 by the "Vienna City Bank" took place in 1762.
In wartime governance took back control of the money issue, so there was an inflation of Banco-Zettel 1796-1810. The state ordered the forced acceptance of paper money in private transport, which led to a fast-growing discount on bills in the market. 1799 was therefore one for 100 guilders paper money only 92 guilders in silver coins, and at the end of 1810 the value of the paper florin had fallen to 15 % of the nominal value of the Banco-Zettel. Later, the Habsburgs declared a devaluation of the Banco-Zettel in the ratio of 5:1. This act was considered by the business community as a sovereign default, which the paper money experienced a rapid devaluation.
At the end of the Napoleonic wars the Habsburg multinational state ( → Habsburg Monarchy) faced a new challenge: the restoration of a European balance. Church, the nobility, the army and the bureaucracy as elements in the Ancien Régime were not sufficient to solve this problem, a well -founded economic situation was needed. Moreover, one could not ignore readily the laws of supply and demand.
In this regard, were the first June 1816 by Emperor Francis I two patents issued (later to distinguish the "main patent" or "bank patent"), the "privileged Austrian National Bank", conceived as a public company, had to constitute itself as soon a possible, propose the emperor three of its directors for selection of the governor and take up their activity provisionally on 1 July 1816.
The National Bank had henceforth a monopoly on the issuance of paper money, which led to a slowdown in the Austrian monetary system and an increase in the value of paper money. The economy was again a solid source of money keeping constant the value of money regardless of the spending plans of the State. The equity of the Bank justified this by share issues.
Initially comprised the activities of the bank - under temporary management - the redemption of paper money and the issuance of shares. The full effectiveness attained the National Bank until after the issue of 1,000 shares and the associated possibility of shareholders to set the management themselves.
1818-1878
On 15 July 1817 recieved the National Bank as the "first Bankprivilegium" the exclusive right to unrestricted issue of banknotes and in this context a special position in terms of Rediskontgeschäfts (rediscount business). Beginning of 1818 the definitive bank management was ready. Part of it were among leading figures of Viennese society, including the banker Johann Heinrich von Geymüller and Bernard of Eskeles. From 1830 to 1837 the Office of the Governor was held by Adrian Nicholas Baron Barbier.
In the countries of the Habsburg Monarchy, which were characterized in large part by an agricultural oriented activity pattern, some regions showed a lively commercial-industrial growth. The goal now was to create a system of economic exchange between these areas. Successively established the National Bank branch network and thus guaranteed a uniform money and credit supply. From its headquarters in Vienna this network extended over early industrial areas and commercial centers in Eastern and Central Europe to the northern Mediterranean.
Trade bills and coins were preferred assets of the National Bank, less the supply of money to the state. With the exchange transactions, the National Bank supported the economic growth of the monarchy and secured at the same time the supply of silver coins in the event that the need for these increases in exchange for bank notes, contrary to expectations. 1818 was the National Bank, however, by increasing public debt, due to high spending in times of crisis, not spared to make an increase in the government debt positions on the asset side of its balance sheet.
The patent provisions of the founding of the National Bank not sufficiently secured against the autonomy of governance. At the center of the struggle for independence, this was the question of the extent to which the issue of banknotes must be made on the basis of government bonds. In 1841, a renewal of Bankprivilegiums got a weakening of the independence by pushing back the influence of the shareholders in favor of the state administration. During the revolution of 1848/49 followers of constitutional goals received great support from senior figures in the National Bank. For about a hundred years, the Austrian branch of the Rothschild bank (from which from 1855, the "Royal Privileged Austrian Credit-Institute for Commerce and Industry", the later Creditanstalt, was born) was playing a leading role in the banking center of Vienna. Salomon Mayer von Rothschild was involved during the pre-March in all major transactions of the National Bank for the rehabilitation of the state budget.
Special focus the National Bank was putting on the development of the premium that was payable at the exchange of banknotes into silver money in business dealings. The increase, which corresponded to a depreciation of the notes issued by the Bank should be prevented. From an overall state perspective, the increase of the silver premium means a deterioration in terms of the exchange ratio towards foreign countries, influencing the price competitiveness of the Austrian foreign trade adversely. The stabilization of the premium were set some limits. Although the height of the emission activitiy was depending on the Bank, but also the price of silver and the potential effects of increased government debt materially affected the silver premium. Especially the 1848 revolution and conflicts in the following years caused an increasement of the silver premium.
Mid-century, the private banking and wholesale houses were no longer able to cope with the rapidly growing financial intermediation of the Habsburg monarchy. New forms of capital formation were required. From an initiative of the House of Rothschild, the first by the government approved and private joint-stock bank was created. This formation was followed in 1863 and 1864 by two other joint-stock banks, whose major shareholders included important personalities of the aristocracy, who possessed large liquid funds. Overall, grew with these banks the money creation potential of the "financial center of Vienna".
The central bank faced another difficult task: with its limited resources it had to secure sufficient liquidity on the one hand and on the other hand prevent the inflationary expansion of the money supply. Through close contacts with the shareholders of Vienna was a financial center (informal) ballot, especially in times of crisis, easily dealt out. In contrast, it gave differences of opinion in the Fed Board, which required enforcement of decisions.
In 1861, Friedrich Schey Koromla became director of the National Bank. On 27 December 1862 experienced the Bankprivilegium another innovation. The independence of the National Bank of the State was restored and anchored. Furthermore, was introduced the direct allocation of banknotes in circulation by the system of "Peel'schen Bank Act", which states that the fixed budget of 200 million guilders exceeding circulation of banknotes must be covered by silver coins. In 1866, when the German war ended in defeat for Austria, the compliance of the system was no longer met. The state felt itself forced to pay compensation for breach of privilege. This balance was supported by a law of 1872, after the National Bank may issue notes up to a maximum of 200 million guilders and each additional payment must be fully backed by gold or silver.
1873 the economic boom of the Habsburg monarchy was represented in a long-lasting rise in the share price. A now to be expecting break could by the behavior of the Vienna Stock not be intercepted, so it came to the "Great Crash of 1873". The in 1872 fixed restrictions of the circulation of notes for a short time have been suspended. Contrary to expectations, the money supply in crisis peak but only outgrew by nearly 1% the prescribed limit in the bank acts. The banks and the industrial and commercial companies survived the crash without major losses, although the share prices significantly lay below the initial level.
The years with high growth were followed by a period of stagnation.
1878-1922
As part of the compensation negotiations between Austria and Hungary in 1867, the National Bank was able to exercise fully their Privilegialrechte, the Kingdom of Hungary but now had the certified right, every ten years exercisable, to found an own central bank (bank note). As resulted from the first 10 -year period that furthermore none of the two parts of the monarchy wanted to build an independent money-issuing bank (Zettelbank), was built on 28 June 1878, initially to 31 December 1887 limited, an Austro-Hungarian Bank, and equipped with the Fed privilege. The first privilege of the new bank was a compromise in which on the one hand, regulations on liability for national debts as well as regulations limiting the influence of the government on banking businesses were included. 1878 Gustav Leonhardt was Secretary of the Bank.
The General Assembly and the General Council formed the unit of the bank management. Two directorates and major institutions - in Vienna and Budapest - represented the dual nature of the bank. 1892-1900 followed a long discussion finally the currency conversion from guilders (silver currency) to the crown (gold standard) with "Gold Crown" said coins.
Since the new banknotes were very popular in the public, now many gold coins piled up in the vaults of the Austro-Hungarian Bank. This period was characterized by a balanced combination of price growth and damping, the "per capita national product" grew while prices remained mostly stable. Against this background, it was easy for the Fed to encourage a new wave of industrialization.
With a third privilege in 1899 conditions were established under which the bank could be put into the financial services of the two countries, on the other hand there have been important innovations that paved a good exchange policy. By 1914, the exchange ratio of the Austro-Hungarian currency was unchanged with only minor fluctuations. In contrast, was the by conflicts marked political development.
The expansive foreign policy quickly led to high costs from which had to be shouldered by the central bank a significant part. The stability of the currency was in danger. Shortly after the beginning of World War I in 1914, laid down the Military Command to indemnify any seized property with double the price. There was an increasing scarcity of goods, connected with an ongoing expansion of the money supply and finally the increase in the price level on the 16-fold.
The resulting cost of the war of the Dual Monarchy were covered to 40% on central bank loans and 60% through war bonds. Over the duration of the war, the power force built up in recent decades has been frozen at the end of the conflict in 1918, the real income of the workers had fallen to one-fifth of the last year of peace.
With the end of the war the end for the old order had come, too. The decay of Cisleithania and Transleithania caused in several successor states, despite the efforts of the central bank to maintain the order, a currency separation (see Crown Currency in the decay of the monarchy, successor states). First, a separate "Austrian management" of the bank was introduced. It was encouraged to shoulder the shortcomings of the state budget of the Republic of Austria founded in 1918.
The new South Slav state began in January 1919 stamping its crown banknotes. The newly founded Czechoslovak Republic retained the crown currency (to date), but their printed banknotes in circulation as of February 1919 with indications that now these ar Czechoslovak crowns. (The country could an inflation as experienced by Austria avoide.) In March 1919, German Austria began to stamp its crown banknotes.
The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye of 10 September 1919, by Austria on 25 October 1919 ratified and which on 16 July 1920 came into force, determined the cancellation and replacement of all crown banknotes of all successor states of Austria-Hungary as well as the complete liquidation of the Austro-Hungarian Bank under the supervision of the war winners. The last meetings of the Bank took place mid 1921 and at the end of 1922.
After a period of overvaluation of the crown the dollar rate rose from 1919 again. 1921, had to be paid over 5,000 Austrian crowns per dollar. In addition to the significant drop in the external value existed in Austria rising inflation. End of 1922 was ultimately a rehabilitation program with foreign assistance - the "Geneva Protocol" - passed which slowed down the inflation.
1922-1938
With Federal Law of 24 July 1922 the Minister of Finance was commissioned to build a central bank, which had to take over the entire note circulation plus current liabilities of the Austrian management of the Austro-Hungarian Bank. With Federal Law of 14 November 1922, certain provisions of the law were amended and promulgated the statutes of the Austrian National Bank. By order of the Federal Government Seipel I 29 December 1922, the Board of the Austrian Austro-Hungarian Bank issued authorization for the central bank union activity with 1 January 1923 have been declared extinct and was made known the commencement of operations of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank this day.
The statutes of the Austrian National Bank (OeNB) secured the independence from the state, the independence of the Bank under exclusion of external influences and the corresponding equity. First, the stabilization of the Austrian currency was at the forefront. With the Schilling Act of 20 December 1924 was the schilling currency (First Republic) with 1 Introduced in March 1925, it replaced the crown currency. For 10,000 crowns now you got a shilling.
As an important personality in terms of the order of the state budget, Dr. Victor Kienböck has to be mentioned. He was in the time from 1922 to 1924 and from 1926 to 1929 finance minister of the First Republic and from 1932 to 1938 President of the Austrian National Bank. Through his work remained the Austrian Schilling, also beyound the global economy crisis, stable. Under this condition, the Fed was able to cope with the large number of bank failures of the past.
1938-1945
According to the on 13th March issued Anschlussgesetz (annexation law) , the Reichsmark with order of the Fuehrer and Chancellor of 17 was March 1938 introduced in the country Austria and determines the course: A Reichsmark is equal to one shilling fifty pence. On the same day, the Chancellor ordered that the management of the to be liquidated National Bank was transferred to the Reichsbank.
With regulation of three ministers of the German Reich of 23 April 1938, the National Bank was established as a property of the Reichsbank and its banknotes the quality as legal tender by 25 April 1938 withdrawn; public funds had Schilling banknotes until 15th of may in 1938 to accept. All the gold and foreign exchange reserves were transferred to Berlin.
The Second World War weakened the Austrian economy to a great extent, the production force after the war corresponded to only 40% of that of 1937 (see also air raids on Austria). To finance the war, the Reichsbank brought to a high degree banknotes in circulation, which only a great victory of the kingdom (Reich) actual values would have been opposable. Since prices were strictly regulated, inflation virtually could be "banned" during the war.
1945-1998
In occupied postwar Austria about 10 billion shillings by Allied military occupying powers were initially printed, which contributed to significant price increases.
With the re-establishment of the Republic of Austria by the Austrian declaration of independence of 27 April 1945, it came to the resumption of activities of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank. By the "Fed Transition Act" of July 1945 preliminary legal regulations for the operations of the Bank have been established. The restoration of the Austrian currency was their first big job. The goal was the summary of all currencies, which at the time were in circulation, and their secondment to a new Austrian currency. The "Schilling Act" of November 1945, the basis for the re-introduction of the Schilling (Second Republic) as legal tender in Austria. The next step was to reduce excess liquidity to make necessary funds for new business investment available and to make the external value of the shilling for the development of the economy competitive. First, however, less changed the inflationary situation and also the shilling was still significantly undervalued in relation to other currencies.
The "Currency Protection Act" of 1947 brought a significant change in the monetary overhang. Some deposits have been deleted without replacement, others converted into claims against the Federal Treasury. The following exchange operations also significantly reduced the amount of cash: banknotes from 1945 were canceled and exchanged for new schilling notes in the ratio 1:3. Only 150 shillings per person could go 1-1.
To control inflation, the social partners came to the foreground. The associations of employers and employees set in 1947 prices for supplies, wages were also raised. This was the first of the five "wage-price agreements" of the social partners. In 1952, inflation was held back by limiting the use of monetary policy instruments by the National Bank. Also, the external sector slowly relaxed after the end of the Korean War.
In 1955, the Austrian National Bank was re-established by the new National Bank Act as a corporation and the by the National Bank Transition of Authorities Act (Nationalbank-Überleitungsgesetz) established provisional arragement abolished. The National Bank Act stipulated that each half of the capital should be situated at the federal government and private shareholders. In addition to the independence of bank loans of the state, the new National Bank Act also contained an order that the central bank must watch within their monetary and credit policies on the economic policies of the federal government. From now on also included within the instruments of the National Bank were the areas open market and minimum reserve policy.
The Austrian economy increasingly stabilized, through good fiscal and monetary policy a high growth could be attained, with low inflation and long-term maintenance of external equilibrium.
1960, Austria joined the European Free Trade Association and participated in the European integration.
In the sixties came the international monetary system based on gold-dollar convertibility into currency fluctuations and political reforms were necessary. First, the loosening of exchange rate adjustments between several states was an option. However, U.S. balance of payments problems brought with it restrictions on capital movements, and then the Euro-Dollar market was born. In 1971, the convertibility of the U.S. dollar was lifted.
1975 interrupted a recession increasing growth time. International unbalanced ayments caused very extensive foreign exchange movements, whereby the intervention force of Austrian monetary policy has been strongly challenged. Their task now was to control the effect of foreign exchange on domestic economic activities to stabilize the shilling in the context of constantly shifting exchange rates and to control the price rise appropriately. Since the inflow of foreign funds reached to high proportions, so that the economic stability has been compromised, the policy went the way of the independent course design in a pool of selected European currencies.
The collapse of the economy forced the policy makers to a new course with active mutual credit control, subdued wage growth, financial impulses in supply and demand, and interest rates are kept low. This system of regulation, however, kept back the need for structural change, so it had to be given up in 1979. In the same year a fire destroyed large parts of the main building of the Austrian National Bank in Vienna. The repairs lasted until 1985.
Target in the eighties was to strengthen the economic performance using a competitive power comparison. The findings from the seventies stimulated the Austrian monetary policy to align the Schilling course at the Deutsche Mark to ensure price stability in the country. In addition, the structural change was initiated by inclusion in a large area. Stable, if not necessarily comfortable environment of monetary policy was a prerequisite, to secure the companies long-term productivity gains and thus safeguard their position in the economy.
Initially, this development stood a high level of unemployment in the way. Growth until the second half of the decade increased, at the same time increased the competitiveness and current accounts could be kept in balance.
In the nineties, the annexation of Austria took place in the European Community. 1995 Austria became a member of the European Union (EU) and joined the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System. In 1998, the Central Banks (ESCB) have established the independence of institutions or bodies of the European Community and the governments of the EU Member States through an amendment to the National Bank Act of the Austrian National Bank to implement the goals and tasks of the European System. Thus, the legal basis for the participation of Austria in the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) was created in 1999.
As of 1999
The Austrian National Bank, and other national central banks including the European Central Bank ( ECB), belongs to the European System of Central Banks.
On 1 January 1999 was introduced in the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union in Austria and ten other EU Member States, the euro as a common currency. The European Central Bank is henceforth responsible for monetary and currency policy, decisions in this regard will be taken in accordance with the Council of the European Central Bank.
Since May 2010, the OeNB is in full possession of the Republic of Austria, after originally lobbies, banks and insurance companies were involved with 50 % of the share capital in it. In 2011, the National Bank Act was adapted by an amendment (Federal Law Gazette I No. 50 /2011) in this circumstance, a renewed privatization is thus excluded by law.
The OeNB as a modern central bank
With the withdrawal from the retail business in the sixties as well as the first major internationalization and implementation of a strategic management in the seventies, the OeNB went on the way to a future-oriented central bank. Another major reform of banking began at the end of the eighties.
In terms of global development, the OeNB established in 1988 as a service company and expanded its guiding values - "security, stability and trust" - to the principles of " fficiency" and "cost-consciousness". The business center was optimized and strategic business experienced through targeted improvements a reinforcement. Be mentioned as examples are intensifying domestic cooperation in the area of payments by encouraging the creation of the Society for the Study co-payments (STUZZA), the liberalization of capital movements, the professional management of foreign exchange reserves, the improvement of the supply of money through the construction of the money center and the internationalization of business activities through the establishment of representative offices in Brussels (European Union), Paris (OECD) and the financial center of New York.
After Austria's accession to the EU in 1995, the OeNB participated in the European Monetary System (EMS ) and its Exchange Rate Mechanism. The integration in the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) was the next step towards further development of policy stability. Since the conclusion of the Maastricht Treaty, the Austrian National Bank has very fully considered its role in the ESCB and created a basis for inclusion in the community. The profound economic and monetary policy of Austria was also a reference that qualified the OeNB to actively participate in the monetary future of Europe, a greater harmonization of the statistical framework and monetary policy instruments with a view to the euro system, the preparation of the issue of European banknotes, and the establishment of operational processes and organizational integration of business processes within the ESCB being specific objectives of the OeNB.
In the following, it came, inter alia, to the establishement of an economic study department, of an education or training initiative and to strengthen the position of payment transactions through the TARGET system.
A in 1996 created "OeNB master plan" provided important points for the upcoming transition to the euro.
In May 1998, a new pension system came into force, by which new employees were incorporated into a two-pillar model.
1999, Austria's participation in the third stage of EMU was manifest. The Austrian National Bank - as part of the ESCB - became the owner of the European Central Bank and received new powers in this context in the sense of participation in the monetary policy decision-making at the level of the European Community. With the introduction of the euro, monetary policy functions of the General Council have been transferred to the Governing Council. However, the implementation remains the responsibility of national central banks.
Activities of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank were or are, for example, the further professionalization of asset management, the expansion of the network of representative offices by opening a representative office in the financial center of London, preparation of the smooth introduction of euro cash in 2002 and the participation of the OeNB on the creation of the "A-SIT" (Center for secure Information Technology Center - Austria) and the "A-Trust" (society of electronic security systems in traffic GmbH ) in order to promote security in information technology.