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29 May 2013 - (left/right) Antônio Carlos Kfouri Aidar, Director of Control, FGV Projetos, Brazil and Wellington Chibebe, Deputy General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)
For more information, visit: www.oecd.org/Forum
Photo: OECD/Andrew Wheeler
Teodoro Alonso presents "Using Apache Cordova (Phonegap) for cross platform mobile apps" at the Mobile Software Development Community (Mobile SDC) in Oakbrook Mall at the Microsoft Store
www.meetup.com/SoftDev/events/52749512/
Teodoro Alonso is a Technical Architect at Model Metrics a Salesforce.com company.
Meeting sponsored by Salesforce.com
Apache Cordova (previously known as Phonegap) has emerged as one of the most important hybrid (native-html/javascript) cross platform mobile application development environment. The goal of this meetup is to present the basic architecture of Cordova/Phonegap in iOS and demonstrate its capabilities by creating a simple application in HTML/Javascript and then deploy it to a mobile device as a native application. We will also discuss the resources available to learn how to develop applications in Cordova/Phonegap. If time permits, we will review a simple Cordova/Phonegap plugin that I developed to extract information from an iTunes library.
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April 18, 2015 - Washington DC., 2015 World Bank Group / IMF Spring Meetings.
Photo: Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank
Photo ID: 041815-DevelopmentCommitte005f
Virginmind is leading Offshore Software Development Company in India, we have specialized skills in Software Development, Custom Software Development, Ecommerce Software Development using custom software programming including .NET, C#.NET, PHP, Open Source, and Mobile Application.
Mott Haven, Bronx, New York City, New York, United States of America
Summary
Featuring robust brick facades and a high corner clock tower, the former Estey Piano Company Factory is a distinguished monument to an industry that was once one of the Bronx’s most important. Anchoring the northeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard since 1886, when its original portion was completed, the Estey building is the oldest-known former piano factory standing in the Bronx today. It is also one of the earliest large factories remaining in its Mott Haven neighborhood, dating from the period in which the area first experienced intensive industrial development. Today, as in decades past, the building’s signature clock tower and expansive facades—simply but elegantly detailed with terra cotta, patterned brick, and contrasting stone—are visible from the waterfront and nearby Harlem River bridges, making the Estey Factory a true neighborhood landmark.
Manufacturing blossomed in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx during the 1880s, when new factories started springing up in the area east of Third Avenue. Many of these produced pianos or their components, and by 1919, the Bronx had more than 60 such factories, making it one of America’s piano-manufacturing centers. One of the city’s first piano factories to be built in the Annexed District or North Side, as the western portions of the Bronx were known between 1874 and 1898, the Estey building was credited with providing “an unusual stimulus” for the movement of other piano makers there. Several of the manufacturers that followed Estey to the Annexed District, and later the Bronx, clustered within a few blocks of its factory, creating an important nucleus for the piano industry.
The Estey Piano Company was organized by Jacob Estey and John B. Simpson in 1885. Two decades before, Estey had established an organ works in Brattleboro, Vt. that had grown into one of the country’s largest producers of reed organs, thousands of which found their way into American parlors every year. Like other organ manufacturers in the late nineteenth century, Estey sought to diversify into the booming piano industry, and his partnership with Simpson—a pioneering North Side piano manufacturer—was a means to that end. When Estey Piano opened its factory, it manufactured upright and grand pianos that would become recognized for their “superior construction and workmanship.”
The original portion of the Estey Piano Factory was designed by the architectural firm of A.B. Ogden & Son. Many of this building’s features, including its L-shaped plan, flat roof, regular fenestration pattern and bay arrangement, and relatively narrow width to allow for daylight penetration, are characteristic of latenineteenth-century factory buildings. Its mixture of segmental- and round-headed window openings, and the Romanesque machicolations of its clock tower, place the Estey Factory within the tradition of the American round-arched style. Other features, including the factory’s distinctive, red-orange brick, dogtoothed and zigzagging patterned-brick stringcourses, recessed brick panels, terra cotta tiles featuring festoons, lions’ heads, and foliate motifs—and of course, its dramatic, projecting clock tower—speak of a building that sought to announce its presence on the urban landscape, projecting a strong public image for its owner. Indeed, the Estey Piano Company often included an illustration of this factory on its trade cards, which advertised the firm’s products.
The original building was extended to the east along Southern Boulevard in 1890, with a harmonious five-story addition designed by John B. Snook & Sons, and to the north, along Lincoln Avenue, with one-story additions in 1895. The Lincoln Avenue additions appear to have been combined and expanded, and then raised to three stories in 1909, and by an additional two stories in 1919; the 1919 addition near the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street features broad expanses of industrial sash that were characteristic of the “daylight factories” of the early twentieth century. Known today as the Clock Tower Building, the old Estey Piano Company Factory currently houses artists and their studios. With its historic fabric almost completely intact, the building remains, in the words of the AIA Guide to New York City, “the grande dame of the piano trade: not virgin, but all-together and proud.”
The Industrial Development of Mott Haven
Well before the 1898 creation of the borough of the Bronx, industrial activity was occurring in the area that is now the Bronx’s southernmost portion. In 1828, Jordan L. Mott, the inventor of a coal-burning iron cooking stove, opened a “modest little factory” on property he had purchased on the Harlem River near the present Third Avenue, in what was then the township of Morrisania. Mott started calling the area Mott Haven and, in 1850, seeking to attract additional industry to the area, he laid out the Mott Haven Canal, an artificial inlet from the Harlem River that would ultimately extend to just south of 144th Street. The canal, however, was slow to attract industrial firms, and by 1879, only a handful of substantial ones existed nearby, including a brass and iron works, a machine shop, and a few lumber and coal yards, all of which were below 138th Street. These were joined by a marble yard, lumber yard, and hotel west of the canal, near the tracks built by the New York & Harlem Railroad to connect Manhattan with what is now the Bronx, in 1841. Despite the presence of the large Harlem River & Port Chester Railroad yard, which stretched from Lincoln Avenue to Brown Place south of 132nd Street, few factories appear to have existed east of Third Avenue at the end of the 1870s.
In 1874, the townships of Morrisania, West Farms, and Kingsbridge—the sections of the present Bronx borough located west of the Bronx River—became part of New York City. Officially called the 23rd and 24th Wards, they were generally referred to as the “Annexed District” or “North Side,” but they remained fairly isolated. At that time, few links existed between the southern portion of the District and Manhattan; among those that did was a cast-iron bridge at Third Avenue which, in 1860, had replaced an old wood dam-bridge built in the 1790s at that location.
Soon after annexation, however, local residents, property owners, business owners, and booster groups like the North Side Association began agitating for improved infrastructure, including better connections with Manhattan. In the 1880s, new public works started to be built; among them was the Madison Avenue Bridge, completed in 1884, which spanned the Harlem River at 138th Street, about five blocks north of the Mott Iron Works complex. By 1885, additional industrial concerns—including a planing mill, cabinet maker, and nickel works, and factories making carpets and surgical instruments—had sprung up in Mott Haven, near and below 138th Street, and close to Third Avenue. The expanded rail yard below 132nd Street, at that point operated by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, connected directly to new docks at the foot of Willis Avenue. A few factories had sprouted up in the area east of Lincoln Avenue, as the Estey Piano Company Factory, then under construction at the northeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard, shared a block with the expansive works of the New York Lumber and Woodworking Company.
The 1886 opening of the Second Avenue Bridge just a few blocks from the Estey Factory provided a Harlem River crossing for the trains of the new Suburban Rapid Transit Company. The Suburban’s line, which would come to be known in the Bronx as the Third Avenue El, was the first to bring rapid transit service to the Annexed District. With its southern terminus on the Manhattan side of the Harlem, where it met Manhattan’s east-side elevated lines, the Suburban stopped at Southern Boulevard, before continuing northward; service on the line was expanded and improved between 1887 and 1902. While the Suburban was under construction, Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide predicted that it would have an enormous impact on the North Side, calling it, in 1885, “a great thing for the [Annexed District], as well as for New York City. It will furnish cheap homes for a poorer population, as well as choice rural habitations for the well-to-do. We may expect many light manufacturing industries to become naturalized on the other side of the Harlem.” And the line did come to play a crucial role in Mott Haven’s late-nineteenth-century development, spurring rowhouse construction in the late 1880s and 1890s. As new housing sprouted up, so too did industry; an 1894 drawing of the Harlem River east of Third Avenue shows a busy waterfront with docks and factories on both sides of the river, including the Estey Factory, with its distinctive clock tower clearly visible. In 1895, the New York Times noted that “that part of the 23rd Ward along the Harlem River”—that is, the southernmost portion of the Annexed District, including Mott Haven—was “a very busy manufacturing place.”
Improved rapid transit connections with Manhattan aided Mott Haven’s residential growth, but the area’s industrial development was spurred by its Harlem River location and the expansion of its freight-rail infrastructure. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the New York, New Haven & Hartford—with a freight depot located one block south of the Estey Factory, at Lincoln Avenue and 132nd Street—connected with dozens of railroads providing service throughout the eastern and midwestern United States, and into Canada. The New York Central system, with extensive yards close by in Melrose, was just as far-reaching. And the southern Bronx retained these transportation advantages into the twentieth century. Writing in 1908 about the proliferation of piano factories, many of which were in the southern Bronx, lifelong piano man William
P.H. Bacon pointed to the borough’s “superior transportation and shipping facilities, both by water and land,” as well as “the opportunity of getting land for the erection of commodious factories at reasonable figures.” In experiencing strong manufacturing growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mott Haven was a microcosm of the Bronx and the city as a whole: by 1920, New York City had 12% of the country’s factory workers, and by 1927, the Bronx had 2,700 plants with more than 100,000 employees.
Industrial growth had been rapid in the southern Bronx; Bacon wrote, in 1908, of “the busy hum of commerce where but a few years ago, the lowing of cattle and other sylvan sounds were the only noises heard.” The end of World War II marked the apex of manufacturing in New York, as in 1947, more manufacturing jobs existed in the city than in Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia combined. But industrial activity in the Bronx would soon begin to decline, reflecting city-wide trends. By the 1950s, New York City was rapidly losing industrial jobs, with manufacturers leaving in droves for the suburbs, or departing the region entirely. Between 1969 and 1999, the number of manufacturing jobs in the city fell by twothirds. Contributing to the decline of industry in the southern Bronx was the destruction of manufacturing space with the construction of broad new highways; the building of the earliest portions of the Major Deegan Expressway through Mott Haven between 1935 and 1939, for example, wiped out several industrial buildings on the block immediately to the north of the Estey Factory, including the former factory of the Brambach Piano Company. In 1997, the New York City Department of City Planning, citing an underutilization of industrial space in Mott Haven, rezoned a portion of Bruckner Boulevard including the block containing the former Estey Factory, to allow for residential uses and community facilities. This special mixed-use zoning was expanded to blocks to the east, west, and south in 2005.
As Mott Haven becomes increasingly residential, the former Estey Factory is a reminder of the neighborhood’s early years of intensive industrial growth. Today, the Estey building is one of the oldest large factories standing in Mott Haven, and in the entire area of the southern Bronx below 149th Street.
The Estey Piano Company and Its Factory
The Estey Piano Company had its roots in the firm of Manner & Company, which manufactured pianos on the Bowery between 1866 and 1869. Manner called his piano the “Arion,” and in 1870, his firm’s name changed to the Arion Piano-Forte Company. In 1872, the company’s factory moved to 149th Street, in what is now the Bronx. John Boulton Simpson, who had been Arion’s secretary since 1871, took control of the company in 1875; in that year, the company apparently moved to a new factory on St. Ann’s Avenue and boasted that “Six years ago, there were none of our pianos in existence; to-day, there are over 7,500 in use.” In the following year, the firm’s name changed to Simpson & Company, although it also continued to be known by the Arion name. By the end of the 1870s, Simpson’s factory—stretching from Brook to St. Ann’s Avenues on the north side of 149th Street—was probably the largest piano factory in the Annexed District, but in 1880, it was sold to another piano maker, the William E. Wheelock Company.
While Simpson apparently continued to make “high grade pianos” following the Wheelock sale, the location of his factory in the early 1880s is unclear. Between 1881 and 1885, Simpson & Company continued to maintain a space, likely a showroom, at 5 East 14th Street—where it had been since 1876—but the company was also listed at 127 East 129th and 232 East 40th Streets, neither of which appears to have been the location of a substantial factory. These addresses do, however, link Simpson in the early 1880s with the respected tuner Stephen Brambach, who would play a crucial role in developing Estey’s first pianos; Brambach was located next door to Simpson between 1881 and 1883, and in the same building in 1884.
In 1885, the Estey Organ Company of Brattleboro, Vt. was hitting its peak. By the end of the 1880s, the firm, which had been founded in 1866 by Jacob Estey, would be the world’s largest producer of reed organs. Thousands of these instruments found their way into American parlors every year; they were also being distributed, by 1890, to Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America, and to major European cities. Despite the company’s success—it was described, in 1886, as doing “an immense business, amounting to over one million dollars annually”—and its rapid growth—production rose by a factor of seven between 1865 and 1886—the organ business was in decline. The piano business, however, was booming; and, likely noticing the 1882 entry of the renowned organ maker Mason & Hamlin into piano manufacturing, Estey and the company’s other principals, including Levi K. Fuller and Jacob’s son Julius, decided to take the same path.
Estey became a piano manufacturer by forming a partnership with Simpson, who was named president of the new Estey Piano Company; the Simpson piano was essentially re-branded as the new Estey model. Simpson, of course, had been a pioneer in Bronx piano manufacturing, and this may have played a role in Estey’s decision to build its plant on the North Side. A.B. Ogden & Son was hired to design the factory, but Simpson may have had some influence over its appearance and form, as he had dabbled in architecture, altering his home on West 129th Street in 1882 to give it a “picturesque exoticism.” Work began on the “large factory with modern appliances,” as it would later be described, in August of 1885; it was completed, at a cost of approximately $40,000, in February of 1886. While the factory was under construction, Estey Piano decided to construct three more buildings that would extend its complex by an additional 80 feet along Southern Boulevard. These brick structures, designed by Ogden’s firm and completed at the same time as the main factory, were a one-story extension, a one-story shed, and a two-story stable.
Estey Piano prospered in its early years, as “Estey grand and upright pianos soon became a dominant factor in the piano trade,” according to Alfred Dolge, who added that they often “carried off highest awards for superior construction and workmanship.” In 1887, the trade publication Musical Courier wrote that the Estey Piano Factory was “one of the most complete in the country”; two years later, it called the firm’s upright “a most beautiful specimen of piano manufacturing,” of which Estey would “find no difficulty in disposing … in the best musical circles in the land.” While trade journals’ opinions should be considered with caution, those of the respected piano tuner and regulator Daniel Spillane may be more reliable. Five years after the Estey Factory opened, Spillane called its piano “a very excellent instrument,” adding that “much of the technical and musical merit of these pianos is due to the competency and skill of [Stephen] Brambach, who is a gentleman of fine musical and mechanical sensibilities [and] … one of the best tuners in New York.” Although Brambach had apparently started his own piano company in 1885, he remained involved with Estey in 1890, originating “all new ideas in the mechanics and acoustics of the Estey piano.” Brambach’s brother Carl, “one of the most expert and artistic tuners and toners in the country,” was also employed by Estey Piano, according to Spillane.
Business was good, and only four years after the Estey Piano Factory opened, it underwent a huge expansion. In May of 1890, work began on a 100-foot-long east addition that would result in the demolition of the extension, shed, and stable on Southern Boulevard, and create the unified five-story, 200-foot-long Bruckner Boulevard façade that remains essentially unchanged today. The architect of this addition, which was completed in October of 1890 at a cost of about $23,000, was John B. Snook & Sons. This firm, then one of New York’s most prolific, traced its origins to the arrival of John B. Snook (1815-1901) in the United States, from England, in 1835. By 1842, Snook was working with Joseph Trench, and the two helped introduce the Anglo-Italianate style to New York with buildings such as the A.T. Stewart Store at 280 Broadway (1845-46, a Designated New York City Landmark). One of Snook’s best-known works was the first Grand Central Terminal (1869-71, demolished); in 1887, he took his three sons, James Henry (1847-1917), Samuel Booth (18571915), and Thomas Edward, and a son-in-law, John W. Boyleston, into his office, and changed his firm’s name to John B. Snook & Sons. Although Snook had designed a diverse array of buildings—including residential and commercial structures for some of New York’s most prominent families—his firm designed several manufacturing lofts in the 1880s and 1890s that would have made it an appropriate choice for the Estey addition. These industrial buildings, now located in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District—including 8 Greene Street (1883-84), 12 Wooster Street (1883-84), 127 Spring Street/87-89 Greene Street (1886-87), 391-393 West Broadway/77-81 Wooster Street (1889), 151 Spring Street (1889-90) and 361 Canal Street (1891-92)—were utilitarian brick buildings; but like the Estey Factory, they were also designed with an eye toward detail, featuring patterned and textured brickwork, and contrasting stone trim that enliven their facades.
The Estey Factory continued to grow in the 1890s. In 1895, the company extended the building 50 feet along Lincoln Avenue with a one-story, 69-foot-deep brick addition that apparently provided a fireproof home for its woodworking department; at the same time, Estey constructed a new, one-story brick lumber room running for an additional 38 feet along Lincoln, where it met a small, one-story brick building then existing at the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street. Both the extension and the new building—which appear to remain today as the base of the five-story portion of the factory north of the original building—were designed by Hewlett S. Baker of 492 East 138th Street. Little is known about Baker; he was described as “a property owner in the South Bronx” in a 1910 New York Times article, and as “a contractor and builder in the Bronx” in a 1912 article about his death. By 1900, the one-story buildings near the corner of Lincoln and 134th appear to have been extended to the east.
The portion of the factory north of the original building remained at one story until 1909, when Simpson and architect S. Gifford Slocum raised it to three stories. Slocum, an architect of some note, is remembered primarily for his large residences for wealthy clients, including several fine Queen Anne-style residences built in the Saratoga Springs area in the 1880s. Born in Jefferson County, N.Y., Slocum studied architecture at Cornell University from 1873 to 1875, and by 1885, he had offices in Saratoga and Glens Falls, N.Y. In 1888, Slocum moved to Philadelphia while retaining his Saratoga office; between 1890 and 1909, he practiced architecture in New York City. Simpson hired Slocum to design an alteration to his residence at 117 East 83rd Street, in 1900. Slocum’s two-story addition to the Estey Piano Factory was described as being of “similar construction to the present building” in its Buildings Department application, and it demonstrates continuity with the floor below and with the original building in its segmental-arch-headed window openings, and in its similar decorative details, including pilasters, stone sills supported by corbelled brick courses, and patterned-brick stringcourses. A drawing of the factory following the completion of Slocum’s addition appeared in a 1917 Estey Piano Company advertisement.
Over the previous years, the Estey Piano Company had undergone several changes, weathering the deaths—in 1890, 1896, and 1902, respectively—of Jacob Estey, Levi K. Fuller, and Julius Estey. The firm’s “warerooms” or showrooms, which had been at 5 East 14th Street since the time of the company’s founding, were at 97 Fifth Avenue by 1900 and 7 West 29th Street by 1909. They would move again—in 1912 to the since-demolished “Estey Building” at 23 West 42nd Street—and by 1916 to 12 West 45th Street. By 1912, Estey pianos were being sold at Loeser’s department store in Brooklyn; in its advertising, the company took advantage of its historical association with the Estey Organ Company, stating that “the world-renowned Estey Pianos … are just as reliable as the Estey Organs made famous by the same firm in the days of our parents.” On at least one occasion, the Estey Piano Factory witnessed strife between its employees and management, as in 1912, workers struck Estey and other Bronx piano manufacturers that would not recognize the piano makers’ union and refused to close their shop floors to non-union employees.
In 1917, John B. Simpson’s leadership of the Estey Piano Company came to an end, when George B. Gittins, the former president of piano manufacturer Kohler & Campbell, purchased a controlling interest in the firm. Gittins, an industry prodigy who was only 37 at the time he took Estey Piano’s helm, appears to have begun revamping the company’s product line almost immediately; an “at-the-factory” clearance sale held in November of 1917 was prompted by the company’s intention “to concentrate on the large-scale production of a few standard models.” Two years later, Gittins purchased M. Welte & Sons, Inc., which was originally the American arm of a German company that had invented the reproducing piano, a technologically advanced kind of player piano using special rolls that were able to express, to some extent, the subtleties of the renowned pianists who had “recorded” them. Following the 1907 introduction of Welte’s “Mignon” reproducing piano in the United States, dozens of the world’s most famous pianists made recordings for Welte, allowing Americans to experience, for the first time, something close to having Paderewski, Saint-Saens, and other virtuosi play for them in their homes.
Soon after acquiring Welte, Gittins started shutting down the firm’s Poughkeepsie, N.Y. plant—which had produced rolls, reproducing pianos with and without keyboards, Welte “Philharmonic” reproducing organs, orchestrions, and other products—and expanding the Estey Factory building and its complex. In 1919, architect George F. Hogue of 41 Union Square in Manhattan was hired to add two stories to the northern, three-story portion of the factory, and to add an elevator shaft. This alteration, which cost about $25,000, featured broad expanses of industrial sash typical of the “daylight” factories that were then being constructed around the country. By 1921, Gittins had also constructed a two-story building (not part of this Designation) facing Southern Boulevard and adjoining Snook’s 1890 addition, as well as a four-story factory for Welte (not part of this Designation) that remains today at 27 Bruckner Boulevard. In 1922, the Estey-Welte Corporation was created, which served as an umbrella organization for several Gittins holdings, including the Estey Piano Company and the Welte-Mignon Corporation. Estey, at that time, was manufacturing a variety of pianos, including an 88-note player piano, and manual and reproducing uprights and grands; the new four-story factory on Southern Boulevard made Welte-Mignon pianos and grands, actions for reproducing instruments, and Welte Philharmonic organs.
In 1925, perhaps sensing the end of the glory days for the piano and player piano, Gittins decided to diversify into the manufacture of pipe organs for churches, concert halls, theaters, and large residences. In the following year, Estey-Welte appeared to be perfectly healthy, but by January of 1927, a crash in its stock price brought the over-extended company to its knees. Estey-Welte was in serious trouble, and by summer of that year, it was reorganized as the Welte Company. Gittins was soon gone; by 1928 his old firm was reorganized again, as the Welte-Mignon Corp. This latest incarnation of the firm fell into receivership in 1929, when its chief assets were split up and its factory emptied; one investor, Donald F. Tripp, bought some of the organ business, and the Estey Piano Company was sold to the Settergren Piano Company of Bluffton, Ind. Tripp’s firm was bankrupt within two years; in 1935, Settergren was renamed the Estey Piano Company.
The Estey Piano name continued on for decades. Estey spinets were being advertised in Chicago in 1948, and the firm’s pianos appeared in Macy’s advertisements in the early-to-mid 1960s. The Estey Piano Company was still operating in 1972, when it received a loan from the Commerce Department to assist it in starting production of a plastic piano. At that time, Estey was described as having “an office in Union, N.J., and an old plant in Bluffton, Ind.”
After the old Estey Piano Company Factory was vacated in 1929, it passed through the hands of a number of different owners, and was occupied by many different industrial tenants. A sheet-metal works leased space there in 1932, and its occupants in 1937 included the Whitman Supply Company and Unique Balance Company. By 1939, the factory had been acquired by the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank. In February of 1940, Emigrant sold the five-story Estey Factory building and the adjacent two-story building constructed by Gittins to the S.H. Pomeroy Company, a manufacturer of window sashes that had been located on the same block as Estey Piano since 1923 or before. One month later, however, the owner of the building was the 120 Lincoln Avenue Realty Corporation, which was leasing space to Alta Furniture Factories. Until at least 1945, 120 Lincoln Avenue Realty remained the owner of the building; in 1969, it was occupied by the Ranger Plastics Corporation, and in 1973, it was home to a draperies manufacturer. At the end of the 1970s, the old Estey Piano Company Factory housed a maker of textile products and its outlet store, along with manufacturers of wire and “novelty” products. In 1995, when the building was mostly vacant, it was purchased by Truro College, which planned to convert it into student dormitories or a home for a liberal arts and sciences program. Those plans fell through, however, and the college sold the former Estey Factory, now known as the Clock Tower Building, to Carnegie Management, which remodeled its interior to accommodate live-in artists’ studios. It retains this use today.
Description
The Estey Piano Company Factory is an L-shaped, five-story building with a projecting clock tower at its southwest corner. Spanning the east side of Lincoln Avenue between Bruckner Boulevard and East 134th Street, the building has three primary street facades, all of which feature face brick laid in common bond: a 200-foot-long Bruckner Boulevard façade, a 200-foot-long Lincoln Avenue façade, and a façade on 134th Street that is approximately 69 feet in length and attached to an elevator shaft.
The original factory building, which was constructed in 1885-86, extended for 100 feet along Lincoln Avenue and for 100 feet along Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard. Comprising the westernmost 15 upper-story bays on the south façade and the southernmost 15 upper-story bays on the west façade of the existing building, including the clock tower, this original portion of the Estey Piano Factory was extended by 100 feet to the east along Bruckner Boulevard with the construction of a five-story addition in 1890. (The construction of the 1890 addition resulted in the demolition of three buildings of one and two stories that were completed at the same time as the original factory, and which had a combined street frontage of 80 feet.) Before the construction of the 1890 addition, the five-story portion of the south façade terminated, at its east, with a two-bay projection featuring round-headed windows, all set within a corbelled recess, at the first through fifth floors. This projection—which was identical to the two-bay projection that originally terminated the Lincoln Avenue façade, and remains virtually unchanged today—extended above the adjacent portion of the façade, and, like the clock tower, outward from the façade plane. With the completion of John B. Snook & Sons’ 1890 addition, the two-bay projection on the south façade was doubled in width—the two new bays matching the original two—and its parapet was raised to match, in height, the parapet above the then-new, three-bay projection at the eastern end of the extended façade. Both the raised and new parapets featured, just below their pressed-metal cornices, recessed square panels arranged in a row. Also at that time, the four-bay projection became the central feature of a broad, essentially symmetrical Southern Boulevard façade, with the new three-bay projection at the eastern end of the façade balancing the three-bay, projecting clock tower at the building’s corner.
- From the 2006 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report
In 2017, you may have seen a small, Oscar winning Art House movie titled "Suicide Squad", about a small lovable band of misfits that achieve world peace through the power of love, friendship, and sacrifice... in which case, you probably watched a better movie than what Warner Bros. and the DCEU brought to my attention.
This is the movie that Will Smith (arguably speaking, correctly) gave up doing the Independence Day sequel to star in, along with Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Viola Davis, and that dude from the Robocop remake, battling the evil forces of Echantress, played by Carla Dela.. Deli.. that actress from Carnival Row. If you love mediocre movies with really dumb plots which squander the talents of the stars in said movie, then Suicide Squad is the film for you. Turns out the movie was so mediocre that they're rebooting the entire franchise, though it could be in part due to the DCEU supposedly going n a wiser direction of single property development BEFORE a battle royale.
In case you had forgotten about Will Smith's involvement in this cinematic opus, I'm here to remind you of it - presenting S.H. Figuarts Suicide Squad: Deadshot, which I purchased from a local toy show for $25 CAD, which is a great price, and lets me add a Will Smith figure to my hoard for.. future plans that can finally be realized.
Deadshot is built on the same platform as the excellent Antman I looked at previously, which makes sense. As mentioned in many reviews, Tamashii Nations develops a standard male and female body for each of their lines, and then builds the character around them. Deadshot comes with a lot more window dressing than Antman, mind you, but we'll get to that soon enough. To my eye, Deadshot looks a bit on the lean side, particularly on the upper body. While yes, I know he's wearing bulky armour, the Figuarts body doesn't quite capture the physique of Will Smith.
The package comes with a bit more (or a lot more, depending on your frame of reference) than Antman. There's the figure, two posing hands, two hands for holding his rifle, the rifle, and a covered face - things that you'd normally consider in the box. Then there's the fact that the body is covered with all sorts of armour plates, ammo clips, pistols and knives. I may have thought the movie was dumb as bricks, but you're never going to hear me complain that Deadshot went to the dance with too few weapons or bullets. Some of these pieces can come off, though I'm not sure if that was intended or not (they clip back in, mind you). Overall, if Antman was beautiful in its simplicity, Deadshot is beautiful in the "everything including the kitchen sink" preparedness of his gear.
Articulation. as mentioned previously, is theoretically the same as Antman: toes, rotating and pivoting ankles, double jointed knees, hips with pull down for greater range of motion, waist, mid torso, full motion shoulders with dedicated chest collapse hinge, bicep swivel, standard elbows, full wrist, and ball jointed neck/head. There's even an additional point of articulation as the armour plating on the abdomen slightly pivots to allow for better range of motion and a more natural look when posing. BUT... but... but.. it's difficult to access the articulation due to the bulkiness of the outfit. The most prominent of these problem spots is with the waist area. As the Deadshot pants are quite bulky, the Figuarts follows suit, with a bulkier "diaper" as compared to Antman, as well as thicker thighs. While the pull down hips does help with articulation, the sheer bulk of the area means you're never going to get anywhere close to the prance-tastic stylings of Scott Lang.
Sculpting of body and covered head are very well done. Material textures are in place, as expected. Rivets for armour plating make an appearance, as does appropriate texturing on the clips and other pieces of hardware Deadshot has on his body. They even put in some great details into the scope eyepiece of the covered head. There are also numerous buckles, straps, laces, and other such mechanical details that make an appearance here that were not present on Antman (by design, of course).
The Will Smith head, on the other hand.. well, its passable but I feel that they made his face too narrow, and his eyes were placed too close together. Jumping a bit ahead, the face printing didn't quite work here, and what we get is what I best describe as "Will Smith if put through the Justice League Cavil Mustache filter".
Paint work is on point, excluding the Will Smith face printing. With the exception of some errors on small details like the gold accents, paint masking is exceptionally clean, with no visible observations of over spray. There is also use of glossy and matte paints to replicate various materials, which is always welcome. Decal wise, there is only one, which is the Deadshot emblem on his chest armour. Strangely missing, but present on the DC Multiverse figure, is the "I am the Light" text that should be on his collar, or at least on a separate piece. It's a small detail, but at the price point that we're dealing with, its a silly oversight that really should have been included. Build quality is, as expected, good, with no issues regarding loose joints, flimsy construction, or bad tolerances. Seams on the arm are back to their typical hidden nature, a task made easier due to all the gear Deadshot wears, such as the wrist mounted guns.
All in all, a solid, though not exceptional, entry into the S.H. Figuarts line. The body is built on a solid platform, but has articulation limitations due to the bulkiness of the outfit. There is some brilliant paint work on the figure, but you have a pretty bad looking Will Smith head sculpt. There is excellent outfit and weapon detailing for a figure of this size, but they left out a key part of the outfit. Like I said.. solid, but not exceptional. Average looking face as it may have, it's still a Will Smith figure, and that's always neat to have, especially when you're in my line of photo business.
On to the next figure!
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April 20, 2013 - Washington DC., 2013 World Bank / IMF Spring Meetings. Development Committee meeting. Marek Belka, Development Committee Chair; Jim Yong Kim, World Bank President; Christine Lagarde, IMF Managing Director. Photo: Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank
Photo ID: 042013-DvlpCmt007f
From A Proposal for the Development of the East Shore Tidelands of San Francisco Bay, Prepared for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Company by Victor Gruen Associates, October, 1963.
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Honoring Eisner legacy of educating Soldiers
By Rick Scavetta, U.S. Army Garrison Aberdeen Proving Ground
BALTIMORE – Will Eisner's comic characters in “P.S.” magazine offered tips essential for trouble shooting Army equipment that Command Sgt. Maj. Toese J. Tia Jr. has never forgotten.
Tia, the U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Ground Garrison’s senior enlisted leader, shared memories of Eisner's artwork and its impact on Soldiers during a March 5 museum launch of an exhibit at Geppi’s Entertainment Museum in Baltimore that focuses on the famous cartoonist's contribution to the Army.
"We had a very important spot for our P.S. magazines and it was part of our battle rhythm monthly as we received the new P.S. magazine,” Tia said, recalling his service as young mechanic at Fort Riley, Kansas in the late 1980s. “We had to familiarize ourselves and use it as a reference. We found it to be very effective.”
The "Will's War" exhibit honors Eisner's use of comics to educate and inform Soldiers. The exhibit includes 21 framed pieces of Eisner's work, much of it part of Benjamin Herzberg's collection. Herzberg, a Will Eisner expert who once worked with the artist, organized the panel discussion.
Creator of "The Spirit," a comic superhero, Eisner was drafted in 1942 and went to APG for basic training, Herzberg said.
"He was already very well known. He was in the Baltimore Sun," Herzberg said. "So they put him on the post newspaper, “The Flaming Bomb."”
At APG, Eisner created characters Private Dog Tag and Joe Dope. And, he came up with a novel idea – use comics to teach Soldiers about preventive maintenance. Eisner developed "Army Motors" magazine in World War II and later "P.S., The Preventive Maintenance Monthly."
APG Garrison 1st Sgt. Richard Bernard recalled how researchers from P.S. once asked him how to maintain protective masks, a topic later featured in comic form. Bernard said he has turned to P.S. for tips, for 22 years.
“It's captivated me enough to retain a lot of information that would not have been gained from a boring [technical manual],” Bernard said. “This targets the audience it needs to target.”
Eisner's audience was the “Soldiers who have busted knuckles, greasy oily grimy hands, worn coveralls and scuffed boots … the Soldiers who keep the Army's equipment ready,” said Jonathan Pierce, the current editor of P.S. magazine.
“Rarely has art and the written word been so well blended,” Pierce said. “Will Eisner showed that content and sequential art complement one another.”
Now, P.S. will become a mobile app with interactive features, Pierce said. The conversion is rooted in the same principle as when Eisner created the magazine in the early 1950s.
“Get Soldiers where they are at. Deliver to it to them in a format that they find interesting,” Pierce said. “We'll continue to have our contract artists draw the magazine; it's just going to be on the mobile app.”
Daniel Boehm, a government civilian with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense at APG, said he remembered always reading P.S. monthly at the motor pool when he served in uniform. Now a self-proclaimed comic nerd,
Boehm and his son attended the exhibit launch. He said learning about the Eisner legacy was interesting, as was hearing about the new P.S. app.
"They are trying to remain on the cutting edge with technology, where it seem the trends are going," Boehm said.
The museum's collection includes more than 6,000 items, from the 19th century to the present day. There are toys, posters, unique art and memorabilia. More than 1,000 comic books on display include the first Superman and the first Batman comics and several original Eisner "Spirit" comics. The Eisner exhibit opened the same day as the museum's Batman exhibit, according to Michael Solof, the museum's exhibits and collections manager.
"Will Eisner only drew Batman two times," Solof said, “so, it's amazing that we got one to show.”
This year is Aberdeen Proving Ground's centennial year would also be Will Eisner's 100th birthday, Tia said. He added that the Army's priority of readiness sparked Eisner's efforts and he leaves a legacy is of generations of Soldiers who benefit.
“Team APG is honored to be a part of that legacy,” Tia said.
“Down the road, when I reflect, I can say I served where Will Eisner was, walked the same [path]. I'm part of the P.S. magazine development,” Tia said. “At one time, a young Soldier like me, read that magazine. Now, I'm here as a command sergeant major, looking at the same magazine 27 years later. That's pretty remarkable.”
(Photos by Rick Scavetta, U.S. Army Garrison Aberdeen Proving Ground)
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Las Ventanas al Paraiso "The windows to Paradise"
Km 19.5 Carretera Transpeninsular
Cabo San Lucas, San Jose del Cabo - MEXICO
In the 1970's the Mexican government designated "hot spots" for tourism development including Cancun, Ixtapa and Los Cabos. Los Cabos, which means the Capes has twin towns of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo which are separated by 20 miles of beach coast line. Mexican developer Javier Burillo Azcarraga acquired eighteen undeveloped acres at Cabo San Lucas in the early 90's. He envisioned for the site a unique, super-luxury, boutique hotel that would stand out from the crowd and reflect Baja's indigenous culture and landscape. He brought in Atlanta-based architect and developer Hal Thannisch, Jr. to create the master plan and orchestrate the design, construction, financing, and ultimate operation of the completed resort. Thannisch hired HKS Architects of Dallas to provide architectural services, and they in turn, retained The SWA Group of Dallas to create the site plan and landscape architecture. The SWA Group developed the Las Ventanas landscape which blends the natural desert environment with the sensuality of the Mexican-style architecture to enhance the resort’s sense of authenticity. Construction began in December 1995, and the five-star Las Ventanas al Paraiso, or "Windows to Paradise," welcomed its first guests in July 1997. When guests enter Las Ventanas, they don't see all the buildings at once. Rather, the resort gradually reveals itself as guests walk down to the sea. The site plan radiates out from the open-air lobby, and every guest suite has a view of the blue Sea of Cortez. The resort resembles a small, sand and earth-colored Mexican village. The hotels opening rate was $325 a night. The 61-room Las Ventanas al Paraiso claims to have the longest celebrity client list of any hotel in the world. The discreet resort does not have a sign outside on Highway 1. Zen-inspired raked-sand entrance opens to beach views from the restaurant, private rooftop patios, and infinity-edge pools, where super-attentive pool butlers clean your smudged sunglasses and provide unlimited towel service. All over-sized guestrooms have pebble-inlaid headboards, hand-carved cedar doors, wood-burning fireplaces, and telescopes for stargazing.
Javier Burillo belongs to the Azcárraga family, owner of Televisa. He is the son of Carmela Azcárraga Milmo, sister of the late Emilio Azcárraga Milmo and daughter of Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta, founder of Televicentro, now Televisa. Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. is a Mexican multimedia company and the largest in Latin America and the Spanish-speaking world (Univision in the United States). The company has been led and owned by three generations of Azcárraga. Javier Burillo inherited the Ritz Acapulco Hotel from his grandfather. In 1999 he and Rosewood's Hal Thannisch proposed a $62 million, 105-room Rosewood Resort in Sonoma, CA which failed to get city's approval.
Thannisch Development Services, Inc. (TDS) specializes in complex issues of development planning, financing, interdisciplinary management, design management and implementation. Thannisch was directly responsible for the renovation of the historic Cogswell College building now the Ritz Carlton San Francisco and the redevelopment of the Mahogany Run Resort, St. Thomas, USVI. In 1985, Thannisch joined Caroline Hunt's Rosewood Hotel Group as vice president, development. Based in Dallas, he was immersed in the development of the Hotel Hana-Maui at Hana Ranch and The Hotel on the Old Course, St. Andrews, Scotland. In 1989, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company called on his experience to manage the feasibility, pre-development, development and construction of the Ritz-Carlton Aspen, Hotel Arts Barcelona, Spain. Thannisch brought to Rosewood its first Mexico project, Las Ventanas which has emerged as a premier five-star resort in all of Mexico.
Las Ventanas al Paraíso became the first world-class resort in Los Cabos under hotelier Edward Steiner who served the hotel from opening to 2008. The resort achieved AAA Five Diamond status under his leadership.
In December 2003 Paraiso Los Cabos, S.A. de C.V. sold Las Ventana al Paraiso to Dallas based JTL Capital in partnership with Farallon Capital Management L.L.C.for an undisclosed price. Rosewood Hotels & Resorts agreed to a long-term contract to continue management of the resort. The purchase also included land entitled for up to 30 additional villa residences as well as an unfinished Phase IV building containing 8 premier villas that JTL Capital will finish constructing in September of 2004. The transaction was a first for JTL in Mexico. Morgan Stanley Mortgage Capital provided the financing. JTL Capital, L.L.C. is a closely held, real estate investment and development concern founded in 1999 by David A. Lane and Mark J. Sullivan. JTL Capital employs a "buy and enhance" strategy that produces attractive risk-adjusted returns.
In September 2004 Ty Warner Hotels & Resorts, LLC purchased the 61-room Las Ventanas al Paraíso Resort from Dallas-based JTL Capital, LLC. According to Ty Warner, the goal is to extend and enhance the beauty and amenities at the resort. Warner believed the essential component to achieving that goal is in Rosewood Hotels & Resorts' continued operation of the resort. Ty Warner is an American billionaire who created the 1990s stuffed toy fad - Beanie Babies. At the peak of the Beanie craze in 1999, the privately owned Ty Inc. is believed to have earned over $700 million in profits in a year. The Beanie Babies phenomenon, coupled with the rise of the Internet, is cited as elevating Warner to billionaire status. Ty Warner Hotel and Resort Properties include: Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore Santa Barbara, CA, Four Seasons Hotel New York, NY and San Ysidro Ranch, Montecito, CA.
Managing Directors since Edward Steiner include: Lionel Alvarez appointed Managing Director in 2008. He previously was General Manager at at Aquapura Vale Do Douro Hotel, Portugal. Martein van Wagenberg was appointed managing director of Las Ventanas in 2011. He previously was at Rosewood Little Dix Bay in Virgin Gorda. In 2014 Rosewood named Mário Candeias the managing director of Las Ventanas. He was the Director of Operations at Pestana Hotels & Resorts in Portugal. Rosewood appointed Frederic Vidal the Managing Director of Las Ventanas al Paraíso in 2014. Previously he was Managing Director for YOSH Hospitality, a company managing palaces and villas in the United Arab Emirates.
Compiled by Dick Johnson, November 2019
I had an opportunity to explore the construction site for the future city centre and captured a few interesting perspectives.
The low level counter used in the solar neutrino experiment is being
placed in the shield. In this experiment neutrinos which result from
nuclear reactions in the sun's core are detected by measuring the
radioactive argon nuclides that they produce in a target.
For more information or additional images, please contact 202-586-5251.
Söndagens öppningsceremoni.
Anna König Jerlmyr, Vice Mayor, Social Affairs Division, City Hall
Foto: Lena Dahlström
My attempt at a quick character head-drawing exercise developed by @Shaun_Bryant (on Twitter). You can find him on You Tube under the channel name Shaun Bryant Art. My theme for this exercise was Fictional Characters' New Year's Resolutions. Basically, he gives you head shapes and you try to quickly draw characters using those shapes.
Development is claimed to accompany jatropha has raised often unrealistic hopes about improvements in schools, roads, water supply, and rural health care, Zambia.
Photo by Jeff Walker/CIFOR
If you use one of our photos, please credit it accordingly and let us know. You can reach us through our Flickr account or at: cifor-mediainfo@cgiar.org and m.edliadi@cgiar.org
Large golfing umbrella featuring the Livingston Development Corporation logo and the slogan 'Make it in Livingston'.
Livingston was one of the ‘new towns’ created after WWII to relieve the need for housing in urban areas. Livingston Development Corporation (LDC) was set up by the New Town (Livingston) (Development Corporation) Order 1962 to create and co-ordinate new industrial activity in West Lothian and to manage the population over-spill from Glasgow by providing new homes and employment. LDC wound up in1997, when its functions were transferred to West Lothian Council.
West Lothian Local Museums. http://www.westlothian.gov.uk/tourism/museumsgalleries/ums/information
If you would like more information about this object, please contact: museums@westlothian.gov.uk, quoting WLCMS2008.004.001.
At Bishop's Mill, on Freeman's Reach where the ice rink used to be in Durham City. This National Savings building is nearly finished and nearby they're putting up the steel skeleton of the new Passport Office (info).
Our career development center — in conjunction with academic advising — help you strategically showcase your skills and stand out from a sea of competitors. We start early by helping you define your goals and make the right major and career choices. Job shadowing, learning to network, practice for interviews, and preparing your resume are all part of the process.
Participants from Zimbabwe gather together for a Constitution Strategy Development Meeting with the UNDP Resident Coordinator, Elizabeth Lwanga and the Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Thokozani Khupe. (Photo credit. UNIC Harare, 12 February 2010)
The development of multiple sclerosis (MS) involves cells of the immune system crossing the blood-barrier into the central nervous system (CNS), where they can promote inflammation, tissue damage and ultimately neurodegeneration.
To watch the video where this image is taken from go to: random42.com/multiple-sclerosis
Managing Director of the IMF Christine Lagarde speaks with Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati the Development Committee meeting at the 2017 World Bank-IMF Spring Meeting in Washington on April 22, 2017.
IMF economists Tao Sun and Parma Bains participate in a Capacity Development Talk moderated by Eva-Maria Graf titled Digital Money: Building Capacity for a Virtuous Circle at the International Monetary Fund.
IMF Photo/Cory Hancock
11 April 2022
Washington, DC, United States
Photo ref: CH220411018.arw
1st Regiment, Basic Camp Cadets receive basic marksmanship training while waiting to tackle the TDC at Fort Knox, Ky., on June 4, 2017. (Photo by Nicholas Bafia)
Arrested Development play HMV Institute in Birmingham, 14 October 2010.
www.arresteddevelopmentmusic.com
venues.meanfiddler.com/hmv-institute/home
Photos for Gig Junkies with review by Daron of The Hearing Aid.
www.thehearingaid.blogspot.com
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Director General of Revenue of Somalia Jafar Mohamed Ahmed, Director General of Somalia National Bureau of Statistics Sharmarke Farah, Senior Economist Vincent de Paul Koukpaizan, and Deputy Division Chief of the IMF Statistics Department Zaijin Zhan participate in a Capacity Development Talk titled Building Capacity in Fragile States moderated by Noha El-Gebaly at the International Monetary Fund.
IMF Photo/Cory Hancock
12 April 2022
Washington, DC, United States
Photo ref: CH220412060.arw
Our Games Development courses provide students with the technical know how to bring their creative ideas into this fast moving and growing industry.
Solar panels offering a ready source of electricity are among the technologies making the case for renewable energy.
Photo courtesy of UNDP in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Learn how UNDP's work brings new solutions to energy challenges in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Cadets debrief after each obstacle to evaluate their teamwork and leadership, July 15, 2019, at Fort Knox, Ky. Second Regiment Cadets were at the Team Development Course where they completed task meant to challenge their teamwork and leadership abilities. |Photo by Amy Turner, CST Public Affairs Office