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The Elgin Joliet & Eastern Railway (EJE), known to many as simply "The J," was a class II railroad operating entirely within the Chicago metropolitan area until it was purchased by Canadian National in 2009. It operated a variety of EMD SDs and GPs, including a GP38-2. This one is virtually identical in design to my WSOR GP38-2. It is powered by two power functions train motors and features a driver's cab. Suggestions are welcome.
My mod of 8081 with PF elements. Very easy and almost withou change the original model. You can instructions on my LUGs topic:
I'm kind of torn on this picture. I shot it hand held - and as anybody who has been back there at night knows - it is super dark! So I probably shouldn't have even attempted this without a tripod. But, I tried to save it anyway. Post process I tried to make the colors look kind of like the Return of the Jedi movie. I don't know if I really like this - kind of looks dark to me...
Quick EXIF:
Camera: Nikon D300
Lens: Nikon Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.4G
Mode: Aperture Priority
Exposure: 1/30
Aperture: f/1.4
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 1400
Bias: -2-1/3 EV
Thanks for stopping by!
Like this picture? Check out these other fantastic Disney pictures from a few of my contacts in this gallery!
Grinchmas
usuallyblonde.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/grinchmas/
I'm tired of corporate functions, I'm tired of not having time for myself, I'm tired of shopping even though I don't have time to do any, I'm tired of doing things out of obligation, I'm tired of dangerous drivers, I'm tired of the neighbour's inflatable Santa scaring the crap out of me when I forget it's there, I'm tired of clients thinking they're the only one saying 'can I have it before Christmas'. I'm tired.
And I forgot I live in the southern hemisphere and should have done a swimwear picture on the beach. Bah humbug.
Wearing:
Skin: Baiastice 'Pulchra', Porcelaine Make-up 1
Eye Make-up: Boom 'Flatter My Eyes', Blue
Hair: Shag 'Adore Me', Platinum
Eyes: Amacci 'Real Eyes', Sapphire
Outfit: Edelweiss 'Stella', White (includes hosiery, hair adornments and boots not worn)
Gloves: La Petite Morte 'Gloves', White
Boots: Bootgasm 'Snow Boots', White
Pose: n/a
Miss Meow: Zooby's
Location: South Point Keys
Windlight: Ana Lu Studio 4
Furniture: What Next and LISP
It could possibly be the largest functioning Lego Transformer on the web. Standing just over 33 inches tall and weighing 30lbs, fully transforming G1 Autobot City Transformer Metroplex. designed and built by me.
More info:
www.mocpages.com/moc.php/374196
and
The Story:
After the TARDIS was destroyed from crossing between dimensions, The Doctor, in his newly regenerated incarnation, along with the help of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, rebuilt her control room from the ground up. The modifications to the console (inspired by the Scream of the Shalka console) allow the original Gallifreyan Technology to still function in this new universe. Many times in between construction, The Doctor would sit next to his bookshelf, or play the piano. These items were left in the control room when the TARDIS managed to successfully travel. The Doctor enjoyed his quiet comforts, until Amber Fox, the Doctor’s friend and traveling companion, brought in her own chair and record player to add some more bounce in his life.
WHAT YOU SEE:
A lot of this post is things that were previously mentioned like the Bookshelf and Amber’s Chair and Record Player, so for this one, I will be focusing on the Piano as well as the actual console itself and the room details.
On the far right is the Doctor’s Piano! A gift to him from Mozart himself! The Doctor enjoys playing any piece, from classical to rock! The Doctor often uses the piano to express his emotions. For example, if he is playing a dramatic piece, he is upset, or angry. If he plays a rather upbeat song, he’s in a good mood. However, his favorite song is quite a mystery, as it is both a happy and sad song.
On top of the Piano is a copy of H.G. Wells: The Time Machine. (Designer’s note: The design of the cover of the book is in fact the same one that was used in the 1996 TV Movie.)
THE CONSOLE:
The Console was heavily inspired by the console seen in Scream of the Shalka. There are two layers that house the Primary and Secondary controls. The lower panels make up the Primary Controls, such as the brakes, stabilizers, helmic regulators and the spacial coordinates input. The upper panels make up the Secondary Controls, such as the diagnostics port, the fast return switch, and the isomorphic controls. The Doctor, with the help of UNIT, added the Secondary controls to the console as most of the original controls on the TARDIS were not in operating order and could not be salvaged.
THE ROOM:
The entire room is kept how it originally was when it was located by UNIT. Many of the walls had deteriorated as well as completely SNAP in half, the Scanner was cracked, and there was no power from the Eye of Harmony. The Doctor and UNIT rebuilt the room when the Console was re-installed and gave the Old Girl a new paint job.
(Designer’s Note: The platforms on which the console rests was constructed with the help of SAM K BRICKS! His name will be popping up a lot in this! All of the Gallifreyan symbols on the 1x1 Round Tiles and the Scanner were added by me. It was a difficult process to illuminate them, but the outcome is so worth it. I may, in the future, attempt to re-design the light-mechanics, as I’m not too happy with how they just stand out of the platforms, but if I move them in any more, the don’t light up the way I want them to.
The walls were designed by Daniel Lavine and modified to this build by me! You’ll notice that the main color scheme of this build was blue and gold, they are my favorite colors if you couldn’t tell. The trim around the top of the walls is definitely one of my favorite additions. I took some inspiration from a Mr. Gunnbuilding and used more Gallifreyan Symbols to add that extra Time Lord feel to the interior. Taking another page out of his book, the trim along each angle of the Hexagonal base was inspired by him. The alternating glowing tiles along the center of each side of the floor were a small but charming design choice by yours truly.)
A massive thank you to Sam K Bricks for all his help with this build!
We lived in Dubai, UAE from 1991 to 1996 and I worked at a campus of the Higher Colleges of Technology. These pictures include college functions as well as staff get togethers.
These images are directly from the scanner and rough due to the age of the photographs. Over time, I may do a bit of editing on these.
My latest TT is based off a sorta-modified chassis pioneered by Zetovince/Mahjiqa. Due to this the L20 is actually bigger and heavier than the Blazefury, an F1 car for the road. All in the sacrifice for detail. Let's just imagine IRL that the L20 is smaller like is should be.
The Arctana is my first attempt as an AFOL at a spaceship.
It is designed for long range reconnaissance and radar picketing.
This is a view of the side of the ship, with the illuminated cockpit open.
It is much bulkier than originally intended due to the inclusion of the mechanism for automating the cockpit. This consists of a Power Functions motor and linear actuator.
Unfortunately, there wasn't room for the battery box, so this remains external (hidden out of shot in these photos), connected via the underside of the ship. There are also Power Functions motors to operate the engine turbines and lights to illuminate the cockpit and sensor array.
At the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario).
Today we visited the new and improved AGO, and I must say, I was impressed. The building itself is now a work of art, as with this newly installed Frank Gehry designed spiral staircase that winds right through the glass atrium of the Walker Court, and into the sky (well, actually just into the galleries on the upper floors).
Shot through a dirty passenger side window.
Its current owner is: www.infotech.com/about
May 2017 A new Toronto Concert Hall.
History:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masonic_Temple_(Toronto).
Construction began November 2, 1916 when the contract was signed and approved by the Board of The Masonic Temple Company for the tearing down of an existing church and excavation. The Masonic ceremony of laying the cornerstone occurring November 17, 1917 and the first Lodge meeting taking place on New Year's Day, 1918.[2] At its peak, the Masonic Temple was home to 38 different Masonic bodies: 27 Craft Lodges, six Chapters (York Rite), two Preceptories (Knights Templar), two Scottish Rite Bodies and Adoniram Council.[2]
The hall functioned as a ballroom in the 1930s and began to host rock acts in the late 1960s.[3]
In the years before its sale to CTV, the building housed live music clubs known as The Concert Hall, and earlier, in the late 1960s, The Rock Pile, a sitting-on-the-floor style concert venue that featured not only showcases for top local talent but also appearances by major international recording stars, including Toronto's first Led Zeppelin concert on February 2, 1969, during the band's inaugural North American Tour.
Although the location remained historically significant and was added to the City of Toronto Heritage Property Inventory in 1974, the building has changed hands a number of times. In 1997, it was threatened with demolition: a developer had planned a new highrise residential building marketed to Asians, solely to exploit its "lucky" address of 888 Yonge Street, [4] It was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in the same year.[4]
Also in the 1990s, the studio was the home of Open Mike with Mike Bullard, and was one of CTV Toronto's news bureaus. Also, notably, it has been rented as a rehearsal space by the Rolling Stones. From March 2006, the building became the broadcast home of the new MTV Canada and has hosted the Polaris Music Prize since 2009.
The building's fate was once again placed under a cloud on November 2, 2012, when Bell Media announced the moving of MTV Canada studio production to 299 Queen Street West and that the building would be sold, possibly for condominiums.[4] Bell Media officially listed the property for sale on March 4, 2013.[5] On June 17, 2013, the building was purchased by the Info-Tech Research Group for $12.5 million.[6][1] Info-Tech announced that its plans for the building include staging an annual charity rock concert in the auditorium.[7]
In 2017, it was announced that the concert hall was to permanently reopen as a public year-round music venue beginning in June for the Toronto Jazz Festival.[3][6]
List of live shows:
Date Operating Name Act Notes
1968-09-20 The Rock Pile Blood, Sweat & Tears
1968-09-21 The Rock Pile Blood, Sweat & Tears Transfusion opened.
1968-10-05 The Rock Pile Procol Harum [8]
1968-10-27 The Rock Pile The Jeff Beck Group. Rod Stewart sang. I was there. The crowd was rude!
1968-11-09 The Rock Pile Iron Butterfly
1969-02-02 The Rock Pile Led Zeppelin [9]
1969-02-23 The Rock Pile Frank Zappa [10]
1969-03-02 The Rock Pile John Mayall
1969-03-08 The Rock Pile Savoy Brown Blues Band
1969-03-16 The Rock Pile Chuck Berry
1969-03-23 The Rock Pile Spirit
1969-03-29 The Rock Pile Jethro Tull
1969-04-05 The Rock Pile John Lee Hooker
1969-04-12 The Rock Pile The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
1969-04-19 The Rock Pile Family
1969-04-26 The Rock Pile Paul Butterfield
1969-05-04 The Rock Pile Sweetwater
1969-05-11 The Rock Pile Deep Purple
1969-05-17 The Rock Pile Kensington Market
1969-05-19 The Rock Pile The Who [11] Concert Poster
1969-05-24 The Rock Pile Frank Zappa
1969-07-08 The Rock Pile Grateful Dead [12]
1969-07-12 The Rock Pile McKenna Mendelson Mainline
1969-08-18 The Rock Pile Led Zeppelin [13]
1969-09-24 The Rock Pile The Mothers of Invention [14]
1969-12-31 Masonic Temple Auditorium Alice Cooper Teegarden & Van Winkle Keith McVie, Moonshine and more...
1979-11-15 The Concert Hall City Boy [15]
1980-08-21 The Concert Hall Magazine
1980-10-17 The Concert Hall Split Enz
1980-10-18 The Concert Hall Split Enz
1980-11-18 The Concert Hall Siouxsie & The Banshees [16]
1981-03-?? The Concert Hall Blue Peteras part of the "March Hop Jump"
1981-03-12 The Concert Hall Iggy Pop
1981-05-10 The Concert Hall Plasmatics [17]
1981-06-10 The Concert Hall Goddo [18]
1981-06-19 The Concert Hall Iron Maiden [19] Reckless opened, first Canadian Iron Maiden show
1981-06-21 The Concert Hall Iron Maiden
1981-07-24 The Concert Hall Kraftwerk [20]
1981-08-30 The Concert Hall The Cure [21] First show in Toronto
1981-10-23 The Concert Hall King Crimson 2 shows
1982-??-?? The Concert Hall Public Image Ltd.
1982-07-06 The Concert Hall Duran Duran
1982-10-28 The Concert Hall Iggy Pop with The Untouchables
1982-10-29 The Concert Hall Spoons Show simulcast on CITY-TV and CHUM-FM; later released on DVD
1982-12-17 The Concert Hall SpoonsSanta Geets Xmas Party presented by CFNY-FM
1983-01-?? The Concert Hall Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
1983-??-?? The Concert Hall Nina Hagen
1984-06-13 The Concert Hall MarillionThe Box opened
1984-07-13 The Concert Hall R.E.M.
1984-11-12 The Concert Hall The Cure
1984-12-21 The Concert Hall The Parachute Club
1985-01-19 The Concert Hall Metallica [22]
1985-03-10 The Concert Hall Run–D.M.C.
1985-03-31 The Concert Hall Venom/Slayer/Razor
1985-05-05 The Concert Hall Cabaret Voltaire
1987-??-?? The Concert Hall Boogie Down Productions with special guest Biz Markie
1987-05-31 The Concert Hall Skinny Puppy
1988-04-21 The Concert Hall Love and Rockets The Mighty Lemon Drops & The Bubblemen opened
1988-05-08 The Concert Hall Midnight Oil
1988-11-06 The Concert Hall Skinny Puppy
1990-01-12 The Concert Hall Voivod [23] Faith No More and Soundgarden opened
1990-03-30 The Concert Hall The Tragically Hip
1990-11-25 The Concert Hall Jane's Addiction The Buck Pets opened
1990-11-27 The Concert Hall The Pixies[24] Pere Ubu opened
1991-02-24 The Concert Hall The Charlatans venue moved from the Opera House
1991-04-14 The Concert Hall Happy Mondays Stereo MCs opened
1991-07-05 The Concert Hall The Tragically Hip
1991-07-09 The Concert Hall EMF
1991-09-29 The Concert Hall Jesus Jones
1991-10-29 The Concert Hall The Smashing Pumpkins [25]
1991-10-30 The Concert Hall The Smashing Pumpkins [26]
1991-11-23 The Concert Hall Billy Bragg Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy opened
1991-11-30 The Concert Hall The Pixies
1991-12-03 The Concert Hall Tin Machine [26] (David Bowie) It's My Life Tour
1992-03-30 The Concert Hall The Beautiful South The Waltons opened
1992-04-28 The Concert Hall The Charlatans Catherine Wheel opened
1992-05-04 The Concert Hall Soundgarden
1992-05-15 The Concert Hall Sugarcubes [27]
1992-05-15 The Concert Hall Beastie Boys [28]
1992-11-29 The Concert Hall Alice In Chains
1992-12-21 The Concert Hall Body Count
1993-01-25 The Concert Hall Ned's Atomic Dustbin
1993-01-29 The Concert Hall Slik Toxik
1993-02-19 The Concert Hall Inspiral Carpets
1993-03-06 The Concert Hall PanteraSacred Reich opened.
1993-03-31 The Concert Hall Rage Against the Machine
1993-04-13 The Concert Hall Midnight Oil
1993-04-27 The Concert Hall Phish
1993-05-17 The Concert Hall Danzig Nudeswirl and Proper Grounds opened.
1993-06-15 The Concert Hall The Flaming Lips Porno for Pyros opened.
1993-10-06 The Concert Hall Bad Religion Green Day and Doughboys opened.
1993-10-18The Concert Hall Stone Temple Pilots The Mighty Mighty Bosstones opened.
1993-10-24 The Concert Hall Primus Melvins opened.
1993-10-28 The Concert Hall Rage Against the Machine Quicksand opened.
1993-11-21 The Concert Hall The Lemonheads Redd Kross opened.
1993-12-06 The Concert Hall Green Day
1994-02-23 The Concert Hall Tool Failure opened.
1994-04-06 The Concert Hall Phish[29]
1994-05-16 The Concert Hall Rollins Band
1994-11-18 The Concert Hall Anvil
1996-04-03 The Concert Hall Foo Fighters
1996-04-18 The Concert Hall Rusty
1996-04-27 The Concert Hall Bob Dylan[30]
1996-04-28 The Concert Hall Bob Dylan[31] Aimee Mann opened.
1996-05-11 The Concert Hall Dave Matthews Band [32]
1996-05-31 The Concert Hall The Band High on the Hog tour. The Mahones opened.
1996-06-14 The Concert Hall Cocteau Twins
1996-07-06 The Concert Hall Finn Brothers
1996-08-18 The Concert Hall Steve Earle[33]
1996-09-20 The Concert Hall Sloan
1996-10-27 The Concert Hall Billy Bragg Robyn Hitchcock and Deni Bonet opened
1996-11-22 The Concert Hall James Brown
1997-04-18 The Concert Hall Rusty
1997-06-09 The Concert Hall The Tragically Hip [34]
1997-10-01 The Concert Hall Paul Weller
1998-06-27 The Concert Hall Cibo Matto
2016-05-06 Info-Tech Research Group Luke & The Apostles
2016-06-02 Info-Tech Research Group Platinum Blonde
2016-09-09 888 Yonge Karl Wolf GLB V after party.
Toronto’s architectural gems—the Masonic Temple at Davenport and Yonge from Now Magazine
24
FE
The Masonic Temple, at 888 Yonge Street, was constructed in 1917, during the chaotic days of the First World War. Today, the building is appreciated by those interested in the city’s architectural heritage, but judging by comments posted on the internet, it is viewed by some as an ugly structure of brick and limestone that is not worth preserving. Despite one’s view of the building, it has a rich heritage, and I believe that it is worthy of being saved from demolition. To aid in its preservation, in 1974 the Masonic Temple was designated a Heritage Property.
Designed in the Italian Renaissance Revival Style by architect W. J. Sparling, the six-storey structure contains an auditorium that has hardwood flooring and a decorated ceiling. It seats 1200 persons, including the wrap-around gallery. The Masonic Society (Freemasons) included the ballroom/concert hall in their new building as a means to raise revenue from rentals to support the costs of maintaining the premises.
John Ross Robertson (1841-1918) was a prominent Mason, and founder of the now defunct Toronto Telegram newspaper. He was one of the prime motivators behind the construction of the building, located on the northwest corner of Yonge Street and Davenport Road. When the Masons chose this site, a church was located on the property. It was estimated that the cost of the Temple would be $175,000, but by the time it was completed, the cost was $220,864. After the church on the site was demolished, construction began. The final stone for the new Temple was put in place on 17 November 1917 and the structure was consecrated with corn, oil, and wine. The first lodge meeting was held on 1 January 1918. On the upper floors, which were reserved solely for the use of the Masons, there were patterned tiled flooring and many Masonic carvings.
During the 1930s, the Masonic Temple was one of the most popular ballrooms in Toronto. Every New Year’s Eve, tickets disappeared long in advance of the date. Bing Crosby once crooned within its walls, and Frank Sinatra hosted an event there. Throughout the years, many famous entertainers have performed in the hall—Tina Turner, The Ramones, David Bowie, and Led Zeppelin, who held their first Toronto concert there in 1969. In 1970, it was leased by a company known as the “Rockpile.” During the 1980s, it was rented by various groups, but the income never exceeded the costs of maintaining the building. In 1998, the property was sold to CTV, for use as a TV studio. The show, “Open Mike with Mike Bullard” was broadcast from the premises. In 2006, it became home to Bell Media (MTV), but they departed in 2012.
During the 1950s, I was in the Masonic Temple on several occasions to attend events. The view from the gallery, looking down onto the stage area was quite impressive. I remember the ornate plaster trim around the auditorium and the ornate carvings that decorated the space. As a teenager, I considered any event held within the walls of the Temple to be a special occasion, especially since the restaurants on Yonge Street were within walking distance. In that decade, the “Pickin’ Chicken,” south of College Street, Fran’s at Yonge and College, and Basil’s Restaurant at Yonge and Gerrard, were the gastronomic highlights of the “the strip.” Walking south from Davenport and Yonge to below College Street was less of a problem for me in those years, especially when my teenage hunger could be satiated by “chicken in a wicker basket with fries” at the PIckin’ Chicken, a toasted club sandwich at Basil’s, or rice pudding at Fran’s. Julia Child, eat your heart out!
Yonge Street has greatly changed today, although I am not certain that the culinary level of the avenue has improved much. However, the Masonic Temple remains, proudly resisting the onslaught of the modern era. I sincerely hope that a modern role will be found for the building, and that it will not be demolished. It would be a pity to have its ornate facade become a mere shell to add dignity to another faceless high rise condominium of glass and steel, lacking any value beyond the price of the suites per square foot.
Black Cat with Power Functions!
I noticed no one has ever put PF to this set, so I had to do it!
1 servo motor
1 XL motor
1 battery box
1 SBrick
Let's you drive the truck with your smartphone.
All power function parts are packed into the truck's chassis, so the interieur is not modified at all!
I also added double tires on the rear axles
4x360 degree turning engines, opening doors and removable roof for easy access, and a little surprise in the boot for those sprint finishes!!
Bigger is better! www.flickr.com/photos/karenleahquinn/8311428574/sizes/h/i...
The old church of St Mary at Kempley no longer functions as the parish church of the village being some distance from the main part of it (where a 20th century building now fulfils its role). It is now maintained by English Heritage as a site of national importance, which may seem puzzling when one is confronted by the humble exterior of this building, but is made much more apparent once one steps inside.
The church is a simple two-cell structure of nave and chancel, unchanged since the Norman period aside from a couple of later windows inserted into the side walls of the nave to lighten the interior. The squat tower at the west end is a 13th century addition (hiding the original Norman west doorway within) and doesn't rise much above roof level. The south wall has been given a coat of pink limewash in recent years, a reminder that many churches had such an external shelter coat in medieval times to protect the stonework.
One enters through the Norman doorway (with foliate tympanum) on the south side and finds oneself in the delightfully rustic space of the nave, the walls of which retain significant sections of medieval wall-painting. However this should be considered as a starter for the main course awaiting in the darker and more mysterious space beyond the chancel arch, for here the murals are much older and much more complete.
The chancel at Kempley is what makes this church justly famous, and is perhaps the most complete vision we have of what the interior decoration of a Norman church must have looked like. By good fortune the chancel was provided with a barrel vault which allowed the painting to spread seamlessly from wall to ceiling, with Christ in majesty surrounded by the four evangelists' symbols and the twelve apostles seated forming the main focus of the design, all against a warm red background. The colours have faded somewhat as have many of the faces of the figures but what survives is an impressive piece of Romanesque art and a remarkable glimpse back into the 12th century.
St Mary's is normally open to visitors and well worth seeing, I've not seen another church quite like it.
For more detail and open hours see below:-
www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/st-marys-church-...
Finally done...
This MOC was originally built for BrickCon 2008 and has sat in a "Mostly finished state for over a year taking over my LEGo table. It's time it goes, so I finished it off quick and here it is.
I'm not particularly proud of the castle, but I think most of the landscping came together quite nice.
There are alot of details in the gallery/set.
Hokay, so here's the story I worked up in my head:
This small border outpost was attacked by some rabble during the winter, only causing some damage to the front wall and burning the barracks.
Now spring has come and the baron in charge of the area is able to pay a visit. He is coming to check up on the progress of the new barraks, while the town patriarch wished to discuss paving the courtyard to quell the mud...
The miller takes a break upon the arrival, while the Inn maid and stableboy finish their tasks.
Not even the stable boy is aware of the secret passage under the stable.
The diorama features a working waterwheel and millstone, secret passage, and more than enough rockwork to drive me crazy...
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The Louvre Palace (French: Palais du Louvre, [palɛ dy luvʁ]), often referred to simply as the Louvre, is an iconic French palace located on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois. Originally a defensive castle, it has served numerous government-related functions in the past, including intermittently as a royal residence between the 14th and 18th centuries. It is now mostly used by the Louvre Museum, which first opened there in 1793.
Whereas the area had been inhabited for thousands of years,[1] the Louvre's history starts around 1190 with its first construction as a castle defending the western front of the Wall of Philip II Augustus in the city wall. The Louvre's oldest section still standing above ground, its Lescot Wing, dates from the late 1540s, when Francis I started the replacement of the medieval castle with a new design inspired by classical antiquity and Italian Renaissance architecture. Most parts of the current building were constructed in the 17th and 19th centuries.[2][3]
For more than three centuries, the history of the Louvre has been closely intertwined with that of the Tuileries Palace, created to the west of the Louvre by Catherine de' Medici in 1564 and finally demolished in 1883. The Tuileries was the main seat of French executive power during the last third of that period, from the return of Louis XVI and his court from Versailles in October 1789 until the palace was set on fire during the Paris Commune of 1871. The Pavillon de Flore and Pavillon de Marsan, which used to respectively mark the southern and northern ends of the Tuileries, are now considered part of the Louvre Palace. The Carrousel Garden, first created in the late 19th century in what used to be the great courtyard of the Tuileries (or Cour du Carrousel), is now considered part of the Tuileries Garden. A less high-profile but historically significant dependency of the Louvre was to its immediate east, the Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon, appropriated by the monarchy following the betrayal of the Constable of Bourbon in 1523 and mostly demolished in October 1660 to give way to the Louvre's expansion.[4]: 37 The last remains of the Petit-Bourbon were cleared in the 1760s.
General description
This sections provides a summary description of the present-day complex and its main constituent parts.
The Louvre Palace is situated on the right bank of the Seine, between the Quai François Mitterrand to its south, the avenue du Général-Lemonnier to its west (thus named since 1957; formerly rue des Tuileries and Avenue Paul-Déroulède, converted into an underpass in 1987–1989[5]), the Rue de Rivoli to its north, and the Place du Louvre to its east. The complex occupies about 40 hectares with buildings distributed around two main open spaces: the eastern Cour Carrée (square courtyard), which is closed by four wings that form the square of its name, and the central Cour Napoléon, which is open on its western side, beyond the thoroughfare known as Place du Carrousel, towards the Carrousel Garden and the rest of the Tuileries Garden.
The Louvre is slightly askew of the Historic Axis (Axe historique), a roughly eight-kilometer (five-mile) architectural line bisecting the city. The axis begins with the Louvre courtyard, at a point now symbolically marked by a lead copy of Bernini's equestrian statue of Louis XIV, and runs west along the Champs-Élysées to La Défense and slightly beyond.
Since 1988, the Louvre Pyramid in the middle of the Cour Napoléon has marked the center of the Louvre complex. At the same time, the Louvre Museum has adopted a toponymy developed by the Carbone Smolan Agency to refer to the three clusters of buildings that surround that central focus point:[6]
To the east, the "Sully Wing" is the square-shaped set of buildings that surrounds the Cour Carrée, named after Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully. It includes the 16th-century Lescot Wing and the footprint of the Medieval Louvre whose remains are displayed underground;
To the south, the "Denon Wing" is the array of buildings between the Cour Napoléon and the Seine, named after the Louvre's first director Vivant Denon. the Louvre's southwestern wing is the Aile de Flore. The long Grande Galerie runs on the first floor for much of the length of this building, on the Seine-facing side.
To the north, the "Richelieu Wing" is the almost-symmetrical array of buildings between the Cour Napoléon and the rue de Rivoli, named after Cardinal Richelieu. Its western extension alongside rue de Rivoli is the Aile de Rohan, itself continued by the Aile de Marsan.
The Louvre Museum occupies most of the palace's space, but not all of it. The main other users are at the building's two western tips: in the southwestern Aile de Flore, the École du Louvre and Center for Research and Restoration of Museums of France (C2RMF); and in the northwestern Aile de Marsan, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. In total, some 51,615 square meters (555,000 square feet) in the palace complex are devoted to public exhibition floor space.
Many sections of the Louvre are referred to as "wings" (ailes) and "pavilions" (pavillons) – typically, the pavilions are the blocks at either the end or the center of a wing. In the Louvre's context, the word "wing" does not denote a peripheral location: the Lescot Wing, in particular, was built as the Louvre's main corps de logis. Given the Louvre wings' length and the fact that they typically abutted parts of the city with streets and private buildings, several of them have passageways on the ground floor which in the Louvre's specific context are called guichets.
The origin of the name Louvre is unclear. French historian Henri Sauval, probably writing in the 1660s, stated that he had seen "in an old Latin-Saxon glossary, Leouar is translated castle" and thus took Leouar to be the origin of Louvre.[7] According to Keith Briggs, Sauval's theory is often repeated, even in recent books, but this glossary has never been seen again, and Sauval's idea is viewed as obsolete. Briggs suggests that H. J. Wolf's proposal in 1969 that Louvre derives instead from Latin Rubras, meaning "red soil", is more plausible.[8] David Hanser suggests instead that the word may come from French louveterie, a "place where dogs were trained to chase wolves"
Beyond the name of the palace itself, the toponymy of the Louvre can be treacherous. Partly because of the building's long history and links to changing politics, different names have applied at different times to the same structures or rooms. For example, what used to be known in the 17th and 18th centuries the Pavillon du Milieu or Gros Pavillon is now generally referred to as Pavillon de l'Horloge, or Pavillon Sully (especially when considered from the west), or also Pavillon Lemercier after the architect Jacques Lemercier who first designed it in 1624. In some cases, the same name has designated different parts of the building at different times. For example, in the 19th century, the Pavillon de la Bibliothèque referred to what was later called the Porte Jean-Goujon (still later, Porte Barbet-de-Jouy), on the south side of the Grande Galerie facing the Seine, before becoming the name for the main pavilion of the Richelieu Wing On the rue de Rivoli, its exact symmetrical point from the Louvre Pyramid. The main room on the first floor of the Lescot Wing has been the Salle Haute, Grande Salle, Salle des Gardes,[10]: 11 Salle d'Attente,[11] in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was fragmented into apartments during the 18th century, then recreated in the early 19th and called successively Salle Royale,[10]: 9 Salle des Séances Royales[12] or Salle des Etats (the latter also being the name of two other ceremonial rooms, created in the 1850s and 1860s respectively);[10]: 9 then as part of the museum, salle des terres cuites, after 1871 Salle La Caze in honor of donor Louis La Caze, Salle des Bronzes, and since 2021 Salle Etrusque. The room immediately below, now known as Salle des Caryatides, has also been called Salle Basse, Salle Basse des Suisses,[13]: 71 Grande Salle, Salle des Gardes, Salle des Antiques (from 1692 to 1793), and Salle des Fleuves[14]: 189 in the past, among other names.
Sully Wing
The Sully Wing forms a square of approximately 160 m (520 ft) side length. The protruding sections at the corners and center of each side are known as pavillons. Clockwise from the northwest corner, they are named as follows: Pavillon de Beauvais (after a now-disappeared street[15]), Pavillon Marengo (after the nearby rue de Marengo), Pavillon Nord-Est (also Pavillon des Assyriens[14]: 670 ), Pavillon Central de la Colonnade (also Pavillon Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois), Pavillon Sud-Est (also Pavillon des Egyptiens[14]: 669 ), Pavillon des Arts, Pavillon du Roi, and Pavillon de l'Horloge, the latter also known as Pavillon Sully. The section between the Pavillon du Roi and the Pavillon Sully, known as the Lescot Wing (Aile Lescot) as it was designed by architect Pierre Lescot, is the oldest standing part of the entire Louvre Palace. The section between the Pavillon Sully and the Pavillon de Beauvais, which was modeled after the Lescot Wing by architect Jacques Lemercier, is similarly known as the Lemercier Wing (Aile Lemercier). The eastern wing is the Aile de la Colonnade, named after its iconic eastern façade, the Louvre Colonnade initially designed by Charles Perrault.
On the southern side of the Cour Napoléon, the Denon Wing's three main pavilions are named respectively, from east to west, after Napoleon-era officials Pierre Daru, Vivant Denon and Nicolas François Mollien. Between these and the wing facing the seine are three courtyards, from east to west the Cour du Sphinx (covered as a glass atrium since 1934), Cour Visconti (ground floor covered since 2012), and Cour Lefuel. On the side of the Seine, this wing starts with the north–south Petite Galerie bordering a side garden known as the Jardin de l'Infante, and continues westwards along the Quai François Mitterrand with the Salon Carré, Grande Galerie, and Pavillon de Flore. In the middle of the Grande Galerie are the Guichets du Carrousel, a composition of three monumental arches flanked by two narrow pavilions named respectively after the Duke of Lesdiguières and Henri de La Trémoille (Pavillon Lesdiguières and Pavillon La Trémoille). Further west are the Pavillon des Sessions, a protruding structure on the northern side, the Porte des Lions, a passageway to the quay,[16] the Porte Jaujard on the north side, now the main entrance to the École du Louvre, and finally the Pavillon de Flore.[17]
Richelieu and Marsan Wings
Similarly, on the northern side of the Cour Napoléon are, from east to west, the pavilions named after Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Cardinal Richelieu, and Anne Robert Jacques Turgot. Between these and the rue de Rivoli are three courtyards, from east to west the Cour Khorsabad (formerly Cour de la Poste), Cour Puget (formerly Cour des Guichets or Cour de l'Horloge), and Cour Marly (formerly Cour d'Honneur or Cour du Ministre). On the side facing the rue de Rivoli, the main salient feature is the Pavillon de la Bibliothèque, which connects to the Pavillon Richelieu through the ground-floor Passage Richelieu (formerly Guichet du Ministère[3]: 102 ) between the Cour Puget and Cour Marly. Further west are the Pavillon de Rohan and the Aile de Rohan, built in the early 19th century and named after the nearby rue de Rohan [fr], then the Aile de Marsan and the Pavillon de Marsan, both rebuilt by Hector Lefuel in the 1870s.
Pyramid and underground spaces
The Louvre Pyramid, built in the 1980s on a design by I. M. Pei, is now the centerpiece of the entire Louvre complex. It leads to the underground Hall Napoléon which in turn serves a vast complex of underground spaces, including the Carrousel du Louvre commercial mall around an inverted pyramid further west.
Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. With an official estimated population of 2,102,650 residents as of 1 January 2023[2] in an area of more than 105 km2 (41 sq mi) Paris is the fourth-most populated city in the European Union and the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2022. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, culture, fashion, and gastronomy. For its leading role in the arts and sciences, as well as its early and extensive system of street lighting, in the 19th century, it became known as the City of Light.
The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France region, or Paris Region, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 inhabitants on 1 January 2023, or about 19% of the population of France, The Paris Region had a GDP of €765 billion (US$1.064 trillion, PPP) in 2021, the highest in the European Union. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, in 2022, Paris was the city with the ninth-highest cost of living in the world.
Paris is a major railway, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Charles de Gaulle Airport (the third-busiest airport in Europe) and Orly Airport. Opened in 1900, the city's subway system, the Paris Métro, serves 5.23 million passengers daily; it is the second-busiest metro system in Europe after the Moscow Metro. Gare du Nord is the 24th-busiest railway station in the world and the busiest outside Japan, with 262 million passengers in 2015. Paris has one of the most sustainable transportation systems and is one of the only two cities in the world that received the Sustainable Transport Award twice.
Paris is especially known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre received 8.9. million visitors in 2023, on track for keeping its position as the most-visited art museum in the world. The Musée d'Orsay, Musée Marmottan Monet and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art. The Pompidou Centre Musée National d'Art Moderne, Musée Rodin and Musée Picasso are noted for their collections of modern and contemporary art. The historical district along the Seine in the city centre has been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991.
Paris hosts several United Nations organizations including UNESCO, and other international organizations such as the OECD, the OECD Development Centre, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, the International Energy Agency, the International Federation for Human Rights, along with European bodies such as the European Space Agency, the European Banking Authority and the European Securities and Markets Authority. The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris. The 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros. The city hosted the Olympic Games in 1900 and 1924, and will host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups, the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, the 2007 Rugby World Cup, as well as the 1960, 1984 and 2016 UEFA European Championships were also held in the city. Every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris.
The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the area's major north–south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, which gradually became an important trading centre. The Parisii traded with many river towns (some as far away as the Iberian Peninsula) and minted their own coins.
The Romans conquered the Paris Basin in 52 BC and began their settlement on Paris's Left Bank. The Roman town was originally called Lutetia (more fully, Lutetia Parisiorum, "Lutetia of the Parisii", modern French Lutèce). It became a prosperous city with a forum, baths, temples, theatres, and an amphitheatre.
By the end of the Western Roman Empire, the town was known as Parisius, a Latin name that would later become Paris in French. Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint Denis, the first Bishop of Paris: according to legend, when he refused to renounce his faith before the Roman occupiers, he was beheaded on the hill which became known as Mons Martyrum (Latin "Hill of Martyrs"), later "Montmartre", from where he walked headless to the north of the city; the place where he fell and was buried became an important religious shrine, the Basilica of Saint-Denis, and many French kings are buried there.
Clovis the Frank, the first king of the Merovingian dynasty, made the city his capital from 508. As the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by the Franks to Paris and the Parisian Francien dialects were born. Fortification of the Île de la Cité failed to avert sacking by Vikings in 845, but Paris's strategic importance—with its bridges preventing ships from passing—was established by successful defence in the Siege of Paris (885–886), for which the then Count of Paris (comte de Paris), Odo of France, was elected king of West Francia. From the Capetian dynasty that began with the 987 election of Hugh Capet, Count of Paris and Duke of the Franks (duc des Francs), as king of a unified West Francia, Paris gradually became the largest and most prosperous city in France.
By the end of the 12th century, Paris had become the political, economic, religious, and cultural capital of France.[36] The Palais de la Cité, the royal residence, was located at the western end of the Île de la Cité. In 1163, during the reign of Louis VII, Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris, undertook the construction of the Notre Dame Cathedral at its eastern extremity.
After the marshland between the river Seine and its slower 'dead arm' to its north was filled in from around the 10th century, Paris's cultural centre began to move to the Right Bank. In 1137, a new city marketplace (today's Les Halles) replaced the two smaller ones on the Île de la Cité and Place de Grève (Place de l'Hôtel de Ville). The latter location housed the headquarters of Paris's river trade corporation, an organisation that later became, unofficially (although formally in later years), Paris's first municipal government.
In the late 12th century, Philip Augustus extended the Louvre fortress to defend the city against river invasions from the west, gave the city its first walls between 1190 and 1215, rebuilt its bridges to either side of its central island, and paved its main thoroughfares. In 1190, he transformed Paris's former cathedral school into a student-teacher corporation that would become the University of Paris and would draw students from all of Europe.
With 200,000 inhabitants in 1328, Paris, then already the capital of France, was the most populous city of Europe. By comparison, London in 1300 had 80,000 inhabitants. By the early fourteenth century, so much filth had collected inside urban Europe that French and Italian cities were naming streets after human waste. In medieval Paris, several street names were inspired by merde, the French word for "shit".
During the Hundred Years' War, Paris was occupied by England-friendly Burgundian forces from 1418, before being occupied outright by the English when Henry V of England entered the French capital in 1420; in spite of a 1429 effort by Joan of Arc to liberate the city, it would remain under English occupation until 1436.
In the late 16th-century French Wars of Religion, Paris was a stronghold of the Catholic League, the organisers of 24 August 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in which thousands of French Protestants were killed. The conflicts ended when pretender to the throne Henry IV, after converting to Catholicism to gain entry to the capital, entered the city in 1594 to claim the crown of France. This king made several improvements to the capital during his reign: he completed the construction of Paris's first uncovered, sidewalk-lined bridge, the Pont Neuf, built a Louvre extension connecting it to the Tuileries Palace, and created the first Paris residential square, the Place Royale, now Place des Vosges. In spite of Henry IV's efforts to improve city circulation, the narrowness of Paris's streets was a contributing factor in his assassination near Les Halles marketplace in 1610.
During the 17th century, Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of Louis XIII, was determined to make Paris the most beautiful city in Europe. He built five new bridges, a new chapel for the College of Sorbonne, and a palace for himself, the Palais-Cardinal. After Richelieu's death in 1642, it was renamed the Palais-Royal.
Due to the Parisian uprisings during the Fronde civil war, Louis XIV moved his court to a new palace, Versailles, in 1682. Although no longer the capital of France, arts and sciences in the city flourished with the Comédie-Française, the Academy of Painting, and the French Academy of Sciences. To demonstrate that the city was safe from attack, the king had the city walls demolished and replaced with tree-lined boulevards that would become the Grands Boulevards. Other marks of his reign were the Collège des Quatre-Nations, the Place Vendôme, the Place des Victoires, and Les Invalides.
18th and 19th centuries
Empire, and Haussmann's renovation of Paris
Paris grew in population from about 400,000 in 1640, to 650,000 in 1780. A new boulevard named the Champs-Élysées extended the city west to Étoile, while the working-class neighbourhood of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine on the eastern side of the city grew increasingly crowded with poor migrant workers from other regions of France.
Paris was the centre of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity, known as the Age of Enlightenment. Diderot and d'Alembert published their Encyclopédie in 1751, and the Montgolfier Brothers launched the first manned flight in a hot air balloon on 21 November 1783. Paris was the financial capital of continental Europe, and the primary European centre of book publishing, fashion and the manufacture of fine furniture and luxury goods.
In the summer of 1789, Paris became the centre stage of the French Revolution. On 14 July, a mob seized the arsenal at the Invalides, acquiring thousands of guns, and stormed the Bastille, which was a principal symbol of royal authority. The first independent Paris Commune, or city council, met in the Hôtel de Ville and elected a Mayor, the astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly, on 15 July.
Louis XVI and the royal family were brought to Paris and incarcerated in the Tuileries Palace. In 1793, as the revolution turned increasingly radical, the king, queen and mayor were beheaded by guillotine in the Reign of Terror, along with more than 16,000 others throughout France. The property of the aristocracy and the church was nationalised, and the city's churches were closed, sold or demolished. A succession of revolutionary factions ruled Paris until 9 November 1799 (coup d'état du 18 brumaire), when Napoleon Bonaparte seized power as First Consul.
The population of Paris had dropped by 100,000 during the Revolution, but after 1799 it surged with 160,000 new residents, reaching 660,000 by 1815. Napoleon replaced the elected government of Paris with a prefect that reported directly to him. He began erecting monuments to military glory, including the Arc de Triomphe, and improved the neglected infrastructure of the city with new fountains, the Canal de l'Ourcq, Père Lachaise Cemetery and the city's first metal bridge, the Pont des Arts.
The Eiffel Tower, under construction in November 1888, startled Parisians—and the world—with its modernity.
During the Restoration, the bridges and squares of Paris were returned to their pre-Revolution names; the July Revolution in 1830 (commemorated by the July Column on the Place de la Bastille) brought to power a constitutional monarch, Louis Philippe I. The first railway line to Paris opened in 1837, beginning a new period of massive migration from the provinces to the city. In 1848, Louis-Philippe was overthrown by a popular uprising in the streets of Paris. His successor, Napoleon III, alongside the newly appointed prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, launched a huge public works project to build wide new boulevards, a new opera house, a central market, new aqueducts, sewers and parks, including the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes. In 1860, Napoleon III annexed the surrounding towns and created eight new arrondissements, expanding Paris to its current limits.
During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), Paris was besieged by the Prussian Army. Following several months of blockade, hunger, and then bombardment by the Prussians, the city was forced to surrender on 28 January 1871. After seizing power in Paris on 28 March, a revolutionary government known as the Paris Commune held power for two months, before being harshly suppressed by the French army during the "Bloody Week" at the end of May 1871.
In the late 19th century, Paris hosted two major international expositions: the 1889 Universal Exposition, which featured the new Eiffel Tower, was held to mark the centennial of the French Revolution; and the 1900 Universal Exposition gave Paris the Pont Alexandre III, the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais and the first Paris Métro line. Paris became the laboratory of Naturalism (Émile Zola) and Symbolism (Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine), and of Impressionism in art (Courbet, Manet, Monet, Renoir).
20th and 21st centuries
World War, Paris between the Wars (1919–1939), Paris in World War II, and History of Paris (1946–2000)
By 1901, the population of Paris had grown to about 2,715,000. At the beginning of the century, artists from around the world including Pablo Picasso, Modigliani, and Henri Matisse made Paris their home. It was the birthplace of Fauvism, Cubism and abstract art, and authors such as Marcel Proust were exploring new approaches to literature.
During the First World War, Paris sometimes found itself on the front line; 600 to 1,000 Paris taxis played a small but highly important symbolic role in transporting 6,000 soldiers to the front line at the First Battle of the Marne. The city was also bombed by Zeppelins and shelled by German long-range guns. In the years after the war, known as Les Années Folles, Paris continued to be a mecca for writers, musicians and artists from around the world, including Ernest Hemingway, Igor Stravinsky, James Joyce, Josephine Baker, Eva Kotchever, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Sidney Bechet and Salvador Dalí.
In the years after the peace conference, the city was also home to growing numbers of students and activists from French colonies and other Asian and African countries, who later became leaders of their countries, such as Ho Chi Minh, Zhou Enlai and Léopold Sédar Senghor.
General Charles de Gaulle on the Champs-Élysées celebrating the liberation of Paris, 26 August 1944
On 14 June 1940, the German army marched into Paris, which had been declared an "open city". On 16–17 July 1942, following German orders, the French police and gendarmes arrested 12,884 Jews, including 4,115 children, and confined them during five days at the Vel d'Hiv (Vélodrome d'Hiver), from which they were transported by train to the extermination camp at Auschwitz. None of the children came back. On 25 August 1944, the city was liberated by the French 2nd Armoured Division and the 4th Infantry Division of the United States Army. General Charles de Gaulle led a huge and emotional crowd down the Champs Élysées towards Notre Dame de Paris, and made a rousing speech from the Hôtel de Ville.
In the 1950s and the 1960s, Paris became one front of the Algerian War for independence; in August 1961, the pro-independence FLN targeted and killed 11 Paris policemen, leading to the imposition of a curfew on Muslims of Algeria (who, at that time, were French citizens). On 17 October 1961, an unauthorised but peaceful protest demonstration of Algerians against the curfew led to violent confrontations between the police and demonstrators, in which at least 40 people were killed. The anti-independence Organisation armée secrète (OAS) carried out a series of bombings in Paris throughout 1961 and 1962.
In May 1968, protesting students occupied the Sorbonne and put up barricades in the Latin Quarter. Thousands of Parisian blue-collar workers joined the students, and the movement grew into a two-week general strike. Supporters of the government won the June elections by a large majority. The May 1968 events in France resulted in the break-up of the University of Paris into 13 independent campuses. In 1975, the National Assembly changed the status of Paris to that of other French cities and, on 25 March 1977, Jacques Chirac became the first elected mayor of Paris since 1793. The Tour Maine-Montparnasse, the tallest building in the city at 57 storeys and 210 m (689 ft) high, was built between 1969 and 1973. It was highly controversial, and it remains the only building in the centre of the city over 32 storeys high. The population of Paris dropped from 2,850,000 in 1954 to 2,152,000 in 1990, as middle-class families moved to the suburbs. A suburban railway network, the RER (Réseau Express Régional), was built to complement the Métro; the Périphérique expressway encircling the city, was completed in 1973.
Most of the postwar presidents of the Fifth Republic wanted to leave their own monuments in Paris; President Georges Pompidou started the Centre Georges Pompidou (1977), Valéry Giscard d'Estaing began the Musée d'Orsay (1986); President François Mitterrand had the Opéra Bastille built (1985–1989), the new site of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (1996), the Arche de la Défense (1985–1989) in La Défense, as well as the Louvre Pyramid with its underground courtyard (1983–1989); Jacques Chirac (2006), the Musée du quai Branly.
In the early 21st century, the population of Paris began to increase slowly again, as more young people moved into the city. It reached 2.25 million in 2011. In March 2001, Bertrand Delanoë became the first socialist mayor. He was re-elected in March 2008. In 2007, in an effort to reduce car traffic, he introduced the Vélib', a system which rents bicycles. Bertrand Delanoë also transformed a section of the highway along the Left Bank of the Seine into an urban promenade and park, the Promenade des Berges de la Seine, which he inaugurated in June 2013.
In 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy launched the Grand Paris project, to integrate Paris more closely with the towns in the region around it. After many modifications, the new area, named the Metropolis of Grand Paris, with a population of 6.7 million, was created on 1 January 2016. In 2011, the City of Paris and the national government approved the plans for the Grand Paris Express, totalling 205 km (127 mi) of automated metro lines to connect Paris, the innermost three departments around Paris, airports and high-speed rail (TGV) stations, at an estimated cost of €35 billion.The system is scheduled to be completed by 2030.
In January 2015, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed attacks across the Paris region. 1.5 million people marched in Paris in a show of solidarity against terrorism and in support of freedom of speech. In November of the same year, terrorist attacks, claimed by ISIL, killed 130 people and injured more than 350.
On 22 April 2016, the Paris Agreement was signed by 196 nations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in an aim to limit the effects of climate change below 2 °C.
Set in torque mode (225 rpms), pulling 20 two-axle freight cars. A bit of a struggle, so I'd say it can comfortably pull about 14 or so.
Explore - July 5th, 2013 - #214
Before you think the Turkey Vulture has a face only a mother could love, consider this...
>This large bird species has been around since prehistoric times (anything prehistoric is cool by default!)
>Turkey vultures have been used to detect the location of natural gas leaks, because they will circle over the leak lured by the rotten-meat odor added to the gas.
>One of a vulture’s frequently used defense mechanisms is to throw up vomiting powerful stomach acids. This accomplishes two things: It lightens its personal load and makes it easier to fly away and, at the same time, momentarily stuns, confuses or disgusts its potential predator. (I think this counts as a superpower!)
> In flight, it uses thermals to move through the air, flapping its wings infrequently (it is so beautiful and relaxing to watch them thermalling)
>Vultures are portrayed in many comedic stereotypical forms as desert-circling-last-moment-before-death birds, ugly and stupid. But in reality, they are graceful fascinating creatures that help keep our environment clean and healthy.
> In the United States of America, the vulture receives legal protection under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.
This vulture is often seen standing in a spread-winged stance. The stance is believed to serve multiple functions: drying the wings, warming the body, and baking off bacteria. It is practiced more often following damp or rainy nights.
The Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura), also known in some North American regions as the turkey buzzard (or just buzzard), and in some areas of the Caribbean as the John crow or carrion crow, is the most widespread of the New World vultures.
The Turkey Vulture is a scavenger and feeds almost exclusively on carrion. It finds its food using its keen eyes and sense of smell, flying low enough to detect the gases produced by the beginnings of the process of decay in dead animals. It roosts in large community groups.
Lacking a syrinx—the vocal organ of birds—its only vocalizations are grunts or low hisses. It nests in caves, hollow trees, or thickets. Each year it generally raises two chicks, which it feeds by regurgitation. It has very few natural predators. Turkey Vultures are not sexually dimorphic, meaning there is no way to tell male from female. The Turkey Vulture received its common name from the resemblance of the adult's bald red head and its dark plumage to that of the male Wild Turkey, while the name "vulture" is derived from the Latin word vulturus, meaning "tearer," and is a reference to its feeding habits.
Vultures have historically been grouped with other raptors on the basis of their overall appearance. Often seen soaring high in the sky, they are often mistaken for hawks or eagles.
However, it has recently been determined that the seven species of New World vultures are more closely related to storks than to the hawks and eagles with which they were originally grouped. Unlike all other raptors, vultures are not birds of prey. They feed solely on carrion, preferring animals that have been dead for two to four days. This certainly explains why they, unlike all other raptors, lack strong, grasping feet and talons. Feeding on carrion has led to a number of other vulture adaptations. Long, broad wings allow for many hours of effortless soaring. The elevated hind toe and blunt talons allow for easier walking. Their bare heads keep otherwise-present feathers from getting dirty and specialized enzymes and bacteria allow them to eat contaminated meat.