View allAll Photos Tagged flat
These were some of the photos that I took after I bought my first Digital Camera a Canon EOS REBEL I took these photos in an Industrial Park in Green Cove Springs Florida. At the time the CSX Railroad had just purchased several Shoving Platforms (aka Remote Control Caboose Replacement).
The units were used to control switching Locomotives on Local Trains (especially during back-up moves) where a crew member could at the control panel on the (Flat Car) and control the Locomotive remotely by Radio; you can see the Antenna along with Horns and Flashing Lights at the Top of the Control Console in Photo #2 of 4. Of course today most railroads use a Fanny Pack Control Console that a Switchman wears at his beltline to control the Remote Control Locomotives especially within Rail Yards. I believe these Shoving Platforms were assembled by a Railcar Repair Facility within this Industrial Park because there were several units that were not yet full assembled at the time I Photographed them.
They look as if they've been there forever and most possess a monumental grandeur which is hard to equate with a sudden speculative spree. But London's mansion blocks were the high density housing of their time and a source of much controversy and concern
The story sounds surprisingly contemporary. In the late nineteenth century central London was running out of space and wealthy bachelors and well-bred families were finding it difficult to locate suitable accommodation.
Flats were the obvious solution but in the eyes of the fashionable and the fastidious sharing a roof with total strangers was simply unthinkable.
Flats were damned with a double dose of original sin. Since the first to be built in London were philanthropic ventures, Model Dwellings for the deserving poor, they were forever equated with the lower orders and therefore beyond the pale.
But even worse, flats were foreign. The French, more specifically Parisians, lived in flats and everyone knew what a badly behaved, unhygienic, morally corrupt lot they were.
French flats, as R. Phene Spiers told the Royal Institute of Architects in 1871, were small and poorly designed, forced the upper classes to live in close proximity to their servants, and generally lacked refinement and sophistication.
In Paris, he continued, "utterly dissociated and discordant people" lived under one roof, but this would never do for London, where delicate English ladies would suffer "incalculable distress" if they encountered a common artisan on the stairs.
The French, he concluded, clinching the argument, "use very little water, believing they can wash themselves with the corner of a wet towel."
Convincing uptight English Victorians to live in flats was therefore a tall order, and there weren't many speculators keen to test the market.
When the first great mansion block, Albert Hall Mansions, was started in 1876 the developer Thomas Hussey worried that the scheme might fail and Norman Shaw, the architect, divided the block plan into three distinct sections, to be built separately, in an effort to minimise the risk.
As it turned out they had a winner on their hands and Albert Hall Mansions, with its ornate red-brick exterior, Dutch gables, triple windows, and iron balconies, kick-started the late-Victorian craze for mansion blocks which continued well into the new century.
Once Shaw had shown them how to do it more and more developers took the plunge and a rash of mansion blocks appeared in Kensington and St John's Wood, Marylebone and Maida Vale, Belsize Park and Battersea, Fulham and Chiswick.
As the fashion took hold whole streets were give over to mansion blocks Fitzgeorge and Fitzjames Avenue in West Kensington, Prince of Wales Drive in Battersea but the building frenzy came to a halt with the war, and never really revived.
Some exceptional mansion blocks were built in the thirties but thereafter the energy of the initial flurry was never reproduced.
The setting sun glows between the flats down at the links. Liked the contrast between the flat in the shade and that illuminated. The Haar gave the scene a painting like effect.
Astoria Square Flat Iron Building - the old ethen allen building, during a stormy sunset in the spring
Who invented the flat white? Australia or NZ? It's a trans-tasman tussle. And how is a flat white different from a cappuccino or latte? Oh you'll get a dozen answers: its the type of cup; the milk to coffee ratio; the texture and amount of the froth. But why are we arguing over coffee? Lets drink! (NZ_3018s) Thanks for viewing :)
You can find more of my adventures in food and travel on www.fromelsewhere.wix.com/travel
This is a simple test to determine if one has flat feet and how flat they may be. And if you don't have any pain issues with having flat feet, then enjoy them for their special properties and not seek to "correct" what are natural and healthy feet. I love mine just the way they are and never have nor never will try to "cure" them simply to make them socially "acceptable."
Cayton Bay just outside Scarborough on a Saturday morning. Only managed to get a few shots before it started raining. Also the surf was so flat we couldn't get any action shots, had to settle for a thought provking, moody look. All credit goes to my friend Alistair who was freezing his bollocks off posing for this! :)
All comments well received.