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Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, 28 miles (45 km) north of Miami. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 165,521. It is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6,012,331 people at the 2015 census.
The city is a popular tourist destination, with an average year-round temperature of 75.5 °F (24.2 °C) and 3,000 hours of sunshine per year. Greater Fort Lauderdale which takes in all of Broward County hosted 12 million visitors in 2012, including 2.8 million international visitors. The city and county in 2012 collected $43.9 million from the 5% hotel tax it charges, after hotels in the area recorded an occupancy rate for the year of 72.7 percent and an average daily rate of $114.48. The district has 561 hotels and motels comprising nearly 35,000 rooms. Forty-six cruise ships sailed from Port Everglades in 2012. Greater Fort Lauderdale has over 4,000 restaurants, 63 golf courses, 12 shopping malls, 16 museums, 132 nightclubs, 278 parkland campsites, and 100 marinas housing 45,000 resident yachts.
Fort Lauderdale is named after a series of forts built by the United States during the Second Seminole War. The forts took their name from Major William Lauderdale (1782–1838), younger brother of Lieutenant Colonel James Lauderdale. William Lauderdale was the commander of the detachment of soldiers who built the first fort. However, development of the city did not begin until 50 years after the forts were abandoned at the end of the conflict. Three forts named "Fort Lauderdale" were constructed; the first was at the fork of the New River, the second at Tarpon Bend on the New River between the Colee Hammock and Rio Vista neighborhoods, and the third near the site of the Bahia Mar Marina.
The area in which the city of Fort Lauderdale would later be founded was inhabited for more than two thousand years by the Tequesta Indians. Contact with Spanish explorers in the 16th century proved disastrous for the Tequesta, as the Europeans unwittingly brought with them diseases, such as smallpox, to which the native populations possessed no resistance. For the Tequesta, disease, coupled with continuing conflict with their Calusa neighbors, contributed greatly to their decline over the next two centuries. By 1763, there were only a few Tequesta left in Florida, and most of them were evacuated to Cuba when the Spanish ceded Florida to the British in 1763, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years' War. Although control of the area changed between Spain, United Kingdom, the United States, and the Confederate States of America, it remained largely undeveloped until the 20th century.
The Fort Lauderdale area was known as the "New River Settlement" before the 20th century. In the 1830s there were approximately 70 settlers living along the New River. William Cooley, the local Justice of the Peace, was a farmer and wrecker, who traded with the Seminole Indians. On January 6, 1836, while Cooley was leading an attempt to salvage a wrecked ship, a band of Seminoles attacked his farm, killing his wife and children, and the children's tutor. The other farms in the settlement were not attacked, but all the white residents in the area abandoned the settlement, fleeing first to the Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key Biscayne, and then to Key West.
The first United States stockade named Fort Lauderdale was built in 1838, and subsequently was a site of fighting during the Second Seminole War. The fort was abandoned in 1842, after the end of the war, and the area remained virtually unpopulated until the 1890s. It was not until Frank Stranahan arrived in the area in 1893 to operate a ferry across the New River, and the Florida East Coast Railroad's completion of a route through the area in 1896, that any organized development began. The city was incorporated in 1911, and in 1915 was designated the county seat of newly formed Broward County.
Fort Lauderdale's first major development began in the 1920s, during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. The 1926 Miami Hurricane and the Great Depression of the 1930s caused a great deal of economic dislocation. In July 1935, an African-American man named Rubin Stacy was accused of robbing a white woman at knife point. He was arrested and being transported to a Miami jail when police were run off the road by a mob. A group of 100 white men proceeded to hang Stacy from a tree near the scene of his alleged robbery. His body was riddled with some twenty bullets. The murder was subsequently used by the press in Nazi Germany to discredit US critiques of its own persecution of Jews, Communists, and Catholics.
When World War II began, Fort Lauderdale became a major US base, with a Naval Air Station to train pilots, radar operators, and fire control operators. A Coast Guard base at Port Everglades was also established.
On July 4, 1961, African Americans started a series of protests, wade-ins, at beaches that were off-limits to them, to protest "the failure of the county to build a road to the Negro beach". On July 11, 1962, a verdict by Ted Cabot went against the city's policy of racial segregation of public beaches.
Today, Fort Lauderdale is a major yachting center, one of the nation's largest tourist destinations, and the center of a metropolitan division with 1.8 million people.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lauderdale,_Florida
floridayimby.com/2021/08/bank-of-america-provides-84-mill...
© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.
On Saturday August 2, 2025 five days shy of the 150 years, the Conway Scenic Railroad celebrated the anniversary of completion of the Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad. The regular Mountaineer train made the 30 mile trip from North Conway to Fabyans station and is seen paused at about MP 89.2 on the former Maine Central Railroad Mountain Sub where a ceremony was held which mirrored the one which took place adjacent down at Crawford House on August 7, 1875. On that date the railroad hauled a borrowed cannon on a flat car from Portland and paused along the way at the great rock cut at the Gateway of the Crawford Notch to drive the last spike before proceeding to a stop beside the grand mountain hotel. There P&O President John Samuel Anderson watched as 10 shots were fired off before a band played the 'Star Spangled Banner' and 'Hail Columbia.'
On this date, however, the cannon arrived by road not train and the 6th Maine Artillery Brigade fired only three shots, the smoke from the last of which is eveloping the crowd. Current railroad President David Swirk gave a short speech, and then the Mt. Washington Valley Community Band played the same two songs before passengers reboarded the train for the trip back down to North Conway.
Leading the train seen on the runaround at right is CSRR 255 an EMD GP38 which is right at home here having been built new for the Maine Central in November 1966. She came to Conway Scenic in 2022 after a nearly two decade second career as Clarendon & Pittsford 203, having being sold by MEC successor Guilford Transportation in the early 1990s. She received this Maine Central style paint job back in June and now matches her sister unit on the roster, number 252.
Fabyans
Town of Carroll, New Hampshire
Saturday August 2, 2025
Completion of Gaudi's magnum opus is expected in 2020—previously unresolved engineering problems having been worked out.
This is a real oddball plant i was fortunate to get a shot of on the weekend. I love the weird and wonderful . Have a great week ahead .
Artist: Edouard Manet
Completion Date: 1882
Place of Creation: Paris, France
Style: Impressionism
Genre: portrait
Technique: aquatint, etching
Dimensions: 15.5 x 10.7 cm
"Spring" somehow manages to be the evocation of youth itself and all its hopes. The subject is 16-year-old actress Jeanne Demarsy, just then seeing her stage career ascend at the same time Manet neared the end of his own career. (He died at age 51 in 1883, soon after the painting went on display.)
Getty Assistant Curator Scott Allan said that the Getty worked hard to acquire "Spring" and was lucky to get her. According to news reports, the Christie's auction price paid was an eyebrow-lifting $65 million — about double the top previous sale price for a Manet.
With only 37 days remaining until the big grand opening on April 26th, contractors rush to complete Utah Transit Authority's Salt Lake Central commuter rail station at 3rd South and 6th West on March 20, 2008.
This is me on completion of the outward leg of the greenest way I could think (bar walking the whole way) of getting easily to Corfu. I left Birmingham by train on a Saturday in early February and was in Venice via Virgin, then Eurostar and then Trenitalia the next morning. I left Venice by this ferry on Sunday afternoon and was in Corfu by noon on Monday. Nice meals and coffee in Paris and Venice en route with sleep on train and ferry overnight. The landfall on Greece on Monday morning - actually the Albania peninsular of Karaburun - was sublime: www.flickr.com/photos/sibadd/415821982/
For planning travel across and beyond Europe without flying I relied on Mark Smith, the Man in Seat 61 www.seat61.com/
My only small grumble is that I wish Minoan Lines ferries realised that some people would like a public space on their ships with a view of the sea where there is not the constant penetrating babble of a TV screen (for some this is not the "service" they proudly advertise on their otherwise estimable vessels. This is nothing to do with language (I love Greek) but everthing to do with constant amplified infotainment when one is trying to enjoy the peaceful luxury of a sea voyage while chatting, reading and having a drink and snack.
You knew where this was going.
I'm not gonna lie, this was originally conceived as a retirement post.
I mean, where do I go from here? I've completed the holy collection, and I feel like I've been out of ideas for a while honestly. Just been killing time till the last of these came in.
Honestly I haven't really been feeling the lego thing lately. Don't get me wrong, I love the hobby and the community and all you guys, but I dunno, the appeal isn't the same these days, and I've been kinda trying to figure out like, what's my plan for this collection in the long run. What am I gonna do with this stuff in five, ten years. Just being existential and crap. Plus I've just had a lot going on, so I haven't really found the time, and, in a way, I feel like I've pretty much accomplished everything I could have hoped to do. Well, outside of finishing up my JP figs, and making the perfect Popeye figs, who I do have plans for, but not the parts. I'd also love to do a Squad series someday like Moth Stories, but I haven't got the time or means right now.
This isn't retirement though, just musing. I'll still be around, fear not.
ANYWAYS, you're not hear for my existential crap, you're here to ask if that Gordon is a real Christo. Ha!
All of these figs, save for Man-Bat, Moth, Hatter, Ra's, Hush, Clayface, Batgirl and Gordon, are the 100% official, classic 2006-8 Bat figs. All of em. This is essentially my dream collection, and I'm stoked to finally have them all.
Hush is a LYL Brick custom, Clayface is one of those cheapass knockoffs, Moth is a purist custom, Ra's and Man-Bat are as well, save for the former's hair and latter's wings, Hatter has a painted CMF Balloon clown hat, an Onlinesailin head, and that Western torso with the card suits. Batgirl is old news, and yes, Commissioner Gordon is indeed a Christo, supplied to me by Saga Customs/Bravo Bricks, a gentleman and scholar. I had to wait a good many months, but it was damn well worth it.
Anyways, it's no Sharp Hand Joe, but this would have made a damn fine retirement post I think.
Cheers everybody, I'll see you round the flickersphere
Today I purchased the Canon 24-105 L USM IS...
And I am a very happy man for it.
Now that I have that lens I feel I have an all encompassing spectrum of focal lengths with which I can tackle any situation.
So my lenses to date?
50mm 1.4 USM
17-40 L USM
24-105 L USM IS
Lensbaby Composer
I AM COMPLETE!
Strobist Info: 550ex bare bounced off ceiling. Above behind camera. 1/4 power. Interfit trigger.
Website I Facebook I Tumblr I Dear Mr Land
I love these abandoned furniture/appliance finds. Mind you, I think that it's horrible that people dump their old crap like this. But in rural America, THIS is our "art in public places!" ;)
BTW, this shot completes another one:
The pier was constructed between 1912 and 1915 by the Melbourne Harbour Trust to supplement the adjacent Station Pier (originally the 'Railway Pier'). From completion in 1915 until 1969 it was also a major arrival point for new migrants, particularly during the post-war period. In addition to a pier, there was a gatehouse and barriers, terminal building, amenities rooms, goods lockers, ablution blocks, railway sidings and passenger gangways.
From opening the pier was linked by rail to the Port Melbourne railway line, via double lines branching from the Melbourne side of Graham station. Eight railway tracks ran onto the bridge, four along either face. A passenger rail service was provided to the pier from 30 May 1921 operated by suburban electric trains. Provided when ships were docked at the pier, it was usually operated by a single double ended 'swing door' motor car until ended in November 1930, as it was not financially rewarding to the Victorian Railways. The overhead wiring was removed on 17 August 1953 and the line singled and worked as a siding from 21 March 1961.
With the containerisation boom the pier became unused, being closed to public access in the early 1990s due to the poor timber condition, and squatters caused a fire in the late 1990s that destroyed the store structures. In the three years to 2004, 14 fires occurred. April 2006, with the first 196 metres of the Pier fully restored, The pier reopened to the public in December 2011. Source Wikipedia.
This is the 3rd and last photo of the series that I took last summer at the Edro III shipwreck in Pegeia (or Peyia), Cyprus. In case you are interested, the two previous photos are Rusty Calmness and Monochrome
I was lucky enough to get a beautiful sunset with some interesting clouds in the sky. I was waiting for the sun to hide behind the clouds, but there were a lot of people at the site while I was taking the shot. Therefore I decided to lower both the highlights and shadows in post-processing, to create silhouettes of the ship and the remaining foreground features on the right.
To celebrate the completion of the Death Star, the Empire gave away to the Emperor and Darth Vader a Death Star cake.
More shots STAR WARS (secret life) available here
Thank you very much for faves and comments.
Thank you very much to Pilar for this wonderful present. The Cake was awesome, an excellent work, as all the cakes that you create. If you want to admire more sweet creations, I recommend that you visit her personal page:
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Para celebrar la finalización de la Estrella de la Muerte, el Imperio regaló al Emperador y a Darth Vader una tarta de la Estrella de la Muerte.
Más fotografías STAR WARS (secret life) disponibles aquí
Muchas gracias por los favoritos y los comentarios.
Muchas gracias a Pilar por este maravilloso regalo. La tarta era impresionante, un trabajo excelente, como todas las tartas que haces. Si quieren admirar más creaciones dulces, les recomiendo que visiten su página personal:
An old image but still probably one of my favorite . An 8 image stitch of Coogee bay .
My webiste is nearing completion as well so I have start a fan page which I will post specials deals and information on my photography www.facebook.com/pages/Kirk-Hille-Photography/275729253433
Blog: www.kirkhille.wordpress.com
website : www.kirkhillephotography.com
Face book : www.facebook.com/pages/Kirk-Hille-Photography/27572925343...
Twitter :http://twitter.com/Kirkhille
Various images of mine are for sale on various finishes and sizes from Gloss and lustre, Metallic and Fuji Flex prints. Laminating and Mounting are available and framing service are available for local customers. Any enquires please contact me by email at kirkhille (@) westnet . com . au . For more information on my photographs you can visit my blog at kirkhille.wordpress.com/
All images are © Kirk Hille, All Rights Reserved. You may not use, replicate, manipulate, redistribute, or modify this image without my express consent
Location: Pantabangan Dam Resevoir
Muñoz, PHILIPPINES
What were mountain peaks before have become islands after the completion of the dam.
History
In May 1969, the Congress of the Philippines authorized the development of the Pampanga Basin with Republic Act No. 5499. In October of that year, detailed studies of the Pantabangan site were carried out and lasted two years.[1] By June 11, 1971, Pantabangan was an old town of around 300 years old. President Ferdinand Marcos and many others arrived for a ground breaking ceremony in Palayupay, Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija, to signal the beginning of the construction of Pantabangan Dam.[2] The dam went into operation in February 1977 and was completed later in May.[1] Approximately 1,300 people were relocated from the dam's reservoir zone.[3] - from Wikipedia
friendships based on rhododendron trees – soft
pink, almost invisible against the broad leaves – and
solid stolid torso extending arms to
bond shapes to forms,
are robust.
the friends perceive.
blossomkisses
offered
received
reciprocated
now hand-in-hand the friends reach
out to the rhododendron tree, and
in that brief gesture eternity is created,
circle-completion in the timeless garden of
rhodendrons trees and friendships
©eep
for my soulfriend, Evelyn, Saanich, BC... this just came to me this morning while I processed this remarkable rhododendron tree... who knows where I'll go with it! This tree was the first thing I saw when I looked out the back window from the suite that was ours in their house. It was near midnight; but a light was shining on the tree. One look and I knew it was so right to be there and that the rest of our time would be just as beautiful.
my textures with help from picmonkey & pixlr
Near the completion of her late October nail appointment, Ms. Essay was surprised by the nail stylist with a gift of a U.S. Misses Size 6 black jeweled party dress that had been worn by the stylist mother to a New Year’s Eve party many years ago. The dress was too small for the stylist to wear and knowing that Ms. Essay was a Size 6, the stylist gave the dress to Essay as a gift.
When returning home in late October, Ms. Essay put the dress on herself and found it fit perfectly. A photo was shared along with a promise to the stylist that Ms. Essay would wear this gifted dress to the next scheduled biweekly nail appointment in early November.
This pose in early November was captured in Ms. Essay’s townhome near the first-floor closet.
Taken 8 days before the first day of public services on the Manchester Metrolink, the paving of the Metrolink track nears completion between Aytoun Street and London Road (A6) where the Metrolink enters the Piccadilly Station undercroft.
28th March 1992
Not quite, there are several other projects on the go but the little city by the sea is beginning to look BIG
The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is a triangular 22-story, 285-foot-tall (86.9 m) steel-framed landmarked building located at 175 Fifth Avenue in the eponymous Flatiron District neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan, New York City. Designed by Daniel Burnham and Frederick Dinkelberg, it was one of the tallest buildings in the city upon its 1902 completion, at 20 floors high, and one of only two "skyscrapers" north of 14th Street – the other being the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, one block east. The building sits on a triangular block formed by Fifth Avenue, Broadway, and East 22nd Street – where the building's 87-foot (27 m) back end is located – with East 23rd Street grazing the triangle's northern (uptown) peak. As with numerous other wedge-shaped buildings, the name "Flatiron" derives from its resemblance to a cast-iron clothes iron.
The building, which has been called "one of the world's most iconic skyscrapers and a quintessential symbol of New York City", anchors the south (downtown) end of Madison Square and the north (uptown) end of the Ladies' Mile Historic District. The neighborhood around it is called the Flatiron District after its signature building, which has become an icon of New York City. The Flatiron Building was designated a New York City landmark in 1966, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989.
In 1901, the Newhouse family sold "Eno's flatiron" for about $2 million to Cumberland Realty Company, an investment partnership created by Harry S. Black, CEO of the Fuller Company. The Fuller Company was the first true general contractor that dealt with all aspects of building construction except design, and they specialized in building skyscrapers. Black intended to construct a new headquarters building on the site, despite the recent deterioration of the surrounding neighborhood. Black engaged Burnham to design the building, which would be Burnham's first in New York City, would also be the first skyscraper north of 14th Street. It was to be named the Fuller Building after George A. Fuller, founder of the Fuller Company and "father of the skyscraper", who had died two years earlier. However, locals persisted in calling it "The Flatiron", a name which has since been made official.
Once construction of the building began, it proceeded at a very fast pace. The steel was so meticulously pre-cut that the frame went up at the rate of a floor each week. By February 1902 the frame was complete, and by mid-May the building was half-covered by terra-cotta tiling. The building was completed in June 1902, after a year of construction.
The Flatiron Building was not the first building of its triangular ground-plan: aside from a possibly unique triangular Roman temple built on a similarly constricted site in the city of Verulamium, Britannia; Casa Saccabarozzi, Turin, Italy (1840); Bridge House, Leeds, England (1875); the Maryland Inn in Annapolis (1782); the Granger Block in Syracuse, New York (1869); I.O.O.F. Centennial Building (18760) in Alpena, Michigan; the Phelan Building in San Francisco (1881); the Gooderham Building of Toronto (1892); and the English-American Building in Atlanta (1897) predate it. All, however, are smaller than their New York counterpart.
Two features were added to the Flatiron Building following its completion. The "cowcatcher" retail space at the front of the building was added in order to maximize the use of the building's lot and produce some retail income. Harry Black had insisted on the space, despite objections from Burnham. Another addition to the building not in the original plan was the penthouse, which was constructed after the rest of the building had been completed to be used as artists' studios, and was quickly rented out to artists such as Louis Fancher, many of whom contributed to the pulp magazines which were produced in the offices below.
The Flatiron Building became an icon of New York City, and the public response to it was enthusiastic, but the critical response to it at the time was not completely positive, and what praise it garnered was often for the cleverness of the engineering involved. Montgomery Schuyler, editor of Architectural Record, said that its "awkwardness [is] entirely undisguised, and without even an attempt to disguise them, if they have not even been aggravated by the treatment. ... The treatment of the tip is an additional and it seems wanton aggravation of the inherent awkwardness of the situation." He praised the surface of the building, and the detailing of the terra-cotta work, but criticized the practicality of the large number of windows in the building: "[The tenant] can, perhaps, find wall space within for one roll top desk without overlapping the windows, with light close in front of him and close behind him and close on one side of him. But suppose he needed a bookcase? Undoubtedly he has a highly eligible place from which to view processions. But for the transaction of business?"
When the building was first constructed, it received mixed feedback. The most known criticism received was known as "Burnham's Folly". This criticism, focused on the structure of the building, was made on the grounds that the "combination of triangular shape and height would cause the building to fall down." Critics believed that the building created a dangerous wind-tunnel at the intersection of the two streets, and could possibly knock the building down. The building's shape was blamed for the 1903 death of a bicycle messenger, who was blown into the street and run over by a car. However, the building's structure was meant to accommodate four times the typical wind loads in order to stabilize and retain the building's iconic triangular shape.
The Flatiron was to attract the attention of numerous artists. It was the subject of one of Edward Steichen's atmospheric photographs, taken on a wet wintry late afternoon in 1904, as well as a memorable image by Alfred Stieglitz taken the year before, to which Steichen was paying homage. Stieglitz reflected on the dynamic symbolism of the building, noting upon seeing it one day during a snowstorm that "... it appeared to be moving toward me like the bow of a monster ocean steamer – a picture of a new America still in the making," and remarked that what the Parthenon was to Athens, the Flatiron was to New York. When Stieglitz's photograph was published in Camera Work, his friend Sadakichi Hartmann, a writer, painter and photographer, accompanied it with an essay on the building: "A curious creation, no doubt, but can it be called beautiful? Beauty is a very abstract idea ... Why should the time not arrive when the majority without hesitation will pronounce the 'Flat-iron' a thing of beauty?"
A 1919 image of the 165th Infantry Regiment passing through Madison Square's Victory Arch. The Flatiron Building is in the background.
After the end of World War I, the 165th Infantry Regiment passes through the Victory Arch in Madison Square, with the Flatiron Building in the background (1919).
Besides Stieglitz and Steichen, photographers such as Alvin Langdon Coburn, Jessie Tarbox Beals, painters of the Ashcan School like John Sloan, Everett Shinn and Ernest Lawson, as well as Paul Cornoyer and Childe Hassam, lithographer Joseph Pennell, illustrator John Edward Jackson as well the French Cubist Albert Gleizes all took the Flatiron as the subject of their work. But decades after it was completed, others still could not come to terms with the building. Sculptor William Ordway Partridge remarked that it was "a disgrace to our city, an outrage to our sense of the artistic, and a menace to life".
The Fuller Company originally took the 19th floor of the building for its headquarters. In 1910, Harry Black moved the company to Francis Kimball's Trinity Building at 111 Broadway, where its parent company, U.S. Realty, had its offices. U.S. Realty moved its offices back to the Flatiron in 1916, and left permanently for the Fuller Building on 57th Street in 1929.
The Flatiron's other original tenants included publishers (magazine publishing pioneer Frank Munsey, American Architect and Building News and a vanity publisher), an insurance company (the Equitable Life Assurance Society), small businesses (a patent medicine company, Western Specialty Manufacturing Company and Whitehead & Hoag, who made celluloid novelties), music publishers (overflow from "Tin Pan Alley" up on 28th Street), a landscape architect, the Imperial Russian Consulate, the Bohemian Guides Society, the Roebling Construction Company, owned by the sons of Tammany Hall boss Richard Croker, and the crime syndicate, Murder, Inc.
The retail space in the building's "cowcatcher" at the "prow" was leased by United Cigar Stores, and the building's vast cellar, which extended into the vaults that went more than 20 feet (6.1 m) under the surrounding streets, was occupied by the Flatiron Restaurant, which could seat 1,500 patrons and was open from breakfast through late supper for those taking in a performance at one of the many theatres which lined Broadway between 14th and 23rd Streets.
In 1911, the building introduced a restaurant/club in the basement. It was among the first of its kind that allowed a black jazz band to perform, thus introducing ragtime to affluent New Yorkers.
Even before construction on the Flatiron Building had begun, the area around Madison Square had started to deteriorate somewhat. After U.S. Realty constructed the New York Hippodrome, Madison Square Garden was no longer the venue of choice, and survived largely by staging boxing matches. The base of the Flatiron became a cruising spot for gay men, including some male prostitutes. Nonetheless, in 1911 the Flatiron Restaurant was bought by Louis Bustanoby, of the well-known Café des Beaux-Arts, and converted into a trendy 400-seat French restaurant, Taverne Louis. As an innovation to attract customers away from another restaurant opened by his brothers, Bustanoby hired a black musical group, Louis Mitchell and his Southern Symphony Quintette, to play dance tunes at the Taverne and the Café. Irving Berlin heard the group at the Taverne and suggested that they should try to get work in London, which they did. The Taverne's openness was also indicated by its welcoming a gay clientele, unusual for a restaurant of its type at the time. The Taverne was forced to close due to the effects of Prohibition on the restaurant business.
In October 1925, Harry S. Black, in need of cash for his U.S. Realty Company, sold the Flatiron Building to a syndicate set up by Lewis Rosenbaum, who also owned assorted other notable buildings around the U.S. The price was $2 million, which equaled Black's cost for buying the lot and erecting the Flatiron. The syndicate defaulted on its mortgage in 1933, and was taken over by the lender, Equitable Life Assurance Company after failing to sell it at auction. To attract tenants, Equitable did some modernization of the building, including replacing the original cast-iron birdcage elevators, which had cabs covered in rubber tiling and were originally built by Hecla Iron Works, but the hydraulic power system was not replaced. By the mid-1940s, the building was fully rented.
When the U.S. entered World War I, the Federal government instituted a "Wake Up America!" campaign, and the United Cigar store in the Flatiron's cowcatcher donated its space to the U.S. Navy for use as a recruiting center. Liberty Bonds were sold outside on sidewalk stands. By the mid-1940s, the cigar store had been replaced with a Walgreens drug store. During the 1940s, the building was dominated by clothing and toy companies.
Equitable sold the building in 1946 to the Flatiron Associates, an investor group headed by Harry Helmsley, whose firm, Dwight-Helmsley (which would later become Helmsley-Spear) managed the property. The new owners made some superficial changes, such as adding a dropped ceiling to the lobby, and, later, replacing the original mahogany-panelled entrances with revolving doors.
In 1959, St. Martin's Press moved into the building, and gradually its parent company, Macmillan, rented other offices as they became available, until by 2004, all 21 floors of the Flatiron Building's office space was rented by Macmillan. During its tenancy, Macmillan renovated some of the Flatiron Building's floors. for its imprints such as Tor/Forge, Picador and Henry Holt and Company. Macmillan, which is owned by Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck of Stuttgart, Germany, wrote about the building:
The Flatiron's interior is known for having its strangely-shaped offices with walls that cut through at an angle on their way to the skyscraper's famous point. These "point" offices are the most coveted and feature amazing northern views that look directly upon another famous Manhattan landmark, the Empire State Building.
Because the Helmsley/Flatiron Associates ownership structure was a tenancy-in-common, in which all partners have to agree on any action, as opposed to a straightforward partnership, it was difficult to get permission for necessary repairs and improvements to be done, and the building declined during the Helmsley/Flatiron Associates era. The facade of the Flatiron Building was restored in 1991 by the firm of Hurley & Farinella. Helmsley-Spear stopped managing the building in 1997, when some of the investors sold their 52% of the building to Newmark Knight-Frank, a large real estate firm, which took over management of the property. Shortly afterwards, Helmsley's widow, Leona Helmsley, sold her share as well. Newmark made significant improvements to the property, including installing new electric elevators, replacing the antiquated hydraulic ones, which were the last hydraulic elevators in New York City.
During a 2005 restoration of the Flatiron Building a 15-story vertical advertising banner covered the facade of the building. The advertisement elicited protests from many New York City residents, prompting the New York City Department of Buildings to step in and force the building's owners to remove it.
In January 2009, Italian real estate investment firm Sorgente Group, based in Rome, bought a majority stake in the Flatiron Building, with plans to turn it into a luxury hotel. The firm's Historic and Trophy Buildings Fund owns a number of prestigious buildings in France and Italy, and was involved in buying, and then selling, a stake in the Chrysler Building in Midtown New York. The value of the 22-story Flatiron Building, which is already zoned by the city to allow it to become a hotel, was estimated to be $190 million.
In July 2017, Macmillan announced it was consolidating its New York offices to the Equitable Building at 120 Broadway. By June 2019, Macmillan had left the building, and all 21 office floors were vacant. Following Macmillan's departure, the owners of the Flatiron Building, the family-owned GFP Real Estate, planned to use the absence of tenants to upgrade the interior of the building. GFP planned to install a central air and heating system, strip away all interior partitions – leaving triangular open floors – put in a new sprinkler system and a second staircase, and upgrade the elevators. The lobby would also be renovated. The cost would be $60–80 million and the project was estimated to take a year. The owners were interested in renting the entire building to a single tenant, hiring a high-profile real estate agency to find a suitable tenant. The executive director of the ownership company said: "The building was born as a commercial property, and we want to keep it as such." As of November 2020, the building is empty, and the full renovation is expected to take at least until 2022.
Harvest completion is a satisfing feeling, but only for a short while. There is next season planting to get the ground ready for, probably some equipment to be repaired and if you are raising livestock well, they get hungry just like kids. Harvest completion also means the holidays are approaching and that means time with family and friends.
An image may be purchased at fineartamerica.com/featured/harvest-completion-ed-peterso...
A worker burnished a propeller that has been cast by pouring molten recycled metal into moulds set in the earth floor of the rudimentary workshop.
There are numerous such enterprises set back from the banks of the Buriganga River servicing the needs of the ship building yards in Dhaka.
Dhaka, Bangladesh. © David Hill March 2025
Yeah, I'm taking myself for a little too wise 'n' awesome once more. However, here's a more or less full shot of the current Batcave! Please COMMENT!
St. Basil's Cathedral (Moscow, Russia).
The famous St. Basil's Cathedral was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible and built on the edge of Red Square between 1555 and 1561. Legend has it that on completion of the church the Tsar ordered the architect, Postnik Yakovlev, to be blinded to prevent him from ever creating anything to rival its beauty again. The cathedral was built to commemorate Ivan the Terrible's successful military campaign against the Tartar Mongols in 1552 in the besieged city of Kazan. Victory came on the feast day of the Intercession of the Virgin, so the Tsar chose to name his new church the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat, after the moat that ran beside the Kremlin. The church was given the nickname "St. Basil's" after the "holy fool" Basil the Blessed (1468-1552), who was hugely popular at that time with the Muscovites masses and even with Ivan the Terrible himself. St. Basil's was built on the site of the earlier Trinity Cathedral, which at one point gave its name to the neighboring square. St. Basil's is a delightful array of swirling colors and redbrick towers. Its design comprises nine individual chapels, each topped with a unique onion dome and each commemorating a victorious assault on the city of Kazan. In 1588 the ninth chapel was erected to house the tomb of the church's namesake, Basil the Blessed. The church's design is based on deep religious symbolism and was meant to be an architectural representation of the New Jerusalem - the Heavenly Kingdom described in the Book of Revelation of St. John the Divine. The eight onion dome-topped towers are positioned around a central, ninth spire, forming an eight-point star. The number eight carries great religious significance; it denotes the day of Christ's Resurrection (the eighth day by the ancient Jewish calendar) and the promised Heavenly Kingdom - the kingdom of the eighth century, which will begin after the second coming of Christ. The eight-point star itself symbolizes the Christian Church as a guiding light to mankind, showing us the way to the Heavenly Jerusalem and it represents the Virgin Mary, depicted in Orthodox iconography with a veil decorated with three eight-pointed stars. The cathedral's star-like plan carries yet more meaning - the star consisting of two superimposed squares, which represent the stability of faith, the four corners of the earth, the four Evangelists and the four equal-sided walls of the Heavenly City. The extravagant and brightly colored domes of the cathedral's exterior mask a much more modestly decorated and somewhat less spectacular interior. Small dimly lit chapels and maze-like corridors fill the inside of the church and the walls are covered with delicate floral designs in subdued pastel colors dating from the 17th century. Visitors can climb up a narrow, wooden spiral staircase, set in one of the walls and discovered only in the 1970s during restoration work, and marvel at the Chapel of the Intercession's priceless iconostasis, dating back to the 16th century. There was so little room inside the church to accommodate worshippers, that on special feast days services were held outside on Red Square where the clergy communicated their sermons to the milling masses from Lobnoye Mesto, using St. Basil's as an outdoor altar. The church has narrowly escaped destruction a number of times during the city's tumultuous history. Legend has it that Napoleon was so impressed with St. Basil's that he wanted to take it back to Paris with him, but lacking to the technology to do so, ordered instead that it be destroyed with the French retreat from the city. The French set up kegs of gunpowder and lit their fuses, but a sudden, miraculous shower helped to extinguish the fuses and prevent the explosion. Early in this century the cathedral almost fell prey to the atheist principles of the Bolshevik regime. In 1918 the communist authorities shot the church's senior priest, Ioann Vostorgov, confiscated its property, melted down its bells and closed the cathedral down. In the 1930s Lazar Kaganovich, a close colleague of Stalin and director of the Red Square reconstruction plan, suggested that St. Basil's be knocked down to create space and ease the movement of public parades and vehicle movement on the square. Thankfully Stalin rejected his proposal as he did a second plan to destroy the cathedral. This time the courage of the architect and devotee of Russian culture, P. Baranovsky, saved the church. When ordered to prepare the cathedral for destruction he refused and threatened to cut his own throat on the steps of the church, then sent a bluntly worded telegram to the leader of the party himself relating the above. For some reason Stalin cancelled the decision to knock the church down and for his efforts Baranovsky was rewarded with five years in jail. An extensive program of renovation is still being carries out on both the exterior and interior of the church, but will not spoil that essential visit to St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow's moat famous and arguably most beautiful ecclesiastical building. In the small garden outside St. Basil's stands an impressive bronze Statue to Minin and Pozharsky, who rallied Russia's volunteer army during the Time of Troubles and drove out the invading Polish forces. They were an interesting duo - Dmitry Pozharsky was a prince, while Kuzma Minin was a butcher from Nizhny Novgorod. The statue was designed by the artist I. Martos and erected in 1818 as the city's first monumental sculpture. It originally stood in the center of Red Square in front of what is now the GUM Department Store, with Minin symbolically indicating to Pozharsky that the Poles were occupying the Kremlin and calling for its liberation. The Soviet authorities felt that the statue had become an obstacle during parades and after the construction of the Lenin Mausoleum Red Square, its position was considered rather ambiguous and was eventually moved to the garden in front of St. Basil's in 1936.
The completion of my LNER/BR Gresley V2 2-6-2. I started work on this model months ago and haven't stopped work on it until now. It runs very smoothly, going around curves and points with ease. This model was originally designed with smaller wheels, but when changed to the XL wheels the whole model looked much more realistic.
The tender was also another challenging component, using the last of my dark green and orange pieces to create the lines on the sides of the tender.
This model so far is my most accurate and smoothest (in terms of running) yet. My next steamer will be a streamlined LMS coronation class, along with finishing my P2. Enjoy!
Having just completed shunting 9101 into 3 portions at Merbein, G527, X44 and XR555 run back to the front of the train to stable the engines while the new containers are loaded onto the wagons and form 9102.
G527 later will detach and run light engine to Mildura to pick up 6 cement hoppers for the run to Melbourne to unload at Gheringhap and onto Waurn Ponds.
During 2015, the Victorian State Government announced a plan to convert sections of the Yelta line into Standard Gauge along with building brand new lines connection regional areas to ports faster and effective. Trains like 9101/9102 Mildura goods could be a thing of the past come 2016.
Thursday 1st October 2015