Shopping centre by Allan Murray Architects with BDP, 2016-21; hotel by renowned practice Jestico + Whiles Architects 2016-2022 (both proposed completions). Includes a 12 storey, 214 room hotel as part of a complex involving shopping centre and other facilities. Steel ribbon with bands of glass, some containing viewing platforms.

 

The design has been likened to spirals of paper, a reference to the many printing presses which occupied surrounding areas. A landmark building for the city.

 

Contrast between Robert Adam’s Register House and Archibald Elliot’s Waterloo Place, the latter pre-dating the new scheme by exactly 200 years (1818-19).

After its completion in the early 16th century, Seville Cathedral supplanted Hagia Sophia as the largest cathedral in the world, a title the Byzantine church had held for nearly a thousand years. It is the third-largest church in the world as well as the largest Gothic church. Since the world's two largest churches, the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida and St. Peter's Basilica, are not the seats of bishops Seville Cathedral is still the largest cathedral in the world.

 

Seville Cathedral was the site of the baptism of Infante Juan of Aragon in 1478, only son of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. Its royal chapel holds the remains of the city's conqueror Ferdinand III of Castile, his son and heir Alfonso the Wise and their descendant king Pedro el Cruel. The funerary monuments for cardinals Juan de Cervantes and Pedro González de Mendoza Quiñones are located among its chapels. Christopher Columbus and his son Diego are also buried in the cathedral.

 

The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See was registered in 1987 by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, along with the adjoining Alcázar palace complex and the General Archive of the Indies. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seville_Cathedral

The refurbishment of Stratford upon Avon station is nearly complete. 172215 is the rear unit on the 12.03 to Stourbridge Junction.

22/06/2017 Home gym.

It's almost done, missing only a handful of parts.

The final member of the 50 strong class 58s is undergoing early static testing following completion, with all the engine room doors open providing a glimpse of the US style construction.

Photo by Dave Ware.

ODC. Almost Done.

Please.....View On Black

 

Only a few months now until our local college construction will be completed.

Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, UK.

 

Colour version is in comments.

 

Camera Olympus E-510

Exposure 60

Aperture f/22.0

Focal Length 14 mm

ISO Speed 100

B&W 10 stop ND filter.

Sagrada Família Barcelona, Spain - situation 2017

Construction of the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família began in 1882. The temple is still under construction, with completion expected in 2026. It is perhaps the best known structure of Catalan Modernism, drawing over three million visitors annually. Architect Antoni Gaudi worked on the project until his death in 1926, in full anticipation he would not live to see it finished.

 

Gaudi was appointed architect in 1883 at 31 years of age, following disagreements between the temple’s promoters and the original architect, Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano. He maintained del Villar’s Latin cross plan, typical of Gothic cathedrals, but departed from the Gothic in several significant ways. Most notably, Gaudi developed a system of angled columns and hyperbolical vaults to eliminate the need for flying buttresses. Rather than relying on exterior elements, horizontal loads are transferred through columns on the interior. La Sagrada Familia utilizes three-dimensional forms comprised of ruled surfaces, including hyperboloids, parabolas, helicoids, and conoids. These complex shapes allow for a thinner, finer structure, and are intended to enhance the temple’s acoustics and quality of light. Gaudi used plaster models to develop the design, including a 1:10 scale model of the main nave measuring five meters in height and width by two meters in depth. He also devised a system of strings and weights suspended from a plan of the temple on the ceiling. From this inverted model he derived the necessary angles of the columns, vaults, and arches. This is evident in the slanted columns of the Passion facade, which recall tensile structures but act in compression.

 

Gaudi embedded religious symbolism in each aspect of La Sagrada Familia, creating a visual representation of Christian beliefs. He designed three iconic facades for the basilica, the Glory, Nativity, and Passion facades, facing south, east, and west, respectively. The sculpting of the Nativity facade recalls smooth, intricate corbelling and was overseen by Gaudi. The Passion Facade is characterized by the work of Josep Maria Subirachs, whose angular sculptures extend the modernist character of the temple. The sculptor Etsuro Sotoo is responsible for the window ornaments and finials, which symbolize the Eucharist. The central nave soars to a height of 45 meters, and is designed to resemble a forest of multi-hued piers in Montjuïc and granite. The piers change in cross section from base to terminus, increasing in number of vertices from polygonal to circular. The slender, bifurcating columns draw the eye upward, where light filters through circular apertures in the vaults. These are finished in Venetian glass tiles of green and gold, articulating the lines of the hyperboloids.

 

Once completed, La Sagrada Familia will feature eighteen towers. Four bell towers representing the Apostles crown each facade, reaching approximately 100 meters in height. At the north end, a tower representing the Virgin Mary will stand over the apse. The central tower will reach 72 meters in height and symbolize Christ, surrounded by four towers representing the Evangelists. Even as construction continues, older portions are undergoing cleaning and restoration. The temple has relied entirely on private donations since its inception, and has seen many delays due to lack of funding. A particularly significant setback occurred during the Spanish Civil War, when Gaudi’s workshop was destroyed, including much of the documentation he left behind. Subsequent generations of craftsman and architects have relied on the remaining drawings and plaster models to advance the project, adhering to Gaudi’s vision as closely as possible. As a result, the design of the temple is a collaboration spanning centuries. Gaudi himself viewed the project as the collective work of generations. "I will grow old but others will come after me. What must always be conserved is the spirit of the work, but its life has to depend on the generations it is handed down to and with whom it lives and is incarnated."

 

In recent decades, La Sagrada Familia has adopted contemporary digital design and construction technologies. Architects and craftsmen use Rhinoceros, Cadds5, Catia, and CAM to understand the complex geometries and visualize the building as a whole. Plaster models are still used as a design tool, now generated by a 3-D printer to accelerate the process.

 

Architect: Antoni Gaudi

Present Chief Architect: Jordi Fauli

Former Chief Architects: Jordi Bonet, Francesc de Paula Quintana i Vidal, Isidre Puig i Boada, Lluís Bonet i Garí, , Francesc de Paula del Villar y Lozano

Deputy Chief Architects: Carles Buxadé, Joan Margarit, Josep Gómez Serrano

Technical Consultants: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

Project Department: Jordi Coll, Andrés de Mesa

Sculptors: Etsuro Sotoo, Josep Maria Subirachs

Stained Glass: Joan Vila-Grau

Area: 4.500 m2

  

And so when the earth received our embrace

we will go blended in a single death, forever

living the eternity of a kiss.

 

-Sonnet XCIII, Pablo Neruda

   

Title: Fred Temple, under arrest by and handcuffed to St. Thomas Police officers Harry McCart, left, and Thomas Rickwood, ca. 1934. Fred Temple, son of Frank Temple, 17 Queen St., St. Thomas, was later found guilty and hanged as an accomplice with his father Frank in the murder of St. Thomas Police officer Colin McGregor on May 7, 1934. Temple is still wearing a bandage on his neck where he was wounded in the gunfight that killed McGregor. This photograph was likely taken later in 1934 or early in 1935 while Temple was transported from jail to court. The name "C. Voaden" appears on the storage envelope and the photograph may have been taken by or copied for Carl B. Voaden, reporter for the London Free Press, St. Thomas Bureau. Scheduled for completion next spring, the new police station adjacent to the Timken Centre will officially be known as St. Thomas Police Services Headquarters — Constable Colin McGregor Building. City council unanimously endorsed the naming at a meeting on October 3, 2016.

 

Creator(s): Scott Studio

 

Bygone Days Publication Date: October 8, 2016

 

Original Publication Date: N/A

 

Reference No.: Box 71, Envelope 22160

 

Credit: Elgin County Archives, Scott Studio fonds

 

winning.

Nikon D5 | ISO 1000 | 500mm lens | f / 4.5 | 1/3200 second.

With the completion of its latest series of milestone tests, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has now survived all of the harsh conditions associated with a rocket launch to space.

 

Webb’s recent tests have validated that the fully assembled observatory will endure the deafening noise, and the jarring shakes, rattles and vibrations that the observatory will endure during liftoff. Known as “acoustic” and “sine-sibration” testing, NASA has worked carefully with its international partners to match Webb’s testing environment precisely to what Webb will experience both on launch day, and when operating in orbit.

 

Though each component of the telescope has been rigorously tested during development, demonstrating that the assembled flight hardware is able to safely pass through a simulated launch environment is a significant achievement for the mission. Completed in two separate facilities within Northrop Grumman’s Space Park in Redondo Beach, California, these tests represent Webb’s final two, in a long series of environmental tests before Webb is shipped to French Guiana for launch.

 

The next environment Webb will experience is space.

 

Read the full feature on this milestone: go.nasa.gov/3d5Kuhh

 

Now that environmental testing has been successfully concluded, Webb will move forward into the last full extension of its iconic primary mirror and sunshield, followed by a full systems evaluation before being encapsulated in a specialized shipping container for transport to South America.

 

Image credit: NASA/Chris Gunn

 

NASA Media Use Policy

 

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+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the model, the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

  

Some background:

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Sweden required a strong air defense, utilizing the newly developed jet propulsion technology. This led to a pair of proposals being issued by the Saab design team, led by Lars Brising. The first of these, codenamed R101, was a cigar-shaped aircraft, which bore a resemblance to the American Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star. The second design, which would later be picked as the winner, was a barrel-shaped design, codenamed R 1001, which proved to be both faster and more agile upon closer study.

 

The original R 1001 concept had been designed around a mostly straight wing, but after Swedish engineers had obtained German research data on swept-wing designs, the prototype was altered to incorporate a 25° sweep. In order to make the wing as thin as possible, Saab elected to locate the retractable undercarriage in the aircraft's fuselage rather than into the wings.

 

Extensive wind tunnel testing performed at the Swedish Royal University of Technology and by the National Aeronautical Research Institute had also influenced aspects of the aircraft's aerodynamics, such as stability and trim across the aircraft's speed range. In order to test the design of the swept wing further and avoid any surprises, it was decided to modify a single Saab Safir. It received the designation Saab 201 and a full-scale R 1001 wing for a series of flight tests. The first 'final' sketches of the aircraft, incorporating the new information, was drawn in January 1946.

 

The originally envisioned powerplant for the new fighter type was the de Havilland Goblin turbojet engine. However, in December 1945, information on the newer and more powerful de Havilland Ghost engine became available. The new engine was deemed to be ideal for Saab's in-development aircraft, as not only did the Ghost engine had provisions for the use of a central circular air intake, the overall diameter of the engine was favorable for the planned fuselage dimensions, too. Thus, following negotiations between de Havilland and Saab, the Ghost engine was selected to power the type instead and built in license as the RM 2.

 

By February 1946 the main outline of the proposed aircraft had been clearly defined. In Autumn 1946, following the resolution of all major questions of principal and the completion of the project specification, the Swedish Air Force formally ordered the completion of the design and that three prototype aircraft be produced, giving the proposed type the designation J 29.

On 1 September 1948, the first of the Saab 29 prototypes conducted its maiden flight, which lasted for half an hour. Because of the shape of its fuselage, the Saab J 29 quickly received the nickname "Flygande Tunnan" ("The Flying Barrel"), or "Tunnan" ("The Barrel") for short. While the demeaning nickname was not appreciated by Saab, its short form was eventually officially adopted.

 

A total of four prototypes were built for the aircraft's test program. The first two lacked armament, carrying heavy test equipment instead, while the third prototype was armed with four 20mm automatic guns. Various different aerodynamic arrangements were tested, such as air brakes being installed either upon the fuselage or on the wings aft of the rear spar, along with both combined and conventional aileron/flap arrangements.

 

The flight test program revealed that the J 29 prototypes were capable of reaching and exceeding the maximum permissible Mach number for which they had been designed, and the flight performance figures gathered were found to be typically in excess of the predicted values.

 

In 1948 production of the type commenced and in May 1951 the first deliveries of operational production aircraft were received by F 13 Norrköping. The J 29 proved to be very successful and several variants and updates of the Tunnan were produced, including a dedicated reconnaissance variant and an all-weather fighter with an on-board radar.

 

A trainer variant was deemed to be useful, too, since the transition of young pilots from relatively slow, piston-engine basic trainers to jet-powered aircraft was considered to be a major step in the education program. At that time, the only jet-powered two-seater in Swedish inventory was the DH 115 Vampire. 57 of these, designated J 28C by the Swedish Air Force, had been procured from Great Britain in the late Forties, but an indigenous alternative (and a more capable successor) was politically favored.

 

In 1952 initial wind tunnel tests with scaled-down models were conducted, since it was not clear which layout would be the best from an aerodynamic, structural and educational point of view. After a thorough inspection of wooden 1:1 mock-ups of alternative tandem and a side-by-side cockpit layouts, as well as much political debate between Saab, the Swedish Air Force and the Swedish government concerning the costs and budget for a dedicated Saab 29 trainer fleet’s development and production, a compromise was settled upon in early 1953: No new trainer airframes would be produced. Instead, only existing airframes would be converted into two seaters, in an attempt to keep as much of the existing structure and internal fuel capacity as possible.

 

The side-by-side arrangement was adopted, not only because it was considered to be the more effective layout for a trainer aircraft. It also had the benefit that its integration would only mean a limited redesign of the aircraft’s cockpit section above the air intake duct and the front landing gear well, allowing to retain the single-seater’s pressurized cabin’s length and internal structure. A tandem cockpit would have been aerodynamically more efficient, but it would have either considerably reduced the J 29’s internal fuel capacity, or the whole aircraft had had to be lengthened with a fuselage plug, with uncertain outcome concerning airframe and flight stability. It would also have been the more costly option,

 

However, it would take until 1955 that the first trainer conversions were conducted by Saab, in the wake of the major wing and engine updates for the J 29 A/B fleet that lasted until 1956. The trainer, designated Sk 29 B, was exclusively based on the J 29 B variant and benefited from this version’s extra fuel tanks in the wings and fully wired underwing weapon hardpoints, which included two wet pylons for drop tanks and made the Sk 29 B suitable for weapon training with the J 29’s full ordnance range.

 

The trainer conversions only covered the new cockpit section, though. The Sk 29 B did not receive the new dogtooth wing which was only introduced to the converted J 29 D, E and F fighters. The upper pair of 20mm cannon in the lower front fuselage was deleted, too, in order to compensate for the two-seater’s additional cockpit equipment weight and drag. Performance suffered only marginally under the enlarged canopy, though, and the Sk 29 B turned out to be a very sound and useful design for the advanced jet trainer role.

 

However, budgetary restraints and the quick development of aircraft technology in the Fifties limited the number of fighter conversions to only 22 airframes. The aging Vampire two-seaters still turned out to be adequate for the advanced trainer role, and the Sk 29 B did not offer a significant advantage over the older, British aircraft. Another factor that spoke against more Sk 29 Bs was the simple fact that more trainer conversions would have reduced the number of airframes eligible for the running fighter aircraft updates.

 

All Sk 29 Bs were concentrated at the F 5 Ljungbyhed Kungliga Krigsflygskolan training wing in southern Sweden, where two flights were equipped with it. Unofficially dubbed “Skola Tunnan” (literally “School Barrel”), the Sk 29B performed a solid career, even though the machines were gradually retired from 1966 onwards. A dozen Sk 29 B remained active until 1972 in various supportive roles, including target tugging, air sampling and liaison duties, while the final Vampire trainer was already retired in 1968. But by the early Seventies, the trainer role had been taken over by the brand new Saab 105/Sk 60 trainer, the long-awaited domestic development, and Sk 35 Draken trainers.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 2

Length: 10.23 m (33 ft 7 in)

Wingspan: 11.0 m (36 ft 1 in)

Height: 3.75 m (12 ft 4 in)

Wing area: 24.15 m² (260.0 ft²)

Empty weight: 5,120 kg (11,277 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 8,375 kg (18,465 lb)

 

Powerplant:

1× Svenska Flygmotor RM2 turbojet, rated at 5,000 lbf (22.2 kN)

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,010 km/h (627 mph)

Range: 1,060 km (658 mi)

Service ceiling: 15,500 m (50,850 ft)

Rate of climb: 30.5 m/s (6,000 ft/min)

 

Armament:

2x 20mm Hispano Mark V autocannon in the lower front fuselage

Underwing hardpoints for various unguided missiles and iron bombs, or a pair drop tanks

  

The kit and its assembly:

Another Saab 29 conversion of a variant that was thought about but never materialized, much like the radar-equipped all-weather fighter. The impulse to tackle this stunt was a leftover D. H. Vampire trainer fuselage pod in my stash (from the ‘Mystery Jet’ conversion a couple of months ago, from an Airfix kit). The canopy’s shape and dimensions appeared like a sound match for the tubby J 29, and so I decided to try this stunt.

 

The basis is the Heller J 29 kit, which is, despite raised surface details, IMHO the better kit than the rather simple Matchbox offering. However, what makes things more hazardous, though, is the kit’s option to build the S 29 C reconnaissance variant – the lower front fuselage is a separate part, and any surgery around the cockpit weakens the kit’s overall stability considerably. Unlike the J 29D all-weather fighter built recently, I had no visual reference material. The only valid information I was able to dig up was that a side-by-side cockpit had been the preferred layout for this paper project.

 

Implanting a new cockpit is always hazardous, and I have never tried to integrate a side-by-side arrangement into a single seater. The Vampire cockpit was finished first, and also mounted into the Vampire’s original cockpit pod halves, because I was able to use its side walls and also had the original canopy parts left over – and using the Vampire’s cockpit opening would ensure a good fit and limit PSR work around the clear parts. Once the Vampire cockpit tub was complete, the “implant” was trimmed down as far as possible.

 

Next step was to prepare the Tunnan to accept the donor cockpit. In order to avoid structural trouble I finished the two fuselage halves first, mounted the air intake with the duct to the front end, but left the fighter version’s gun tray away (while preparing it with a load of lead). The idea was to put the Vampire cockpit into position from below into the Tunnan’s fuselage, until all outer surfaces would more or less match in order to minimize PSR work.

 

With the Vampire cockpit as benchmark, I carefully tried to draw its outlines onto the upper front fuselage. The following cutting and trimming sessions too several turns. To my surprise, the side-by-side cockpit’s width was the least problem – it fits very well inside of the J 29 fuselage’s confines, even though the front end turned out to be troublesome. Space in length became an issue, too, because the Airfix Vampire cockpit is pretty complete: it comes with all pedals, a front and a rear bulkhead, and its bulged canopy extends pretty far backwards into an aerodynamic fairing. As a result, it’s unfortunately very long… Furthermore, air intake duct reaches deep into the Tunnan’s nose, too, so that width was not the (expected) problem, but rather length!

 

Eventually, the cockpit lost the front bulkhead and had to trimmed and slimmed down further, because, despite its bulky fuselage, the Tunnan’s nose is rather narrow. As a consequence the Vampire cockpit had to be moved back by about 3mm, relative to the single-seater’s canopy, and the area in front of the cockpit/above the air intake duct had to be completely re-sculpted, which took several PSR stages. Since the Vampire’s canopy shape is very different and its windscreen less steep (and actually a flat glass panel), I think this change is not too obvious, tough, and looks like a natural part of the fictional real-life conversion. However, a fiddly operation, and it took some serious effort to blend the new parts into the Tunnan fuselage, especially the windscreen.

 

Once the cockpit was in place, the lower front fuselage with the guns (the upper pair had disappeared in the meantime) was mounted, and the wings followed suit. In this case, I modified the flaps into a lowered position, and, as a subtle detail, the Tunnan kit lost its retrofitted dogtooth wings, so that they resemble the initial, simple wing of the J 29 A and B variants. Thanks to the massive construction of the kit’s wings (they consist of two halves, but these are very thin and almost massive), this was a relatively easy task.

 

The rest of the Tunnan was built mostly OOB; it is a typical Heller kit of the Seventies: simple, with raised surface detail, relatively good fit (despite the need to use putty) and anything you could ask for a J 29 in 1:72 scale. I just replaced the drop tanks with shorter, thicker alternatives – early J 29 frequently carried Vampire drop tanks without fins, and the more stout replacements appeared very suitable for a trainer.

 

The pitots on the wing tips had to be scratched, since they got lost with the wing modifications - but OOB they are relatively thick and short, anyway. Further additions include a tail bumper and extra dorsal and ventral antennae, plus a fairing for a rotating warning light, inspired by a similar installation on the late J 29 target tugs.

  

Painting and markings:

As usual, I wanted a relatively plausible livery and kept things simple. Early J 29 fighters were almost exclusively left in bare metal finish, and the Swedish Vampire trainers were either operated in NMF with orange markings (very similar to the RAF trainers), or they carried the Swedish standard dark green/blue grey livery.

 

I stuck to the Tunnan’s standard NMF livery, but added dark green on wing tips and fin, which were widely added in order to make formation flight and general identification easier. However, some dayglow markings were added on the fuselage and wings, too, so that – together with the tactical markings – a colorful and distinct look was created, yet in line with typical Swedish Air Force markings in the late Fifties/early Sixties.

 

The NMF livery was created with an overall coat of Revell 99 acrylic paint (Aluminum), on top of which various shades of Metallizer were dry-brushed, panel by panel. Around the exhaust, a darker base tone (Revell 91, Iron Metallic and Steel Metallizer) was used. Around the cockpit, in order to simulate the retrofitted parts, some panels received a lighter base with Humbrol 191.

 

The raised panel lines were emphasized through a light black in wash and careful rubbing with grinded graphite on a soft cotton cloth – with the benefit that the graphite adds a further, metallic shine to the surface and destroys the uniform, clean NMF look. On the front fuselage, where many details got lost through the PSR work, panel lines were painted with a thin, soft pencil.

 

The cockpit interior became dark green-grey (Revell 67 comes pretty close to the original color), the landing gear wells medium grey (Revell 57). The dark green markings on fin and wing tips were painted with Humbrol 163 (RAF Dark Green), which comes IMHO close to the Swedish “Mörkgrön”. The orange bands were painted, too, with a base of Humbrol 82 (Orange Lining) on top of which a thin coat of fluorescent orange (Humbrol 209) was later added. Even though the NMF Tunnan did not carry anti-dazzle paint in front of the windscreen, I added a black panel because of the relatively flat area there on the modified kit.

 

Decals come from different sources: roundels and stencils come from the Heller kit’s sheet, the squadron code number from a Flying Colors sheet with Swedish ciphers in various colors and sizes for the late Fifties time frame, while the tactical code on the fin was taken from a Saab 32 sheet.

Finally the kit was sealed with a “¾ matt”, acrylic varnish, mixed from glossy and matt varnishes.

  

An effective and subtle conversion, and a bigger stunt than one might think at first sight. The Tunnan two-seater does, hoewever, not look as disturbing as, for instance, the BAC Lightning or Hawker Hunter trainer variants? The rhinoplasty was massive and took some serious PSR, though, and the livery was also more demanding than it might seem. But: this is what IMHO a real Saab 29 trainer could have looked like, if it had left the drawing boards in the early Fifties. And it even looks good! :D

The new nameplate unveiled by Madge Elliot in person at Edinburgh Waverley station on 4th June 2015 and carried by Freightliner operated 66 528.

 

Madge Elliot fort the closure of the Waverley line from Edinburgh to Carlisle in 1969 but unfortunately lost the battle. She has lived to see at least the northern end of the line rebuilt in her lifetime with opening due in September 2015. She was guest of honour at the naming ceremony held by Freightliner to mark the completion of the rebuilding work.

In the style of Colin Gray -with my own signature enhancements, we both became notable in the Cape Cod Region of Massachusetts. However, I am indebted to the antique dealer on Nantucket for his generous support to trust my work forwhich to have it collected worldwide.

The Hungarian Parliament Building, also known as the Parliament of Budapest after its location, is the seat of the National Assembly of Hungary, a notable landmark of Hungary, and a popular tourist destination in Budapest. It is situated on Kossuth Square in the Pest side of the city, on the eastern bank of the Danube. It was designed by Hungarian architect Imre Steindl in neo-Gothic style and opened in 1902. It has been the largest building in Hungary since its completion.

 

History

Budapest was united from three cities in 1873, namely Buda, Óbuda, and Pest. Seven years later, the Diet resolved to establish a new, representative parliament building, expressing the sovereignty of the nation. The building was planned to face the Danube River. An international competition was held, and Imre Steindl emerged as the victor; the plans of two other competitors were later also realized in the form of the Ethnographic Museum and the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture, both facing the Parliament Building. One reason that Steindl's proposal was chosen is that his neo-Gothic plans bore a strong resemblance with the Palace of Westminster in London. Leading Hungarian politicians of the 19th century found it extremely important that the country's new parliament building should symbolise their commitment to Western Europe, especially Britain, the country Hungarian reformers considered a political role model. Construction from the winning plan was started in 1885, and the building was inaugurated on the presumed 1,000th anniversary of the country in 1896. With the keys to the building being handed over in 1902, however, it was not fully completed until 1904. The architect of the building first went blind and later died before the building's completion.

 

About 100,000 people were involved in its construction, during which 40 million bricks, half a million precious stones and 40 kg (88 lb) of gold were used. Since World War II, the legislature became unicameral, and today the government uses only a small portion of the building. During the People's Republic of Hungary, a red star perched on the top of the dome, but it was removed in 1990 after the fall of communism. Mátyás Szűrös declared the Hungarian Republic from the balcony facing Kossuth Lajos Square on 23 October 1989.

 

Features

The Parliament Building is built in the Gothic Revival style; it has a symmetrical façade and a central dome. The dome is Renaissance Revival architecture. The parliament is also largely symmetrical from the inside, with two identical parliament halls on the opposing sides of the building. One of the two halls is still in use today for sessions of the Hungarian National Assembly, the other for ceremonies, conferences, and guided tours. It is 268 m (879 ft) long and 123 m (404 ft) wide. Its interior includes 10 courtyards, 13 passenger and freight elevators, 27 gates, 29 staircases and 691 rooms (which includes more than 200 offices). With its height of 96 m (315 ft), it used to be one of the two tallest buildings in Budapest, along with Saint Stephen's Basilica, until the MOL Campus topped out in 2021. The number 96 refers to the nation's millennium, 1896, and the conquest of the later Kingdom of Hungary in 896.

 

The main façade overlooks the Danube, but the official main entrance is from the square on the east side of the building. Inside and outside, there are altogether 242 sculptures on the walls. The façade displays statues of Hungarian rulers, Transylvanian leaders, and famous military figures. The coats of arms of kings and dukes are depicted over the windows. The eastern staircase is flanked by two lions. When entering the Parliament Building, visitors can walk up great ornamental stairs, see frescoes on the ceiling, and pass by the bust of the architect Imre Steindl in a wall niche. Other statues include those of Árpád, Stephen I and John Hunyadi. The building features stained glass and glass mosaics by Miksa Róth.

 

One of the famous parts of the building is the hexadecagonal (sixteen-sided) central hall, with huge chambers adjoining it: the Lower House and the Upper House. The modern National Assembly is unicameral and meets in the Lower House, while the Upper House is used as a conference and meeting room. The Holy Crown of Hungary, which is also depicted in Hungary's coat of arms, has been displayed in the central hall since 2000. Due to its extensive surface and detailed handiwork, the building is almost always under renovation.

 

Accessibility and neighbourhood

The Parliament is accessible with Line 2 of the Budapest Metro and with tram line 2, from the Kossuth Lajos Square station. At the east front of the building is a memorial to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, as well as the imposing Kossuth Memorial and the equestrian statue of Francis II Rákóczi. A seated statue of Attila József as described in his poem By the Danube occupies a site on the south lawn. Martyrs' Square (Vértanúk tere) is immediately adjacent to Kossuth Square, with a statue of Imre Nagy.

 

Postage stamps

The building features on more than 50 postage stamps issued by Hungary during 1917–1921. Some of them are: In 1917, 1919, 15 April 1920, and 1921.

Philadelphia, PA, est. 1682; pop. 1,567,442 (metro 6MM)

 

• built in 1740 • earliest known photograph is dated 1859 — bldg. was then 119 yrs. old [photo] • Georgian-Colonial trinity aka "bandbox" design • typically, trinity houses had 1 room per floor & were built facing each other in rows of 4 identical bldgs. • in addition to the room on each floor, this house had a walkable attic room & a cellar

 

• served as both business & residence for shopkeepers & artisans for over 150 yrs. • among the occupants in the 18th c. were a shoemaker, apothecary & an upholsterer named Betsy Ross, who is said to have sewn the first American flag in this building • estimates of when & how long she lived here have her arriving in 1773 at the earliest & departing as late as 1791

 

• over time the house changed in appearance [photos] as neighborhood houses were razed & replaced w/larger commercial buildings —Where's Betsy

 

Betsy Ross

 

• Elizabeth "Betsy" Griscom (1752-1836) was a fourth-generation American • daughter of Samuel Griscom (1717-1793) & Rebecca James (c. 1730-1793) • the 8th of their 17 children • great granddaughter of Andrew Griscom (c. 1654-1694), a Quaker carpenter who migrated from England to New Jersey in 1680, 1 yr. before William Penn founded Philadelphia

 

"She often laughed at the curious fact that she was born on the first day of the week, the first day of the month, the first day of the year, and the first year of the 'new style' [which was] the dividing line between the old way of measuring the years time and the new method under the [Gregorian calendar… She was also] the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter." —C.B. Satterthwaite, great grandson, The Des Moines Register, 07 Jan, 1906

 

• at age 3 Betsy's family moved to a large home at 4th & Arch Sts. • went to a Friends (Quaker) public school • 8 of her siblings died before adulthood • lost her mother, father & sister, Deborah, to the 1793 yellow fever epidemic

 

• upon completion of her schooling at age 12, her father apprenticed her to upholsterer John Webster • fell in love with fellow apprentice John Ross (1752-1773), son of an Episcopal asst. rector at Christ Church • defying her parents, in 1773 Betsy, age 21, eloped w/John

 

• Betsy's sister Sarah & her husband Capt. Wm. Donaldson rowed the couple across the Delaware River, heading 5 miles downstream to Gloucestertown, NJ • they were married at family friend William Hugg Jr.'s tavern & inn, known locally as Hugg's …more: The New Jersey Hugg Line

 

• because her marriage to a non-Quaker was considered an act of "disorderly and undutiful conduct," Betsy was split from her family & read out of meeting, i.e., disowned by her Quaker community • became a member of Christ Church • the Ross's pew No. 12 [photo] was adjacent to Martha & George Washington's No. 56 & not far from Deborah & Benjamin Franklin's No. 70

 

• the newlyweds — now trained upholsterers — opened their own business • c. 1773 they rented a house, probably at what is today 239 Arch St. although the exact site is still debated by historians • most records point to this house or one next door at No. 241, long since razed

 

"The identity of the location was always preserved in the family, which agrees with the records in the old Philadelphia directories… from 1785, the first published, to the removal of Betsy Ross and her husband from 239 Arch Street, in 1791" —Betsy Ross grandson George Canby, New York Times, 05 July, 1908

 

• Benjamin Franklin & Benjamin Chew were among the Rosses' customers • business slowed during the Revolutionary War as fabric was in short supply • John Ross joined the Pennsylvania militia • mid-Jan., 1776, he was gravely wounded by a powder explosion at a Delaware River ammunition cache, apparently while standing guard • Betsy nursed him in their home, but he died within days

 

• in June, 1777, Betsy married girlhood suitor Joseph Ashburn, a privateer who commanded the sailing sloop Swallow • the couple had 2 daughters • the 1st, Aucilla ("Zillah"), died in infancy

 

• British troops entered Philadelphia on 26 Sep., 1777 after their victory at the Battle of Brandywine • the Ashburn home was forcibly shared with British occupation soldiers as the Continental Army suffered through the killing winter at Valley Forge • the British soldiers nicknamed Betsy "Little Rebel" —US History•org

 

• Betsy was pregnant with Elizabeth ("Eliza") when Joseph accepted a job offer & shipped out as first mate on the 6-gun brigantine, Patty • returned to be present for the Feb., 1781 birth of their 2nd daughter

 

• Joseph became master of the 18-gun Lion & took her to sea late in the summer of 1781 • on 31 Aug., his ship was captured off the coast of France by a 44-gun British frigate, the HMS Prudente

 

• prior to March, 1782, the British refused to designate captured rebels as prisoners of war, thus the captives from the Lion were viewed as traitors, charged with high treason & committed to Plymouth, England's Mill Prison [images] • while incarcerated, Ashburn met fellow prisoner John Claypoole, a longtime friend of the Ross family

 

• Claypoole, a Continental Army vet, had been wounded at Germantown & consequently discharged • in 1781 he signed on to man the 18-gun Pennsylvania privateer Chevalier de la Luzerne & was captured in April • in the spring of 1782 Ashburn died in prison, leaving Betsy a 2-time war widow at age 30 —Betsy Ross and the Making of America

 

"In the Night of the 3d of March Mr Joseph Ashburn departed this life after an illness of about a week which he bore with amazing fortitude & resignation" —John Claypoole, Mill Prison

 

"The story goes that Ashburn, while in Mill Prison, often talked with John Claypoole about his wife, Betty*, and at his death sent farewell messages by him to her. Claypoole, on his arrival in Philadelphia, hastened to deliver these messages, and inside of eight months he married her." —John Claypoole's Memorandum-Book *Betsy is referred to as "Betty" in some 18th, 19th & early 20th c. books & media

 

• in 1782 Claypoole returned to Philadelphia, called on Betsy & married her the following year • gave up his seafaring career to join her at the Arch St. upholstery shop • though renamed "John Claypoole, upholsterer," to customers the shop remained Betsy's place • the couple had 5 daughters: Clarissa, Susanna, Rachel, Jane & Harriet, who died at 9 months • sometime after Susanna's birth in 1786, the Claypooles moved from Arch St. to a larger house on 2nd

 

• Betsy returned to her Quaker roots, albeit with the Free (Fighting) Quakers, a group exiled from the main Quaker community when their support for the Revolution was ruled a violation of the faith's peace testimony • the couple became members c. 1785 • image: Betsy Claypoole signature taken from the Meeting House roster

 

• it is widely believed that when the Free Quaker Meeting House shut down in 1834, it was its last attending members — Elizabeth Claypoole & Samuel Wetherill — who closed the doors

 

• in 1817, after a long illness, John Claypoole died • Betsy never remarried • after retiring, she moved to the home of her daughter, Susanna • she died on 30 Jan, 1836, age 84

 

The American Flags

 

"Flags were a rare sight on land in the British North American colonies," —Wooden Teachout, Capture the Flag: A Political History of American Patriotism

 

• American flags were seldom used in parades or displayed by private citizens • colors were flown mainly in battle, over government institutions & on ships, where they were essential to identifying other vessels & determining friend or foe

 

• this changed after America's 1876 Centennial Exposition, which explains why "flags made prior to the Civil War are extremely rare, and flags made before 1820 are practically nonexistent." —Jeff R. Bridgeman, Stars and Stripes, Early American Life, Aug. 2011

 

• with the onset of the Revolutionary War, a flag for the "United Colonies" was created without the sanction of the Continental Congress • this 1775 flag was known as the Continental Colors, aka Grand Union, Congress Flag, Cambridge Flag

 

• on 2 Dec., 1775, the 1st Continental Colors flag was hand sewn by milliner Margaret Manny, who had begun making flags & ensigns the previous year

 

"Everyone knows about Betsy Ross, why do we know nothing about Margaret Manny? Probably for no better reason than that she had fewer articulate friends and relatives to build a story around her." —historian Barbara Tuchman, The First Salute

 

• the Continental Colors had 13 alternating red & white stripes with the British Union crosses in the canton • was created to replace the use of individual colony flags • prior to the Declaration of Independence, it was probably the most used unofficial flag of the revolution • American Flag Timeline

 

• the inclusion of the British Jack in the design signals that this flag was intended not for a civil war of secession, but rather a crusade to secure the American colonists' rights as Englishman • prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Gen. George Washington, still hoping for reconciliation with Mother England, would occasionally toast the King —The Forgotten Flag of the American Revolution and What It Means

 

• on 3 Dec, 1775, the new flag was raised by 1st Lt. John Paul Jones (1747-1792) on the 30-gun Continental Navy frigate USS Alfred [painting], the 1st national ensign to fly on an American fighting vessel —Naval History Blog

 

• the flag later flew over the signing of the Declaration of Independence & according to tradition (contested by some scholars), it was raised on a ship's mast atop Charlestown's Prospect Hill [painting] during Washington's 1 Jan., 1776 siege of Boston

 

• spotting the hybrid British/American flag for the first time, confused British observers took it as a signal of submission: “By this time, I presume, they begin to think it strange that we have not made a formal surrender of our lines,” Washington wrote • his psychological weaponry also included an early form of war propaganda

 

• absent a single government-mandated flag design, a variety of others were used • within a yr. after Prospect hill, the Continental Colors' Union Jack was replaced by a blue field w/13 white stars in various arrangements, e.g., rows, or possibly a circle?

 

• on 14 June, 1777, now celebrated as Flag Day, the American Flag was born by resolution of the Continental Congress, the country’s 1st flag law • during the Revolutionary period that followed, the stars on most American flags were arranged in rows of 4-5-4 with the number of points on most stars ranging from 4 to 8 • compared to the Continental Colors, the rows of stars made it easier to identify the flag/ship/nationality at sea —The 13 Stars & Stripes

 

The Story

 

• about a year before the Flag Resolution of 1777 Betsy Ross, 5-months a widow & struggling to make a ends meet, is said to have received a visit from a Continental Congress flag committee (apparently a secret one as there are no records of its existence)

 

• according to the well known Betsy Ross story, in late May of 1776 (but possibly 1777) 3 heroes of the revolution — George Ross, the uncle of Betsy's late husband, financier/slave trader Robert Morris & Betsy's pew neighbor Gen. George Washington [portraits] — called on her to discuss a flag for the new nation

 

• Rachel Fletcher (Betsy's daughter) recalled that "…she was previously well acquainted with Washington, and that he had often been in her house in friendly visits, as well as on business. That she had embroidered ruffles for his shirt bosoms and cuffs, and that it was partly owing to his friendship for her that she was chosen to make the flag." —Rachel's affidavit

 

• as told by Betsy, Gen. Washington, then head of the Continental Army, showed her a rough design of a flag with 6-pointed stars • she offered suggestions for modifications & stated a preference for 5-pointed stars • when her visitors expressed concern over the difficulty of producing them, she replied, "Nothing easier," which she then proved by cutting a 5-pointed star in a single snip • video: Make a perfect star with ONE cut! (1:15) • Two Conundrums Concerning the Betsy Ross Five-Pointed Star

 

• changes approved, Washington redrew the flag w/a pencil • Betsy's friend & collaborator William Barrett, a Cherry St. ornamental painter created a water color copy of the drawing for her to work from • 1-2 other seamstresses sewed alternate designs for the committee, but only Betsy's was approved & used

 

• what is known today as the "Betsy Ross flag" has 13 red & white stripes & a ring of 13, white 5-pointed stars • though the design may have been in use by 1777, vexillologists believe that between 1777-1795, (the yrs. the official flag had 13 stars) most flags displayed stars in rows, which are easier to produce than a circle

 

• None of the surviving flags from the 18th century exhibit the Betsy Ross pattern • however a few examples are depicted in the art of the era (although period art is notoriously unreliable for flag research)

 

• the flag depicted in Chas. Willson Peale's 1779 George Washington at the Battle of Princeton is generally considered credible & "may be the only evidence in a painting… that suggests that a circle-pattern flag may have existed in colonial times… Otherwise, you won't see an American flag with a perfect circle of stars made before the 1890s." —Jeff R. Bridgeman, loc. cit.13 Stars in the Betsy Ross Pattern • historically significant the American flags [images]

 

• though known as an upholsterer, there is no doubt that Betsy made flags, having sewn pennants & ensigns for the Pennsylvania State Navy Board (as did Margaret Manning & Rebecca Young, whose daughter Mary Pickersgill would go on to sew the enormous flag that inspired the U.S. National Anthem, Francis Scott Key's The Star-Spangled Banner)

 

• a month before Congress passed the Flag Resolution, Betsy was paid 14 pounds, 12 shillings, 2 pence (~$2,300 in 2017 USD) for what must have been a prodigious quantity of Pennsylvania Navy flags • there is no hard evidence that any of these were American flags • "...today we are reasonably convinced that Betsy’s flag was a naval flag, with a simple ‘in line’ arrangement of the stars…" —John B. Harker, Historian & Betsy Ross descendent

 

• Betsy (Elizabeth Claypool) was now in the business of producing flags & ensigns for the federal govt. • throughout the Jefferson & Madison admins. the skilled needlewoman made flags as large as 18' x 24' for American military installations, with demand peaking during the War of 1812

 

• for the rest of her life she — in her words — "never knew what it was to want employment" • her oldest daughter, Clarissa Sidney Wilson (1785-1864) [portrait], succeeded her, supplying arsenals, navy yards & the mercantile marine with flags for years —Betsy Ross•org

 

"In the last years of her life, Ross was neither more nor less important than other aging women who had lived through the Revolution. That she became famous while others were forgotten exposes the interlocking power of family history, local memory, and national politics." —How Betsy Ross Became Famous by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Historian

 

The Legend

 

"…at a time of great historic import such as that time when the Declaration was signed, people have no leisure to think about the minor events which are taking place. Thus, during the revolution no one thought of Betsy Ross as a national heroine, and it was not, in fact until 1870 that William J. Canby (1825-1890) first brought the story of how the first flag was made into general prominence." —Dr. Lloyd Balderston, great-grandson of Betsy Ross, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 3 Jul, 1908

 

• there is no record of the the Betsy Ross story prior to 1870 • that year — 34 years after her death — Betsy's 45 yr. old grandson, a title processor named William Jackson Canby, presented a paper titled The History of the Flag of the United States to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania • the document, accompanied by sworn affidavits, was an oral history passed on by descendants of Betsy Ross, including Canby himself who was 11 yrs. old when she died • …more: The Evolution of the American Flag by (Betsy Ross descendants) George Canby (1829-1907), Lloyd Balderston, Ph.D (1863-1933)

 

• the story was largely ignored until it was mentioned in historian George Henry Preble's 1872 book Our Flag & appeared in the July, 1873 Harper's Monthly [illustration] • with Civil War wounds slowly healing & the 1876 centennial celebration fast approaching, Betsy Ross & the flag entered American consciousness • in the 1880's her story began to appear in textbooks • by the mid 1890s it was often illustrated by an engraving of The Birth of Our Nation’s Flag, an 1893 painting by Charles H. Weisgerber (1856-1932)

 

• oral tradition has it that in 1892 Weisgerber, a 36 yr. old aspiring artist, was bent on winning a forthcoming art competition • walking along Arch St., he noticed a plaque at No. 239 which identified the bldg. as the site where Betsy Ross sewed the 1st American flag

 

• inspired, Weisgerber envisioned a scene of Betsy & the 1st flag set in her shop • to fill in details of the story, characters & setting, he drew on period portraits, the testimony of living descendants & the 22 yr. old Canby paper

 

• with no authentic image of Betsy in existence (according to her relatives), Weisgerber painted a composite taken from images of 4 of her daughters & a granddaughter who was said to closely resemble her • the resulting portrait was critiqued by relatives who had known her & modified accordingly • Weisgerber then created a massive 9' x 12' painting • portrayed the young Widow Ross, saintly matriarch of a new nation, as she presents the 1st American flag to 3 revered American patriarchs

 

• "the image was [said] …by Mrs. Ross' grandson, George Canby, to be the only correct likeness of [her]" — he was 7 yrs. old when Betsy Ross died —The Times (Philadelphia) 15 Jun 1893

 

• the flag depicted in the painting — with no evidence to support the authenticity of its design — has since been known as the "Betsy Ross flag," the standard for celebrating the U.S.A.'s birthday each 4th of July

 

The Apotheosis

 

• Weisgerber's painting won the $1,000 prize & in 1893 was showcased in the Pennsylvania Building at Chicago’s Columbian Exposition • seen by millions of visitors • contributed to the nascent reverence for Betsy Ross & the flag as sacred symbols of the emerging, quasi-religious American civil religion • politicians, patriotic societies & public sentiment propelled the flag's transformation into an object of veneration, its role expanding well beyond the customary military & govt. functions

 

On Flag Day, 1894, the Colonial Dames gathered 500 schoolchildren to honor “the adoption by Congress . . . of the flag made by Betsy Ross from the design submitted to her by Gen. Washington” • by 1895, 10 states had laws requiring public schools to display the flag on all school days — Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, loc. cit.

 

• in 1897 the City of New York bought thousands of lithographs of Weisgerber’s painting for its public schools: “It is thought that the representation which is declared historically correct, together with such lectures as the teachers may deliver, will add much to the pupil’s knowledge and keep alive a proper reverence for the country’s emblem.” —New York Times, 14 Feb, 1897

 

• in 1885, NYC school principal George T. Balch (1821-1908), a vet. of the Indian & Civil Wars, wrote Salute to the Flag, the U.S.A.'s first pledge of allegiance

 

"I give my hand and my heart to my country — one nation, one language, one flag."

 

• the heightened patriotism of the era inspired a movement to organize schoolyard flag raising ceremonies • the American Flag Assn. was founded in 1897 for the "fostering of public sentiment in favor of honoring the flag in our country and preserving it from desecration" • Natl. Flag Day was proclaimed in 1917

 

• Christian Socialist Francis Bellamy (1855-1931), who worked in the premium dept. of The Youth's Companion magazine, wrote a new U.S. Pledge of Allegiance (1892) for his employer • created as part of the magazine's campaign to sell American flags to public schools • goal was a flag in every classroom • 25,000 schools acquired flags the 1st yr. • though priced "at cost," banner sales proved profitable

 

• Bellamy also choreographed a salute — the "Bellamy Salute" — to accompany the pledge • because of its similarity to the Nazi heil it was replaced by a right-hand-over-heart gesture during World War II • another Youth's Companion employee, James Upham, headed a flag-centric project designed to engage public schools in the commemoration of the U.S.A.'s 1st Columbus Day (Oct. 1892)

 

The Verdict

 

• for nearly a century-and-a-half, historians have debated the available evidence in an attempt to prove that Betsy Ross either did or did not produce the 1st American flag: "There’s no good historical evidence that she did. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t. There’s simply a lack of documentation. Most historians believe the story is apocryphal." —Marc Leepson, author of Flag: An American Biography, The Truth About Betsy Ross

 

• the identity of the woman who sewed America's 1st flag may never be certain, but there is good reason to believe that its designer may have been Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791) • the NJ representative to the Continental Congress & signer of the Declaration of Independence is the only person entered into the Congressional record for designing the 1st American flag

 

• it has been speculated that on 14 June, 1777, it was Hopkinson who replaced the British crosses in the Continental Colors with white stars on a blue field • no original sketch of a Hopkinson flag exists, but surviving rough sketches including his design for the Great Seal of the U.S. incorporate elements of 2 of his flag designs —Wikipedia

 

On 25 May, 1780, Hopkinson wrote to the Continental Board, requesting "a Quarter Cask of the public Wine" as payment for several itemized "patriotic designs" he had completed, most notably, "the flag of the United States of America" • submitted another bill on 24 June for "drawings and devices," including "the Naval Flag of the United States"

 

• the Treasury Board rejected his request for payment because he "was not the only person consulted on those exhibitions of Fancy" & furthermore was not entitled to compensation as he was already on the government payroll —Did Francis Hopkinson Design Two Flags?, Earl P. Williams, Jr.

 

• Hopkinson is also considered America's 1st poet-composer • written at age 21, his song My Days have been so Wondrous Free (1759) is regarded as the earliest surviving American secular composition [listen] —UPen•edu

 

Saving Betsy's House

 

• by 1859, 239 Arch St. was occupied by the family of German immigrant (Carl) Philip Mund (1822-1883), who operated a tailor's shop on the 1st floor • the landlord, after collecting rent for the first year, never returned • over the succeeding rent-free decades, the Munds operated a variety of businesses in their retail space

 

• after Canby's 1870 speech identified the location of Betsy Ross's house as Arch between 2nd & 3rd, the Munds — occupants of the block's last standing colonial house — posted a sign: "First Flag of the US Made in this House" • in 1876, as visitors poured into the city for the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, the Munds ran an ad for their latest 1st floor business: "Original Flag House, Lager, Wine and Liquors. This is the house where the first United States flag was made by Mrs. John Ross." —Historic Philadelphia

 

• after Philip Mund died his wife Amelia, who objected to running a saloon, converted the space into a cigar store & candy shop which operated until 1892 — her son Charles then devoted the space to a museum/souvenir shop [photo] —The Betsy Ross House Facts, Myths, and Pictures by G.A. Anderson

 

• c. 1897 citizens led by Charles Weisgerber organized the American Flag Soc. & Betsy Ross Memorial Assn. • goal was to rescue the house from imminent demolition • intended to purchase it from Charles Mund, restore it to its 18th-c. appearance, preserve the memory of Betsy Ross & honor the American flag

 

• to raise the funds for purchasing the Betsy Ross "American Flag House," the Association devised a rudimentary multi-level marketing strategy • sold lifetime memberships for 10 cents • each member was encouraged to recruit others & form a group of 30; each group founder received a chromolithographograph of Weisgerber's painting • over 2 million monochrome certificates were sold at ten cents each • the colorful chromoliths were available at addl. cost (frame not included) —Enjoying Philadelphia

 

• the Association leased the house in 1898, purchased it in 1903 • Weisgerber & his family moved in • lived upstairs, kept the museum & a souvenir shop on the 1st floor • in 1902 they named their newborn son Charles Vexil Domus, Latin for "flag house" [photo] • he would later replace his parents as custodian of the house —G.A. Anderson, loc. cit.

 

• by 1936 the house was on the verge of ruin • in 1937 Philadelphia Mayor Davis Wilson proposed a restoration by WPA workers • this provoked "a storm of protest" from critics

 

• Pennsylvania Historical Soc. members wrote off the Betsy Ross story as "hokum" and "the bunk" • the protests from scholars & historians sparked an unwinnable faith vs. reason culture war with patriotic organizations such as the Daughters of the American Revolution & the Patriotic Order Sons of America

 

• amid the controversy, Philadelphia radio manufacturer & philanthropist A. Atwater Kent (1873-1949) offered to pay up to $25K for the restoration • Historical architect, Richardson Brognard Okie (1875-1945) won the commission

 

• the design for the restoration was derived from evidence & conjecture • goal was to return the bldg. to its c. 1777 appearance • surviving architectural elements were preserved when possible • materials salvaged from demolished colonial era homes were also used • in 1941, the Association gave the property to the city • the house now stands as one of Philadelphia's most popular tourist attractions

 

Postscript

 

• in 1929 Hugg's tavern, where Betsy Griscom defied family & church to marry John Ross, was demolished to make way for the Proprietor's Park swimming pool, which no longer exists • the Revolutionary War-era Hugg-Harrison-Glover House (1764), built on property owned by the Hugg family as early as 1683, was razed in the face of fervent opposition, March, 2017 —Facebook

 

• 178 yrs. after Betsy's wedding & just 5 blocks from where Hugg's once stood, another American legend was born at the Twin Bar [photo] when Bill Haley (and the Saddlemen) performed there in the early 1950s [poster] • in 1952 Haley's band laid down a cover of Rock the Joint [listen], an historic 1949 recording by Jimmy Preston & His Prestonians [listen] • each of these recordings has been cited as a candidate for the title of first rock 'n' roll song • Gloucester City thus became one of several U.S. sites that claims the title "Cradle of Rock 'n Roll"

 

Charles H. Weisgerber died in 1932 • his magnum opus, The Birth of the American Flag lay rolled up & hidden away in a barn loft & later in the back of a South Jersey dye-making workshop • his grandson Stuart (son of Vexil Domus) found it — still rolled up — in his mother's basement • its poor condition precluded exhibition: in the 50s, hanging in the old State Museum at Harrisburg, it had been vandalized, then incurred additional damage from repeated unrolling

 

• Weisgerber sought a Philadelphia home for the massive work but was unsuccessful • after a $40K restoration in 2002 the painting, it's appraised market value just $50K, returned to the State Museum at Harrisburg

 

• in 1976 the remains of Betsy Ross & 3rd husband John Claypoole were moved from Mount Moriah cemetery, Yeadon, PA, to the garden on the west side of the Betsy Ross House courtyard

Both schooling and moccing have felt very slow and difficult for a while now. There are these ideas I have and MOCs that I want to make but these WIPs keep piling up and they feel like failures. Classes have felt similar with studies weighing in as apparent failures reflecting in poor grades.

 

Though, having spent a minute reflecting on these WIPs, I feel comfortable in perceiving progress in my skills. Maybe I haven't been able accomplish full completion of these ideas but I am glad that I'm still trying.

 

If I weren't trying in school or in moccing... I wouldn't be learning anything at all.

To view more of my images, Abbey Gardens, and St Edmundsbury Cathedral, please click "here" !

 

St Edmundsbury Cathedral is the cathedral for the Church of England's Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. It is the seat of the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich and is in Bury St Edmunds. A church has stood on the site of the cathedral since at least 1065, when St Denis's Church was built within the precincts of Bury St Edmunds Abbey. In the early 12th century the Abbot, Anselm had wanted to make a pilgrimage along the Way of St James to Santiago de Compostela. He was unsuccessful and instead rebuilt St Denis's and dedicated the new church to Saint James, which served as the parish church for the north side of Bury St Edmunds. This church was largely rebuilt, starting in 1503, with more alterations in the 18th and 19th centuries. When the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich was created in 1914, St James Church was made the cathedral. In 1959 Benjamin Britten wrote the Fanfare for St Edmundsbury for a "Pageant of Magna Carta" held in the cathedral grounds. From 1960 onwards, there was renewed building work designed to transform the parish church into a cathedral building, with the rebuilding of the chancel and the creation of transepts and side chapels. The cathedral architect from 1943 to 1988 was Stephen Dykes Bower and he left £2 million for the completion of the cathedral. In the cathedral grounds a new choir school and visitor's centre were built which were opened in 1990. A Gothic revival tower was built between 2000 and 2005. The font was designed in 1870 by George Gilbert Scott, constructed on a medieval shaft, with a cover by F. E. Howard of Oxford. The decoration was added in 1960. In addition to guided tours of the cathedral itself, visitors can view changing exhibits of art in the Edmund Gallery, and an exhibit of historic and religious regalia and artefacts in the Cathedral Treasures display. The painting "The Martyrdom of St Edmund" by Brian Whelan hangs in the Lady Chapel.

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Installed in the 1920s after a major renovation, the triptych of stained glass chancel windows were created by Melbourne stained glass manufacturer Brooks, Robinson and Company Glass Merchants, who dominated the market in stained glass in Melbourne during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.

 

Across the bottom of the three are written "Behold a voice cut of a cloud saying this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him", which is taken from the book of Matthew.

 

The left hand window shows Moses clutching the tablets on which are inscribed the Ten Commandments. The right window features Saint Peter, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, holding his Gospel book. The central window of the triptych features Jesus descending from heaven. Alpha and Omega appear in the quatrefoil windows above Moses and Saint Peter, whilst "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" appear in the quinfoil window above the central lancet window of Jesus.

 

Blackwood reredos beneath the triptych, dating from 1939, feature a mosaic of the last supper also created by stained glass and church outfitters Brooks, Robinson and Company. A similar one may be found at St. Matthews Church of England in High Street, Prahran.

 

Built amid workers' cottages and terrace houses of shopkeepers, St. Mark the Evangelist Church of England sits atop an undulating rise in the inner Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy. Nestled behind a thick bank of agapanthus beyond its original cast-iron palisade fence, it would not look out of place in an English country village with its neat buttresses, bluestone masonry and simple, unadorned belfry.

 

St. Mark the Evangelist was the first church to be built outside of the original Melbourne grid as Fitzroy developed into the city's first suburb. A working-class suburb, the majority of its residents were Church of England and from 1849 a Mission Church and school served as a centre for religious, educational and recreational facilities. The school was one of a number of denominational schools established by the Church of England and was partly funded by the Denominational School Board.

 

St. Mark the Evangelist Church of England was designed by architect James Blackburn and built in Early English Gothic style. Richard Grice, Victorian pastoralist and philanthropist, generously contributed almost all the cost of its construction. Work commenced in 1853 to accommodate the growing Church of England congregation of Fitzroy. On July 1st, 1853, the first stone of St. Mark the Evangelist was laid by the first Bishop of Melbourne, The Right Rev. Charles Perry.

Unfortunately, Blackburn did not live to see its completion, dying the following year in 1854 of typhoid. This left St. Mark the Evangelist without an architect to oversee the project, and a series of other notable Melbourne architects helped finish the church including Lloyd Tayler, Leonard Terry and Charles Webb. Even then when St. Mark the Evangelist opened its doors on Sunday, January 21st, 1855, the church was never fully completed with an east tower and spire never realised. The exterior of the church is very plain, constructed of largely unadorned bluestone, with simple buttresses marking structural bays and tall lancet windows. The church's belfry is similarly unadorned, yet features beautiful masonry work. It has a square tower and broach spire.

 

Inside St. Mark the Evangelist Church of England it is peaceful and serves as a quiet sanctuary from the noisy world outside. I visited it on a hot day, and its enveloping coolness was a welcome relief. Walking across the old, highly polished hardwood floors you cannot help but note the gentle scent of the incense used during mass. The church has an ornately carved timber Gothic narthex screen which you walk through to enter the nave. Once there you can see the unusual two storey arcaded gallery designed by Leonard Terry that runs the entire length of the east side of building. Often spoken of as “The Architect’s Folly” Terry's gallery was a divisive point in the Fritzroy congregation. Some thought it added much beauty to the interior with its massive square pillars and seven arches supporting the principals of the roof. Yet it was generally agreed that the gallery was of little effective use, and came with a costly price tag of £3,000.00! To this day, it has never been fully utlised by the church. St. Mark the Evangelist has been fortunate to have a series of organs installed over its history; in 1854 a modest organ of unknown origin: in 1855 an 1853 Foster and Andrews, Hull, organ which was taken from the Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne's Collins Street: in 1877 an organ built by Melbourne organ maker William Anderson: and finally in 1999 as part of major renovation works a 1938 Harrison and Harrison, Durham, organ taken from St. Luke's Church of England in Cowley, Oxfordshire. The church has gone through many renovations over the ensuing years, yet the original marble font and pews have survived these changes and remain in situ to this day. Blackwood reredos in the chancel, dating from 1939, feature a mosaic of the last supper by stained glass and church outfitters Brooks, Robinson and Company. A similar one can be found at St. Matthew's Church of England in High Street in Prahran. The fine lancet stained glass windows on the west side of St. Mark the Evangelist feature the work of the stained glass firms Brooks, Robinson and Company. and William Montgomery. Many of the windows were installed in the late Nineteenth Century.

 

The St. Mark the Evangelist Parish Hall and verger's cottage were added in 1889 to designs by architects Hyndman and Bates. The hall is arranged as a nave with clerestorey windows and side aisles with buttresses. In 1891 the same architects designed the Choir Vestry and Infants Sunday School on Hodgson Street, to replace the earlier school of 1849 which had been located in the forecourt of the church.

 

The present St. Mark the Evangelist's vicarage, a two-storey brick structure with cast-iron lacework verandahs, was erected in 1910.

 

I am very grateful to the staff of Anglicare who run the busy adjoining St. Mark's Community Centre for allowing me to have free range of the inside of St. Mark the Evangelist for a few hours to photograph it so extensively.

 

James Blackburn (1803 - 1854) was an English civil engineer, surveyor and architect. Born in Upton, West Ham, Essex, James was the third of four sons and one daughter born to his parents. His father was a scalemaker, a trade all his brothers took. At the age of 23, James was employed by the Commissioners of Sewers for Holborn and Finsbury and later became an inspector of sewers. However, his life took a dramatic turn in 1833, when suffering economic hardship, he forged a cheque. He was caught and his penalty was transportation to Van Diemen’s Land (modern day Tasmania). As a convicted prisoner, yet also listed as a civil engineer, James was assigned to the Roads Department under the management of Roderic O’Connor, a wealthy Irishman who was the Inspector of Roads and Bridges at the time. On 3 May 1841 James was pardoned, whereupon he entered private practice with James Thomson, another a former convict. In April 1849, James sailed from Tasmania aboard the "Shamrock" with his wife and ten children to start a new life in Melbourne. Once there he formed a company to sell filtered and purified water to the public, and carried out some minor architectural commissions including St. Mark the Evangelist in Fitzroy. On 24 October he was appointed city surveyor, and between 1850 and 1851 he produced his greatest non-architectural work, the basic design and fundamental conception of the Melbourne water supply from the Yan Yean reservoir via the Plenty River. He was injured in a fall from a horse in January 1852 and died on 3 March 1854 at Brunswick Street, Collingwood, of typhoid. He was buried as a member of St. Mark The Evangelist Church of England. James is best known in Tasmania for his ecclesiastical architectural work including; St Mark's Church of England, Pontville, Tasmania (1839-1841), Holy Trinity Church, Hobart, Tasmania (1841-1848): St. George's Church of England, Battery Point, Tasmania, (1841-1847).

 

Leonard Terry (1825 - 1884) was an architect born at Scarborough, Yorkshire, England. Son of Leonard Terry, a timber merchant, and his wife Margaret, he arrived in Melbourne in 1853 and after six months was employed by architect C. Laing. By the end of 1856 he had his own practice in Collins Street West (Terry and Oakden). After Mr. Laing's death next year Leonard succeeded him as the principal designer of banks in Victoria and of buildings for the Anglican Church, of which he was appointed diocesan architect in 1860. In addition to the many banks and churches that he designed, Leonard is also known for his design of The Melbourne Club on Collins Street (1858 - 1859) "Braemar" in East Melbourne (1865), "Greenwich House" Toorak (1869) and the Campbell residence on the corner of Collins and Spring Streets (1877). Leonard was first married, at 30, on 26 June 1855 to Theodosia Mary Welch (d.1861), by whom he had six children including Marmaduke, who trained as a surveyor and entered his father's firm in 1880. Terry's second marriage, at 41, on 29 December 1866 was to Esther Hardwick Aspinall, who bore him three children and survived him when on 23 June 1884, at the age of 59, he died of a thoracic tumor in his last home, Campbellfield Lodge, Alexandra Parade, in Collingwood.

 

Lloyd Tayler (1830 - 1900) was an architect born on 26 October 1830 in London, youngest son of tailor William Tayler, and his wife Priscilla. Educated at Mill Hill Grammar School, Hendon, and King's College, London, he is said to have been a student at the Sorbonne. In June 1851 he left England to join his brother on the land near Albury, New South Wales. He ended up on the Mount Alexander goldfields before setting up an architectural practice with Lewis Vieusseux, a civil engineer in 1854. By 1856 he had his own architectural practice where he designed premises for the Colonial Bank of Australasia. In the 1860s and 1870s he was lauded for his designs for the National Bank of Australasia, including those in the Melbourne suburbs of Richmond and North Fitzroy, and further afield in country Victoria at Warrnambool and Coleraine. His major design for the bank was the Melbourne head office in 1867. With Edmund Wright in 1874 William won the competition for the design of the South Australian Houses of Parliament, which began construction in 1881. The pair also designed the Bank of Australia in Adelaide in 1875. He also designed the Australian Club in Melbourne's William Street and the Melbourne Exchange in Collins Street in 1878. Lloyd's examples of domestic architecture include the mansion "Kamesburgh", Brighton, commissioned by W. K. Thomson in 1872. Other houses include: "Thyra", Brighton (1883): "Leighswood", Toorak, for C. E. Bright: "Roxcraddock", Caulfield: "Cherry Chase", Brighton: and "Blair Athol", Brighton. In addition to his work on St. Mark the Evangelist in Fitzroy, Lloyd also designed St. Mary's Church of England, Hotham (1860); St Philip's, Collingwood, and the Presbyterian Church, Punt Road, South Yarra (1865); and Trinity Church, Bacchus Marsh (1869). The high point of Lloyd's career was the design for the Melbourne head office of the Commercial Bank of Australia. His last important design was the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Headquarters Station, Eastern Hill in 1892. Lloyd was also a judge in 1900 of the competition plans for the new Flinders Street railway station. Lloyd was married to Sarah Toller, daughter of a Congregational minister. They established a comfortable residence, Pen-y-Bryn, in Brighton, and it was from here that he died of cancer of the liver on the 17th of August 1900 survived by his wife, four daughters and a son.

 

Charles Webb (1821 - 1898) was an architect. Born on 26 November 1821 at Sudbury, Suffolk, England, he was the youngest of nine children of builder William Webb and his wife Elizabeth. He attended Sudbury Academy and was later apprenticed to a London architect. His brother James had migrated to Van Diemen's Land in 1830, married in 1833, gone to Melbourne in 1839 where he set up as a builder in and in 1848 he bought Brighton Park, Brighton. Charles decided to join James and lived with James at Brighton. They went into partnership as architects and surveyors. The commission that established them was in 1850 for St Paul's Church, Swanston Street. It was here that Charles married Emma Bridges, daughter of the chief cashier at the Bank of England. Charles and James built many warehouses, shops and private homes and even a synagogue in the city. After his borther's return to England, Charles designed St. Andrew's Church, Brighton, and receiving an important commission for Melbourne Church of England Grammar School in 1855. In 1857 he added a tower and a slender spire to Scots Church, which James had built in 1841. He designed Wesley College in 1864, the Alfred Hospital and the Royal Arcade in 1869, the South Melbourne Town Hall and the Melbourne Orphan Asylum in 1878 and the Grand Hotel (now the Windsor) in 1884. In 1865 he had designed his own home, "Farleigh", in Park Street, Brighton, where he died on 23 January 1898 of heat exhaustion. Predeceased by Emma in 1893 and survived by five sons and three daughters, he was buried in Brighton cemetery.

 

Brooks, Robinson and Company first opened their doors on Elizabeth Street in Melbourne in 1854 as importers of window and table glass and also specialised in interior decorating supplies. Once established the company moved into glazing and were commonly contracted to do shopfronts around inner Melbourne. In the 1880s they commenced producing stained glass on a small scale. Their first big opportunity occurred in the 1890s when they were engaged to install Melbourne's St Paul's Cathedral's stained-glass windows. Their notoriety grew and as a result their stained glass studio flourished, particularly after the closure of their main competitor, Ferguson and Urie. They dominated the stained glass market in Melbourne in the early 20th Century, and many Australian glass artists of worked in their studio. Their work may be found in the Princess Theatre on Melbourne's Spring Street, in St John's Church in Toorak, and throughout churches in Melbourne. Brooks, Robinson and Company was taken over by Email Pty Ltd in 1963, and as a result they closed their stained glass studio.

  

I am still going to need a load of roof bricks to complete the backside of the roof. Also the large advert that fits in the other end still has to be built. And some curtains, and maybe some lights and the path needs to be widened by another 2 studs and lamposts need building etc. so really quite a bit to get on with!

 

A failure on 10th September 2000 led to 60061 assisting 37886 on a working from Shotton, with Rob photting the train at Hawarden Bridge.

 

This picture apparently appeared in the January 2001 Traction magazine. I've processed one of Rob's shots of this train but it was taken a few seconds after this and didn't have the glider in the top of the scene! Anyway, for completion of scanning his collection, I've reproduced this one too.

 

Photo: Rob Clark.

Hagia Sophia (Istanbul).

 

The Church of the Holy Wisdom, known as Hagia Sophia (Άγια Σοφία) in Greek, Sancta Sophia in Latin, and Ayasofya or Aya Sofya in Turkish, is a former Byzantine church and former Ottoman mosque in Istanbul. Now a museum, Hagia Sophia is universally acknowledged as one of the great buildings of the world. Unfortunately nothing remains of the original Hagia Sophia, which was built on this site in the fourth century by Constantine the Great. Constantine was the first Christian emperor and the founder of the city of Constantinople, which he called "the New Rome." The Hagia Sophia was one of several great churches he built in important cities throughout his empire. Following the destruction of Constantine's church, a second was built by his son Constantius and the emperor Theodosius the Great. This second church was burned down during the Nika riots of 532, though fragments of it have been excavated and can be seen today. Hagia Sophia was rebuilt in her present form between 532 and 537 under the personal supervision of Emperor Justinian I. It is one of the greatest surviving examples of Byzantine architecture, rich with mosaics and marble pillars and coverings. After completion, Justinian is said to have exclaimed, Νενίκηκά σε Σολομών ("Solomon, I have outdone thee!"). The architects of the church were Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles, who were professors of geometry at the University of Constantinople. Their work was a technical triumph, even though the structure was severely damaged several times by earthquakes. The original dome collapsed after an earthquake in 558 and its replacement fell in 563. Steps were taken to better secure the dome, but there were additional partial collapses in 989 and 1346. Justinian's basilica was both the culminating architectural achievement of Late Antiquity and the first masterpiece of Byzantine architecture. Its influence, both architecturally and liturgically, was widespread and enduring in the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Muslim worlds alike. For over 900 years the Hagia Sophia was the seat of the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople and a principal setting for church councils and imperial ceremonies. In 1204 the cathedral was ruthlessly attacked, desecrated and plundered by the Crusaders, who also ousted the Patriarch of Constantinople and replaced him with a Latin bishop. This event cemented the division of the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches that had begun with the Great Schism of 1054. It also means that most of Hagia Sophia's riches can be seen today not in Istanbul, but in the treasury of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice. Despite this violent setback, Hagia Sophia remained a functioning church until May 29, 1453, when Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror entered triumphantly into the city of Constantinople. He was amazed at the beauty of the Hagia Sophia and immediately converted it into his imperial mosque. Hagia Sophia served as the principal mosque of Istanbul for almost 500 years. It became a model for many of the Ottoman mosques of Istanbul such as the Blue Mosque, the Suleiman Mosque, the Shehzade Mosque and the Rustem Pasha Mosque. No major structural changes were made at first; the addition of a mihrab (prayer niche), minbar (pulpit) and a wooden minaret made a mosque out of the church. At some early point, all the faces depicted in the church's mosaics were covered in plaster due to the Islamic prohibition of figurative imagery. Various additions were made over the centuries by successive sultans.Sultan Mehmed II built a madrasa (religious school) near the mosque and organized a waqf for its expenses. Extensive restorations were conducted by Mimar Sinan during the rule of Selim II, including the original sultan's loge and another minaret. Mimar Sinan built the mausoleum of Selim II to the southeast of the mosque in 1577 and the mausoleums of Murad III and Mehmed III were built next to it in the 1600s. Mahmud I ordered a restoration of the mosque in 1739 and added an ablution fountain, Koranic school, soup kitchen and library, making the mosque the center of a social complex. The most famous restoration of the Hagia Sophia was completed between 1847-49 by Abdülmecid II, who invited Swiss architects Gaspare and Guiseppe Fossati to renovate the mosque. The brothers consolidated the dome and vaults, straightened columns,and revised the decoration of the exterior and the interior. The discovery of the figural mosaics after the secularization of Hagia Sophia was guided by the descriptions of the Fossati brothers, who had uncovered them a century earlier for cleaning and recording. The Fossatis also added the calligraphic roundels that remain today. They were commissioned to calligrapher Kazasker Izzet Efendi and replaced older panels hanging on the piers. In 1934, under Turkish president Kemal Atatürk, Hagia Sofia was secularized and turned into the Ayasofya Museum. The prayer rugs were removed, revealing the marble beneath, but the mosaics remained largely plastered over and the building was allowed to decay for some time. Some of the calligraphic panels were moved to other mosques, but eight roundels were left and can still be seen today. A 1993 UNESCO mission to Turkey noted falling plaster, dirty marble facings, broken windows, decorative paintings damaged by moisture, and ill-maintained lead roofing. Cleaning, roofing and restoration have since been undertaken; many recent visitors have found their view obstructed by a huge scaffolding stretching up into the dome in the center of the nave. The main dome is carried on pendentives: four concave triangular sections of masonry which solve the problem of setting the circular base of a dome on a rectangular base. Each pendentive is decorated with a seraphim. The weight of the dome passes through the pendentives to four massive piers at the corners, and between them the dome seems to float upon four great arches.At the western and eastern ends, the arched openings are extended by semi-domes. The flat wall on each side of the interior (north and south) is called a tympanum, and each one has 12 large windows in two rows, seven in the lower and five in the upper. Just outside the entrance, stone cannonballs line the gravel path of the outer courtyard. These are the actual cannonballs used by Mehmet the Conqueror in his victorious 1453 battle for the city. All interior surfaces are sheathed with polychrome marble, green and white with purple porphyry, and gold mosaics. On the exterior, simple stuccoed walls reveal the clarity of massed vaults and domes.The Islamic calligraphic roundels suspended from the main dome since the 19th century remain in place and make for a fascinating religious contrast with the uncovered Christian mosaics. The names painted on the eight wooden medallions are: Allah and Muhammad (flanking the apse); the first four Caliphs Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali (at the four corners of the dome); and the two grandsons of Mohammed, Hasan and Husayn (in the nave). The Byzantine mosaics are being gradually uncovered, but only those on the higher gallery levels, which can be accessed by stairways on the payment of a fee. This means that Muslims do not have to confront much Christian imagery in the main chamber of the building, which was a mosque for nearly 500 years and retains all the equipment of a mosque. When the Hagia Sophia was used as a place of worship, both for Christians and then for Muslims, the focus of the building was the east end, directly across from the entrance. This is because Christian churches are traditionally oriented towards the east, and Muslims always pray facing Mecca, which is east of Istanbul. Thus the bulk of interesting sights are clustered in this area of the Hagia Sophia's huge nave. At ground level, most of the sights date from the Islamic period. A beautiful marble structure in the apse is the mihrab, a niche found in all mosques that indicates the direction of Mecca. The large freestanding stairway to the right of the mihrab is the minbar, or pulpit from which sermons were given. To the left of the mihrab is the grand sultan's loge, built by the Fossati brothers who restored the Hagia Sophia in the 1800s. Looking up from this area, one sees a splendid apse mosaic depicting the Virgin and Child. On the right is a partly damaged Archangel Gabriel mosaic. Gabriel used to face an Archangel Michael mosaic on the other side of the apse, but this is now almost entirely gone. The most famous of the Hagia Sophia's mosaics are on the upper floor, in the galleries. The South Gallery, where the great mosaics are, was used for church councils. When the Hagia Sophia was a mosque, the galleries were the place where women sat during worship services. Today, the galleries provide visitors with a commanding view of the nave from all sides and a closeup view of some of the best Byzantine mosaics to be seen anywhere. The best-known mosaic is called the Deësis Mosaic, and it is the first you come to as you enter the South Gallery through the Marble Door. It depicts a triumphant and kingly Christ (known as "Christ Pantrocrator"), flanked by the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist. At the end of the South Gallery are two golden Byzantine mosaics. On the left is Christ with Emperor Constantine IX Monomachus and Empress Zoe; on the right is the Virgin and Child with Emperor John II Comnenus and Empress Irene.

 

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.

 

Called "one of the world's most iconic skyscrapers and a quintessential symbol of New York City", the building 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, iconic building. The 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.

 

The Flatiron Building sits on a triangular block formed by Fifth Avenue to the west, Broadway to the east, and East 22nd Street to the south. The western and eastern facades converge, forming a "peak" at its northern corner where Fifth Avenue and Broadway intersect with East 23rd Street. The shape of the site arises from Broadway's diagonal alignment relative to the Manhattan street grid. The site measures 197.5 feet (60.2 m) on Fifth Avenue, 214.5 feet (65.4 m) on Broadway, and 86 feet (26 m) on 22nd Street. Above the ground level, all three corners of the triangle are curved.

 

Adjacent buildings include the Toy Center to the north, the Sohmer Piano Building to the southwest, the Scribner Building to the south, and Madison Green to the southeast. Entrances to the New York City Subway's 23rd Street station, served by the R and ​W trains, are adjacent to the building. The Flatiron Building is at the northern end of the Ladies' Mile Historic District, which extends between 15th Street to the south and 24th Street to the north. By the 1990s, the blocks south of the building had also become known as the Flatiron District

 

At the beginning of March 1901, media outlets reported that the Newhouse family was planning to sell "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 buildings' construction (except for design), and they specialized in erecting skyscrapers. Black intended to construct a new headquarters building on the site, despite the recent deterioration of the surrounding neighborhood. At the end of that March, the Fuller Company organized a subsidiary to develop a building on the site. The sale was finalized in May 1901.

 

Black hired Daniel Burnham's architectural firm to design a 21-story building on the site in February 1901. It would be Burnham's first in New York City, the tallest building in Manhattan north of the Financial District, and the first skyscraper north of Union Square (at 14th Street). The Northwestern Salvage and Wrecking Company began razing the site in May 1901, after the majority of existing tenants' leases had expired. Most of the Cumberland's remaining tenants readily vacated the building in exchange for monetary compensation. The sole holdout was Winfield Scott Proskey, a retired colonel who refused to move out until his lease expired later that year. Cumberland Realty unsuccessfully attempted to deactivate Proskey's water and gas supply, and Proskey continued to live in the Cumberland while contractors demolished all of the surrounding apartments. By the end of May 1901, Cumberland Realty discovered that Proskey was bankrupt, and his creditors took over the lease and razed the rest of the Cumberland that June.

 

The New York Herald published an image of the site on June 2, 1901, with the caption "Flatiron Building". The project's structural engineer, Corydon Purdy, filed plans for a 20-story building on the site were filed that August. The Flatiron Building was not the first building of its triangular ground-plan, although it was the largest at the time of its completion. Earlier buildings with a similar shape include a triangular Roman temple built on a similarly constricted site in the city of Verulamium, Britannia; Bridge House, Leeds, England (1875); the I.O.O.F. Centennial Building (1876) in Alpena, Michigan; and the English-American Building in Atlanta (1897). The Real Estate Record and Guide published a drawing of the building in October 1901; though the drawing was captioned "The Cumberland", it was very similar to the Flatiron Building's final design.

 

The Atlantic Terra Cotta Company began producing architectural terracotta pieces for the building in August 1901. Around the same time, the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) indicated that it would refuse to approve Purdy's initial plans unless the engineers submitted detailed information about the framework, fireproofing, and wind-bracing systems. Purdy complied with most of the DOB's requests, submitting detailed drawings and documents, but he balked at the department's requirement that the design include fire escapes. For reasons that are unclear, the DOB dropped its requirement that the building contain fire escapes. In addition, the building was originally legally required to contain metal-framed windows, although this would have increased the cost of construction. The city's Board of Building Commissioners had granted an exemption to Black's syndicate, prompting allegations of favoritism. A new Buildings Department commissioner was appointed at the beginning of 1902, promising to enforce city building codes; this prompted general contractor Thompson–Starrett Co. to announce that the building's window frames would be made of fireproof wood with a copper coating.

 

The building's steel frame was manufactured by the American Bridge Company in Pennsylvania. The frame had risen above street level by January 1902. Construction was then halted for several weeks, first because of a delay in steel shipments, then because of a blizzard that occurred in February. Further delays were caused by a strike at the factory of Hecla Iron Works, which was manufacturing elevators and handrails for the building. The steel was so meticulously pre-cut that, according to The New York Times, the steel pieces could be connected "without so much as the alteration of a bored hole, or the exchange of a tiny rivet". Workers used air-powered tools to rivet the steel beams together, since such equipment was more efficient than steam-powered tools at conducting power over long distances. The frame was complete by February 1902, and workers began installing the terracotta tiles as the framework of the top stories were being finished. By mid-May, the building was half-covered by terracotta tiling. The terracotta work was completed the next month, and the scaffolding in front of the building was removed. The Fifth Avenue Building Company had invested $1.5 million in the project.

 

Officials of the Fuller Company announced in August 1902 that the structure would be officially named after George A. Fuller, founder of the Fuller Company and "father of the skyscraper", who had died two years earlier. By then, the site had been known as the "flatiron" for several years; according to Christopher Gray of The New York Times, Burnham's and Fuller's architectural drawings even labeled the structure as the "Flatiron Building". Although the Fuller name was used for some time after the building's completion, locals persisted in calling it the Flatiron, to the displeasure of Harry Black and the building's contractors. In subsequent years, the edifice officially came to be known as the Flatiron Building, and the Fuller name was transferred to a newer 40-story structure at 597 Madison Avenue.

 

In the weeks before the official opening, the Fuller Company distributed six-page brochures to potential tenants and real-estate brokers. The brochures advertised the building as being "ready for occupancy" on October 1, 1902. The Fuller Company took the 19th floor for its headquarters. When completed, the Flatiron Building was much taller than others in the neighborhood; when New York City Fire Department officials tested the building's standpipes in November 1902, they found that "the 'flat-iron' building would be of great aid in fighting the fire" in any surrounding buildings. Following the building's completion, the surrounding neighborhood evolved from an entertainment district to a commercial hub. Initially, the building was topped by a flagpole, which was maintained by one man, "Steeplejack" Kay, for four decades. Henry Clay Frick expressed interest in purchasing the structure in 1904 for $5 million, but he ultimately withdrew his offer.

 

During the building's construction, Black had suggested that the "cowcatcher" retail space be installed at the northern tip of the building, occupying 93 square feet (8.6 m2) of unused space at the extreme northern end of the lot. This would maximize use of the building's lot and produce some retail income. Burnham initially refused to consider Black's suggestion, and, in April 1902, Black asked a draftsman at the Fuller Company to draw up plans for the retail space. Black submitted plans for the annex to the DOB in May 1902. The DOB rejected the initial plans because the walls were too thin, but the department approved a revised proposal that June, to Burnham's disapproval. The retail space in the "cowcatcher" was leased by United Cigar Stores.

 

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. By 1905, the Fuller Company needed to expand its technical drawing facilities. As a result, the company filed plans for a penthouse with the New York City Department of Buildings that March. The penthouse would cost $10,000 and would include fireproof partitions and a staircase from the existing 20th floor. The penthouse, intended for use as artists' studios, 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.

 

New York, often called New York City or simply NYC, is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each of which is coextensive with a respective county. It is a global city and a cultural, financial, high-tech, entertainment, and media center with a significant influence on commerce, health care, scientific output, life sciences, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, dining, art, fashion, and sports. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy, and is sometimes described as the world's most important city and the capital of the world.

 

With an estimated population in 2022 of 8,335,897 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. New York is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. by both population and urban area. With more than 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York City is one of the world's most populous megacities. The city and its metropolitan area are the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. In 2021, the city was home to nearly 3.1 million residents born outside the U.S., the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world.

 

New York City traces its origins to Fort Amsterdam and a trading post founded on the southern tip of Manhattan Island by Dutch colonists in approximately 1624. The settlement was named New Amsterdam (Dutch: Nieuw Amsterdam) in 1626 and was chartered as a city in 1653. The city came under English control in 1664 and was renamed New York after King Charles II granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. The city was temporarily regained by the Dutch in July 1673 and was renamed New Orange; however, the city has been named New York since November 1674. New York City was the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. The modern city was formed by the 1898 consolidation of its five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island, and has been the largest U.S. city ever since.

 

Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City has been called both the world's premier financial and fintech center and the most economically powerful city in the world. As of 2022, the New York metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan economy in the world with a gross metropolitan product of over US$2.16 trillion. If the New York metropolitan area were its own country, it would have the tenth-largest economy in the world. The city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization of their listed companies: the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. New York City is an established safe haven for global investors. As of 2023, New York City is the most expensive city in the world for expatriates to live. New York City is home to the highest number of billionaires, individuals of ultra-high net worth (greater than US$30 million), and millionaires of any city in the world

 

The written history of New York City began with the first European explorer, the Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524. European settlement began with the Dutch in 1608 and New Amsterdam was founded in 1624.

 

The "Sons of Liberty" campaigned against British authority in New York City, and the Stamp Act Congress of representatives from throughout the Thirteen Colonies met in the city in 1765 to organize resistance to Crown policies. The city's strategic location and status as a major seaport made it the prime target for British seizure in 1776. General George Washington lost a series of battles from which he narrowly escaped (with the notable exception of the Battle of Harlem Heights, his first victory of the war), and the British Army occupied New York and made it their base on the continent until late 1783, attracting Loyalist refugees.

 

The city served as the national capital under the Articles of Confederation from 1785 to 1789, and briefly served as the new nation's capital in 1789–90 under the United States Constitution. Under the new government, the city hosted the inauguration of George Washington as the first President of the United States, the drafting of the United States Bill of Rights, and the first Supreme Court of the United States. The opening of the Erie Canal gave excellent steamboat connections with upstate New York and the Great Lakes, along with coastal traffic to lower New England, making the city the preeminent port on the Atlantic Ocean. The arrival of rail connections to the north and west in the 1840s and 1850s strengthened its central role.

 

Beginning in the mid-19th century, waves of new immigrants arrived from Europe dramatically changing the composition of the city and serving as workers in the expanding industries. Modern New York traces its development to the consolidation of the five boroughs in 1898 and an economic and building boom following the Great Depression and World War II. Throughout its history, New York has served as a main port of entry for many immigrants, and its cultural and economic influence has made it one of the most important urban areas in the United States and the world. The economy in the 1700s was based on farming, local production, fur trading, and Atlantic jobs like shipbuilding. In the 1700s, New York was sometimes referred to as a breadbasket colony, because one of its major crops was wheat. New York colony also exported other goods included iron ore as a raw material and as manufactured goods such as tools, plows, nails and kitchen items such as kettles, pans and pots.

 

The area that eventually encompassed modern day New York was inhabited by the Lenape people. These groups of culturally and linguistically related Native Americans traditionally spoke an Algonquian language now referred to as Unami. Early European settlers called bands of Lenape by the Unami place name for where they lived, such as "Raritan" in Staten Island and New Jersey, "Canarsee" in Brooklyn, and "Hackensack" in New Jersey across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan. Some modern place names such as Raritan Bay and Canarsie are derived from Lenape names. Eastern Long Island neighbors were culturally and linguistically more closely related to the Mohegan-Pequot peoples of New England who spoke the Mohegan-Montauk-Narragansett language.

 

These peoples made use of the abundant waterways in the New York region for fishing, hunting trips, trade, and occasionally war. Many paths created by the indigenous peoples are now main thoroughfares, such as Broadway in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Westchester. The Lenape developed sophisticated techniques of hunting and managing their resources. By the time of the arrival of Europeans, they were cultivating fields of vegetation through the slash and burn technique, which extended the productive life of planted fields. They also harvested vast quantities of fish and shellfish from the bay. Historians estimate that at the time of European settlement, approximately 5,000 Lenape lived in 80 settlements around the region.

 

The first European visitor to the area was Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian in command of the French ship La Dauphine in 1524. It is believed he sailed into Upper New York Bay, where he encountered native Lenape, returned through the Narrows, where he anchored the night of April 17, and left to continue his voyage. He named the area New Angoulême (La Nouvelle-Angoulême) in honor of Francis I, King of France of the royal house of Valois-Angoulême and who had been Count of Angoulême from 1496 until his coronation in 1515. The name refers to the town of Angoulême, in the Charente département of France. For the next century, the area was occasionally visited by fur traders or explorers, such as by Esteban Gomez in 1525.

 

European exploration continued on September 2, 1609, when the Englishman Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, sailed the Half Moon through the Narrows into Upper New York Bay. Like Christopher Columbus, Hudson was looking for a westerly passage to Asia. He never found one, but he did take note of the abundant beaver population. Beaver pelts were in fashion in Europe, fueling a lucrative business. Hudson's report on the regional beaver population served as the impetus for the founding of Dutch trading colonies in the New World. The beaver's importance in New York's history is reflected by its use on the city's official seal.

 

The first Dutch fur trading posts and settlements were in 1614 near present-day Albany, New York, the same year that New Netherland first appeared on maps. Only in May 1624 did the Dutch West India Company land a number of families at Noten Eylant (today's Governors Island) off the southern tip of Manhattan at the mouth of the North River (today's Hudson River). Soon thereafter, most likely in 1626, construction of Fort Amsterdam began. Later, the Dutch West Indies Company imported African slaves to serve as laborers; they were forced to build the wall that defended the town against English and Indian attacks. Early directors included Willem Verhulst and Peter Minuit. Willem Kieft became director in 1638 but five years later was embroiled in Kieft's War against the Native Americans. The Pavonia Massacre, across the Hudson River in present-day Jersey City, resulted in the death of 80 natives in February 1643. Following the massacre, Algonquian tribes joined forces and nearly defeated the Dutch. Holland sent additional forces to the aid of Kieft, leading to the overwhelming defeat of the Native Americans and a peace treaty on August 29, 1645.

 

On May 27, 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was inaugurated as director general upon his arrival and ruled as a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. The colony was granted self-government in 1652, and New Amsterdam was incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653. The first mayors (burgemeesters) of New Amsterdam, Arent van Hattem and Martin Cregier, were appointed in that year. By the early 1660s, the population consisted of approximately 1500 Europeans, only about half of whom were Dutch, and 375 Africans, 300 of whom were slaves.

 

A few of the original Dutch place names have been retained, most notably Flushing (after the Dutch town of Vlissingen), Harlem (after Haarlem), and Brooklyn (after Breukelen). Few buildings, however, remain from the 17th century. The oldest recorded house still in existence in New York, the Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House in Brooklyn, dates from 1652.

 

On August 27, 1664, four English frigates under the command of Col. Richard Nicolls sailed into New Amsterdam's harbor and demanded New Netherland's surrender, as part of an effort by King Charles II's brother James, Duke of York, the Lord High Admiral to provoke the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Two weeks later, Stuyvesant officially capitulated by signing Articles of Surrender and in June 1665, the town was reincorporated under English law and renamed "New York" after the Duke, and Fort Orange was renamed "Fort Albany". The war ended in a Dutch victory in 1667, but the colony remained under English rule as stipulated in the Treaty of Breda. During the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch briefly recaptured the city in 1673, renaming the city "New Orange", before permanently ceding the colony of New Netherland to England for what is now Suriname in November 1674 at the Treaty of Westminster.

 

The colony benefited from increased immigration from Europe and its population grew faster. The Bolting Act of 1678, whereby no mill outside the city was permitted to grind wheat or corn, boosted growth until its repeal in 1694, increasing the number of houses over the period from 384 to 983.

 

In the context of the Glorious Revolution in England, Jacob Leisler led Leisler's Rebellion and effectively controlled the city and surrounding areas from 1689 to 1691, before being arrested and executed.

 

Lawyers

In New York at first, legal practitioners were full-time businessmen and merchants, with no legal training, who had watched a few court proceedings, and mostly used their own common sense together with snippets they had picked up about English law. Court proceedings were quite informal, for the judges had no more training than the attorneys.

 

By the 1760s, the situation had dramatically changed. Lawyers were essential to the rapidly growing international trade, dealing with questions of partnerships, contracts, and insurance. The sums of money involved were large, and hiring an incompetent lawyer was a very expensive proposition. Lawyers were now professionally trained, and conversant in an extremely complex language that combined highly specific legal terms and motions with a dose of Latin. Court proceedings became a baffling mystery to the ordinary layman. Lawyers became more specialized and built their reputation, and their fee schedule, on the basis of their reputation for success. But as their status, wealth and power rose, animosity grew even faster. By the 1750s and 1760s, there was a widespread attack ridiculing and demeaning the lawyers as pettifoggers (lawyers lacking sound legal skills). Their image and influence declined. The lawyers organized a bar association, but it fell apart in 1768 during the bitter political dispute between the factions based in the Delancey and Livingston families. A large fraction of the prominent lawyers were Loyalists; their clientele was often to royal authority or British merchants and financiers. They were not allowed to practice law unless they took a loyalty oath to the new United States of America. Many went to Britain or Canada (primarily to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) after losing the war.

 

For the next century, various attempts were made, and failed, to build an effective organization of lawyers. Finally a Bar Association emerged in 1869 that proved successful and continues to operate.

 

By 1700, the Lenape population of New York had diminished to 200. The Dutch West Indies Company transported African slaves to the post as trading laborers used to build the fort and stockade, and some gained freedom under the Dutch. After the seizure of the colony in 1664, the slave trade continued to be legal. In 1703, 42% of the New York households had slaves; they served as domestic servants and laborers but also became involved in skilled trades, shipping and other fields. Yet following reform in ethics according to American Enlightenment thought, by the 1770s slaves made up less than 25% of the population.

 

By the 1740s, 20% of the residents of New York were slaves, totaling about 2,500 people.

 

After a series of fires in 1741, the city panicked over rumors of its black population conspiring with some poor whites to burn the city. Historians believe their alarm was mostly fabrication and fear, but officials rounded up 31 black and 4 white people, who over a period of months were convicted of arson. Of these, the city executed 13 black people by burning them alive and hanged the remainder of those incriminated.

 

The Stamp Act and other British measures fomented dissent, particularly among Sons of Liberty who maintained a long-running skirmish with locally stationed British troops over Liberty Poles from 1766 to 1776. The Stamp Act Congress met in New York City in 1765 in the first organized resistance to British authority across the colonies. After the major defeat of the Continental Army in the Battle of Long Island in late 1776, General George Washington withdrew to Manhattan Island, but with the subsequent defeat at the Battle of Fort Washington the island was effectively left to the British. The city became a haven for loyalist refugees, becoming a British stronghold for the entire war. Consequently, the area also became the focal point for Washington's espionage and intelligence-gathering throughout the war.

 

New York was greatly damaged twice by fires of suspicious origin, with the Loyalists and Patriots accusing each other of starting the conflagration. The city became the political and military center of operations for the British in North America for the remainder of the war. Continental Army officer Nathan Hale was hanged in Manhattan for espionage. In addition, the British began to hold the majority of captured American prisoners of war aboard prison ships in Wallabout Bay, across the East River in Brooklyn. More Americans lost their lives aboard these ships than died in all the battles of the war. The British occupation lasted until November 25, 1783. George Washington triumphantly returned to the city that day, as the last British forces left the city.

 

Starting in 1785 the Congress met in the city of New York under the Articles of Confederation. In 1789, New York became the first national capital under the new Constitution. The Constitution also created the current Congress of the United States, and its first sitting was at Federal Hall on Wall Street. The first Supreme Court sat there. The United States Bill of Rights was drafted and ratified there. George Washington was inaugurated at Federal Hall. New York remained the national capital until 1790, when the role was transferred to Philadelphia.

 

During the 19th century, the city was transformed by immigration, a visionary development proposal called the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 which expanded the city street grid to encompass all of Manhattan, and the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, which connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the Midwestern United States and Canada. By 1835, New York had surpassed Philadelphia as the largest city in the United States. New York grew as an economic center, first as a result of Alexander Hamilton's policies and practices as the first Secretary of the Treasury.

 

In 1842, water was piped from a reservoir to supply the city for the first time.

 

The Great Irish Famine (1845–1850) brought a large influx of Irish immigrants, and by 1850 the Irish comprised one quarter of the city's population. Government institutions, including the New York City Police Department and the public schools, were established in the 1840s and 1850s to respond to growing demands of residents. In 1831, New York University was founded by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin as a non-denominal institution surrounding Washington Square Park.

 

This period started with the 1855 inauguration of Fernando Wood as the first mayor from Tammany Hall. It was the political machine based among Irish Americans that controlled the local Democratic Party. It usually dominated local politics throughout this period and into the 1930s. Public-minded members of the merchant community pressed for a Central Park, which was opened to a design competition in 1857; it became the first landscape park in an American city.

 

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), the city was affected by its history of strong commercial ties to the South; before the war, half of its exports were related to cotton, including textiles from upstate mills. Together with its growing immigrant population, which was angry about conscription, sympathies among residents were divided for both the Union and Confederacy at the outbreak of war. Tensions related to the war culminated in the Draft Riots of 1863 led by Irish Catholics, who attacked black neighborhood and abolitionist homes. Many blacks left the city and moved to Brooklyn. After the Civil War, the rate of immigration from Europe grew steeply, and New York became the first stop for millions seeking a new and better life in the United States, a role acknowledged by the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in 1886.

 

From 1890 to 1930, the largest cities, led by New York, were the focus of international attention. The skyscrapers and tourist attractions were widely publicized. Suburbs were emerging as bedroom communities for commuters to the central city. San Francisco dominated the West, Atlanta dominated the South, Boston dominated New England; Chicago dominated the Midwest United States. New York City dominated the entire nation in terms of communications, trade, finance, popular culture, and high culture. More than a fourth of the 300 largest corporations in 1920 were headquartered here.

 

In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then an independent city), Manhattan, and outlying areas. Manhattan and the Bronx were established as two separate boroughs and joined with three other boroughs created from parts of adjacent counties to form the new municipal government originally called "Greater New York". The Borough of Brooklyn incorporated the independent City of Brooklyn, recently joined to Manhattan by the Brooklyn Bridge; the Borough of Queens was created from western Queens County (with the remnant established as Nassau County in 1899); and the Borough of Richmond contained all of Richmond County. Municipal governments contained within the boroughs were abolished, and the county governmental functions were absorbed by the city or each borough. In 1914, the New York State Legislature created Bronx County, making five counties coterminous with the five boroughs.

 

The Bronx had a steady boom period during 1898–1929, with a population growth by a factor of six from 200,000 in 1900 to 1.3 million in 1930. The Great Depression created a surge of unemployment, especially among the working class, and a slow-down of growth.

 

On June 15, 1904, over 1,000 people, mostly German immigrant women and children, were killed when the excursion steamship General Slocum caught fire and sank. It is the city's worst maritime disaster. On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Greenwich Village took the lives of 146 garment workers. In response, the city made great advancements in the fire department, building codes, and workplace regulations.

 

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication, marking its rising influence with such events as the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909. Interborough Rapid Transit (the first New York City Subway company) began operating in 1904, and the railroads operating out of Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station thrived.

 

From 1918 to 1920, New York City was affected by the largest rent strike wave in its history. Somewhere between several 10,000's and 100,000's of tenants struck across the city. A WW1 housing and coal shortage sparked the strikes. It became marked both by occasional violent scuffles and the Red Scare.  It would lead to the passage of the first rent laws in the nations history.

 

The city was a destination for internal migrants as well as immigrants. Through 1940, New York was a major destination for African Americans during the Great Migration from the rural American South. The Harlem Renaissance flourished during the 1920s and the era of Prohibition. New York's ever accelerating changes and rising crime and poverty rates were reduced after World War I disrupted trade routes, the Immigration Restriction Acts limited additional immigration after the war, and the Great Depression reduced the need for new labor. The combination ended the rule of the Gilded Age barons. As the city's demographics temporarily stabilized, labor unionization helped the working class gain new protections and middle-class affluence, the city's government and infrastructure underwent a dramatic overhaul under Fiorello La Guardia, and his controversial parks commissioner, Robert Moses, ended the blight of many tenement areas, expanded new parks, remade streets, and restricted and reorganized zoning controls.

 

For a while, New York ranked as the most populous city in the world, overtaking London in 1925, which had reigned for a century.[58] During the difficult years of the Great Depression, the reformer Fiorello La Guardia was elected as mayor, and Tammany Hall fell after eighty years of political dominance.

 

Despite the effects of the Great Depression, some of the world's tallest skyscrapers were built during the 1930s. Art Deco architecture—such as the iconic Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, and 30 Rockefeller Plaza— came to define the city's skyline. The construction of the Rockefeller Center occurred in the 1930s and was the largest-ever private development project at the time. Both before and especially after World War II, vast areas of the city were also reshaped by the construction of bridges, parks and parkways coordinated by Robert Moses, the greatest proponent of automobile-centered modernist urbanism in America.

 

Returning World War II veterans and immigrants from Europe created a postwar economic boom. Demands for new housing were aided by the G.I. Bill for veterans, stimulating the development of huge suburban tracts in eastern Queens and Nassau County. The city was extensively photographed during the post–war years by photographer Todd Webb.

 

New York emerged from the war as the leading city of the world, with Wall Street leading the United States ascendancy. In 1951, the United Nations relocated from its first headquarters in Flushing Meadows Park, Queens, to the East Side of Manhattan. During the late 1960s, the views of real estate developer and city leader Robert Moses began to fall out of favor as the anti-urban renewal views of Jane Jacobs gained popularity. Citizen rebellion stopped a plan to construct an expressway through Lower Manhattan.

 

After a short war boom, the Bronx declined from 1950 to 1985, going from predominantly moderate-income to mostly lower-income, with high rates of violent crime and poverty. The Bronx has experienced an economic and developmental resurgence starting in the late 1980s that continues into today.

 

The transition away from the industrial base toward a service economy picked up speed, while the jobs in the large shipbuilding and garment industries declined sharply. The ports converted to container ships, costing many traditional jobs among longshoremen. Many large corporations moved their headquarters to the suburbs or to distant cities. At the same time, there was enormous growth in services, especially finance, education, medicine, tourism, communications and law. New York remained the largest city and largest metropolitan area in the United States, and continued as its largest financial, commercial, information, and cultural center.

 

Like many major U.S. cities, New York suffered race riots, gang wars and some population decline in the late 1960s. Street activists and minority groups such as the Black Panthers and Young Lords organized rent strikes and garbage offensives, demanding improved city services for poor areas. They also set up free health clinics and other programs, as a guide for organizing and gaining "Power to the People." By the 1970s the city had gained a reputation as a crime-ridden relic of history. In 1975, the city government avoided bankruptcy only through a federal loan and debt restructuring by the Municipal Assistance Corporation, headed by Felix Rohatyn. The city was also forced to accept increased financial scrutiny by an agency of New York State. In 1977, the city was struck by the New York City blackout of 1977 and serial slayings by the Son of Sam.

 

The 1980s began a rebirth of Wall Street, and the city reclaimed its role at the center of the worldwide financial industry. Unemployment and crime remained high, the latter reaching peak levels in some categories around the close of the decade and the beginning of the 1990s. Neighborhood restoration projects funded by the city and state had very good effects for New York, especially Bedford-Stuyvesant, Harlem, and The Bronx. The city later resumed its social and economic recovery, bolstered by the influx of Asians, Latin Americans, and U.S. citizens, and by new crime-fighting techniques on the part of the New York Police Department. In 1989, New York City elected its first African American Mayor, David Dinkins. He came out of the Harlem Clubhouse.

 

In the late 1990s, the city benefited from the nationwide fall of violent crime rates, the resurgence of the finance industry, and the growth of the "Silicon Alley", during the dot com boom, one of the factors in a decade of booming real estate values. New York was also able to attract more business and convert abandoned industrialized neighborhoods into arts or attractive residential neighborhoods; examples include the Meatpacking District and Chelsea (in Manhattan) and Williamsburg (in Brooklyn).

 

New York's population reached an all-time high in the 2000 census; according to census estimates since 2000, the city has continued to grow, including rapid growth in the most urbanized borough, Manhattan. During this period, New York City was a site of the September 11 attacks of 2001; 2,606 people who were in the towers and in the surrounding area were killed by a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, an event considered highly traumatic for the city but which did not stop the city's rapid regrowth. On November 3, 2014, One World Trade Center opened on the site of the attack. Hurricane Sandy brought a destructive storm surge to New York in the evening of October 29, 2012, flooding numerous streets, tunnels, and subway lines in Lower Manhattan. It flooded low-lying areas of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Electrical power was lost in many parts of the city and its suburbs.

Image from the second spacewalk to service the AMS-02 facility. Luca captioned this image: AMS2: smiling after completing a challenging task, as I continue on to the next worksite.

 

ID: 403G6573

 

Credit: ESA/NASA-D.Morgan

WEEK 33 – Tuesday Morning Relocation

 

My next stop behind the store came after skipping the full month of June, in which they evidently completed the entire expansion as a result :P l_dawg2000 has an ongoing album documenting this relocation as well, so maybe he'll have some better views of the work in progress. From me, though, we're just gonna have to settle for this. The yellow railing to the left of the store is the aforementioned Petco dock that prevented Tuesday Morning from expanding any further outward. The right pic, from this past Sunday, shows the back has been awarded new paint, doors, gutters, and electrical boxes.

 

(c) 2016 Retail Retell

These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)

www.flickr.com/photos/andysancestors/5034381037/

 

www.flickr.com/photos/andysancestors/5027366428/

 

www.flickr.com/photos/21728045@N08/6138270767/in/set-7215...

 

www.flickr.com/photos/21728045@N08/26410366546/

 

The significance of the end product in art

March 22, 2010 at 10:58pm

Before we see this, ‘the significance of the end product in the arts’, we need to first look at some teachings from the past to get some sort of a big picture, so we can get to see the place of the artist and his work in the universe.

 

There seems to be an obstacle to satisfaction in the process of making art. The difference between the mystic and the artist is that the mystic is quite happy to be standing still. For him, ‘stillness speaks’, but for the artist he has to keep feeling his way through his art until he realizes it is not going to come to an end. The process drives the artist through all the crevices and you come up with mainly dead ends. The manifestation of this process is the art work. The end product is only part of the process. The art work throws light on that journey. It shows the viewer, through its excavations, its mistakes, through the coming together of form, through the history of the works, something of the ‘Intelligence in nature.’

 

‘….Earth in its entirety is indeed a living, breathing organism with an intelligently (albeit instinctively) coordinated sense of its own existence and purpose.’ (J.S Gordon, ‘The rise and Fall of Atlantis.’)

 

The process of making art is but a mini replication of the greater. There is something of the way a work of art falls into place when it is completed that is similar to the way the universe has fallen into place amid the chaos into order. Only an artist struggling with form to make art can truly feel this when it happens. You know it by doing. And it is repeated with each work. He/she starts to feel a coming together and senses that ‘intelligence in nature’ at work. After a while you take the invisible forces at work for granted and make it part of the process. It becomes a way you finish off a work of art. You know it will naturally bring itself to completion. And you will instinctively know when it is not there yet.

 

Art is a valuable database for the natural Truths and the structure behind the intelligence. It comes through the personality of the artist and through the flavour of his own form in his mind.

 

Today, even the scientists are confused about what they know of the structure of the universe. So let us look at some ancient literature as to what they say about the invisible forces of the universe. This is relevant to the artist as he is working up against this in his process of the work that he is trying to manifest. The idea of his work comes of the form that is in his mind and his mind, whether he likes it or not, is connected to the structure of the intelligent universe, both visible and invisible.

 

‘In 1988, Professor James Lovelock, a fellow of Britain’s prestigious Royal Society, put forward the then apparently revolutionary idea that every part of the Earth, including its rocks, oceans and atmosphere, as well as all organic entities, was a part of one great living and intelligent organism.’ (‘The Rise and Fall of Atlantis.’)

 

If you open up the Sikh holy book, these are the first few lines you will read.

 

The one God

Whose name is Truth.

The Creator.

Who is present in all Creation

Who fears none.

Who hates none.

An immortal being beyond time.

Unborn

Self existent

attainable only through divine grace.

 

Meditate.

True in the Beginning.

True throughout the Ages.

 

True even Now.

says Nanak (Sikh Guru),Truth will always be here.

 

The truth comes from everywhere, so at times it is OK to just look over the edge of contemporary thinking, over the pages of cool contemporary magazines and art books, to see where the process is coming from. You must remember cool is yesterday and today, time rolls back to the days of Kandinsky at the turn of the last century. It was a time of the NEW in art with the advent of abstraction. Like Kandinsky did in his time: he looked at the Kalevala: Finish mythology, and he was fascinated by the life of the Shaman: a person who has been to the brink of death and then back again, now all knowing. He carried the book ‘Thought Forms’ from the Theosophical society with him at times. Then came, ‘Concerning the Spiritual in Art’, by Kandinsky. In today’s contemporary art schools: spirituality is not a valid reason for subject matter for the work. But as science and mysticism comes together we start to very rapidly see what our limitations are and what the work is all about and that the final product of the creative process is only part of a bigger happening. The Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, reminds us in the very first few lines, just how vast the process of the creative wave really is. It gives you an idea of an underlying intelligence that permeates all and will always be true.

 

The spark in ones own mind can come from many different places. This is also a component of how the Whole perhaps works. I was at a talk by J.S Gordon on his new book, ‘The Rise and Fall of Atlantis’, but more on some of the reasons for climate change by looking at the history of the formation of the universe, from chaos to order, and an underlying order that is cyclical, yet very precise. This explained the cataclysm that ended Atlantis. And it is here again today. It was by looking at this structure of the universe and its possibilities that the point was made, that perhaps within our galaxy, we live within a sphere of consciousness that is contained, because of the forces that hold the different parts of the universe together (see diagram below).

  

These forces interact, but can remain distinct. And this can also be reflected by our own group spheres we live by and hence the limitation. We cannot perceive outside this bubble. More importantly we have to create this circle of limitation for us to generate an idea, to think coherently. This is where the flavour in our work comes from. The personality that is created in this sphere comes through in the work. It was the fact that the conscious whole had to be capped for the mind to create, to work, was what fascinated me. Remember that the artist works within the limits created by his own mind and also within the limits of his medium: the painter limited by a flat two dimensional space and its edges. He first looks from outside the canvas, from the vast universe and all it holds, both the tangible and the intangible and then filters it down into the image that he creates. It implodes through the artist into his work. The vast forces of the universe was also organized in this way. From big to small. As above so is below. Our minds are limited to function. ‘That is why with each work of art, the process always leaves the artist with a taste of dissatisfaction in his mind.’ I am trying to recall what was said. That is perhaps why the looking never ends. But then if you see it as it is, then you have it. The transformation comes from accepting this fact: that we operate within limits and we will never see all. The process will allow you to see this.

 

‘Man was seen as being unable to make his escape from one cycle of existence (or state of being) to another – except subjectively and at the critical points of transition between one celestial cycle (or state of being) and another…..’ and also ‘ It was for this reason also that each new cycle was seen as producing its own ‘zeitgeist’……..We use the expression ‘zeitgeist’ to mean the influential ‘Spirit of the Age’, from its literal meaning in German, although the modern interpretation of that expression gives it the flavour of no more than some sort of unspoken communal human perception of, or instinctive urge towards, cultural change.’ (J.S Gordon, ‘The rise and Fall of Atlantis’)

 

And also there is ‘zeitgeist’ and there is ‘zeitgeist’. To the ancients, the ‘Spirit of the Age’ was an ‘avatar’. With us, what you see now is of the last 100 years. The ‘zeitgeist’ is what you are living in today: the flavour of the century. And I think today, it is now in transition again, with the recent banking failures, the population sees how vulnerable the man-made system is, and its group consciousness will see it make a change. Add to this a couple of volcanic eruptions because of the ‘compressional and expanding forces’ of the universe, an earthquake here then there and you are looking at change. People get bumped around in this process and they start to ask questions or rather they start to think. We don’t see it until we live through the process of the system, dismantling the system. It is not very dissimilar to what the artist feels as he follows the process of making art. But we, the group, consciously will do it ourselves. We are in the process of making something new for us to live in, because we see the Truth in the limitations of the past. ‘As they did historically in ancient Rome, Greece, communist Russia…..’ Nature allows us to make and break systems. Well the artist, he sits coolly among all this and also functions just like it, in his own bubble: and he wonders why he is not seeing it yet. As the greater process functions, so does the artist as he lives creatively making art. Though the artist deals with the material object, the devotion to his craft has attuned him to non-material concerns. He is a function of the greater process: a micro entity of the ‘intelligence’: contained in a sphere with his own limitations and trying to decipher the big picture with his art.

 

‘The ancients saw the universe as a concentrically organized sequence of fields of consciousness, this being to them a universal principle.’ (‘The rise and Fall of Atlantis’ J.S Gordon.) As you can see from the diagram earlier we sit smugly in the center, in our little worlds, with our limitations and think we are the biggest thing since sliced bread. You know what I mean. Now if this is the big picture and we are really enclosed in the sphere of limitations not being able to see the landscape of the structure we live in: then we have to accept this. Progress comes from accepting this. We see that everything we make is an illusion, every idea is not real, but it may be an indicator of the manifestation of the invisibility and vastness of the space we live in, then perhaps we can unfold and progress. It is to bring on a settlement so a new space can become.

 

History of the universe has been a cycle of chaos and order. The making of us and the destroying of us: order and chaos. Atlantis was an example of this. In this cataclysm the new is created. As in art, it is only the look for the NEW is relevant. It is a personal opinion. It is the driving force for the unfolding of the race and evolution. ‘…..The ancients saw consciousness unfolding and then evolving……’ (‘The rise and Fall of Atlantis’). To bring this to a close quickly it is sufficient to say, from looking at J.S Gordon’s work on Atlantis, that these cyclical nature of the universe would bring on a series of states or ‘planes’ of consciousness within our local solar universe, that little circle in the center of the diagram. We evolve through 7 planes of consciousness (The current race is 5 and on the 5th plane). The flavour of this evolving nature of the races is one of involution becoming more egocentric, with increasing amounts of mass desire and by the 3rd race more grounded increasingly in physical matter. By the 4th race the concept of Mind, desire and physical form is fully integrated. ‘From the middle point of this race (4th) the process of evolution commences, the desire principle now becoming increasingly personalized and dominant in each individual and each local group. Correspondingly, in the present Fifth Race, it is the mind principle which is becoming increasingly individualized and dominant in the integrated personality and the local group.’ The seventh race returns to the first race and both races are spiritual in nature and the cycle repeats itself. As it did in Atlantis, the catastrophe will bring an end to one form for it to evolve to another. Another diagram from the book on the different races, ‘The Rise and Fall of Atlantis’ by J.S Gordon ISBN: 978-1-905857-43-2)

  

We are now in the 5th race, though still tied up to the object, desire, materialistic in the way we live but we are in transition. In the 5th race (us) the mind principle becomes prominent in the individual. We have just been through a process where the illusion of the structure we made for ourselves to live in started to show its weak areas. We could at one time almost see the possibility of the illusion crumbling. It had changed the lives of some, where all of what they thought was secure they lost: their homes, money etc. The mind gets stuck on things like this. When a lot of minds get stuck on such matters we get change. The structure of the ether changes. You witness the ‘rise and fall’. There is an awakening of the ‘Intelligence’ in the mind. I like to finish with a quote by Jiddu Krishnamurti on how the intelligence is woken by the discovery of a fact behind the illusion.

 

‘You see, intelligence is not personal, is not the outcome of argument, belief, opinion or reason. Intelligence comes into being when the brain discovers its fallibility, when it discovers what it is capable of, and what not.’ I think what K is trying to say here is exactly what is going on now in all our minds. Does this structure we live in now: is it real. We saw glimpses that it may not be real, only an illusion. When you see a fact, and its relationship to a fallacy, there is something in you that alters. A new presence makes itself felt in you because of that experience. The presence is a kind of ‘intelligence’ that can now operate through you. ‘And only when that intelligence, is functioning can the new dimension operate through it.’ The new you, as a result of seeing a universal Truth, now continues the evolutionary process towards the 6th race. So, as for the artist, in a different way, when he gifts you with the NEW in his work, he changes you forever and invokes that ‘intelligence’ to function in the NEW you.

 

Hamilton revisited – The dual nature of John Sloan Gordon

BY ADMIN ⋅ JUNE 1, 2007 ⋅ PRINT THIS POST ⋅ POST A COMMENT

By Gary L. Roy

 

“I wonder if the people of Hamilton appreciate the man in their midst…. A man whose advice and criticism went deeper than just correcting a line or subduing a tone or colour for his students…” – Arthur W. Crisp NA

 

“He would burst into the classroom without knocking and ridicule her or scold her about some trifle. Poor Mrs. Gordon maintained a tense little smile and made no protest… But the pulse in her throat throbbed more noticeably.” – Doris McCarthy RCA OSA

 

One man. Two masks. A life of contradiction: John Sloan Gordon.

 

When Gordon died on October 12, 1940, so closed a significant chapter of Hamilton’s vibrant art history. Canada’s first pointillist. Disciple of the instructional methods of the French academies. Champion of bohemian intellectualism. Lauded as they were during his lifetime, Gordon’s accomplishments in painting and in art education, once eulogized, would pass quickly into yet another institutional vertical file. However, his life is much more than a historical moment. It is a monument; a testament to the creative history of Hamilton and one of the pioneers who helped develop it.

 

Next month will mark the anniversary of Gordon’s death. To honour his life, we revisit the man, the art and the accomplishments that would later establish his enduring role within Hamilton’s history.

 

Sloan was born July 8, 1868 to Thomas and Janet Gordon of Brantford, Ontario. A year after his birth they moved to Hamilton, where Gordon grew up and went to school. He worked at the art department of the Howell Lithographing Company and later left Howell’s to open his own studio, devoting his energy to freelance illustration and advertisements. He began his fine art career at this time, taking courses at night from local artist S. John Ireland, and winning gold and silver medals from exhibitions held at the Hamilton Art School. His early success inspired him, and in 1895 he enrolled in art studies offered by the Julian Academy in Paris.

 

At the academy, he took drawing and painting instruction, and learned to model in clay. He also studied for a short period at the Academie des Beaux Arts and returned to Canada in 1897.

 

Sloan was much more than a talented, internationally trained artist and teacher. He was a gifted, yet unpredictable, creative force, who led a distinguished commercial art career; was elected a member of the Ontario Society of Artists in 1898; had an oil purchased by the National Gallery in 1909; and became an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1923. He also helped establish the Hamilton Art School. In 1909, he was made principal of the school, a post he held until he retired.

 

It was at the school where Gordon developed his most enduring and controversial contribution to the artistic history of Hamilton. His public lectures combined art history, biography, composition theory, and discussions of colour and light. He illustrated his points with prints from his own extensive collection, as well as spontaneous drawings in chalk on the blackboard. He enriched his talks with personal experiences and notes from his travels, as well as references to the literature, sculpture, architecture and music of the period being discussed. For Gordon, the education system should not just give art instruction and develop students’ abilities, but should also provide them with opportunities to give back to their country.

 

Gordon mentored a number of students who went on to become major artists of their day, including New York muralist Arthur Crisp NA; Saturday Evening Post stalwart and Society of Illustrators president, Arthur William Brown; and impressionist Albert Henry Robinson.

 

Besides his lectures, Gordon was an outspoken critic of the changes taking place in the art world during the early part of the 20th century. He said Futurist art was art that could not be taken seriously, as it was made by men “who wanted to be conspicuous, and could only be that, by being eccentric.” His acerbic outlook on the avant garde was soon to be tested from an unlikely source: his bride.

 

In 1920, Gordon married Hortense Mattice, a painter of china and pleine air landscapes, who taught at the Hamilton Art School. They took every opportunity to bring their educational methods and their students’ work to the attention of European educators. The work was new and distinctive, and attracted a lot of positive attention from the Europeans. They queried the Gordons, “How are Hamilton students able to do things our students do not seem to accomplish?” The response came quickly from Hortense and John: “Our students are not encouraged to copy, but to think for themselves, and environment does the rest.”

 

While the Gordons appeared to share common ground with respect to the academic welfare of their students, they differed significantly in their appreciation of what constituted significant achievement in art. The difference would lead to explosive, public clashes that would come to signify Gordon’s contradictory nature.

 

Hortense incorporated discussions of avant garde art theories into her classes, while John was blunt and dismissive about modern art. Inevitably, clashes occurred and they came to be known within Hamilton’s artistic community as “the turbulent Gordons”. What may have begun as ideological ‘fencing’, quickly descended to embarrassing gossipy incidents, exacerbated by John’s increasing dependence on alcohol. How he missed a Christmas dinner because of the ‘scotch flu’. How his sudden and stormy departures were inevitably accompanied by the musical tinkling of bottles in a suitcase. How he stormed into his wife’s classroom and belittled her mercilessly.

 

Gordon’s tumultuous relationship highlights his creative contradiction – as a man who lived staunchly dedicated to the artistic traditions of the past, while nurturing a generation of future artists. It is this lasting, yet complex impression – one of inspiration and intrigue – that resonates today.

 

The last word fittingly to Arthur Crisp: “Hamiltonians ought to be happy and proud that they had a man of his attainments…. I am sure that my career would have been less than it is had I not had the guide, philosopher and friend that J.S. was to all of us.”

John Sloan Gordon’s works appear occasionally at catalogued auctions and other secondary market venues. Expect to pay $150-$250 for drawings, $500-$750 for watercolours 10” x 12”, and $900- $1,200 for comparably sized oils.

 

With artist files from the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Special Collections of the Hamilton Public Library, from “Climbing the Cold White Peaks” by Stuart MacCuaig, and “Hortense M. Gordon, A Dedicated Life”, Chatham Cultural Centre publication.

 

Alfred Joseph Casson, born in Toronto, began to study art with J.S. Gordon at Hamilton Technical School and was apprenticed to a lithographer. Returned to Toronto in 1916 and studied with Harry Britton at the Ontario College of Art; also at the Central Technical School. Met Franklin Carmichael in 1919 and worked with him at Sampson & Mathews, as a commercial artist. Became a member of the Group of Seven in 1926 and a founding member of the Canadian Group of Painters, 1933. A.R.C.A. in 1926, R.C.A. in 1939, P.R.C.A. 1948 - 52.

 

John Sloan Gordon, Artist and Educator

 

Principal, Hamilton Art School 1909-1932

 

John Sloan Gordon began teaching art in 1897 shortly after returning to Hamilton from Paris where he had been studying at the Academie Julian. He took part in organizing the Art League of Hamilton which eventually became part of the Hamilton Art School. In 1909 he became Principal of the Hamilton Art School and in 1923 was named Director of the School of Fine and Applied Arts after the amalgamation of the art school with the technical school. "Though Gordon's own art career was partially eclipsed by his pioneering work in Canadian art education and his dedication to teaching, it was a career of distinction nonetheless. When he returned from Paris in 1896 he became a 'leading representative in this country of the Impressionist school of painting'. Today he is remembered as the first Canadian exponent of Pointillism... In 1909, the National Gallery in Ottawa bought his Old Mill, Brantford, a work in oil considered to be typical of his style."

   

Stuart MacCuaig

 

Climbing the Cold White Peaks:

 

A survey of artists in and from Hamilton 1910-1950

 

www.hpl.ca/articles/john-sloan-gordon-1886-1940

 

Instructions

1

Place the canvas face-up on a dust-free table. Pile small strips of hard linoleum under the cracked areas of the canvas to create a support to protect the painting from further damage during repair.

 

2

Heat 1/4-cup damar resin over a low flame until it dissolves. Stir 1/4-cup beeswax slowly into the dissolved resin. Continue to stir over heat until blended, then turn flame off. Fill the eyedropper with English turpentine. Add three drops to the mixture. Stir to blend, then cool to 170 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

3

Load a small paintbrush with the 170-degree mixture. Apply liberally to the cracked areas of the painting. Poke the tip of the paintbrush gently underneath and between the cracks to saturate the front and back sides of the paint with the glue.

 

4

Heat the metal palette knife in a cup of hot water, then dry on a clean cotton rag. Press the flat side of the palette knife gently on to the saturated paint. The heat and pressure glue the saturated paint to the backing. Allow to dry and cool.

 

5

Mix 1 cup of white flour and 1 cup of cold water to create a paste. Apply a thin layer of the paste over the glued areas of cracked paint. Cover the pasted area with Japanese tissue paper torn to fit. Allow to dry. Apply a second layer of paste over the tissue paper, and cover with gauze. Allow to dry. Cover the gauze with paste, then attach a piece of heavyweight archival paper over the gauze. Allow to dry, cover with paste, then attach one more layer of heavyweight paper.

 

6

Lay the canvas face-down on a table covered with cloth. Heat the damar-beeswax-turpentine mixture to 170 degrees. Paint the glue on the back of the canvas behind the cracked areas of paint clearly visible as slightly darker than the rest of the canvas. Warm a dry iron to medium heat. Lay wax paper over the back of the canvas, and iron the glued areas to further flatten and attach the cracked paint to the surface. Turn off the iron. Peel off the wax paper. Allow to cool and dry.

 

7

Turn the canvas face-up on the table. Add supports underneath as described in Step 1. Spray the top layer of heavyweight paper with distilled water to dissolve the wheat-paste glue. Peel off the paper. Spray, then remove the second layer of heavy paper and the gauze. Spray the Japanese tissue paper with water, then wash off the paper and paste gently using the sponge.

  

Read more : www.ehow.com/how_8400121_repair-painting-cracked-paint-yo...

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

blogged:

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

 

completion

a frame from a video

The Cathedral of Vasily the Blessed (Russian: Собо́р Васи́лия Блаже́нного, tr. Sobór Vasíliya Blazhénnogo), commonly known as Saint Basil's Cathedral, is an Orthodox church in Red Square of Moscow, and is one of the most popular cultural symbols of Russia. The building, now a museum, is officially known as the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat, or Pokrovsky Cathedral. It was built from 1555 to 1561 on orders from Ivan the Terrible and commemorates the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan. Its completion, with its colors, was made in 1683. It was the city's tallest building until the completion of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower in 1600.

 

The original building, known as Trinity Church and later Trinity Cathedral, contained eight chapels arranged around a ninth, central chapel dedicated to the Intercession; a tenth chapel was erected in 1588 over the grave of the venerated local saint Vasily (Basil). In the 16th and 17th centuries, because it was perceived as the earthly symbol of the Heavenly City, like all churches in Byzantine Christianity, the church was popularly known as the "Jerusalem" and served as an allegory of the Jerusalem Temple in the annual Palm Sunday parade attended by the Patriarch of Moscow and the Tsar.

 

The cathedral has nine domes (each one corresponding to a different church) and is shaped like the flame of a bonfire rising into the sky. Dmitry Shvidkovsky, in his book Russian Architecture and the West, states that "it is like no other Russian building. Nothing similar can be found in the entire millennium of Byzantine tradition from the fifth to the fifteenth century ... a strangeness that astonishes by its unexpectedness, complexity and dazzling interleaving of the manifold details of its design." The cathedral foreshadowed the climax of Russian national architecture in the 17th century.

 

As part of the program of state atheism, the church was confiscated from the Russian Orthodox community as part of the Soviet Union's antireligious campaigns and has operated as a division of the State Historical Museum since 1928. It was completely secularized in 1929, and remains a federal property of the Russian Federation. The church has been part of the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, weekly Orthodox Christian services with prayer to St. Basil have been restored since 1997.

 

Construction under Ivan IV

The site of the church had been, historically, a busy marketplace between the St. Frol's (later Saviour's) Gate of the Moscow Kremlin and the outlying posad. The centre of the marketplace was marked by the Trinity Church, built of the same white stone as the Kremlin of Dmitry Donskoy (1366–68) and its cathedrals. Tsar Ivan IV marked every victory of the Russo-Kazan War by erecting a wooden memorial church next to the walls of Trinity Church; by the end of his Astrakhan campaign, it was shrouded within a cluster of seven wooden churches. According to the report in Nikon's Chronicle, in the autumn of 1554 Ivan ordered the construction of the wooden Church of Intercession on the same site, "on the moat". One year later, Ivan ordered the construction of a new stone cathedral on the site of Trinity Church to commemorate his campaigns. Dedication of a church to a military victory was "a major innovation" for Muscovy. The placement of the church outside the Kremlin walls was a political statement in favour of posad commoners and against hereditary boyars.

 

Contemporary commentators clearly identified the new building as Trinity Church, after its easternmost sanctuary; the status of "katholikon" (собор, sobor, large assembly church) had not been bestowed on it yet:

 

On the Trinity on the Moat in Moscow.

In the same year, through the will of czar and lord and grand prince Ivan began making the pledged church, as he promised for the capture of Kazan: Trinity and Intercession and seven sanctuaries, also called "on the moat". And the builder was Barma with company.

 

— Piskaryov Chronicle, 1560 (7068 per Byzantine calendar)

The identity of the architect is unknown. Tradition held that the church was built by two architects, Barma and Postnik, the official Russian cultural heritage register lists "Barma and Postnik Yakovlev". Researchers proposed that both names refer to the same person, Postnik Yakovlev or, alternatively, Ivan Yakovlevich Barma (Varfolomey). Legend held that Ivan blinded the architect so that he could not re-create the masterpiece elsewhere. Many historians are convinced that it is a myth, as the architect later participated in the construction of the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Moscow as well as in building the walls and towers of the Kazan Kremlin. Postnik Yakovlev remained active at least throughout the 1560s. This myth likely originated with Jerome Horsey's account of Ivan III of Moscow having blinded the architect of the fortress of Ivangorod.

 

There is evidence that construction involved stonemasons from Pskov and German lands.

 

Architectural style

Because the church has no analog—in the preceding, contemporary, or later architecture of Muscovy and Byzantine cultural tradition, in general,—the sources that inspired Barma and Postnik are disputed. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc rejected European roots for the cathedral, opining that its corbel arches were Byzantine and ultimately Asian. A modern "Asian" hypothesis considers the cathedral a recreation of Qolşärif Mosque, which was destroyed by Russian troops after the Siege of Kazan.

 

Nineteenth-century Russian writers, starting with Ivan Zabelin,[5] emphasized the influence of the vernacular wooden churches of the Russian North; their motifs made their ways into masonry, particularly the votive churches that did not need to house substantial congregations. David Watkin also wrote of a blend of Russian and Byzantine roots, calling the cathedral "the climax" of Russian vernacular wooden architecture.

 

The church combines the staggered layered design of the earliest (1505–1508) part of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, the central tent of the Church of Ascension in Kolomenskoye (1530s), and the cylindric shape of the Church of Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo (1547); but the origin of these unique buildings is equally debated. The Church in Kolomenskoye, according to Sergei Podyapolsky, was built by Italian Petrok Maly, although mainstream history has not yet accepted his opinion. Andrey Batalov revised the year of completion of Dyakovo church from 1547 to the 1560s–70s, and noted that Trinity Church could have had no tangible predecessors at all.

 

Dmitry Shvidkovsky suggested that the "improbable" shapes of the Intercession Church and the Church of Ascension in Kolomenskoye manifested an emerging national renaissance, blending earlier Muscovite elements with the influence of Italian Renaissance. A large group of Italian architects and craftsmen continuously worked in Moscow in 1474–1539, as well as Greek refugees who arrived in the city after the fall of Constantinople. These two groups, according to Shvidkovsky, helped Moscow rulers in forging the doctrine of Third Rome, which in turn promoted assimilation of contemporary Greek and Italian culture. Shvidkovsky noted the resemblance of the cathedral's floorplan to Italian concepts by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and Donato Bramante, but most likely Filarete's Trattato di architettura. Other Russian researchers noted a resemblance to sketches by Leonardo da Vinci, although he could not have been known in Ivan's Moscow. Nikolay Brunov recognized the influence of these prototypes but not their significance; he suggested that mid-16th century Moscow already had local architects trained in Italian tradition, architectural drawing and perspective, and that this culture was lost during the Time of Troubles.

 

Andrey Batalov wrote that judging by the number of novel elements introduced with Trinity Church, it was most likely built by German craftsmen. Batalov and Shvidkovsky noted that during Ivan's reign, Germans and Englishmen replaced Italians, although German influence peaked later during the reign of Mikhail Romanov. German influence is indirectly supported by the rusticated pilasters of the central church, a feature more common in contemporary Northern Europe than in Italy.

 

The 1983 academic edition of Monuments of Architecture in Moscow takes the middle ground: the church is, most likely, a product of the complex interaction of distinct Russian traditions of wooden and stone architecture, with some elements borrowed from the works of Italians in Moscow. Specifically, the style of brickwork in the vaults is Italian.

 

Layout

Instead of following the original ad hoc layout (seven churches around the central core), Ivan's architects opted for a more symmetrical floor plan with eight side churches around the core, producing "a thoroughly coherent, logical plan" despite the erroneous latter "notion of a structure devoid of restraint or reason" influenced by the memory of Ivan's irrational atrocities. The central core and the four larger churches placed on the four major compass points are octagonal; the four diagonally placed smaller churches are cuboid, although their shape is hardly visible through later additions. The larger churches stand on massive foundations, while the smaller ones were each placed on a raised platform as if hovering above ground.

 

Although the side churches are arranged in perfect symmetry, the cathedral as a whole is not. The larger central church was deliberately offset to the west from the geometric centre of the side churches, to accommodate its larger apse on the eastern side. As a result of this subtle calculated asymmetry, viewing from the north and the south presents a complex multi-axial shape, while the western façade, facing the Kremlin, appears properly symmetrical and monolithic. The latter perception is reinforced by the fortress-style machicolation and corbeled cornice of the western Church of Entry into Jerusalem, mirroring the real fortifications of the Kremlin.

 

Inside the composite church is a labyrinth of narrow vaulted corridors and vertical cylinders of the churches. Today the cathedral consists of nine individual chapels. The largest, central one, the Church of the Intercession, is 46 metres (151 ft) tall internally but has a floor area of only 64 square metres (690 sq ft). Nevertheless, it is wider and airier than the church in Kolomenskoye with its exceptionally thick walls. The corridors functioned as internal parvises; the western corridor, adorned with a unique flat caissoned ceiling, doubled as the narthex.

 

The detached belfry of the original Trinity Church stood southwest or south of the main structure. Late 16th- and early 17th-century plans depict a simple structure with three roof tents, most likely covered with sheet metal. No buildings of this type survive to date, although it was then common and used in all of the pass-through towers of Skorodom. August von Meyenberg's panorama (1661) presents a different building, with a cluster of small onion domes.

 

Structure

The foundations, as was traditional in medieval Moscow, were built of white stone, while the churches themselves were built of red brick (28 by 14 by 8 cm (11.0 by 5.5 by 3.1 in)), then a relatively new material (the first attested brick building in Moscow, the new Kremlin Wall, was started in 1485). Surveys of the structure show that the basement level is perfectly aligned, indicating use of professional drawing and measurement, but each subsequent level becomes less and less regular. Restorers who replaced parts of the brickwork in 1954–1955 discovered that the massive brick walls conceal an internal wooden frame running the entire height of the church. This frame, made of elaborately tied thin studs, was erected as a life-size spatial model of the future cathedral and was then gradually enclosed in solid masonry.

 

The builders, fascinated by the flexibility of the new technology, used red bricks as a decorative medium both inside and out, leaving as much brickwork open as possible; when location required the use of stone walls, it was decorated with a brickwork pattern painted over stucco. A major novelty introduced by the church was the use of strictly "architectural" means of exterior decoration. Sculpture and sacred symbols employed by earlier Russian architecture are completely missing; floral ornaments are a later addition. Instead, the church boasts a diversity of three-dimensional architectural elements executed in brick.

 

Colour

The church acquired its present-day vivid colours in several stages from the 1680s to 1848. Russian attitude towards colour in the 17th century changed in favour of bright colours; iconographic and mural art experienced an explosive growth in the number of available paints, dyes and their combinations. The original colour scheme, missing these innovations, was far less challenging. It followed the depiction of the Heavenly City in the Book of Revelation:

 

And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.

And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats, I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.

 

— Revelation, 4:3–4 (KJV)

The 25 seats from the biblical reference are alluded to in the building's structure, with the addition of eight small onion domes around the central tent, four around the western side church and four elsewhere. This arrangement survived through most of the 17th century. The walls of the church mixed bare red brickwork or painted imitation of bricks with white ornaments, in roughly equal proportion. The domes, covered with tin, were uniformly gilded, creating an overall bright but fairly traditional combination of white, red and golden colours. Moderate use of green and blue ceramic inserts provided a touch of rainbow as prescribed by the Bible.

 

While historians agree on the colour of the 16th-century domes, their shape is disputed. Boris Eding wrote that they most likely were of the same onion shape as the present-day domes. However, both Kolomenskoye and Dyakovo churches have flattened hemispherical domes, and the same type could have been used by Barma and Postnik.

 

Development

1583–1596

The original Trinity Church burnt down in 1583 and was refitted by 1593. The ninth sanctuary, dedicated to Basil Fool for Christ (the 1460s–1552), was added in 1588 next to the north-eastern sanctuary of the Three Patriarchs. Another local fool, Ivan the Blessed, was buried on the church grounds in 1589; a sanctuary in his memory was established in 1672 inside the south-eastern arcade.

 

The vault of the Saint Basil Sanctuary serves as a reference point in evaluating the quality of Muscovite stonemasonry and engineering. As one of the first vaults of its type, it represents the average of engineering craft that peaked a decade later in the church of the Trinity in Khoroshovo (completed 1596). The craft was lost in the Time of Troubles; buildings from the first half of the 17th century lack the refinement of the late 16th century, compensating for poor construction skill with thicker walls and heavier vaults.

 

1680–1683

The second, and most significant, round of refitting and expansion took place in 1680–1683. The nine churches themselves retained their appearance, but additions to the ground-floor arcade and the first-floor platform were so profound that Nikolay Brunov rebuilt a composite church from an "old" building and an independent work that incorporated the "new" Trinity Church. What once was a group of nine independent churches on a common platform became a monolithic temple.

 

The formerly open ground-floor arcades were filled with brick walls; the new space housed altars from thirteen former wooden churches erected on the site of Ivan's executions in Red Square. Wooden shelters above the first-floor platform and stairs (the cause of frequent fires) were rebuilt in brick, creating the present-day wrap-around galleries with tented roofs above the porches and vestibules.

 

The old detached belfry was demolished; its square basement was reused for a new belltower. The tall single tented roof of this belltower, built in the vernacular style of the reign of Alexis I, significantly changed the appearance of the cathedral, adding a strong asymmetrical counterweight to the church itself. The effect is most pronounced on the southern and eastern facades (as viewed from Zaryadye), although the belltower is large enough to be seen from the west.

 

The first ornamental murals in the cathedral appeared in the same period, starting with floral ornaments inside the new galleries; the towers retained their original brickwork pattern. Finally, in 1683, the church was adorned with a tiled cornice in yellow and blue, featuring a written history of the church in Old Slavic typeface.

 

1737–1784

In 1737 the church was damaged by a massive fire and later restored by Ivan Michurin. The inscriptions made in 1683 were removed during the repairs of 1761–1784. The church received its first figurative murals inside the churches; all exterior and interior walls of the first two floors were covered with floral ornamentation. The belltower was connected with the church through a ground-floor annex; the last remaining open arches of the former ground-floor arcade were filled during the same period, erasing the last hint of what was once an open platform carrying the nine churches of Ivan's Jerusalem.

 

1800–1848

Paintings of Red Square by Fyodor Alekseyev, made in 1800–1802, show that by this time the church was enclosed in an apparently chaotic cluster of commercial buildings; rows of shops "transformed Red Square into an oblong and closed yard." In 1800 the space between the Kremlin wall and the church was still occupied by a moat that predated the church itself. The moat was filled in preparation for the coronation of Alexander I in 1801. The French troops who occupied Moscow in 1812 used the church for stables and looted anything worth taking. The church was spared by the Fire of Moscow (1812) that razed Kitai-gorod, and by the troops' failure to blow it up according to Napoleon's order. The interiors were repaired in 1813 and the exterior in 1816. Instead of replacing missing ceramic tiles of the main tent, the Church preferred to simply cover it with a tin roof.

 

The fate of the immediate environment of the church has been a subject of dispute between city planners since 1813. Scotsman William Hastie proposed clearing the space around all sides of the church and all the way down to the Moskva River; the official commission led by Fyodor Rostopchin and Mikhail Tsitsianov agreed to clear only the space between the church and Lobnoye Mesto. Hastie's plan could have radically transformed the city, but he lost to the opposition, whose plans were finally endorsed by Alexander I in December 1817 (the specific decision on clearing the rubble around the church was issued in 1816).

 

Nevertheless, actual redevelopment by Joseph Bove resulted in clearing the rubble and creating Vasilyevskaya (St. Basil's) Square between the church and Kremlin wall by shaving off the crest of the Kremlin Hill between the church and the Moskva River. Red Square was opened to the river, and "St. Basil thus crowned the decapitated hillock." Bove built the stone terrace wall separating the church from the pavement of Moskvoretskaya Street; the southern side of the terrace was completed in 1834. Minor repairs continued until 1848, when the domes acquired their present-day colours.

 

1890–1914

Preservationist societies monitored the state of the church and called for a proper restoration throughout the 1880s and 1890s, but it was regularly delayed for lack of funds. The church did not have a congregation of its own and could only rely on donations raised through public campaigning; national authorities in Saint Petersburg and local in Moscow prevented financing from state and municipal budgets. In 1899 Nicholas II reluctantly admitted that this expense was necessary, but again all the involved state and municipal offices, including the Holy Synod, denied financing. Restoration, headed by Andrey Pavlinov (died 1898) and Sergey Solovyov, dragged on from 1896 to 1909; in total, preservationists managed to raise around 100,000 roubles.

 

Restoration began with replacing the roofing of the domes. Solovyov removed the tin roofing of the main tent installed in the 1810s and found many original tiles missing and others discoloured; after a protracted debate the whole set of tiles on the tented roof was replaced with new ones. Another dubious decision allowed the use of standard bricks that were smaller than the original 16th-century ones. Restorers agreed that the paintwork of the 19th century must be replaced with a "truthful recreation" of historic patterns, but these had to be reconstructed and deduced based on medieval miniatures. In the end, Solovyov and his advisers chose a combination of deep red with deep green that is retained to the present.

 

In 1908 the church received its first warm air heating system, which did not work well because of heat losses in long air ducts, heating only the eastern and northern sanctuaries. In 1913 it was complemented with a pumped water heating system serving the rest of the church.

 

1918–1941

During World War I, the church was headed by protoiereus Ioann Vostorgov, a nationalist preacher and a leader of the Black-Hundredist Union of the Russian People. Vostorgov was arrested by Bolsheviks in 1918 on a pretext of embezzling nationalized church properties and was executed in 1919.[citation needed] The church briefly enjoyed Vladimir Lenin's "personal interest"; in 1923 it became a public museum, though religious services continued until 1929.

 

Bolshevik planners entertained ideas of demolishing the church after Lenin's funeral (January 1924). In the first half of the 1930s, the church became an obstacle for Joseph Stalin's urbanist plans, carried out by Moscow party boss Lazar Kaganovich, "the moving spirit behind the reconstruction of the capital". The conflict between preservationists, notably Pyotr Baranovsky, and the administration continued at least until 1936 and spawned urban legends. In particular, a frequently-told story is that Kaganovich picked up a model of the church in the process of envisioning Red Square without it, and Stalin sharply responded "Lazar, put it back!" Similarly, Stalin's master planner, architect Vladimir Semyonov, reputedly dared to "grab Stalin's elbow when the leader picked up a model of the church to see how Red Square would look without it" and was replaced by pure functionary Sergey Chernyshov.

 

In the autumn of 1933, the church was struck from the heritage register. Baranovsky was summoned to perform a last-minute survey of the church slated for demolition, and was then arrested for his objections. While he served his term in the Gulag, attitudes changed and by 1937 even hard-line Bolshevik planners admitted that the church should be spared. In the spring of 1939, the church was locked, probably because demolition was again on the agenda; however, the 1941 publication of Dmitry Sukhov's detailed book on the survey of the church in 1939–1940 speaks against this assumption.

 

1947 to present

In the first years after World War II renovators restored the historical ground-floor arcades and pillars that supported the first-floor platform, cleared up vaulted and caissoned ceilings in the galleries, and removed "unhistoric" 19th-century oil paint murals inside the churches. Another round of repairs, led by Nikolay Sobolev in 1954–1955, restored original paint imitating brickwork, and allowed restorers to dig inside old masonry, revealing the wooden frame inside it. In the 1960s, the tin roofing of the domes was replaced with copper.

 

The last round of renovation was completed in September 2008 with the opening of the restored sanctuary of St. Alexander Svirsky. The building is still partly in use today as a museum and, since 1991, is occasionally used for services by the Russian Orthodox Church. Since 1997 Orthodox Christian services have been held regularly. Nowadays every Sunday at Saint Basil's church there is a divine liturgy at 10 a.m. with an Akathist to Saint Basil.

 

Naming

The building, originally known as "Trinity Church",[8] was consecrated on 12 July 1561, and was subsequently elevated to the status of a sobor (similar to an ecclesiastical basilica in the Catholic Church, but usually and incorrectly translated as "cathedral"). "Trinity", according to tradition, refers to the easternmost sanctuary of the Holy Trinity, while the central sanctuary of the church is dedicated to the Intercession of Mary. Together with the westernmost sanctuary of the Entry into Jerusalem, these sanctuaries form the main east–west axis (Christ, Mary, Holy Trinity), while other sanctuaries are dedicated to individual saints.

 

Sanctuaries of the cathedral

Compass point Type Dedicated to Commemorates

Central coreTented churchIntercession of Most Holy TheotokosBeginning of the final assault of Kazan, 1 October 1552

WestColumnEntry of Christ into JerusalemTriumph of the Muscovite troops

North-westGroin vaultSaint Gregory the Illuminator of ArmeniaCapture of Ars Tower of Kazan Kremlin, 30 September 1552

NorthColumnSaint Martyrs Cyprian and Justinia (since 1786 Saint Adrian and Natalia of Nicomedia)Complete capture of Kazan Kremlin, 2 October 1552

North-eastGroin vaultThree Patriarchs of Alexandria (since 1680 Saint John the Merciful)Defeat of Yepancha's cavalry on 30 August 1552

EastColumnLife-giving Holy TrinityHistorical Trinity Church on the same site

South-eastGroin vaultSaint Alexander SvirskyDefeat of Yepancha's cavalry on 30 August 1552

SouthColumnThe icon of Saint Nicholas from the Velikaya River (Nikola Velikoretsky)The icon was brought to Moscow in 1555.

South-westGroin vaultSaint Barlaam of KhutynMay have been built to commemorate Vasili III of Russia

North-eastern annex (1588)Groin vaultBasil the BlessedGrave of venerated local saint

South-eastern annex (1672)Groin vaultLaying the Veil (since 1680: Nativity of Theotokos, since 1916: Saint John the Blessed of Moscow)Grave of venerated local saint

The name "Intercession Church" came into use later, coexisting with Trinity Church. From the end of the 16th century[66] to the end of the 17th century the cathedral was also popularly called Jerusalem, with reference to its church of Entry into Jerusalem as well as to its sacral role in religious rituals. Finally, the name of Vasily (Basil) the Blessed, who died during construction and was buried on-site, was attached to the church at the beginning of the 17th century.

 

Current Russian tradition accepts two coexisting names of the church: the official "Church of Intercession on the Moat" (in full, the "Church of Intercession of Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat"), and the "Temple of Basil the Blessed". When these names are listed together the latter name, being informal, is always mentioned second.

 

The common Western translations "Cathedral of Basil the Blessed" and "Saint Basil's Cathedral" incorrectly bestow the status of cathedral on the church of Basil, but are nevertheless widely used even in academic literature. Especially during the 19. century, in English and other languages the Saint Basil's Cathedral was also called (Cathedral or Church of) Vassili Blagennoi.

 

Sacral and social role

On the day of its consecration the church itself became part of Orthodox thaumaturgy. According to the legend, its "missing" ninth church (more precisely a sanctuary) was "miraculously found" during a ceremony attended by Tsar Ivan IV, Metropolitan Makarius with the divine intervention of Saint Tikhon. Piskaryov's Chronist wrote in the second quarter of the 17th century:

 

And the Tsar came to the dedication of the said church with Tsaritsa Nastasia and with Metropolitan Makarius and brought the icon of St Nicholas the Wonderworker that came from Vyatka. And they began to offer a prayer service with sanctified water. And the Tsar touched the base with his own hands. And the builders saw that another sanctuary appeared, and told the Tsar. And the Tsar, and Metropolitan, and all the clergy were surprised by the finding of another sanctuary. And the Tsar ordered it to be dedicated to Nicholas ...

 

— Piskaryov Chronicle, 1560 (7068 per Byzantine calendar)

 

Allegory of Jerusalem

Construction of wrap-around ground-floor arcades in the 1680s visually united the nine churches of the original cathedral into a single building. Earlier, the clergy and the public perceived it as nine distinct churches on a common base, a generalized allegory of the Orthodox Heavenly City similar to fantastic cities of medieval miniatures. At a distance, separate churches towering over their base resembled the towers and churches of a distant citadel rising above the defensive wall. The abstract allegory was reinforced by real-life religious rituals where the church played the role of the biblical Temple in Jerusalem:

 

The capital city, Moscow, is split into three parts; the first of them, called Kitai-gorod, is encircled with a solid thick wall. It contains an extraordinary beautiful church, all clad in shiny bright gems, called Jerusalem. It is the destination of an annual Palm Sunday walk, when the Grand Prince must lead a donkey carrying the Patriarch, from the Church of Virgin Mary to the church of Jerusalem which stands next to the citadel walls. Here is where the most illustrious princely, noble and merchant families live. Here is, also, the main muscovite marketplace: the trading square is built as a brick rectangle, with twenty lanes on each side where the merchants have their shops and cellars ...

 

— Peter Petreius, History of the Great Duchy of Moscow, 1620

Templum S. Trinitatis, etiam Hierusalem dicitur; ad quo Palmarum fest Patriarcha asino insidens a Caesare introducitur.

Temple of Holy Trinity, also called Jerusalem, to where the tsar leads the Patriarch, sitting on a donkey, on the Palm Holiday.

 

— Legend of Peter's map of Moscow, 1597, as reproduced in the Bleau Atlas

The last donkey walk (хождение на осляти) took place in 1693. Mikhail Petrovich Kudryavtsev noted that all cross processions of the period began, as described by Petreius, from the Dormition Church, passed through St. Frol's (Saviour's) Gate and ended at Trinity Cathedral. For these processions the Kremlin itself became an open-air temple, properly oriented from its "narthex" (Cathedral Square) in the west, through the "royal doors" (Saviour's Gate), to the "sanctuary" (Trinity Cathedral) in the east.

 

Urban hub

Tradition calls the Kremlin the centre of Moscow, but the geometric centre of the Garden Ring, first established as the Skorodom defensive wall in the 1590s, lies outside the Kremlin wall, coincident with the cathedral. Pyotr Goldenberg (1902–71), who popularized this notion in 1947, still regarded the Kremlin as the starting seed of Moscow's radial-concentric system, despite Alexander Chayanov's earlier suggestion that the system was not strictly concentric at all.

 

In the 1960s Gennady Mokeev (born 1932) formulated a different concept of the historical growth of Moscow. According to Mokeev, medieval Moscow, constrained by the natural boundaries of the Moskva and Neglinnaya Rivers, grew primarily in a north-easterly direction into the posad of Kitai-gorod and beyond. The main road connecting the Kremlin to Kitai-gorod passed through St. Frol's (Saviour's) Gate and immediately afterwards fanned out into at least two radial streets (present-day Ilyinka and Varvarka), forming the central market square. In the 14th century the city was largely contained within two balancing halves, Kremlin and Kitai-gorod, separated by a marketplace, but by the end of the century it extended further along the north-eastern axis. Two secondary hubs in the west and south spawned their own street networks, but their development lagged behind until the Time of Troubles.

 

Tsar Ivan's decision to build the church next to St. Frol's Gate established the dominance of the eastern hub with a major vertical accent, and inserted a pivot point between the nearly equal Kremlin and Kitai-gorod into the once amorphous marketplace. The cathedral was the main church of the posad, and at the same time it was perceived as a part of the Kremlin thrust into the posad, a personal messenger of the Tsar reaching the masses without the mediation of the boyars and clergy. It was complemented by the nearby Lobnoye mesto, a rostrum for the Tsar's public announcements first mentioned in chronicles in 1547 and rebuilt in stone in 1597–1598. Conrad Bussow, describing the triumph of False Dmitriy I, wrote that on 3 June 1606 "a few thousand men hastily assembled and followed the boyarin with [the impostor's] letter through the whole Moscow to the main church they call Jerusalem that stands right next to the Kremlin gates, raised him on Lobnoye Mesto, called out for the Muscovites, read the letter and listened to the boyarin's oral explanation."

 

Replicas

A scale model of Saint Basil's Cathedral has been built in Jalainur in Inner Mongolia, near China's border with Russia. The building houses a science museum.

2016 "Burn on Completion" calendar from Zelly & MailArt PlayDate :D

Heading towards December.

366/366

 

My 366 project is finished! This project has pushed me and kept me motivated all year. It was stressful and I fell behind a lot of times but overall I'm extremely happy with it. I've learned so much this year and just by looking back to the beginning of the project I can see that I've improved tremendously! I have big plans for the upcoming year and hope to continue to improve!

 

Happy New Year!

Captured this one 'wide open' at F4. Only 8s. So fewer cars passing by. Just a quick experiment with Nikon's 24-120mm.

 

F4 8s at 18:01 PM

 

The uneven sky is simply due to cloudy/less cloudy patches.

Victoria Terrasse, Oslo.

 

Originally built in 1885-1890 as a luxury residential development, designed by architect Henrik Thrap-Meyer, it occupied three city blocks and consisted of 13 buildings with sprawling apartments, up to 12-rooms (460 square meters), with amenities extraordinary for the time, such as electricity and bathrooms. The playwright Henrik Ibsen lived there in 1891-95.

 

However, the economics of the undertaking as a residential complex did not turn out right, so over the years the apartments were converted to offices, than taken over by the State. During World War II, the nazis turned it into the Gestapo headquarters in Norway. It automatically became a target for bombing by the allies, which eventually wiped out one of the buildings, at the eastern end of the complex. That building - not seen in this picture but seen on this one - was rebuilt in the early 1960s, designed by Bernt Heiberg and Ola Mørk Sandvik, in the drab style of official buildings of the times. It was completed in 1963.

 

Victoria Terrasse was named not for Queen Victoria of England but for the other queen Victoria, Victoria of Baden (1862-1930), the wife of King Gustav V of Sweden. At the time of the original building's completion in 1890, Gustav was Crown Prince of Sweden and Norway and Victoria was Crown Princess.

  

The Flatiron Building (or Fuller Building, as it was originally called) is located at 175 Fifth Avenue in the borough of Manhattan, New York City and is considered to be a groundbreaking skyscraper. Upon completion in 1902, it was one of the tallest buildings in the city 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 island-block formed by Fifth Avenue, Broadway and East 22nd Street, with 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 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 building was designated a New York City landmark in 1966, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989.

 

The site on which the Flatiron Building would stand was bought in 1857 by Amos Eno, who would shortly build the Fifth Avenue Hotel on a site diagonally across from it. Eno tore down the four-story St. Germaine Hotel on the south end of the lot, and replaced it with a seven-story apartment building, the Cumberland. On the remainder of the lot he built four three-story buildings for commercial use. This left four stories of the Cumberland's northern face exposed, which Eno rented out to advertisers, including the New York Times, who installed a sign made up of electric lights. Eno later put a canvas screen on the wall, and projected images onto it from a magic lantern on top of one of his smaller buildings, presenting advertisements and interesting pictures alternately. Both the Times and the New York Tribune began using the screen for news bulletins, and on election nights tens of thousands of people would gather in Madison Square, waiting for the latest results.[9]

 

During his life Eno resisted suggestions to sell "Eno's flatiron", as the site had become known, but after his death in 1899 his assets were liquidated, and the lot went up for sale. The New York State Assembly appropriated $3 million for the city to buy it, but this fell through when a newspaper reporter discovered that the plan was a graft scheme by Tammany Hall boss Richard Croker. Instead, the lot was bought at auction by William Eno, one of Amos's sons, for $690,000 – the elder Eno had bought the property for around $30,000 forty years earlier. Three weeks later, William re-sold the lot to Samuel and Mott Newhouse for $801,000. The Newhouses intended to put up a 12-story building with street-level retail shops and bachelor apartments above, but two years later they sold the lot 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,[10] and he engaged Chicago architect Daniel Burnham to design it. The building, which would be the first skyscraper north of 14th Street, 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, but locals persisted on calling it "The Flatiron", a name which has since been made official.

 

More information can be found at:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatiron_Building

 

DB 67022 has just negotiated Ordsall Lane and Deansgate Junctions and passes through Deansgate station on the approach to Manchester Piccadilly. This already congested corridor will see extra traffic in December 2017 with the completion of the Ordsall Chord link to Manchester Victoria. Full length 'liners' from Trafford Park require a 4 minute headway and Network Rail are in trepidation about the hammering Deansgate Junction will receive.

* Strangely 1H89 (13.07 Holyhead - Manchester Piccadilly) does not stop at Newton-le-Willows and Manchester Oxford Road

In 2003, Russian Railways signed a contract with Kolomna Locomotive Works, one of the oldest manufacturers of locomotives and diesel engines in Russia (Kolomna Kuibyshev Diesel Locomotive Plant) to create a new six-axle passenger DC electric locomotive with technical characteristics similar to ChS2T DC electric locomotives that had being built for USSR in Czechoslavakia. TEP70BS (ТЭП70БС), modernized version of Soviet TEP70 diesel passenger locomotive just developed by Kolomna Locomotive Works was chosen as the basis for the mechanical design. Electrical equipment was to be supplied by Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant (NEVZ) that already developed and producing EP1 AC electric passenger locomotive. Design was completed to 2005 simultaneously with the completion of certification of the TEP70BS. The bogie construction of the locomotive is similar to diesel counterpart in general but the fabrication process is different (for diesel locomotive is used welded but for electric - massive casted details), both have traditional Alstom design of primary suspension with diagonal link arms and coiled springs and secondary Flexicoil suspension by 4 pairs of coiled springs and in addition, the bogie of EP2K is connected to frame a the pair of massive traction rods. Collectror traction motors are used - ED153U1 manufactured by Elektrotyazhmash plant or DTC-800KSU1 manufactured by Smelyansky Electromechanical Plant, both motors 800 kW at 945 rpm. Locomotive have dynamic brake. From 2006 to present time (2023) were produced 473 locomotives.

 

Train #227A St Petersburg to Novorossiysk made a stop at Bologoye station of Tver region. The main route of October Railway (St Petersburg to Moscow).

Even I only used this transport interchange for maybe 1 or 2 times when I was a kid, the unique spatial arrangement of the complex still evolved from my memory when I re-visited and entered the fenced off, narrow queue of the terminus.

 

-

 

Construction started in 1983, with the multi-storey car park opened in April 1986. The Transport Complex connected to the pier with ferry services serving mainly between Tsuen Wan and Central. The Complex provides passage interchanges to the bus, van and taxi services directly from the pier. The building programmes also included government departments (e.g. Identical Card issue), and other retail booths & food stores. The building has however been disconnected to the central Tsuen Wan areas since the Tsuen Wan MTR service operated even before the completion of the building. The ferry service was closed in 2000 due to the more convenient use of road transport from Tsuen Wan to Central through the West Cross Harbour Tunnel, causing the Complex to be further under-used.

 

The use of individual staircase connecting to each of the bus stop termini was first used in this building - an unique machine-like design to avoid large loads of pedestrians to cross the bus platforms for safety reason.

The most interesting moment of the building was the establishment of a driving school on the 9th and 10th floors of the building since 1999.

 

Most of the bus routes using the Complex have relocated their termini to Tsuen Wan West Station Public Transport Interchange in 2003, and left a larger area of the building into disuse. Under the MTR Corporation's TW5 property development project, the carpark Complex is planned to be closed from 5 Feb 2013 and will be demolished and replaced by residential towers.

 

Digested & quoted from:

zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8D%83%E7%81%A3%E9%81%8B%E8%BC%B...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsuen_Wan_Transport_Complex