View allAll Photos Tagged constraining
Consider the assumption that the camera should remain static. If there are (e.g.) 999 ways in which you could move your camera around during a shot, then by NOT doing that, you confine yourself to only be able to take one-tenth of one percent (0.001) of all possible photos. Why constrain the creative space like that?
(Explore 4.5.2008--Thanks friends!)
Traditionally, the equinox describes the point at which the sun crosses the plane of the earth’s equator, resulting a day and night of equal length. But when the last rays of the setting sun fall across the meadow, they set the pasture ablaze, constraining its equine inhabitants to cast dark shadows, like the black holes at the centers of galaxys, redefining the equinox. #Wildhorses
As a photographer, the way I see the world depends largely upon the lens I am carrying. Today while walking the dog I carried the 100mm macro, so I noticed details.
I consider it good training to not always have a zoom. Having just one focal length constrains us, but also forces us to be creative in our observations.
When I woke up this morning I felt singularly uninspired. The stroll I took first thing to look at what nature was growing didn't improve my mood. I did witness, however, the dog owner who lets his dogs **** all over the place without clearing it up that I mentioned last week. He's one of those people who drives away from his home then lets his dogs out to crap in someone elses back yard (not literally) then they get straight back in the car to drive home again. I suspect he might have to give up on his little scheme quite soon.
I've been wanting to move away from the leaves and light series and explore some new materials and ideas. Despite all this being just something I do for my own satisfaction I do feel some, I guess self-imposed, pressure. I don't really know where the ideas come from and I am fearful that one day they will dry up, especially if I had hit on something good with the leaf series but I cannot repeat that formula with something new. I guess we all think a little too much about things sometimes.
Yesterday I collected some very tall grasses and started to play around making 3d shapes - pyramids, diamonds, cubes - and lacking inspiration I though I would combine them with coloured leaves. At this point my doubting thoughts increased and I thought to myself "is this art? Just repeating the same formula isnt art, what new things am I learning? what new things am I discovering about nature?"
And therein lies the secret that was hidden from my conciousness this morning. There aren't any discoveries to make in the thinking or the planning or indeed the worrying. Instead you need to just "do" (I haven't been talking to Yoda honestly) and so I did. I sat down with these grasses and some thorns and just got absorbed in making all sorts of little things.
I tried and tried to make little diamonds with coloured leaf windows but it was just far too difficult. I had neither the skill nor the patience to get it right. But all the while the land art lessons you often receive when exploring a new material started to seep around the edges. For several hours I learned about these grasses, their structure and form, their pliability and what they lent themselves to be made into just by playing around with them without expectation.
And so I remembered that this is what it is all about. By trying to make things you learn many new aspects about the plant and what you can do with it. Its like a tandem race. The material shows you what you can do with it and constrains what it is possible to make and then your artistic imagination catches up and you reach a point where knowledge of the material combines into making something new that both expresses the properties of that material, what you have learnt about it and your idea for an artistic representation of all those things.
I am always saying that the material itself and how it behaves influences the final result. It isn't just that the sculpture is made out of the material it is more than that. This is going to sound really arty-farty and when I used to read this stuff when other people spouted it I thought it was total guff. But I've never been to art school or been indoctrinated to be airy-fairy, I am a computer programmer after all who studied science at school! But it really does feel like a symbiotic relationship creates each sculpture. The material, environment and nature have an influence, I have an influence and they combine to achieve the finished result. But it is more than just using the material itself. It is as though the influence nature exhibits I am aware of at the time but I don't or indeed can't control it and each material and environment that I work in and with provides a different experience. It's really hard to explain but I hope some of what I am getting at comes across. It honestly feels like nature behaves in a sentient way and influences what I am doing. Of course I realise that I am anthropomorphising nature and that isn't what is really happening. I am just trying to convey that that is how it feels and the meditative quality of getting to know a natural material in that way can be very satifying and enlightening. I think that is why I am drawn back again and again to make something new. The little discoveries it brings me to are very interesting to me and touch me deeply but in a way that is hard to express. That said that isn't always the case and sometimes it's just for fun. Perhaps these words are reflecting my current introspective mood but what I have grown to love about art is that the whole world of emotion I can feel is present in my experiences making art. I have never in my life before understood that this may be what art is all about when you experience it in this way. It has certainly quite a interesing process whatever is happening at the time.
These triangles are made from that grass I researched this morning and are the culmination of everything I have learnt.
One thing I haven't managed to learn yet is that the midges are still out in force and if you stand knee deep in a stream for a couple of hours that you will get bitten a lot. My partner and I are now covered in red blotches and we look like we have chicken pox. But was it worth it? I think so. I am not sure if my partner agrees. If you made it this far then you'll pleased to know that my arty-farty nonsense normally doesn't last too long and eventually the funny little kid that lives inside me will return. (Multiple personality disorder comes and goes).
This was made for the Land Art Connections project - theme "Water" - June 2009 at Trough Brook near Birk Bank, Lancaster, Lancashire on 20th June 2009.
Dwell By The Well Of The Living God
" After Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac, who then lived near Beer Lahai Roi." [Genesis 25:11]
Hagar had once found deliverance there and Ishmael had drank from the water so graciously revealed by the God who lives and sees the sons of men; but this was a merely casual visit, such as worldlings pay to the Lord in times of need, when it serves their turn. They cry to him in trouble, but forsake him in prosperity. Isaac dwelt there, and made the well of the living and all-seeing God his constant source of supply. The usual tenor of a man’s life, the dwelling of his soul, is the true test of his state. Perhaps the providential visitation experienced by Hagar struck Isaac’s mind, and led him to revere the place; its mystical name endeared it to him; his frequent musings by its brim at eventide made him familiar with the well; his meeting Rebecca there had made his spirit feel at home near the spot; but best of all, the fact that he there enjoyed fellowship with the living God, had made him select that hallowed ground for his dwelling. Let us learn to live in the presence of the living God; let us pray the Holy Spirit that this day, and every other day, we may feel, “you are the God who sees [Gen.16:13].” May the Lord Jehovah be as a well to us, delightful, comforting, unfailing, springing up into everlasting life [Jhn.4:14]. The bottle of the creature cracks and dries up, but the well of the Creator never fails; happy is he who dwells at the well, and so has abundant and constant supplies near at hand. The Lord has been a sure helper to others: His name is El Shaddai, God All-sufficient; our hearts have often had most delightful intercourse with him; through him our soul has found her glorious Husband, the Lord Jesus; and in him this day we live, and move, and have our being [Acts.17:28].; let us, then, dwell in close fellowship with him. Glorious Lord, constrain us that we may never leave You, but dwell by the well of the living God. Amen, God bless
Lacking spiral arms but boasting a galactic bulge and prominent disk, lenticular galaxies like Caldwell 53 (NGC 3115) are intermediates between the more familiar spiral and elliptical galaxies. This galaxy, like most of its kind, hosts an elderly stellar population and has used up nearly all of its star-forming material. Appearing edge-on to us, the galaxy is located 32 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Sextans and has an apparent magnitude of 9.9. Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, it is most easily observed during early spring in the Northern Hemisphere and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. As one of the brighter galaxies, Caldwell 53 can be easily seen in a small telescope, which will display the galaxy’s spindle-like form and bright central region.
Caldwell 53 is perhaps most notable for the supermassive black hole that lurks at its center. One of the ways astronomers are able to estimate the mass of a black hole is by observing the temperature of the hot gas being dragged toward it. Using this method, astronomers estimate that the black hole within Caldwell 53 has a mass roughly one billion times the mass of our Sun. This estimation means that Caldwell 53 hosts the closest billion-solar-mass black hole to Earth.
This image of Caldwell 53 is a composite of observations taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys at infrared and visible wavelengths. Scientists used information gathered from these observations to constrain the temperature and density of the gas that surrounds the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Erwin (University of Alabama); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
VIEW FROM THE FERRY FROM LARNE IN N. IRELAND TO CAIRNRYAN IN SCOTLAND.
THIS SHORE LIGHTHOUSE GUARDS THE EAST SIDE OF THE ENTRANCE TO LOCH RYAN FROM A POINT JUST SOUTH EAST OF IT. IT STANDS ON CAIRN POINT WHICH PROJECTS INTO LOCH RYAN FROM A NARROW SHELF IN FRONT OF THE MAIN (A77) ROAD; A SOLID PORTION ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE LANTERN CONSTRAINS THE LIGHT TO SEAWARD. THE LIGHTHOUSE WAS BUILT BY ALAN STEVENSON AND FIRST LIT IN 1847. IT WAS CONVERTED TO OIL BURNING IN 1847, AND AUTOMATED (ELECTRIFIED AND MADE 'UNATTENDED') IN 1964.
Deep Dream Generator,Photoshop.
The Goblin Demon Summoned to Guard The Hidden Secrets of The Goblin Queen.
Prompt :-Photographic Realistic,Ancient Evil Demon Vampire Woman Appearing Through the mist of The Catacombs,Multiple horns and Tendrils coming out of the figure,(Fluid :1),Preserve Face and Eyes,Clear distinct realistic eyes,Constrain Proportions,Detailed,Intricate,Artists H.R Giger,Peter Mohrbacher,Seb McKinnon, 'Mdjrny v5 Style'
THIS SHORE LIGHTHOUSE GUARDS THE EAST SIDE OF THE ENTRANCE TO LOCH RYAN FROM A POINT JUST SOUTH EAST OF IT. IT STANDS ON CAIRN POINT WHICH PROJECTS INTO LOCH RYAN FROM A NARROW SHELF IN FRONT OF THE MAIN (A77) ROAD; A SOLID PORTION ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE LANTERN CONSTRAINS THE LIGHT TO SEAWARD. THE LIGHTHOUSE WAS BUILT BY ALAN STEVENSON AND FIRST LIT IN 1847. IT WAS CONVERTED TO OIL BURNING IN 1847, AND AUTOMATED (ELECTRIFIED AND MADE 'UNATTENDED') IN 1964.
a beautiful girl is a beautiful thing
with beauty in front and behind
but though she draws stares
there's nothing compares
to a girl with a beautiful mind
oh, what can constrain
a girl with a brain?
she reads and she thinks and she knows
though minus makeup
and just now waked up
she's still smart wherever she goes
a beautiful mind
a beautiful mind
oh, you can be sure
she thinks all the time
Sorry for the spelling, haha! One too many whiskeys while in post production. ;) Yeah, I have many other photos of this place that I will post from time to time but the 1:30 constrains me. Thanks for viewing. :)
Avram Noam Chomsky
Portrait of Noam Chomsky painted in admiration for Justice and Liberty of his Wisdom
www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1273830809738507&set=a.1...
“Freedom without opportunity is a devil's gift.”
― Noam Chomsky
Language and Freedom
Noam Chomsky
chomsky.info/language-and-freedom/
Excerpted from For Reasons of State, New York: Pantheon Books, 1973.
When I was invited to speak on the topic “Language and freedom”, I was puzzled and intrigued. Most of my professional life has been devoted to the study of language. There would be no great difficulty in finding a topic to discuss in that domain. And there is much to say about the problems of freedom and liberation as they pose themselves to us and to others in the mid-twentieth century. What is troublesome in the title of this lecture is the conjunction. In what way are language and freedom to be interconnected?
As a preliminary, let me say just a word about the contemporary study of language, as I see it. There are many aspects of language and language use that raise intriguing questions, but – in my judgement – only a few have so far led to productive theoretical work. In particular, our deepest insights are in the area of formal grammatical structure. A person who knows a language has acquired a system of rules and principles – a “generative grammar,” in technical terms – that associates sound and meaning in some specific fashion. There are many reasonably well-founded and, I think, rather enlightening hypotheses as to the character of such grammars, for quite a number of languages. Furthermore, there has been a renewal of interest in “universal grammar”, interpreted now as the theory that tries to specify the general properties of those languages that can be learned in the normal way by humans. Here, too, significant progress has been achieved.
The subject is of particular importance. It is appropriate to regard universal grammar as the study of one of the essential faculties of mind. It is, therefore, extremely interesting to discover, as I believe we do, that the principles of universal grammar are rich, abstract, and restrictive, and can be used to construct principled explanations for a variety of phenomena. At the present stage of our understanding, if language is to provide a springboard for the investigation of other problems of human nature, it is these aspects of language to which we will have to turn our attention, for the simple reason that it is only these aspects that are reasonably well understood. In another sense, the study of formal properties of language reveals something of the nature of humans in a negative way: it underscores, with great clarity, the limits of our understanding of those qualities of mind that are apparently unique to humans and that must enter into their cultural achievements in an intimate, if still quite obscure, manner.
In searching for a point of departure, one turns naturally to a period in the history of Western thought when it was possible to believe that “the thought of making freedom the sum and substance of philosophy has emancipated the human spirit in all its relationships, and . . . has given to science in all its parts a more powerful reorientation than any earlier revolution.” [1] The word “revolution” bears multiple association in this passage, for Schelling also proclaims that “man is born to act and not to speculate”; and when he writes that “the time has come to proclaim to a nobler humanity the freedom of the spirit, and no longer to have patience with men’s tearful regrets for their lost chains” we hear the echoes of the libertarian thought and revolutionary acts of the late eighteenth century. Schelling writes that “the beginning and end of all philosophy is – Freedom.” These words are invested with meaning and urgency at a time when people are struggling to cast off their chains, to resist authority that has lost its claim to legitimacy, to construct more humane and more democratic social institutions. It is at such a time that the philosopher may be driven to inquire into the nature of human freedom and its limits, and perhaps to conclude, with Schelling, that with respect to the human ego, “its essence is freedom”; and with respect to philosophy, “the highest dignity of Philosophy consists precisely therein, that it stakes all on human freedom.”
We are living, once again, at such a time. A revolutionary ferment is sweeping the socalled Third World, awakening enormous masses from torpor and acquiescence in traditional authority. There are those who feel that the industrial societies as well are ripe for revolutionary change – and I do not refer only to representatives of the New Left. The threat of revolutionary change brings forth repression and reaction. Its signs are evident in varying forms, in France, in the Soviet Union, in the United States—not least, in the city where we are meeting. It is natural, then, that we should consider, abstractly, the problems of human freedom, and turn with interest and serious attention to the thinking of an earlier period when archaic social institutions were subjected to critical analysis and sustained attack. It is natural and appropriate, so long as we bear in mind Schellings’s admonition that man is born not merely to speculate but also to act.
One of the earliest and most remarkable of the eighteenth-century investigations of freedom and servitude is Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality (1755), in many ways a revolutionary tract. In it, he seeks to “set forth the origin and progress of inequality, the establishment and abuse of political societies, insofar as these things can be deduced from the nature of man by the light of reason alone.” His conclusions were sufficiently shocking that the judges of the prize competition of the Academy of Dijon, to whom the work was originally submitted, refused to hear the manuscript through. [2] In it, Rousseau challenges the legitimacy of virtually every social institution, as well as individual control of property and wealth. These are “usurpations . . . established only on a precarious and abusive right . . . having been acquired only by force, force could take them away without (the rich) having grounds for complaint.” Not even property acquired by personal industry is held “upon better titles”. Against such a claim, one might object: “Do you not know that a multitude of your brethren die or suffer from need of what you have in excess, and that you needed express and unanimous consent of the human race to appropriate for yourself anything from common subsistence that exceeded your own?” It is contrary to the law of nature that “a handful of men be glutted with superfluities while the starving multitude lacks necessities.”
Rousseau argues that civil society is hardly more than a conspiracy by the rich to guarantee their plunder. Hypocritically, the rich call upon their neighbors to “institute regulations of justice and peace to which all are obliged to conform, which make an exception of no one, and which compensate in some way for the caprices of fortune by equally subjecting the powerful and the weak to mutual duties”– those laws which, as Anatole France was to say, in their majesty deny to the rich and the poor equally the right to sleep under the bridge at night. By such arguments, the poor and weak were seduced: “All ran to meet their chains thinking they secured their freedom. . . .” Thus society and laws “gave new fetters to the weak and new forces to the rich, destroyed natural freedom for all time, established forever the law of property and inequality, changed a clever usurpation into an irrevocable right, and for the profit of a few ambitious men henceforth subjected the whole human race to work, servitude and misery”. Governments inevitably tend toward arbitrary power, as “their corruption and extreme limit”. This power is “by its nature illegitimate,” and new revolutions must
dissolve the government altogether or bring it closer to its legitimate institutions … . The uprising that ends by strangling or dethroning a sultan is as lawful an act as those by which he disposed, the day before, of the lives and goods of his subjects. Force alone maintained him, force alone overthrows him.
What is interesting, in the present connection, is the path that Rousseau follows to reach these conclusions “by the light of reason alone,” beginning with his ideas about human nature. He wants to see man “as nature formed him”. It is from human nature that the principles of natural right and the foundations of social existence must be deduced.
This same study of original man, of his true needs, and of the principles underlying his duties, is also the only good means one could use to remove those crowds of difficulties which present themselves concerning the origin of moral inequality, the true foundation of the body politic, the reciprocal rights of its members, and a thousand similar questions as important as they are ill explained.
To determine the nature of man, Rousseau proceeds to compare man and animal. Man is “intelligent, free . . . the sole animal endowed with reason.” Animals are “devoid of intellect and freedom.”
In every animal I see only an ingenious machine to which nature has given senses in order to revitalize itself and guarantee itself, to a certain point, from all that tends to destroy or upset it. I perceive precisely the same things in the human machine, with the difference that nature alone does everything in the operations of a beast, whereas man contributes to his operations by being a free agent. The former chooses or rejects by instinct and the latter by an act of freedom, so that a beast cannot de viate from the rule that is prescribed to it even when it would be advantageous for it do so, and a man deviates from it often to his detriment . . . . it is not so much understanding which constitutes the distinction of man among the animals as it is his being a free agent. Nature commands every animal, and the beast obeys. Man feels the same impetus, but he realizes that he is free to acquiesce or resist; and it is above all in the consciousness of this freedom that the spirituality of his soul is shown. For physics explains in some way the mechanism of the senses and the formation of ideas; but in the power of willing, or rather of choosing, and in the sentiment of this power are found only purely spiritual acts about which the laws of mechanics explain nothing.
Thus the essence of human nature is human freedom and the consciousness of this freedom. So Rousseau can say that “the jurists, who have gravely pronounced that the child of a slave would be born a slave, have decided in other terms that a man would not be born a man.”[3]
Sophistic politicians and intellectuals search for ways to obscure the fact that the essential and defining property of man is his freedom: “They attribute to men a natural inclination to servitude, without thinking that it is the same for freedom as for innocence and virtue – their value is felt only as long as one enjoys them oneself and the taste for them is lost as soon as one has lost them.” In contrast, Rousseau asks rhetorically “whether, freedom being the most noble of man’s faculties, it is not degrading one’s nature, putting oneself on the level of beasts enslaved by instinct, even offending the author on one’s being, to renounce without reservation the most precious of all his gifts and subject ourselves to committing all the crimes he forbids us in order to please a ferocious or insane master” – a question that has been asked, in similar terms, by many an American draft resister in the last few years, and by many others who are beginning to recover from the catastrophe of twentieth-century Western civilization, which has so tragically confirmed Rousseau’s judgement:
Hence arose the national wars, battles, murders, and reprisals which make nature tremble and shock reason, and all those horrible prejudices which rank the honour of shedding human blood among the virtues. The most decent men learned to consider it one of their duties to murder their fellowmen; at length men were seen to massacre each other by the thousands without knowing why; more murders were committed on a single day of fighting and more horrors in the capture of a single city than were committed in the state of nature during whole centuries over the entire face of the earth.
The proof of his doctrine that the struggle for freedom is an essential human attribute, that the value of freedom is felt only as long as one enjoys it, Rousseau sees in “the marvels done by all free peoples to guard themselves from oppression.” True, those who have abandoned the life of a free man
do nothing but boast incessantly of the peace and repose they enjoy in their chains . . . . But when I see the others sacrifice pleasures, repose, wealth, power, and life itself for the preservation of this sole good which is so disdained by those who have lost it; when I see animals born free and despising captivity break their heads against the bars of their prison; when I see multitudes of entirely naked savages scorn European voluptousness and endure hunger, fire, the sword, and death to preserve only their independence, I feel that it does not behoove slaves to reason about freedom.
Rather similar thoughts were expressed by Kant, forty years later. He cannot, he says, accept the proposition that certain people “are not ripe for freedom,” for example, the serfs of some landlord:
If one accepts this assumption, freedom will never be achieved; for one can not arrive at the maturity for freedom without having already acquired it; one must be free to learn how to make use of one’s powers freely and usefully. The first attempts will surely be brutal and will lead to a state of affairs more painful and dangerous than the former condition under the dominance but also the protection of an external authority. However, one can achieve reason only through one’s own experiences and one must be free to be able to undertake them. . . . To accept the principle that freedom is worthless for those under one’s control and that one has the right to refuse it to them forever, is an infringement on the rights of God himself, who has created man to be free. [4]
The remark is particularly interesting because of its context. Kant was defending the French Revolution, during the Terror, against those who claimed that it showed the masses to be unready for the privilege of freedom. Kant’s remarks have contemporary relevance. No rational person will approve of violence and terror. In particular, the terror of the postrevolutionary state, fallen into the hands of a grim autocracy, has more than once reached indescribable levels of savagery. Yet no person of understanding or humanity will too quickly condemn the violence that often occurs when long-subdued masses rise against their oppressors, or take their first steps toward liberty and social reconstruction.
Let me return now to Rousseau’s argument against the legitimacy of established authority, whether that of political power or of wealth. It is striking that his argument, up to this point, follows a familiar Cartesian model. Man is uniquely beyond the bounds of physical explanation; the beast, on the other hand, is merely an ingenious machine, commanded by natural law. Man’s freedom and his consciousness of this freedom distinguish him from the beast-machine. The principles of mechanical explanation are incapable of accounting for these human properties, though they can account for sensation and even the combination of ideas, in which regard “man differs from a beast only in degree.”
To Descartes and his followers, such as Cordemoy, the only sure sign that another organism has a mind, and hence also lies beyond the bounds of mechanical explanation, is its use of language in the normal, creative human fashion, free from control by identifiable stimuli, novel and innovative, appropriate to situations, coherent, and engendering in our minds new thoughts and ideas. [5] To the Cartesians, it is obvious by introspection that each man possesses a mind, a substance whose essence is thought; his creative use of language reflects this freedom of thought and conception. When we have evidence that another organism, too, uses language in this free and creative fashion, we are led to attribute to it as well a mind like ours. From similar assumptions regarding the intrinsic limits of mechanical explanation, its inability to account for man’s freedom and consciousness of his freedom, Rousseau proceeds to develop his critique of authoritarian institutions, which deny to man his essential attribute of freedom, in varying degree.
Were we to combine these speculations, we might develop an interesting connection between language and freedom. Language, in its essential properties and the manner of its use, provides the basic criterion for determining that another organism is a being with a human mind and the human capacity for free thought and self-expression, and with the essential human need for freedom from the external constraints of repressive authority. Furthermore, we might try to proceed from the detailed investigation of language and its use to a deeper and more specific understanding of the human mind. Proceeding on this model, we might further attempt to study other aspects of that human nature which, as Rousseau rightly observes, must be correctly conceived if we are to be able to develop, in theory, the foundations for a rational social order.
I will return to this problem, but first I would like to trace further Rousseau’s thinking about the matter. Rousseau diverges from the Cartesian tradition in several respects. He defines the “specific characteristic of the human species” as man’s “faculty of selfperfection,” which, “with the aid of circumstances, successively develops all the others, and resides among us as much in the species as in the individual.” The faculty of selfperfection and of perfection of the human species through cultural transmission is not, to my knowledge, discussed in any similar terms by the Cartesians. However, I think that Rousseau’s remarks might be interpreted as a development of the Cartesian tradition in an unexplored direction, rather than as a denial and rejection of it. There is no inconsistency in the notion that the restrictive attributes of mind underlie a historically evolving human nature that develops within the limits that they set; or that these attributes of mind provide the possibility of self-perfection; or that, by providing the consciousness of freedom, these essential attributes of human nature give man the opportunity to create social conditions and social forms to maximize the possibilities for freedom, diversity, and individual self-realization. To use an arithmetical analogy, the integers do not fail to be an infinite set merely because they do not exhaust the rational numbers. Analogously, it is no denial of man’s capacity for infinite “self-perfection” to hold that there are intrinsic properties of mind that constrain his development. I would like to argue that in a sense the opposite is true, that without a system of formal constraints there are no creative acts; specifically, in the absence of intrinsic and restrictive properties of mind, there can be only “shaping of behaviour” but no creative acts of self-perfection. Furthermore, Rousseau’s concern for the evolutionary character of self-perfection brings us back, from another point of view, to a concern for human language, which would appear to be a prerequisite for such evolution of society and culture, for Rousseau’s perfection of the species, beyond the most rudimentary forms.
Rousseau holds that “although the organ of speech is natural to man, speech itself is nonetheless not natural to him.” Again, I see no inconsistency between this observation and the typical Cartesian view that innate abilities are “dispositional,” faculties that lead us to produce ideas (specifically, innate ideas) in a particular manner under given conditions of external stimulation, but that also provide us with the ability to proceed in our thinking without such external factors. Language too, then, is natural to man only in a specific way. This is an important and, I believe, quite fundamental insight of the rationalist linguists that was disregarded, very largely, under the impact of empiricist psychology in the eighteenth century and since.[6]
Rousseau discusses the origin of language at some length, though he confesses himself to be unable to come to grips with the problem in a satisfactory way. Thus
if men needed speech in order to learn to think, they had even greater need of knowing how to think in order to discover the art of speech. . . . So that one can hardly form tenable conjectures about this art of communicating thoughts and establishing intercourse between minds; a sublime art which is now very far from its origin. . . .
He holds that “general ideas can come into the mind only with the aid of words, and the understanding grasps them only through propositions” – a fact which prevents animals, devoid of reason, from formulating such ideas or ever acquiring “the perfectibility which depends upon them.” Thus he cannot conceive of the means by which “our new grammarians began to extend their ideas and to generalize their words,” or to develop the means “to express all the thoughts of men”: “numbers, abstract words, aorists, and all the tenses of verbs, particles, syntax, the linking of propositions, reasoning, and the forming of all the logic of discourse.” He does speculate about later stages of the perfection of the species, “when the ideas of men began to spread and multiply, and when closer communication was established among them, [and] they sought more numerous signs and a more extensive language.” But he must, unhappily, abandon “the following difficult problem: which was most necessary, previously formed society for the institution of languages, or previously invented languages for the establishment of society?”
The Cartesians cut the Gordian knot by postulating the existence of a species-specific characteristic, a second substance that serves as what we might call a “creative principle” alongside the “mechanical principle” that determines totally the behaviour of animals. There was, for them, no need to explain the origin of language in the course of historical evolution. Rather, man’s nature is qualitatively distinct: there is no passage from body to mind. We might reinterpret this idea in more current terms by speculating the rather sudden and dramatic mutations might have led to qualities of intelligence that are, so far as we know, unique to humans, possession of language in the human sense being the most distinctive index of these qualities. [7] If this is correct, as at least a first approximation to the facts, the study of language might be expected to offer an entering wedge, or perhaps a model, for an investigation of human nature that would provide the grounding for a much broader theory of human nature.
To conclude these historical remarks, I would like to turn, as I have elsewhere, [8] to Wilhelm von Humboldt, one of the most stimulating and intriguing thinkers of the period. Humboldt was, on the one hand, one of the most profound theorists of general linguistics, and on the other, an early and forceful advocate of libertarian values. The basic concept of his philosophy is Bildung, by which, as J.W. Burrow expresses it, “he meant the fullest, richest, and most harmonious development of the potentialities of the individual, the community or the human race.” [9] His own thought might serve as an exemplary case. Though he does not, to my knowledge, explicitly relate his ideas about language to his libertarian social thought, there is quite clearly a common ground from which they develop, a concept of human nature that inspires each. Mill’s essay On Liberty takes as its epigraph Humboldt’s formulation of the “leading principle” of his thought: “the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity.” Humboldt concludes his critique of the authoritarian state by saying: “I have felt myself animated throughout with a sense of the deepest respect for the inherent dignity of human nature, and for freedom, which alone befits that dignity.” Briefly put, his concept of human nature is this:
The true end of Man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal and immutable dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and transient desires, is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole. Freedom is the first and indispensable condition which the possibility of such a development presupposes; but there is besides another essential – intimately connected with freedom, it is true – a variety of situations. [10]
Like Rousseau and Kant, he holds that
nothing promotes this ripeness for freedom so much as freedom itself. This truth, perhaps, may not be acknowledged by those who have so often used this unripeness as an excuse for continuing repression. But it seems to me to follow unquestionably from the very nature of man. The incapacity for freedom can only arise from a want of moral and intellectual power; to heighten this power is the only way to supply this want; but to do this presupposes the exercise of the power, and this exercise presupposes the freedom which awakens spontaneous activity. Only it is clear we cannot call it giving freedom, when bonds are relaxed which are not felt as such by him who wears them. But of no man on earth – however neglected by nature, and however degraded by circumstances – is this true of all the bonds which oppress him. Let us undo them one by one, as the feeling of freedom awakens in men’s hearts, and we shall hasten progress at every step.
Those who do not comprehend this “may justly be suspected of misunderstanding human nature, and of wishing to make men into machines.”
Man is fundamentally a creative, searching, self-perfecting being: “To inquire and to create – these are the centres around which all human pursuits more or less directly revolve.” But freedom of thought and enlightenment are not only for the elite. Once again echoing Rousseau, Humboldt states, “There is something degrading to human nature in the idea of refusing to any man the right to be a man.” He is, then, optimistic about the effects on all of “the diffusion of scientific knowledge by freedom and enlightenment.” But “all moral culture springs solely and immediately from the inner life of the soul, and can only be stimulated in human nature, and never produced by external and artificial contrivances.” “The cultivation of the understanding, as of any of man’s other faculties, is generally achieved by his own activity, his own ingenuity, or his own methods of using the discoveries of others. . . .” Education, then, must provide the opportunities for selffulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way. Even a language cannot, strictly speaking, be taught, but only “awakened in the mind: one can only provide the thread along which it will develop of itself.” I think that Humboldt would have found congenial much of Dewey’s thinking about education. And he might also have appreciated the recent revolutionary extension of such ideas, for example, by the radical Catholics of Latin America who are concerned with the “awakening of consciousness,” referring to “the transformation of the passive exploited lower classes into conscious and critical masters of their own destinies” [11] much in the manner of Third World revolutionaries elsewhere. He would, I am sure, have approved of their criticism of schools that are
more preoccupied with the transmission of knowledge than with the creation, among other values, of a critical spirit. From the social point of view, the educational systems are oriented to maintaining the existing social and economic structures instead of transforming them.[12]
But Humboldt’s concern for spontaneity goes well beyond educational practice in the narrow sense. It touches also the question of labour and exploitation. The remarks, just quoted, about the cultivation of understanding through spontaneous action continue as follows:
. . . man never regards what he possesses as so much his own, as what he does; and the labourer who tends a garden is perhaps in a true sense its owner, than the listless voluptuary who enjoys its fruits. . . . In view of this consideration, [13] it seems as if all peasants and craftsmen might be elevated into artists; that is, men who love their labour for its own sake, improve it by their own plastic genius and inventive skill, and thereby cultivate their intellect, ennoble their character, and exalt and refine their pleasures. And so humanity would be ennobled by the very things which now, thought beautiful in themselves, so often serve to degrade it. . . But, still, freedom is undoubtedly the indispensable condition, without which even the pursuits most congenial to individual human nature, can never succeed in producing such salutary influences. Whatever does not spring from a man’s free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very being, but remains alien to his true nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness.
If a man acts in a purely mechanical way, reacting to external demands or instruction rather than in ways determined by his own interests and energies and power, “we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is.” [14]
On such conceptions Humboldt grounds his ideas concerning the role of the state, which tends to “make man an instrument to serve its arbitrary ends, overlooking his individual purposes.” His doctrine is classical liberal, strongly opposed to all but the most minimal forms of state intervention in personal or social life.
Writing in the 1790s, Humboldt had no conception of the forms that industrial capitalism would take. Hence he is not overly concerned with the dangers of private power.
But when we reflect (still keeping theory distinct from practice) that the influence of a private person is liable to diminution and decay, from competition, dissipation of fortune, even death; and that clearly none of these contingencies can be applied to the State; we are still left with the principle that the latter is not to meddle in anything which does not refer exclusively to security. . . .
He speaks of the essential equality of the condition of private citizens, and of course has no idea of the ways in which the notion “private person” would come to be reinterpreted in the era of corporate capitalism. He did not foresee that “Democracy with its motto of equality of all citizens before the law and Liberalism with its right of man over his own person both [would be] wrecked on realities of capitalist economy.”15 He did not foresee that, in a predatory capitalist economy, state intervention would be an absolute necessity to preserve human existence and to prevent the destruction of the physical environment— I speak optimistically. As Karl Polanyi, for one, has pointed out, the self-adjusting market “could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness.” Humboldt did not foresee the consequences of the commodity character of labour, the doctrine (in Polanyi’s words) that “it is not for the commodity to decide where is should be offered for sale, to what purpose it should be used, at what price it should be allowed to change hands, and in what manner it should be consumed or destroyed.” But the commodity, in the case, is a human life, and social protection was therefore a minimal necessity to constrain the irrational and destructive workings of the classical free market. Nor did Humboldt understand that capitalist economic relations perpetuated a form of bondage which, as early as 1767, Simon Linguet had declared to be even worse than slavery.
It is the impossibility of living by any other means that compels our farm labourers to till the soil whose fruits they will not eat, and our masons to construct buildings in which they will not live. It is want that drags them to those markets where they await masters who will do them the kindness of buying them. It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him. . . . What effective gain has the suppression of slavery brought him?. . . . He is free, you say. Ah! That is his misfortune. The slave was precious to his master because of the money he had cost him. But the handicraftsmen cost nothing to the rich voluptuary who employs him. . . . These men, it is said, have no master– they have one, and the most terrible, the most imperious of masters, that is need. It is this that reduces them to the most cruel dependence. [17]
If there is something degrading to human nature in the idea of bondage, then a new emancipation must be awaited, Fourier’s “third and last emancipatory phase of history,” which will transform the proletariat to free men by eliminating the commodity character of labor, ending wage slavery, and bringing the commercial, industrial, and financial institutions under democratic control. [18]
Perhaps Humboldt might have accepted these conclusions. He does agree that state intervention in social life is legitimate if “freedom would destroy the very conditions without which not only freedom but even existence itself would be inconceivable” – precisely the circumstances that arise in an unconstrained capitalist economy. In any event, his criticism of bureaucracy and the autocratic state stands as an eloquent forewarning of some of the most dismal aspects of modern history, and the basis of his critique is applicable to a broader range of coercive institutions than he imagined.
Though expressing a classical liberal doctrine, Humboldt is no primitive individualist in the style of Rousseau. Rousseau extols the savage who “lives within himself”; he has little use for “the sociable man, always outside of himself, [who] knows how to live only in the opinion of others . . . from [whose] judgement alone . . . he draws the sentiment of his own existence.”19 Humboldt’s vision is quite different:
. . . the whole tenor of the ideas and arguments unfolded in this essay might fairly be reduced to this, that while they would break all fetters in human society, they would attempt to find as many new social bonds as possible. The isolated man is no more able to develop than the one who is fettered.
Thus he looks forward to a community of free association without coercion by the state or other authoritarian institutions, in which free men can create and inquire, and achieve the highest development of their powers – far ahead of his time, he presents an anarchist vision that is appropriate, perhaps, to the next stage of industrial society. We can perhaps look forward to a day when these various strands will be brought together within the framework of libertarian socialism, a social form that barely exists today though its elements can be perceived: in the guarantee of individual rights that has achieved its highest form – though still tragically flawed – in the Western democracies; in the Israeli kibbutzim; in the experiments with workers’ councils in Yugoslavia; in the effort to awaken popular consciousness and create a new involvement in the social process which is a fundamental element in the Third World revolutions, coexisting uneasily with indefensible authoritarian practice.
A similar concept of human nature underlies Humboldt’s work on language. Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation. The normal use of language and the acquisition of language depend on what Humboldt calls the fixed form of language, a system of generative processes that is rooted in the nature of the human mind and constrains but does not determine the free creations of normal intelligence or, at a higher and more original level, of the great writer or thinker. Humboldt is, on the one hand, a Platonist who insists that learning is a kind of reminiscence, in which the mind, stimulated by experience, draws from its own internal resources and follows a path that it itself determines; and he is also a romantic, attuned to cultural variety, and the endless possibilities for the spiritual contributions of the creative genius. There is no contradiction in this, any more than there is a contradiction in the insistence of aesthetic theory that individual works of genius are constrained by principle and rule. The normal, creative use of language, which to the Cartesian rationalist is the best index of the existence of another mind, presupposes a system of rules and generative principles of a sort that the rationalist grammarians attempted, with some success, to determine and make explicit.
The many modern critics who sense an inconsistency in the belief that free creation takes place within – presupposes, in fact – a system of constraints and governing principles are quite mistaken; unless, of course, they speak of “contradiction” in the loose and metaphoric sense of Schelling, when he writes that “without the contradiction of necessity and freedom not only philosophy but every nobler ambition of the spirit would sink to that death which is peculiar to those sciences in which that contradiction serves no function.” Without this tension between necessity and freedom, rule and choice, there can be no creativity, no communication, no meaningful acts at all.
I have discussed these traditional ideas at some length, not out of antiquarian interest, but because I think that they are valuable and essentially correct, and that they project a course we can follow with profit. Social action must be animated by a vision of a future society, and by explicit judgements of value concerning the character of this future society. These judgements must derive from some concept of human nature, and one may seek empirical foundations by investigating human nature as it is revealed by human behaviour and human creations, material, intellectual, and social. We have, perhaps, reached a point in history when it is possible to think seriously about a society in which freely constituted social bonds replace the fetters of autocratic institutions, rather in the sense conveyed by the remarks of Humboldt that I quoted, and elaborated more fully in the tradition of libertarian socialism in the years that followed.
Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome. It is not a fit system for the mid-twentieth century. It is incapable of meeting human needs that can be expressed only in collective terms, and its concept of competitive man who seeks only to maximize wealth and power, who subjects himself to market relationships, to exploitation and external authority, is antihuman and intolerable in the deepest sense. An autocratic state is no acceptable substitute; nor can the militarized state capitalism evolving in the United States or the bureaucratized, centralized welfare state be accepted as the goal of human existence. The only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such institutions, at certain stages of history, perpetuate and produce such a deficit, and even threaten human survival. Modern science and technology can relieve people of the necessity for specialized, imbecile labour. They may, in principle, provide the basis for a rational social order based on free association and democratic control, if we have the will to create it.
A vision of a future social order is in turn based on a concept of human nature. If in fact humans are indefinitely malleable, completely plastic beings, with no innate structures of mind and no intrinsic needs of a cultural or social character, then they are fit subjects for the “shaping of behavior” by the state authority, the corporate manager, the technocrat, or the central committee. Those with some confidence in the human species will hope this is not so and will try to determine the intrinsic human characteristics that provide the framework for intellectual development, the growth of moral consciousness, cultural achievement, and participation in a free community. In a partly analogous way, a classical tradition spoke of artistic genius acting within and in some ways challenging a framework of rule. Here we touch on matters that are little understood. It seems to me that we must break away, sharply and radically, from much of modern social and behavioral science if we are to move toward a deeper understanding of these matters.
Here, too, I think that the tradition I have briefly reviewed has a contribution to offer. As I have already observed, those who were concerned with human distinctiveness and potential repeatedly were led to a consideration of the properties of language. I think that the study of language can provide some glimmerings of understanding of rule-governed behavior and the possibilities for free and creative action within the framework of a system of rules that in part, at least, reflect intrinsic properties of human mental organization. It seems to me fair to regard the contemporary study of language as in some ways a return to the Humboldtian concept of the form of language: a system of generative processes rooted in innate properties of mind but permitting, in Humboldt’s phrase, an infinite use of finite means. Language cannot be described as a system of organization of behaviour. Rather, to understand how language is used, we must discover the abstract Humboldtian form of language – its generative grammar, in modern terms. To learn a language is to construct for oneself this abstract system, of course unconsciously. The linguist and pyschologist can proceed to study the use and acquistion of language only insofar as they have some grasp of the properties of the system that has been mastered by the person who knows the language. Furthermore, it seems to me that a good case can be made in support of the empirical claim that such a system can be acquired, under the given conditions of time and access, only by a mind that is endowed with certain specific properties that we can now tentatively describe in some detail. As long as we restrict ourselves, conceptually, to the investigation of behavior, its organization, its development through interaction with the environment, we are bound to miss these characteristics of language and mind. Other aspects of human psychology and culture might, in principle, be studied in a similar way.
Conceivably, we might in this way develop a social science based on empirically wellfounded propositions concerning human nature. Just as we study the range of humanly attainable languages, with some success, we might also try to study the forms of artistic expression or, for that matter, scientific knowledge that humans can conceive, and perhaps even the range of ethical systems and social structures in which humans can live and function, given their intrinsic capacities and needs. Perhaps one might go on to project a concept of social organization that would – under given conditions of material and spiritual culture – best encourage and accommodate the fundamental human need – if such it is – for spontaneous initiative, creative work, solidarity, pursuit of social justice.
I do not want to exaggerate, as I no doubt have, the role of investigation of language. Language is the product of human intelligence that is, for the moment, most accessible to study. A rich tradition held language to be a mirror of mind. To some extent, there is surely truth and useful insight in this idea.
I am no less puzzled by the topic “language and freedom” than when I began – and no less intrigued. In these speculative and sketchy remarks there are gaps so vast that one might question what would remain, when metaphor and unsubstantiated guess are removed. It is sobering to realize – as I believe we must – how little we have progressed in our knowledge of human beings and society, or even in formulating clearly the problems that might be seriously studied. But there are, I think, a few footholds that seem fairly firm. I like to believe that the intensive study of one aspect of human psychology – human language – may contribute to a humanistic social science that will serve, as well, as an instrument for social action. It must, needless to say, be stressed that social action cannot await a firmly established theory of human nature and society, nor can the validity of the latter be determined by our hopes and moral judgements. The two – speculation and action – must progress as best they can, looking forward to the day when theoretical inquiry will provide a firm guide to the unending, often grim, but never hopeless struggle for freedom and social justice.
Suggested Reading
[1] F W J Schelling, Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, trans. and ed. James Gutmann (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 1936).
[2] R D Masters, introduction to his edition of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, First and Second Discourses, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964).
[3] Compare Proudhon, a century later: “No long discussion is necessary to demonstrate that the power of denying a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of life and death, and that to make a man a slave is to assassinate him.”
[4] Cited in A Lehning, ed., Bakunin, Etatisme et anarchie (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967), editor’s note 50, from P Schrecker, “Kant et la révolution francaise,” Revue philosophique, September–December 1939.
[5] I have discussed this matter in Cartesian Linguistics (New York: Harper & Row, 1966) and Language and Mind (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, extended ed., 1972).
[6] See the references of note 5, and also my Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969), chap. 1, sec. 8.
[7] I need hardly add that this is not the prevailing view. For discussion, see E.H. Lenneberg, Biological Foundations of Language (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967); my Language and Mind; E.A. Drewe et al., “A Comparative Review of the Results of Behavioural Research on Man and Monkey,” (London; Institute of Psychiatry, unpublished draft, 1969); P.H. Lieberman, D.H. Klatt, and W.H. Wilson, “Vocal Tract Limitations on the Vowel Repertoires of Rhesus Monkeys and other Nonhuman Primates,” Science, June 6, 1969; and P.H. Lieberman, “Primate Vocalizations and Human Linguistic Ability,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 44, no. 6 (1968).
[8] In the books cited above, and in Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (New York: Humanities Press, 1964).
[9] J W Burrow, introduction to his edition of Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969), from which most of the following quotes are taken.
[10] Compare the remarks of Kant, quoted above. Kant’s essay appeared in 1793; Humboldt’s was written in 1791–92. Parts appeared, but it did not appear in full during his lifetime. See Burrow, introduction to Humboldt, Limits of State Action.
[11 ] Thomas G Sanders, “The Church in Latin America,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 48, no. 2 (1970).
[12] Ibid, The source is said to be the ideas of Paulo Freire. Similar criticism is widespread in the student movement in the West. See, for example, Mitchell Cohen and Dennis Hale, eds., The New Student Left rev. ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967), chap. 3.
[13] Namely, that a man “only attains the most matured and graceful consummation of his activity, when his way of life is harmoniously in keeping with his character”–that is, when his actions flow from inner impulse.
[14] The latter quote is from Humboldt’s comments on the French Constitution, 1791–parts translated in Marianne Cowan, ed., Humanist Without Portfolio: An Anthology (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1963).
[15] Rudolf Rocker, “Anarchism and Anarcho-syndicalism,” in Paul Eltzbacher, Anarchism (London: Freedom Press, 1960). In his book Nationalism and Culture (London: Freedom Press, 1937), Rocker describes Humboldt as “the most prominent representative in Germany” of the doctrine of natural rights and of the opposition to the authoritarian state. Rousseau he regards as a precursor of authoritarian doctrine, but he considers only the Social Contract, not the far more libertarian Discourse on Inequality. Burrow observes that Humboldt’s essay anticipates “much nineteenth century political theory of a populist, anarchist and syndicalist kind” and notes the hints of the early Marx. See also my Cartesian Linguistics, n. 51, for some comments.
[16] Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957).
[17] Cited by Paul Mattick, “Workers’ Control,” in Priscilla Long, ed., The New Left (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1969), p. 377.
[18] Cited in Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958). p. 19
CHOMSKY.INFO
Caldwell 58, also known as NGC 2360 or Caroline’s Cluster, was discovered by and named after the German astronomer Caroline Herschel in 1783. The younger sister of famed astronomer William Herschel, Caroline was the first woman to win the prestigious Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. She earned this award for her work verifying her brother’s astronomical observations and compiling a catalog of nebulae to aid other astronomers.
Caldwell 58 is an open cluster — a group of stars loosely bound together by gravity. It is located in the constellation Canis Major, roughly 3,700 light-years from Earth. The cluster has an apparent magnitude of 7.2 and can be spotted with a pair of binoculars in dark, moonless skies.
Caldwell 58 is most easily observed during the Northern Hemisphere’s winter and the Southern Hemisphere’s summer.
Astronomers used Hubble to study white dwarfs in Caldwell 58 and better understand the age of our galaxy. After a Sun-like star has exhausted its supply of nuclear fuel and ejected its outer layers of gas, what is left behind is the hot core of the star — a white dwarf. These objects cool over a period of billions of years and are some of the oldest stars in our galaxy. Some white dwarfs pulse regularly as they cool. The time between these pulsations changes over the white dwarf’s lifetime, so the time between pulses can be used to estimate how quickly the white dwarf is cooling, and thus how long it has been cooling. This information is useful to astronomers because it means pulsating white dwarfs can be used as chronometers, or “clocks,” that constrain the age of our galaxy. These observations of Caldwell 58 were made with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys to help astronomers calibrate white-dwarf chronometers.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and T. von Hippel (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
I wanted to catch some autumn colour, Trouble is the wind is taking away the leaves pretty fast, Last night there was zero wind and I had seen these trees on a previous outing so I already had this shot in mind. Simply lit from the side with a snooted torch to constrain the light to just this clump giving a kind of natural vignette. I put this shot through lightroom, its no different from the jpeg, but I enjoyed the editing process, I'm starting to look at editing differently now, as a Jpeg is only an edited version of the shot, well more Sony's edited version of the shot. Editing like this is not amending the photo per-say, more getting the shot to what it actually looked like which the jpeg and raw don't always convey.
When we visited the current GOMA art works which profiles art by Australian artists, we were totally in awe of an animated work by Deborah Kelly - Beastliness.
These two girls were similarly affected, and the moment needed capturing.
This work is described as:-
The second work, Beastliness 2011, is a fast-paced animation. Taking aesthetic cues from MTV as well as early twentieth-century collage, Kelly’s characters are uncanny fusions of animals, insects and women in a world of frenzied dancing. Kelly re-mythologises femininity, avoiding the stereotypes that constrain and demonise people for their difference.
Kelly’s strategy is to embrace diversity: these creatures represent many female forms, thoughts and experiences, and celebrate acceptance and freedom of expression.
I tried to figure out how to use the Canon 60D movie mode, but couldn't find it in the dimmed lighting. I know it is there, just needed to find the beast.
(Looked just now and found the movie mode button which has obviously been installed on my camera since Saturday while I was sleeping)
I am sure these girls had a story to tell later over coffee about what they interpreted from the display.
Speaking of movies, look at this music video with a DIFFERENCE
Story in a Picture Challenge
This is the result of the previous panorama. To get this round ball effect, you can use any photo in photoshop, but if you have a 360 degree panorama, it will stick one end to the other, creating a nice little planet like this one.
In photoshop, make the image square, so change the dimension, make sure that constrain proportions is "off". Then rotate the image 180 degrees, and use the filter: Distort > Polar Coordinates > Rectangular to Polar.
I made 10 photos or so, and 2 exposures of each photo, one at -2 and one at +2. So I have no original normally exposed panorama, only this HDR version. I gave it a bit of a painterly look, which I think looks pretty nice on this panorama.
My heart reached out to her.... and to all this Memorial Day that are remembering their loved ones who have loved God and Country enough to serve & were willing to give & gave their lives so their family, friends, and fellow countrymen could be safe and their precious freedoms can be enjoyed... protecting our Constitution and secured the rights for all to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in our beloved land, the USA.
See: www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript...
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments
are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate
that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they
are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their
right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their
future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is
now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny
over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."
See: www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript...
And to those of you who have served your country... thank you so very much!!!
May God Bless each of you this very important & special Holiday weekend!!!
Psalm 33:12a Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD
The Industrial Music Woman.
(Linoleum Cut).
Oft on engulf'd missions of o'erwhelming sounds vessels night,
towering maidens seeking twirling bass ,shouts in thy ears,
mightiest angels wheresoe'er thee beats lead to outbursts of emotions blasts,
restrains thyselfs not,vaulted visions so weird let enticing be,
longing thy expected songs bring'th on,amazing no constraining on thy threshold e'er weav'd,
underground records trembling, blood lusts perch'd on stage,
drugg'd environment ,translated new voices of derangement's floating on profuse lucidity,
poetic performances ,farewell to past existence on elliptical language by,
lightheaded thy state ,thy epoch still searching for translations sing,
unperceiv'd hysterical reactions ,omissions repressions thy crowd begins hallucinations I.
Absolute barricades glistening brows, thy coming crowd streams,
idiosyncratic drums reversing thy order that was lost,
foundation thy platform tackling all,desperate rush,just for a touch,
fiery eyes seem O'so close, as thee overmatching crowd thirsting for thou conquering stage,
'tis just another fleeting night,madness drips from monstrous nooks,
she smiles takes in all inne,
she is thy celebrat'd one,her presence of quaffing crown,
unrestrain'd,unbound,confines not to thy rules of thy land,
she is thy one,thy one with thy name,a name that sings forth,
Industrie Musik Frau!
Steve.D.Hammond.
OMG my mate has just spotted a huge mistake I have made, when I resized for Flickr I left the box constrain proportions unticked, so he looks very squashed, very sorry everyone here is the proper version, whoops
THIS SHORE LIGHTHOUSE GUARDS THE EAST SIDE OF THE ENTRANCE TO LOCH RYAN FROM A POINT JUST SOUTH EAST OF IT. IT STANDS ON CAIRN POINT WHICH PROJECTS INTO LOCH RYAN FROM A NARROW SHELF IN FRONT OF THE MAIN (A77) ROAD; A SOLID PORTION ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE LANTERN CONSTRAINS THE LIGHT TO SEAWARD. THE LIGHTHOUSE WAS BUILT BY ALAN STEVENSON AND FIRST LIT IN 1847. IT WAS CONVERTED TO OIL BURNING IN 1847, AND AUTOMATED (ELECTRIFIED AND MADE 'UNATTENDED') IN 1964.
I am not sure about the Iron Cross look that I ended up with but it is a good example of how the material constrains and conspires to shape the end result.
First I made the circle in the usual way. This consists of swearing, snapping thorns, sticking thorns into ends of fingers and yelping and exclaiming "why did I say these were easy to make?" They are easy to make when everything goes well but when the stick starts to split, the thorns snap and when you have stabbed yourself more than ten times then easy is not really an apt description. It really isn't much fun making your finger tips into pin cushions.
Then I went looking for the purple cow parsley leaves. Whilst out running a couple of weeks ago I saw these leaves and was amazed at how purple they were. I just had to do something with them. Today as I walked along my running route my heart sank as I thought I had left it too long. The plants by the side of the track were dying and the purple colour had gone and the leaves had wilted quite a lot. But I persevered and eventually found more and more intact purple fronds - none of them as good as the first ones I found but that was all there was. as I walked back to my starting point I chuckled to myself as there were purple leaves all along where I thought they had died. Just shows that with whatever I make I have to get my eye in before I can see most of what is there. My senses are not switched on until I have spent some time in the environment looking for things.
I sorted through what I had collected and my original idea of attaching the leaves so that the pointed end would point outwards wasn't going to work, instead I would have to point them inwards. Also I would need to divide the circle into segments so that I could support each frond. Once I had attached the grass sticks I sorted through the leaves again and could only find four that were the right size to fit into a segment.
All these factors meant that the iron cross shape was what I ended up with. Dividing the circle to support the leaves, pointing them inwards rather than outwards and only finding four that were suitable. I suspect that I would have found more suitable leaves if I had searched last week but I didn't so this sculpture, as always, is a representation of my vision for an idea combined with what nature had offered up. Both my idea and what the material allowed me to do conspired to produce the end result. I learnt about a new colour, what techniques I needed to employ and some about the lifecycle of cow parsley. More land art lessons learnt.
So where does this leave me? The fronds were not uniform and neat enough, the colours not strong enough despite having seen stronger purple a week earlier and the sun wouldn't come out so I could display the colour more vibrantly. My next attempt may have to be next year when they grow again but what I have learnt means I have stepped onto the first rung of the ladder with this material and this idea, and next time I will improve and refine and understand a little more about what I am doing and the sculpture should be more striking. This is what land art is all about.
We rescued this animal from the fence it was trapped in and its chances of survival are good. Alexandra, a veterinarian who by good fortune was travelling with our group, calmed the antelope and held it closely to stop it struggling. Jesper Hornskov, our guide, obtained a pair of wire cutters from Mr. Pang, the lead driver. The implement cut through the fence like it was string. My job was to photograph this animal welfare and conservation crisis.
There is virtually no hunting pressure on large mammals on the Tibetan Plateau. The problem is that as the local human population switches from traditional pastoral modes to more profitable farming methods they are now constraining their formally free-ranging livestock herds with fencing. This has a disastrous impact on antelopes, gazelles and other large ungulates. The complex migration patterns that allowed them to cover distance and altitude in response to changing seasons and forage opportunities are now being closed down. For some individuals, such as this one, it means horrible direct encounters with fences. For populations as a whole it can mean extirpation as the amount of rangeland available to wild animals rapidly shrinks.
Visible in this picture is the neck and back of the animal. It looks bad but the main injury is to its fur - horribly painful, but not life-threatening in the early summer. The real damage was lower. At first we thought the wires had cut into the chest cavity because there was a lot of blood on the ground. After some anxious discussion about putting the animal down Alexandra confirmed that the wounds, though deep, were recoverable. I’m not posting a picture of that damage, it made me a bit sick to record it. I think this image is strong enough to convey the necessary message about the situation.
Once the wires were cut Alexadra released the antelope and it bounded strongly away, running quickly for at least 500 metres then stopping to stare at us and the fence. The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List classifies this species as endangered.
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Best viewed fully zoomed to see the Layers Panel and the Channels Panel.
Generally, the first thing I do is create luminosity based alpha channels in the Channels Panel, using information from Tony Kuyper's tutorials. These allow self feathered selections to be made based on luminosity. There are a series of channels based on the lighter pixels and a series based on the darker pixels. By intersecting and subtracting these channels one can apply edits based on a zone system if one wanted.
In the Layers Panel, above the background is a dodge/burn layer. I've been using a layer filled with 50% grey, set to soft light blend mode. When fully zoomed you might see that there is a quite intricate painting in black in that layer. I had clicked on one of the darks series channels to load it as a selection and painted through it with reduced flow black to gradually build up the darkening of just the black areas of tree shadow in the image.
Above that layer is a blank layer set to overlay blend mode in which I painted reduced flow white paint to gradually build up highlights. You can see that it has a mask. I had clicked on one of the lights channels to select it, then clicked on the add layer mask button. A mask was created that constrains the painting I'd done on that layer to only the lighter portions of the image. I then reduced the opacity of the mask a bit.
Above that is a high pass filter applied to a merged up copy of the image, and that layer had been changed to a smart object. This allows one to go back and make changes to filters that have been applied to that layer. I used the high pass filter quite strongly, set to soft light blend mode. Then clicking on a darks channel, I clicked on create a mask button and this constrains the high pass filtering to only the dark pixels. This helps avoid halo-ing from over sharpening.
At this point, the image was pretty sharp, and I liked it, but I was wanting to try to create the effect of the hipstamatic Tinto 1884 lens. When using that lens, certain portions of the image are sharp, and other areas are blurred. The problem is that the areas are highly variable and one never knows just what will be sharp or blurred.
So above the high pass layer I merged up everything to a new layer, then copied it. The lower one I labeled sharp and set it to screen blend mode. The upper one was labeled blur and set to multiply blend mode. A gaussian blur was applied to that layer. This combination creates a Orton sort of effect. A curves adjustment layer was added above those two to lighten the effect a bit. Then all three were put in a group and a white mask was added. I then painted black on the mask to get rid of the Ortonish effect from certain parts of the image, and let the sharpened detail from below show through.
So I was able to create an image that looks as if it had been shot with the hipstamatic Tinto 1884 lens, but assure that the stuff I wanted sharp, actually is!
One of the other goals of my weekend along the Hudson Line was to shoot the north end of Breakneck Ridge Tunnel, one of the most famous locations along the line. And while the tree growth and high security fencing constrain the scene a bit compared to the classic photos, the old NYC era pedestrian bridge at about MP 51.2 still provides a cool vantage point if you have a long telephoto lense to pull in the north portal about 7/10ths of a mile to the south.
Like Manitou, Breakneck Ridge has a spartan low level platform that serves only a half dozen trains each direction on Saturday and Sunday only catering to hikers and outdoor enthusiasts escaping the city on the weekends for a little nature in the Hudson Highlands. Hustling north past the platform without stopping on Main 1 is Saturday only train 8841, 4:16 PM departure from Grand Central Station making a 2 hr 2 min run to Poughkeepsie behind P32AC-DM 206.
This is the original New York Central Railroad mainline which opened between New York City and Albany in 1851 as the Hudson River Railroad. The bore at left they just emerged from dates from the line's construction in 1849 and the one at right dates from the 1920s when four tracks were installed (the orignal bore had two). In 1864 the Hudson River Railroad was purchased by Cornelius Vanderbilt along with the New York and Harlem. Meanwhile in 1853 Erastus Corning had assembled a plethora of small local lines as the New York Central Railroad running from Albany to Buffalo and in 1867 Vanderbilt merged it with his road to create the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad and the rest as they say is history.
By the 1950s as the railroad was showing signs of weakness but also modernizing under the leadership of A.E. Perlman. Around that era the four track mainline was equipped with CTC and reduced two two mains. I don't know the specific date this happened, so if anyone here has that information and/or photos of this area immediately before and after the changes I'd love to know and/or see them.
In the trees between the tunnel and the river note the stone structure which is part of the Catskill Aqueduct, constructed between 1908 and 1924 and a cost in 2024 dollars of nearly six billion! Technically, it is called the Moodna / Hudson / Breakneck Pressure Tunnel: a tunnel bored 1,100 feet below the river's surface through which water passes from Ashokan Reservoir to New York City. The building was constructed in 1917 to drain the pressure tunnel as part of the 92 mile long system which supplies 40% of the water to the nation's largest city.
Fishkill, New York
Saturday August 3, 2024
The land of the giraffe women as polish explorer Vitold De Golish called it. Lies in eastern Burma plateau Dimpled by terraced, paddy-filled valley. Here lives Padang , atribe of about 7000 membes.
Legend claims that the brass rings protect the women from tiger bites. But actually the practice of waring them helps maintain individual and tribal indentity.
Rings worn on arms and legs may weigh a women Down with and additional 30 pounds of brass. Since leg Coils hamper walking. The women waddle. Constraines from Drinking in the usal head-back position , a ring wearer Leans forward to sip through a straw. And the voices of wearer, wrote British journalist, sound as if they were speaking up the shaft of a well
Take it upon your own volition
Let go of that which constrains
The way you live
It can’t be maintained
Breathe in, breathe out
Embrace the beauty
Of the world that surrounds
Find a more meaningful self
[From my "Chameleon series", part of the Gwendana Project.
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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
- J. Hancock
Capitalism is treated as a person, not as a tool; this is why it seems impossible to constrain. As long as you see capitalism as an entity with its own logic, it can't be changed. If you regard it as a tool, you can apply this simple truth: some things are too fundamental to be commodified.
Carroll Baker from Baby Doll (1956) in a classic retro romance comics style. Illustration from 2003.
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Ends with 'ain' ~ Our Daily Challenge
Thank you to everyone who pauses long enough to look at my photo. Any comments or Faves are very much appreciated.
In the early part of the 20th century, the Spokane Portland & Seattle took a controlling interest in two electrified railroads on the west side of Portland, OR - the United Railways and the Oregon Electric Railway. It then sought to integrate operations on the two properties.
During 1913, OE built a branch in rural Washington County to connect its system to the United. The branch went north from Orenco on the OE to a spot near Helvetia on the United. The new connection was named Bowers Jct. By building this connection, OE could use the United's Cornelius Pass line as a bypass for freight traffic. In the years before the first world war, interurban service on OE's original mainline into Portland was robust, constraining growth in freight business.
Ultimately, the initial OE grade into Portland was abandoned. Today, part of it is the route of Interstate 5 south of downtown Portland. Another portion of the old OE right of way is arrow-straight SW Multnomah Blvd. in southwest Portland. The OE branch from Bowers Jct. to Orenco became part of SP&S's mainline into to the Willamette Valley.
Under Burlington Northern, the Bowers Jct-Orenco trackage continued to be a vital part of OE. In the mid-1990s. the TriMet regional transit authority acquired the OE right of way between Beaverton and Hillsboro for its Westside Light Rail project. Once alternate arrangements for rerouting traffic were made, the line was no longer used as a through route.
Most of the line north of Orenco was dismantled in 1995. A couple of miles south of Bowers Jct were left in place to serve a shipper. This trackage remained into the early days of Portland & Western. When the plant closed, the remaining track south of the junction was lifted.
In this May 1992 image, BN's Beaverton Roadswitcher is departing Bowers Jct, heading for Orenco and eventual tie up in the modest yard at St. Marys. The job had worked the Port of Tillamook Bay interchange at North Plains, a few miles to the west on the old United line.
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
The Niagara Falls International Rainbow Bridge, commonly known as the Rainbow Bridge, is a steel arch bridge across the Niagara River, connecting the cities of Niagara Falls, New York, United States, and Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.
The Rainbow Bridge was built near the site of the earlier Honeymoon Bridge, which collapsed in 1938 due to an ice jam in the Niagara Gorge.
Architect Richard (Su Min) Lee designed the bridge; a design also used for the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, approximately 10 kilometres (6 mi) downriver. The bridge's Rainbow Tower and Canadian side plaza are the work of Canadian other architect William Lyon Somerville. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, during their visit to Niagara Falls as part of their 1939 royal tour of Canada, dedicated the future construction site of the Rainbow Bridge; a monument was later erected to commemorate the occasion. Construction began in May 1940. The bridge officially opened on November 1, 1941.
The Niagara Falls Bridge Commission chose the name "Rainbow Bridge" in March 1939, because rainbows occur frequently near the falls due to water spray and mist in the air.
The New York State Department of Transportation designates the bridge as NY 955A, an unsigned reference route. Roads that adjoin the bridge include New York routes 104 and 384, and the Niagara Scenic Parkway. The Ontario Ministry of Transportation designates the bridge as part of Highway 420. The Rainbow Tower, part of the plaza complex on the Canadian side, houses a carillon, which plays several times daily.
The Rainbow Bridge does not permit commercial trucks; the nearest border crossing accessible to trucks is the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge.
On November 22, 2023, a car traveling at a high rate of speed left the roadway, went airborne, crashed and exploded at the Rainbow Bridge border crossing on the American side, killing the vehicle's two occupants, and injuring a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer. The crash and subsequent explosion was at first investigated as a potential terrorist attack, and was later determined to have been an accident.
The Niagara River is a river that flows north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. It forms part of the border between the province of Ontario in Canada (on the west) and the state of New York in the United States (on the east). There are differing theories as to the origin of the river's name. According to Iroquoian scholar Bruce Trigger, Niagara is derived from the name given to a branch of the locally residing native Neutral Confederacy, who are described as being called the Niagagarega people on several late-17th-century French maps of the area According to George R. Stewart, it comes from the name of an Iroquois town called Ongniaahra, meaning "point of land cut in two".
The river, which is occasionally described as a strait, is about 58 kilometres (36 mi) long and includes Niagara Falls in its course. The falls have moved approximately 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) upstream from the Niagara Escarpment in the last 12,000 years, resulting in a gorge below the falls. Today, the diversion of the river for electrical generation has significantly reduced the rate of erosion. The total drop in elevation along the river is 99 metres (325 ft). The Niagara Gorge extends downstream from the Falls and includes the Niagara Whirlpool and another section of rapids.
Power plants on the river include the Sir Adam Beck Hydroelectric Power Stations (built in 1922 and 1954) on the Canadian side, and the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant (built in 1961) on the American side. Together, they generate 4.4 gigawatts of electricity. The International Control Works, built in 1954, regulates the river flow. Ships on the Great Lakes use the Welland Canal, part of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, on the Canadian side of the river, to bypass Niagara Falls.
The Niagara River also features two large islands and numerous smaller islands. Grand Island and Navy Island, the two largest islands, are on the American and Canadian sides of the river, respectively. Goat Island and the tiny Luna Island split Niagara Falls into its three sections, the Horseshoe Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and American Falls. Unity Island lies further upstream, alongside the city of Buffalo.
The Niagara River and its tributaries, Tonawanda Creek and the Welland River, formed part of the last section of the Erie Canal and Welland Canal. After leaving Lockport, New York, the Erie Canal proceeds southwest until it enters Tonawanda Creek. After entering the Niagara River, watercraft then proceed southward to the final lock, where a short section of the canal allows boats to avoid the turbulent shoal water at the river intake and enter Lake Erie. The Welland Canals used the Welland River as a connection to the Niagara River south of the falls, allowing water traffic to safely re-enter the Niagara River and proceed to Lake Erie.
History
The Niagara River and trees are depicted in the painting.
Watercolour by Elizabeth Simcoe depicting the Niagara River from Queenston Heights, c. 1793
Niagara River at Queenston, Ontario, then known as Queenstown, Upper Canada, c. 1805 watercolour
The Niagara River and Falls have been known outside of North America since the late 17th century, when Father Louis Hennepin, a French explorer, first witnessed them. He wrote about his travels in A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America (1698).
The Niagara River was the site of the earliest recorded railway in America. It was an inclined wooden tramway built by John Montresor (1736–1799), a British military engineer, in 1764. Called "The Cradles" and "The Old Lewiston Incline", it featured loaded carts pulled up wooden rails by rope. It facilitated the movement of goods over the Niagara Escarpment in present-day Lewiston, New York.
In 1781, the Niagara Purchase was signed, involving a 6.5-kilometre-wide (4.0 mi) strip of land bordering the west bank of the Niagara River, connecting Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
Several battles occurred along the Niagara River, which was historically defended by Fort George (Canadian side) and Fort Niagara (American side) at the mouth of the river and Fort Erie (Canadian side) at the head of the river. These forts were important during the Seven Years' War (known as the French and Indian War in the United States) and the American Revolutionary War. The Battle of Queenston Heights took place near the river in the War of 1812.
The river was an important route to liberation before the American Civil War, as many African-Americans escaping slavery on the Underground Railroad crossed it to find freedom in Canada. The Freedom Crossing Monument stands on the bank of the river in Lewiston to commemorate the courage of the escaping slaves and the local volunteers who helped them secretly cross the river.
In the 1880s, the Niagara River became the first waterway in the world harnessed for large-scale generation of hydroelectricity.
On the Canadian side of the river the provincial agency Niagara Parks Commission maintains all of the shoreline property, including Fort Erie, except the sites of Fort George (a National Historic Site maintained federally by Parks Canada), as a public greenspace and environmental heritage.
On the American side, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation maintains several state parks adjacent to Niagara Falls and the Niagara River.
Today, the river is the namesake of Niagara Herald Extraordinary at the Canadian Heraldic Authority.
The Niagara River is listed as a Great Lakes Areas of Concern in The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between the United States and Canada.
The Niagara River has a long history of both road and rail bridges spanning the river, both upstream and downstream of the Falls. This history includes numerous bridges that have fallen victim to the harsh conditions of the Niagara Gorge, such as landslides and icepacks.
United States Coast Guard Fort Niagara Station was once a United States Army post. There are no Canadian Coast Guard posts along the river. Fort Mississauga, Fort George and Fort Erie are former British and Canadian military forts (last used 1953, 1965 and 1923 respectively) and are now parks.
Navy Island Royal Naval Shipyard was used by the French Navy in the 18th century as a naval base and by the Royal Navy from 1763 as a small shipyard, and abandoned around 1818 after the ratification of the Rush–Bagot Treaty in 1817.
On the Canadian side the Niagara Parkway travels along the River from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie.
NY 18F lines the river on the state side from Fort Niagara to Lewiston. Niagara Scenic Parkway on the state side only travels along the River from the Falls to Lewiston. The remaining river sections (with some interruptions) are covered by the LaSalle Expressway, NY 384, NY 266 and I-190 (Niagara Thruway) / New York Thruway.
New York, sometimes called New York State, is a state in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders New Jersey and Pennsylvania to its south, New England and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec to its north, and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. With almost 19.6 million residents, it is the fourth-most populous state in the United States and eighth-most densely populated as of 2023. New York is the 27th-largest U.S. state by area, with a total area of 54,556 square miles (141,300 km2).
New York has a varied geography. The southeastern part of the state, known as Downstate, encompasses New York City, the most populous city in the United States, Long Island, the most populous island in the United States, and the lower Hudson Valley. These areas are the center of the New York metropolitan area, a sprawling urban landmass, and account for approximately two-thirds of the state's population. The much larger Upstate area spreads from the Great Lakes to Lake Champlain, and includes the Adirondack Mountains and the Catskill Mountains (part of the wider Appalachian Mountains). The east–west Mohawk River Valley bisects the more mountainous regions of Upstate, and flows into the north–south Hudson River valley near the state capital of Albany. Western New York, home to the cities of Buffalo and Rochester, is part of the Great Lakes region and borders Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Central New York is anchored by the city of Syracuse; between the central and western parts of the state, New York is dominated by the Finger Lakes, a popular tourist destination. To the south, along the state border with Pennsylvania, the Southern Tier sits atop the Allegheny Plateau, representing the northernmost reaches of Appalachia.
New York was one of the original Thirteen Colonies that went on to form the United States. The area of present-day New York had been inhabited by tribes of the Algonquians and the Iroquois Confederacy Native Americans for several thousand years by the time the earliest Europeans arrived. Stemming from Henry Hudson's expedition in 1609, the Dutch established the multiethnic colony of New Netherland in 1621. England seized the colony from the Dutch in 1664, renaming it the Province of New York. During the American Revolutionary War, a group of colonists eventually succeeded in establishing independence, and the former colony was officially admitted into the United States in 1788. From the early 19th century, New York's development of its interior, beginning with the construction of the Erie Canal, gave it incomparable advantages over other regions of the United States. The state built its political, cultural, and economic ascendancy over the next century, earning it the nickname of the "Empire State." Although deindustrialization eroded a significant portion of the state's economy in the second half of the 20th century, New York in the 21st century continues to be considered as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, and environmental sustainability.
The state attracts visitors from all over the globe, with the highest count of any U.S. state in 2022. Many of its landmarks are well known, including four of the world's ten most-visited tourist attractions in 2013: Times Square, Central Park, Niagara Falls and Grand Central Terminal. New York is home to approximately 200 colleges and universities, including two Ivy League universities, Columbia University and Cornell University, and the expansive State University of New York, which is among the largest university systems in the nation. New York City is home to the headquarters of the United Nations, and it is sometimes described as the world's most important city, the cultural, financial, and media epicenter, and the capital of the world.
The history of New York begins around 10,000 B.C. when the first people arrived. By 1100 A.D. two main cultures had become dominant as the Iroquoian and Algonquian developed. European discovery of New York was led by the Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 followed by the first land claim in 1609 by the Dutch. As part of New Netherland, the colony was important in the fur trade and eventually became an agricultural resource thanks to the patroon system. In 1626, the Dutch thought they had bought the island of Manhattan from Native Americans.[1] In 1664, England renamed the colony New York, after the Duke of York and Albany, brother of King Charles II. New York City gained prominence in the 18th century as a major trading port in the Thirteen Colonies.
New York played a pivotal role during the American Revolution and subsequent war. The Stamp Act Congress in 1765 brought together representatives from across the Thirteen Colonies to form a unified response to British policies. The Sons of Liberty were active in New York City to challenge British authority. After a major loss at the Battle of Long Island, the Continental Army suffered a series of additional defeats that forced a retreat from the New York City area, leaving the strategic port and harbor to the British army and navy as their North American base of operations for the rest of the war. The Battle of Saratoga was the turning point of the war in favor of the Americans, convincing France to formally ally with them. New York's constitution was adopted in 1777, and strongly influenced the United States Constitution. New York City was the national capital at various times between 1788 and 1790, where the Bill of Rights was drafted. Albany became the permanent state capital in 1797. In 1787, New York became the eleventh state to ratify the United States Constitution.
New York hosted significant transportation advancements in the 19th century, including the first steamboat line in 1807, the Erie Canal in 1825, and America's first regularly scheduled rail service in 1831. These advancements led to the expanded settlement of western New York and trade ties to the Midwest settlements around the Great Lakes.
Due to New York City's trade ties to the South, there were numerous southern sympathizers in the early days of the American Civil War and the mayor proposed secession. Far from any of the battles, New York ultimately sent the most soldiers and money to support the Union cause. Thereafter, the state helped create the industrial age and consequently was home to some of the first labor unions.
During the 19th century, New York City became the main entry point for European immigrants to the United States, beginning with a wave of Irish during their Great Famine. Millions came through Castle Clinton in Battery Park before Ellis Island opened in 1892 to welcome millions more, increasingly from eastern and southern Europe. The Statue of Liberty opened in 1886 and became a symbol of hope. New York boomed during the Roaring Twenties, before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and skyscrapers expressed the energy of the city. New York City was the site of successive tallest buildings in the world from 1913 to 1974.
The buildup of defense industries for World War II turned around the state's economy from the Great Depression, as hundreds of thousands worked to defeat the Axis powers. Following the war, the state experienced significant suburbanization around all the major cities, and most central cities shrank. The Thruway system opened in 1956, signaling another era of transportation advances.
Following a period of near-bankruptcy in the late 1970s, New York City renewed its stature as a cultural center, attracted more immigration, and hosted the development of new music styles. The city developed from publishing to become a media capital over the second half of the 20th century, hosting most national news channels and broadcasts. Some of its newspapers became nationally and globally renowned. The state's manufacturing base eroded with the restructuring of industry, and the state transitioned into service industries.
The first peoples of New York are estimated to have arrived around 10,000 BC. Around AD 800, Iroquois ancestors moved into the area from the Appalachian region. The people of the Point Peninsula complex were the predecessors of the Algonquian peoples of New York. By around 1100, the distinct Iroquoian-speaking and Algonquian-speaking cultures that would eventually be encountered by Europeans had developed. The five nations of the Iroquois League developed a powerful confederacy about the 15th century that controlled territory throughout present-day New York, into Pennsylvania around the Great Lakes. For centuries, the Mohawk cultivated maize fields in the lowlands of the Mohawk River, which were later taken over by Dutch settlers at Schenectady, New York when they bought this territory. The Iroquois nations to the west also had well-cultivated areas and orchards.
The Iroquois established dominance over the fur trade throughout their territory, bargaining with European colonists. Other New York tribes were more subject to either European destruction or assimilation within the Iroquoian confederacy. Situated at major Native trade routes in the Northeast and positioned between French and English zones of settlement, the Iroquois were intensely caught up with the onrush of Europeans, which is also to say that the settlers, whether Dutch, French or English, were caught up with the Iroquois as well. Algonquian tribes were less united among their tribes; they typically lived along rivers, streams, or the Atlantic Coast. But, both groups of natives were well-established peoples with highly sophisticated cultural systems; these were little understood or appreciated by the European colonists who encountered them. The natives had "a complex and elaborate native economy that included hunting, gathering, manufacturing, and farming...[and were] a mosaic of Native American tribes, nations, languages, and political associations." The Iroquois usually met at an Onondaga in Northern New York, which changed every century or so, where they would coordinate policies on how to deal with Europeans and strengthen the bond between the Five Nations.
Tribes who have managed to call New York home have been the Iroquois, Mohawk, Mohican, Susquehannock, Petun, Chonnonton, Ontario and Nanticoke.
In 1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian explorer in the service of the French crown, explored the Atlantic coast of North America between the Carolinas and Newfoundland, including New York Harbor and Narragansett Bay. On April 17, 1524, Verrazzano entered New York Bay, by way of the Strait now called the Narrows. He described "a vast coastline with a deep delta in which every kind of ship could pass" and he adds: "that it extends inland for a league and opens up to form a beautiful lake. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats". He landed on the tip of Manhattan and perhaps on the furthest point of Long Island.
In 1535, Jacques Cartier, a French explorer, became the first European to describe and map the Saint Lawrence River from the Atlantic Ocean, sailing as far upriver as the site of Montreal.
On April 4, 1609, Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, departed Amsterdam in command of the ship Halve Maen (Half Moon). On September 3 he reached the estuary of the Hudson River. He sailed up the Hudson River to about Albany near the confluence of the Mohawk River and the Hudson. His voyage was used to establish Dutch claims to the region and to the fur trade that prospered there after a trading post was established at Albany in 1614.
In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Christiaensen, built Fort Nassau (now Albany) the first Dutch settlement in North America and the first European settlement in what would become New York. It was replaced by nearby Fort Orange in 1623. In 1625, Fort Amsterdam was built on the southern tip of Manhattan Island to defend the Hudson River. This settlement grew to become the city New Amsterdam.
The British conquered New Netherland in 1664; Lenient terms of surrender most likely kept local resistance to a minimum. The colony and New Amsterdam were both renamed New York (and "Beverwijck" was renamed Albany) after its new proprietor, James II later King of England, Ireland and Scotland, who was at the time Duke of York and Duke of Albany The population of New Netherland at the time of English takeover was 7,000–8,000.
Thousands of poor German farmers, chiefly from the Palatine region of Germany, migrated to upstate districts after 1700. They kept to themselves, married their own, spoke German, attended Lutheran churches, and retained their own customs and foods. They emphasized farm ownership. Some mastered English to become conversant with local legal and business opportunities. They ignored the Indians and tolerated slavery (although few were rich enough to own a slave).
Large manors were developed along the Hudson River by elite colonists during the 18th century, including Livingston, Cortlandt, Philipsburg, and Rensselaerswyck. The manors represented more than half of the colony's undeveloped land. The Province of New York thrived during this time, its economy strengthened by Long Island and Hudson Valley agriculture, in conjunction with trade and artisanal activity at the Port of New York; the colony was a breadbasket and lumberyard for the British sugar colonies in the Caribbean. New York's population grew substantially during this century: from the first colonial census (1698) to the last (1771), the province grew ninefold, from 18,067 to 168,007.
New York in the American Revolution
Further information: John Peter Zenger, Stamp Act Congress, Invasion of Canada (1775), New York and New Jersey campaign, Prisoners of war in the American Revolutionary War, and Intelligence in the American Revolutionary War
New York played a pivotal role in the Revolutionary War. The colony verged on revolt following the Stamp Act of 1765, advancing the New York City–based Sons of Liberty to the forefront of New York politics. The Act exacerbated the depression the province experienced after unsuccessfully invading Canada in 1760. Even though New York City merchants lost out on lucrative military contracts, the group sought common ground between the King and the people; however, compromise became impossible as of April 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord. In that aftermath the New York Provincial Congress on June 9, 1775, for five pounds sterling for each hundredweight of gunpowder delivered to each county's committee.
Two powerful families had for decades assembled colony-wide coalitions of supporters. With few exceptions, members long associated with the DeLancey faction went along when its leadership decided to support the crown, while members of the Livingston faction became Patriots.
New York's strategic central location and port made it key to controlling the colonies. The British assembled the century's largest fleet: at one point 30,000 British sailors and soldiers anchored off Staten Island. General George Washington barely escaped New York City with his army in November 1776; General Sir William Howe was successful in driving Washington out, but erred by expanding into New Jersey. By January 1777, he retained only a few outposts near New York City. The British held the city for the duration, using it as a base for expeditions against other targets.
In October 1777, American General Horatio Gates won the Battle of Saratoga, later regarded as the war's turning point. Had Gates not held, the rebellion might well have broken down: losing Saratoga would have cost the entire Hudson–Champlain corridor, which would have separated New England from the rest of the colonies and split the future union.
Upon war's end, New York's borders became well–defined: the counties east of Lake Champlain became Vermont and the state's western borders were settled by 1786.
Many Iroquois supported the British (typically fearing future American ambitions). Many were killed during the war; others went into exile with the British. Those remaining lived on twelve reservations; by 1826 only eight reservations remained, all of which survived into the 21st century.
The state adopted its constitution in April 1777, creating a strong executive and strict separation of powers. It strongly influenced the federal constitution a decade later. Debate over the federal constitution in 1787 led to formation of the groups known as Federalists—mainly "downstaters" (those who lived in or near New York City) who supported a strong national government—and Antifederalists—mainly upstaters (those who lived to the city's north and west) who opposed large national institutions. In 1787, Alexander Hamilton, a leading Federalist from New York and signatory to the Constitution, wrote the first essay of the Federalist Papers. He published and wrote most of the series in New York City newspapers in support of the proposed United States Constitution. Antifederalists were not swayed by the arguments, but the state ratified it in 1788.
In 1785, New York City became the national capital and continued as such on and off until 1790; George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the United States in front of Federal Hall in 1789. The United States Bill of Rights was drafted there, and the United States Supreme Court sat for the first time. From statehood to 1797, the Legislature frequently moved the state capital between Albany, Kingston, Poughkeepsie, and New York City. Thereafter, Albany retained that role.
In the early 19th century, New York became a center for advancement in transportation. In 1807, Robert Fulton initiated a steamboat line from New York to Albany, the first successful enterprise of its kind. By 1815, Albany was the state's turnpike center, which established the city as the hub for pioneers migrating west to Buffalo and the Michigan Territory.
In 1825 the Erie Canal opened, securing the state's economic dominance. Its impact was enormous: one source stated, "Linking the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes, the canal was an act of political will that joined the regions of the state, created a vast economic hinterland for New York City, and established a ready market for agricultural products from the state's interior." In that year western New York transitioned from "frontier" to settled area. By this time, all counties and most municipalities had incorporated, approximately matching the state's is organized today. In 1831, the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad started the country's first successful regularly–scheduled steam railroad service.
Advancing transportation quickly led to settlement of the fertile Mohawk and Gennessee valleys and the Niagara Frontier. Buffalo and Rochester became boomtowns. Significant migration of New England "Yankees" (mainly of English descent) to the central and western parts of the state led to minor conflicts with the more settled "Yorkers" (mainly of German, Dutch, and Scottish descent). More than 15% of the state's 1850 population had been born in New England[citation needed]. The western part of the state grew fastest at this time. By 1840, New York was home to seven of the nation's thirty largest cities.
During this period, towns established academies for education, including for girls. The western area of the state was a center of progressive causes, including support of abolitionism, temperance, and women's rights. Religious enthusiasms flourished and the Latter Day Saint movement was founded in the area by Joseph Smith and his vision. Some supporters of abolition participated in the Underground Railroad, helping fugitive slaves reach freedom in Canada or in New York.
In addition, in the early 1840s the state legislature and Governor William H. Seward expanded rights for free blacks and fugitive slaves in New York: in 1840 the legislature passed laws protecting the rights of African Americans against Southern slave-catchers. One guaranteed alleged fugitive slaves the right of a jury trial in New York to establish whether they were slaves, and another pledged the aid of the state to recover free blacks kidnapped into slavery, (as happened to Solomon Northup of Saratoga Springs in 1841, who did not regain freedom until 1853.) In 1841 Seward signed legislation to repeal a "nine-month law" that allowed slaveholders to bring their slaves into the state for a period of nine months before they were considered free. After this, slaves brought to the state were immediately considered freed, as was the case in some other free states. Seward also signed legislation to establish public education for all children, leaving it up to local jurisdictions as to how that would be supplied (some had segregated schools).
New York culture bloomed in the first half of the 19th century: in 1809 Washington Irving wrote the satirical A History of New York under the pen name Diedrich Knickerbocker, and in 1819 he based Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in Hudson Valley towns. Thomas Cole's Hudson River School was established in the 1830s by showcasing dramatic landscapes of the Hudson Valley. The first baseball teams formed in New York City in the 1840s, including the New York Knickerbockers. Professional baseball later located its Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Saratoga Race Course, an annual summer attraction in Saratoga Springs, opened in 1847.
A civil war was not in the best interest of business, because New York had strong ties to the Deep South, both through the port of New York and manufacture of cotton goods in upstate textile mills. Half of New York City's exports were related to cotton before the war. Southern businessmen so frequently traveled to the city that they established favorite hotels and restaurants. Trade was based on moving Southern goods. The city's large Democrat community feared the impact of Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 and the mayor urged secession of New York.
By the time of the 1861 Battle of Fort Sumter, such political differences decreased and the state quickly met Lincoln's request for soldiers and supplies. More soldiers fought from New York than any other Northern state. While no battles were waged in New York, the state was not immune to Confederate conspiracies, including one to burn various New York cities and another to invade the state via Canada.
In January 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves in states that were still in rebellion against the union. In March 1863, the federal draft law was changed so that male citizens between 20 and 35 and unmarried citizens to age 45 were subject to conscription. Those who could afford to hire a substitute or pay $300 were exempt. Antiwar newspaper editors attacked the law, and many immigrants and their descendants resented being drafted in place of people who could buy their way out. Democratic Party leaders raised the specter of a deluge of freed southern blacks competing with the white working class, then dominated by ethnic Irish and immigrants. On the lottery's first day, July 11, 1863, the first lottery draw was held. On Monday, July 13, 1863, five days of large-scale riots began, which were dominated by ethnic Irish, who targeted blacks in the city, their neighborhoods, and known abolitionist sympathizers. As a result, many blacks left Manhattan permanently, moving to Brooklyn or other areas.
In the following decades, New York strengthened its dominance of the financial and banking industries. Manufacturing continued to rise: Eastman Kodak founded in 1888 in Rochester, General Electric in Schenectady, and Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company in the Triple Cities are some of the well-known companies founded during this period. Buffalo and Niagara Falls attracted numerous factories following the advent of hydroelectric power in the area. With industry blooming, workers began to unite in New York as early as the 1820s. By 1882, the Knights of Labor in New York City had 60,000 members. Trade unions used political influence to limit working hours as early as 1867. At the same time, New York's agricultural output peaked. Focus changed from crop-based to dairy-based agriculture. The cheese industry became established in the Mohawk Valley. By 1881, the state had more than 241,000 farms. In the same period, the area around New York harbor became the world's oyster capital, retaining that title into the early twentieth century.
Immigration increased throughout the latter half of the 19th century. Starting with refugees from the Great Famine of Ireland in the 1840s, New York became a prominent entry point for those seeking a new life in the United States. Between 1855 and 1890, an estimated 8 million immigrants passed through Castle Clinton at Battery Park in Manhattan. Early in this period, most immigrants came from Ireland and Germany. Ellis Island opened in 1892, and between 1880 and 1920, most immigrants were German and Eastern European Jews, Poles, and other Eastern and Southern Europeans, including many Italians. By 1925, New York City's population outnumbered that of London, making it the most populous city in the world. Arguably New York's most identifiable symbol, Liberty Enlightening the World (the Statue of Liberty), a gift from France for the American centennial, was completed in 1886. By the early 20th century, the statue was regarded as the "Mother of Exiles"—a symbol of hope to immigrants.
New York's political pattern changed little after the mid–19th century. New York City and its metropolitan area was already heavily Democrat; Upstate was aligned with the Republican Party and was a center of abolitionist activists. In the 1850s, Democratic Tammany Hall became one of the most powerful and durable political machines in United States history. Boss William Tweed brought the organization to the forefront of city and then state politics in the 1860s. Based on its command of a large population, Tammany maintained influence until at least the 1930s. Outside the city, Republicans were able to influence the redistricting process enough to constrain New York City and capture control of the Legislature in 1894. Both parties have seen national political success: in the 39 presidential elections between 1856 and 2010, Republicans won 19 times and Democrats 20 times.
By 1901, New York was the richest and most populous state. Two years prior, the five boroughs of New York City became one city. Within decades, the city's emblem had become the skyscraper: the Woolworth Building was the tallest building in the world from 1913, surpassed by 40 Wall Street in April 1930, the Chrysler Building in 1930, the Empire State Building in 1931, and the World Trade Center in 1972 before losing the title in 1974.
The state was serviced by over a dozen major railroads and at the start of the 20th century and electric Interurban rail networks began to spring up around Syracuse, Rochester and other cities in New York during this period.
In the late 1890s governor Theodore Roosevelt and fellow Republicans such as Charles Evans Hughes worked with many Democrats such as Al Smith to promote Progressivism. They battled trusts and monopolies (especially in the insurance industry), promoted efficiency, fought waste, and called for more democracy in politics. Democrats focused more on the benefits of progressivism for their own ethnic working class base and for labor unions.
Democratic political machines, especially Tammany Hall in Manhattan, opposed woman suffrage because they feared that the addition of female voters would dilute the control they had established over groups of male voters. By the time of the New York State referendum on women's suffrage in 1917, however, some wives and daughters of Tammany Hall leaders were working for suffrage, leading it to take a neutral position that was crucial to the referendum's passage.
Following a sharp but short-lived Depression at the beginning of the decade, New York enjoyed a booming economy during the Roaring Twenties. New York suffered during the Great Depression, which began with the Wall Street crash on Black Tuesday in 1929. The Securities and Exchange Commission opened in 1934 to regulate the stock market. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected governor in 1928, and the state faced upwards of 25% unemployment. His Temporary Emergency Relief Agency, established in 1931, was the first work relief program in the nation and influenced the national Federal Emergency Relief Administration. Roosevelt was elected President in 1932 in part because of his promises to extend New York–style relief programs across the country via his New Deal. In 1932, Lake Placid was host to the III Olympic Winter Games.
As the largest state, New York again supplied the most resources during World War II. New York manufactured 11 percent of total United States military armaments produced during the war and suffered 31,215 casualties. The war affected the state both socially and economically. For example, to overcome discriminatory labor practices, Governor Herbert H. Lehman created the Committee on Discrimination in Employment in 1941 and Governor Thomas E. Dewey signed the Ives-Quinn Act in 1945, banning employment discrimination. The G.I. Bill of 1944, which offered returning soldiers the opportunity of affordable higher education, forced New York to create a public university system since its private universities could not handle the influx; the State University of New York was created by Governor Dewey in 1948.
World War II constituted New York's last great industrial era. At its conclusion, the defense industry shrank and the economy shifted towards producing services rather than goods. Returning soldiers disproportionately displaced female and minority workers who had entered the industrial workforce only when the war left employers no other choice. Companies moved to the south and west, seeking lower taxes and a less costly, non–union workforce. Many workers followed the jobs. The middle class expanded and created suburbs such as the one on Long Island. The automobile accelerated this decentralization; planned communities like Levittown offered affordable middle-class housing.
Larger cities stopped growing around 1950. Growth resumed only in New York City, in the 1980s. Buffalo's population fell by half between 1950 and 2000. Reduced immigration and worker migration led New York State's population to decline for the first time between 1970 and 1980. California and Texas both surpassed it in population.
New York entered its third era of massive transportation projects by building highways, notably the New York State Thruway. The project was unpopular with New York City Democrats, who referred to it as "Dewey's ditch" and the "enemy of schools", because the Thruway disproportionately benefited upstate. The highway was based on the German Autobahn and was unlike anything seen at that point in the United States. It was within 30 miles (50 km) of 90% of the population at its conception. Costing $600 million, the full 427-mile (687 km) project opened in 1956.
Nelson Rockefeller was governor from 1959 to 1973 and changed New York politics. He began as a liberal, but grew more conservative: he limited SUNY's growth, responded aggressively to the Attica Prison riot, and promulgated the uniquely severe Rockefeller Drug Laws. The World Trade Center and other profligate projects nearly drove New York City into bankruptcy in 1975. The state took substantial budgetary control, which eventually led to improved fiscal prudence.
The Executive Mansion was retaken by Democrats in 1974 and remained under Democratic control for 20 years under Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo. Late–century Democrats became more centrist, including US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1977–2001) and New York City Mayor Ed Koch (1978–1989), while state Republicans began to align themselves with the more conservative national party. They gained power through the elections of Senator Alfonse D'Amato in 1980, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in 1993, and Governor George Pataki in 1994. New York remained one of the most liberal states. In 1984, Ronald Reagan was the last Republican to carry the state, although Republican Michael Bloomberg served as New York City mayor in the early 21st century.
In the late 20th century, telecommunication and high technology industries employed many New Yorkers. New York City was especially successful at this transition. Entrepreneurs created many small companies, as industrial firms such as Polaroid withered. This success drew many young professionals into the still–dwindling cities. New York City was the exception and has continued to draw new residents. The energy of the city created attractions and new businesses. Some people believe that changes in policing created a less threatening environment; crime rates dropped, and urban development reduced urban decay.
This in turn led to a surge in culture. New York City became, once again, "the center for all things chic and trendy". Hip-hop and rap music, led by New York City, became the most popular pop genre. Immigration to both the city and state rose. New York City, with a large gay and lesbian community, suffered many deaths from AIDS beginning in the 1980s.
New York City increased its already large share of television programming, home to the network news broadcasts, as well as two of the three major cable news networks. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times became two of the three "national" newspapers, read throughout the country. New York also increased its dominance of the financial services industry centered on Wall Street, led by banking expansion, a rising stock market, innovations in investment banking, including junk bond trading and accelerated by the savings and loan crisis that decimated competitors elsewhere in New York.
Upstate did not fare as well as downstate; the major industries that began to reinvigorate New York City did not typically spread to other regions. The number of farms in the state had fallen to 30,000 by 1997. City populations continued to decline while suburbs grew in area, but did not increase proportionately in population. High-tech industry grew in cities such as Corning and Rochester. Overall New York entered the new millennium "in a position of economic strength and optimism".
In 2001, New York entered a new era following the 9/11 attacks, the worst terrorist attack ever to take place on American soil. Two of the four hijacked passenger jets crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, destroying them, and killing almost 3,000 people. One flew into the Pentagon demolishing the walls. The final one was almost taken back over by the passengers aboard and crashed into an open grassland with 296 out of the 500 people dead. Thousands of New Yorkers volunteered their time to search the ruin for survivors and remains in the following weeks.
Following the attacks, plans were announced to rebuild the World Trade Center site. 7 World Trade Center became the first World Trade Center skyscraper to be rebuilt in five years after the attacks. One World Trade Center, four more office towers, and a memorial to the casualties of the September 11 attacks are under construction as of 2011. One World Trade Center opened on November 3, 2014.
On October 29 and 30, 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused extensive destruction of the state's shorelines, ravaging portions of New York City, Long Island, and southern Westchester with record-high storm surge, with severe flooding and high winds causing power outages for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, and leading to gasoline shortages and disruption of mass transit systems. The storm and its profound effects have prompted the discussion of constructing seawalls and other coastal barriers around the shorelines of New York City and Long Island to minimize the risk from another such future event. Such risk is considered highly probable due to global warming and rising sea levels.
Niagara Falls is a city in Niagara County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 48,671. It is adjacent to the Niagara River, across from the city of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and named after the famed Niagara Falls which they share. The city is within the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area and the Western New York region.
While the city was formerly inhabited by Native Americans, Europeans who migrated to the Niagara Falls in the mid-17th century began to open businesses and develop infrastructure. Later in the 18th and 19th centuries, scientists and businessmen began harnessing the power of the Niagara River for electricity and the city began to attract manufacturers and other businesses drawn by the promise of inexpensive hydroelectric power. After the 1960s, however, the city and region witnessed an economic decline, following an attempt at urban renewal under then Mayor Lackey. Consistent with the rest of the Rust Belt as industries left the city, old line affluent families relocated to nearby suburbs and out of town.
Despite the decline in heavy industry, Niagara Falls State Park and the downtown area closest to the falls continue to thrive as a result of tourism. The population, however, has continued to decline from a peak of 102,394 in the 1960s due to the loss of manufacturing jobs in the area.
Before Europeans entered the area, it was dominated by the Neutral Nation of Native Americans. European migration into the area began in the 17th century. The first recorded European to visit the area was Frenchman Robert de la Salle, who built Fort Conti at the mouth of the Niagara River early in 1679, with permission from the Iroquois, as a base for boatbuilding; his ship Le Griffon was built on the upper Niagara River at or near Cayuga Creek in the same year. He was accompanied by Belgian priest Louis Hennepin, who was the first known European to see the falls. The influx of newcomers may have been a catalyst for already hostile native tribes to turn to open warfare in competition for the fur trade.
The City of Niagara Falls was incorporated on March 17, 1892, from the villages of Manchester and Suspension Bridge, which were parts of the Town of Niagara. Thomas Vincent Welch, a member of the charter committee and a New York state assemblyman and a second-generation Irish American, persuaded Governor Roswell P. Flower to sign the bill on St. Patrick's Day. George W. Wright was elected the first mayor of Niagara Falls.
By the end of the 19th century, the city was heavily industrialized, due in part to the power potential offered by the Niagara River. Tourism was considered a secondary niche, while manufacturing of petrochemicals, abrasives, metallurgical products and other materials was the main producer of jobs and attracted a large number of workers, many of whom were immigrants.
Industry and tourism grew steadily throughout the first half of the 20th century due to a high demand for industrial products and the increased mobility of people to travel. Paper, rubber, plastics, petrochemicals, carbon insulators and abrasives were among the city's major industries. This prosperity would end by the late 1960s as aging industrial plants moved to less expensive locations. In addition, the falls were incompatible with modern shipping technology.[further explanation needed]
In 1956, the Schoellkopf Power Plant on the lower river just downstream of the American Falls was critically damaged by the collapse of the Niagara Gorge wall above it. This prompted the planning and construction of one of the largest hydroelectric plants to be built in North America to that time, generating a large influx of workers and families to the area. New York City urban planner Robert Moses built the new power plant in nearby Lewiston, New York. Much of the power generated there fueled growing demands for power in downstate New York and New York City.
The neighborhood of Love Canal gained national media attention in 1978 when toxic waste contamination from a chemical landfill beneath it forced United States President Jimmy Carter to declare a state of emergency, the first such presidential declaration made for a non-natural disaster. Hundreds of residents were evacuated from the area, many of whom were ill because of exposure to chemical waste.
After the Love Canal disaster, the city—which had already been declining in population for nearly two decades—experienced accelerated economic and political difficulties. The costs of manufacturing elsewhere had become less expensive, which led to the closure of several factories. The city's population eventually dropped by more than half of its peak, as workers fled the city in search of jobs elsewhere. Then, much like the nearby city of Buffalo, the city's economy plummeted when a failed urban renewal project destroyed Falls Street and the tourist district.
In 2001, the leadership of Laborers Local 91 was found guilty of extortion, racketeering and other crimes following an exposé by Mike Hudson of the Niagara Falls Reporter. Union boss Michael "Butch" Quarcini died before trial, while the rest of the union leadership was sentenced to prison.
In early 2010, former Niagara Falls Mayor Vincenzo Anello was indicted on federal charges of corruption, alleging the mayor accepted $40,000 in loans from a businessman who was later awarded a no-bid lease on city property. The charges were dropped as part of a plea deal after Anello pleaded guilty to unrelated charges of pension fraud, regarding a pension from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, of which he is a member. He was sentenced to 10 to 16 months in prison.
The city's decline received national exposure from Bloomberg Businessweek in 2010.
On November 30, 2010, the New York State Attorney General entered into an agreement with the city and its police department to create new policies to govern police practices in response to claims of excessive force and police misconduct. The city committed to create policies and procedures to prevent and respond to allegations of excessive force, and to ensure police are properly trained and complaints are properly investigated. Prior claims filed by residents will be evaluated by an independent panel.
In 2020, a public square named Cataract Commons opened on Old Falls Street. It is a public space for outdoor events and activities.
The city has multiple properties on the National Register of Historic Places. It also has three national historic districts, including Chilton Avenue-Orchard Parkway Historic District, Deveaux School Historic District and the Park Place Historic District.
Niagara Falls is at the international boundary between the United States and Canada. The city is within the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area and is approximately 16 miles (26 km) from Buffalo, New York.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 16.8 square miles (44 km2), of which 14.1 square miles (37 km2) is land and 2.8 square miles (7.3 km2) (16.37%) is water. The city is built along the Niagara Falls and the Niagara Gorge, which is next to the Niagara River.
Niagara Falls has a humid continental climate (Dfa). The city experiences cold, snowy winters and hot, humid summers. Precipitation is moderate and consistent in all seasons, falling equally or more as snow during the winter. The city has snowier than average winters compared to most cities in the US, however less than many other cities in Upstate New York including nearby Buffalo and Rochester. Thaw cycles with temperatures above 32 °F (0 °C) are a common occurrence. The hottest and coldest temperatures recorded in the decade through 2015 were 97 °F (36 °C) in 2005 and −13 °F (−25 °C) in 2003, respectively. 38% of warm season precipitation falls in the form of a thunderstorm.
Buffalo Avenue – runs along the south end along the Niagara River once home to a vast number of old families with architecturally significant mansions; further east (past John Daly Boulevard) the street is surrounded by a number of industrial sites to 56th Street before returning to a residential area and ending at the Love Canal area at 102nd Street.
Central District
Deveaux – Located in the northwestern corner (west of the North End) along the Niagara River is residential area built in the 1920s to 1940s. Named for Judge Samuel DeVeaux who left his estate to be established as the Deveaux College for Orphans and Destitute Children in 1853 (closed 1971), now the site of DeVeaux Woods State Park and DeVeaux School Historical District.
Downtown – Area around the Falls and home to hotels including Seneca Niagara Resort Casino, Niagara Falls State Park, Niagara Falls Culinary Institute (formerly Rainbow Centre Factory Outlet)
East Side – the area bounded by the gorge on the west, Niagara Street on the south, Ontario Avenue on the North and Main Street (NY Rt 104) on the east.
Hyde Park – Located near the namesake Hyde Park next to Little Italy as well as home to Hyde Park Municipal Golf Course.
LaSalle – Bounded by 80th Street, Niagara Falls Boulevard, Cayuga Drive and LaSalle Expressway was built up in the 1940s to 1960s. Cayuga Island is linked to neighborhood. The actual neighborhood where the Love Canal was to be built.
Little Italy – home to a once predominately Italian community that runs along Pine Avenue from Main Street to Hyde Park Boulevard
Love Canal – Established in the 1950s on land acquired from Hooker Chemical Company. Most of the neighborhood was evacuated in the 1980s after toxic waste was discovered underground. Resettlement began in 1990.[24]
Niagara Street – residential area east of Downtown along Niagara Street (distinct from Niagara Ave.) once home to a predominately German and Polish community.
North End – runs along Highland Avenue in the north end of the city before it merges with Hyde Park Boulevard.
As of the census of 2010, there were 50,193 people, 22,603 households, and 12,495 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,987.7 people per square mile (1,153.5 per square km). There were 26,220 housing units at an average density of 1,560.7 per square mile (602.6/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 70.5% White, 21.6% African American, 1.9% Native American, 1.2% Asian, 0% Pacific Islander, 0.8% from other races, and 3.9% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.0% of the population.
There were 22,603 households, out of which 23.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 29.8% were married couples living together, 19.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 44.7% were non-families. 38.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.20 and the average family size was 4.02.
In the city, 22% of the population was under the age of 18, 10.1% aged from 18 to 24, 24.2% from 25 to 44, 28.2% from 45 to 64, and 15.5% were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.4 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $26,800, and the median income for a family was $34,377. Males had a median income of $31,672 versus $22,124 for females. 23% of the population was below the poverty line.
Niagara Falls has a number of places of worship, including the Salvation Army, First Assembly of God Church, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Niagara, St. Peter's Episcopal Church, First Presbyterian Church, St. Theresa Roman Catholic Church in Deveaux, and the Reform Jewish Temple Beth El. The Conservative Jewish Temple Beth Israel closed in 2012.
Niagara Falls has struggled with high rates of violent and property crime; FBI crime data indicate that the city has among the highest crime rates in New York state. In response to gun violence, volunteer groups such as Operation SNUG mobilized to promote positive community involvement in the troubled areas of the city.
Comptroller reported that Niagara Falls has "struggled through decades of population losses, rising crime and repeated attempts to reinvent itself from a manufacturing town with some tourism to a major tourist destination." The city became a boomtown with the opening of the New York State Power Authority's hydroelectric Niagara Power Plant in the 1960s; the cheap electricity produced by the plant generated power for a burgeoning manufacturing industry. Along with the rest of Western New York, Niagara Falls suffered a significant economic decline from a decline in industry by the 1970s. Today, the city struggles to compete with Niagara Falls, Ontario; the Canadian side has a greater average annual income, a higher average home price, and lower levels of vacant buildings and blight, as well as a more vibrant economy and better tourism infrastructure. The population of Niagara Falls, New York fell by half from the 1960s to 2012. In contrast, the population of Niagara Falls, Ontario more than tripled. In 2000, the city's median household income was 36% below the national average. In 2012, the city's unemployment rate was significantly higher than the statewide unemployment rate.
Significant sources of economic activity in the region includes the Niagara Falls International Airport, which was renovated in 2009; the Seneca Gaming Corporation's Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel, which opened in the 2000s respectively; and the nearby Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station.
In late 2001, the State of New York established the USA Niagara Development Corporation, a subsidiary to the State's economic development agency, to focus specifically on facilitating development in the downtown area. However, the organization has been criticized for making little progress and doing little to improve the city's economy.
From 1973 to 2002, the city had a Convention and Civic Center on 4th street. In 2002 the venue was converted into the Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel. In 2004, a new Niagara Falls Convention Center (NFCC) opened on Old Falls Street. The Old Falls Street venue has 116,000 square feet for exhibitions and meetings, and a 32,200-square-foot event/exhibit hall.
The city is home to the Niagara Falls State Park. The park has several attractions, including Cave of the Winds behind the Bridal Veil Falls, Maid of the Mist, a popular boat tour which operates at the foot of the Rainbow Bridge, Prospect Point and its observation tower, Niagara Discovery Center, Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center, and the Aquarium of Niagara.
Several other attractions also near the river, including Whirlpool State Park, De Veaux Woods State Park, Earl W. Brydges Artpark State Park in nearby Lewiston (town), New York, and Fort Niagara State Park in Youngstown, New York.
Attractions in the downtown include the Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel and Pine Avenue which was historically home to a large Italian American population and is now known as Little Italy for its abundance of shops and quality restaurants.
The Niagara Power of the New York Collegiate Baseball League play at Sal Maglie Stadium. The team is owned by Niagara University. The Cataract City Wolverines of the Gridiron Developmental Football League are a minor league football team based in Niagara Falls. The team played their inaugural season in 2021.
In 2017, the Tier III junior North American 3 Hockey League team, the Lockport Express, relocated to Niagara Falls as the Niagara Falls PowerHawks.
Former sports teams based in Niagara Falls include the Class-A Niagara Falls Sox, the Class-A Niagara Falls Rapids, the Niagara Falls Lancers of the Midwest Football League, and the Western New York Thundersnow of the Premier Basketball League and American Basketball Association.
The City of Niagara Falls functions under a strong mayor-council form of government. The government consists of a mayor, a professional city administrator, and a city council. The current mayor is Robert Restaino.
The city council serves four-year, staggered terms, except in the case of a special election. It is headed by a chairperson, who votes in all items for council action.
On a state level, Niagara Falls is part of the 145th Assembly District of New York State, represented by Republican Angelo Morinello. Niagara Falls is also part of the 62nd Senate District of New York State, represented by Republican Robert Ortt.
On a national level, the city is part of New York's 26th congressional district and is represented by Congressman Brian Higgins. In the United States Senate, the city and the state are represented by senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.
Founded in 1892 Niagara Falls Police Department provide local law enforcement in the city with 155 sworn officers. This force is not to be mistaken for the Town of Niagara, New York which has a smaller force founded in 1954.
Residents are zoned to the Niagara Falls City School District. Niagara University and Niagara County Community College are the two colleges in Niagara County.
Since Niagara Falls is within the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area, the city's media is predominantly served by the city of Buffalo.
The city has two local newspapers, the Niagara Gazette, which is published daily except Tuesday and The Messenger Of Niagara Falls, NY which is published quarterly. The Messenger Of Niagara Falls, NY, which is officially Niagara Falls, New York's, first black-owned and operated news publication, founded October 2018. The Messenger Of Niagara Falls, NY published its inaugural issue April 2019. The Buffalo News is the closest major newspaper in the area. The city also is the home to a weekly tabloid known as the Niagara Falls Reporter.
Three radio stations are licensed to the city of Niagara Falls, including WHLD AM 1270, WEBR AM 1440, and WTOR AM 770.
Niagara Falls is primarily served by the Buffalo Niagara International Airport for regional and domestic flights within the United States. The recently expanded Niagara Falls International Airport serves the city, and many cross border travellers with flights to Myrtle Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Punta Gorda. Toronto's Pearson International Airport on the Canadian side is the closest airport offering long-haul international flights for the Niagara region.
The city is served by Amtrak's Maple Leaf and Empire train services, with regular stops at the Niagara Falls Station and Customhouse Interpretive Center at 825 Depot Ave West.
Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority is the public transit provider in the Buffalo metro area, with hubs at the Portage Road and Niagara Falls transportation centers.
Six New York State highways, one three-digit Interstate Highway, one expressway, one U.S. Highway, and one parkways pass through the city of Niagara Falls. New York State Route 31, New York State Route 104, and New York State Route 182 are east–west state roadways within the city, while New York State Route 61, New York State Route 265, and New York State Route 384 are north–south state roadways within the city. The LaSalle Expressway is an east–west highway which terminates near the eastern edge of Niagara Falls and begins in the nearby town of Wheatfield, New York. The Niagara Scenic Parkway is a north–south parkway that formerly ran through the city along the northern edge of the Niagara River. It remains in sections and terminates in Youngstown, New York.
Interstate 190, also referred to as the Niagara Expressway, is a north–south highway and a spur of Interstate 90 which borders the eastern end of the city. The highway enters the city from the town of Niagara and exits at the North Grand Island Bridge. U.S. Route 62, known as Niagara Falls Boulevard, Walnut Avenue, and Ferry Avenue, is signed as a north–south highway. U.S. Route 62 has an east–west orientation, and is partially split between two one-way streets within Niagara Falls. Walnut Avenue carries U.S. Route 62 west to its northern terminus at NY 104, and Ferry Avenue carries U.S. Route 62 east from downtown Niagara Falls. U.S. Route 62 Business, locally known as Pine Avenue, is an east–west route which parallels U.S. Route 62 to the south. Its western terminus is at NY 104, and its eastern terminus is at U.S. Route 62.
Two international bridges connect the city to Niagara Falls, Ontario. The Rainbow Bridge connects the two cities with passenger and pedestrian traffic and overlooks the Niagara Falls, while the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, which formerly carried the Canadian National Railway, now serves local traffic and Amtrak's Maple Leaf service.
New York, sometimes called New York State, is a state in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders New Jersey and Pennsylvania to its south, New England and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec to its north, and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. With almost 19.6 million residents, it is the fourth-most populous state in the United States and eighth-most densely populated as of 2023. New York is the 27th-largest U.S. state by area, with a total area of 54,556 square miles (141,300 km2).
New York has a varied geography. The southeastern part of the state, known as Downstate, encompasses New York City, the most populous city in the United States, Long Island, the most populous island in the United States, and the lower Hudson Valley. These areas are the center of the New York metropolitan area, a sprawling urban landmass, and account for approximately two-thirds of the state's population. The much larger Upstate area spreads from the Great Lakes to Lake Champlain, and includes the Adirondack Mountains and the Catskill Mountains (part of the wider Appalachian Mountains). The east–west Mohawk River Valley bisects the more mountainous regions of Upstate, and flows into the north–south Hudson River valley near the state capital of Albany. Western New York, home to the cities of Buffalo and Rochester, is part of the Great Lakes region and borders Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Central New York is anchored by the city of Syracuse; between the central and western parts of the state, New York is dominated by the Finger Lakes, a popular tourist destination. To the south, along the state border with Pennsylvania, the Southern Tier sits atop the Allegheny Plateau, representing the northernmost reaches of Appalachia.
New York was one of the original Thirteen Colonies that went on to form the United States. The area of present-day New York had been inhabited by tribes of the Algonquians and the Iroquois Confederacy Native Americans for several thousand years by the time the earliest Europeans arrived. Stemming from Henry Hudson's expedition in 1609, the Dutch established the multiethnic colony of New Netherland in 1621. England seized the colony from the Dutch in 1664, renaming it the Province of New York. During the American Revolutionary War, a group of colonists eventually succeeded in establishing independence, and the former colony was officially admitted into the United States in 1788. From the early 19th century, New York's development of its interior, beginning with the construction of the Erie Canal, gave it incomparable advantages over other regions of the United States. The state built its political, cultural, and economic ascendancy over the next century, earning it the nickname of the "Empire State." Although deindustrialization eroded a significant portion of the state's economy in the second half of the 20th century, New York in the 21st century continues to be considered as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, and environmental sustainability.
The state attracts visitors from all over the globe, with the highest count of any U.S. state in 2022. Many of its landmarks are well known, including four of the world's ten most-visited tourist attractions in 2013: Times Square, Central Park, Niagara Falls and Grand Central Terminal. New York is home to approximately 200 colleges and universities, including two Ivy League universities, Columbia University and Cornell University, and the expansive State University of New York, which is among the largest university systems in the nation. New York City is home to the headquarters of the United Nations, and it is sometimes described as the world's most important city, the cultural, financial, and media epicenter, and the capital of the world.
The history of New York begins around 10,000 B.C. when the first people arrived. By 1100 A.D. two main cultures had become dominant as the Iroquoian and Algonquian developed. European discovery of New York was led by the Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 followed by the first land claim in 1609 by the Dutch. As part of New Netherland, the colony was important in the fur trade and eventually became an agricultural resource thanks to the patroon system. In 1626, the Dutch thought they had bought the island of Manhattan from Native Americans.[1] In 1664, England renamed the colony New York, after the Duke of York and Albany, brother of King Charles II. New York City gained prominence in the 18th century as a major trading port in the Thirteen Colonies.
New York played a pivotal role during the American Revolution and subsequent war. The Stamp Act Congress in 1765 brought together representatives from across the Thirteen Colonies to form a unified response to British policies. The Sons of Liberty were active in New York City to challenge British authority. After a major loss at the Battle of Long Island, the Continental Army suffered a series of additional defeats that forced a retreat from the New York City area, leaving the strategic port and harbor to the British army and navy as their North American base of operations for the rest of the war. The Battle of Saratoga was the turning point of the war in favor of the Americans, convincing France to formally ally with them. New York's constitution was adopted in 1777, and strongly influenced the United States Constitution. New York City was the national capital at various times between 1788 and 1790, where the Bill of Rights was drafted. Albany became the permanent state capital in 1797. In 1787, New York became the eleventh state to ratify the United States Constitution.
New York hosted significant transportation advancements in the 19th century, including the first steamboat line in 1807, the Erie Canal in 1825, and America's first regularly scheduled rail service in 1831. These advancements led to the expanded settlement of western New York and trade ties to the Midwest settlements around the Great Lakes.
Due to New York City's trade ties to the South, there were numerous southern sympathizers in the early days of the American Civil War and the mayor proposed secession. Far from any of the battles, New York ultimately sent the most soldiers and money to support the Union cause. Thereafter, the state helped create the industrial age and consequently was home to some of the first labor unions.
During the 19th century, New York City became the main entry point for European immigrants to the United States, beginning with a wave of Irish during their Great Famine. Millions came through Castle Clinton in Battery Park before Ellis Island opened in 1892 to welcome millions more, increasingly from eastern and southern Europe. The Statue of Liberty opened in 1886 and became a symbol of hope. New York boomed during the Roaring Twenties, before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and skyscrapers expressed the energy of the city. New York City was the site of successive tallest buildings in the world from 1913 to 1974.
The buildup of defense industries for World War II turned around the state's economy from the Great Depression, as hundreds of thousands worked to defeat the Axis powers. Following the war, the state experienced significant suburbanization around all the major cities, and most central cities shrank. The Thruway system opened in 1956, signaling another era of transportation advances.
Following a period of near-bankruptcy in the late 1970s, New York City renewed its stature as a cultural center, attracted more immigration, and hosted the development of new music styles. The city developed from publishing to become a media capital over the second half of the 20th century, hosting most national news channels and broadcasts. Some of its newspapers became nationally and globally renowned. The state's manufacturing base eroded with the restructuring of industry, and the state transitioned into service industries.
The first peoples of New York are estimated to have arrived around 10,000 BC. Around AD 800, Iroquois ancestors moved into the area from the Appalachian region. The people of the Point Peninsula complex were the predecessors of the Algonquian peoples of New York. By around 1100, the distinct Iroquoian-speaking and Algonquian-speaking cultures that would eventually be encountered by Europeans had developed. The five nations of the Iroquois League developed a powerful confederacy about the 15th century that controlled territory throughout present-day New York, into Pennsylvania around the Great Lakes. For centuries, the Mohawk cultivated maize fields in the lowlands of the Mohawk River, which were later taken over by Dutch settlers at Schenectady, New York when they bought this territory. The Iroquois nations to the west also had well-cultivated areas and orchards.
The Iroquois established dominance over the fur trade throughout their territory, bargaining with European colonists. Other New York tribes were more subject to either European destruction or assimilation within the Iroquoian confederacy. Situated at major Native trade routes in the Northeast and positioned between French and English zones of settlement, the Iroquois were intensely caught up with the onrush of Europeans, which is also to say that the settlers, whether Dutch, French or English, were caught up with the Iroquois as well. Algonquian tribes were less united among their tribes; they typically lived along rivers, streams, or the Atlantic Coast. But, both groups of natives were well-established peoples with highly sophisticated cultural systems; these were little understood or appreciated by the European colonists who encountered them. The natives had "a complex and elaborate native economy that included hunting, gathering, manufacturing, and farming...[and were] a mosaic of Native American tribes, nations, languages, and political associations." The Iroquois usually met at an Onondaga in Northern New York, which changed every century or so, where they would coordinate policies on how to deal with Europeans and strengthen the bond between the Five Nations.
Tribes who have managed to call New York home have been the Iroquois, Mohawk, Mohican, Susquehannock, Petun, Chonnonton, Ontario and Nanticoke.
In 1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian explorer in the service of the French crown, explored the Atlantic coast of North America between the Carolinas and Newfoundland, including New York Harbor and Narragansett Bay. On April 17, 1524, Verrazzano entered New York Bay, by way of the Strait now called the Narrows. He described "a vast coastline with a deep delta in which every kind of ship could pass" and he adds: "that it extends inland for a league and opens up to form a beautiful lake. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats". He landed on the tip of Manhattan and perhaps on the furthest point of Long Island.
In 1535, Jacques Cartier, a French explorer, became the first European to describe and map the Saint Lawrence River from the Atlantic Ocean, sailing as far upriver as the site of Montreal.
On April 4, 1609, Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, departed Amsterdam in command of the ship Halve Maen (Half Moon). On September 3 he reached the estuary of the Hudson River. He sailed up the Hudson River to about Albany near the confluence of the Mohawk River and the Hudson. His voyage was used to establish Dutch claims to the region and to the fur trade that prospered there after a trading post was established at Albany in 1614.
In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Christiaensen, built Fort Nassau (now Albany) the first Dutch settlement in North America and the first European settlement in what would become New York. It was replaced by nearby Fort Orange in 1623. In 1625, Fort Amsterdam was built on the southern tip of Manhattan Island to defend the Hudson River. This settlement grew to become the city New Amsterdam.
The British conquered New Netherland in 1664; Lenient terms of surrender most likely kept local resistance to a minimum. The colony and New Amsterdam were both renamed New York (and "Beverwijck" was renamed Albany) after its new proprietor, James II later King of England, Ireland and Scotland, who was at the time Duke of York and Duke of Albany The population of New Netherland at the time of English takeover was 7,000–8,000.
Thousands of poor German farmers, chiefly from the Palatine region of Germany, migrated to upstate districts after 1700. They kept to themselves, married their own, spoke German, attended Lutheran churches, and retained their own customs and foods. They emphasized farm ownership. Some mastered English to become conversant with local legal and business opportunities. They ignored the Indians and tolerated slavery (although few were rich enough to own a slave).
Large manors were developed along the Hudson River by elite colonists during the 18th century, including Livingston, Cortlandt, Philipsburg, and Rensselaerswyck. The manors represented more than half of the colony's undeveloped land. The Province of New York thrived during this time, its economy strengthened by Long Island and Hudson Valley agriculture, in conjunction with trade and artisanal activity at the Port of New York; the colony was a breadbasket and lumberyard for the British sugar colonies in the Caribbean. New York's population grew substantially during this century: from the first colonial census (1698) to the last (1771), the province grew ninefold, from 18,067 to 168,007.
New York in the American Revolution
Further information: John Peter Zenger, Stamp Act Congress, Invasion of Canada (1775), New York and New Jersey campaign, Prisoners of war in the American Revolutionary War, and Intelligence in the American Revolutionary War
New York played a pivotal role in the Revolutionary War. The colony verged on revolt following the Stamp Act of 1765, advancing the New York City–based Sons of Liberty to the forefront of New York politics. The Act exacerbated the depression the province experienced after unsuccessfully invading Canada in 1760. Even though New York City merchants lost out on lucrative military contracts, the group sought common ground between the King and the people; however, compromise became impossible as of April 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord. In that aftermath the New York Provincial Congress on June 9, 1775, for five pounds sterling for each hundredweight of gunpowder delivered to each county's committee.
Two powerful families had for decades assembled colony-wide coalitions of supporters. With few exceptions, members long associated with the DeLancey faction went along when its leadership decided to support the crown, while members of the Livingston faction became Patriots.
New York's strategic central location and port made it key to controlling the colonies. The British assembled the century's largest fleet: at one point 30,000 British sailors and soldiers anchored off Staten Island. General George Washington barely escaped New York City with his army in November 1776; General Sir William Howe was successful in driving Washington out, but erred by expanding into New Jersey. By January 1777, he retained only a few outposts near New York City. The British held the city for the duration, using it as a base for expeditions against other targets.
In October 1777, American General Horatio Gates won the Battle of Saratoga, later regarded as the war's turning point. Had Gates not held, the rebellion might well have broken down: losing Saratoga would have cost the entire Hudson–Champlain corridor, which would have separated New England from the rest of the colonies and split the future union.
Upon war's end, New York's borders became well–defined: the counties east of Lake Champlain became Vermont and the state's western borders were settled by 1786.
Many Iroquois supported the British (typically fearing future American ambitions). Many were killed during the war; others went into exile with the British. Those remaining lived on twelve reservations; by 1826 only eight reservations remained, all of which survived into the 21st century.
The state adopted its constitution in April 1777, creating a strong executive and strict separation of powers. It strongly influenced the federal constitution a decade later. Debate over the federal constitution in 1787 led to formation of the groups known as Federalists—mainly "downstaters" (those who lived in or near New York City) who supported a strong national government—and Antifederalists—mainly upstaters (those who lived to the city's north and west) who opposed large national institutions. In 1787, Alexander Hamilton, a leading Federalist from New York and signatory to the Constitution, wrote the first essay of the Federalist Papers. He published and wrote most of the series in New York City newspapers in support of the proposed United States Constitution. Antifederalists were not swayed by the arguments, but the state ratified it in 1788.
In 1785, New York City became the national capital and continued as such on and off until 1790; George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the United States in front of Federal Hall in 1789. The United States Bill of Rights was drafted there, and the United States Supreme Court sat for the first time. From statehood to 1797, the Legislature frequently moved the state capital between Albany, Kingston, Poughkeepsie, and New York City. Thereafter, Albany retained that role.
In the early 19th century, New York became a center for advancement in transportation. In 1807, Robert Fulton initiated a steamboat line from New York to Albany, the first successful enterprise of its kind. By 1815, Albany was the state's turnpike center, which established the city as the hub for pioneers migrating west to Buffalo and the Michigan Territory.
In 1825 the Erie Canal opened, securing the state's economic dominance. Its impact was enormous: one source stated, "Linking the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes, the canal was an act of political will that joined the regions of the state, created a vast economic hinterland for New York City, and established a ready market for agricultural products from the state's interior." In that year western New York transitioned from "frontier" to settled area. By this time, all counties and most municipalities had incorporated, approximately matching the state's is organized today. In 1831, the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad started the country's first successful regularly–scheduled steam railroad service.
Advancing transportation quickly led to settlement of the fertile Mohawk and Gennessee valleys and the Niagara Frontier. Buffalo and Rochester became boomtowns. Significant migration of New England "Yankees" (mainly of English descent) to the central and western parts of the state led to minor conflicts with the more settled "Yorkers" (mainly of German, Dutch, and Scottish descent). More than 15% of the state's 1850 population had been born in New England[citation needed]. The western part of the state grew fastest at this time. By 1840, New York was home to seven of the nation's thirty largest cities.
During this period, towns established academies for education, including for girls. The western area of the state was a center of progressive causes, including support of abolitionism, temperance, and women's rights. Religious enthusiasms flourished and the Latter Day Saint movement was founded in the area by Joseph Smith and his vision. Some supporters of abolition participated in the Underground Railroad, helping fugitive slaves reach freedom in Canada or in New York.
In addition, in the early 1840s the state legislature and Governor William H. Seward expanded rights for free blacks and fugitive slaves in New York: in 1840 the legislature passed laws protecting the rights of African Americans against Southern slave-catchers. One guaranteed alleged fugitive slaves the right of a jury trial in New York to establish whether they were slaves, and another pledged the aid of the state to recover free blacks kidnapped into slavery, (as happened to Solomon Northup of Saratoga Springs in 1841, who did not regain freedom until 1853.) In 1841 Seward signed legislation to repeal a "nine-month law" that allowed slaveholders to bring their slaves into the state for a period of nine months before they were considered free. After this, slaves brought to the state were immediately considered freed, as was the case in some other free states. Seward also signed legislation to establish public education for all children, leaving it up to local jurisdictions as to how that would be supplied (some had segregated schools).
New York culture bloomed in the first half of the 19th century: in 1809 Washington Irving wrote the satirical A History of New York under the pen name Diedrich Knickerbocker, and in 1819 he based Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in Hudson Valley towns. Thomas Cole's Hudson River School was established in the 1830s by showcasing dramatic landscapes of the Hudson Valley. The first baseball teams formed in New York City in the 1840s, including the New York Knickerbockers. Professional baseball later located its Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Saratoga Race Course, an annual summer attraction in Saratoga Springs, opened in 1847.
A civil war was not in the best interest of business, because New York had strong ties to the Deep South, both through the port of New York and manufacture of cotton goods in upstate textile mills. Half of New York City's exports were related to cotton before the war. Southern businessmen so frequently traveled to the city that they established favorite hotels and restaurants. Trade was based on moving Southern goods. The city's large Democrat community feared the impact of Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 and the mayor urged secession of New York.
By the time of the 1861 Battle of Fort Sumter, such political differences decreased and the state quickly met Lincoln's request for soldiers and supplies. More soldiers fought from New York than any other Northern state. While no battles were waged in New York, the state was not immune to Confederate conspiracies, including one to burn various New York cities and another to invade the state via Canada.
In January 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves in states that were still in rebellion against the union. In March 1863, the federal draft law was changed so that male citizens between 20 and 35 and unmarried citizens to age 45 were subject to conscription. Those who could afford to hire a substitute or pay $300 were exempt. Antiwar newspaper editors attacked the law, and many immigrants and their descendants resented being drafted in place of people who could buy their way out. Democratic Party leaders raised the specter of a deluge of freed southern blacks competing with the white working class, then dominated by ethnic Irish and immigrants. On the lottery's first day, July 11, 1863, the first lottery draw was held. On Monday, July 13, 1863, five days of large-scale riots began, which were dominated by ethnic Irish, who targeted blacks in the city, their neighborhoods, and known abolitionist sympathizers. As a result, many blacks left Manhattan permanently, moving to Brooklyn or other areas.
In the following decades, New York strengthened its dominance of the financial and banking industries. Manufacturing continued to rise: Eastman Kodak founded in 1888 in Rochester, General Electric in Schenectady, and Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company in the Triple Cities are some of the well-known companies founded during this period. Buffalo and Niagara Falls attracted numerous factories following the advent of hydroelectric power in the area. With industry blooming, workers began to unite in New York as early as the 1820s. By 1882, the Knights of Labor in New York City had 60,000 members. Trade unions used political influence to limit working hours as early as 1867. At the same time, New York's agricultural output peaked. Focus changed from crop-based to dairy-based agriculture. The cheese industry became established in the Mohawk Valley. By 1881, the state had more than 241,000 farms. In the same period, the area around New York harbor became the world's oyster capital, retaining that title into the early twentieth century.
Immigration increased throughout the latter half of the 19th century. Starting with refugees from the Great Famine of Ireland in the 1840s, New York became a prominent entry point for those seeking a new life in the United States. Between 1855 and 1890, an estimated 8 million immigrants passed through Castle Clinton at Battery Park in Manhattan. Early in this period, most immigrants came from Ireland and Germany. Ellis Island opened in 1892, and between 1880 and 1920, most immigrants were German and Eastern European Jews, Poles, and other Eastern and Southern Europeans, including many Italians. By 1925, New York City's population outnumbered that of London, making it the most populous city in the world. Arguably New York's most identifiable symbol, Liberty Enlightening the World (the Statue of Liberty), a gift from France for the American centennial, was completed in 1886. By the early 20th century, the statue was regarded as the "Mother of Exiles"—a symbol of hope to immigrants.
New York's political pattern changed little after the mid–19th century. New York City and its metropolitan area was already heavily Democrat; Upstate was aligned with the Republican Party and was a center of abolitionist activists. In the 1850s, Democratic Tammany Hall became one of the most powerful and durable political machines in United States history. Boss William Tweed brought the organization to the forefront of city and then state politics in the 1860s. Based on its command of a large population, Tammany maintained influence until at least the 1930s. Outside the city, Republicans were able to influence the redistricting process enough to constrain New York City and capture control of the Legislature in 1894. Both parties have seen national political success: in the 39 presidential elections between 1856 and 2010, Republicans won 19 times and Democrats 20 times.
By 1901, New York was the richest and most populous state. Two years prior, the five boroughs of New York City became one city. Within decades, the city's emblem had become the skyscraper: the Woolworth Building was the tallest building in the world from 1913, surpassed by 40 Wall Street in April 1930, the Chrysler Building in 1930, the Empire State Building in 1931, and the World Trade Center in 1972 before losing the title in 1974.
The state was serviced by over a dozen major railroads and at the start of the 20th century and electric Interurban rail networks began to spring up around Syracuse, Rochester and other cities in New York during this period.
In the late 1890s governor Theodore Roosevelt and fellow Republicans such as Charles Evans Hughes worked with many Democrats such as Al Smith to promote Progressivism. They battled trusts and monopolies (especially in the insurance industry), promoted efficiency, fought waste, and called for more democracy in politics. Democrats focused more on the benefits of progressivism for their own ethnic working class base and for labor unions.
Democratic political machines, especially Tammany Hall in Manhattan, opposed woman suffrage because they feared that the addition of female voters would dilute the control they had established over groups of male voters. By the time of the New York State referendum on women's suffrage in 1917, however, some wives and daughters of Tammany Hall leaders were working for suffrage, leading it to take a neutral position that was crucial to the referendum's passage.
Following a sharp but short-lived Depression at the beginning of the decade, New York enjoyed a booming economy during the Roaring Twenties. New York suffered during the Great Depression, which began with the Wall Street crash on Black Tuesday in 1929. The Securities and Exchange Commission opened in 1934 to regulate the stock market. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected governor in 1928, and the state faced upwards of 25% unemployment. His Temporary Emergency Relief Agency, established in 1931, was the first work relief program in the nation and influenced the national Federal Emergency Relief Administration. Roosevelt was elected President in 1932 in part because of his promises to extend New York–style relief programs across the country via his New Deal. In 1932, Lake Placid was host to the III Olympic Winter Games.
As the largest state, New York again supplied the most resources during World War II. New York manufactured 11 percent of total United States military armaments produced during the war and suffered 31,215 casualties. The war affected the state both socially and economically. For example, to overcome discriminatory labor practices, Governor Herbert H. Lehman created the Committee on Discrimination in Employment in 1941 and Governor Thomas E. Dewey signed the Ives-Quinn Act in 1945, banning employment discrimination. The G.I. Bill of 1944, which offered returning soldiers the opportunity of affordable higher education, forced New York to create a public university system since its private universities could not handle the influx; the State University of New York was created by Governor Dewey in 1948.
World War II constituted New York's last great industrial era. At its conclusion, the defense industry shrank and the economy shifted towards producing services rather than goods. Returning soldiers disproportionately displaced female and minority workers who had entered the industrial workforce only when the war left employers no other choice. Companies moved to the south and west, seeking lower taxes and a less costly, non–union workforce. Many workers followed the jobs. The middle class expanded and created suburbs such as the one on Long Island. The automobile accelerated this decentralization; planned communities like Levittown offered affordable middle-class housing.
Larger cities stopped growing around 1950. Growth resumed only in New York City, in the 1980s. Buffalo's population fell by half between 1950 and 2000. Reduced immigration and worker migration led New York State's population to decline for the first time between 1970 and 1980. California and Texas both surpassed it in population.
New York entered its third era of massive transportation projects by building highways, notably the New York State Thruway. The project was unpopular with New York City Democrats, who referred to it as "Dewey's ditch" and the "enemy of schools", because the Thruway disproportionately benefited upstate. The highway was based on the German Autobahn and was unlike anything seen at that point in the United States. It was within 30 miles (50 km) of 90% of the population at its conception. Costing $600 million, the full 427-mile (687 km) project opened in 1956.
Nelson Rockefeller was governor from 1959 to 1973 and changed New York politics. He began as a liberal, but grew more conservative: he limited SUNY's growth, responded aggressively to the Attica Prison riot, and promulgated the uniquely severe Rockefeller Drug Laws. The World Trade Center and other profligate projects nearly drove New York City into bankruptcy in 1975. The state took substantial budgetary control, which eventually led to improved fiscal prudence.
The Executive Mansion was retaken by Democrats in 1974 and remained under Democratic control for 20 years under Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo. Late–century Democrats became more centrist, including US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1977–2001) and New York City Mayor Ed Koch (1978–1989), while state Republicans began to align themselves with the more conservative national party. They gained power through the elections of Senator Alfonse D'Amato in 1980, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in 1993, and Governor George Pataki in 1994. New York remained one of the most liberal states. In 1984, Ronald Reagan was the last Republican to carry the state, although Republican Michael Bloomberg served as New York City mayor in the early 21st century.
In the late 20th century, telecommunication and high technology industries employed many New Yorkers. New York City was especially successful at this transition. Entrepreneurs created many small companies, as industrial firms such as Polaroid withered. This success drew many young professionals into the still–dwindling cities. New York City was the exception and has continued to draw new residents. The energy of the city created attractions and new businesses. Some people believe that changes in policing created a less threatening environment; crime rates dropped, and urban development reduced urban decay.
This in turn led to a surge in culture. New York City became, once again, "the center for all things chic and trendy". Hip-hop and rap music, led by New York City, became the most popular pop genre. Immigration to both the city and state rose. New York City, with a large gay and lesbian community, suffered many deaths from AIDS beginning in the 1980s.
New York City increased its already large share of television programming, home to the network news broadcasts, as well as two of the three major cable news networks. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times became two of the three "national" newspapers, read throughout the country. New York also increased its dominance of the financial services industry centered on Wall Street, led by banking expansion, a rising stock market, innovations in investment banking, including junk bond trading and accelerated by the savings and loan crisis that decimated competitors elsewhere in New York.
Upstate did not fare as well as downstate; the major industries that began to reinvigorate New York City did not typically spread to other regions. The number of farms in the state had fallen to 30,000 by 1997. City populations continued to decline while suburbs grew in area, but did not increase proportionately in population. High-tech industry grew in cities such as Corning and Rochester. Overall New York entered the new millennium "in a position of economic strength and optimism".
In 2001, New York entered a new era following the 9/11 attacks, the worst terrorist attack ever to take place on American soil. Two of the four hijacked passenger jets crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, destroying them, and killing almost 3,000 people. One flew into the Pentagon demolishing the walls. The final one was almost taken back over by the passengers aboard and crashed into an open grassland with 296 out of the 500 people dead. Thousands of New Yorkers volunteered their time to search the ruin for survivors and remains in the following weeks.
Following the attacks, plans were announced to rebuild the World Trade Center site. 7 World Trade Center became the first World Trade Center skyscraper to be rebuilt in five years after the attacks. One World Trade Center, four more office towers, and a memorial to the casualties of the September 11 attacks are under construction as of 2011. One World Trade Center opened on November 3, 2014.
On October 29 and 30, 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused extensive destruction of the state's shorelines, ravaging portions of New York City, Long Island, and southern Westchester with record-high storm surge, with severe flooding and high winds causing power outages for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, and leading to gasoline shortages and disruption of mass transit systems. The storm and its profound effects have prompted the discussion of constructing seawalls and other coastal barriers around the shorelines of New York City and Long Island to minimize the risk from another such future event. Such risk is considered highly probable due to global warming and rising sea levels.
A former church and now the Pembroke Antiques Centre in Pembroke, the County Town of Pembrokeshire, in South Wales.
Pembroke Castle, the substantial remains of a stone medieval fortress founded by the Normans in 1093, stands at the Western tip of the peninsular surrounded by water on three sides. The castle was the seat of the powerful Earls of Pembroke and the birthplace of King Henry VII of England.
Gerald de Windsor was the first recorded Constable of Pembroke. Pembroke town and castle and its surroundings are linked with the early Christian church. Following the final extension of the Castle about 1254 the town was extended, and defensive perimeter walls erected around the edge of the town. The walls survive on their medieval foundations, although much rebuilt over the centuries. A great many of the town's original medieval burgage plots survive and are divided by early stone walls that are of significant national importance.
Monkton Priory, sited on a hill across the river from the castle, founded in 1098 by Arnulf de Montgomery and granted by him to the Benedictine order, has very early foundations and retains much of the Norman walls of the nave. The choir and sanctuary were renovated in the 19th Century. Monkton Hall, close by the Priory church, is regarded as the oldest domestic building in Pembrokeshire and possibly Wales and is thought to have been the guesthouse for visitors to the Priory.
The first stone building in the town was a defensive tower, now known as the Medieval Chapel, at 69a Main Street, built on a cliff edge between 950 AD and 1000 AD. There are the remains of a great hall to the north and recently filled-in arched cellars. The building was thought to have been later used as an early church as the layout is the same as St. Govan's Chapel and was used by John Wesley in 1764 to preach Methodism. In 1866 it became the brewery for the York Tavern which was briefly Oliver Cromwell's headquarters at the end of the Siege of Pembroke during the English Civil War.
The town's main bridge across the River Pembroke, which also acts as a dam, crosses and constrains the millpond. The first bridge was constructed to house a tide mill, originally granted to the Knights Templar in 1199. The last mill building was destroyed by fire in 1956.
On both banks of the Pembroke River to the west of the castle are many remains of early activities. The North Shore Quarries are relatively complete as are the remains of medieval and Elizabethan slipways where wooden vessels were built before the industrial dockyard and admiralty town was built on the grid pattern of Pembroke Dock. There is a very early complete graving dock in what was Hancock's Yard.
At Pennar Flats there was an early submarine base used for experiments in submarine warfare. Three of the houses on the then foreshore, part of the shipyard before the Admiralty Dock Yard was built, are still standing but are heavily altered.
Information Source:
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Gotha 146 was a fast reconnaissance aircraft that was used throughout WWII by the German Luftwaffe, and one of the results of a mutual technology exchange program with Japan. The Go 146 was actually a license-built, but modified variant of the excellent Mitsubishi Ki-46. The latter type's career started in late 1937, when the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force issued a specification to Mitsubishi for a long-range strategic reconnaissance aircraft to replace the Mitsubishi Ki-15. The specification demanded an endurance of six hours and sufficient speed to evade interception by any fighter in existence or development at that time, but otherwise did not constrain the design by a team led by Tomio Kubo.
The resulting design was a twin-engine, low-winged monoplane with a retractable tailwheel undercarriage. It had a small diameter oval fuselage with the pilot and observer situated in individual cockpits separated by a large fuel tank. The engines, two Mitsubishi Ha-26 radials, were housed in close-fitting cowlings to reduce drag and improve pilot view.
The first prototype aircraft, flew in November 1939 from the Mitsubishi factory at Kakamigahara, Gifu. Tests showed that the Ki-46 was underpowered and slower than required, only reaching 540 km/h (336 mph) rather than the specified 600 km/h (373 mph), but, otherwise, the aircraft tests were successful. As the type was still faster than the Army's latest fighter, the Nakajima Ki-43, as well as the Navy's new A6M2, an initial production batch was ordered. To solve the performance problems, Mitsubishi switched to Ha-102 engines, which were Ha-26s fitted with a two-stage supercharger, while increasing fuel capacity and reducing empty weight. This became the Ki-46-II, and this type was also demonstrated to German officials who immediately noticed its potential.
Knowing that the German Luftwaffe lacked this specialized, fast type of aircraft (German reconnaissance aircraft of that time were either slow artillery observation types, or variants of bombers or heavy fighters), the RLM immediately asked for a batch of airframe kits to adapt it to the European theatre and test its capabilities. Seven engine-less airframe kits were delivered to Germany in early 1940. In the meantime, with the help of blueprints and other documentations, an alternative engine installation had been devised: the “Germanized” aircraft was to be powered by liquid-cooled DB 601 engines, which delivered more power than the Ha-102 and offered improved aerodynamics, despite the necessity to add radiators under the outer wings. Many stock parts from the contemporary Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter were incorporated, so that the development time was very short, and the commonality of mechanical parts eased logistics and maintenance.
In May 1940 the first batch of the Gotha 146 A-0 pre-production aircraft (which had officially been described as a further development of a four seat, twin-engine transport aircraft from the 1930s to cloud its origins and mission) was ready. They were immediately transferred to the Western Front for field tests, and the specialized Go 146 became quickly popular among its crews. It was fast, agile and easy to fly – almost on par with state-of-the-art fighters like the Bf 109. During the test phase in summer 1940 the Go 146 proved to be slightly faster than its Japanese Ki-46 ancestor, and with a top speed of more than 375 mph (600 km/h) it was hard to intercept by any British or French fighter of the time. The results were so convincing that the type was ordered into serial production, and from October 1940 on the Go 146 A-1 was produced in limited numbers at the Gothaer Waggonfabrik in Thuringia. Even though production only ran at small scale, it was continuous, and the Go 146 was steadily developed further, including the change of the nose section that came with the Ki-46-III, stronger engines and an improved defensive armament.
This evolution led to the Go 146 B, which had the traditional stepped windshield replaced with a smooth, curved, glazed panel extended over the pilot's seat. It not only gave a more aerodynamic nose profile, the re-shaped nose also offered room for an extra fuel tank. The space between the two crewmen, connected with a crawl tunnel, held another fuel tank, the radio equipment (a Sprechfunkgerät FuG 16 ZY and a FuG 25a „Erstling“ IFF beacon), as well as a compartment for up to three cameras with several ventral windows, which could take Rb (“Reihenbildner” = serial picture device) 20/30, 50/30 and 75/30 devices that could be mounted in different combinations and angles as needed.
Power came now from a pair of new Daimler-Benz DB 603A liquid-cooled piston engines, which offered 1,290 kW (1,750 hp) each for take-off. Since the engine mounts had to be re-designed for the DB603s (the Go 146 A had used adapters to attach its shorter DB 601s to the original Ha-102 radials’ hardpoints), German engineers used the opportunity to redesign the complete engine nacelles. As a result, their diameter and “wet” surface was reduced, so much that the landing gear had to be modified, too. It now rotated 90° upon retraction, so that the main wheels were lying in shallow wells within the wing structure. Beyond better aerodynamics, structural measures saved almost 250 kg (550 lb).
Instead of the Go 146 A’s single 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine gun in the observer's cabin, facing rearwards, the defensive armament was improved and consisted of a pair of 13 mm (0.51 in) MG 131 machine guns, firing rearward from FDSL 131/1B remotely-operated barbettes, one per side. This rather complex installation had become possible (and in part necessary) due to a center of gravity shift from the modified engines and their empennage. The weapons were aimed by the rear crewman through a periscope that covered both the upper and lower rear hemisphere. The control unit had a rotating transverse crossbar with a sideways-pivoting handgun-style grip and trigger at its center, "forked" at its forward pivoting end to fit around the crossbar, with the upper fork extended beyond the rotating crossbar to mount the gunsight. This unique aiming and control scheme rotated the crossbar axially, when the handgrip was elevated or depressed, to aim the guns vertically by rotating both turrets together, and a sideways movement of the handgrip would pivot either one of the guns outwards from the fuselage-mounted turrets for diagonal firing. The guns were electrically fired, and an electrical contact breaker prevented the gunner from shooting off the aircraft’s tailplane. When not in use, the guns would return to a neutral position that would allow to fire directly backwards with both guns.
Furthermore, plumbed hardpoints were added to the inner wings, just inside of the engines. These could carry a 300 l drop tank each for an extended range and loiter time. Single bombs of up to 250 kg or racks with four 50 kg bombs each were theoretically possible too, but the aircraft lacked any bomb aiming support. Crew protection was slightly improved, too, but the airframe was overall kept as light as possible. Despite these efforts, however, MTOW rose to 6,500 kg (14,317 lb), but this was still relatively light in comparison with the similar contemporary Me 410 multi-purpose aircraft, which weighed more than 9 tons and was powered by similar engines. Consequently, and thanks to its clean lines, the G 146 B had a top speed of almost 700 km/h (434 mph) at ideal altitude and the aircraft retained its excellent handling, even though its structure was rather fragile and could not take much stress and punishment.
Two versions of the Go 146 B were produced, steadily but only at a low rate because the aircraft received, due to its highly specialized role and limited offensive capabilities, only a low priority. The B-1 was the main variant and kept the A version’s standard wing, a total of 54 were produced between 1943 and 1945. Additionally, the B-2 was produced between late 1943 and early 1944 as a dedicated high altitude photo reconnaissance aircraft. This sub-variant had an extended wingspan of 16.00 m (52 ft 5 in) instead of the standard 14.70 m (48 ft 2¾ in) and an improved oxygen system, even though the cabin was not pressurized. Its maximum service ceiling was almost 12.000 m (39.305 ft), with a maximum speed of 415 mph (668 km/h), a cruise speed of 250 mph (400 km/h) and a range of 3,200 km (1,987 nmi). Only twelve of these machines were produced and put into service, primarily for flights over Southern Great Britain. When the Arado Ar 234 became available from September 1944 on, though, this new, jet-powered type immediately replaced the Go 146 B-2 because it offered even better performance. Therefore, the B-3, a planned version with a fully pressurized cabin and an even bigger wingspan of 19.00 m, never left the drawing board.
Furthermore, the RLM had idea to convert the fast Go 146 into a fighter amd even a night fighter in mid-1944 as the “C” series. But these plans were not executed because the light airframe could hardly be adapted to heavy weapons or equipment like a radar set, and it was unsuited for vigorous dogfighting. The type’s poor climbing rate made it ineffective as an interceptor, too. There were, nevertheless, tests with at least one Go 146 B-1 that carried four Werfer-Granate 21 rocket launchers under the outer wings, as a fast bomber interceptor esp. against the high-flying B-29, which was expected to appear over continental Europe soon. But this kind of weaponry never reached frontline units and the Go 146 was never operated as a fighter of any kind.
There were, however, other uses: in 1944 the Go 146 was enlisted as a fast liaison aircraft for the RLM (Ministry of Aviation) in Berlin. Stripped off of any armament and cameras and outfitted with two passenger seats in the rear cabin, at least one Go 146 B (with the confirmed registration “ST+ZA”, others in similar configuration may have existed, too) was operated by the RLM’s Zentralabteilung (central command) from Tempelhof airfield for top brass officials between Luftwaffe locations on German terrain. ST+ZA’s fate after January 1945 is uncertain, though.
Specifications:
Crew: two (pilot and observer)
Length: 11.00 m (36 ft 1 in)
Wingspan: 14.70 m (48 ft 2¾ in)
Height: 3.88 m (12 ft 8¾ in)
Wing area: 32.0 m² (344 ft²)
Empty weight: 3,830 kg (8,436 lb)
Loaded weight: 5,661 kg (12,480 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 6,500 kg (14,317 lb)
Powerplant:
2× Daimler-Benz DB 603A V-12 inverted liquid-cooled piston engines, rated at:
- 1,290 kW (1,750 hp) each for take-off
- 1,360 kW (1,850 PS) at 2,100 m (6,890 ft)
- 1,195 kW (1,625 PS) at 5,700 m (18,700 ft)
- 1,162 kW (1580 PS) combat power at 2500 rpm at sea level
Performance:
Maximum speed: 695 km/h (377 knots, 430 mph) at 5,800 m (19,000 ft)
Cruise speed: 450 km/h (245 knots, 280 mph)
Range: 2,800 km (1,522 nmi, 1,740 mi) with internal fuel
Service ceiling: 11,250 m (36,850 ft)
Wing loading: 157.8 kg/m² (32.3 lb/ft²)
Climb rate: 14.7 m/sec (2,900 feet per minute)
Climb to 8,000 m (26,250 ft): 15 min 20 sec
Armament:
2× 13 mm (0.51 in) defensive MG 131 machine guns with 500 RPG,
each firing rearward from FDSL 131/1B remote-operated turret, one per side
2× underwing hardpoints under the inner wings for 250 kg (550 lb) each,
typically occupied by 300 l drop tanks
The kit and its assembly:
This is a déjà vu build: I already did a “Germanized” Ki-46 in 2015, it was an Airfix Ki-46-II outfitted with DB 601s from a Bf 110 as a pre-series Gotha Go 146 A-0, an aircraft that (naturally) never existed but appeared plausible, since German military hardware including aircraft had been evaluated by Japanese forces. And why should this exchange not have worked the other way around, too? However, as I built this modified Dinah for the first time, I already thought that the basic idea had more potential than just one model, and the streamlined Ki-46-III just lent itself for an updated, later version.
This B-2 variant of the Go 146 was based on the LS Models/ARII Ki-46-III. Like the Airfix kit (its molds are from 1965, and that’s just what the kit feels, looks and builds like…), it’s a rather vintage offering, but it is in many aspects markedly ahead, with fine surfaces, recessed details, 3D engines and clear parts that actually fit into their intended places. The LS Models kit’s 10 years less of age are recognizable, and there are three boxings around with different versions of the aircraft (a Ki-46-II, a -III and a trainer with a raised tutor cockpit), differing in small extra sprues for the respective fuselage parts, but they all share a common sprue with the clear parts for all three versions.
The Ki-46-III kit was taken OOB, with just some minor mods. The most obvious change concerns the engines: they were transplanted from a Bilek Me 210, together with the underwing radiators outside of the nacelles. The Me 210, even though it’s from 1997, is a rather mediocre model with some dubious solutions, therefore earmarked for a conversion and ready to donor some body parts… The engine switch was insofar easy because the Ki-46 kit comes with completely separate parts for the engines and their fairings which also contain the main landing gear wells.
Because of this “clean” basis I decided to cut the nacelles out from the Me 210 and attach them to the Ki-46 wings, so that the DB 603 engines would have perfect attachment points. While this was a bigger overall surgery stunt than on the earlier Airfix Dinah, this was easier than expected and resulted in a cleaner solution that also underlines the Ki-46’s clean and slender shape. The modified nacelles were much smaller than the Dinah’s, though. The main wheels were replaced with slightly smaller and narrower ones from the scrap box.
Inside of the cockpit, I implanted a dashboard. In the rear cabin the seat was reversed and moved further forward. In the cabin’s rear a scratched targeting scope/weapon control column for the FDSL 131 installation was added. Since I left the single-part canopies (which are quite thick but very clear) closed I outfitted the model with a crew. The Ki-46 III kit comes with a pair of figures, but they are very small (H0 scale, at best!) and look goofy, so that I exchanged them with Matchbox WWII pilots, which had their legs bent and their bottoms cut away to make them fit into the tight fuselage and under the canopies.
Unfortunately, the Me 210 kit had already donated its machine gun barbettes (they had gone onto an upgraded Heinkel He 115 floatplane), so that I scratched them for the Go 146. WWII bombs became the fairings, some leftover landing gear struts were used as gun barrels, and round styrene bases were used as mounts that also lift the fairings slightly off the hull. The barbettes as such look a little superficial on the slender Dinah, but they are a nice, typically German detail, über-complicated for this type of fast aircraft that probably would have more benefited from leaving them away altogether to save weight and drag.
The (typically German) 300 l drop tanks come from Hobby Boss Bf 109s and each received four short attachment struts, made from styrene profile material, so that they could be stuck under the inner wings.
Painting and markings:
This was more complicated than expected. I wanted to apply a plausible, late German WWII livery with typical colors, but finding something that would be suited for high-altitude operations and not copy anything I had already done turned out to be challenging.
The paint scheme would be very light, with only low-contrast camouflage added on top. Therefore, the basis became an overall coat with RLM 76 (I used Tamiya XF-23, Light Blue, which is an excellent option). Inspired by He 177 bombers I found in literature, large blotches of a rather obscure and uncommon tone, RLM 77 “Hellgrau” were added to the flanks of fuselage, fin and engine nacelles. RLM 77 is/was a very light grey, and it was primarily used for markings like code letters on night fighters and not for camouflage. AFAIK it would later become the RAL 7035 (Lichtgrau) tone that still exists today. Humbrol 196 would have been an authentic option, but to keep the contrast to the underlying RLM 76 low I rather used XF-19 (Sky Grey) and extended the blotches under the fuselage and the nacelles, for a semi-wraparound scheme.
Then came the upper surfaces, everything was painted with brushes and without masks, with an intentional uneven finish. The wings and stabilizers were to receive a slightly darker camouflage in the form of RLM 02 and 75 splotches (with Tamiya XF-22 and XF-XX as proxies) over the uniform RLM 76 base, so that the aircraft’s outlines would be broken up from above. However, after first tests I found this did not look convincing, the RLM 76 was very prominent and bluish, so that I rather gave the upper wings and the spine a semi-translucent but continuous coat of paint, with the underlying RLM 76 just showing through here and there – much better. At this stage I added the decals (see below), but now found the upper surfaces to look too uniform and somewhat dark, so that, as a final measure, I added a meander pattern with RLM 77 (again XF-19) to the wings. This not only looked good and very “German”, it lightened the cammo and also helped to break the aircraft’s lines up. Some light panel shading to the uniform undersides, black ink and grinded graphite were used for weathering, but the effects are very soft.
Interior surfaces (cockpit and landing gear wells) became late-war style RAL 7021 Schwarzgrau (Humbrol 67), the landing gear struts were painted in RLM 02, this time Revell 45 was used. The propeller blades were painted in a very dark mix of green and black, the spinners became black with simple white spirals – the only detail with a high contrast on this aircraft.
The markings of this aircraft are minimal. Balkenkreuz markings only consisting of outlines were used, another typical late-war practice and for a low-visibility look/effect. They were taken from an Academy Fw 190 D. On the fuselage, the gun barbettes caused some headaches, because they take up a lot of space and made the application of a standard Luftwaffe code almost impossible. Consequently, the fuselage Balkenkreuze were placed ahead of the barbettes, partly disrupted by the observer’s lower side windows, while the tactical code became separated by the guns. At starboard the code even had to be reversed - not correct, but a pragmatic solution.
The model/aircraft belongs to a fictional unit, its code “P3” in front of the fuselage Balkenkreuz has no real-world reference and was executed in small letters, a typical late WWII measure. This part of the code was done with small, black 2 mm letters. A fictional unit badge, depicting a running greyhound, was added under the cockpit. It actually belongs to a German tank unit.
The “KN” part of the code, including the Ks on the nose, came from an Airfix Ju 87 B sheet. As an aircraft belonging to the 5th squadron within the unit’s 2nd group, the 4th letter in the code became “N”, while the 3rd letter “K” denotes the individual aircraft. The color code associated with a 5th squadron was red, incorporated on the aircraft as a thin red outline around the individual aircraft letter (another late-war low-contrast measure). To provide a little visual excitement, small red Ks were added to the nose, too, to make thew aircraft easy to identify when parked at the flight line.
Since this aircraft would operate over the Western front from German home ground, no further ID/theatre markings like fuselage or wing bands or wingtips in yellow or white, etc. were added. This, together with the lack of visible red as squadron code, results in a rather dry look, but that’s intentional.
After some exhaust and oil stains with graphite and Tamiya “Smoke”, a coat of acrylic matt varnish finally sealed the model and a wire antenna, made from heated sprue material, was added.
Well, an exotic what-if idea, but I really like how this conversion turned out, even though the livery evolved in a different way from what I had initially in mind. The Ki-46 was already an elegant aircraft, especially the Ki-46-III with its teardrop-shaped nose section. But, with the smaller, streamlined inline engines instead of the radials, this iteration looks even better and faster. It reminds a little of the D.H. Hornet? The gun barbettes are a nice “German” detail, and the makeshift high-altitude paint scheme adds to the obscure impression of the model. A really nice sister ship for the Go 146 A-0 build from 2015.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Gotha 146 was a fast reconnaissance aircraft that was used throughout WWII by the German Luftwaffe, and one of the results of a mutual technology exchange program with Japan. The Go 146 was actually a license-built, but modified variant of the excellent Mitsubishi Ki-46. The latter type's career started in late 1937, when the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force issued a specification to Mitsubishi for a long-range strategic reconnaissance aircraft to replace the Mitsubishi Ki-15. The specification demanded an endurance of six hours and sufficient speed to evade interception by any fighter in existence or development at that time, but otherwise did not constrain the design by a team led by Tomio Kubo.
The resulting design was a twin-engine, low-winged monoplane with a retractable tailwheel undercarriage. It had a small diameter oval fuselage with the pilot and observer situated in individual cockpits separated by a large fuel tank. The engines, two Mitsubishi Ha-26 radials, were housed in close-fitting cowlings to reduce drag and improve pilot view.
The first prototype aircraft, flew in November 1939 from the Mitsubishi factory at Kakamigahara, Gifu. Tests showed that the Ki-46 was underpowered and slower than required, only reaching 540 km/h (336 mph) rather than the specified 600 km/h (373 mph), but, otherwise, the aircraft tests were successful. As the type was still faster than the Army's latest fighter, the Nakajima Ki-43, as well as the Navy's new A6M2, an initial production batch was ordered. To solve the performance problems, Mitsubishi switched to Ha-102 engines, which were Ha-26s fitted with a two-stage supercharger, while increasing fuel capacity and reducing empty weight. This became the Ki-46-II, and this type was also demonstrated to German officials who immediately noticed its potential.
Knowing that the German Luftwaffe lacked this specialized, fast type of aircraft (German reconnaissance aircraft of that time were either slow artillery observation types, or variants of bombers or heavy fighters), the RLM immediately asked for a batch of airframe kits to adapt it to the European theatre and test its capabilities. Seven engine-less airframe kits were delivered to Germany in early 1940. In the meantime, with the help of blueprints and other documentations, an alternative engine installation had been devised: the “Germanized” aircraft was to be powered by liquid-cooled DB 601 engines, which delivered more power than the Ha-102 and offered improved aerodynamics, despite the necessity to add radiators under the outer wings. Many stock parts from the contemporary Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter were incorporated, so that the development time was very short, and the commonality of mechanical parts eased logistics and maintenance.
In May 1940 the first batch of the Gotha 146 A-0 pre-production aircraft (which had officially been described as a further development of a four seat, twin-engine transport aircraft from the 1930s to cloud its origins and mission) was ready. They were immediately transferred to the Western Front for field tests, and the specialized Go 146 became quickly popular among its crews. It was fast, agile and easy to fly – almost on par with state-of-the-art fighters like the Bf 109. During the test phase in summer 1940 the Go 146 proved to be slightly faster than its Japanese Ki-46 ancestor, and with a top speed of more than 375 mph (600 km/h) it was hard to intercept by any British or French fighter of the time. The results were so convincing that the type was ordered into serial production, and from October 1940 on the Go 146 A-1 was produced in limited numbers at the Gothaer Waggonfabrik in Thuringia. Even though production only ran at small scale, it was continuous, and the Go 146 was steadily developed further, including the change of the nose section that came with the Ki-46-III, stronger engines and an improved defensive armament.
This evolution led to the Go 146 B, which had the traditional stepped windshield replaced with a smooth, curved, glazed panel extended over the pilot's seat. It not only gave a more aerodynamic nose profile, the re-shaped nose also offered room for an extra fuel tank. The space between the two crewmen, connected with a crawl tunnel, held another fuel tank, the radio equipment (a Sprechfunkgerät FuG 16 ZY and a FuG 25a „Erstling“ IFF beacon), as well as a compartment for up to three cameras with several ventral windows, which could take Rb (“Reihenbildner” = serial picture device) 20/30, 50/30 and 75/30 devices that could be mounted in different combinations and angles as needed.
Power came now from a pair of new Daimler-Benz DB 603A liquid-cooled piston engines, which offered 1,290 kW (1,750 hp) each for take-off. Since the engine mounts had to be re-designed for the DB603s (the Go 146 A had used adapters to attach its shorter DB 601s to the original Ha-102 radials’ hardpoints), German engineers used the opportunity to redesign the complete engine nacelles. As a result, their diameter and “wet” surface was reduced, so much that the landing gear had to be modified, too. It now rotated 90° upon retraction, so that the main wheels were lying in shallow wells within the wing structure. Beyond better aerodynamics, structural measures saved almost 250 kg (550 lb).
Instead of the Go 146 A’s single 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine gun in the observer's cabin, facing rearwards, the defensive armament was improved and consisted of a pair of 13 mm (0.51 in) MG 131 machine guns, firing rearward from FDSL 131/1B remotely-operated barbettes, one per side. This rather complex installation had become possible (and in part necessary) due to a center of gravity shift from the modified engines and their empennage. The weapons were aimed by the rear crewman through a periscope that covered both the upper and lower rear hemisphere. The control unit had a rotating transverse crossbar with a sideways-pivoting handgun-style grip and trigger at its center, "forked" at its forward pivoting end to fit around the crossbar, with the upper fork extended beyond the rotating crossbar to mount the gunsight. This unique aiming and control scheme rotated the crossbar axially, when the handgrip was elevated or depressed, to aim the guns vertically by rotating both turrets together, and a sideways movement of the handgrip would pivot either one of the guns outwards from the fuselage-mounted turrets for diagonal firing. The guns were electrically fired, and an electrical contact breaker prevented the gunner from shooting off the aircraft’s tailplane. When not in use, the guns would return to a neutral position that would allow to fire directly backwards with both guns.
Furthermore, plumbed hardpoints were added to the inner wings, just inside of the engines. These could carry a 300 l drop tank each for an extended range and loiter time. Single bombs of up to 250 kg or racks with four 50 kg bombs each were theoretically possible too, but the aircraft lacked any bomb aiming support. Crew protection was slightly improved, too, but the airframe was overall kept as light as possible. Despite these efforts, however, MTOW rose to 6,500 kg (14,317 lb), but this was still relatively light in comparison with the similar contemporary Me 410 multi-purpose aircraft, which weighed more than 9 tons and was powered by similar engines. Consequently, and thanks to its clean lines, the G 146 B had a top speed of almost 700 km/h (434 mph) at ideal altitude and the aircraft retained its excellent handling, even though its structure was rather fragile and could not take much stress and punishment.
Two versions of the Go 146 B were produced, steadily but only at a low rate because the aircraft received, due to its highly specialized role and limited offensive capabilities, only a low priority. The B-1 was the main variant and kept the A version’s standard wing, a total of 54 were produced between 1943 and 1945. Additionally, the B-2 was produced between late 1943 and early 1944 as a dedicated high altitude photo reconnaissance aircraft. This sub-variant had an extended wingspan of 16.00 m (52 ft 5 in) instead of the standard 14.70 m (48 ft 2¾ in) and an improved oxygen system, even though the cabin was not pressurized. Its maximum service ceiling was almost 12.000 m (39.305 ft), with a maximum speed of 415 mph (668 km/h), a cruise speed of 250 mph (400 km/h) and a range of 3,200 km (1,987 nmi). Only twelve of these machines were produced and put into service, primarily for flights over Southern Great Britain. When the Arado Ar 234 became available from September 1944 on, though, this new, jet-powered type immediately replaced the Go 146 B-2 because it offered even better performance. Therefore, the B-3, a planned version with a fully pressurized cabin and an even bigger wingspan of 19.00 m, never left the drawing board.
Furthermore, the RLM had idea to convert the fast Go 146 into a fighter amd even a night fighter in mid-1944 as the “C” series. But these plans were not executed because the light airframe could hardly be adapted to heavy weapons or equipment like a radar set, and it was unsuited for vigorous dogfighting. The type’s poor climbing rate made it ineffective as an interceptor, too. There were, nevertheless, tests with at least one Go 146 B-1 that carried four Werfer-Granate 21 rocket launchers under the outer wings, as a fast bomber interceptor esp. against the high-flying B-29, which was expected to appear over continental Europe soon. But this kind of weaponry never reached frontline units and the Go 146 was never operated as a fighter of any kind.
There were, however, other uses: in 1944 the Go 146 was enlisted as a fast liaison aircraft for the RLM (Ministry of Aviation) in Berlin. Stripped off of any armament and cameras and outfitted with two passenger seats in the rear cabin, at least one Go 146 B (with the confirmed registration “ST+ZA”, others in similar configuration may have existed, too) was operated by the RLM’s Zentralabteilung (central command) from Tempelhof airfield for top brass officials between Luftwaffe locations on German terrain. ST+ZA’s fate after January 1945 is uncertain, though.
Specifications:
Crew: two (pilot and observer)
Length: 11.00 m (36 ft 1 in)
Wingspan: 14.70 m (48 ft 2¾ in)
Height: 3.88 m (12 ft 8¾ in)
Wing area: 32.0 m² (344 ft²)
Empty weight: 3,830 kg (8,436 lb)
Loaded weight: 5,661 kg (12,480 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 6,500 kg (14,317 lb)
Powerplant:
2× Daimler-Benz DB 603A V-12 inverted liquid-cooled piston engines, rated at:
- 1,290 kW (1,750 hp) each for take-off
- 1,360 kW (1,850 PS) at 2,100 m (6,890 ft)
- 1,195 kW (1,625 PS) at 5,700 m (18,700 ft)
- 1,162 kW (1580 PS) combat power at 2500 rpm at sea level
Performance:
Maximum speed: 695 km/h (377 knots, 430 mph) at 5,800 m (19,000 ft)
Cruise speed: 450 km/h (245 knots, 280 mph)
Range: 2,800 km (1,522 nmi, 1,740 mi) with internal fuel
Service ceiling: 11,250 m (36,850 ft)
Wing loading: 157.8 kg/m² (32.3 lb/ft²)
Climb rate: 14.7 m/sec (2,900 feet per minute)
Climb to 8,000 m (26,250 ft): 15 min 20 sec
Armament:
2× 13 mm (0.51 in) defensive MG 131 machine guns with 500 RPG,
each firing rearward from FDSL 131/1B remote-operated turret, one per side
2× underwing hardpoints under the inner wings for 250 kg (550 lb) each,
typically occupied by 300 l drop tanks
The kit and its assembly:
This is a déjà vu build: I already did a “Germanized” Ki-46 in 2015, it was an Airfix Ki-46-II outfitted with DB 601s from a Bf 110 as a pre-series Gotha Go 146 A-0, an aircraft that (naturally) never existed but appeared plausible, since German military hardware including aircraft had been evaluated by Japanese forces. And why should this exchange not have worked the other way around, too? However, as I built this modified Dinah for the first time, I already thought that the basic idea had more potential than just one model, and the streamlined Ki-46-III just lent itself for an updated, later version.
This B-2 variant of the Go 146 was based on the LS Models/ARII Ki-46-III. Like the Airfix kit (its molds are from 1965, and that’s just what the kit feels, looks and builds like…), it’s a rather vintage offering, but it is in many aspects markedly ahead, with fine surfaces, recessed details, 3D engines and clear parts that actually fit into their intended places. The LS Models kit’s 10 years less of age are recognizable, and there are three boxings around with different versions of the aircraft (a Ki-46-II, a -III and a trainer with a raised tutor cockpit), differing in small extra sprues for the respective fuselage parts, but they all share a common sprue with the clear parts for all three versions.
The Ki-46-III kit was taken OOB, with just some minor mods. The most obvious change concerns the engines: they were transplanted from a Bilek Me 210, together with the underwing radiators outside of the nacelles. The Me 210, even though it’s from 1997, is a rather mediocre model with some dubious solutions, therefore earmarked for a conversion and ready to donor some body parts… The engine switch was insofar easy because the Ki-46 kit comes with completely separate parts for the engines and their fairings which also contain the main landing gear wells.
Because of this “clean” basis I decided to cut the nacelles out from the Me 210 and attach them to the Ki-46 wings, so that the DB 603 engines would have perfect attachment points. While this was a bigger overall surgery stunt than on the earlier Airfix Dinah, this was easier than expected and resulted in a cleaner solution that also underlines the Ki-46’s clean and slender shape. The modified nacelles were much smaller than the Dinah’s, though. The main wheels were replaced with slightly smaller and narrower ones from the scrap box.
Inside of the cockpit, I implanted a dashboard. In the rear cabin the seat was reversed and moved further forward. In the cabin’s rear a scratched targeting scope/weapon control column for the FDSL 131 installation was added. Since I left the single-part canopies (which are quite thick but very clear) closed I outfitted the model with a crew. The Ki-46 III kit comes with a pair of figures, but they are very small (H0 scale, at best!) and look goofy, so that I exchanged them with Matchbox WWII pilots, which had their legs bent and their bottoms cut away to make them fit into the tight fuselage and under the canopies.
Unfortunately, the Me 210 kit had already donated its machine gun barbettes (they had gone onto an upgraded Heinkel He 115 floatplane), so that I scratched them for the Go 146. WWII bombs became the fairings, some leftover landing gear struts were used as gun barrels, and round styrene bases were used as mounts that also lift the fairings slightly off the hull. The barbettes as such look a little superficial on the slender Dinah, but they are a nice, typically German detail, über-complicated for this type of fast aircraft that probably would have more benefited from leaving them away altogether to save weight and drag.
The (typically German) 300 l drop tanks come from Hobby Boss Bf 109s and each received four short attachment struts, made from styrene profile material, so that they could be stuck under the inner wings.
Painting and markings:
This was more complicated than expected. I wanted to apply a plausible, late German WWII livery with typical colors, but finding something that would be suited for high-altitude operations and not copy anything I had already done turned out to be challenging.
The paint scheme would be very light, with only low-contrast camouflage added on top. Therefore, the basis became an overall coat with RLM 76 (I used Tamiya XF-23, Light Blue, which is an excellent option). Inspired by He 177 bombers I found in literature, large blotches of a rather obscure and uncommon tone, RLM 77 “Hellgrau” were added to the flanks of fuselage, fin and engine nacelles. RLM 77 is/was a very light grey, and it was primarily used for markings like code letters on night fighters and not for camouflage. AFAIK it would later become the RAL 7035 (Lichtgrau) tone that still exists today. Humbrol 196 would have been an authentic option, but to keep the contrast to the underlying RLM 76 low I rather used XF-19 (Sky Grey) and extended the blotches under the fuselage and the nacelles, for a semi-wraparound scheme.
Then came the upper surfaces, everything was painted with brushes and without masks, with an intentional uneven finish. The wings and stabilizers were to receive a slightly darker camouflage in the form of RLM 02 and 75 splotches (with Tamiya XF-22 and XF-XX as proxies) over the uniform RLM 76 base, so that the aircraft’s outlines would be broken up from above. However, after first tests I found this did not look convincing, the RLM 76 was very prominent and bluish, so that I rather gave the upper wings and the spine a semi-translucent but continuous coat of paint, with the underlying RLM 76 just showing through here and there – much better. At this stage I added the decals (see below), but now found the upper surfaces to look too uniform and somewhat dark, so that, as a final measure, I added a meander pattern with RLM 77 (again XF-19) to the wings. This not only looked good and very “German”, it lightened the cammo and also helped to break the aircraft’s lines up. Some light panel shading to the uniform undersides, black ink and grinded graphite were used for weathering, but the effects are very soft.
Interior surfaces (cockpit and landing gear wells) became late-war style RAL 7021 Schwarzgrau (Humbrol 67), the landing gear struts were painted in RLM 02, this time Revell 45 was used. The propeller blades were painted in a very dark mix of green and black, the spinners became black with simple white spirals – the only detail with a high contrast on this aircraft.
The markings of this aircraft are minimal. Balkenkreuz markings only consisting of outlines were used, another typical late-war practice and for a low-visibility look/effect. They were taken from an Academy Fw 190 D. On the fuselage, the gun barbettes caused some headaches, because they take up a lot of space and made the application of a standard Luftwaffe code almost impossible. Consequently, the fuselage Balkenkreuze were placed ahead of the barbettes, partly disrupted by the observer’s lower side windows, while the tactical code became separated by the guns. At starboard the code even had to be reversed - not correct, but a pragmatic solution.
The model/aircraft belongs to a fictional unit, its code “P3” in front of the fuselage Balkenkreuz has no real-world reference and was executed in small letters, a typical late WWII measure. This part of the code was done with small, black 2 mm letters. A fictional unit badge, depicting a running greyhound, was added under the cockpit. It actually belongs to a German tank unit.
The “KN” part of the code, including the Ks on the nose, came from an Airfix Ju 87 B sheet. As an aircraft belonging to the 5th squadron within the unit’s 2nd group, the 4th letter in the code became “N”, while the 3rd letter “K” denotes the individual aircraft. The color code associated with a 5th squadron was red, incorporated on the aircraft as a thin red outline around the individual aircraft letter (another late-war low-contrast measure). To provide a little visual excitement, small red Ks were added to the nose, too, to make thew aircraft easy to identify when parked at the flight line.
Since this aircraft would operate over the Western front from German home ground, no further ID/theatre markings like fuselage or wing bands or wingtips in yellow or white, etc. were added. This, together with the lack of visible red as squadron code, results in a rather dry look, but that’s intentional.
After some exhaust and oil stains with graphite and Tamiya “Smoke”, a coat of acrylic matt varnish finally sealed the model and a wire antenna, made from heated sprue material, was added.
Well, an exotic what-if idea, but I really like how this conversion turned out, even though the livery evolved in a different way from what I had initially in mind. The Ki-46 was already an elegant aircraft, especially the Ki-46-III with its teardrop-shaped nose section. But, with the smaller, streamlined inline engines instead of the radials, this iteration looks even better and faster. It reminds a little of the D.H. Hornet? The gun barbettes are a nice “German” detail, and the makeshift high-altitude paint scheme adds to the obscure impression of the model. A really nice sister ship for the Go 146 A-0 build from 2015.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Gotha 146 was a fast reconnaissance aircraft that was used throughout WWII by the German Luftwaffe, and one of the results of a mutual technology exchange program with Japan. The Go 146 was actually a license-built, but modified variant of the excellent Mitsubishi Ki-46. The latter type's career started in late 1937, when the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force issued a specification to Mitsubishi for a long-range strategic reconnaissance aircraft to replace the Mitsubishi Ki-15. The specification demanded an endurance of six hours and sufficient speed to evade interception by any fighter in existence or development at that time, but otherwise did not constrain the design by a team led by Tomio Kubo.
The resulting design was a twin-engine, low-winged monoplane with a retractable tailwheel undercarriage. It had a small diameter oval fuselage with the pilot and observer situated in individual cockpits separated by a large fuel tank. The engines, two Mitsubishi Ha-26 radials, were housed in close-fitting cowlings to reduce drag and improve pilot view.
The first prototype aircraft, flew in November 1939 from the Mitsubishi factory at Kakamigahara, Gifu. Tests showed that the Ki-46 was underpowered and slower than required, only reaching 540 km/h (336 mph) rather than the specified 600 km/h (373 mph), but, otherwise, the aircraft tests were successful. As the type was still faster than the Army's latest fighter, the Nakajima Ki-43, as well as the Navy's new A6M2, an initial production batch was ordered. To solve the performance problems, Mitsubishi switched to Ha-102 engines, which were Ha-26s fitted with a two-stage supercharger, while increasing fuel capacity and reducing empty weight. This became the Ki-46-II, and this type was also demonstrated to German officials who immediately noticed its potential.
Knowing that the German Luftwaffe lacked this specialized, fast type of aircraft (German reconnaissance aircraft of that time were either slow artillery observation types, or variants of bombers or heavy fighters), the RLM immediately asked for a batch of airframe kits to adapt it to the European theatre and test its capabilities. Seven engine-less airframe kits were delivered to Germany in early 1940. In the meantime, with the help of blueprints and other documentations, an alternative engine installation had been devised: the “Germanized” aircraft was to be powered by liquid-cooled DB 601 engines, which delivered more power than the Ha-102 and offered improved aerodynamics, despite the necessity to add radiators under the outer wings. Many stock parts from the contemporary Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter were incorporated, so that the development time was very short, and the commonality of mechanical parts eased logistics and maintenance.
In May 1940 the first batch of the Gotha 146 A-0 pre-production aircraft (which had officially been described as a further development of a four seat, twin-engine transport aircraft from the 1930s to cloud its origins and mission) was ready. They were immediately transferred to the Western Front for field tests, and the specialized Go 146 became quickly popular among its crews. It was fast, agile and easy to fly – almost on par with state-of-the-art fighters like the Bf 109. During the test phase in summer 1940 the Go 146 proved to be slightly faster than its Japanese Ki-46 ancestor, and with a top speed of more than 375 mph (600 km/h) it was hard to intercept by any British or French fighter of the time. The results were so convincing that the type was ordered into serial production, and from October 1940 on the Go 146 A-1 was produced in limited numbers at the Gothaer Waggonfabrik in Thuringia. Even though production only ran at small scale, it was continuous, and the Go 146 was steadily developed further, including the change of the nose section that came with the Ki-46-III, stronger engines and an improved defensive armament.
This evolution led to the Go 146 B, which had the traditional stepped windshield replaced with a smooth, curved, glazed panel extended over the pilot's seat. It not only gave a more aerodynamic nose profile, the re-shaped nose also offered room for an extra fuel tank. The space between the two crewmen, connected with a crawl tunnel, held another fuel tank, the radio equipment (a Sprechfunkgerät FuG 16 ZY and a FuG 25a „Erstling“ IFF beacon), as well as a compartment for up to three cameras with several ventral windows, which could take Rb (“Reihenbildner” = serial picture device) 20/30, 50/30 and 75/30 devices that could be mounted in different combinations and angles as needed.
Power came now from a pair of new Daimler-Benz DB 603A liquid-cooled piston engines, which offered 1,290 kW (1,750 hp) each for take-off. Since the engine mounts had to be re-designed for the DB603s (the Go 146 A had used adapters to attach its shorter DB 601s to the original Ha-102 radials’ hardpoints), German engineers used the opportunity to redesign the complete engine nacelles. As a result, their diameter and “wet” surface was reduced, so much that the landing gear had to be modified, too. It now rotated 90° upon retraction, so that the main wheels were lying in shallow wells within the wing structure. Beyond better aerodynamics, structural measures saved almost 250 kg (550 lb).
Instead of the Go 146 A’s single 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine gun in the observer's cabin, facing rearwards, the defensive armament was improved and consisted of a pair of 13 mm (0.51 in) MG 131 machine guns, firing rearward from FDSL 131/1B remotely-operated barbettes, one per side. This rather complex installation had become possible (and in part necessary) due to a center of gravity shift from the modified engines and their empennage. The weapons were aimed by the rear crewman through a periscope that covered both the upper and lower rear hemisphere. The control unit had a rotating transverse crossbar with a sideways-pivoting handgun-style grip and trigger at its center, "forked" at its forward pivoting end to fit around the crossbar, with the upper fork extended beyond the rotating crossbar to mount the gunsight. This unique aiming and control scheme rotated the crossbar axially, when the handgrip was elevated or depressed, to aim the guns vertically by rotating both turrets together, and a sideways movement of the handgrip would pivot either one of the guns outwards from the fuselage-mounted turrets for diagonal firing. The guns were electrically fired, and an electrical contact breaker prevented the gunner from shooting off the aircraft’s tailplane. When not in use, the guns would return to a neutral position that would allow to fire directly backwards with both guns.
Furthermore, plumbed hardpoints were added to the inner wings, just inside of the engines. These could carry a 300 l drop tank each for an extended range and loiter time. Single bombs of up to 250 kg or racks with four 50 kg bombs each were theoretically possible too, but the aircraft lacked any bomb aiming support. Crew protection was slightly improved, too, but the airframe was overall kept as light as possible. Despite these efforts, however, MTOW rose to 6,500 kg (14,317 lb), but this was still relatively light in comparison with the similar contemporary Me 410 multi-purpose aircraft, which weighed more than 9 tons and was powered by similar engines. Consequently, and thanks to its clean lines, the G 146 B had a top speed of almost 700 km/h (434 mph) at ideal altitude and the aircraft retained its excellent handling, even though its structure was rather fragile and could not take much stress and punishment.
Two versions of the Go 146 B were produced, steadily but only at a low rate because the aircraft received, due to its highly specialized role and limited offensive capabilities, only a low priority. The B-1 was the main variant and kept the A version’s standard wing, a total of 54 were produced between 1943 and 1945. Additionally, the B-2 was produced between late 1943 and early 1944 as a dedicated high altitude photo reconnaissance aircraft. This sub-variant had an extended wingspan of 16.00 m (52 ft 5 in) instead of the standard 14.70 m (48 ft 2¾ in) and an improved oxygen system, even though the cabin was not pressurized. Its maximum service ceiling was almost 12.000 m (39.305 ft), with a maximum speed of 415 mph (668 km/h), a cruise speed of 250 mph (400 km/h) and a range of 3,200 km (1,987 nmi). Only twelve of these machines were produced and put into service, primarily for flights over Southern Great Britain. When the Arado Ar 234 became available from September 1944 on, though, this new, jet-powered type immediately replaced the Go 146 B-2 because it offered even better performance. Therefore, the B-3, a planned version with a fully pressurized cabin and an even bigger wingspan of 19.00 m, never left the drawing board.
Furthermore, the RLM had idea to convert the fast Go 146 into a fighter amd even a night fighter in mid-1944 as the “C” series. But these plans were not executed because the light airframe could hardly be adapted to heavy weapons or equipment like a radar set, and it was unsuited for vigorous dogfighting. The type’s poor climbing rate made it ineffective as an interceptor, too. There were, nevertheless, tests with at least one Go 146 B-1 that carried four Werfer-Granate 21 rocket launchers under the outer wings, as a fast bomber interceptor esp. against the high-flying B-29, which was expected to appear over continental Europe soon. But this kind of weaponry never reached frontline units and the Go 146 was never operated as a fighter of any kind.
There were, however, other uses: in 1944 the Go 146 was enlisted as a fast liaison aircraft for the RLM (Ministry of Aviation) in Berlin. Stripped off of any armament and cameras and outfitted with two passenger seats in the rear cabin, at least one Go 146 B (with the confirmed registration “ST+ZA”, others in similar configuration may have existed, too) was operated by the RLM’s Zentralabteilung (central command) from Tempelhof airfield for top brass officials between Luftwaffe locations on German terrain. ST+ZA’s fate after January 1945 is uncertain, though.
Specifications:
Crew: two (pilot and observer)
Length: 11.00 m (36 ft 1 in)
Wingspan: 14.70 m (48 ft 2¾ in)
Height: 3.88 m (12 ft 8¾ in)
Wing area: 32.0 m² (344 ft²)
Empty weight: 3,830 kg (8,436 lb)
Loaded weight: 5,661 kg (12,480 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 6,500 kg (14,317 lb)
Powerplant:
2× Daimler-Benz DB 603A V-12 inverted liquid-cooled piston engines, rated at:
- 1,290 kW (1,750 hp) each for take-off
- 1,360 kW (1,850 PS) at 2,100 m (6,890 ft)
- 1,195 kW (1,625 PS) at 5,700 m (18,700 ft)
- 1,162 kW (1580 PS) combat power at 2500 rpm at sea level
Performance:
Maximum speed: 695 km/h (377 knots, 430 mph) at 5,800 m (19,000 ft)
Cruise speed: 450 km/h (245 knots, 280 mph)
Range: 2,800 km (1,522 nmi, 1,740 mi) with internal fuel
Service ceiling: 11,250 m (36,850 ft)
Wing loading: 157.8 kg/m² (32.3 lb/ft²)
Climb rate: 14.7 m/sec (2,900 feet per minute)
Climb to 8,000 m (26,250 ft): 15 min 20 sec
Armament:
2× 13 mm (0.51 in) defensive MG 131 machine guns with 500 RPG,
each firing rearward from FDSL 131/1B remote-operated turret, one per side
2× underwing hardpoints under the inner wings for 250 kg (550 lb) each,
typically occupied by 300 l drop tanks
The kit and its assembly:
This is a déjà vu build: I already did a “Germanized” Ki-46 in 2015, it was an Airfix Ki-46-II outfitted with DB 601s from a Bf 110 as a pre-series Gotha Go 146 A-0, an aircraft that (naturally) never existed but appeared plausible, since German military hardware including aircraft had been evaluated by Japanese forces. And why should this exchange not have worked the other way around, too? However, as I built this modified Dinah for the first time, I already thought that the basic idea had more potential than just one model, and the streamlined Ki-46-III just lent itself for an updated, later version.
This B-2 variant of the Go 146 was based on the LS Models/ARII Ki-46-III. Like the Airfix kit (its molds are from 1965, and that’s just what the kit feels, looks and builds like…), it’s a rather vintage offering, but it is in many aspects markedly ahead, with fine surfaces, recessed details, 3D engines and clear parts that actually fit into their intended places. The LS Models kit’s 10 years less of age are recognizable, and there are three boxings around with different versions of the aircraft (a Ki-46-II, a -III and a trainer with a raised tutor cockpit), differing in small extra sprues for the respective fuselage parts, but they all share a common sprue with the clear parts for all three versions.
The Ki-46-III kit was taken OOB, with just some minor mods. The most obvious change concerns the engines: they were transplanted from a Bilek Me 210, together with the underwing radiators outside of the nacelles. The Me 210, even though it’s from 1997, is a rather mediocre model with some dubious solutions, therefore earmarked for a conversion and ready to donor some body parts… The engine switch was insofar easy because the Ki-46 kit comes with completely separate parts for the engines and their fairings which also contain the main landing gear wells.
Because of this “clean” basis I decided to cut the nacelles out from the Me 210 and attach them to the Ki-46 wings, so that the DB 603 engines would have perfect attachment points. While this was a bigger overall surgery stunt than on the earlier Airfix Dinah, this was easier than expected and resulted in a cleaner solution that also underlines the Ki-46’s clean and slender shape. The modified nacelles were much smaller than the Dinah’s, though. The main wheels were replaced with slightly smaller and narrower ones from the scrap box.
Inside of the cockpit, I implanted a dashboard. In the rear cabin the seat was reversed and moved further forward. In the cabin’s rear a scratched targeting scope/weapon control column for the FDSL 131 installation was added. Since I left the single-part canopies (which are quite thick but very clear) closed I outfitted the model with a crew. The Ki-46 III kit comes with a pair of figures, but they are very small (H0 scale, at best!) and look goofy, so that I exchanged them with Matchbox WWII pilots, which had their legs bent and their bottoms cut away to make them fit into the tight fuselage and under the canopies.
Unfortunately, the Me 210 kit had already donated its machine gun barbettes (they had gone onto an upgraded Heinkel He 115 floatplane), so that I scratched them for the Go 146. WWII bombs became the fairings, some leftover landing gear struts were used as gun barrels, and round styrene bases were used as mounts that also lift the fairings slightly off the hull. The barbettes as such look a little superficial on the slender Dinah, but they are a nice, typically German detail, über-complicated for this type of fast aircraft that probably would have more benefited from leaving them away altogether to save weight and drag.
The (typically German) 300 l drop tanks come from Hobby Boss Bf 109s and each received four short attachment struts, made from styrene profile material, so that they could be stuck under the inner wings.
Painting and markings:
This was more complicated than expected. I wanted to apply a plausible, late German WWII livery with typical colors, but finding something that would be suited for high-altitude operations and not copy anything I had already done turned out to be challenging.
The paint scheme would be very light, with only low-contrast camouflage added on top. Therefore, the basis became an overall coat with RLM 76 (I used Tamiya XF-23, Light Blue, which is an excellent option). Inspired by He 177 bombers I found in literature, large blotches of a rather obscure and uncommon tone, RLM 77 “Hellgrau” were added to the flanks of fuselage, fin and engine nacelles. RLM 77 is/was a very light grey, and it was primarily used for markings like code letters on night fighters and not for camouflage. AFAIK it would later become the RAL 7035 (Lichtgrau) tone that still exists today. Humbrol 196 would have been an authentic option, but to keep the contrast to the underlying RLM 76 low I rather used XF-19 (Sky Grey) and extended the blotches under the fuselage and the nacelles, for a semi-wraparound scheme.
Then came the upper surfaces, everything was painted with brushes and without masks, with an intentional uneven finish. The wings and stabilizers were to receive a slightly darker camouflage in the form of RLM 02 and 75 splotches (with Tamiya XF-22 and XF-XX as proxies) over the uniform RLM 76 base, so that the aircraft’s outlines would be broken up from above. However, after first tests I found this did not look convincing, the RLM 76 was very prominent and bluish, so that I rather gave the upper wings and the spine a semi-translucent but continuous coat of paint, with the underlying RLM 76 just showing through here and there – much better. At this stage I added the decals (see below), but now found the upper surfaces to look too uniform and somewhat dark, so that, as a final measure, I added a meander pattern with RLM 77 (again XF-19) to the wings. This not only looked good and very “German”, it lightened the cammo and also helped to break the aircraft’s lines up. Some light panel shading to the uniform undersides, black ink and grinded graphite were used for weathering, but the effects are very soft.
Interior surfaces (cockpit and landing gear wells) became late-war style RAL 7021 Schwarzgrau (Humbrol 67), the landing gear struts were painted in RLM 02, this time Revell 45 was used. The propeller blades were painted in a very dark mix of green and black, the spinners became black with simple white spirals – the only detail with a high contrast on this aircraft.
The markings of this aircraft are minimal. Balkenkreuz markings only consisting of outlines were used, another typical late-war practice and for a low-visibility look/effect. They were taken from an Academy Fw 190 D. On the fuselage, the gun barbettes caused some headaches, because they take up a lot of space and made the application of a standard Luftwaffe code almost impossible. Consequently, the fuselage Balkenkreuze were placed ahead of the barbettes, partly disrupted by the observer’s lower side windows, while the tactical code became separated by the guns. At starboard the code even had to be reversed - not correct, but a pragmatic solution.
The model/aircraft belongs to a fictional unit, its code “P3” in front of the fuselage Balkenkreuz has no real-world reference and was executed in small letters, a typical late WWII measure. This part of the code was done with small, black 2 mm letters. A fictional unit badge, depicting a running greyhound, was added under the cockpit. It actually belongs to a German tank unit.
The “KN” part of the code, including the Ks on the nose, came from an Airfix Ju 87 B sheet. As an aircraft belonging to the 5th squadron within the unit’s 2nd group, the 4th letter in the code became “N”, while the 3rd letter “K” denotes the individual aircraft. The color code associated with a 5th squadron was red, incorporated on the aircraft as a thin red outline around the individual aircraft letter (another late-war low-contrast measure). To provide a little visual excitement, small red Ks were added to the nose, too, to make thew aircraft easy to identify when parked at the flight line.
Since this aircraft would operate over the Western front from German home ground, no further ID/theatre markings like fuselage or wing bands or wingtips in yellow or white, etc. were added. This, together with the lack of visible red as squadron code, results in a rather dry look, but that’s intentional.
After some exhaust and oil stains with graphite and Tamiya “Smoke”, a coat of acrylic matt varnish finally sealed the model and a wire antenna, made from heated sprue material, was added.
Well, an exotic what-if idea, but I really like how this conversion turned out, even though the livery evolved in a different way from what I had initially in mind. The Ki-46 was already an elegant aircraft, especially the Ki-46-III with its teardrop-shaped nose section. But, with the smaller, streamlined inline engines instead of the radials, this iteration looks even better and faster. It reminds a little of the D.H. Hornet? The gun barbettes are a nice “German” detail, and the makeshift high-altitude paint scheme adds to the obscure impression of the model. A really nice sister ship for the Go 146 A-0 build from 2015.
Generally, I don’t like buildings in my photos. I’ll go out of my way to avoid them, ignore them or edit them out. Just a personal preference of mine... However, like all rules, there are exceptions. While I was out shooting, I took a few like this just for fun - mostly to play around with how the lights were hitting the water. But after I uploaded them all onto my computer, I was surprisingly awestruck by this one.
I debated whether or not to edit and share it, but in the end I decided I shouldn’t constrain myself by pre-ordained limitations. I think that it’s easy to lose one’s individuality by thoughtless repetition. It’s good to branch out from the norm every so often - to challenge yourself, question yourself.