AND ROY K. DAVIS BUS WILL UPDATE THE THOMAS MINOTOUR AND WILL REPLACE 1999 CORBIEL QUANTUM.

E82

 

Bonhams : the Zoute Sale

Sold for € 57.500

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2017

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2017

 

Introduced in 2004, the 1-Series replaced the 3-Series Compact as the entry-level platform in BMW's line-up, sharing many components with the contemporary (E90) 3-Series. Three- and five-door hatchbacks, a two-door convertible and similar coupé were offered, the latter providing the basis for the high-performance 1M model. Developed by BMW Motorsport and announced in December 2010, the 1M coupé used a tuned version of the N54 twin-turbocharged 3.0-litre straight-six engine producing 335bhp, which was delivered to the road via a six-speed manual gearbox and electronic limited-slip differential. Unusually, there was no optional paddle-shift semi-automatic transmission, making the 1M something of a rarity among modern-day supercars, not that that bothered traditionalists used to shifting gears manually.

 

With its front engine/rear drive layout, traditional sports car handling, and colossal amounts of low-down torque, the 1M was enthusiastically received, particularly by those who felt that BMW's image had become diluted by too many SUVs; indeed, Top Gear's Richard Hammond voted the BMW 1M his 'Car of the Year 2011'. Autocar quoted a 0-60mph time of 4.6 seconds, while the 1M's top speed was limited to 155mph. Production of this critically acclaimed, limited edition model ceased at the end of 2012, cementing the 1M's relative exclusivity and future interest among collectors.

 

Discerning members of the latter fraternity will recognise the exceptional quality of this pampered example, which has covered fewer than 2,000 kilometres in the hands of its sole owner and is presented in pristine condition. The 1M was collected in November 2011 by the vendor directly from BMW Welt in Munich, and taken to his home on the back of a pickup truck, because he did not want any snow, salt or other impurities to contaminate his beautiful new car.

 

As one would expect of such a fastidious owner, the vendor has treated his 1M with great care, driving it only in good weather in order to preserve it in 'as new' condition, and keeping it in a humidity controlled garage. All oil changes and other maintenance tasks have been carried out at the recommended service intervals. The paintwork is as it left the factory, showing no scratches or marks from the car wash as it has only been cleaned with de-mineralised water without using any detergents, sponges, or rags.

 

All parts are like new: the wheel rims show no blemishes, brake discs and callipers show no corrosion, and the headlights and body are free of stone chips. A cover has always been used on the driver's seat to protect it, while the steering wheel has only ever been gripped by gloved hands. The driver's side floor mat has been protected by a towel, and Alcantara interior trim never touched with bare hands. The passenger seat has rarely been used and the rear seats never used; indeed, the entire interior is like new. The engine bay is similarly spotless, and the under-body as clean as it was the day the car left the factory.

Replacing a buffer on a mark 3 coach at Wembley depot.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 03-Dec-17, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 26-Aug-23.

 

Taken through glass with some slight reflections...

 

Fleet No: '272', "Stag" tail livery, different on the right-hand side.

 

This aircraft was ordered as a Boeing 737-200BJ with a VIP interior by The United Arab Emirates Amiri Flight. The registration A6-HHK was assigned but wasn't taken up. It was delivered to the UAE Amiri Flight as A6-AAA in Nov-78.

 

In Oct-95 the aircraft was sold to Interlease Aviation Investors as N1PC and the interior was converted to standard passenger configuration. It was leased to Air Tran (USA) in Dec-95 and returned to the lessor in Sep-98.

 

It was leased to Frontier Airlines in Nov-98 and returned to the lessor in Oct-03 when it was stored at Marana, AZ, USA. The aircraft was moved to Tucson, AZ, USA in Feb-06 before being sold to Aloha Airlines the following month.

 

It was re-registered N835AL in Jun-06. Aloha ceased trading in Apr-08 and the aircraft was stored at Honolulu. It was sold to Skybus LLC in Aug-08 and moved to Mojave, CA, USA the following month for further storage.

 

At the end of Jan-09 the aircraft was leased Aerosur Bolivia as CP-2561 and painted in the 'Bufeo' (River Dolphin) special livery. Aerosur ceased operations at the end of Mar-12 and the aircraft was stored at Cochabamba, Bolivia.

 

It was now 34 years old and never flew again. It was last noted still at Cochabamba in Dec-14 without engines and in poor condition.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

  

Some background:

The Tornado ADV had its origins in an RAF Air Staff Requirement 395 (or ASR.395), which called for a long-range interceptor to replace the Lightning F6 and Phantom FGR2. The requirement for a modern interceptor was driven by the threat posed by the large Soviet long-range bomber fleet, in particular the supersonic Tupolev Tu-22M. From the beginning of the Tornado IDS's development in 1968, the possibility of a variant dedicated to air defence had been quietly considered; several American aircraft had been evaluated, but found to be unsuitable. However, the concept proved unattractive to the other European partners on the Tornado project, thus the UK elected to proceed in its development alone. On 4 March 1976, the development of the Tornado ADV was formally approved.

 

In 1976, British Aerospace was contracted to provide three prototype aircraft. The first prototype was rolled out at Warton on 9 August 1979, before making its maiden flight on 27 October 1979. During the flight testing, the ADV demonstrated noticeably superior supersonic acceleration to the IDS, even while carrying a full weapons loadout.

 

The Tornado ADV's differences compared to the IDS include a greater sweep angle on the wing gloves, and the deletion of their kruger flaps, deletion of the port cannon, a longer radome for the Foxhunter radar, slightly longer airbrakes and a fuselage stretch of 1.36 m to allow the carriage of four Skyflash semi-active radar homing missiles. The stretch was applied to the Tornado front fuselage being built by the UK, with a plug being added immediately behind the cockpit, which had the unexpected benefit of reducing drag and making space for an additional fuel tank (Tank '0') carrying 200 imperial gallons (909 l; 240 U.S. gal) of fuel. The artificial feel of the flight controls was lighter on the ADV than on the IDS. Various internal avionics, pilot displays, guidance systems and software also differed; including an automatic wing sweep selector not fitted to the strike aircraft.

 

Production of the Tornado ADV was performed between 1980 and 1993, the last such aircraft being delivered that same year. A total of 165 Tornado ADVs were ordered by Britain, the majority being the Tornado F3. However, the Tornado ADV’s replacement, the aircraft that is known today as the Eurofighter Typhoon, met several delays – primarily of political nature. Even though the first production contract was already signed on 30 January 1998 between Eurofighter GmbH, Eurojet and NETMA for the procurement of a total of 232 for the UK, the development and eventually the delivery of the new aircraft was a protracted affair. It actually took until 9 August 2007, when the UK's Ministry of Defence reported that No. 11 Squadron RAF, which stood up as a Typhoon squadron on 29 March 2007, had received its first two multi-role Typhoons. Until then, the Tornado F.3 had become more and more obsolete, since the type was only suited to a limited kind of missions, and it became obvious that the Tornado ADV would have to be kept in service for several years in order to keep Great Britain’s aerial defence up.

 

In order to bridge the Typhoon service gap, two update programs had already been launched by the MoD in 2004, which led to the Tornado F.5 and F.6 versions. These were both modified F.3 airframes, catering to different, more specialized roles. The F.5 had a further extended fuselage and modified wings, so that it could operate more effectively in the long range fighter patrol role over the North Sea and the Northern Atlantic. On the other side, the F.6 was tailored to the mainland interceptor role at low and medium altitudes and featured new engines for a better performance in QRA duties. Both fighter variants shared improved avionics and weapons that had already been developed for the Eurofighter Typhoon, or were still under development.

 

The Tornado F.6’s new engines were a pair of Eurojet EJ200 afterburning turbofans, which offered 30% more dry and 20% more afterburner thrust than the F.3’s original Turbo-Union RB199-34R turbofans. These more modern and fuel-efficient engines allowed prolonged supercruise, and range as well as top speed were improved, too. Furthermore, there was the (theoretical) option to combine the new engine with vectored thrust nozzles, even though this would most probably not take place since the Tornado ADV had never been designed as a true dogfighter, even though it was, for an aircraft of its size, quite an agile aircraft.

 

However, the integration of the EJ200 into the existing airframe called for major modifications that affected the aircraft’s structure. The tail section had to be modified in order to carry the EJ200’s different afterburner section. Its bigger diameter and longer nozzle precluded the use of the original thrust reverser. This unique feature was retained, though, so that the mechanism had to be modified: the standard deflectors, which used to extend backwards behind the nozzles, now opened inwards into the airflow before the exhaust.

Since the new engines had a considerably higher airflow rate, the air intakes with the respective ducts had to be enlarged and adapted, too. Several layouts were tested, including two dorsal auxiliary air intakes to the original, wedge-shaped orifices, but eventually the whole intake arrangement with horizontal ramps was changed into tall side intakes with vertical splitter plates, reminiscent of the F-4 Phantom. Even though this meant a thorough redesign of the fuselage section under the wing sweep mechanism and a reduction of tank “0”’s volume, the new arrangement improved the aircraft’s aerodynamics further and slightly enlarged the wing area, which resulted in a minor net increase of range.

 

The F.3’s GEC-Marconi/Ferranti AI.24 Foxhunter radar was retained, but an infrared search and track (IRST) sensor, the Passive Infra-Red Airborne Track Equipment (PIRATE), was mounted in a semispherical housing on the port side of the fuselage in front of the windscreen and linked to the pilot’s helmet-mounted display. By supercooling the sensor, the system was able to detect even small variations in temperature at a long range, and it allowed the detection of both hot exhaust plumes of jet engines and surface heating caused by friction.

PIRATE operated in two IR bands and could be used together with the radar in an air-to-air role, adding visual input to the radar’s readings. Beyond that, PIRATE could also function as an independent infrared search and track system, providing passive target detection and tracking, and the system was also able to provide navigation and landing aid.

In an optional air-to-surface role, PIRATE can also perform target identification and acquisition, up to 200 targets could be simultaneously tracked. Although no definitive ranges had been released, an upper limit of 80 nm has been hinted at; a more typical figure would be 30 to 50 nm.

 

The Tornado F.3’s Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon was retained and the F.6 was from the start outfitted with the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile, with the outlook to switch as soon as possible to the new, ram jet-driven Meteor AAM with higher speed and range. Meteor had been under development since 1994 and was to be carried by the Eurofighter Typhoon as its primary mid-range weapon. With a range of 100+ km (63 mi, 60 km no-escape zone) and a top speed of more than Mach 4, Meteor, with its throttleable ducted rocket engine, offered a considerably improvement above AMRAAM. However, it took until 2016 that Meteor became fully operational and was rolled out to operational RAF fighter units.

 

A total of 36 Tornado F.3 airframes with relatively low flying hours were brought to F.6 standard in the course of 2006-8 and gradually replaced older F.3s in RAF fighter units until 2009. The Tornado F.3 itself was retired in March 2011 when No. 111 Squadron RAF, located at RAF Leuchars, was disbanded. Both the F.5 and F.6 will at least keep on serving until the Eurofighter Typhoon is in full service, probably until 2020.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 2

Length: 18.68 m (61 ft 3½ in)

Wingspan: 13.91 m (45 ft 7½ in) at 25° wing position

8.60 m (28 ft 2½ in) at 67° wing position

Height: 5.95 m (19 ft 6½ in)

Wing area: 27.55 m² (295.5 sq ft)

Empty weight: 14,750 kg (32,490 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 28,450 kg (62,655 lb)

 

Powerplant:

2× Eurojet EJ200 afterburning turbofans with 60 kN (13,500 lbf) dry thrust and

90 kN (20,230 lbf) thrust with afterburner each

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: Mach 2.3 (2,500 km/h, 1,550 mph) at 9,000 m (30,000 ft)

921 mph (800 knots, 1,482 km/h) indicated airspeed limit near sea level

Combat radius: more than 1,990 km (1.100 nmi, 1,236 mi) subsonic,

more than 556 km (300 nmi, 345 mi) supersonic

Ferry range: 4,265 km (2,300 nmi, 2,650 mi) with four external tanks

Endurance: 2 hr combat air patrol at 560-740 km (300-400 nmi, 345-460 mi) from base

Service ceiling: 15,240 m (50,000 ft)

 

Armament:

1× 27 mm (1.063 in) Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon with 180 RPG under starboard fuselage side

A total of 10 hardpoints (4× semi-recessed under-fuselage, 2× under-fuselage, 4× swivelling

under-wing) holding up to 9000 kg (19,800 lb) of payload; the two inner wing pylons have shoulder

launch rails for 2× Short-Range AAM (SRAAM) each (AIM-9 Sidewinder or AIM-132 ASRAAM)

4× MBDO Meteor or AIM-120 AMRAAM, mounted under the fuselage

  

The kit and its assembly:

The eight entry for the RAF Centenary Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and after 100 years of RAF what-if models we have now arrived at the present. This modified Tornado ADV was spawned through the discussions surrounding another modeler’s build of a modified F.3 (and examples of other Tornado conversions, e. g. with fixed wings or twin fins), and I spontaneously wondered what a change of the air intakes would do to the aircraft’s overall impression? Most conversions I have seen so far retain this original detail. An idea was born, and a pair of leftover Academy MiG-23 air intakes, complete with splitter plates, were the suitable conversion basis.

 

The basic kit is the Italeri Tornado ADV, even though in a later Revell re-boxing. It’s IMHO the kit with the best price-performance ration, and it goes together well. The kit was mostly built OOB, with some cosmetic additions. The biggest changes came through the integration of the completely different air intakes. These were finished at first and, using them as templates, openings were cut into the lower fuselage flanks in front of the landing gear well. Since the MiG-23 intakes have a relatively short upper side, styrene sheet fillers had to be added and blended with the rest of the fuselage via PSR. The gap between the wing root gloves and the intakes had to be bridged, too, with 2C putty. Messier affair than it sounds, but it went well.

 

In order to make the engine change plausible I modified the Tornado exhaust and added a pair of orifices from an F-18 – they look very similar to those on the Eurofighter Typhoon, and their diameter is perfect for this change. This and the different air intakes stretch the Tonka visually, it looks IMHO even more slender than the F.3.

 

Another issue was the canopy: the 2nd hand kit came without clear parts, but I was lucky to still have a Tornado F.3 canopy in the spares box – but only the windscreen from a Tornado IDS, which does not fit well onto the ADV variant. A 2mm gap at the front end had to be bridged, and the angles on the side as well as the internal space to the HUD does not match too well. But, somehow, I got it into place, even though it looks a bit shaggy.

The IRST in front of the windscreen is a piece of clear styrene sprue (instead of an opaque piece, painted glossy black), placed on a black background. The depth effect is very good!

 

More changes pertained to the ordnance: the complete weaponry was exchanged. The OOB Sidewinders were replaced with specimen from a Hasegawa F-4 Phantom (these look just better than the AIM-9 that come with the kit), and I originally planned to mount four AIM-120 from the same source under the fuselage – until I found a Revell Eurofighter kit in my stash that came with four Meteor AAMs, a suitable and more modern as well as British alternative!

 

All in all, just subtle modifications.

  

Painting and markings:

Well, the RAF was the creative direction, so I stuck to a classic/conservative livery. However, I did not want a 100% copy of the typical “real world” RAF Tornado F.3, so I sought inspiration in earlier low-visibility schemes. Esp. the Phantom and the Lightning carried in their late days a wide variety of grey-in-grey schemes, and one of the most interesting of them (IMHO) was carried by XS 933: like some other Lightnings, the upper surfaces were painted in Dark Sea Grey (instead of the standard Medium Sea Grey), a considerably murkier tone, but XS933 had a mid-height waterline. I found that scheme to be quite plausible for an aircraft that would mostly operate above open water and in heavier weather, so I adapted it to the Tonka. The fact that XS 933 was operated by RAF 5 Squadron, the same unit as my build depicts with its markings, is just a weird coincidence!

An alternative would have been the same colors, but with a low waterline (e.g. like Lightning XR728) – but I rejected this, because the result would have looked IMHO much too similar to the late Tornado GR.4 fighter bombers, or like a Royal Navy aircraft.

 

Since the upper color would be wrapped around the wings’ leading edges, I used the lower wing leading edge level as reference for the high waterline on the forward fuselage, Behind the wings’ trailing edge I lowered the waterline down to the stabilizers’ level.

All upper surfaces, including the tall fin, were painted with Tamiya XF-54, a relatively light interpretation of RAF Dark Sea Grey (because I did not want a harsh contrast with the lower colors), while the fuselage undersides and flanks were painted in Medium Sea Grey (Humbrol 165). The same tone was also used for the underwing pylons and the “Hindenburger” drop tanks. The undersides of the wings and the stabilizers were painted in Camouflage Grey (formerly known as Barley Grey, Humbrol 167).

 

Disaster struck when I applied the Tamiya paint, though. I am not certain why (age of the paint, I guess), but the finish developed a kind of “pigment pelt” which turned out to be VERY sensitive to touch. Even the slightest handling would leave dark, shiny spots!

My initial attempt was to hide most of this problem under post-shading (with Humbrol 126, FS 36270), but that turned the Tonka visually into a Tiger Meet participant – the whole thing looked as if it wore low-viz stripes! Aaargh!

 

In a desperate move (since more and more paint piled up on the upper surfaces, and I did not want to strip the kit off of all paint right now) I applied another thin coat of highly diluted XF-54 on top of the tiger stripe mess, and that toned everything done enough to call it a day. While the finish is not perfect and still quite shaggy (even streaky here and there…), it looks O.K., just like a worn and bleached Dark Sea Grey.

 

A little more rescue came with the decals. The markings are naturally low-viz variants and the RAF 5 Sq. markings come from an Xtradecal BAC Lightning sheet (so they differ from the markings applied to the real world Tornado F.3s of this unit). The zillion of stencils come from the OOB sheet, but the walking area warnings came from a Model Decal Tornado F.3 sheet (OOB, Revell only provides you a bunch of generic, thin white lines, printed on a single carrier film, and tells you “Good luck”! WTF?). Took a whole afternoon to apply them, but I used as many of them as possible in order to hide the paint finish problems… Some things, like the tactical letter code or the red bar under the fuselage roundel, had to be improvised.

  

With many troubles involved (the paint job, but furthermore the wing pylons as well as one stabilizer broke off during the building and painting process…), I must say that the modified Tonka turned out better than expected while I was still working on it. In the end, I am happy with it – it’s very subtle, I wonder how many people actually notice the change of air intakes and jet exhausts, and the Meteor AAMs are, while not overtly visible, a nice update, too.

The paint scheme looks basically also good (if you overlook the not-so-good finish due to the problems with the Tamiya paint), and the darker tones suit the Tonka well, as well as the fake RAF 5 Squadron markings.

Replaced the last CRT with an HP w2207

added a lil change to my design on request

 

www.lucky1tattoo.com

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

  

Some Background:

The Lockheed F-94 Starfire was a first-generation jet aircraft of the United States Air Force. It was developed from the twin-seat Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star in the late 1940s as an all-weather, day/night interceptor, replacing the propeller-driven North American F-82 Twin Mustang in this role. The system was designed to overtake the F-80 in terms of performance, but more so to intercept the new high-level Soviet bombers capable of nuclear attacks on America and her Allies - in particular, the new Tupelov Tu-4. The F-94 was furthermore the first operational USAF fighter equipped with an afterburner and was the first jet-powered all-weather fighter to enter combat during the Korean War in January 1953.

 

The initial production model, the F-94A, entered operational service in May 1950. Its armament consisted of four 0.50 in (12.7 mm) M3 Browning machine guns mounted in the fuselage with the muzzles exiting under the radome for the APG-33 radar, a derivative from the AN/APG-3, which directed the Convair B-36's tail guns and had a range of up to 20 miles (32 km). Two 165 US Gallon (1,204 litre) drop tanks, as carried by the F-80 and T-33, were carried on the wingtips. Alternatively, these could be replaced by a pair of 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs under the wings, giving the aircraft a secondary fighter bomber capability. 109 were produced.

 

The subsequent F-94B, which entered service in January 1951, was outwardly virtually identical to the F-94A. Its Allison J33 turbojet had a number of modifications made, though, which made it a very reliable engine. The pilot was provided with a roomier cockpit and the canopy received a bow frame in the center between the two crew members. A new Instrument Landing System (ILS) was fitted, too, which made operations at night and/or in bad weather much safer. However, this new variant’s punch with just four machine guns remained weak, and, to improve the load of fire, wing-mounted pods with two additional pairs of 0.5” machine guns were introduced – but these hardly improved the interceptor’s effectiveness. 356 of the F-94B were nevertheless built.

 

The following F-94C was extensively modified and initially designated F-97, but it was ultimately decided just to treat it as a new version of the F-94. USAF interest was lukewarm since aircraft technology had already developed at a fast pace – supersonic performance had already become standard. Lockheed funded development themselves, converting two F-94B airframes to YF-94C prototypes for evaluation with a completely new, much thinner wing, a swept tail surface and a more powerful Pratt & Whitney J48. This was a license-built version of the afterburning Rolls-Royce Tay, which produced a dry thrust of 6,350 pounds-force (28.2 kN) and approximately 8,750 pounds-force (38.9 kN) with afterburning. Instead of machine guns, the proposed new variant was exclusively armed with unguided air-to-air missiles.

Tests were positive and eventually the F-94C was adopted for USAF service, since it was the best interim solution for an all-weather fighter at that time. It still had to rely on Ground Control Interception Radar (GCI) sites to vector the interceptor to intruding aircraft, though.

 

The F-94C's introduction and the availability of the more effective Northrop F-89C/D Scorpion and the North American F-86D Sabre interceptors led to a quick relegation of the earlier F-94 variants from mid-1954 onwards to second line units and to Air National Guards. By 1955 most of them had already been phased out of USAF service, and some of these relatively young surplus machines were subsequently exported or handed over to friendly nations, too. When sent to the ANG, the F-94As were modified by Lockheed to F-94B standards and then returned to the ANG as B models. They primarily replaced outdated F-80C Shooting Stars and F-51D/H Mustangs.

 

At that time the USAF was looking for a tactical reconnaissance aircraft, a more effective successor for the RF-80A which had shown its worth and weaknesses during the Korea War. For instance, the plane could not fly at low altitude long enough to perform suitable visual reconnaissance, and its camera equipment was still based on WWII standards. Lockheed saw the opportunity to fill this operational gap with conversions of existing F-94A/B airframes, which had, in most cases, only had clocked few flying hours, primarily at high altitudes where Soviet bombers were expected to lurk, and still a lot of airframe life to offer. This led to another private venture, the RF-94B, auspiciously christened “Stargazer”.

 

The RF-94B was based on the F-94B interceptor with its J33 engine and the original unswept tail. The F-94B’s wings were retained but received a different leading-edge profile to better cope with operations at low altitude. The interceptor’s nose with the radome and the machine guns underneath was replaced by a new all-metal nose cone, which was more than 3 feet longer than the former radar nose, with windows for several sets of cameras; the wedge-shaped nose cone quickly earned the aircraft the unofficial nickname “Crocodile”.

One camera was looking ahead into flight direction and could be mounted at different angled downward (but not moved during flight), followed by two oblique cameras, looking to the left and the right, and a vertical camera as well as a long-range camera focussed on the horizon, which was behind a round window at port side. An additional, spacious compartment in front of the landing gear well held an innovative Tri-Metrogen horizon-to-horizon view system that consisted of three synchronized cameras. Coupled with a computerized control system based on light, speed, and altitude, it adjusted camera settings to produce pictures with greater delineation.

All cameras could be triggered individually by pilot or a dedicated observer/camera systems operator in the 2nd seat. Talking into a wire recorder, the crew could describe ground movements that might not have appeared in still pictures. A vertical view finder with a periscopic presentation on the cockpit panel was added for the pilot to enhance visual reconnaissance and target identification directly under the aircraft. Using magnesium flares carried under its wings in flash-ejector cartridges, the RF-94B was furthermore able to fly night missions.

The RF-94B was supposed to operate unarmed, but it could still carry a pair of 1.000 lb bombs under its wings or, thanks to added plumbings, an extra pair of drop tanks for ferry flights. The F-94A/B’s machine gun pods as well as the F-94C’s unguided missile launchers could be mounted to the wings, too, making it a viable attack aircraft in a secondary role.

 

The USAF was highly interested in this update proposal for the outdated interceptors (almost 500 F-94A/Bs had been built) and ordered 100 RF-94B conversions with an option for 100 more – just when a severe (and superior) competitor entered the stage after a lot of development troubles: Republic’s RF-84F Thunderflash reconnaissance version. The first YRF-84F had already been completed in February 1952 and it had an overall slightly better performance than the RF-94B. However, it offered more internal space for reconnaissance systems and was able to carry up to fifteen cameras with the support of many automatized systems, so that it was a single seater. Being largely identical to the F-84F and sharing its technical and logistical infrastructures, the USAF decided on short notice to change its procurement decision and rather adopt the more modern and promising Thunderflash as its standard tactical reconnaissance aircraft. The RF-94B conversion order was reduced to the initial 100 aircraft, and to avoid operational complexity these aircraft were exclusively delivered to Air National Guardss that had experience with the F-94A/B to replace their obsolete RF-80As.

 

Gradual replacement lasted until 1958, and while the RF-94B’s performance was overall better than the RF-80A’s, it was still disappointing and not the expected tactical intelligence gathering leap forward. The airframe did not cope well with constant low-level operations, and the aircraft’s marginal speed and handling did not ensure its survivability. However, unlike the RF-84F, which suffered from frequent engine problems, the Stargazers’ J33 made them highly reliable platforms – even though the complex Tri-Metrogen device turned out to be capricious, so that it was soon replaced with up to three standard cameras.

 

For better handling and less drag esp. at low altitude, the F-94B’s large Fletcher type wingtip tanks were frequently replaced with smaller ones with about half capacity. It also became common practice to operate the RF-94Bs with only a crew of one, and from 1960 on the RF-94B was, thanks to its second seat, more and more used as a trainer before pilots mounted more potent reconnaissance aircraft like the RF-101 Voodoo, which eventually replaced the RF-94B in ANG service. The last RF-94B was phased out in 1968, and, unlike the RF-84F, it was not operated by any foreign air force.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 2 (but frequently operated by a single pilot)

Length: 43 ft 4 3/4 in (13.25 m)

Wingspan (with tip tanks): 40 ft 9 1/2 in (12.45 m)

Height: 12 ft. 2 (3.73 m)

Wing area: 234' 8" sq ft (29.11 m²)

Empty weight: 10,064 lb (4,570 kg)

Loaded weight: 15,330 lb (6,960 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 24,184 lb (10,970 kg)

 

Powerplant:

1× Allison J33-A-33 turbojet, rated at 4,600 lbf (20.4 kN) continuous thrust,

5,400 lbf (24 kN) with water injection and 6,000 lbf (26.6 kN) thrust with afterburner

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 630 mph (1,014 km/h) at height and in level flight

Range: 930 mi (813 nmi, 1,500 km) in combat configuration with two drop tanks

Ferry range: 1,457 mi (1,275 nmi, 2,345 km)

Service ceiling: 42,750 ft (14,000 m)

Rate of climb: 6,858 ft/min (34.9 m/s)

Wing loading: 57.4 lb/ft² (384 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.48

 

Armament:

No internal guns; 2x 165 US Gallon (1,204 liter) drop tanks on the wing tips and…

2x underwing hardpoints for two additional 165 US Gallon (1,204 liter) ferry tanks

or bombs of up to 1.000 lb (454 kg) caliber each, plus…

2x optional (rarely fitted) pods on the wings’ leading edges with either a pair of 0.5" (12.7 mm)

machine guns or twelve 2.75” (70 mm) Mk 4/Mk 40 Folding-Fin Aerial Rockets each

  

The kit and its assembly:

This project was originally earmarked as a submission for the 2021 “Reconnaissance & Surveillance” group build at whatifmodellers.com, in the form of a Heller F-94B with a new nose section. The inspiration behind this build was the real-world EF-94C (s/n 50-963): a solitary conversion with a bulbous camera nose. However, the EF-94C was not a reconnaissance aircraft but rather a chase plane/camera ship for the Air Research and Development Command, hence its unusual designation with the suffix “E”, standing for “Exempt” instead of the more appropriate “R” for a dedicated recce aircraft. There also was another EF-94C, but this was a totally different kind of aircraft: an ejection seat testbed.

 

I had a surplus Heller F-94B kit in The Stash™ and it was built almost completely OOB and did – except for some sinkholes and standard PSR work – not pose any problem. In fact, the old Heller Starfire model is IMHO a pretty good representation of the aircraft. O.K., its age might show, but almost anything you could ask for at 1:72 scale is there, including a decent, detailed cockpit.

 

The biggest change was the new camera nose, and it was scratched from an unlikely donor part: it consists of a Matchbox B-17G tail gunner station, slimmed down by the gunner station glazing's width at the seam in the middle, and this "sandwich" was furthermore turned upside down. Getting the transitional sections right took lots of PSR, though, and I added some styrene profiles to integrate the new nose into the rest of the hull. It was unintentional, but the new nose profile reminds a lot of a RF-101 recce Voodoo, and there's, with the straight wings, a very F-89ish look to the aircraft now? There's also something F2H-2ish about the outlines?

 

The large original wing tip tanks were cut off and replaced with smaller alternatives from a Hasegawa A-37. Because it was easy to realize on this kit I lowered the flaps, together with open ventral air brakes. The cockpit was taken OOB, I just modified the work station on the rear seat and replaced the rubber sight protector for the WSO with two screens for a camera operator. Finally, the one-piece cockpit glazing was cut into two parts to present the model with an open canopy.

  

Painting and markings:

This was a tough decision: either an NMF finish (the natural first choice), an overall light grey anti-corrosive coat of paint, both with relatively colorful unit markings, or camouflage. The USAF’s earlier RF-80As carried a unique scheme in olive drab/neutral grey with a medium waterline, but that would look rather vintage on the F-94. I decided that some tactical camouflage would make most sense on this kind of aircraft and eventually settled for the USAF’s SEA scheme with reduced tactical markings, which – after some field tests and improvisations in Vietnam – became standardized and was officially introduced to USAF aircraft around 1965 as well as to ANG units.

 

Even though I had already built a camouflaged F-94 some time ago (a Hellenic aircraft in worn SEA colors), I settled for this route. The basic colors (FS 30219, 34227, 34279 and 36622) all came from Humbrol (118, 117, 116 and 28, respectively), and for the pattern I adapted the paint scheme of the USAF’s probably only T-33 in SEA colors: a trainer based on Iceland during the Seventies and available as a markings option in one of the Special Hobby 1:32 T-33 kits. The low waterline received a wavy shape, inspired by an early ANG RF-101 in SEA camouflage I came across in a book. The new SEA scheme was apparently applied with a lot of enthusiasm and properness when it was brand new, but this quickly vaned. As an extra, the wing tip tanks received black anti-glare sections on their inner faces and a black anti-glare panel was added in front of the windscreen - a decal from a T-33 aftermarket sheet. Beyond a black ink wash the model received some subtle panel post-shading, but rather to emphasize surface details than for serious weathering.

 

The cockpit became very dark grey (Revell 06) while the landing gear wells were kept in zinc chromate green primer (Humbrol 80, Grass Green), with bright red (Humbrol 60, Matt Red) cover interiors and struts and wheels in aluminum (Humbrol 56). The interior of the flaps and the ventral air brakes became red, too.

 

The decals/markings came from a Special Hobby 1:72 F-86H; there’s a dedicated ANG boxing of the kit that comes with an optional camouflaged aircraft of the NY ANG, the least unit to operate the “Sabre Hog” during the Seventies. Since this 138th TFS formerly operated the F-94A/B, it was a perfect option for the RF-94B! I just used a different Bu. No. code on the fin, taken from a PrintScale A/T-37 set, and most stencils were perocured from the scrap box.

After a final light treatment with graphite around the afterburner for a more metallic shine of the iron metallic (Revell 97) underneath, the kit was sealed with a coat of matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).

  

A camouflaged F-94 is an unusual sight, but it works very well. The new/longer nose considerably changes the aircraft's profile, and even though the change is massive, the "Crocodile" looks surprisingly plausible, if not believable! And, despite the long nose, the aircraft looks pretty sleek, especially in the air.

In the 1890s members of the parish of St. John's Church discussed the prospects of replacing the wooden church they used for worship, that was erected in 1868, with a more substantial structure, but no definite action was taken. The proposal was afterwards revived on various occasions, but it was not until the early 1930s that a preliminary sketch plan of a new building was prepared. However, in the Great Depression era, finance held the project up until 1936, when a definite move was made to erect a new Anglican Church on a site in Downey Street on the same block as the rectory.

 

The St John’s Anglican Church that we see today on Downey Street, Alexandra, opposite the State Offices, is the result. Plans for a notable improvement in local church architecture were prepared by Mr. L. R. Williams of Melbourne, and a contract awarded to Mr. George. A. Payne of Alexandra. The new church is built in Spanish Mission style and is constructed of the 1930s wonder building material; concrete. The current church building, which has a stuccoed treatment to its walls, is a notable landmark in the town because of its elegant lines, its elongated shape and the very tall belfry that stands above the single and double-storey buildings in its immediate vicinity. It has architectural features typical of the Spanish Mission style, including; groups of narrow arched windows, ornamental grillework over some of the windows, decorative parapets on the belfry, a hipped roof and Spanish style tiles. Together with interior furnishings, St John’s Anglican Church cost about £2,400.00.

 

Many pieces of the church’s furnishings, windows and supporting structures were gifts from the generous local community. The memorial gates leading onto the street were given by Mr. and Mrs. George. A. Payne in memory of their mothers – Mrs. Phoebe J. Payne and Mrs. M. A. Haning. Mr. George A. Payne also generously donated over £100.00 in order to provide for a more expensive terracotta tiled roof, instead of the cheaper alternative iron roof, which was provided for in the contract. The tiles give added beauty to the building. The pulpit, altar, and choir rails are outstanding examples of local craftsmanship, and are made from Ruoak timber obtained from the Rubicon forest close by. Mrs. G. Hall, contributed the cost of the pulpit, and the late Mr. Gordon Payne, the altar and rails. Both were dedicated to memory of their parents, the late Mr. and Mrs. G. Payne, of "Summerview," Messrs. Clark and Pearce provided and fixed the dado. The ladies' club supplied the carpet. Mr. G. Sapsford paid for the choir stall, which was dedicated to memory of his mother, the late Mrs. Mary Jane Payne. A Miss Magee had a stained glass window dedicated to the memory of her brothers and sister. A Mr. George A. Payne's family also dedicated a stained glass window, in memory of their mother, Phoebe J. Payne. Mr. E. Trenerry donated a prayer desk and seat. Mr. G. Grant donated a credence table. Miss L. Maddox donated a set of communion cruets. Mrs. Melville gave a pedestal and Mr. and Mrs. J. F. Webb dedicated a pedestal to the memory of their daughter Winifred.

 

St John’s Anglican Church was dedicated on a Saturday afternoon in 1937 by the Bishop of Wangaratta, the Right Rev. J. S. Hart, in the presence of over 350 people, who came from near and far to take part in an historic event of great in interest to the Anglican community around Alexandra. At 2.30 p.m. the choir and members of the clergy marched round the building, singing the hymn, "Through all the changing scenes of life." At the main entrance the Bishop was presented with a petition, on behalf of the congregation, praying that the building be dedicated. After prayers had been said the Bishop blessed the baptismal font, pulpit and altar, and dedicated the pulpit and altar. The church and various gifts were also dedicated, and the Bishop, in his address, said the old structure had outlived its usefulness, and now the people had given a beautiful present to the glory of God in a new church After referring to preliminary steps taken by the Rev, L. G. Ball, the Bishop said that under the able guidance of the present rector, the Rev. Douglas Blake, the work had been planned and carried out. The rector had the real gift of leadership, combined with common sense and artistic taste. The architect had given of his best, and the contractor had realised his dream of building a worthy structure. The visiting clergy included two former rectors – Cannons Scott and Rowed, the Revs. Robertson and Brown (Violet Town and Mansfield respectively) and Mr. Purbrick, Registrar of the Diocese. All present were afterwards entertained by the ladies in the church hall, where a bountiful supply of refreshments was provided.

 

The Spanish Mission style was typically a style that emerged in California during the interwar years and spread across the world.

 

Alexandra is a town in Victoria, Australia. It is located at the junction of the Goulburn Valley Highway (B340) and Maroondah Highway (B360), 26 kilometres west of Eildon. The town was settled in the late 1860s, with a Post Office opening on 15 March 1867 (known until 24 April 1867) as Redgate. The town was originally known as Redgate, or Red Gate Diggings. The current name either derives from Alexandra of Denmark (Queen’s Consort to King Edward VII of England) when given a stature of her to the shire; or from three men named Alexander (Alesander, McGregor, Alexander Don, and Alexander Luckie) who discovered gold in the area in 1866. Charles Jones born Herefordshire also discovered Gold on the Luckie Mine in 1866. He bought a Hotel with John Henry Osborne and was the proprietor of the New York and London Hotel Grant Street Alexandra. The railway to Alexandra arrived in the town via Yea from Tallarook in 1909, and closed on November 18, 1978. The Rubicon Tramway connected Alexandra with the village of Rubicon, at the junction of the Rubicon and Royston Rivers. Today many tourists pass through Alexandra on their way to the Mount Buller ski resort from Melbourne. The town contains the Timber Tramway and Museum (located at the Alexandra Railway Station), and the National Trust classified post office and law courts. There is a local market on the second Saturday of each month from September to May, an annual art show at Easter, an agricultural show and rose festival in November, and the annual Truck, Rod and Ute Show in June.

  

Palais Württemberg - Hotel Imperial

1, Kärntner Ring 16

Architects: Arnold Zenetti, Heinrich Adam

1862 - 1865

The client - The Palais turns into hotel - War, soviet occupation - Reopening

Facade - Portal - Grand Staircase

(if you want like to see many more pictures please go to the link at the end of page!)

History - the builder

The Imperial Hotel began its history as a palace. It emerged as one of the first buildings on one of the best and most expensive grounds, with unobstructed views to the Karlskirche.

Even for a Adelspalais (noble palace) it was very representative. The room was divided wastefullly: Just the grand staircase would have provided space for two apartments in a normal apartment building. Who had built this way, did not have to pay attention to his money.

The client was according to this an illustrious figure: Closely related to the Württemberg Royal Family (1806 establishing the Kingdom of Württemberg) came Duke Philipp of Württemberg (1838 - 1917), son of Alexander Friedrich Wilhelm of Württemberg 1838 in the French Neuilly into the world.

His mother, a princess of Orleans, died a few months after Philip's birth, so he was baptized and brought up by his grandparents, the French citizen-king Louis Philippe, the last official King of France and his wife, Queen Marie Amelie, in Paris.

Duke Philipp of Württemberg

With ten years Philip had with the royal family in 1848 to flee from the revolting crowd of the capital and he returned to Bayreuth.

His father had later again married, to the displeasure of the Son, because the marriage was morganatic: she was his housekeeper.

Philip pursued a military career.

Shell Palais Württemberg

Wedding with (female) Habsburg

In the great conflict between Austria and Prussia, he was on the side of the Habsburgs and counted as one of the losers of Hradec Kralove (Königgrätz).

The Württemberg were on par with Europe's most powerful royal houses. Philip asked for the hand of the youngest sister of Empress Elisabeth, Princess Sophie, but the marriage did not materialize.

Finally, his love brought him to Vienna, the Duke married into the Habsburg family.

In 1865 he married Archduchess Marie Therese (1845 - 1927), daughter of Archduke Albrecht (Monument Albertina ramp), granddaughter of Archduke Charles, the victor of Aspern (Memorial Heldenplatz).

The wedding took place in the court chapel of the Hofburg in Vienna.

Wedding with Habsburg

Together they moved into the newly completed palace on the Ringstrasse.

It was built in 1863-65 by the Munich architect Arnold Zenetti, according to the plans of Heinrich Adam (grave Central Cemetery).

His wife had recently suffered a severe stroke of fate: her mother had so strongly caught a cold during the funeral of her brother that she died as a result. And soon should burn her sister Mathilde alive.

This one had dressed a gown made ​​of Indian muslin for the theater. This type of material was impregnated at that time with glycerol to give the fabric more fullness.

Before leaving the theater she wanted to smoke a cigarette. When suddenly her father, who had strictly forbidden her smoking came in, she hid the cigarette behind her baggy dress. The highly combustible, glycerol impregnated fabric immediately went up in flames.

Floor Plan 1st storey

The view to the Charles Church was lost

A clear view to the Charles Church was lost by the building of the Musikverein.

The Duke could not enjoy his palace for long. Because behind it, to the Karlsplatz, there was a leafy park, which gave a clear view over to Charles Church.

But when he returned from Hradec Kralove, one was just digging the foundation of the Musikverein. 1870 was the "temple of music" finished and the beautiful view history.

Musikverein, on your left, behind the Imperial Hotel

That should have been the reason that Philip the following year sold his palace. I think this is one of the many "tales", because all the reception rooms were on the side of the ring road. If the view would have been sooo important to him, he would have also had laid out on the back of the Palais 'comfortable' rooms. Anyway, he moved to Strudelhof in the 9th District, a cheaper solution, it was the question here of a spacious villa. Incidentally, it is also told that he had gambling debts and therefore he could not afford the expensive palace on the Ringstrasse anymore.

Summer residence

Duke Philip, who did not feel quite at home in Vienna, lusted after a summer residence in the Salzkammergut.

(The Salzkammergut is a resort area located in Austria. It stretches from the City of Salzburg eastwards along the Austrian Alpine Foreland and the Northern Limestone Alps to the peaks of the Dachstein Mountains, spanning the federal states of Upper Austria, Salzburg, and Styria. The main river of the region is the Traun, a right tributary of the Danube. The name Salzkammergut literally means "Estate of the Salt Chamber" and derives from the Imperial Salt Chamber, the authority charged with running the precious salt mines of the Habsburg Monarchy.)

In addition to hunting around Gmunden the Duke dedicated his passion to the emerging photography.

The architect Heinrich Adam built for the Duke and Duchess in 1872 Villa Maria Theresia in Altmünster according to a French model high above the Lake Traun.

In the summer of 1875 they moved in, 1878-80, the chapel was rebuilt by Heinrich von Ferstel.

Summer residence in Altmünster in Gmunden

As the succession of the Stuttgart parent house fell on Philip's son Albrecht, Philipp moved in 1905 with his family to the Stuttgart Prince Palace. After his death in 1917 his widow Maria Theresa spent her lonely summers preferably in Altmünster until she died for herself in 1927.

The Palais becomes Hotel

The palace was in 1872 in the hands of the Budapest hotelier Johann Frohner. As businessman he sensed with the approaching World's Fair his chance.

And he knew that there was a lack of representative lodging in Vienna, so he turned the magnificent building into a hotel.

At the opening Emperor Franz Joseph I also was invited, which was served a cake. It is said that he had it appreciated, so was the Frohner cake, now called Imperial Torte, born. The special thing about it: it is square.

An original recipe of the Imperial Torte from the 19th Century, however, is not handed down. She is known for only a few decades. At that time it was begun to offer it as a house cake at Café Imperial.

Several years ago was launched a marketing campaign and it was accomplished that the Imperial Torte today is sent around the world and one, according to the house, needs a total mass of 40 tonnes per year for it.

Imperial square cake

Café Imperial, recording 1941

The conservatory

The courtyard becomes a winter garden.

Donauweibchen (Danube maiden) copy

Frohner had a sense for staging. The glass-covered courtyard became a dining room with conservatory flair.

In the middle was a copy of the Danube female from the city park. Today she is at the end of the grand staircase.

The newspapers were ironed so guests did not have ink on their fingers. And the butler service is available to this day.

Who has once looked into it, knows why we put most of our state guests there - it is just not a "normal" hotel, but still a palace, one of the most magnificent!

Between the lobby and the Café Imperial runs a narrow passage where the house's history is told in pictures and text. And it is also worthwhile to study the guest list shown there.

Lobby to Frohner times

2 World War II, Soviet occupation

The war and the occupation had left its mark on the house. Here, since Adolf Hitler took his accommodation at his few visits to Vienna, the hotel had to be equipped accordingly.

On the side of Canovagasse one built an underground bunker, but not in the usual way.

It was just the road dug up, the bunker built into a pit and then the road above concreted again.

Hitler rises from the Imperial

During the Allied air raids on Vienna here many people found refuge, especially the Vienna Philharmonic from neighboring Musikverein.

After the war, the Soviets used the house as an office building. As they moved out of here again after the occupation time, the house was practically empty.

About the state of the Imperial, in which they left it in the mid-fifties, there are different statements.

It appears that the shape of the house may not have been much worse than the other districts of the Soviet Army.

In the stuccolustro of the main staircase of the Imperial a soldier has immortalized himself with a small doodle.

Left: the people cheering in front of the Hotel Imperial on 15 March 1938

Swastika flags near the Hotel Imperial

Reopening of the hotel

The large portrait of Emperor Franz Joseph at the end of the stairs, a symbol of a reactionary attitude, remained untouched over the years .

Even as the Imperial again was a hotel, considered Russian politicians the house as a kind of ideological hereditary leasehold.

Only U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger broke this monopoly, as he with his Soviet colleague Andrei Gromyko in Vienna lived at a meeting at the Imperial.

Because Gromyko did not want to spend the night with the representative of a capitalist world power under one roof, he departed angrily in the Soviet Embassy. Also for other state guests, the Imperial is recommended as the first address.

Re-opening of the hotel in 1958

Rooms at the Hotel Imperial in the then modern 50's style

Guests

The fact that the English Queen Elizabeth here took up accommodation during her visit to Vienna, was felt as a great honor because the Queen slept on visits abroad only rarely in hotels.

Therefore one replaced the by no means not unrepresentative furnitures of her suite against those from the Imperial Furniture Collection. And for the duration of her stay hung pictures from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in her premises.

Thus, the Queen could at least feel a touch of monarchical past. Finally, the hotel management did remove the seating from the lobby. No one should have the opportunity to insult the Queen, by just remaining seated in front of her.

Queen Elizabeth greets from the balcony of the hotel, in 1969

Plaque Rainer Maria Rilke

Plaque Richard Wagner

Inscription:

During 1916, Rainer Maria Rilke visited in the Hotel Imperial almost daily his "Unforgettable Café" and met here Oskar Kokoschka, Karl Kraus and Adolf Loos.

Austrian Society for Literature

Inscription:

Richard Wagner was at the end of the year 1875 with his family for nearly two months guest of this hotel to prepare for the performance of his operas Tannhäuser and Lohengrin.

The Vienna Schubertbund 50th Anniversary of the death of the artist, 1933

(Sculptor Robert Ullmann)

Facade

Important strictly historicist Palais, 1862-65 built by Arnold Zenetti and designed by Heinrich Adam. Monumental free-standing building of the beginning of strict historicism in forms of neo- Renaissance.

The main façade has a 6-axle central projection, which is further emphasized by the three-axis portal.

In 1928, the house was extented on the ring road by two floors. The attic was converted into a continuous balcony on the 4th floor.

1946, the portal has been simplified and the three-aisled hall (lobby) rebuilt to current form.

Floor plan 6th storey

1988 - 1994 followed ​​a general refurbishment and the roof extension (Maurizio Papiri), which on the back of the palace was not very successful.

Portal

3 -axis portal above statues representing sovereign virtues.

As the duke had guarded the house round-the-clock, originally flanked two sentry house the wide entrance, which was designed for the entrance of the carriages.

The six-axle central projection visually protrudes a little bit and is rich decorated. The effect is mainly due to the generously employed sculptures of the portal and gable zone.

The statues above the entrance are from Franz Melnitzky and represent personalized Herschertugenden (souvereign virtues): wisdom - old man, lorbeerbekränzt (laurel-adorned) and scroll of honor - Woman with coat of arms, Justice - sword, strength - club.

In addition to the figures, by the same artist have been made reliefs, which were destroyed in 1946, as well as the lunettes.

Statues (ruler virtues)

Hotel entrance: reliefs and lunettes in 1946 destroyed

Wisdom

Honor

Justice

Strength

Above the balconies and windows of the first floor can be found the from the Orient stemming griffin motif: two griffins flanking each of them a vase. The lion's griffon, his head and body seem like that of a lion, but he has the wings of an eagle, he was apostrophized in antiquity as the guardian of the gold. Here he was reinterpreted as the guardian of the house.

In the triangular gable of the roof is an allegory of the house Wuerttemberg to see with the heraldic animals of the house, the deer and the lion. The very striking roof no longer exists, but it fell victim to the fact the hotel was increased in the 20th Century.

Grand Staircase

Former court (later conservatory, lounge today)

At the times of the Württemberg the palais still hand an open courtyard in the middle. This court allowed, as with all other buildings of that era, the coachmen to turn there after they get off their customers in the driveway.

So the coaches for this had sufficient space, the outrageously expensive main staircase had to be moved to the side. Who enters the hotel lobby of the Imperial today, does not immediately recognize the noble work, but he must climb a few stairs to the right. Such intricateness were then accepted.

The grand staircase leads to the main floor only. The stairs to the upper floors are designed very much simpler. Because here only circulated staff.

Grand Staircase

Grand Staircase piano nobile

Lobby

www.viennatouristguide.at/Palais/ringstrasse/wuerttemberg...

 

The Chevrolet Superior replaced the 490 in 1923, While the Model T hadn’t changed much from its introduction in 1908, Chevrolet’s process of continuous update found favor with American car buyers and by 1927, the Chevrolet out sold the Ford. The Superior was more mechanically sophisticated and buyers had a choice of a variety of colors. The radiator shell was updated in 1925 and by 1926, all closed models got disc wheels. Each year was known by a new Series; 1923 Series B, 1924; Series F, 1925; Series K and the 1926 Superior was known as the Series V.

Available in 2 door Coach, Coupe and Roadster, 4 door Sedan, Landau and Tourer.

Engine; All Superior models were powered by a 26hp 171 cu in and shared the 103 in wheelbase.

In 1926, Chevrolets were built in Australia by General Motors Australia and was the first year to also be built in New Zealand by GMNZ.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 17-Jan-21.

 

Named: "Empress of Hamilton". Fleet No: "731"

 

This aircraft was delivered to Monarch Airlines as G-DGDP in Mar-82, it was leased to Pacific Western Airlines as C-FPWE for the winter seasons of Nov-83/May-84, Nov-84/May-85 & Oct-85/Apr-86 before being sold to GECAS as G-DGDP at the end of Apr-86. It was leased to Canadian Pacific Airlines the same day. After a cabin refurbishment and repainting the aircraft entered service as C-FCPN in Jul-86. Canadian Pacific became Canadian Airlines International in Apr-87. The aircraft was sold to Pegasus Leasing in Oct-00 and leased back to CAI. In Apr-01 Canadian Airlines was merged into Air Canada. Air Canada wanted to keep their mainline fleet of Airbus A319's and A320's so in Feb-03 the B737-200's were transferred to Air Canada's new 'low-cost' subsidiary Zip Air. It didn't last and the aircraft was returned to Air Canada and the lessor in Apr-04 as N984PG and stored at Tucson, AZ, USA. It was leased to Aerolineas del Sur, Chile as CC-CJP in Dec-04. Aerolineas del Sur was merged into Air Comet Chile in Aug-07. The aircraft was returned to the lessor as N762SH in Apr-09 and leased to Peruvian Airlines as OB-1956 in Aug-10. It was broken up at Lima, Peru in 2011.

During 1916 the British born Australian architect Walter Richmond Butler (1864 – 1949) designed a new Anglican Mission to Seamen to be built on an oddly shaped triangular block of land at 717 Flinders Street on the outskirts of the Melbourne central city grid, to replace smaller premises located in adjoining Siddeley Street, which had been resumed by the Harbour Trust during wharf extensions.

 

The Missions to Seamen buildings, built on reinforced concrete footings, are in rendered brick with tiled roofs. Walter Butler designed the complex using an eclectic mixture of styles, one of which was the Spanish Mission Revival which had become a prevalent style on the west coast of America, especially in California and New Mexico during the 1890s. The style revived the architectural legacy of Spanish colonialism of the Eighteenth Century and the associated Franciscan missions. The revival of the style is explicit in the Mission’s small, yet charming chapel with its rough-hewn timber trusses, in the bell tower with its pinnacles and turret surmounted by a rustic cross and in the monastic-like courtyard, which today still provides a peaceful retreat from the noisy world just beyond the Missions to Seamen’s doorstep. The chapel also features many gifts donated by members of the Harbour Trust and Ladies’ Harbour Lights Guild, including an appropriately themed pulpit in the shape of a ship's prow and two sanctuary chairs decorated with carved Australian floral motifs. Some of the stained glass windows in the chapel depict stories and scenes associated with the sea intermixed with those Biblical scenes more commonly found in such places of worship.

 

The adjoining Mission to Seamen’s administration, residential and recreational building shows the influence of English domestic Arts and Crafts architecture, with its projecting gable, pepper pot chimneys and three adjoining oriel windows. The lobby, with its appropriately nautically inspired stained glass windows, features a large mariner's compass inlaid in the terrazzo floor. Built-in timber cupboards, wardrobes, paneling and studded doors throughout the buildings evoke a ship's cabin.

 

Walter Butler, architect to the Anglican Diocese in Melbourne, had come to Australia with an intimate knowledge and experience of the Arts and Crafts movement and continued to use the style in his residential designs of the 1920s. The main hall has a reinforced concrete vaulted ceiling. Lady Stanley, wife of the Mission's patron, Governor Sir Arthur Lyulph Stanley, laid the foundation stone of the complex in November 1916. The buildings were financed partly by a compensation payment from the Harbour Trust of £8,500.00 and £3,000.00 from local merchants and shipping firms. The Ladies' Harbour Lights Guild raised over £800.00 for the chapel. Most of the complex was completed by late 1917 whilst the Pantheon-like gymnasium with oculus was finished soon afterwards. The substantially intact interiors, including extensive use of wall paneling in Tasmanian hardwood, form an integral part of the overall design.

 

The Missions to Seamen buildings are architecturally significant as a milestone in the early introduction of the Spanish Mission style to Melbourne. The style was to later find widespread popularity in the suburbs of Melbourne. The choice of Spanish Mission directly refers to the Christian purpose of the complex. The Missions to Seamen buildings are unusual for combining two distinct architectural styles, for they also reflect the imitation of English domestic architecture, the Arts and Crafts movement. Walter Butler was one of the most prominent and progressive architects of the period and the complex is one of his most unusual and distinctive works.

 

The Missions to Seamen buildings have historical and social significance as tangible evidence of prevailing concerns for the religious, moral, and social welfare of seafarers throughout most of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. The complex has a long association with the Missions to Seamen, an organisation formed to look after the welfare of seafarers, both officers and sailors, men "of all nationalities". It had its origins in Bristol, England when a Seamen's Mission was formed in 1837. The first Australian branch was started in 1856 by the Reverend Kerr Johnston, a Church of England clergyman, and operated from a hulk moored in Hobsons Bay; later the Mission occupied buildings in Williamstown and Port Melbourne. In 1905 the Reverend Alfred Gurney Goldsmith arrived at the behest of the London Seamen's Mission to establish a city mission for sailors working on the river wharves and docks. The building reflects the diverse role played by the Mission with its chapel, hall and stage, billiards room, reading room, dining room, officers' and men’s quarters, chaplain's residence, and gymnasium. It is still in use to this day under the jurisdiction of a small, but passionate group of workers, providing a welcome place of refuge to seamen visiting the Port of Melbourne.

 

Walter Butler was considered an architect of great talent, and many of his clients were wealthy pastoralists and businessmen. His country-house designs are numerous and include “Blackwood” (1891) near Penshurst, for R. B. Ritchie, “Wangarella” (1894) near Deniliquin, New South Wales, for Thomas Millear, and “Newminster Park” (1901) near Camperdown, for A. S. Chirnside. Equally distinguished large houses were designed for the newly established Melbourne suburbs: “Warrawee” (1906) in Toorak, for A. Rutter Clark; “Thanes” (1907) in Kooyong, for F. Wallach; “Kamillaroi” (1907) for Baron Clive Baillieu, and extensions to “Edzell” (1917) for George Russell, both in St Georges Road, Toorak. These are all fine examples of picturesque gabled houses in the domestic Queen Anne Revival genre. Walter Butler was also involved with domestic designs using a modified classical vocabulary, as in his remodelling of “Billilla” (1905) in Brighton, for W. Weatherley, which incorporates panels of flat-leafed foliage. Walter Butler also regarded himself as a garden architect.

 

As architect to the diocese of Melbourne from 1895, he designed the extensions to “Bishopscourt” (1902) in East Melbourne. His other church work includes St Albans (1899) in Armadale, the Wangaratta Cathedral (1907), and the colourful porch and tower to Christ Church (c.1910) in Benalla. For the Union Bank of Australia he designed many branch banks and was also associated with several tall city buildings in the heart of Melbourne’s central business district such as Collins House (1910) and the exceptionally fine Queensland Insurance Building (1911). For Dame Nellie Melba Butler designed the Italianate lodge and gatehouse at “Coombe Cottage” (1925) at Coldstream.

 

Replacing an earlier digital photo with a better version 06-Nov-21 (DeNoise AI).

 

The Avro Lancaster of the UK Royal Air Force 'Battle of Britain Memorial Flight' performing at fly-past at Manchester Airport's (MAN) 75th Anniversary celebration. This is one of only two flying Lancasters left in the world. The other one is in Canada.

 

The amazing sound of those four Rolls Royce Merlin engines made the hairs rise on the back of my neck (or it would have done if I'd had any hairs on the back of my neck!)

Some in progress shots whilst replacing the front discs, pads and brake lines with Brembo drilled & slotted discs, Brembo pads & EBC braided brake lines.

 

Fresh discs always look the part :)

Replacing the Turntable at Bay and Taylor Streets | March 12, 1970

A pulled rickshaw (or ricksha) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.

 

In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers.

Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.

 

OVERVIEW

Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement.

 

In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.

 

Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner.

 

It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.

 

DESCRIPTION

The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century. Rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights were also added.

 

In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as:

 

... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain.'

 

The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.

 

COUNTRY OVERVIEW

AFRICA

EAST AFRIKA

In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo, Tanga, Tanzania and other areas of East Africa for short distances.

 

MADAGASCAR

Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.

 

NAIROBI

Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.

South Africa

Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left whom mostly cater to tourists today.

 

ASIA

CHINA

In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.The proper rickshaw (pronounced renliche in Chinese) was first seen in China in 1886, and was used for public transportation in 1898. It was commonly called dongyangche for Japanese vehicle or "east- foreign-vehicle."

 

Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand:

 

Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population.

 

Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.Most manual rickshaws, a symbol of oppression of the working class, were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

 

HOG KONG

Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—four as of 2009—still bear a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.

 

INDIA

Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.

 

SERVICE AVAILIBILITY

Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24 hour ambulance service."

 

Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans prodving critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.

 

Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season.

When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.

 

The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws.Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like about being carried in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood."Motor vehicles are banned in the eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.

 

LEGISLATION

In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.

 

JAPAN

There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:

 

Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.

 

Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service. The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After the World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.

 

MALAYSIA

Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.

 

PAKISTAN

Pulled and Cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since November 1949. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.

 

SINGAPORE

Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.

 

NORTH AMERIKA

UNITED STATES OF AMERIKA

From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.

 

CANADA

Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.

 

WIKIPEDIA

We're back at the Monaco Ballroom on Friday December 12th for the final show of 2008!! Make sure you make it to see how the year's feuds end at this season ending super show - GPW: "Christmas Crunch"

 

We promise we wont crunch your credit.... we'll only crunch your Christmas!!

 

GPW Heavyweight Title Match

Bubblegum © vs. Dirk Feelgood

 

Just a few months ago you'd be forgiven for taking a double take at this match. The friendship between the two former friends totally imploded with the desire to become Heavyweight champion. Refusing to accept the demise of his friendship with Dirk Feelgood, Bubblegum spent months in turmoil not wanting to retaliate to the cutting comments and brutal attacks levelled his way by former friend and champion Feelgood. As time went by however, Bubblegum eventually unloaded on Feelgood but this will be the first time the two have ever come face to face in a one on one match. And to make things just a little more interesting... it's for the GPW Heavyweight Title. Can the fairytale championship reign continue for Bubblegum, or can Dirk shatter his dreams and become the first ever 2 time Heavyweight Champ?

 

Tag Team Special, Skeletor vs. Stella

Lethal Dose vs. Voodoo & "Sober" Mike Holmes

 

Alan Alan Alan Tasker's henchmen, Lethal Dose march into battle against former stable member Mike Holmes and the man they hold responsible for Holmes' new found sobriety - Voodoo. Cyanide and Toxic hope to tempt Holmes back over to the stable that two months ago he turned his back on. They want to snap him out of the spell they accuse Voodoo of putting him under. However, Holmes seems very happy with his new outlook on life and he and Voodoo look to send Lethal Dose packing in this tag team special. Lethal Dose have warned they will not be coming to the ring alone though, with them along with their attorney and law - Alan Alan Alan Tasker will be a 12 pack of Stella. Hoping the case of beer will prove to be a bigger demon to Holmes than the tag team itself. To fend off the 12 pack, Holmes and Voodoo will have Vooodoo's trusty skull, Skeletor in their corner. An unpredictable tag team match. Can MIke Holmes stay sober? Will Voodoo's spells work? Or will Lethal Dose deliver a beating big enough to break Voodoo's spell?

 

GPW British Title Match

Jak Dominotrescu vs. "Super" Sam Bailey

 

After pinning the British Champion last month in a tag team match, WKD's "Super" Sam Bailey has earned himself a title shot at GPW: "Christmas Crunch". Bailey, already a former tag team champion looks to add to his growing reputation by capturing his first ever singles gold in GPW. While reigning champion, Romanian Jak Domitrescu along with his cohorts - The Eastern Bloc look to make life as difficult as possible for the energetic live wire. Domitrescu has held onto the title since April this year with help from his fellow countrymen, but are his days numbered as champ? He surely wont be alone in this title outing and will have the Eastern Bloc close by, but can "Super" Sam Bailey overcome the odds to win his first singles gold in GPW?

 

And, the main event for the evening is...

 

GPW Tag Team Title 2/3 Falls Match

MIl-Anfield Connection © vs. Young Offenders

 

The heat just got turned up in this feud. The re-united Young Offenders have the most established tag team in GPW - The Mil-Anfield Connection firmly in their sights and not to mention the tag team trophy. These two teams met in September this year where there was no clear winner decided after the match ended in a draw. There will be NO excuses this time to not find a winner. This, for the first time in our history will be a 2/3 Falls Match for the tag team titles. A winner HAS to be decided, but who will it be? A truley epic encounter is in our midst as Jiggy Walker & "The Model" Danny Hope try to cling onto the championship that has defined them as a team and "Dangerous" Damon Leigh & Joey Hayes, The Young Offenders chase the title that one of the most popular tag teams in Europe have never held. Can the re-united friends overcome the well established unit that is The Mil-Anfield Connection? Or can the well oiled duo of the Mil-Anfield do what they've been doing all year and win again?

 

GPW British Title No.1 Contenders Match

Harry Doogle vs. Juice vs. Dylan Roberts vs. Chris Echo

 

After an eye catchingly good year from rookie Dylan Roberts, he has been included in this battle to earn a shot at the British Title. With a burning desire to win and the fans firmly behind him, Roberts could well mark his arrival onto the main roster by becoming the No.1 Contender and going for gold here. However, his opponents wont give him an easy ride. In a wonderful CC-08 tournament, no one impressed more than WKD's Chris Echo. Echo reached the CC-08 finals with two broken wrists and proved he is ready to take a step up. His previous attempts for British gold have been thwarted by the foreign legion numbers of the Eastern Bloc, is he ready to prove again that he is worthy of being No.1 Contender and finally lift the British title? Juice, the current CC8 champion has been as impressive as ever in singles competition this year, but can he compete in this match with 3 others all vying to be No.1 Contender? Also replacing Jervis Cottonbelly due to injury is Harry Doogle as a last minute entry could one half of the next gen score the upset win? , but with so many possible outcomes who will leave with the plaudits and go on to challenge for the British Title next year?

 

Lumberjack Match

Si Valour vs. Heresy

 

A violent and personal feud that has lasted all year long finally comes to a head in what promises to be a violent Lumberjack Match. Ever since brutalising Valour and cutting off all his hair, Heresy has, in some form or other dodged the challenge of Valour. Heresy claimed not to have lost his bottle or be running scared of the 2007 Break Out Star, yet during their Bull Rope clash at GPW: "V" where the two were tied to one another, Heresy still managed to find a way of escaping and creating distance between him and Valour. This time, in a special Lumberjack Match, no matter where either man go - there will be no escape. All lumberjacks will be at the ready to ensure neither man can escape the others clutches and a clear winner, one way or the other will HAVE to be decided. There will be nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide, no matter where they look. Heresy has been one step ahead of Valour all year, is this where he runs out of excuses, or can the master manipulator manipulate another win?

  

Replacing a sofa bed mattress is an occasional work to do but sometimes becomes very important. When your sofa bed has been too old with the mattress that has been very thin, many cookie crumbs of your kids found under the mattress, and it has produced smelly odor. If the sofa base is still in...

 

midcityeast.com/how-to-replace-sofa-bed-mattress/

The plot on the corner of Christchurch Rd and Spurgeon Rd was occupied by by the Clarence Park Motor Works as early as 1911, with the site retaining an association with servicing the needs of the local motoring community, ending its days as a petrol station, until being replaced by a Tesco Express store in 2006.

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A [ very ] potted history of Pokesdown......

 

Prior to 1810 there was no town of Bournemouth. All that lay between Poole and Christchurch, themselves not the large towns they are today, was unspoilt heathland with the more fertile land of the Stour Valley to the north and east that had supported small farming communities such as Wick, Iford, Holdenhurst, Throop, Muccleshell and Ensbury for centuries.

 

Although these communities were centred on the individual villages, farms and smallholdings would have been scattered across the surrounding area, an example being Pokesdown Farm which, along with a few cottages for farm workers, stood on the very edge of the heath where it began to slope down on the sides of the Stour Valley overlooking Iford and Wick.

Most of the farms, smallholdings and associated cottages came and went without being recorded on maps although Pokesdown Farm is one of the few exceptions, its origins are a little lost in the mists of time, some claim to have traced it back to 1580 although it was certainly there in the 1660s.

 

In 1766 when Edmond Bott had a large home called Stourfield House built at Pokesdown [ see seperate images and set for further info ] which at the time would have been in the middle of nowhere and perhaps a very unlikely place to want to build a house.

Stourfield House would no doubt have been a catalyst for more development at Pokesdown if only in the form of cottages for those drawn there by the employment opportunities such a relatively large house and grounds would bring to an impoverished rural community. It is likely that the former Pokesdown Farm morphed into Stourfield Farm in connection with the house.

The last two remaining old thatched cottages, known as 'Lily of the Valley Cottages' and being at least 200 years old, were demolished in the latter 1960s when Appletree Close was created, and with their passing went the last ties with the area's rural past.

The building of Stourfield House predates the official birth of Bournemouth in 1810 by some 44 years and except for the modest Bourne Tregonwell estate that remained all but unknown to the outside world, the first notable development to take place, and what really sparked the development of the town of Bournemouth was Sir George Gervis' 'Marine Village of Bourne' in the mid to late 1830s.

As Bournemouth began to expand around the mouth of the Bourne Stream in today's town centre the community of Pokesdown also continued to grow.

Bournemouth expanded its boundaries to take in neighbouring areas such as the fledgling Boscombe in 1876 and Westbourne in 1884 but Pokesdown, that had a chapel built in 1835, followed by a church, a couple of pubs, two blacksmiths, two schools, laundries and, in 1886 , a railway station, and who's population had grown from 171 in 1861, 867 in 1871 to almost 4500 in 1893, became an urban district that allowed it to govern itself on a local level but ultimately Pokesdown became part of the fast expanding Bournemouth in 1901.

Originally Pokesdown covered a larger area than it does today, reaching to the coast and a lot further into Boscombe. Twenty first century Pokesdown is a densely built up area with busy main roads and side streets clogged with parked cars, a problem that blights the modern world.

Stood outside Pokesdown Station with our back to the entrance i suppose we'd class Pokesdown as covering Christchurch Rd to the right towards Boscombe up to the junction with Parkwood Rd, Christchurch Rd to the left going over the railway bridge and along to the brow of what is called Pokesdown Hill that actually runs through an area that prefers to call itself Boscombe East on its way to Iford, and Seabourne Rd opposite until it meets Southbourne Grove.

 

The area boasts an interesting variety of architecture but has seen some buildings replaced by blocks of flats and tenement houses which is understandable if older properties, though full of character, don't meet the needs of modern society. It's a problem that needs to be managed carefully and is by no means one unique to Bournemouth and is being experienced across the country.

 

At the time of writing some traders and residents are involved in promoting Pokesdown as Bournemouth's 'vintage quarter'. a destination for independent shops as well as those offering a wider range of goods and services, in a bid to raise the area's profile.

The green on the corner of Christchurch Rd and Seabourne Rd next to the Seabournes Pub and directly opposite the railway station is being transformed with borders of flowers and an information board that highlights the area's history, with the aid of a £22,000 Lottery grant..

 

FURTHER READING.

www.pokesdown.org/history/PokesdownPast/04_Village_Starts...

Click on the 'history' tag to read J A Young's 'Pokesdown's Past'.

 

Pokesdown and Neighbourhood 1895 - 1910. A memoir by E G Wills A Bournemouth Local Studies Publication.

           

Replaced hood form Ex CACS bus 6 (2008 CE)

Replacing an earlier digital photo with a better version 15-Jul-20.

 

Taken from the Templeton bridge.

 

Hybrid livery with the old white fuselage and new tail livery (2005).

 

Fleet No: "202".

 

An early A320 (Line No:069), first flown in Oct-89 with the Airbus test registration F-WWDO, this aircraft was due for delivery to Ansett Airline (Australia) as VH-HYJ but the order was cancelled.

 

The aircraft was delivered to AerFi Airbus as C-FDQV in Nov-89 and leased to Air Canada in Feb-90. It was permanently retired at Tucson, AZ, USA in Apr-19 after just over 29 years in service.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a (slightly) better version 09-Apr-14..

 

First flown as G-14-3068 with Short Brothers & Harland, the aircraft was leased to Inter City Airlines in Apr-81 as G-BITV. It was sub-leased to BAF British Air Ferries in Aug-83 and repossessed by Short Brothers in Nov-83. It was leased to Air Ecosse the following month. In Mar-85 it was sub-leased to Brymon Airways, returning to Air Ecosse in Sep-85. It was returned to Short Brothers in Sep-86 and then leased, short-term, to Syd-Aero between Oct/Dec-86. In May-87 it was leased to Connectair and operated on behalf of British Caledonian Commuter/Caledonian Link. Returning to Short Brothers in Jan-89, it was re-registered G-OGIL and leased to Gill Air the following month. On 10-Jul-92 the aircraft was damaged beyond repair at Newcastle during a taxiing accident. Gill Air bought it from the Insurers in Oct-92 and it was used for spares. The remains were later preserved at the North East Aircraft Museum, Sunderland, UK.

 

Note: The aircraft taxied into a vehicle and a hangar at Gill Air's base at Newcastle, UK, striking another Shorts 330, G-BIFH. The aircraft was damaged beyond repair.

 

I also have a photo of this aircraft in Inter City Airlines/Guernsey Airlines livery at www.flickr.com/photos/kenfielding/6925478533

REPLACED: Some quality improvements necessary for larger printing, and a less panoramic crop.

 

I got up early today (Wednesday 9/26) and went out on the beach at the north end of Pea Island just below the bridge. If you walk out a ways there is a jetty with a remote automated weather station on it.

 

I got these out there just before the sun came up.

 

Another one that looks like HDR, but the light was just right to capture it as a single image.

 

Olympus OM-D E-M5 and M.Zuiko 9-18mm f/4-5.6 lens and 32x ND filter.

 

Please visit the Entropic Remnants website or my Entropic Remnants blog -- THANKS!

 

UPDATE: I've printed this at 36x24 inches on metallic paper and it's hanging in my living room and it's lovely as a large print. One of my favorite landscapes I've taken with the OM-D E-M5.

Replaced a large chassis admiral 27k

Sea Cat was a British short-range surface to air missile system intended to replace the ubiquitous Bofors 40 mm gun aboard warships of all sizes. It was the world's first operational shipboard point-defence missile system and was designed so that the Bofors guns could be replaced with minimum modification to the recipient vessel and (originally) using existing fire-control systems. A mobile land-based version of the system was known as Tigercat.

 

Sea Cat was designed by Short Brothers of Belfast for use against fast jet aircraft that were proving to be too difficult for the WWII-era Bofors guns to successfully intercept. The missile was based on the Shorts Green Light prototype, itself a development of the SX-A5, a research missile based on the Australian Malkara anti-tank missile to test radio manual guidance of a short range surface to air missile. It replaced the Orange Nell development programme for a lighter weapon than the enormous Sea Slug missile. The first public reference to the name Seacat was April 1958, when Shorts was awarded a contract to develop a close in short range air to air missile. The missile was shown for the first time to the general public at the 1959 Farnborough Air Show. The first acceptance trials of the Seacat on a warship was in 1961 aboard HMS Decoy. The Seacat became the first operational guided missile to be fired by a warship of the Royal Navy. Later it was adopted by the Swedish Navy, making it the first British guided missile to be fired by a foreign navy.

 

Sea Cat is a small, subsonic missile powered by a two-stage solid fuel rocket motor. It is steered in flight by four cruciformly arranged swept wings and is stabilised by four small tail fins. It is guided by command line-of-sight (CLOS) via a radio-link; i.e., flight commands are transmitted to it from a remote operator with both the missile and target in sight.

 

All Sea Cat variants used a common 4-rail, manually loaded, trainable launcher that incorporated the antennae for the radio command link. All that was required to fit the system to a ship was the installation of a launcher, the provision of a missile handling room and a suitable guidance system. Sea Cat was widely used in NATO and Commonwealth navies that purchased British equipment and has been used with a wide array of guidance systems. The four systems used by the Royal Navy are described below.

 

GWS-20

This was the initial system, which was intended to replace the twin 40 mm Bofors Mark V gun and its associated fire-control systems. The original director was based on the STD (Simple Tachymetric Director) and was entirely visual in operation. The target was acquired visually with the missile being guided, via a radio link, by the operator inputting commands on a joystick. Flares on the missile's tail fins aided identifying the missile. The more advanced CRBF (Close Range Blind Fire) director equipped with spin-scanning radar Type 262 for automatic target tracking could also be used.

 

GWS-20 was trialled on board HMS Decoy, a Daring class destroyer, in 1961; it was subsequently removed. It was carried in active service by, amongst others, the Fearless class landing ships and the Type 81 Tribal, updated Type 12 Whitby, Type 12I Rothesay and (originally) County class escorts. It was originally intended that all C class destroyers should receive it and the class were prepared accordingly. In the event only HMS Cavalier and HMS Caprice received it, in 1966 refits.

 

GWS-20 saw active service in the Falklands war on board the Fearless class and the Rothesay frigates HMS Plymouth and HMS Yarmouth, who retained the GWS-20 director when upgraded to GWS-22.

 

GWS-21

GWS-21 was the Sea Cat system associated with a modified Close Range Blind Fire analogue fire control director (CRBFD) with Type 262 radar. This offered manual radar-assisted (Dark Fire) tracking and guidance modes as well as 'eyeball' visual modes. It was carried as the design anti-aircraft weapon of the Type 81 Tribal class frigate and on the first four County class destroyers.

 

GWS-22

GWS-22 was the Sea Cat system associated with the full MRS-3 fire control director with Type 903 radar and was the first ACLOS-capable (Automatic, Command Line-Of-Sight) Sea Cat. It was fitted to most of the Leander, Rothesay and County class escorts as they were refitted and modified in the 1970s, as well as the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes. It could operate in automatic radar-guided (Blindfire), manual radar-guided, manual CCTV-guided or, in an emergency, 'eyeball' guided modes. It saw active service in the Falklands onboard all these classes.

 

GWS-24

The final Royal Navy Sea Cat variant, this used the Italian Alenia Orion RTN-10X fire control system with Type 912 radar and was fitted only to the Type 21 frigate. This variant saw active service in the Falklands.

 

(Text Wikipedia)

Built in 1991 and closed only 10 years later. Glass block windows were smashed out over time and replaced with cinder block....

 

========================

 

Located on the PRR's Connecting Railway, this station replaced an earlier one known as Germantown Junction. Established in the early 1870's, Germantown served as a stop on the Connecting Railway, serving the neighborhoods and industries in the area. By the 1890's, after the completion of the Delair bridge, and the continuing growth of the area, Germantown Junction was woefully inadequate.

 

P.R.R. president, George P Roberts had plans put in place for a replacement facility designed by architect Theophilus P. Chandler Jr. Chandler designed the main building in the so-called Châteauesque style. Behind the terra-cotta clad structure containing the ticket offices and waiting rooms, a tunnel would stretch under the tracks accessing two platforms. Construction started in 1896, however the death of Roderts along with the Panic of 1896 caused work to be put on hold. Work finally resumed in 1900 under company president Alexander Cassatt, who considered this station as part of a massive capital expenditure that also involved the building of Penn Station in New York City and Union Station in Washington DC.

 

Upon opening in 1901, the new Germantown Junction served as the Philadelphia stop for service linking New York to Harrisburg and the west, as well as the Philadelphia Terminal for express service to New York (Broadway Limited and the American) As crowds continued to overwhelm the station, a renovation was carried out in 1912 by architect William Cookman to replace the two side platforms with island platforms that could serve two trains each. Major modifications were carried out to the main building as well with the basement opened up and expanded to form a new entrance level. Upon completion in 1915, the remodeled station was renamed North Philadelphia. With the completion of the Broad Street Subway in 1928, a passageway was constructed underground to link it's North Philadelphia station to the P.R.R. station as well as the Reading's North Broad Station nearby. Here passengers were able to travel to Center City, or the neighborhoods north, further taking pressure off Broad Street Station (eventually replaced by 30th Street/Suburban Stations)

 

After World War II, North Philadelphia Station and the surrounding neighborhoods suffered from the loss of industries, "white flight" to the suburbs as well as increased reliance on private cars. Despite a major renovation carried out in 1955, traffic continued to decline and the number of trains stopping there began to drop. Following a fire in 1976, now owner Amtrak undertook repairs that involved bricking off the windows among other things.

 

Amtrak built a new ticket office in 1991 situated at the north of the platform underpass, and a series of renovations were done throughout the decade. Platforms were rebuilt and elevators to allow disabled access were added. A developer transformed the main station house into retail space serving as the centerpiece of a new community shopping center. A new Pathmark Supermarket was added as part of the project giving people in the impoverished neighborhood access to basic groceries.

 

It would seem that all the efforts had gone to waste however. Amtrak closed the North Philadelphia ticket office in 2001. Although Amtrak and Septa trains still stop here, conditions deteriorated to a point where it seemed that station was flat-out abandoned. Platform windows were smashed and never fixed, while the elevators were decommissioned permanently because the vandalism had become so severe. Parking lots surrounding the station now sit virtually unused except as a dumping ground. A severe blow was dealt to the neighborhood in 2015, when the Pathmark store closed as part of parent company A&P's bankruptcy, returning the area to a "food desert".

 

Hope could be on the horizon however as an ambitious proposal has been unveiled calling for residential and commercial space on the former parking lots and refurbishment of a nearby abandoned factory. If pulled off, this project could easily serve as a catalyst in bringing one of the worst areas in Philadelphia back to it's former glory....

- St. BLAISE CHURCH -

St Blaise is a baroque church built in between 1705 and 1717 (to replace the building of 1368 that was lost by fire) by Venetian architect and sculptor Marino Gropelli. The extended interior, modeled on San Maurizio in Venice, is rectangular with a central dome, and preserves some of the treasures from the earlier church. At the church's main altar there is the golden statue of St. Blaise (Sv.Vlaho) - patron of Dubrovnik holding a model of the Town from 16th C.

The painted organ loft behind the high altar is by Petar Mattel Matejeviæ (early 18th C); the glass windows by lvo Dulèiæ (1971). High on the walls are stone statues of Saints Peter and Jerome, by Nikola Lazanid of Braè (late 16th C), and above the side door a wooden figure of St. Anthony, of unknown date.

  

- S P O N Z A or DIVONA P A L A C E -

In the end of Placa (Stradun) street, beside Luža, on the left side of the square centered with Orlando column the monumental Gothic-Renaissance Sponza Palace found its rightful place. Sponza is one of the most beautiful palaces in the City, which has preserved its original form. Built 1516-1522, its form suggests possible appearance of the majority of public and private palaces in Dubrovnik before the earthquake of 1667.

Sponza palace derived it's name from the word for the spot where rainwater was collected (Spongia-”alluvium”) according to the former use of the spot it was built on.

In the time of the Republic this palace housed the custom office and bonded warehouse, hence it was often referred to as Divona (from dogana - ”customs”).

The Sponza Palace was the seat of a number of state offices. The palace also housed the mint, the bank, the treasury, and the armoury.

This complex palace was designed by protomagister (chief architect) Paskoje Miličević. The project was completed in 1522. It is a large rectangular building with an inner courtyard. An open porch communicates with the square in front; another porch opens on the first floor in front.

The building is a mixture of Gothic and Renaissance styles, which was typical for the conservative Dubrovnik Republic of those times.

The porch and the sculptural ornaments of the building were made after 1516 by the brothers Andrijić, masters from Korčula, and by other less known stone-cutters.

A beautiful medal with Jesus' monogram and 2 angels was carved by the sculptor Beltrand Gallicus on the back wall.

Individual custom bonded warehouses have names of saints inscribed in capital on the arch of the atrium from which a balance was suspended.

The fact that the city measures were true is captured on the inscription on the arch:

FALLERE NOSTRA VETANT; ET FALLI PONDERA: MEQUE PONDERO CVM MERCES: PONDERAT IPSE DEVS

(Our weights do not permit cheating or being cheated. When I measure the commodities the Lord measures with me.)

The Sponza Palace was not damaged in the earthquake of 1667 and this fact probably saved the Dubrovnik Republic. Affairs of state could continue notwithstanding heavy destruction.Members of the Academia dei Concordi founded at the close of 16th century by the group of poets, met in the large hall of the first floor. That was Dubrovnik's first institution of literary life.

Nowadays the Sponza Palace is the home of the most important cultural institution of Dubrovnik - the archive. The archive found its home on the first floor.

Sponza palace has a unique role during the special opening ceremony of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival. Actors inpersonating the Rector and the members of the Council Minor sit on the upper porch of the Sponza palace and greet the actors that have come to the City to entertain and amuse the public with their music shows and theatre plays. After many skill demonstrations by the actors and a long discussion from the side of the council, the ceremony always ends as the Rector grants the actors free access to the City and gives them the keys of the City in order for them to put up their shows and entertain the public.

About Sponza Palace & Dubrovnik (Ragusa):

1. Michelozzo's City belfry mechanism along with the original Maro and Baro popularly known as zelenci - "the green ones", two bronze statues that used to hit the town's bell on each passing hour, founded by Michele di Giovanni da Fiescole, are exhibited in the Sponza palace. The City bell tower is now manned by two younger zelenci statues which still sound the bell founded in 1509, original work by the world renowned master craftsman Ivan Krstitelj Rabljanin - Johannes Baptista Arbensis de la Tolle.

2. The Sponza palace hosts a memorial room dedicated to defenders killed during the siege of Dubrovnik (1991 --1992).

3. Dubrovnik archive contains 7000 volumes and about 100000 individual scripts. The earliest charter in the archives is from 1022. It is a decree by the pope Benedict VIII in which he grants Dubrovnik the seat of an Archbishop. From 1278 Dubrovnik introduced compulsory registration and filing of all public and private legal documents. Thus, today Dubrovnik archives are an important reference and a rich historical resource.

  

- RECTOR's PALACE -

Between the Town Hall and the Church of St. Blaise on one side and the Cathedral on the other side the Rector's Palace, an outstanding monument of secular architecture, is found.

The Rector's palace is a harmonious Gothic and Renaissance palace with certain Baroque additions. The palace owes its present shape to many additions and reconstructions throughout its turbulent history. From time to time it happened that the palace was destroyed or heavily damaged by either fires, gunpowder explosions or earthquakes which required a total or partial reconstruction or repair of the building. Each architect had it's own view of how the building should look so nowadays we can enjoy the unique mixture of styles blended perfectly across this monumental structure.

A defence building stood at the site of the present palace in early middle ages and in the statutes of Dubrovnik from 1272 it was referred to as castrum. In 1296 the building is referred to as castellum. The term palatium - palace first occurs in the documents in 1349, and the later documents use the term palazzo maggiore - major palace.

As the document sometimes specify certain parts of the building, it could be deduced that it was a building with corner towers, two wings, and the high wall which enclosed the yard. After the fire of 1435 which gutted the building and its towers the government decided to build the new and more beautiful palace. The important job of rebuilding the palace was entrusted to Onofrio di Giordano della Cava of Naples, master builder that had been already contracted to build the water supply system. The water supply system was completed in 1436.

After Onofrio della Cava had completed his project, the Rector's palace rose as a smart and harmonious two story gothic building with a pillar porch between two side towers which were slightly higher.

The column of the porch and the most beautiful capitals with figural representations, and sculpture ornaments of the palace were made by master Pietro di Martino of Milano.

Only a semi capital in the figure of Asclepius built into the southern angle of the porch and the capital with the scene of the judgment of the Solomon (now kept inside the Rector's Palace as an exhibit) and figural wall brackets on the front porch have survived to the present days.

Although the arrangement of the figures was gothic they could show evidence of the early Renaissance spirit.

In 1463 there was a gunpowder explosion of the palace armoury which heavily damaged the whole structure of the Rector's palace. The renewal was entrusted to the famous architect Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi of Florence who was working on the fortification of the City walls. However, his plans, new and vibrant with Renaissance spirit, were not according to the taste of the notoriously conservative major council so the the plans were rejected on May 5 1464. Michelozzo left Dubrovnik soon after and the work was continued by other builders.

The arches in the porch were reshaped according to the principles of the Renaissance with completely new Renaissance capitals. The modernization of the sculptural decoration was probably the work of the Florentin master Salvi di Michele who directed the reconstruction from 1467 on.

The main changes of Onofrio's building were made on the western and southern fronts where the former simple windows were replaced by a large biforas, 8 on the western front and 3 on the southern front. The biforas were carved by local masters Radivoj Bogosalić and Nikola Marković while the relief ornaments and the portal were made by master Pavko Antoje Bogičević.

In 1520 there was a strong earthquake and the palace suffered yet another misfortune. One of the masters who has been working on the repairs was Petar Andrijić of Korčula.

The Great earthquake of 1667 was no exception and damaged the palace extensively. The earthquake broke down the southern front of the palace with biforas. The wing was rebuilt in Baroque style.

Furthermore, a new Baroque flight of stairs was built in the atrium of the palace in place of the old one which was damaged. About the same time a bell was set up on the first floor of the atrium. The bell stand is decorated with rich Rococo ornaments. The stand was connected to a clock mechanism below which struck the hours.

On the ground floor of the atrium between the two pillars in the eastern wing the senate had a monument erected in 1638 to Miho Pracat, the citizen of merit.

Miho Pracat was a rich ship owner from Lopud who left his immense wealth to the Republic for the charitable cause. Because of this most generous gesture the Republic was indebted to honour him. The government conferred for thirty years before they thought up an adequate way to honour him. The tribute should have been evident, but not too public. Ingenious solution was to erect a bust in the atrium of the Rector's palace and this is how Miho Pracat became the only citizen of Dubrovnik republic with a monument in over a 1000 years of Dubrovnik's existence. The bust was made by Pietro Giacometti of Recanati. The monument was also damaged in the great earthquake of 1667 but was repaired and returned to the same place in 1731.

The eastern front looking forward towards the harbour underwent great changes after the earthquake. Originally representative in form, with the porch and the loggia, it was never restored to its previous shape.

Today the Rector's palace is the home to the history department to museum of Dubrovnik. The majority of the halls have styled furniture so as to recreate the original atmosphere of these rooms. In addition to style furniture numerous portraits and coats of arms of the noble families, paintings of old masters, coins minted by the Republic, the original keys of the city gates, and the number of important state documents are on permanent exhibit in the palace.

Some background:

The MBR-04 series were the first combat-ready Destroids and the most successful land-combat weapon Destroids that were built with OverTechnology of Macross. The abbreviation MBR (Main Battle Robot) indicates the model was developed as a walking humanoid weapon emphasizing the heavy armor firepower of an artillery combat vehicle, designed to replace mainline battle tanks. The Type 04 series was developed jointly by Viggers and Chrauler. Unlike the variable fighters, which had to be designed to accommodate transformation mechanisms, the MBR series featured a structure with a large capacity that allowed plenty of room for machinery and armor.

 

The initial development line, the "Tomahawk" multipurpose battle robot and comparable in its intended role with former main battle tanks, had inferior anti-aircraft abilities, even though it boasted firepower like no other biped vehicle from the Destroid series. Originally, the Tomahawk was just called "MBR Mk. I", but once its systems and structural elements became the basis for other models, its designation changed into the "Type 04" Destroid. The main frame from the waist down, a module which consolidated the thermonuclear reactor and ambulatory OverTechnology system of the Destroids, was common to all of the Type 04 series of biped battle robots. Production line integration using this module was a key goal of Destroid development, and the quick development of further variants.

 

The ADR-04-Mk. X Defender Destroid was one of these family members, a walking weapon developed using OverTechnology for deployment by the United Nations Military. During development of the MBR-04-Mk I, a version of the Destroid ambulatory system with the anti-aircraft Contraves system (for use during the early stages of battle) was simultaneously being developed in a joint effort by Viggers-Chrauler under direction from the United Nations. This initial support Destroid, tentatively designated ADR-04-Mk. II, which still shared many components and even hull sections with the Tomahawk, did not progress beyond prototype stage - primarily because of a focus on the Tomahawk as UN's primary ground weapon. It nevertheless provided vital input for the ADR-04-Mk. X Defender, which became an important defensive asset to protect ground troops and vital locations, as well as for operations in space on board of the SDF-1.

 

Designed for the purpose of super-long-range firing in atmosphere and space, the Defender was rolled out in March 2009 and immediately put into action against the Zentraedi military. Unfortunately, the cost of the unit was high and posed significant difficulties for manufacturing, especially installing the high-definition targeting system, which lead to a bottleneck during mass production.

 

The ADR-04-Mk. X Defender's only weapons were two stub arms, each featuring a pair of large-caliber, specialized interception capability guns instead of manipulators, similar to the eventual mass-produced MBR-04-Mk. VI Tomahawk. The anti-aircraft engagement model (anti-tank class) wide-bore guns each fired 500 rounds per minute and all four barrels firing in combination were able to unleash continuous 2,000 rounds per minute, even though only short bursts of four rounds or just single shots were typically fired to save ammunition. The 78 mm rounds were aimed via an Erlikon Contraves fire control system and fired at an impressive muzzle velocity of 3,300 meters per second. A wide range of ammunition types could be fired, including HE, AP, APDS high speed, massive kinetic impact rounds, EMP grenades and rounds with chaff/flare/thermal mist charges. The internal belt magazines made it was possible to load up to three different types per twin gun and deliberately switch between them. The overall supply was, however, rather limited.

 

The rotating mechanism structure of the upper body allowed the unit to respond quickly to enemies approaching even from the rear, for a full 360° coverage of the whole hemisphere above the Destroid. Due to the independent arms, the Defender could even engage two targets separately and split its firepower among them. Additionally, the targeting system was capable of long-range firing in space and could perform extremely precise shooting at long distances in a vacuum/zero-G environment. Hence, the Defender Destroid was more a next generation anti-aircraft tank and in service frequently moonlighted as a movable defensive turret. However, despite featuring a common Destroid ambulatory system, the Defender's mobility was rather limited in direct comparison with a variable fighter Battroid, and it lacked any significant close-combat capability, so that it remained a dedicated support vehicle for other combat units.

 

180 ADR-04-Mk. X Defenders were ordered, built and operated by UN ground and space forces, about half of them were deployed on board of SDF-1. During the First Space War, around sixty more Defenders were converted from revamped MBR-04 series chassis, mostly from battle-damaged Tomahawks, but some later Phalanx' units were modified, too.

During its career the Defender was gradually upgraded with better sensors and radar systems, and its armament was augmented, too. A common upgrade were enlarged ammunition bays on the shoulders that could hold 50 more rounds per gun, even though this stressed the ambulatory system since the Defender's center of gravity was raised. Therefore, this modification was almost exclusively executed among stationary "gun turret" units. Another late upgrade was the addition of launch rails for AMM-1 anti-aircraft missiles on the gun pods and/or the torso. Again, this was almost exclusively implemented on stationary Defenders.

 

A short-range sub-variant, under the project handle "Cheyenne", was developed in 2010, too, but it was only produced in small number for evaluation purposes. It was based on the Defender's structure, but it carried a different armament, consisting of a pair of 37 mm six-barrel gatling guns plus AMM-1 missiles, and a more clutter-resistant radar system against fast and low-flying targets. The Cheyenne was intended as a complementary aerial defense unit, but the results from field tests were not convincing, so that the project was mothballed. However, in 2012 the concept was developed further into the ADR-04-Mk.XI "Manticore", which was fully tailored to the short-range defense role.

  

General characteristics:

Equipment Type: aerial defense robot, series 04

Government: U.N. Spacy

Manufacturer: Viggers/Chrauler

Introduction: March 2009

Accommodation: 1 pilot

 

Dimensions:

Height 11.37 meters (overall)

10.73 meters (w/o surveillance radar antenna)

Length 4.48 meters (hull only)

7.85 meters (guns forward)

Width 8.6 meters

Mass: 27.1 metric tons

 

Power Plant:

Kranss-Maffai MT828 thermonuclear reactor, output rated at 2800 shp;

plus an auxiliary GE EM10T fuel power generator, output rated at 510 kW

 

Propulsion:

2x thrust nozzles mounted in the lower back region, allowing the capability to perform jumps,

plus several vernier nozzles around the hull for Zero-G manoeuvers

 

Performance:

Max. walking speed: 72 kph when fully loaded

 

Design features:

- Detachable weapons bay (attaches to the main body via two main locks);

- Type 966 PFG Contraves radar and fire control set (a.k.a. Contraves II)

with respective heat exchanger on the upper back

- Rotating surveillance antenna for full 360° air space coverage

- Optical sensor unit equipped with four camera eyes, moving along a vertical slit,

protected by a polarized light shield;

- Capable of performing Zero-G manoeuvers via 16 x thrust nozzles (mounted around the hull);

- Reactor radiator with exhaust ports in the rear;

- Cockpit can be separated from the body in an emergency (only the cockpit block is recovered);

- Option pack featuring missiles or enlarged ammunition bays;

 

Armament:

2x Erlikon 78mm liquid-cooled high-speed 2-barrel automatic cannon with 200 rounds each,

mounted as arms

  

The kit and its assembly:

A kind of nostalgia trip, because my first ever mecha kit I bought and built in the Eighties was this 1:100 Destroid Defender! It still exists, even though only as a re-built model, and I thought that it was about time to build another, “better” one, to complete my collection of canonical Macross Destroids.

 

With this objective, the vintage kit was built basically OOB, just with some detail enhancements. The biggest structural change is a new hip joint arrangement, made from steel wire. It allows a more or less flexible 3D posture of the legs, for a more dynamic “walking” pose, and the resulting gaps were filled with paper tissue drenched in white glue and acrylic paint.

A more cosmetic change concerns the Defender’s optical sensor array on its “head”. OOB it just consists of a wide “slit” with a square window – very basic, but that’s how the defender is depicted in the TV series. However, I have a Macross artbook with original design sketches from Studio Nue, which reveal more details of this arrangement, and these include a kind of louvre that covers the mobile sensor array’s guide rails, and the sensor array itself consists of several smaller optical units – the relatively new 1:72 Defender from WAVE features these details, too, but the old 1:72 Defender from Arii (and later Bandai) also only has a red box, even though under a clear cover, which is IMHO dubious, though. The louvres were created from hemispherical styrene profile bits, the sensor array was scratched with a front wheel from an 1:100 VF-1 and more styrene bits.

 

The guns/arms were taken OOB, but I reduced the opening at the shoulder (and with it the angle the arms can be swiveled) with styrene profile material, which also hides the foo fit of the shoulder halves that hold the guns and a reinforcement styrene plate inside of them.

While I could have enlarged the ammunition boxes on the Defender’s shoulders (they are extended backwards), I left them in the original and OOB configuration. Another hull mod I eventually did not carry out were clear replacements for the molded searchlights. Having some visible depth and true clear covers would have been nice, but then I doubted the benefits vs. the mess their integration into the body would mean, so that I went for a simple paint solution (see below).

 

A final cosmetic modification tried to improve the look of the shanks – but it did not help much. On the Defender, there are two continuous ridges that run across the lower legs. This is a molding simplification and wrong because the Defender (and all other 04-Series chassis’) only features the ends of the ridges.

I tried to sand the inner sections away, but upon gluing the parts finally together I realized that the fit of these parts is abysmal, and PSRing on the resulting concave surface between the leftover humps was a nightmare. Did not work well, and it looks poor.

 

With this in mind, a general word about the Arii 1:100 Destroids with the Series 04 chassis: there are three kits (Defender, Tomahawk and Phalanx), and you’d expect that these used the same lower body just with different torsos. But that’s not the case – they are all different, and the Defender is certainly the worst version, with its odd “toe” construction, the continuous ridges and the horrible fit of the lower leg halves as well as the shoulders that hold the stub arms. The Tomahawk is better, but also challenging, and IMHO, when you are only looking for the lower body section, the Phalanx is the best kit or the trio.

  

Painting and markings:

This Defender was supposed to remain canonical and close to the OOB finish, so this became a simple affair.

All Macross Destroids tend to carry a uniform livery, and esp. the Tomahawk/Defender/Phalanx family is kept in murky/dull tones of green, brown and ochre: unpretentious "mud movers".

The Defender appears to carry an overall olive drab livery, and I settled on RAL 7008 (Khakigrau), which is - according to the RAL color list - supposed to be a shade of grey, but it comes out as a dull, yellowish green-brown.

This tone was applied overall from a rattle can, and the few contrast sections like the ammunition boxes or the dust guards of the knee joints were painted with NATO olive green (RAL 6014, Gelboliv, Revell 46). The hull was later treated with Modelmaster Olive Drab (FS 34087), which adds a more greenish hue to the basic paint.

 

The kit received a thorough black ink washing, then some dry-brushing with Humbrol 72 (Khaki Drill) was applied. The decals came next, taken from the OOB sheet, plus four decals for those vernier thrusters that had not been molded into the kit’s surface. The only change is a different piece of “nose art” on the left leg, replacing the original, rather small decal. It actually belongs to a Czech AF MiG-21MF (one of the two famous Fishbeds from Pardubice in 1989, aircraft “1114”) and filled the bumpy area over the lower leg’s seam (see above) well – a kind of visual distraction from the PSR mess underneath...

 

Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish, its major sub-assemblies put together. The optical sensors received lenses with clear paint over a silver base. The large searchlights were painted, too, with a silver base plus white and clear blue reflections on top, covered with a generous coat of Humbrol’s Clearfix to mimic a clear, glossy cover.

After final assembly, some mineral pigments were dusted onto the model’s lower areas with a soft, big brush.

  

I knew that the Defender was trouble, but esp. the legs turned out to be horrible to build. However, the small cosmetic changes really improve the model’s look, and I am quite happy with the result.

The internet and mobile technology has revolutionised the way we live, for both good and bad. At the touch of a button you can buy just about anything (!), though it has turned the younger generation into zombies – a generation that's never known any other way of communicating.

 

Information for people under 25 – this is the inside of a telephone kiosk, those odd glass boxes you occasionally see on roadsides (some are red, with lots of little windows in). Think of it as a Tardis, just in REAL life? Try texting (or sexting!) on one of these!! Also, you have to insert coins, real ones not bitcoins, and it's not paid for by mum and dad... no contract either!

 

Sadly, this is not the sort of WEB the 'phone box was designed for – this example in Upper Lydbrook, Gloucestershire, is a prime example of how we've fallen out of favour with the dated technology that the phone box has become. This one still works, though no one has used it in ages, by the looks. Another example in nearby Stowfield was just the same – working but overgrown and forgotten...

The Flannery O'Connor-Andalusia Foundation received a Save America's Treasures grant, a Georgia Heritage Grant, and numerous donations from Friends of Andalusia to restore the Hill house at Andalusia. andalusiafarm.org/andalusia/restoration.htm

 

Built 1879 as 3 shops for William Kither, architect Rowland Rees, replacing earlier premises on site. One shop was Kither’s butcher shop and the remaining two were occupied by various businesses, including dining rooms, fancy goods, confectioner, tailor, etc.

William Kither arrived in SA 1855 with his parents & siblings. He first worked for a draper before becoming an apprentice butcher. Later he encouraged his father to purchase the butcher shop. After his father’s death 1869 William with his mother Sarah ran the business as “S Kither & Son” until her death in 1875 when it was known as “W Kither”. He was the first to install refrigeration in 1884. After William’s death the business was carried on by his son Clarence Maturin Kither. The building was sold 1932 when Kither’s moved to King William Street.

Re-opened as Clarkson Ltd showrooms 5 Dec 1932, with architects Woods, Bagot, Laybourne-Smith & Irwin making the transformation, building purchased by Commonwealth Bank 1958, Clarksons leadlight & stained glass department closed 1960.

This building originally had the date MDCCCLXXX (ie 1880) and “Kither’s Buildings” on the facade. The ornate balcony has also been removed.

 

“Mr. W. Kither, Butcher, 13 and 117, Rundle-street, begs to inform his numerous Customers and the public in general that he has Taken the Business hitherto carried on by Mr. Hince, next the Red Lion, 13, Rundle-street, which will be continued in connection with his old established Shop at 117, Rundle-street. . . continuing to supply Meat of Prime Quality, at the lowest remunerative rates for cash payments.” [Adelaide Express 10 Aug 1866 advert]

 

“Butchers, Rundle-street. In returning their sincere thanks to the public for their liberal support bestowed on the late W. Kither for so many .years, beg respectfully to intimate that they will still carry on the business on the same premises in the name of S. Kither & Son.” [Express & Telegraph 13 Sep 1869 advert]

 

“William Kither, Late of the Firm of S. Kither & Son, 117 Rundle-Street, Butchers and Sausage Makers. In tendering my sincere thanks to the customers and the public generally for the very liberal support accorded to our old-established business for the last 20 years, I beg to intimate that I will in future carry on the said business in my own name.” [Register 9 Nov 1875 advert]

 

“On Saturday evening the first three shops of the block of buildings in Rundle street to be known hereafter as Kither's Buildings were lighted up and opened for the inspection of the public. . . The principal shop of the three is intended for Mr. W. Kither, and is one of the best-appointed butcher's establishments we have ever seen. The shop is thirty feet long by nineteen wide and fourteen in height. A very pleasing effect is secured by the introduction of Minton's hexagon glazed white enamelled tiles, with which the walls are entirely lined. . . There is to be an icehouse in this cellar in which to keep meat during the summer, and the accommodation otherwise is well adapted for the curing and export trade Mr. Kither carries on with Mauritius. Above and behind Mr. Kither's shop there is a substantial residence. The two adjoining shops are eighty-six feet long by twelve feet wide, and have above them rooms of the same dimensions.” [Evening Journal 14 Jul 1879]

 

“the style adopted being Italian renaissance of very ornate character, forming a striking addition to the architecture of Adelaide. The verandahs are of noble proportions, and the effect is greatly added to by the artistic pencils of Messrs. Vosz & Son and their workmen.” [Chronicle & Weekly Mail 19 Jul 1879]

 

“William Kither, Butcher and Sausage Maker, has the honour to announce that he will Open His Elegant and Commodious Premises, recently rebuilt at great expense under the supervision and from the designs of a well known architect, at Kither’s Buildings, Rundle-Street on Saturday, July 19, 1879, where he trusts his numerous customers and friends will favour him by a continuance of their support, which he has enjoyed for so many years past.” [Evening Journal 18 Jul 1879 advert]

 

“To Let Two New Shops (Kither’s Buildings), each 70 feet long, with Corresponding Rooms above, and Good Cellars.” [Register 15 Jul 1879 advert]

 

“Wanted, a Slaughterman. Apply at W. Kither's, Rundle-street.” [Register 29 Jul 1879 advert]

 

“We are requested to call the attention of the Public of the east part of the City to those cool and well ventilated Rooms, opened by J. Jackman, which was so much needed in that locality, where Tea, Coffee, or Cooca, 3d. per cup, can be had at any time from 7 a.m. till 8 p.m.; also Breakfast, consisting of Meat Bread and Butter, 2 cups of Tea or Coffee, 1s.; Dinner — three courses, 1s, Soup Joint, Pastry, or Cheese; Tea, according to bill of fare, with Bread and Butter and 2 cups of Tea, 1s. Ice Drinks, Ice Creams during the season.— Jackman's Dining Rooms,48 and 59, King William-street, and 117, Rundle-street, Kither’s Buildings.” [Advertiser 8 Mar 1880 advert]

 

“J. Menkens & Son . . . have Removed from 167 to 117a Rundle-street (Kither’s New Buildings), Invite inspection of their Stock of Fancy Goods, Bohemian and other Glassware, Crockery, Accordeons of the celebrated Lyre Brand, &c., &c. Motto — ‘Small Profits and Quick Returns’.” [Evening Journal 7 Dec 1880 advert]

 

“The Adelaide Cash Grocery Store, 117A, Rundle-Street. Just opened. . . Kither’s Buildings, nearly opposite the Plough and Harrow.” [Register 10 Jul 1882 advert]

 

“On Tuesday from noon until 2 o'clock in the afternoon the first free distribution of soup and bread to the distressed poor was made at the premises of Alderman Kither, who on that occasion provided both articles. . . there is a great deal of distress in the city. Altogether about thirty gallons of soup and forty loaves of bread were carried off by eager and indigent and genuinely grateful applicants, and the average daily demand will probably be about double that quantity. . . The soup and the bread were distributed by three private gentlemen who have interested themselves in the movement, and they were assisted by two of the City Missionaries and Miss Green.” [Evening Journal 28 May 1884]

 

“A refrigerating machine, the invention of Mr. Edmund Taylor — the first of the kind ever introduced into this colony — has just been erected under the superintendence of the inventor on the premises of Mr. W. Kither, butcher, of Rundle-street. . . In the very hot weather it is impossible by any ordinary process to keep meat more than a few hours, and to many it is equally difficult to eat it when newly killed. . . sufficient cold air can be stored to keep the compartments cool for thirty-six hours without recourse to the machine, an advantage which enables the butcher to dispense with Sunday work, and which allows the slaughterman a clear rest from Saturday noon to Monday morning.” [Evening Journal 23 Jul 1884]

 

“Salvatore Lazza, French, Italian, and English Confectioner, late of Adelaide Exhibition. . . has Removed to those commodious Buildings known as Kither’s Buildings, 117 Rundle-street. . . All Goods of the choicest, quality retail at wholesale prices. . . French Cocoanut and Cocoanut Chips fresh daily.” [Express & Telegraph 28 Jan 1888 advert]

 

“Defrie’s Lamps, Chimneys, and Wicks, Chair Seats, all sizes, only from H. L. Newman, Kither’s Buildings, Rundle-street.” [Evening Journal 25 Feb 1892 advert]

 

“Suits. . . Hats. . . High Class Tailoring. . . All Wool Materials, Thoroughly Shrunk. . . Hepworth’s Ltd. The London, Leeds, and Edinburgh Tailors and manufacturers, 117, Rundle-st. (Kither’s Buildings).” [Register 8 May 1895 advert]

 

“The Co-operative Coupon Company Limited. Have Leased those Extensive Premises at 117a, Rundle-street, known as Kither's Buildings, and have opened them as Showrooms for the display of their Goods, which consist of Silverware, Lamps, Furniture, Clocks, Musical Instruments, Japanese Goods, &c., &c. The novel feature of this Company is that the Goods are Given Away Free in Exchange for Co-operative Coupons, which are obtained from the various Tradesmen in the City and Suburbs issuing them.” [Evening Journal 1 Nov 1898 advert]

 

“Quality Meat. New Season’s Lamb. 7½d. Paddock-fed Beef. Kither’s Quality Butchers, Rundle St.” [Register 31 Oct 1924 advert]

 

“Clarkson Limited has purchased the freehold of the building in Rundle street, in which the business known as W. Kither, butcher, is conducted. The premises have a frontage of 63 ft. to Rundle street and a depth of 160 ft. to Twin street. It is understood that the purchase price is in the vicinity of £40,000.” [News 14Jun 1926]

 

“At the Abattoirs sales on Wednesday a consignment of spring lambs, which, was sold by Messrs. Elder, Smith and Co., Limited, on account of the Roseworthy College, provided an interesting example of the type and growth of various breeds and crosses. . . All the lambs were purchased by W. Kither, butcher, of Rundle-street, and will be exhibited at this shop later in the week.” [Chronicle 23 Jul 1931]

 

“Auction. . . To Butchers, Engineers. Dealers, &c. . . at Kither’s Old Premises, 135 Rundle Street. . . Sale of Surplus Plant and Equipment Owing to Expiration of Lease and Change of Address.” [Advertiser 16 Mar 1932 advert]

 

“Tenders are invited . . . for Remodelling and Extending Premises, Rundle Street, for Clarkson Limited. . . Woods, Bagot, Laybourne Smith and Irwin, Architects.” [News 8 Jul 1932 advert]

 

“From very small beginnings in 1848. . . The originator was Mr. H. L. Vosz, the Pioneer Painter and Plumber of South Australia. He first imported Glass to the colony, and a small shop was opened at 88 Rundle street, where the business was carried on until long after his death in 1886. . . The present Managing Director, Mr: A. E. Clarkson, entered the business in 1890. . . In 1915 the business assumed the name of Clarkson Limited. . . Clarkson Limited will open new premises .in Rundle street on Monday, December 5, on the site formerly known as Kither's Buildings, and the new showrooms will be up to date and modern in every respect. There is a frontage of 63 ft. and a floor space of over 30.000 square feet. . . It is the Company's intention to specialise, as in the past, in the requirements of the Building and allied trades, viz., Paints, Glass, Mirrors, Leaded Lights, Wallpapers, Artistware, Builders' Hardware, Plumbingware, etc., and domestic electrical appliances and refrigerators have also been added to the Company's stocks.” [News 1 Dec 1932]

 

“Clarkson Limited — Adelaide glass, paint and hardware merchants — this year celebrates its centenary of trading in South Australia. . . The business was founded 100 years ago by Mr. H. L. Vosz, who arrived from Europe in 1848 and started work as a carpenter and painter in Ackland street. . . Soon afterwards he rented premises in Rundle street and he was the first to import plate glass into SA. Mr. Vosz died in 1886 and for some years the business was carried on by those who had been closely associated with him. In 1904 the firm was incorporated . . . and in 1915 the name of the company was changed from H. L. Vosz Limited to Clarkson Limited, assuming the name of its managing director, the late Mr. A. E. Clarkson, who died in 1936. . . The company has occupied its present premises in Rundle street since 1932.” [Advertiser 17 Feb 1948]

 

WILLIAM KITHER

“Mr. William Kither, of Adelaide. . . was the proprietor of one of the oldest businesses in Rundle street; he had lived 55 years in South Australia. . . Mr. Kither had been married more than 40 years, and his wife, formerly Miss Elizabeth Morcom, was the daughter of an Adelaide coachbuilder well known in the early days of the State. . . Mr. Kither was a Londoner, born at Bow, in 1843. . . came to South Australia in 1855 with his father, mother, and six brothers and sisters in the ship Constance. . . his first duty was to weigh pins into 1-oz. packets. Ere long Master Kither apprenticed himself to a butcher. . . the apprentice persuaded his father to reopen the shop. That was about 1857. . . For two or three years the son and the widow were in partnership, then Mr. Kither began business on his own account. His operations rapidly expanded, and he found it necessary to pull down the old shop, and build the more commodious place which still bears his name. . . Mr. Kither became Councillor for Hindmarsh Ward in the City Council, and in 1883 was chosen as Alderman. . . a stanch advocate of asphalting in preference to woodblocking for street pavements.” [Register 25 Jan 1911]

 

“The citizens of Adelaide will remember his goodness all through the severe winter of 1884. when he proved his practical nature by keeping open a soup kitchen for the benefit of those who were in need. In support of organised philanthropic institutions and bodies, Mr. Kither's name always figured. He was a life governor of the Children's Hospital, and also of the Blind. Deaf and Dumb Asylum, and he served for ten years on the board of management of the Adelaide Hospital.” [Express & Telegraph 24 Jan 1911]

 

“Mr. Kither has left a widow and nine children. The sons are Messrs. J. M. Kither, H. Kither, of Messrs. Bennett and Fisher, J. S. Kither, and C. M. Kither. . . The daughters are Mesdames J. Vicars (Sydney), H. L. Jackman, Leslie Taylor, and Roy Taylor. The widow is in London.” [Evening Journal 24 Jan 1911]

 

“Probate has been granted in the will of the late Mr. William Kither, of Mount Lofty, who died at Knightsbridge, London, on January 23 last, while on a visit to England. . . The executors are Elizabeth Jane Kither (widow of the testator), and Herbert Kither and Clarence Maturin Kither (sons). . . The butchering business so successfully carried on under the direction of the deceased has been transferred to Clarence Maturin Kither, who managed it in his father's absence.” [Register 21 Mar 1911]

  

465 pieces

$69.99 USD

$89.99 CAD

Available in August

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 23-Apr-16.

 

Delivered to KLM Royal Dutch Airlines as PH-BDD in Nov-86. It spent 23 years working for KLM and was retired at Kemble UK in Dec-09. It was broken up there in Nov-10.

Holes in pool table felt - must be replaced

Clementine: Avrei voluto che fossi rimasto.

Joel: E io vorrei averlo fatto. Ora vorrei essere rimasto. Vorrei aver fatto molte cose. Vorrei... vorrei essere rimasto. Davvero.

Clementine: Tornai subito di sotto, ma non c'eri!

Joel: Ero uscito, me n'ero andato via.

Clementine: Perché?

Joel: Non lo so! Ero come un bambino spaventato e... era una cosa più grande di me. Non lo so...

Clementine: Avevi paura?!

Joel: Sì... pensavo che l'avessi capito.

During 1916 the British born Australian architect Walter Richmond Butler (1864 – 1949) designed a new Anglican Mission to Seamen to be built on an oddly shaped triangular block of land at 717 Flinders Street on the outskirts of the Melbourne central city grid, to replace smaller premises located in adjoining Siddeley Street, which had been resumed by the Harbour Trust during wharf extensions.

 

The Missions to Seamen buildings, built on reinforced concrete footings, are in rendered brick with tiled roofs. Walter Butler designed the complex using an eclectic mixture of styles, one of which was the Spanish Mission Revival which had become a prevalent style on the west coast of America, especially in California and New Mexico during the 1890s. The style revived the architectural legacy of Spanish colonialism of the Eighteenth Century and the associated Franciscan missions. The revival of the style is explicit in the Mission’s small, yet charming chapel with its rough-hewn timber trusses, in the bell tower with its pinnacles and turret surmounted by a rustic cross and in the monastic-like courtyard, which today still provides a peaceful retreat from the noisy world just beyond the Missions to Seamen’s doorstep. The chapel also features many gifts donated by members of the Harbour Trust and Ladies’ Harbour Lights Guild, including an appropriately themed pulpit in the shape of a ship's prow and two sanctuary chairs decorated with carved Australian floral motifs. Some of the stained glass windows in the chapel depict stories and scenes associated with the sea intermixed with those Biblical scenes more commonly found in such places of worship.

 

The adjoining Mission to Seamen’s administration, residential and recreational building shows the influence of English domestic Arts and Crafts architecture, with its projecting gable, pepper pot chimneys and three adjoining oriel windows. The lobby, with its appropriately nautically inspired stained glass windows, features a large mariner's compass inlaid in the terrazzo floor. Built-in timber cupboards, wardrobes, paneling and studded doors throughout the buildings evoke a ship's cabin.

 

Walter Butler, architect to the Anglican Diocese in Melbourne, had come to Australia with an intimate knowledge and experience of the Arts and Crafts movement and continued to use the style in his residential designs of the 1920s. The main hall has a reinforced concrete vaulted ceiling. Lady Stanley, wife of the Mission's patron, Governor Sir Arthur Lyulph Stanley, laid the foundation stone of the complex in November 1916. The buildings were financed partly by a compensation payment from the Harbour Trust of £8,500.00 and £3,000.00 from local merchants and shipping firms. The Ladies' Harbour Lights Guild raised over £800.00 for the chapel. Most of the complex was completed by late 1917 whilst the Pantheon-like gymnasium with oculus was finished soon afterwards. The substantially intact interiors, including extensive use of wall paneling in Tasmanian hardwood, form an integral part of the overall design.

 

The Missions to Seamen buildings are architecturally significant as a milestone in the early introduction of the Spanish Mission style to Melbourne. The style was to later find widespread popularity in the suburbs of Melbourne. The choice of Spanish Mission directly refers to the Christian purpose of the complex. The Missions to Seamen buildings are unusual for combining two distinct architectural styles, for they also reflect the imitation of English domestic architecture, the Arts and Crafts movement. Walter Butler was one of the most prominent and progressive architects of the period and the complex is one of his most unusual and distinctive works.

 

The Missions to Seamen buildings have historical and social significance as tangible evidence of prevailing concerns for the religious, moral, and social welfare of seafarers throughout most of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. The complex has a long association with the Missions to Seamen, an organisation formed to look after the welfare of seafarers, both officers and sailors, men "of all nationalities". It had its origins in Bristol, England when a Seamen's Mission was formed in 1837. The first Australian branch was started in 1856 by the Reverend Kerr Johnston, a Church of England clergyman, and operated from a hulk moored in Hobsons Bay; later the Mission occupied buildings in Williamstown and Port Melbourne. In 1905 the Reverend Alfred Gurney Goldsmith arrived at the behest of the London Seamen's Mission to establish a city mission for sailors working on the river wharves and docks. The building reflects the diverse role played by the Mission with its chapel, hall and stage, billiards room, reading room, dining room, officers' and men’s quarters, chaplain's residence, and gymnasium. It is still in use to this day under the jurisdiction of a small, but passionate group of workers, providing a welcome place of refuge to seamen visiting the Port of Melbourne.

 

Walter Butler was considered an architect of great talent, and many of his clients were wealthy pastoralists and businessmen. His country-house designs are numerous and include “Blackwood” (1891) near Penshurst, for R. B. Ritchie, “Wangarella” (1894) near Deniliquin, New South Wales, for Thomas Millear, and “Newminster Park” (1901) near Camperdown, for A. S. Chirnside. Equally distinguished large houses were designed for the newly established Melbourne suburbs: “Warrawee” (1906) in Toorak, for A. Rutter Clark; “Thanes” (1907) in Kooyong, for F. Wallach; “Kamillaroi” (1907) for Baron Clive Baillieu, and extensions to “Edzell” (1917) for George Russell, both in St Georges Road, Toorak. These are all fine examples of picturesque gabled houses in the domestic Queen Anne Revival genre. Walter Butler was also involved with domestic designs using a modified classical vocabulary, as in his remodelling of “Billilla” (1905) in Brighton, for W. Weatherley, which incorporates panels of flat-leafed foliage. Walter Butler also regarded himself as a garden architect.

 

As architect to the diocese of Melbourne from 1895, he designed the extensions to “Bishopscourt” (1902) in East Melbourne. His other church work includes St Albans (1899) in Armadale, the Wangaratta Cathedral (1907), and the colourful porch and tower to Christ Church (c.1910) in Benalla. For the Union Bank of Australia he designed many branch banks and was also associated with several tall city buildings in the heart of Melbourne’s central business district such as Collins House (1910) and the exceptionally fine Queensland Insurance Building (1911). For Dame Nellie Melba Butler designed the Italianate lodge and gatehouse at “Coombe Cottage” (1925) at Coldstream.

 

36 Park Row, Civic Center, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

 

Summary

 

The eleven-story Potter Building was commissioned by Orlando B. Potter, a prominent figure in New York politics with prime commercial real estate holdings in Manhattan, and constructed in 1883-86 to the design ofN.G. Starkweather, an architect who had formerly practiced in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Built to replace Potter's World Building, destroyed by fire in January 1882, the Potter Building had the most advanced fireproofing then available. With its vertically-expressed design executed in red brick and brownstone-colored terra cotta above a cast-iron-clad base, and picturesque, flamboyant fusion of Queen Anne, neo-Grec, Renaissance Revival, and Colonial Revival motifs, the Potter Building was distinguished stylistically from most downtown buildings.

 

Several aspects of the Potter Building make it today one of New York's most significant surviving tall office buildings of the period prior to the full development of the skyscraper. Its brickwork is among the handsomest in New York City. An early building to employ extensive exterior architectural terra cotta, it is a rare survivor of that period of development of terra cotta in New York. The highly sculpted terra cotta, produced by the Boston Terra Cotta Co., was employed in a notable "constructive" manner in the loadbearing walls.

 

The Potter Building is also an important surviving example of a New York office building with interior framing mostly of iron, as well as one of the earliest surviving examples of an office building having a C-shaped plan with a major light court facing the street. Its significance is enhanced by the fact that its original design is nearly intact , and its visibility is heightened by its prominent location facing City Hall Park and by its three fully articulated facades.

 

Orlando B. Potter

 

Orlando Bronson Potter commissioned the Potter Building in 1882. A Massachusetts lawyer, Potter moved to New York City in 1853 to assist in the development of a sewing machine business; he was president of the Grover & Baker Sewing Machine Co. until 1876. A prominent figure in New York Democratic politics, he achieved recognition by developing a plan for a national banking system and currency that was adopted by Congress in 1863, served as a U.S. Representative in 1883-85, and was a member of the Rapid Transit Commission in 1890-94.

 

Potter became extremely wealthy, due largely to his commercial real estate holdings in Manhattan upon which he concentrated after 1876. Besides purchasing existing structures, Potter commissioned a number of notable buildings, among them: 444 Lafayette Street ; 746-750 Broadway ; Potter Building , 35-38 Park Row; 808 Broadway , adjacent to Grace Church; and 4-8 Astor Place . In 1886, Potter founded the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co. with his son-in-law Walter Geer. At the time of his sudden death in January 1894, Potter was thought to have been the wealthiest man in New York City to have died intestate.

 

The Architect

 

The Potter Building was designed by Norris Garshom Starkweather. Born in Vermont the son of a farmer-carpenter, N.G. Starkweather was apprenticed to a builder in 1830 and fifteen years later became a contractor on his own in Massachusetts. By the mid-1840s he had established an architectural practice, moving by the mid-1850s to Philadelphia where he specialized in church designs.

 

The construction of the Gothic Revival style First Presbyterian Church , Baltimore, Starkweather's finest church, was apparently the reason for his relocation to Baltimore in 1856. The 273-foot spire of the church, built of masonry, necessitated "the most massive and scientifically arranged iron framework ever done in this country, or in any other, to our knowledge," according to a contemporary account.5 Achieving some renown for his ecclesiastical and institutional commissions in the Gothic Revival, Italianate, and Romanesque Revival styles, Starkweather also designed some of the most notable Italianate style villas in Maryland and Virginia.6 By 1860 he opened an office in Washington, D.C., and after the Civil War became the partner of Thomas M. Plowman in the architectural and engineering firm of Starkweather & Plowman .

 

Starkweather continued to be listed in Washington directories until 1881, though nothing is known of his career during the period following the Panic of 1873. His letterhead in 1877 read "Architect, Engineer, and Superintendent, All kinds of House Decorations Promptly Attended to."

 

Baltimore architect George Frederick reminisced that "after an erratic career . . . [Starkweather] moved to New York."

 

Arriving in New York City by the middle of 1880, Starkweather was a partner of Robert Napier Anderson in the firm of Starkweather & Anderson, "architects and superintendents," at 106 Broadway.

 

From 1881 until about 1884 he was the partner of Charles E. Gibbs; the office of Starkweather & Gibbs in 1881 was in the World Building, owned by O.B. Potter, at 37 Park Row. Besides the Potter Building, only two other commissions by Starkweather in New York City are known, both with Gibbs: the previously-mentioned 746-750 Broadway , also for Potter, and the Second Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church at 321 East 118th Street, a Victorian Gothic style composition with flanking asymmetrical towers, executed in brick and terra cotta. Starkweather died in New York in December 1885, prior to the completion of the Potter Building, and was buried in Bridgeport, Conn.

 

The Tall Office Building in New York City in the 1880s

 

During the nineteenth century, commercial buildings in New York City developed from four-story structures modeled on Italian Renaissance palazzi to much taller skyscrapers. Made possible by technological advances, tall buildings challenged designers to fashion an appropriate architectural expression. Between 1870 and 1890, nine- and ten-story buildings transformed the streetscapes of lower Manhattan between Bowling Green and City Hall. During the building boom following the Civil War, building envelopes continued to be articulated largely according to traditional palazzo compositions, with mansarded and towered roof profiles.

 

The period of the late 1870s and 1880s was one of stylistic experimentation in which commercial and office buildings in New York incorporated diverse influences, such as the Queen Anne, Victorian Gothic, Romanesque, and neo-Grec styles, French rationalism, and the German Rundbogenstil, under the leadership of such architects as Richard M. Hunt and George B. Post. New York's tallest buildings — including the seven-and-one-half-story Equitable Life Assurance Co. Building at Broadway and Cedar Street, the ten-story Western Union Building at Broadway and Liberty Street, and the ten-story Tribune Building on Park Row, all now demolished — incorporated passenger elevators, iron floor beams, and fireproof building materials.

 

Cage construction, employed in the 1880s in tall buildings in New York and Chicago, was characterized by the Record and Guide as "a frame work of iron or steel columns and girders which carry the floors only, and do not carry the outer walls. In the cage construction the outer walls are independent walls, from the foundation to the extreme top, sustaining themselves only, and therefore, the walls are made less in thickness than if they had to bear the floors as in ordinary buildings such walls would have to do."12 Ever taller skyscrapers were permitted by the increasing use and refinement of the metal skeleton frame, in which the metal columns and girders support both the floors and the outer walls.13 In addition, several hybrid structural forms were used in tall buildings, such as the combination of both masonry and metal for interior vertical supports. Fireproofing was of paramount concern as office buildings grew taller, and by 1881-82 systems had been devised to "completely fireproof' them.

 

While tall buildings in New York City often had interior light courts,15 George B. Post is credited as one of the first architects to introduce and popularize major light courts that faced the street, a solution to providing office towers with maximum light and air, in the Post Building , 16-18 Exchange Place, and Mills Building , 59 Exchange Place, both of which had C-shaped plans.16 The Potter Building utilized the successful design, construction, fireproofing, and planning techniques of these earlier buildings.

 

Park Row: "Newspaper Row"

 

The vicinity of Park Row, Nassau Street, and Printing House Square,18 roughly from the Brooklyn Bridge to Ann Street, was the center of newspaper publishing in New York City from the 1840s through the 1920s, while Beekman Street became the center of the downtown printing industry.

 

Beginning in the 1870s, this area was redeveloped with tall office buildings, most associated with the newspapers, and Park Row and adjacent Nassau Street acquired a series of important late-nineteenth-century structures: Tribune Building , 154-170 Nassau Street; Morse Building , 140 Nassau Street; Temple Court Building , 7 Beekman Street; Potter Building ; New York Times Building , 40 Park Row; World Building , 53-63 Park Row; American Tract Society Building , 150 Nassau Street; and Park Row Building , 15 Park Row.

 

Construction of the Potter Building

 

The Potter Building's lot, at Park Row and Beekman Street, had been the location of the Brick Presbyterian Church . When the church built a new edifice uptown, the church site was divided into two lots; the building erected on the northern lot housed the New York Times. Orlando B. Potter, with Boston friends John and Uriah Ritchie, purchased the southern lot in 1857 for around $350,000, and put up a five-story Italianate style stone structure that became the home of the New York World . Potter became the sole owner of this building in 1867.22 Destroyed by a fire on January 31, 1882, in which several people died, the World Building

 

"made itself notorious the country over for burning up in the shortest time on record."23 The Real Estate Record & Guide speculated that "the ground is so valuable that it will no doubt be immediately built upon, and a structure will take its place that will vie with the several superb buildings in its neighborhood."24 Potter, understandably determined to replace the World Building with a structure having the most advanced fireproofing then available, had suffered heavy financial loss in the fire.25 The Record & Guide announced on February 18, 1882, that

 

Mr. O.B. Potter proposes to erect on the site of the structure so recently destroyed by fire . . . one of the largest office buildings yet erected in New York. Mr. Potter proposes to have this building absolutely fireproof inside as well as outside . . . The building will be eleven stories high, the fronts being constructed of pressed brick and terra cotta . . . It is proposed to fit up the first floor for banking houses, while the upper stories will be devoted to offices for lawyers and general business purposes. It is the intention of the owner to make this structure an ornament to the neighborhood and in keeping with the numerous handsome buildings by which it will be surrounded.26 Costs, however, delayed construction until the next year.27 The Record & Guide finally indicated in April 1883 that foundation work on Potter's building had commenced: "The structure is to be made absolutely fire-proof.

 

A furnace will be put up on the premises to test the various building materials that Mr. Potter has under consideration. Mr. Starkweather's plans have been adopted, and the work will be pushed as rapidly as good building will permit."28

 

The World Building fire had occurred while Potter's 746-750 Broadway building was under construction, and the firms working on that project were retained for the construction of the Potter Building.29 The day after architect N.G. Starkweather filed his plans for the Potter Building, the New York Times announced that the eleven-story office building, with ground-story commercial spaces, was to cost $700,000, and that "the materials used in the construction of the walls and front will be the best bricks, pressed bricks, terra cotta, and iron . . . The roof and floor beams will be of rolled iron, and all floors, except the basement, will be laid on iron girders."30 The Record & Guide in March 1884 reported that "the Potter building is going forward rapidly."31 Five companies apparently supplied the exterior cast

 

iron and interior structural ironwork for the building , while Thomas Armstrong was the mason.32 The Fireman's Herald thought that "the new structure will be famous as the result of much thought and many experiments in order to put up an ideal fireproof building, and it will endure for ages . . . The work is not done by contract, but by the day, and every detail undergoes inspection."33 In addition, there was a bricklayers' strike in 1884,34 thus the estimated cost of the project in May 1885 rose to 1.2 million dollars. Construction was completed at the end of June 1886.

 

Today the Potter Building is recognized as an important and rare surviving example of an 1880s fireproofed New York office building with interior framing mostly of iron. The independent exterior brick walls vary in thickness from forty inches on the ground story to twenty inches on the upper stories. Interior hollow cast-iron structural columns are encased in wire netting covered with "lime water," fire brick, and plaster; flanged wrought-iron joists, set into the brick walls, carry wrought-iron beams; flat-arch tile fireproofing ,35 between and encasing the joists, is coated with plaster; and floors are laid with concrete and pieces of stone and brick. In each of the building's wings an interior masonry wall is set perpendicular to the court, for additional floor support and bracing of the building.36 The Fireman's Herald opined that "on the floors and ceilings depend the whole theory and practice of fire-proofing."

 

King's Handbook of New York in 1892 called the Potter Building "one of the most substantially constructed and absolutely fireproof among the office buildings in the metropolis."38 Besides the eleven above-ground stories, the building has two basement stories; four passenger elevators were originally located in a lobby that extended through the north end of the building.

 

Design of the Potter Building

 

The Potter Building, designed by a non-New York architect with a picturesque, flamboyant fusion of Queen Anne, neo-Grec, Renaissance Revival, and Colonial Revival motifs, was distinguished stylistically from most downtown Manhattan office buildings.

 

The vertically- expressed design, executed in red brick and brownstone-colored terra cotta above a cast-ironclad base, is organized by continuous piers flanking paired fenestration. The northernmost bay on both the Park Row and Nassau Street facades is narrower, corresponding functionally to the interior elevator halls. Articulation on all three facades is similar, the walls elaborated by ornamental terracotta capitals, pediments, segmental arches, panels, and corbelling. The building's brickwork, incorporating molding and patterns, is among the handsomest in New York City. The quadrilateral shape of the lot and the acute angle created by the juncture of Park Row and Beekman Street were skillfully adapted into the design, which features a dramatic, colossal three-quarter-round column terminating in a pinnacle on this primary corner. The roofline is further punctuated by finials and broken scroll pediments with urns.

 

Several elements of the Potter Building can be seen in Starkweather's earlier work, such as an overall picturesqueness, exploitation of a dramatic corner, the use of prominent pinnacles and pediments, and elaboration of windows. The Potter Building provided an interesting contrast with its adjacent neighbors, the slightly earlier Temple Court and Morse Buildings.

 

Contemporary comment on the Potter Building was decidedly mixed . A critic with the Record & Guide in 1885 was particularly scathing, stating that "there is not an interesting or refined piece of detail in the whole building . . . All the good work that has been done in recent architecture has been thrown away on the designer of the Potter building, which is coarse, pretentious, overloaded and intensely vulgar."39 Interestingly, this critic also viewed unfavorably the verticality of the design :

 

There is no effort visible anywhere to broaden the fronts and keep them down. There is not an emphatic horizontal line anywhere, with the single exception of the main cornice. Even the demarcation between the principal divisions is not brought out, while the vertical lines are everywhere emphasized so as to make the building look spindling.40 Carpentry and Building in 1885 remarked, how ever, that one of the most conspicuous new buildings in the lower part of New York City is the Potter

 

Building . . . noticeable to the casual visitor particularly on account of its hight [sic], and also on account of the combined use of iron and brick on the outside walls . . . A prominent feature of the building is the extensive use of terra-cotta . . . The front of the principal story and the story immediately above it are of cast iron. Iron trimmings are also used in some of the stories above these, and a judicious combination of iron with brick, and iron with terra-cotta, is a marked feature of the exterior treatment.41

 

King's Handbook in 1892 thought that "the really noble proportions of the Potter Building, and the impressive character of its architecture, make it one of the great and illustrious monuments of commercial success in the Empire City."42 And in 1899 the History of Architecture and the Building Trades of Greater New York found that the building "as a design is unusual and perhaps excessive in detail, but has great interest in the disposition of its masses."

 

The Potter Building is an early example, and one of the earliest surviving, of a New York office building having a C-shaped plan with a major light court facing the street . The Record & Guide noted that the court was "similar to those of the Post and Mills buildings," while the Fireman's Herald thought the building "is so divided that it looks almost like two buildings."44 Today the Potter Building is one of New York's most notable surviving tall office buildings of the period prior to the full development of the skyscraper. Its significance is enhanced by the fact that its original design is nearly intact . Its visibility is heightened by its prominent location on Park Row facing City Hall Park and by its three fully articulated facades.

 

The Potter Building and Architectural Terra Cotta in New York City

 

While there were several attempts in the 1850s to employ terra cotta for architectural ornament in New York,46 it was after the Chicago and Boston fires of 1871-72 that terra cotta began to be used as a significant interior and exterior building material in the United States. Walter Geer observed that "by these fires it was conclusively demonstrated that fire-proof buildings could not be made of unprotected stone or iron, and that only brick and terra-cotta walls were practically fire-proof.

 

This increased use of brick work, and of terra-cotta as a constructive and decorative material in connection with brick work, revived the demand for the manufacture of this material in or near New York."47 Advantages seen in terra cotta for both exterior architectural ornament and interior fireproofing included its fireproof properties, strength, durability, lower cost and weight in shipping and handling, the relative ease w ith which elaborate decoration could be molded, and the retention over time of crisp ornamental profiles compared to stone. In the 1870s and early 1880s architectural terra cotta was often a color that matched stone that could be employed in pleasant juxtaposition with brick, or as a substitute for brownstone. The Record & Guide remarked that during this period "terra cotta is most generally used for the trimming and ornamentation of buildings, taking the form of panels, courses, friezes, small tiles, roofing tiles and paving blocks."

 

George B. Post was the leader in New York City in the use of exterior terra cotta, in his designs for the Braem House , 15 East 37th Street;49 Long Island Historical Society , 128 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn, for which a contemporary said "the material has been employed, for the first time in the United States, both for the building material and for all decorative details";50 New York Produce Exchange , 2 Broadway; and Mills Building. Among other contemporary architects who employed terra cotta were Silliman & Farnsworth, in the Morse Building, then considered the first prominent New York office building to employ exterior terra cotta , and Temple Court Building; and Kimball & Wisedell, designers of the Casino Theater , 1400 Broadway, an early New York building having highly intricate, exotic terra-cotta ornament.

 

The Potter Building was an early and significant building to employ extensive exterior architectural terra cotta. To day the building is a rare survivor of that period of development of terra cotta in New York. The terra cotta on the Potter Building, highly sculpted in comparison to the lower relief terra-cotta panels and more judicious use of terra cotta found more typically on contemporary buildings, was produced by the Boston Terra Cotta Co.52 One of the first terra cotta firms on the East Coast, the Boston company featured the Potter Building in its 1885 catalogue, declaring that the terra cotta was "used constructively -- fully demonstrating the great bearing strength of the work made by the Boston Terra Cotta Co."

 

The term "constructively" refers to the manner in which the terra cotta was fully integrated into the exterior brick bearing walls of the Potter Building.

 

Some 540 tons of terra cotta were employed in the Potter Building, which was further called in 1888 an example of the best use of terra-cotta, both for constructive and ornamental purposes . . . No building yet erected in this country is more solidly constructed, and the weight supported by the piers and arches is simply enormous. If stone had been used in place of terra-cotta, the weight to be supported would have been more than doubled, and the risk and cost of handling would have been greatly increased, to say nothing about the first-cost of stone work, as heavily carved and richly ornamented as the terra-cotta work used in this building.5 James Taylor , "the father of American terra cotta,"55 was superintendent of the Boston Terra Cotta Co. during construction of the Potter Building.

 

First rising to superintendent of J.M. Blashfield's terra cotta works in Stamford, England, Taylor left and later superintended the Chicago Terra-Cotta Works in 1870-76, the period during which Chicago was the leading location for American terra cotta manufacturing. He advised the establishment of the A. Hall & Sons Fire Brick Works in 1877 in New Jersey. After the owner of the Chicago firm collaborated with the Boston Fire Brick Co. after 1876, to meet the demand for terra cotta on the East Coast, this plant subsequently became the Boston Terra Cotta Co. in 1880 and Taylor became superintendent there. Geer reported that Taylor "was frequently in New York supervising the setting of the terra cotta [for the Potter Building], and had numerous opportunities of meeting Mr. Potter, who always personally looked after the construction of his buildings."

 

O.B. Potter decided to organize his own firm, the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co., which was launched in January 1886 with Walter Geer and his father, Asahel Clarke Geer; Taylor was superintendent until he retired in 1893. Ill-starred

 

to say the least, Potter saw his new terra cotta works in Long Island City totally destroyed by fire in July 1886 .58 The company, the only major architectural terra cotta firm in New York City, became one of the largest such manufacturers in the United States, remaining in business until bankruptcy in 1932. Walter Geer credited George B. Post and Orlando B. Potter as the two men most responsible for the promotion of terra cotta in New York City, praising Potter for having "employed terra cotta largely in all of the numerous buildings which he erected, and [who] did much by his example, and also by his advocacy of the material on all occasions, to promote and encourage its use."59

 

Early Tenants

 

King's Handbook mentioned that there were two hundred offices in the Potter Building, "including those of several newspaper and periodical publishers, insurance and other companies, lawyers and professional men."61 Among its newspaper tenants were the editorial and business offices of The Press, a popular penny newspaper founded in 1887 with ties to the Republican party, and the New York-Observer, the oldest American religious newspaper, started in 1823 and previously located in the World Building until the fire. Other tenants included Peter Adams Co. and Adams & Bishop Co., manufacturers of fine papers for printing, maps, photography, etc.; the Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association, established in 1881 and the then-largest assessment insurance firm in the world;62 the business offices of Otis Brothers & Co., manufacturers of elevators since 1855 and the leading maker of passenger elevators; the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co. offices; and O.B. Potter himself, on the top floor.

 

Later History

 

After Orlando B. Potter's death in 1894, the Potter Building was conveyed to the O.B. Potter Trust ,64 then in 1913 to O.B. Potter Properties, Inc. Frederick Potter , a lawyer who had assisted his father with family real estate since 1880, became administrator of the estate and later served as president of O.B. Potter Properties.65 The firm sold the Potter Building in 1920 to Aronson Investing Co., Inc., "relinquished in the best interests of the [Potter] Estate with the changes brought about in the city's development."66 O.B. Potter's daughter,

 

Blanche, stated that, due to financial worries in 1919, the family sold some of its real estate, including the Potter and Empire Buildings.67 In 1923 the Potter Building was conveyed to Parbee Realty Corp., then to Gening Realty Corp. in 1929, to 38 Park Row Corp. in 1931, and back to Parbee in 1932. Seaman's Bank for Savings foreclosed on the property in March 1941, holding it until 1945, when it was purchased by Beepark Estates, Inc. . The majority of twentieth-century office tenants were lawyers and accountants. The 38 Park Row Corp. acquired the building in 1954 and held it until 1973, when it was sold to Pace College, which intended to demolish four adjacent buildings for the construction of a large office tower on Park Row. After this scheme fell through, Pace sold the Potter Building in 1979 to 38 Park Row Associates, a joint venture of the East River Savings Bank with the BOMA, Ltd., partnership .

 

The building was converted into a cooperative with loft apartments and the property was conveyed to the 38 Park Row Residence Corp. in 1981.

 

Description

 

The eleven-story Potter Building has three principal facades, on Park Row, Beekman Street, and Nassau Street; the C-shaped plan of the building allows for a major light court above the third story on Beekman Street. The building, of fireproofed construction with mostly iron framing, is clad in cast iron on the two stories of the base, and red brick and brownstone-colored terra cotta on the upper stories. Articulation on the three facades is similar, organized by continuous piers alternating with paired fenestration; there is a high degree of ornamentation in the cast iron, brick, and terra cotta. A colossal three-quarter-round column is placed on the acute primary corner of Park Row and Beekman Street. Windows have one-over-one double-hung wood sash . An exterior restoration, performed in 1992-93 by Siri & Marsik, architects, with Henry Restoration, included overall repointing, patching of the terra cotta with Jahn mortar, and some brick replacement.

 

Base

 

The two-story base is clad in cast iron. The entire ground story was originally capped by spandrel

 

panels with segmental arches with bosses, while the second story is capped by spandrel panels with pediments. Shopfronts were originally framed with thin cast-iron colonnettes, and had a display window and a doorway to the right, surmounted by a two-part transom. Historic photographs indicate that doors and entrance transoms were of the multi-pane Queen Anne style. All of the shopfronts have been altered several times over the years, and no historic fabric survives. Shopfronts are currently framed in metal with rolldown gates.

 

Base: Park Row The northernmost bay of the ground story was originally the entrance to the elevator lobby; it had shallow steps, columns supporting a heavy broken scroll pediment, and double doors. This entrance received a surround with a veneer of polished granite, the entrance steps were removed, and a shop was installed in the former entrance and western portion of the elevator lobby. The ground-story spandrel panels, originally with segmental arches, were covered by cast-stone panels . Base: Beekman Street The center of this facade corresponds to the light court above: the ground story originally had an entrance through a triple-arched portico with a projecting pediment supported by bracketed columns ; the second story has three windows flanked by colonnettes. This is the only facade with its original ground-story spandrel panels with segmental arches exposed.

 

A Duclos & Co. iron founder's plate is located on the first pier at the southwest corner of the building. Base: Nassau Street The northernmost bay of the ground story was originally the entrance to the elevator lobby; it is now the residential entrance, with metal and glass doors and transom . The ground-story spandrel panels, originally with segmental arches, were covered with cast-stone panels in 1941.

 

Midsection

 

The midsection consists of seven stories, the ninth story acting as a transition to the upper section. The spandrels above the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh stories are ornamented by corbelling, and the fourth and eighth stories by segmental arches, all of terra cotta. The piers of the eighth story have heavy terra-cotta stylized composite capitals, the corner column at Park Row and Beekman Street having an eagle. The ninth story is capped by a bracketed terra-cotta cornice. Window sills are cast iron. Beekman Street: Light Court The center section of the Beekman Street facade is the light court. On the third story are three windows flanked by cast-iron colonnettes, surmounted by a cast-iron pediment with an acroterion. A T-shaped fire escape was added across the center of the court in 1916-18. The fire escape was extended to the roof, enclosed with parged masonry walls, and braced with steel beams .

 

The remaining light court configuration is thus an enclosed interior light court to the north and an exposed southern portion, within which extends the enclosed stairway. The northernmost sections of the side walls of this latter portion of the court still exposed are clad in cream brick.

 

Upper Section

 

The two-story upper section has corbelled spandrels above the tenth story and segmental-arched windows with segmental terra-cotta hoods on the eleventh story. Alternate bays are surmounted by pediments. The roofline is punctuated by finials, broken scroll pediments with urns, and a prominent pinnacle above the primary corner column. The roof has later penthouse and service structures.

 

- From the 1996 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Review LG LED IPS Monitor 23MP65HQ (LG 23EA63V replaced) An Phat PC by dtien87 ductien daoductien - www.anphatpc.com.vn

Replaced all of the sound proofing under the cab

Replacing an earlier scanned 6"x4" print with a better version 30-Dec-14, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 31-Mar-23.

 

This aircraft was delivered to Bavaria Fluggesellschaft as D-BIBI in May-64. It was sold back to Handley Page Aircraft as G-AVPN in Jun-67 and leased to Itavia as I-TIVB the following month. Itavia bought it in Jul-70.

 

It was sold to BIA British Island Airways as G-AVPN in Jul-73 and BIA was merged into AirUK in Jan-80. It was wet-leased to 'Skyguard' in Aug-85 and returned to AirUK in Sep-85. In Feb-86 the aircraft was sold to Nordic Oil Services and leased to Business Air Centre.

 

In Mar-86 it was sub-leased to Euroair Transport and returned to Business Air Centre in Sep-86. The aircraft was returned to Nordic Oil Services in Aug-87 and stored at Norwich, UK.

 

It was leased to British Air Ferries as a small package freighter in Nov-89 and then sold to Channel Express Air Services in Nov-91. It was sold to The Dart Group PLC (owners of Channel Express and later Jet2.com) in Feb-92 and leased back to Channel Express.

 

After 33 years in service the aircraft was permanently retired at Bournemouth, UK in Jul-97. It was donated to the Yorkshire Air Museum in Oct-97 and placed on display at Elvington, Yorkshire. I was advised in Apr-19 that over the intervening years the airfame had suffered from extensive corrosion and at that time only the nose section survived.

Replaced my M-stem with a H-stem, Aberhallo stem adapter and straight handle bars (58 cm)

 

It is about 2cm lower now. Brake/shifter cables are not modified.

Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). Detail of "Colouored Vases" (2007-2010), an installation by Ai Weiwei. For this series, Ai dipped vases from the Han dynasty into industrial paint, hiding their faded but richly patterned surfaces beneath brightly coloured veneer that he let drip at random.

This has replaced the earlier image. The bicycle has now acquired a front basket. Not very elegant or sporting, but OK to put lightweight stuff in at the spur of the moment. Heavy bags of sugar and books would interfere with the steering. The basket has to be tied on permanently as it rattles too much over bumpy roads otherwise.

 

The bicycle is parked on a through route for cyclists from Ropetackle, Shoreham waterfront that links on the to the Coastal Link Cyclepath (a UK cycling facility). It is not clear if the bit in the photograph is a technical "Right of Way" specified and cycling is allowed. There are no official signs. We have always used it as a "Right of Way" until the developers fenced it off to build the monstrosity at Ropetackle (blame Adur Council and SEEDA for that!). The original plans plan the retention of the waterside path.

 

The picture was brightened in Photoshop, but that was excluding the clouds.

Replacing wood framing

Replacing an earlier digital photo with a better version 13-Jun-20.

 

Taken from the Pendleton bridge.

 

Fleet No: "5TA".

 

This aircraft was delivered to ILFC International Lease Finance Corporation and leased to TWA Trans World Airlines as N701TW in Jul-96. TWA was merged into American Airlines in Dec-01. The aircraft was returned to the lessor in Nov-06 and sold to L-3 Communications Advanced Aviation LLC in Jan-07. L-3 Communications specialise in electronic surveillance equipment (amongst other things!) and the aircraft was used as a flying testbed. It was retro fitted with blended winglets in 2007. The aircraft was transferred to the United States Air Force serialled 09-0016 in Mar-11 as an 'Elint' (Electronic Intelligence) aircraft. Current, updated (Jun-20).