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Tomar, Portugal The Knights Templar Castle UNESCO World Heritage Site by Harold Litwiler

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Wikipedia, The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a military order of the Catholic faith, and one of the most important military orders in Western Christianity. They were founded in 1118 to defend pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, with their headquarters located there on the Temple Mount, and existed for nearly two centuries during the Middle Ages.

Officially endorsed by the Catholic Church by such decrees as the papal bull Omne datum optimum of Pope Innocent II, the Templars became a favoured charity throughout Christendom and grew rapidly in membership and power. The Templar knights, in their distinctive white mantles with a red cross, were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades. They were prominent in Christian finance; non-combatant members of the order, who made up as much as 90% of their members,[1][2] managed a large economic infrastructure throughout Christendom.[3] They developed innovative financial techniques that were an early form of banking,[4][5] building a network of nearly 1,000 commanderies and fortifications across Europe and the Holy Land.[6]

The Templars were closely tied to the Crusades. As they became unable to secure their holdings in the Holy Land, support for the order faded.[7] In 1307, King Philip IV of France had many of the order's members in France arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and then burned at the stake.[8] Under pressure, Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312.[9] In spite of its dissolution, however, between 1317–1319, a number of Templar knights, properties and other assets were absorbed within the Portuguese Order of Christ,[10][11][12][13] and the Spanish Order of Montesa;[14] the abrupt disappearance of this major medieval European institution in its original incarnation gave rise to speculation and legends, which have currently kept the "Templar" name alive in self-styled orders and popular culture.

Names

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici and French: Pauvres Chevaliers du Christ et du Temple de Salomon) are also known as the Order of Solomon's Temple, and mainly the Knights Templar (French: Les Chevaliers Templiers), or simply the Templars (French: Les Templiers).

The Temple Mount where they had their headquarters had a mystique because it was above what was believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon.[15]

History

Main article: History of the Knights Templar

Rise

After the Franks in the First Crusade captured Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate in 1099, many Christians made pilgrimages to various sacred sites in the Holy Land. Although the city of Jerusalem was relatively secure under Christian control, the rest of Outremer was not. Bandits and marauding highwaymen preyed upon these Christian pilgrims, who were routinely slaughtered, sometimes by the hundreds, as they attempted to make the journey from the coastline at Jaffa through to the interior of the Holy Land.[16]

A Seal of the Knights Templar[17][18]

In 1119, the French knight Hugues de Payens approached King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and proposed creating a monastic Catholic religious order for the protection of these pilgrims. King Baldwin and Patriarch Warmund agreed to the request, probably at the Council of Nablus in January 1120, and the king granted the Templars a headquarters in a wing of the royal palace on the Temple Mount in the captured Al-Aqsa Mosque.[19]

The order, with about nine knights including Godfrey de Saint-Omer and André de Montbard, had few financial resources and relied on donations to survive. Their emblem was of two knights riding on a single horse, emphasizing the order's poverty.[20]

The first headquarters of the Knights Templar, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Crusaders called it "the Temple of Solomon" and from this location derived their name of Templar.

The impoverished status of the Templars did not last long. They had a powerful advocate in Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a leading Church figure, the French abbot primarily responsible for the founding of the Cistercian Order of monks and a nephew of André de Montbard, one of the founding knights. Bernard put his weight behind them and wrote persuasively on their behalf in the letter In Praise of the New Knighthood,[21][22] and in 1129, at the Council of Troyes, he led a group of leading churchmen to officially approve and endorse the order on behalf of the church. With this formal blessing, the Templars became a favoured charity throughout Christendom, receiving money, land, businesses, and noble-born sons from families who were eager to help with the fight in the Holy Land. At the Council of Pisa in 1135, Pope Innocent II initiated the first papal monetary donation to the Order.[23] Another major benefit came in 1139, when Innocent II's papal bull Omne Datum Optimum exempted the order from obedience to local laws. This ruling meant that the Templars could pass freely through all borders, were not required to pay any taxes and were exempt from all authority except that of the pope.[24] However, in practice, they often had to respect the wishes of the European rulers in whose kingdoms they resided, especially in their handling of funds for the local noblility in their banks.[25]

With its clear mission and ample resources, the order grew rapidly. Templars were often the advance shock troops in key battles of the Crusades, as the heavily armoured knights on their warhorses would charge into the enemy lines ahead of the main army. One of their most famous victories was in 1177 during the Battle of Montgisard, where some 500 Templar knights helped several thousand infantry to defeat Saladin's army of more than 26,000 soldiers.[a]

A Templar Knight is truly a fearless knight, and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armour of faith, just as his body is protected by the armour of steel. He is thus doubly armed, and need fear neither demons nor men.

― Bernard of Clairvaux, c. 1135

De Laude Novae Militae – In Praise of the New Knighthood[27]

Although the primary mission of the order was military, relatively few members were combatants. The majority acted in support positions to assist the knights and manage their financial infrastructure. Although individual members were sworn to poverty, the Templar Order controlled vast wealth even beyond direct donations. A nobleman participating in the Crusades might place all his assets under Templar management during his absence. Accumulating wealth in this manner throughout Christendom and the Outremer, in 1150 the order began to issue letters of credit for pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land: pilgrims deposited their valuables with a local Templar preceptory before embarking, received a document indicating the value of their deposit, then showed that document upon arrival in the Holy Land to claim treasure of equal value to their funds. This innovative arrangement was an early form of banking and may have been the first use of bank cheques; it protected pilgrims from robbery, while augmenting Templar finances.[28]

Based on this mix of donations and business dealings, the Templars established financial networks across the whole of Christendom. They acquired large tracts of land, both in Europe and the Middle East; they bought and managed farms and vineyards; they built massive stone cathedrals and castles; they were involved in manufacturing, import, and export; they owned fleets of ships; and at one point they even owned the entire island of Cyprus. The order arguably qualifies as the world's first multinational corporation.[29][30] By the late 12th century the Templars were also politically powerful in the Holy Land. Secular nobles in the Kingdom of Jerusalem began granting them castles and surrounding lands as a defense against the growing threat of the Zengids in Syria. The Templars were even allowed to negotiate with Muslim rulers independently of the feudal lords. The Templar castles became de facto independent lordships with their own markets, further growing their political authority. During the regency after the death of King Baldwin IV in 1185, the royal castles were placed in the custody of the Templars and Hospitallers: the grand masters of the two orders, along with the patriarch of Jerusalem, each had a key to the crown jewels.[31]

From the mid-12th century, the Templars were recruited (jointly with the Hospitallers) to fight the Muslim kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula, in addition to their campaigns in the Latin East.[32] In the kingdoms of Castile and León, they obtained some major strongholds (such as Calatrava la Vieja or Coria), but their vulnerability along the border was exposed during the Almohad offensive.[33] In Aragon, the Templars subsumed the Order of Mountjoy in the late 12th century, becoming an important vanguard force on the border, while in Portugal they commanded some castles along the Tagus line.[34] One of these was Tomar, which was unsuccessfully besieged by the Almohad Caliphate in 1190.

Due to the expense of sending a third of their revenues to the East, Templar and Hospitaller activities in the Iberian Peninsula were at a disadvantage to the Hispanic military orders which expended all their resources in the region.[35]

War

King Baldwin II presiding over a council with the Templars

Accounts of the Order's early military activities in the Levant are vague, though it appears their first battles were defeats, because the Seljuk Turks and other Muslim powers used different tactics than those in Europe at that time. The Templars later adapted to this and became strategic advisors to the leaders of the Crusader states.[36] The first recorded battle involving the Knights Templar was in the town of Teqoa, south of Jerusalem, in 1138. A force of Templars led by their grand master, Robert de Craon (who succeeded Hugues de Payens about a year earlier), was sent to retake the town after it was captured by Muslims. They were initially successful, but the Muslims regrouped outside the town and were able to take it back from the Templars.[37]

The Order's mission developed from protecting pilgrims to taking part in regular military campaigns early on,[36] and this is shown by the fact that the first castle received by the Knights Templar was located four hundred miles north of the pilgrim road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, on the northern frontier of the Principality of Antioch: the castle of Bagras in the Amanus Mountains.[36][38] It may have been as early as 1131, and by 1137 at the latest, that the Templars were given the mountainous region that formed the border of Antioch and Cilician Armenia, which included the castles of Bagras, Darbsak, and Roche de Roissel. The Templars were there when Byzantine emperor John II Komnenos tried to make the Crusader states of Antioch, Tripoli, and Edessa his vassals between 1137 and 1142. Templar knights accompanied Emperor John II with troops from those states during his campaign against Muslim powers in Syria from 1137 to 1138, including at the sieges of Aleppo and Shaizar.[39] In 1143, the Templars also began taking part in the Reconquista in Iberia at the request of the count of Barcelona.[40]

In 1147 a force of French, Spanish, and English Templars[41] left France to join the Second Crusade, led by King Louis VII. At a meeting held in Paris on 27 April 1147 they were given permission by Pope Eugenius III to wear the red cross on their uniforms. They were led by the Templar provincial master in France, Everard des Barres, who was one of the ambassadors King Louis sent to negotiate the passage of the Crusader army through the Byzantine Empire on its way to the Holy Land. During the dangerous journey of the Second Crusade through Anatolia, the Templars provided security to the rest of the army from Turkish raids.[42] After the Crusaders arrived in 1148, the kings Louis VII, Conrad III of Germany, and Baldwin III of Jerusalem made the decision to capture Damascus, but their siege in the summer of that year failed and ended with the defeat of the Christian army.[43][44] In the fall of 1148 some returning Templars took part in the successful siege of Tortosa in Spain, after which one-fifth of that city was given to the Order.[41]

Robert de Craon died in January 1149 and was succeeded as grand master by Everard des Barres, one of the few leaders at the siege of Damascus whose reputation was not damaged by the event.[43] After the Second Crusade, Zengid forces under Nur ad-Din Zengi of Aleppo attacked the Principality of Antioch, and in June 1149 his army defeated the Crusaders at the Battle of Inab, where Prince Raymond of Antioch was killed. King Baldwin III led reinforcements to the principality, which led Nur ad-Din to accept a truce with Antioch and not advance any further.[45] The force with King Baldwin included 120 Templar knights and 1,000 sergeants and squires.[46]

In the winter of 1149 and 1150, King Baldwin III oversaw the reconstruction of the fortress at Gaza City, which had been left in ruins.[47][48] It was part of the ring of castles that were built along the southern border of the Kingdom of Jerusalem to protect it from raids by the Egyptian Fatimid Caliphate, and specifically from the Fatimid troops at the fortress of Ascalon, which by then was the last coastal city in the Levant still under Muslim control.[48][49] Gaza was given to the Knights Templar, becoming the first major Templar castle.[48] In 1152 Everard stepped down as grand master for unknown reasons, and his successor was Bernard de Tremelay.[50] In January of the following year, Bernard led the Templars when King Baldwin III led a Crusader army to besiege Ascalon. Several months of fighting went by until the wall of the city was breached in August 1153, at which point Bernard led forty knights into Ascalon. But the rest of the army did not join them and all of the Templars were killed by the Muslim defenders. Ascalon was captured by the rest of the army several days later,[51][52] and Bernard was eventually succeeded by André de Montbard.[53]

After the fall of Ascalon, the Templars continued operating in that region from their castle at Gaza. In June 1154 they attacked Abbas ibn Abi al-Futuh, the vizier of Egypt, when he tried to flee from Cairo to Damascus after losing a power struggle. Abbas was killed and the Templars captured his son, who they later sent back to the Fatimids.[53] In the late 1150s the Egyptians launched raids against the Crusaders in the areas of Gaza and Ascalon.[54]

Decline

Battle of Hattin in 1187, the turning point leading to the Third Crusade. From a copy of the Passages d’outremer, c. 1490

In the mid-12th century, the tide began to turn in the Crusades. The Islamic world had become more united under effective leaders such as Saladin, and the reborn Sunni regime in Egypt. Dissension arose among Christian factions in and concerning the Holy Land. The Knights Templar were occasionally at odds with the two other Christian military orders, the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights, and decades of internecine feuds weakened Christian positions, both politically and militarily. After the Templars were involved in several unsuccessful campaigns, including the pivotal Battle of Hattin, Jerusalem was recaptured by Muslim forces under Saladin in 1187. The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II reclaimed the city for Christians in the Sixth Crusade of 1229, without Templar aid, but only held it for a little more than a decade. In 1244, the Ayyubid dynasty together with Khwarezmi mercenaries recaptured Jerusalem, and the city did not return to Western control until 1917 when, during World War I, the British captured it from the Ottoman Empire.[55]

The Templars were forced to relocate their headquarters to other cities in the north, such as the seaport of Acre, which they held for the next century. It was lost in 1291, followed by their last mainland strongholds, Tortosa (Tartus in present-day Syria) and Atlit (in present-day Israel). Their headquarters then moved to Limassol on the island of Cyprus,[56] and they also attempted to maintain a garrison on tiny Arwad Island, just off the coast from Tortosa. In 1300, there was some attempt to engage in coordinated military efforts with the Mongols[57] via a new invasion force at Arwad. In 1302 or 1303, however, the Templars lost the island to the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate in the siege of Arwad. With the island gone, the Crusaders lost their last foothold in the Holy Land.[58]

With the order's military mission now less important, support for the organization began to dwindle. The situation was complex, however, since during the two hundred years of their existence, the Templars had become a part of daily life throughout Christendom.[59] The organization's Templar Houses, hundreds of which were dotted throughout Europe and the Near East, gave them a widespread presence at the local level.[2] The Templars still managed many businesses, and many Europeans had daily contact with the Templar network, such as by working at a Templar farm or vineyard, or using the order as a bank in which to store personal valuables. The order was still not subject to local government, making it everywhere a "state within a state" – its standing army, although it no longer had a well-defined mission, could pass freely through all borders. This situation heightened tensions with some European nobility, especially as the Templars were indicating an interest in founding their own monastic state, just as the Teutonic Knights had done in Prussia and the Baltic and the Knights Hospitaller were doing in Rhodes.[60]

The Templars were accused of enabling corruption in their ranks which often allowed them to influence the legal systems of Europe to act in their favor and gain influence over local rulers' lands at the expense of the rulers.[25]

Arrests, charges and dissolution

Main article: Trials of the Knights Templar

In 1305, the new Pope Clement V, based in Avignon, France, sent letters to both the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and the Hospitaller Grand Master Fulk de Villaret to discuss the possibility of merging the two orders. Neither was amenable to the idea, but Pope Clement persisted, and in 1306 he invited both grand masters to France to discuss the matter. De Molay arrived first in early 1307, but de Villaret was delayed for several months. While waiting, de Molay and Clement discussed criminal charges that had been made two years earlier by an ousted Templar and were being discussed by King Philip IV of France and his ministers. It was generally agreed that the charges were false, but Clement sent King Philip a written request for assistance in the investigation. According to some historians, Philip, who was already deeply in debt to the Templars from his war against England, decided to seize upon the rumours for his own purposes. He began pressuring the church to take action against the order, as a way of freeing himself from his debts.[61]

Convent of Christ Castle, Tomar, Portugal. Built in 1160 as a stronghold for the Knights Templar and besieged in 1190 by the Almohads, it became the headquarters of the renamed Order of Christ. In 1983, it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[62]

At dawn on Friday, 13 October 1307, King Philip IV had de Molay and scores of other French Templars to be simultaneously arrested. The arrest warrant started with the words: "Dieu n'est pas content, nous avons des ennemis de la foi dans le Royaume" ("God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom.").[63]

Claims were made that during Templar admissions ceremonies, recruits were forced to spit on the Cross, deny Christ, and engage in indecent kissing; brethren were also accused of worshipping idols, and the order was said to have encouraged homosexual practices.[64] Many of these allegations contain tropes that bear similarities to accusations made against other persecuted groups such as Jews, heretics, and accused witches.[65] These allegations, though, were highly politicised without any real evidence.[66] Still, the Templars were charged with numerous other offences such as financial corruption, fraud, and secrecy.[67] Many of the accused confessed to these charges under torture, and their confessions, even though obtained under duress, caused a scandal in Paris. The prisoners were coerced to confess that they had spat on the Cross. One said: "Moi, Raymond de La Fère, 21 ans, reconnais que [j'ai] craché trois fois sur la Croix, mais de bouche et pas de cœur" ("I, Raymond de La Fère, 21 years old, admit that I have spat three times on the Cross, but only from my mouth and not from my heart"). The Templars were accused of idolatry and were charged with worshipping either a figure known as Baphomet or a mummified severed head they recovered, amongst other artefacts, at their original headquarters on the Temple Mount. Some have theorised that this head might have been believed to be that of John the Baptist, among other things.[68]

Relenting to King Phillip's demands, Pope Clement then issued the papal bull Pastoralis praeeminentiae on 22 November 1307, which instructed all Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest all Templars and seize their assets.[69] Clement called for papal hearings to determine the Templars' guilt or innocence, and once freed, many Templars recanted their confessions.

Several Templars are listed as having come from Gisors to defend the Order on 26 February 1310: Henri Zappellans or Chapelain, Anceau de Rocheria, Enard de Valdencia, Guillaume de Roy, Geoffroy de Cera or de La Fere-en-Champagne, Robert Harle or de Hermenonville, and Dreux de Chevru.[70][71][72] Some had sufficient legal experience to defend themselves in the trials, but in 1310, having appointed the archbishop of Sens, Philippe de Marigny, to lead the investigation, Philip blocked this attempt, using the previously forced confessions to have dozens of Templars burned at the stake in Paris.[73][74][75]

With Philip threatening military action unless the pope complied with his wishes, Clement finally agreed to disband the order, citing the public scandal that had been generated by the confessions. At the Council of Vienne in 1312, he issued a series of papal bulls, including Vox in excelso, which officially dissolved the order, and Ad providam, which turned over most Templar assets to the Hospitallers.[76]

Templars being burned

As for the leaders of the order, the elderly Grand Master Jacques de Molay, who had confessed under torture, retracted his confession. Geoffroi de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy, also retracted his confession and insisted on his innocence. Both men, under pressure from the king, were declared guilty of being relapsed heretics and sentenced to burn alive at the stake in Paris on 18 March 1314. De Molay reportedly remained defiant to the end, asking to be tied in such a way that he could face the Notre Dame Cathedral and hold his hands together in prayer.[77] According to legend, he called out from the flames that both Pope Clement and King Philip would soon meet him before God. His actual words were recorded on the parchment as follows: "Dieu sait qui a tort et a péché. Il va bientôt arriver malheur à ceux qui nous ont condamnés à mort" ("God knows who is wrong and has sinned. Soon a calamity will occur to those who have condemned us to death").[63] Clement died only a month later, and Philip died while hunting within the same year.[78][79][80]

The remaining Templars around Europe were either arrested and tried under the Papal investigation (with virtually none convicted), absorbed into other Catholic military orders, or pensioned off and allowed to live out their days peacefully. By papal decree, the property of the Templars was transferred to the Knights Hospitaller except in the Kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal. Portugal was the first country in Europe where they had settled, occurring only two or three years after the order's foundation in Jerusalem and even having a presence during Portugal's conception.[81]

The Portuguese king, Denis I, refused to pursue and persecute the former knights, as had occurred in some other states under the influence of Philip & the crown. Under his protection, Templar organizations simply changed their name, from "Knights Templar" to the reconstituted Order of Christ and also a parallel Supreme Order of Christ of the Holy See; both are considered successors to the Knights Templar.[82][83][84]

Chinon Parchment

Main article: Chinon Parchment

In September 2001, a document known as the Chinon Parchment dated 17–20 August 1308 was discovered in the Vatican Archives by Barbara Frale, apparently after having been filed in the wrong place in 1628. It is a record of the trial of the Templars and shows that Clement absolved the Templars of all heresies in 1308 before formally disbanding the order in 1312, as did another Chinon Parchment dated 20 August 1308 addressed to Philip IV of France, also mentioning that all Templars that had confessed to heresy were "restored to the Sacraments and to the unity of the Church". This other Chinon Parchment has been well known to historians,[85][86][87] having been published by Étienne Baluze in 1693[88] and by Pierre Dupuy in 1751.[89]

The current position of the Catholic Church is that the persecution of the Knights Templar was unjust, that nothing was inherently wrong with the order or its rule, and that Pope Clement V was pressed into his actions by the magnitude of the public scandal and by the dominating influence of King Philip IV, who was Clement's relative.[90]

Organization

Main article: List of Knights Templar

Templar chapel from the 12th century in Metz, France. Once part of the Templar commandery of Metz, the oldest Templar institution of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Templars were organised as a monastic order similar to Bernard's Cistercian Order, which was considered the first effective international organization in Europe.[91] The organizational structure had a strong chain of authority. Each country with a major Templar presence (France, Poitou, Anjou, Jerusalem, England, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Tripoli, Antioch, Hungary, and Croatia)[92] had a master of the Order for the Templars in that region.

All of them were subject to the grand master, appointed for life, who oversaw both the order's military efforts in the East and their financial holdings in the West. The grand master exercised his authority via the visitors-general of the order, who were knights specially appointed by the grand master and convent of Jerusalem to visit the different provinces, correct malpractices, introduce new regulations, and resolve important disputes. The visitors-general had the power to remove knights from office and to suspend the master of the province concerned.[93][unreliable source?]

The central headquarters of the Templars had several offices that answered to the grand master. These were held as temporary appointments rather than for life. The second-in-command of the Order was the seneschal. The highest ranking military official was the marshal, while the preceptor (who was also sometimes called the commander) was responsible for the administration and provisions. The draper was responsible for their uniforms, the treasurer was in charge of finance, the turcopolier commanded auxiliary forces, and the prior was the head of the church at the headquarters.[94] The headquarters and its most senior officials were known as the convent[95][96] and its role was to assist and advise the grand master with running the administration of the Order.[97]

No precise numbers exist, but it is estimated that at the order's peak, there were between 15,000 and 20,000 Templars, of whom about a tenth were actual knights.[1][2]

Ranks within the order

Three main ranks

There was a threefold division of the ranks of the Templars: the noble knights, the non-noble sergeants, and the chaplains. The knights wear white mantles to symbolise their purity and chastity.[98] The sergeants wore black or brown. All three classes of brothers wore the order's red cross.[99] Before they received their monastic rule in 1129 at the Council of Troyes, the Templars were referred to only as knights (milites in Latin), and after 1129 they were also called brothers of their monastic order. Therefore the three main ranks were eventually known as knight brothers, sergeant brothers, and chaplain brothers. Knights and chaplains were referred to as brothers by 1140, but sergeants were not full members of the Order until the 1160s.[100]

The knights were the most visible division of the order. They were equipped as heavy cavalry, with three or four horses and one or two squires. Squires were generally not members of the order but were instead outsiders who were hired for a set period of time. The Templars did not perform knighting ceremonies, so anyone wishing to become a knight in the Templar had to be a knight already.[101]

Beneath the knights in the order and drawn from non-noble families were the sergeants.[102] They brought vital skills and trades from blacksmiths and builders, including administration of many of the order's European properties. In the Crusader states, they fought alongside the knights as light cavalry with a single horse.[103] Several of the order's most senior positions were reserved for sergeants, including the post of Commander of the Vault of Acre, who also served as the Templar fleet's admiral. But he was subordinated to the Order's preceptor instead of the marshal, indicating that the Templars considered their ships to be mainly for commerce rather than military purposes.[104][105]

From 1139, chaplains constituted a third Templar rank. They were ordained priests who cared for the Templars' spiritual needs.[106] These Templar clerics were also referred to as priest brothers or chaplain brothers.[107]

The Templars also employed lightly armed mercenaries as cavalry in the 12th century that were known as turcopoles (a Greek term for descendants of Turks). Its meaning has been interpreted as either referring to people of a mixed Muslim-Christian heritage who became Christians, or members of the local population in Syria. Sometime in the 13th century, turcopole became a formal rank held by Templar brothers, including Latin Christians.[108]

Grand masters

Main article: Grand Masters of the Knights Templar

Templar building at Saint Martin des Champs, France

Starting with founder Hugues de Payens, the order's highest office was that of grand master, a position which was held for life, though considering the martial nature of the order, this could mean a very short tenure. All but two of the grand masters died in office, and several died during military campaigns. For example, during the Siege of Ascalon in 1153, Grand Master Bernard de Tremelay led a group of 40 Templars through a breach in the city walls. When the rest of the Crusader army did not follow, the Templars, including their grand master, were surrounded and beheaded.[109] Grand master Gérard de Ridefort was beheaded by Saladin in 1189 at the Siege of Acre.

The grand master oversaw all of the operations of the order, including both the military operations in the Holy Land and Eastern Europe and the Templars' financial and business dealings in Western Europe. Some grand masters also served as battlefield commanders, though this was not always wise: several blunders in de Ridefort's combat leadership contributed to the devastating defeat at the Battle of Hattin. The last grand master was Jacques de Molay, burned at the stake in Paris in 1314 by order of King Philip IV.[75]

Conduct, uniform and beards

Representation of a Knight Templar (Ten Duinen Abbey museum, 2010 photograph)

Depiction of two Templars seated on a horse (emphasising poverty), with Beauséant, the "sacred banner" (or gonfanon) of the Templars, argent a chief sable (Matthew Paris, c. 1250)[110]

Bernard de Clairvaux and founder Hugues de Payens devised a specific code of conduct for the Templar Order, known to modern historians as the Latin Rule. Its 72 clauses laid down the details of the knights' way of life, including the types of garments they were to wear and how many horses they could have. Knights were to take their meals in silence, eat meat no more than three times per week, and not have physical contact of any kind with women, even members of their own family. A master of the Order was assigned "four horses, and one chaplain-brother, and one clerk with three horses, and one sergeant brother with two horses, and one gentleman valet to carry his shield and lance, with one horse".[111] As the order grew, more guidelines were added, and the original list of 72 clauses was expanded to several hundred in its final form.[112][113]

The daily schedule of the order adhered to the canonical hours in the Rule of Saint Benedict, with communal prayers designated at specific hours throughout the day. Members unable to participate must recite the Lord's Prayer at the same hours.

The knights wore a white surcoat with a red cross, and a white mantle also with a red cross; the sergeants wore a black tunic with a red cross on the front and a black or brown mantle.[114][115] The white mantle was assigned to the Templars at the Council of Troyes in 1129, and the cross was most probably added to their robes at the launch of the Second Crusade in 1147, when Pope Eugenius III, King Louis VII of France, and many other notables attended a meeting of the French Templars at their headquarters near Paris.[116][117][118] Under the Rule, the knights were to wear the white mantle at all times: They were even forbidden to eat or drink unless wearing it.[119]

The red cross that the Templars wore on their robes was a symbol of martyrdom, and to die in combat was considered a great honour that assured a place in heaven.[120] There was a cardinal rule that the warriors of the order should never surrender unless the Templar flag had fallen, and even then they were first to try to regroup with another of the Christian orders, such as that of the Hospitallers. Only after all flags had fallen were they allowed to leave the battlefield.[121] This uncompromising principle, along with their reputation for courage, excellent training, and heavy armament, made the Templars one of the most feared combat forces in medieval times.

Although not prescribed by the Templar Rule, it later became customary for members of the order to wear long and prominent beards. In about 1240, Alberic of Trois-Fontaines described the Templars as an "order of bearded brethren"; while during the interrogations by the papal commissioners in Paris in 1310–1311, out of nearly 230 knights and brothers questioned, 76 are described as wearing a beard, in some cases specified as being "in the style of the Templars", and 133 are said to have shaved off their beards, either in renunciation of the order or because they had hoped to escape detection.[122][123]

Initiation,[124] known as "reception" (receptio) into the order, was a profound commitment and involved a solemn ceremony. Outsiders were discouraged from attending the ceremony, which aroused the suspicions of medieval inquisitors during the later trials. New members had to willingly sign over all of their wealth and goods to the order and vow to "God and Our Lady" (mother of Jesus) poverty, chastity, piety, obedience to the master of the order, and to conquer the Holy Land of Jerusalem.[125] They were then promised "the bread and water and poor clothing of the house and much pain and suffering".[126]

Most brothers joined for life, although some were allowed to join for a set period. Sometimes a married man was allowed to join if he had his wife's permission,[115] but a married brother was not allowed to wear the white mantle.[127]

Legacy

See also: Knights Templar in Portugal

The castle was founded by the Order of Poor Knights of the Temple (or Templar Knights) in 1118.[1] Its construction continued until the final part of the 12th century with the construction of the oratory, in one of the angles of the castle, completed by the Grand Master D. Gualdim Pais (sometime around 1160).[1] Around 1190 it was encircled and resisted the armies of caliph Abu Yusuf al-Mansur who was successful in taking strongholds in the south.[1] (A plaque was erected near the entrance to the castle to commemorate this event).

During the second quarter of the 13th century, Tomar was transferred into the control of the Templars, becoming its seat.[1] The castle became an integral part of the defence system created by the Templars to secure the border of the young Christian Kingdom against the Moors, which at the time occupied the area to approximately the Tagus River. But, following the dissolution of the Templar Order, on 14 March 1319, and following the request of King Denis of Portugal, Pope John XXII instituted the Order of Christ.[1] The seat of the former Knights Templar was converted in 1357 into the seat of this new order.[1]

The famous round church (rotunda) of the castle of Tomar was also built in the second half of the 12th century. The church, like some other templar churches throughout Europe, was modelled after the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which was believed by the crusaders to be a remnant of the Temple of Solomon. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem may also have served as model.

Order of Christ

Following the dissolution of the Templar Order, on 14 March 1319 (following the request of King Denis of Portugal), Pope John XXII instituted the Order of Christ.[1] The Templar order had been suppressed during most of Europe from 1312 to 1314, but in Portugal its members, assets, and partly its membership were transferred to the Order of Christ.[1] The seat of the former Knights Templar was converted in 1357 into the seat of this new order.[1] As a result, at about the first half of the 15th century, work was completed to adapt the Templar oratory, introducing an open choir to the western niche, about half-way up the wall.[1] What remains of this adaptation was the colonnade frame with interior arch.[1] At the same time the main palace was constructed.

During the internship of Prince Henry the Navigator as its leader (1417–1450), the Order of Christ initiated the construction of two cloisters under the direction of master Fernão Gonçalves: the Claustro do Cemitério (Cemetery Cloister) and Claustro das Lavagens (Washing Cloister).[1] Prior to these large works, Henry began work on constructing the Chapel of São Jorge sometime in 1426 and was responsible for urban improvements in the town of Tomar.[1]

In 1484, King D. Manuel (who became Master of the Order in 1484 and King of Portugal in 1495) ordered the construction of a sacristy (today the Hall of Passage), that connected the choir to the Chapel of São Jorge, linking the choir with the wall of the stronghouse.[1] By the end of the century, the convent's General Chapter, decided to expand the convent (sometime around 1492), with 3,500 reis being spent on the public works in 1499: the chapterhouse, main altar, ironworks for the niche/archway, paintings and sculptures (for the same) and the choir were all expanded or remodelled.[1]

A new meeting of the Chapter to reform the Order, ordered by the King 1503, expropriated the old Vila de Dentro, within the walls and closed the Sun Gate and Almedina Gate.[1] On 11 October 1504, Francisco Lopes was nominated as masterbuilder for the project, by King John III, receiving 8$000 reis annually and 120 reis for meals. By 1506, D. Manuel decided to order the construction of the church's nave.[1]

The successor of Manuel I, King John III, demilitarised the order, turning it into a more religious order with a rule based on that of Bernard of Clairvaux. He also ordered the construction of a new cloister in 1557, which is one of the best examples of Renaissance architecture in Portugal.

In 1581, after a succession crisis, the Portuguese Nobility gathered in the Convent of Christ in Tomar and officially recognised Philip II of Spain (Philip I of Portugal) as King. This is the beginning of the Iberian Union (1581–1640), during which the Crowns of Portugal and Spain were united in a dynastic union. The aqueduct of the Convent was built during this period (aqueduct completed in 1614).

Architecture

The entrance of the Convent church in Manueline style.

The castle and Convent of Christ have examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Manueline and Renaissance architectural styles.

Floorplan of the church of the Convent of Christ. The Templar round church (late 12th century) is indicated in red, while the manueline nave (early 16th century) is in blue.

Castle

Main article: Castelo de Tomar

Interior of the Round church decorated with late Gothic painting and sculpture.

The castle of Tomar was built around 1160 on a strategic location, over a hill and near river Nabão. It has an outer defensive wall and a citadel (alcáçova) with a keep inside. The Keep, a central tower of residential and defensive functions, was introduced in Portugal by the Templars, and the one in Tomar is one of the oldest in the country. Another novelty introduced in Portugal by the Templars (learned from decades of experience in Normandy and Brittany and elsewhere) are the round towers in the outer walls, which are more resistant to attacks than square towers. When the town was founded, most of its residents lived in dwellings located inside the protective outer walls of the castle.

Church

The Romanesque round church is a Catholic Church from the castle (charola, rotunda) was built in the second half of the 12th century by the Knights Templar. From the outside, the church is a 16-side polygonal structure, with strong buttresses, round windows and a belltower. Inside, the round church has a central, octagonal structure, connected by arches to a surrounding gallery (ambulatory). The general shape of the church is modelled after similar round structures in Jerusalem: the Mosque of Omar and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The capitals of the columns are still Romanesque (end of the 12th century) and depict vegetal and animal motifs, as well as a Daniel in the Lions' Den scene. The style of the capitals shows the influence of artists working on the Cathedral of Coimbra, which was being built at the same time as the round church.

The interior of the round church is magnificently decorated with late gothic/manueline sculpture and paintings, added during a renovation sponsored by King Manuel I starting in 1499. The pillars of the central octagon and the walls of the ambulatory have polychrome statues of saints and angels under exuberant Gothic canopies, while the walls and ceilings of the ambulatory are painted with Gothic patterns and panels depicting the life of Christ. The paintings are attributed to the workshop of the court painter of Manuel I, the Portuguese Jorge Afonso, while the sculptured decoration is attributed to Flemish sculptor Olivier de Gand and the Spaniard Hernán Muñoz. A magnificent panel depicting the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, by Portuguese painter Gregório Lopes, was painted for the Round Church and now hangs in the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon.

Manueline nave

Detail of the round church, view from the nave

The famous chapterhouse window, made by Diogo de Arruda in 1510–1513.

During the administration of Prince Henry the Navigator (first half of the 15th century), a gothic nave was added to the round church of the Convent, thus turning the round church into a church apse. From 1510 onwards, King Manuel I ordered the rebuilding of the nave in the style of the time, a mix of late gothic and renaissance that would be called Manueline style by art historians. The architects involved were the Portuguese Diogo de Arruda and the Spaniard Juan de Castillo (João de Castilho).

From the outside, the rectangular nave is covered by abundant Manueline motifs, including gargoyles, gothic pinnacles, statues and "ropes" that remind the ones used in the ships during the Age of Discovery, as well as the Cross of the Order of Christ and the emblem of King Manuel I, the armillary sphere. The so-called Window of the Chapter House (Janela do Capítulo), a huge window visible from the Saint Barbara Cloister in the Western façade of the nave, carries most of the typical Manueline motifs: the symbols of the Order of Christ and of Manuel I, and fantastic and unprecedented elaborations of ropes, corals and vegetal motifs. A human figure in the bottom of the window probably represents the designer, Diogo de Arruda. This window of the Convent constitutes one of the masterworks of Manueline decoration. Above is a smaller circular window and a balustrade. The façade is divided by two string courses of knotted ropes. The round angle buttresses are decorated with gigantic garters (alluding to investiture of Manuel I by the Order of the Garter by the English king Henry VII).

The entrance of the church is done through a magnificent lateral portal, also decorated with abundant Manueline motifs and statues of the Virgin with the Child as well as the Prophets of the Old Testament. This portal was designed by João de Castilho c. 1530.

In the interior, the Manueline nave is connected to the Romanesque round church by a large arch. The nave is covered by beautiful ribbed vaulting and has a high choir that used to have Manueline choir stalls, unfortunately destroyed by invading Napoleonic troops in the early 19th century. Under the high choir there is a room that used to be the sacristy of the church. Its window is the famous Chapter House Window already mentioned.

Cloisters

Gothic Cloister of the Cemetery (first half of the 15th century).

The Convent of Christ has a total of eight cloisters, built in the 15th and 16th centuries. Some examples:

Claustro da Lavagem (Washing Cloister): Two-storey gothic cloister built around 1433 under Henry the Navigator. The garments of the monks used to be washed in this cloister, hence the name.

Claustro do Cemitério (Cloister of the Cemetery): Also built under Henry the Navigator, this gothic cloister was the burial site for the knights and monks of the Order. The elegant twin columns of the arches have beautiful capitals with vegetal motifs, and the walls of the ambulatory are decorated with 16th-century tiles. In a manueline tomb (c. 1523) rests Diogo da Gama, brother of navigator Vasco da Gama.

Claustro de Santa Bárbara (Saint Barbara's Cloister): Built in the 16th century. The Chapter House Window and the West façade of the manueline nave of the church are visible from this cloister.

Claustro de D. João III (Cloister of John III): Started under King John III of Portugal, was finished during the reign of Philip I of Portugal. The first architect was Diogo de Torralva, who began the work in 1557, to be finished in 1591 by Philip I's architect, the Italian Filippo Terzi. This magnificent, two-story cloister connects the dormitory of the monks to the church and is considered one of the most important examples of Mannerist architecture in Portugal. The storeys are connected to each other by four elegant helicoidal stairways, located at each corner of the cloisters.

D7K_2060.jpg by MOTOKI Plasticboystudio

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Protest: Budget Day Demonstration In Dublin (5th. December 2012) by William Murphy

Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed - Press Release:

Budget 2013 and unemployment

After much speculation Budget 2013 has finally been announced. The Budget does not do enough in two vital areas. It will make the path to work, education and training more difficult for unemployed people and will further undermine the social insurance model, a model that the Minister sees as integral to our social protection system.

As predicted the duration an unemployed person can stay on Jobseekers Benefit has been cut from 12 months to 9 if he or she has made over 260 PRSI contributions. Similarly, if the person has paid less than 260 contributions they will only now have an entitlement to a JB payment for 6 months. So, for example, a person who has worked for 20 years or more and whose partner is working may find themselves cut adrift from any supports from the State after nine months. Yet he or she will be unemployed, see him or herself as unemployed but they will receive no supports from the State to assist them to get back to work.

Yet the State will be taking more PRSI contributions off all workers as anyone earning over €352 per week will pay on everything after: this is a regressive step and will particularly hit low income workers.

Another striking feature of the budget is the cutting of supports for unemployed people undertaking further education and training. This will hit in particular young people for whom Jobseekers Allowance had been cut in the past to encourage them to take up education and training options. The rationale for offering participants a full rate was to support people to re-skill themselves, to improve their chances of securing employment. Yet the cut to the Cost of Education Allowance; the equalisation of a training allowance with a participant’s previous social welfare payment; and a maximum limit of €160 for young people will make it harder for people to go down this path as they will find it unaffordable.

Child Benefit has not only been cut by €10: it has also been cut from €148 for the third child to €130; and from €160 for 4th child+ to €140. The provision of additional childcare or early years supports may be of benefit to some families. However, for many families struggling on a social welfare payment or a low income job this cut in Child Benefit is further exacerbated by the cut in the Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance. This payment has been cut from €150 to €100 for children of primary age; and from €250 to €200 for children aged 12+. Yet the cost of education continues to rise. According to the last Consumer Price Index education inflation ran at 6.7% in comparison to a national average of 1.2%.

The INOU is acutely aware of the importance of local and community development in providing important supports and services to unemployed people including the provision of access to employment. At a time when increasing demand on the ground it is disappointing to see further expenditure cuts envisaged for these programmes.

On a positive note the maintenance of the basic social welfare rate, as sought by the INOU, is to be welcomed. As are the additional places in Community Employment, TUS, JobBridge: it is critical important that these supports are meaningful for participants and lead on to decent employment.

Outcry against speculation tourism in Barceloneta by Toni Hermoso Pulido

1

Text:

Welcome tourist,

the rent of holiday apartments in this neighbourhood destroys the local socio-cultural fabric and promotes speculation. Many local residents are forced to move out.

Enjoy your stay.

Middleton. The former headmasters residence attached to the Middleton school which opened in 1880. Both were built at the same time. by denisbin

2

Middleton.

In one sense white settlement here began in 1849 when the first 80 acre section of land was purchased by Thomas Higgins for land speculation. Higgins had taken up a large estate along Currency Creek further inland in 1840 upon which he built his Higginsbrook homestead. But when a canal was proposed to link Goolwa and Freeman’s Knob (Port Elliot) and then a railway he took the opportunity to indulge in some land speculation along its coastal route. He purchased one 80 acre section. Work began on the railway in 1851 (long before the feasibility of river transport up the Murray was resolved) and it was completed in 1853 with a crossing point which needed double tracks so that the horse drawn trains could pass. This spot was named Middletown. In 1869 when the horse railway was extended to Strathalbyn its track bypassed Goolwa and joined the Port Elliot tracks at Middleton. With a siding constructed in 1854 a small town began to emerge here and Higgins’ land speculation paid off when he subdivided some land for town blocks in 1856. He named it Middleton (not Middletown). A small store had opened in 1854 and the largest building in Middleton the Bowman flourmill was completed in 1855 before the town was created. Bowman’s flourmill was added to in the 1860s. The town of Middleton took shape from 1857 with an early Congregational Church (1859) and the Bible Christian Methodist church opening in 1863, a brickworks being established in 1857 and the Middleton Inn opened in 1859 and the original town school room started up in 1861 at 6 William Street. Much later the Education Department was established in 1875 and a fine bluestone Gothic style state school was erected in the town in 1880. It closed in 1968 and became part of the pioneer hall – the original institute erected in 1901.

The large three storey flourmill still exists in Middleton next to the important railway siding. It its heyday wheat milled here was shipped as flour up the Murray River from Goolwa to the Darling and to the goldfields of Bendigo from Echuca. The extension of the railway line to Strathalbyn in 1869 expanded the wheat growing areas that could service the flourmill. When the train line was converted from horse power to steam engines and linked to Port Adelaide through Mt Barker Junction in 1884 Middleton declined and the flourmill with it. At that time the Strathalbyn line was redirected to Middleton through Goolwa. The original flourmill owners was William Bowman. William had cropping acreages at Finniss along the Finniss River and he farmed in the Milang area from 1844 to 1854 before he set up the flourmill in 1855. William Bowman appears to have created Bowmans & Co around 1869 with Alexander Bowman to operate the mill into the 1870s. William Bowman and his mill went into insolvency in January 1886 when competition from Port Adelaide saw its gradual demise. William was dead by March 1886. New millers took over and the mill finally closed in 1915 when the labour supply dwindled as men enlisted for World War One. The last miller was Henry Ellis. When the rail line came from Strathalbyn the station was directly opposite the flourmill. Public meetings were held as early as 1858 in the Bowman flourmill urging a railway line from Strathalbyn to Middleton.

The notable buildings of Middleton are Fortuna a superb Georgian house with symmetry and simplicity that looks as if it was erected in the 1860s. After the inauguration of the Strathalbyn to Middleton railway in 1869 a new general store with five sides in a Romanesque style with rounded windows was attached to Fortuna House. It later became a post office, a temperance hotel, a shop and in more recent decades a cafe and gallery. Fortuna is now privately owned as a residence. Mindacowie House was built as a Temperance Hotel. John Abbott of Glenford farm at Middleton built Mindacowie for his sisters Jessie and Ruth in 1899. They ran it as a Temperance Hotel for several decades. In latter years it has been a bed and breakfast establishment but is now a residence. The old Bible Christian Methodist Church has closed (1971) as a church but was operated as a restaurant a few years ago but is now a residence too. It opened in 1863.

1948 Tucker Torpedo rear by Glenister

2

The 1948 Tucker Torpedo or Tucker '48 Sedan was an advanced automobile conceived by Preston Tucker and briefly produced in Chicago in 1948. Only 51 cars were made before the company folded on March 3, 1949, due to negative publicity initiated by the news media, a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and a heavily publicized stock fraud trial. Speculation exists that the circumstances which brought the Tucker Corporation down were contributed to by the Big Three automakers and Michigan senator Homer Ferguson.

Studebaker was first to introduce an all-new postwar model, but Tucker took a different tack, designing a safety car with innovative features and modern styling. His specifications called for a water-cooled aluminum block[2] flat-6 rear engine, disc brakes, four-wheel independent suspension,[2] fuel injection, the location of all instruments on the steering wheel, and a padded dashboard.

The first sketch for Tucker's car, by designer George Lawson

Tucker's second design sketch by Alex Tremulis (Before front end was finalized with Lippincott designers.)

To finalize the design, Tucker hired the New York design firm J. Gordon Lippincott to create an alternate body. Only the front end and horizontal tail-light bar designs were refined for the final car. Tremulis gave the first prototype car the nickname of "Tin Goose".

Many components and features of the car were innovative and far ahead of its time. The most recognizable feature of the Tucker '48, a directional third headlight, known as the "Cyclops Eye", would turn on at steering angles of greater than 10 degrees to light the car's path around corners. At the time 17 states had laws against cars having more than two headlights. Tucker fabricated a cover for the cyclops center light for use in these states.

The car was rear-engined and rear wheel drive. A perimeter frame surrounded the vehicle for crash protection, as well as a roll bar integrated into the roof. The steering box was behind the front axle to protect the driver in a front-end accident. The instrument panel and all controls were in easy reach of the steering wheel, and the dash was padded for safety. The windshield was designed to pop-out in a collision to protect occupants. The car also featured seat belts, a first in its day. The car's parking brake had a separate key so it could be locked in place to prevent theft. The doors extended into the roof, to ease entry and exit. The engine and transmission were mounted on a separate sub frame which could be lowered and removed in minutes with just six bolts removed—Tucker envisioned loaner engines being quickly swapped in for service in just 15–20 minutes.

Tucker envisioned several other innovations which were later abandoned. Magnesium wheels, disc brakes, fuel injection, self-sealing tubeless tires, and a direct-drive torque converter transmission were all evaluated and/or tested but were dropped on the final prototype due to cost, engineering complexity, and lack of time to develop.

Tucker initially tried to develop an innovative engine. It was a 589 in³ flat-6 cylinder with hemispherical combustion chambers, fuel injection, and overhead valves operated by oil pressure rather than a camshaft. An oil pressure distributor was mounted inline with the ignition distributor and delivered appropriately timed direct oil pressure to open each valve at the proper interval. This unique engine was designed to idle at 100 RPM and cruise at 250-1200RPM through the use of direct drive torque converters on each driving wheel instead of a transmission. These features would have been auto industry firsts in 1948, but as engine development proceeded, problems appeared. The 589 engine was installed only in the test chassis and the first prototype.

The final car was only 70 in (1524 mm) tall, but was rather large and comfortable inside. Tremulis' design was called the most aerodynamic in the world, and though it still sported pre-war type fenders, it was startlingly modern. The mathematically-computed drag coefficient was only 0.27, although for the public this figure was rounded up to 0.30.

Continuing development – funding and publicity

Having raised $17,000,000 in a stock issue, one of the first speculative IPOs, Tucker needed more money to continue development of the car. He sold dealerships and distributorships throughout the country. Another money maker was the Tucker Accessories Program. In order to secure a spot on the Tucker waiting list, future buyers could purchase accessories, like seat covers, the radio, and luggage, before their car was built. This brought an additional $2,000,000 into the company.

With the final design in place, Preston Tucker took the pre-production cars on the road to show them in towns across the country. The cars were an instant success, with crowds gathering wherever they stopped. One report says that Tucker was pulled over by a police officer intent on getting a better look at the car.

To prove the road-worthiness of his cars, Tucker and his engineers ran several cars at the Indianapolis 500 in several endurance tests. During this testing, car #1027 was rolled at high speed while driven by mechanic Eddie Offut. The car's safety features were proven when Offut walked away from the severe crash. During the crash, the windshield popped out as designed, and afterward the car started up and was driven off the track.

One of Tucker's most innovative business ideas caused trouble for the company, however. His Accessories Program raised funds by selling accessories before the car was even in production. After the war demand for new cars was greater than dealers could supply, and most dealers had waiting lists for new cars. Preference was given to returning veterans, which meant that non-veterans were bumped down on the waiting lists indefinitely. Tucker's program allowed potential buyers who purchased Tucker accessories to obtain a guaranteed spot on the Tucker dealer waiting list for a Tucker '48 car.

This concept was investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the United States Attorney, and led to an indictment of company executives. Although all charges were eventually dropped, the negative publicity destroyed the company and halted production of the car.

Unfit for Purpose #2 by Alan Stanton

2

12 October 2010. A sign on a lamppost advertised: "We Buy Houses".

----- Original Message -----

From : Alan Stanton, councillor Tottenham Hale ward

To : Haringey Urban Environment Department

Sent : Wednesday, October 13, 2010 7:58 PM

Subject : Unauthorised Yellow Signs - "I buy (or we buy) houses"

Please see my photos on Flickr, taken late afternoon on 12 October. They show an unauthorised advertising sign on a lamppost in Lordship Lane N17 near the junction with High Road Tottenham N17. The location is immediately outside the rear entrance to 639 High Road, the Planning Office and North Tottenham Customer Service Centre.

As you will see, the wording is "We Buy Houses" with a mobile phone number.

Can you please arrange to have this unauthorised advert removed.

Please also see a discussion on Harringay Online community website. It appears that many such signs have appeared, and there is speculation they may be part of a scheme to encourage more buy-to-let transactions.

If, as suggested on Harringay Online, professional firms are involved in putting-up these unauthorised adverts can we find out who they are; and is there some way we can publicise their names; and / or serve fixed penalty notices on them; and / or report them to their professional bodies?

___________________________________

§ Close-up here of the sign.

§ The church roof and spires (centre of the photo) are part of St Mary the Virgin in Lansdowne Road.

►Update 27 October 2010. Please scroll down.

West Park Presbyterian Church by Emilio Guerra

Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

Summary

The West Park Presbyterian Church is considered to be one of the best examples of a Romanesque Revival style religious structure in New York City. The extraordinarily deep color of its red sandstone cladding and the church’s bold forms with broad, round-arched openings and a soaring tower at the corner of West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue produce a monumental and distinguished presence along those streets.

The Park Presbyterian Church was founded in 1852 as the 84th Street Presbyterian Church and formerly occupied a wood chapel on 84th Street and West End Avenue. The church purchased the site of the present church at Tenth Avenue and West 86th Street in 1882 and commissioned the prominent architect Leopold Eidlitz to design a small brick chapel on the eastern end of the site on 86th Street in 1883. It was completed in 1885. The Upper West Side’s population dramatically increased during the 1880s and the church quickly outgrew the chapel. In 1889, the congregation commissioned Henry Kilburn to design a large new church and to re-design Eidlitz’s façade, creating a unified Romanesque Revival-style church complex. Kilburn was the designer of many private residences in New York, including a number in the Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District. The new Park Presbyterian Church was finished in 1890. The resulting building is a monumental structure which anchors an important intersection on the Upper West Side.

The West Park Presbyterian Church was formed in 1911 when the Park Presbyterian Church merged with the West Presbyterian Church, which was founded in 1829 in Greenwich Village and later moved to 42nd Street. Kilburn’s design remains intact, and building retains its visual prominence on the Upper West Side.

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

Development of the Upper West Side

Following the creation of Central Park beginning in 1858, the Upper West Side gradually became one of Manhattan’s most desirable residential neighborhoods. While the earliest row houses date from the 1870s, the first major decade of development occurred during the 1880s. Such real estate speculation was shaped by the introduction of rapid transit. Major improvements included the extension of the 8th Avenue car line along Central Park to West 84th Street in 1864, the paving and widening of the Boulevard (later renamed Broadway) in the late 1860s, and the construction of the elevated railway, which began service along 9th Avenue (renamed Columbus Avenue in 1890), with stations at 72nd, 81st, 93rd, and 104th Streets, in 1879. Alongside the railway, multiple dwellings were built, primarily five-story structures with ground-level stores. Called tenements and flats, most were leased to working-class and middle-class tenants. The side streets, to the east and west, were developed as single-family residences, mainly row houses, four and five-stories tall. Both types of buildings were designed in popular revival styles, chiefly neo-Grec and Romanesque Revival.

The significant exception to this pattern was Amsterdam Avenue (known as 10th Avenue until 1890) the neighborhood’s chief service corridor. Located between 9th Avenue and Broadway, it was an important transit route, served by a horse car line starting in 1878. Though tenements with street-level stores and an occasional hotel and storage warehouse were built on or close to the avenue, many structures were utilitarian, particularly a cluster of stables between 75th and 77th Streets. There were also a number of commercial, institutional, and religious buildings, such as the West Park Presbyterian Church, including Pubic School 87 (No. 369, demolished), New York Public Library (No. 444-446), Central Baptist Church (No. 651), Public School 93 (No.692, demolished), Holy Name R.C. Church (No. 740), East River Savings Bank (No. 743), St. Michael’s P.E. Church (No. 800), Home for Respectable Aged Indigent Females (No. 891), Public School 54 (No. 905, demolished), and the West End Presbyterian Church (No. 921-927).

West 86th Street, which is one of the wide east to west cross streets running from Central to Riverside Parks, developed as a comfortable residential address consisting of upscale row houses, flats building, and later, large apartment buildings, interspersed by an occasional commercial building or church, such as West Park.

The West Park Presbyterian Church

The Presbyterian faith, the roots of which are based on a modified form of Calvinism and a specific ecclesiastical hierarchy, was begun in Scotland in the eighteenth century. It was soon transplanted in New York with the establishment of its first congregation on Wall Street. Two other Presbyterian churches were established in New York by the late eighteenth century, one on Beekman Street known as the “Brick Church” and another in the open fields on present-day Rutgers Street. None of these early church buildings survive. Breakaway groups soon began to form their own congregations apart from the established collegiate form of worship, following factions which were being started in Scotland known as Covenanters and Seceders. In North America, these new branches became known as the Reformed Presbyterians, the Associate Presbyterians, and later the Associate Reformed Presbyterians. The number of people declaring themselves Presbyterians multiplied as did the number of buildings constructed to house the growing congregations. By 1871, the Presbyterians were the most numerous and active Protestant group in New York City, with more than ninety churches and mission chapels among the various branches.

The Park Presbyterian Church, the first Presbyterian congregation on the Upper West Side, was founded in 1852 as the 84th Street Presbyterian Church and in 1854 built a wood chapel, designed by architect and area resident Leopold Eidlitz, on 84th Street and West End Avenue. The church’s congregation, at first a mere fifteen members, struggled to grow until it hired Anson Phelps Atterbury (1855-1931) as its pastor in 1879. Atterbury was a member of the Phelps-Dodge mining family, and used his reputation to attract new members to the congregation, which also began to benefit from the increase in the population of the Upper West Side after the opening of the Columbus Avenue elevated railway at about the same time. By the early 1880s, the congregation had outgrown Eidlitz’s 84th Street chapel, and Atterbury began planning for the church’s imminent move to a new, larger brick building on Amsterdam Avenue and 86th Street. At first, a small brick chapel was built at the east end of the site in 1883. The church, which changed its name to Park Presbyterian Church in 1887, continued to grow rapidly under Atterbury’s leadership and constructed in 1889-90 the present larger sanctuary, designed by architect Henry Kilburn, incorporating Eidlitz’s earlier chapel, which was re-clad to match the new edifice.

The West Park Presbyterian Church was formed in 1911 when Park merged with the West Presbyterian Church, which was located in midtown at the time. The merged congregation made the Amsterdam Avenue church built by Park Presbyterian its home. West Presbyterian itself was founded in 1829 at 273 Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village as the North Presbyterian Church, and built a sanctuary, designed by Town & Davis, in 1831-32 on Carmine Street (now demolished). Within a few years it changed its name to West. In 1860, following the northward movement of Manhattan’s population, West was relocated to West 42nd Street and soon built a Victorian Gothic-style edifice at 31 West 42nd Street (also demolished) which was completed in 1865. West Presbyterian counted a number of distinguished citizens among its membership, including Russell Sage, Jay Gould, and Alfred H. Smith, and by 1890 had become known as the “millionaires’ gate to heaven.” By the early twentieth century, commercialization of its midtown location led to the displacement of the area’s residential population and the loss of many of West Presbyterian’s members, including the prominent men mentioned above after an internal dispute. As a consequence, the two churches began competing for members and decided to merge their memberships, forming the West Park Presbyterian Church.

The Architect

Henry Franklin Kilburn (1844-1905), who designed the 1889-90 expansion of West Park that included the modification of Eidlitz’s earlier chapel, was born and educated in Ashfield, Massachusetts, and first established an architectural practice in Northampton. In 1868, he moved his practice to New York, where he designed a number of churches in addition to West Park, including the West End Presbyterian Church (1891, Amsterdam Avenue and West 105th Street), the Mt. Moriah Baptist Church (1888, 2050 Fifth Avenue), and the St. James Episcopal Church Parish House in the Bronx (1891-92, 2500 Jerome Avenue, a designated New York City Landmark). Kilburn was also the architect of many private residences, factories, stables, and theaters in Manhattan, some of which are included in various historic districts, including the Durland Riding Academy building (1900-01, 8 West 67th Street, in the Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District). Kilburn was a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a member of its New York Chapter and the Architectural League.

Design and Construction of the Church

In 1883, the 84th Street Presbyterian Church purchased five building lots at the northeast corner of West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue (then Tenth Avenue) for $30,000 in anticipation of its expansion and relocation to a new church building. The Reverend Anson Phelps Atterbury, its pastor at the time, engaged Leopold Eidlitz, the prominent New York architect who had designed the church’s existing chapel on 84th Street in 1854, to plan a brick, Victorian Gothic-style chapel on the eastern end of the site. The building was completed in 1885. The western end of the lot was left open for the future expansion of the church.

In 1889, the congregation, by then having been renamed Park Presbyterian, commissioned architect Henry Kilburn to design a larger main church. To be located on undeveloped western lots, the new edifice was to incorporate Eidlitz’s chapel of 1884-85, which would be modified to complement the new wing. Kilburn’s design was a boldly-massed Romanesque Revival-style edifice faced in deep red sandstone and anchored by a soaring corner tower with a bell-shaped roof. The church would exemplify what was then a new interest in medieval Romanesque forms and palettes, such as in its heavy round arches, rock-faced stonework, massive tower, and earth-toned (reddish brown) materials. The building appears to have been inspired by the work of Henry Hobson Richardson, one of the major and most influential architects of the nineteenth century, and one of the main champions of the rugged, Romanesque Revival mode that is evident at West Park. Kilburn greatly expanded and redesigned Eidlitz’s chapel, cladding it in brownstone and adding a tower, thereby creating a much larger, unified Romanesque Revival-style church complex. The two wings now share similar features, such as triple round arch window motifs and paired fenestration in their broadly-gabled roofs.

According to articles published at the time of its completion in 1890, the West Park Presbyterian Church is faced in Longmeadow (Massachusetts) and Lake Superior (Michigan) sandstones. Longmeadow stone, also used extensive by Richardson, is fine-grained and typically a bright brick-red color with little stratification, making it easy to dress and very durable. As a result, it was used commonly as a facing stone. Lake Superior brownstone is uniform in color and texture, also making it easy to cut and dress into blocks of almost any size. Richardson favored brownstone to represent the Romantic ideal that architecture should by in harmony with the forms and colors of nature. West Park rugged stonework and earthy shades exemplify Richardsonian principals.

Construction began on April 22, 1889, the cornerstone was laid on May 16th, and the building was officially completed on June 26, 1890. The new church, which had 900 seats, was finished enough to have held its first service with much fanfare on May 18, 1890. The church’s entrance doors were featured in 1891 in The American Architect and Building News.

Later History

When the socially-progressive clergyman, Anson Phelps Atterbury was hired to lead the congregation in 1879, West Park embarked on a more than one hundred year period of activism. Atterbury promoted ethnic inclusion, inviting Chinese congregants to worship at the church at the peak of anti-Chinese hysteria in the 1880s. Seventy-five years later, the church was at the forefront of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War and anti-nuclear arms movements of the 1960s. Later, it became one of the founding churches of the West Side Federation for Senior Housing, Inc., as well as the original site of the West Side Food Pantry and God’s Love We Deliver. The church also championed same-sex marriage rights.

The building itself has been little altered since 1890. In 1911, at the time of the consolidation of West Presbyterian and Park Presbyterian, interior alterations were performed by the architectural firm Ludlow & Peabody, but the exterior of the church remains remarkably intact. At present, the church building is unused and vacant.

Description

The West Park Presbyterian Church occupies a generally rectangular lot, located at the northeast corner of Amsterdam Avenue and West 86th Street. The main façade, overlooking Amsterdam Avenue, is 75 feet long, while the secondary façade, which includes the earlier chapel portion, measures 125 feet along West 86th Street. The building consist of alternating gabled sections, square towers, and recessed planes, topped by a series of broadly sloping, pyramidal, or bell-shaped roofs. The facades and towers are clad in rock-faced Longmeadow brownstone, randomly coursed, and trimmed in Lake Superior redstone. Sections of the brownstone facing and many of its decorative elements are presently in a deteriorated condition. Some of the churches windows also show signs of decay.

The Amsterdam Avenue façade consists of a recessed central section, topped by a gable and flanked by a short tower on the north side and a much taller corner tower on the south side. Altogether, including the tower facades, there are five bays, some of which have paired fenestration.

Located in the recessed central section of the façade, the tripartite main entryway is approached via a flight of shallow concrete steps with a pair of cast-iron handrails. The paired, batten doors with hewn and riveted hinges in the shape of bow are deeply inset within round-arch openings flanked by bundled columns with florid capitals supporting moldings with floral carving that extend into the reveals and along the façade. Protective metal fences and gates have been installed at the entryways. The main entryway arches have compound moldings with floral carvings, and are topped by radiating voussoirs and intersecting label moldings with label-stops. The doors are topped by leaded fanlights with heavy wood perimeter moldings. Wrought-iron lamps with lenses hang above the two side doorways, while the central doorway has a forged-iron, stylized Presbyterian cross springing from its molded lintel. There is a foliated crown above the main above the main entryway; its top molding serves as the sill for the windows above.

The upper part of the recessed central section of the Amsterdam Avenue façade displays a set of three round arch windows, the center one being somewhat taller and wider than the other two. They contain leaded-glass sash (covered with protective plexi-glass), divided vertically and horizontally by a series of straight and curved wood members that are arranged as paired round-arch units supporting circular upper sash. The windows are flanked by attenuated columns with foliated capitals supporting a molded band (separated by the window openings and extending across the width of the façade). The window arches, which spring from the molded bands, have rounded moldings and voussoirs, topped by intersecting labels with stops. There is a pair of deeply-inset round-arch windows in the gable. They share a molded sill on blocky brackets (some of which are missing). The two windows are separated by a squat column with foliated capitals, from which the arches spring. The round-arch sash consist of leaded glass with wood framing. The windows have rounded moldings and voussoirs, topped by intersecting label with foliated stops, which are at the same level of short foliated molding from which the arches rise. The bottom sections of the windows are covered by sloping, non-historic, protective metal panels. The central section is topped by a broad gable with cap moldings rising from foliated stops, and is topped by a foliated pinnacle.

The north tower has a molded stone base and randomly-placed fenestration in the form of narrow, rectangular windows at the lower part of the tower (staggered as to suggest the existence of an interior stairwell), paired rectangular windows at mid section, and paired round-arch windows at the top. The molding that begins at the springline of the entryway arch extends into the lower part of the tower and serves as a sill for the lowest window. The middle windows share a prominently molded sill on blocky brackets (one of which is missing). These windows are separated by a large pier fronted by a squat column with a foliated capital that supports the center of a massive, beveled lintel below a stone relieving arch. The window openings are further embellished by foliation at the beveled lintel and jambs. Deeply recessed, leaded casements with wood frames fill the openings. There is a pair of deeply-inset round-arch windows at the top of the north tower above a molded band. They have slanted sills, now covered with non-historic protective metal sheets. The windows are separated and flanked by bundled columns with foliated capitals, supporting a continuous molded band. Compound arches with thick architraves spring from the molding, as do voussoirs and continuous molded labels. The round-arch sash consist of leaded glass with wood framing. The arches sit in a checkerboard stone field, topped by a molded cornice on large stone blocks. There is cooper flashing at the roofline. The original pyramidal roof of the north tower was removed in the mid-twentieth century.

The tall south tower, located at the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and West 86th Street, rises up from a square, two-story base, which includes a secondary entryway facing West 86th Street. That entryway, recessed and approached by recessed steps, consists of paired batten doors, with bow-shaped hinges, that are set deeply within a round arch with radiating voussoirs and a label molding lying in a shallow gable. A protective metal fence and gate have been installed at the entryway. Paired windows sit above the gable and share a prominently molded sill on blocky brackets. These windows are separated by a large pier fronted by a squat column with a foliated capital that supports the center of a massive, beveled lintel below a stone relieving arch. The window openings are further embellished by foliation at the beveled lintel and jambs. Deeply recessed, leaded casements with wood frames fill the openings. The lower part of the tower facing Amsterdam Avenue has randomly-placed fenestration in the form of narrow, rectangular windows, staggered as to suggest the existence of an interior stairwell. The tower base is topped by wide belt course topped by a molded band that extends into the Amsterdam Avenue façade. There is a bracketed metal flagpole at the lower section of the tower on the Amsterdam Avenue side.

The four sides of the corner tower’s mid-section are the same, except the lower part of the north side and a small section of the east side are cut off by the roof of the nave. Each side has a pair of deeply-inset round-arch windows that sit in a recessed plane. They share projecting sills above an area of slanted stonework. The windows are separated and flanked by bundled columns with foliated capitals, supporting continuous molded bands. Compound arches with thick architraves spring from the molding, as do voussoirs and continuous molded labels. The round-arch sashes consist of leaded glass with wood framing. The arches sit in a checkerboard stone field, topped by a foliated cornice on large stone blocks. The outer piers rise up to form the foliated bases of bartizans. The upper section of the corner tower, which contains the church’s chimes, is distinguished by its corner bartizans topped with turrets, its tripartite arches, and bell-shaped roof. The arches, which contain louvers, are separated by smooth columns with foliated capitals, while the arches have thick architraves, rock-faced voussoirs, and continuous molded labels. The bartizans have vertical lookout holes. The tower is finished off with projecting band that wraps around all four sides and the bartizans; its serves as the sills for blind arcades that sit below molded cornices. The bartizans are topped by conical roofs coursed in stone, while a bell-shaped roof with scalloped asphalt shingles and a copper finial top the tower.

The West 86th Street façade includes the corner tower and the nave, as well as the church’s earlier wing and tower, which sit at the eastern end of the site. The facade displays a variety of window configurations and bays, some which lie in recessed planes. The ashlar base has a molding that also serves as the sill for the grouped sash at the lower part of the façade. The inset sash have leaded-glass casements (covered by protective plexi-glass panels) and are topped by foliated lintels at the nave and rock-faced, chamfered lintels at the east wing. The nave has a projecting central section, distinguished by a large rose window that is topped by a broad cross gable. The rose window has circular tracery and sash, which are obscured by protective, opaque plexi-glass panels with rectilinear divisions. The elaborate surround consists of a wide sill molding, foliated spandrels, attached columns with foliated capitals at the level of the foliated springline molding, an architrave at the upper part of the window, rough-faced voussoirs, and a molded label with foliated ends. A lancet in the gable has a molded sill, rough-faced voussoirs, and a label molding. The gable has cap moldings rising from foliated stops, and is topped by a foliated pinnacle. The other bays of the nave have paired, deeply-inset round-arch windows that share common sills above foliated panels. The windows are separated and flanked by attached columns with foliated capitals, supporting continuous molded bands. Thick architraves spring from the molding, as do voussoirs and continuous molded labels. The round-arch sashes consist of leaded glass with wood framing. The sash are obscured by protective, opaque plexi-glass panels with rectilinear divisions. The roof of the nave is covered with asphalt shingles (probably not original) with copper flashing, catches, gutters, and drainpipes. There are single-bay dormers about halfway up the slope. Sheathed in copper and asphalt shingles, they have round columns and belting at the level of the sills and lintels. Prism-glass sash fill wood frames; there are multi-pane, leaded-glass transoms. Flared, asphalt-shingle-covered roofs, above copper cornices, top the dormers. There is a wide, ashlar chimney at the rear of the nave, topped by a suspended metal cap.

The original wing and tower consist of four bays including the tower. At the base of the tower, there is a secondary entryway, consisting of paired batten doors, with bowed hinges, that are set deeply within a round arch with radiating voussoirs and a label molding lying in a shallow gable topped by a finial. A tall lancet window occupies the central stage of the tower. It has a molded sill, architrave, voussoirs, and a label molding that springs form a belt course that reaches across the façade. The sash is obscured by protective, opaque plexi-glass with horizontal divisions. There is a metal sign bracket attached to the stone. There is a pair of deeply-inset round-arch windows at the top of the tower above a molded band. The windows, which share a molded sill, are separated by a column with foliated capitals. Thick architraves spring from a continuous molding, as do voussoirs and molded labels. The round-arch sash consist of leaded glass with wood framing. This upper stage has two other visible facades, facing east and west, which are similarly articulated. The tower is topped by a clay-tile-covered pyramidal roof above a cornice. There is copper flashing and a finial. There is a bracketed metal flagpole at mid- level.

The gabled façade to the east of the 86th Street tower has grouped fenestration at the first story and round-arch, tripartite windows as it main feature at center stage (similar to the Amsterdam Avenue façade). The center window is somewhat taller and wider than the other two. They contain leaded-glass sash (covered with protective plexi-glass), divided vertically and horizontally by a series of straight and curved wood members that are arranged as paired round-arch units supporting circular upper sash. Some of the sash has been modified to accommodate air conditioners. The windows are flanked by attenuated columns with foliated capitals supporting a molded band (separated by the window openings and extending across the width of the façade). The window arches, which spring from the molded bands, have architraves and voussoirs, topped by intersecting labels with stops.

There is a pair of deeply-inset windows in the gable. They share a molded sill on blocky brackets. The sash holds single-pane glass with wood framing (the east sash modified to accommodate an air conditioner). The windows are topped by splayed lintels. The central section is topped by a broad gable with cap moldings rising from foliated stops, and is topped by a foliated pinnacle. The slate-covered roof consists of intersection hips and gables with copper flashing. There is a skylight on the southern slope and a wide, stone chimney on the west side of the roof.

- From the 2010 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

RNLI Cheque cartie race 1986 by Gordon Cook

2

This is all speculation because there is absolutely nothing written on the back of the print, apart from the issue date. In February, 1986 the proceeds of a cartie race were presented to Major General Roger Ephraums for the RNLI Arbroath. Various youth organisations in Arbroath took part. Anyone add to that?

Dark Fiber for Google Fiber? by Emily Davis

On Wednesday, Google confirmed the speculations regarding the introduction of Google Fiber, Google’s ultra-high-speed service for the Internet, in San Francisco.

The company unveiled it will connect few condos and apartments, along with offering free service to some affordable residents in San F...

www.technowize.com/dark-fiber-for-google-fiber/

RS3J6523 by Miller Center

Since Russian leader Vladimir Putin assumed power in August 1999, speculation about his character, motives, and plans for Russia’s future has been rampant in the West. Even after he stepped down as president in May 2008, retaining a significant measure of power as prime minister under his hand-picked successor, President Dmitri Medvedev, Putin remains poorly understood. In this interpretive biography of Putin, ALLEN C. LYNCH, director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies and associate professor of government and foreign affairs seeks to reconcile the two conflicting images and find out just where the truth lies about the man and the statesman.

Held February 24, 2012. Miller Center, Charlottesville, VA.

For more information, visit millercenter.org/.

Washington Apartments by Emilio Guerra

Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States of America

If you want to know more about my walks and photos, check out my blog.

The Washington Apartments, built in 1883-84 for the speculative developer Edward H.M. Just, was the earliest apartment building constructed in central Harlem. This eight-story brick building, with stone, iron, terra-cotta and pressed brick trim, was designed by the talented and productive architect Mortimer C. Menitt in the popular Queen Anne style, incorporating neo- Grec details. Merritt created a lively and picturesque composition using contrasting materials, and provided textural interest through the use of projecting balconies and cornices, a prominent overscaled frontispiece, and numerous decorative panels.

The extension of the elevated transit lines, which by 1881 connected lower Manhattan to 129th Street, served as an impetus to the development of this area, previously the location of small farms and shantytowns. The amount of real estate speculation and new construction which occurred in Harlem from the 1880s through 1904 was unmatched in New York's history.

Harlem was transformed from a rocky and marshy backwoods to a premier middle-class neighborhood. The Washington Apartments was built at the start of this tide of development, when much of the nearby construction took the form of single-family rowhouses and occasional small flats. Throughout New York, multi- family living arrangements were just gaining acceptance among the middle and upper classes. A large apartment house such as the Washington, was quite conspicuous amid rows and rows of brownstone-fronted rowhouses. Not only does the building retain its distinctive presence in the Harlem community, it is also one of the few surviving apartment houses of the early 1880s in New York City.

Development of Harlem

That part of New York known as Harlem embraces generally the area of Manhattan north of 110th Street. The original village of Harlem was established in 1658 by Peter Stuyvesant and named Nieuw Haarlem after the Dutch city of Haarlem. Rich farms were located on the region's flat, eastern portion, while some of New York's most illustrious early families, such as the Delanceys, Bleekers, Rikers, Beekmans, and Hamiltons, maintained large estates in the western half of the area, enjoying the magnificent views proffered by Harlem Heights. Several small villages and isolated shanties were also scattered throughout the area, helping Harlem retain its rural character beyond the middle of the nineteenth century.

Harlem's stability was shaken in the 1830s. The lush farmland became depleted, worn out from decades of cultivation. Many farms were abandoned and the great estates were sold at public auction. The area became the refuge of those desiring cheap property and housing, including many newly-arrived and destitute immigrants who gathered in scattered shanty towns. However, most of the scenic topography was left untouched and the striking vistas and unspoiled country attracted fashionable downtowners on picnics and day trips, particularly after the 1860s.

It was the advent of new and better forms of transportation, as well as the rapidly increasing population of New York which brought about the change in Harlem from a rural village (population at mid-century of approximately 1500) to a fashionable middle- and upper-class neighborhood. As the population of New York City swelled after the Civil War, mounting pressures for housing pushed the development of neighborhoods further northward until, in 1873, Harlem was annexed to New York City. Although the New York & Harlem Railroad had run trains from lower Manhattan to Harlem beginning in 1837, service was poor and unreliable, and the trip was long. The real impetus for new residential development in this area came with the arrival of three lines of elevated railroads which, by 1881, ran as far north as 129 th Street.

Between the 1870s and 1910 Harlem was the site of a massive wave of speculative development which resulted in the construction of record numbers of new single-family rowhouses, tenements, and luxury apartment houses. Almost all the houses which stand in Harlem today were built during that time. Commercial concerns and religious, educational, and cultural institutions were established to serve the expanding population. Electricity came to Harlem in 1887 and the telephone arrived the following year.

The west half of Harlem, although developed slightly later, became a prosperous and fashionable neighorhood and boasted elegant homes such as the King Model Houses, later known as Strivers Row (in the St. Nicholas Historic District, West 138th and 139th Streets) and Astor Row, 8-62 West 130th Street (1880-83, all designated New York City Landmarks), as well as luxurious apartments with the most modem amenities such as the Graham Court Apartments, 1923-1937 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard (1899-1901, a designated New York City Landmark). More modest housing was built as well. The area also contained the popular Polo Grounds and the distinguished Harlem Opera House on West 125th Street. Some speculators made tremendous profits by buying and reselling land and by developing properties, including Oscar Hammerstein I, Henry Morgenthau, and August Belmont.

Development of the Washington Apartments

The land on which the Washington Apartments was constructed was typical of Harlem real estate just ripe for development. Until 1851, the property was held by members of the Benson family, descendants of Captain Johannes Benson who settled there in 1696/ Samson Adolphus Benson sold a large tract (including this property) to John Bruce, a well-to-do Brooklyn resident and hardware dealer in New York. Bruce was clearly interested in the investment possibilities as he subdivided the land and sold off lots to numerous buyers. This property was held briefly by a succession of owners, without development, until Harlem began to blossom.

Edward H. W. Just (d.1893), the developer of the Washington Apartments, was one of the speculators who profited from the tremendous early Harlem building boom. Born in Eisleben, Germany, Just arrived in New York in the 1830s. He and his brother John (and later his nephew Carl) were the owners of the Just Brothers Fine Shirt manufacturing company, which had stores in the fashionable Ladies' Mile area during the 1880s and into the 1890s. Edward Just invested heavily in Harlem property, turning his attention to real estate full time shortly before his death in 1893. He left an estate valued at more than $2 million.

The site of the Washington Apartments, at Seventh Avenue (Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard) and 122nd Street, was near the newly expanded elevated railroad line, although previous to 1883, nothing had been constructed on this block or those immediately surrounding it. An 1880 map of the area of central Harlem (Fifth to Eighth Avenues from 124th Street to 131st Street), shows several rows of brownstone-fronted, single-family rowhouses as well as many older, wood-framed houses. The only large buildings were a few churches and a grammar school. The section of central Harlem just to the south, from 117th to 124th Streets, shows very little construction of any kind, with nothing at all south of 123rd Street. An 1884 map of the same area (Fifth to Eighth Avenues, from 117th to 124th Streets) shows several rows of individual houses on 123rd and 124th Streets, as well as the elegant houses lining Mount Morris Park. The Washington is the only large apartment house in this section.

The section from 124th to 131st Streets was much more heavily built up by 1884, with many rows of masonry-fronted rowhouses, several slightly larger flat houses, several churches, stables and a grammar school. Two small, walk-up apartment houses (the Beverly and the Eisleben, also a Just property) of three and four stories, respectively, are also shown, opposite each other at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and 125th Street.

Edward Just was concerned about providing solid middle-class housing in Harlem and was an advocate of the large apartment house, a building type which in 1883 had only recently begun to gain popularity and enough cache to be acceptable to New York's middle class. In 1885, in an article discussing the extensive development in Harlem, The Real Estate Record & Guide recorded primarily single-family homes under construction, while in 1893 a local magazine listed fifty-five apartment houses in Harlem.

Multi-Family Housing in New York

Although multi-family housing existed early in New York's history, this generally took the form of boarding houses, hotels, and subdivided rowhouses and was not considered desirable for respectable middle-class families. Middle-class values stressed the importance of a "home" as a refuge from the world, the significance of privacy for the family unit, and the concept that societal levels should not be mixed in living quarters. These ideas came to be modified, however, as population growth and economic factors made single-family houses too expensive or forced them to be located too far from a person's place of work. Overcrowded tenements were for the poor, but new solutions were needed for people of greater means.

By the mid-nineteenth century buildings were constructed in New York which were labelled "French Flats," so named to evoke the multi-famity residences found in Paris, in an attempt to distinguish them from common tenements. The term was recognized as a classification by the Department of Buildings in 1874 to describe multiple dwellings with apartments containing private baths and toilets. By the mid-1880s French flats were becoming accepted for middle-class residences. "Flats" became known for their more spacious accommodations, for the inclusion of more amenities, and for more architecturally distinguished exteriors than were typical of tenements. They were often built with wider street frontages than the standard twenty-five foot wide city lot, and by about 1875 could rise eight to ten stories in height with the inclusion of a passenger elevator, a relatively recent innovation.

Within ten years of the construction of the precedent- setting Stuyvesant Apartments (Richard Morris Hunt, 1869-70, 142 East 18th Street), several hundred expensive "flats" geared to the middle and upper classes had been constructed in New York, with ninety more built in the five years from 1880 to 1885. The eight-story Washington Apartments, an elevator building with a frontage of 101 feet on Seventh Avenue and an estimated construction cost of $200,000, was among this group. Today, only a few of these early flats buildings are still extant, such as the Manhattan (244 East 86th Street, 1879-80) and the Windemere Apartments (400-406 West 57th Street, 1880-81).

Mortimer C. Merritt

Mortimer C. Merritt, the architect chosen to design the Washington Apartments, was a talented and prolific designer, having produced a variety of types of buildings in numerous styles throughout New York City. Merritt (18407-1931) was born in New York and graduated from the College of the City of New York (now City College) in 1859. He was established as an architect by 1868 and always worked independently. Merritt designed many commercial structures, the most well-known being the large, cast-iron-fronted department store on Sixth Avenue for Hugh O'Neill in 1887. That building and two others by Merritt are located within the Ladies' Mile Historic District. The others are: the Ely Building at 37 East 18th Street (1896-97), a neo- Renaissance store and loft building with a brick, stone and terra-cotta front; and the granite-clad store and loft building at 53-55 West 21th Street (1901-02).

A cast-iron-fronted store and loft building designed by Merritt in 1879 at 71-73 Grand Street is located in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District. Merritt worked throughout the city, and another of his designs is found on a Medieval Revival style rowhouse at 128 West 73rd Street (1883-84, in the Upper West Side/Central Park West Histric District).

The Washington Apartments

For the Washington Apartments, Merritt designed a substantial brick-fronted building facing the broad avenue. A corner building of eight stories, this was the first structure built on this block as well as the first large apartment house in central Harlem, and thus set the tone for the surrounding area. In the building's design Merritt used the Queen Anne style, which had become a popular residential style in this country in the late 1870s, particularly following the Centennial celebration of 1876 which sparked interest in America's Colonial past. First developed in England and associated with the work of architect Richard Norman Shaw, the style was modified in this country by including decorative elements typical of Colonial architecture, such as applied pilasters, pediments, and foliate friezes, and was mostly used for residential buildings.

In the Washington Apartments the quality of picturesqueness, so desirable in the Queen Anne style, has been successfully achieved by the combination of materials, including red brick with contrasting light stone at the base and trim, as well as elements of terra-cotta and iron. Fluted pilasters and colonnettes which separate and flank some of the windows are also indicative of this style. On the lively main façade, the central portion of the building is emphasized by the projections of the bays, the overscaled iron frontispiece composed of a triangular pediment with side panels embellished by sunbursts, and the series of bracketed balconies (missing their balustrades) which embellish the center windows. Both façades are further enhanced by terra cotta and pressed brick panels of foliate design, stone stringcourses, and diapered brick spandrels and panels. The addition of delicate incised ornament at the impost blocks, typical of the neo-Grec style, was common in Queen Anne buildings in New York.

When constructed, the building housed thirty middle-class families. The occupants included doctors, lawyers, bankers, public accountants, and builders, many of whom had servants who lived with them. A number of residents had offices in lower Manhattan and were able to live in Harlem and conveniently commute to work because of the recently constructed elevated railroad.

The character of Harlem changed considerably during the early years of the twentieth century. Proposed subway routes to West Harlem in the late 1890s had sparked another wave of real estate speculation which led to highly inflated market values. Tremendous numbers of new residential buildings were constructed around the turn of the century. This overbuilding resulted in extensive vacancies and artificially high rents, causing a general collapse of the real estate market in 1904-05 as loans were withheld and mortgages foreclosed.

Taking advantage of the deflated market and the housing surplus which followed, a black businessman named Philip Payton and his Afro-American Realty Company, founded in 1904, played a major role in the development of Harlem as a black community. In the aftermath of the real estate collapse, Payton acquired five-year leases on white-owned properties and rented them at higher rates to black families. African-Americans who could afford high rents had begun moving to Harlem at the turn of the century. A dramatic increase in Harlem's black population came, however, as hundreds of black families were uprooted when their homes in the Tenderloin area near 34th Street were destroyed during the 1906-10 construction of Pennsylvania Station. For the first time good housing in large quantities was available to New York's black population.

Just as Harlem had been a middle-class white community, it became a middle-class black community, with approximately 50,000 blacks living there in 1914. By 1920 the area from 130th to 140th Streets and from Fifth Avenue to Eighth Avenue was predominantly black, housing 73,000 people including two-thirds of Manhattan's African-American population. The black migration to Harlem continued to increase during the 1920s as people came from the American South and the West Indies in record numbers. The years that followed, saw the "Harlem Renaissance." By 1930 Harlem became the urban cultural center of black America, with its central location being around 125th Street.

With all the changes occurring nearby, the Washington Apartments maintained its white, middle- class residents through the 1920s. Interior changes made from 1915 through 1920 did, however, create smaller apartments so that the building, which had been constructed to house thirty families in 1883, was home to sixty-three families and a restaurant in 1932.

The Washington Apartments was sold in 1894 after the death of Edward Just. The building was purchased for investment by businessman Ross Browning, the owner until his death in 1925; Browning's heirs held it until 1936. After that, it was owned by a series of real estate corporations until it was taken over by the City in 1977. Rehabilitation began in the late 1980s.

Description

Located on the southwest corner of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard and 122nd Street, the eight-story building known as the Washington Apartments is clad in red brick highlighted by stone, iron, terra-cotta and pressed brick trim above a stone base (now painted). The building is currently unoccupied and is being rehabilitated by the New York City Department of Housing, Preservation and Development. Almost all of the windows have been replaced by double-hung, one-over-one and two-over- two, aluminum sash windows.

The main façade faces Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard and is symmetrically arranged with a wide projecting pavilion which extends through the height of the building and is crowned by an overscaled galvanized iron frontispiece. This element is formed of a triangular pediment carried on pilasters and buttressed by a split panel enhanced by a sunburst motif. Projecting iron finials (one of which is partially missing) capped by anthemia finish the composition. Originally this element was incorporated into a broad cornice (now removed) which surrounded the building above the seventh story. Beneath this frontispiece, each story in the central bay is comprised of three sets of paired windows. The central pair is joined by a small stone engaged pilaster and crowned by a shallow-arched pediment ornamented with terra-cotta designs. The flanking pairs of windows are linked by continuous stone sills and lintels.

The windows of the third through seventh stories of the central bay are fronted by stone balconies carried on brackets. Their stone balustrades have been removed.

The one-story base, with its central entranceway, is faced with rusticated stone and has a one-bay return on the 122nd Street façade. A small replacement stoop and a ramp for handicapped access have been added to the main entrance. A pair of rectangular window openings flanks the doorway within the central bay, while each of the other bays at this level also have two similar window openings, now closed by boards.

Stone stringcourses divide the building horizontally above the first, third, and fifth stories, with two-story brick piers creating vertical bays between these horizontal divisions. The stringcourses are enhanced at the third and fifth stories by panels of terra-cotta foliate ornament which also form pilaster capitals. The windows below these bands are marked by stone impost blocks incised with neo-Grec floral motifs, while the levels between have spandrels of brick diaper work framed by contrasting stone sills and lintels. The eighth-story windows are segmentally arched and have projecting brick hoods. Above the eighth story a brick corbel table supports a simple sheet-metal cornice, parts of which are missing. This façade has two historic fire escapes.

The 122nd Street façade has five bays, the easternmost bay serving as a return of the main façade and carrying the same decorative motifs. The major elements of the composition continue on this façade as well. At the central bay the paired windows of the second through sixth stories share common ornamental motifs: continuous stone sills and lintels, brick relieving arches with terra-cotta ornament, and flanking decorative brickwork suggestive of pilasters. To each side of the central bay, continuous stone sills and lintels link the windows of each bay.

At the seventh story all of the windows except those in the east bay are segmentally- arched. The eighth-story windows have the same treatment as on the main façade. At the ground story, beyond the first bay, the square-headed window openings are set in brick and have stone lintels which are continuous within each bay and a stone sill course extends across the façade.

Parts of the rear and south elevations are visible above the tops of the neighboring buildings. These elevations are not ornamented.

- From the 1991 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

In Goes Abbeydale's - Speculation (4% Pale Ale) The Broken Seal (stevenage) Olympus OM-D EM1.3 & Leica Nocticron 42.5mm f1.2 Prime by markdbaynham

611 21st Century Steam Power by Bob

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In 2011 the Norfolk Southern brought back their steam program, under the name 21st Century Steam, leading to speculation among some about a possible restoration of 611. On February 22nd 2013, the Virginia Museum of Transportation announced that they were forming a committee to conduct a feasibility study with the goal of returning the 611 to active service. The committee is known as "Fire Up 611."[4]

On 23 May 2015, #611 sits on the turntable at the North Carolina Transportation Museum, between back-and-forth runs around the facility.

Norfolk and Western class Y6a #2156, class J #611, and class A #1218 on display at the "Big Three" celebration at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, VA, on May 31, 2015.

On June 28th, 2013, the "Fire Up 611" committee announced that 611 would be restored to operating condition in time for Norfolk Southern's 2014 steam excursion season, if $5 million was raised by October 31st, 2013 .[5] If the money was raised, 611 would be restored at the North Carolina Transportation Museum roundhouse in Spencer, NC. The sum of $5 million was sought, comprising: $1 million for locomotive restoration, $2 million for a dedicated maintenance shop in Roanoke, and the balance for an endowment and other items. Restoration requirements included repairs of the engine truck, the preparation of a tool car and an auxiliary water tender, application of new safety appliances such as in-cab signals and an event recorder, installation of new flues, boiler work, hydro and fire testing, test runs and inspection and repairs of the tender, running gears and air brakes. However, the hoped for amount was not reached, and the locomotive was to remain at the Virginia Museum of Transportation until the $3.5 million goal was reached.

On November 22nd, 2013, Norfolk Southern announced that they were donating $1.5 million of the proceeds from an auction of a Mark Rothko painting to the Fire Up 611! campaign.[6] In February of 2014, several key appointments were made by the Fire Up 611 committee to the locomotive's mechanical team, and the following month, a formal agreement was made with the North Carolina Transportation Museum for restoration. On April 1st, 2014, it was announced that after raising $2.3 million, the locomotive would move to North Carolina on May 24th, 2014. 611 arrived in Spencer on May 25th and took part in the Streamliners at Spencer event the following weekend. Restoration work on the 611 began on June 2nd, 2014. Restoration was done with the help of volunteers, including several from the Age of Steam Roundhouse. Due to the generally good condition of the locomotive, restoration was complete within a year.

On March 31st, 2015, 611 was fired up for the first time in over 20 years for a test fire, and on May 9th, it ran under its own power as part of the first round of post-restoration testing and it was also the day when N&W 2-8-8-2 Y6a 2156 left the St. Louis Museum of Transportation[7] for Roanoke to welcome back the 611.[8] On May 21, 2015, 611 made a brief test run from Spencer to Greensboro, N.C., pulling the "Powhatan Arrow" passenger cars. On May 30, 2015, 611 pulled its first excursion from Spencer, North Carolina to Roanoke, Virginia.[9]

The locomotive is scheduled to run several excursions during the summer of 2015.[10]

The first set of these excursions (3 trips) operated by the Virginia Museum of Transportation, Fire Up 611, and in coordination with Norfolk Southern, was hosted on the former Southern Railway B-Line (East/West) from Manassas, Virginia B0.0 to Riverton Junction B50.9 (Front Royal, Virginia) on June 6th and 7th, 2015. This included a climb up the Linden grade, a grade over 1% for more than 3 miles in either direction.

The second set of excursion (2 trips) are scheduled for June 13th and 14th, 2015 from Lynchburg, Virginia to Petersburg, Virginia. This is a 260 mile round-trip on the former Norfolk & Western main line historically served by the Class J locomotive.

The third set of excursions and last announced for 2015 are scheduled for July 3rd through 5th. This event includes 3 morning trips from Roanoke, Virginia to Lynchburg, Virginia over the historic Norfolk and Western Blue Ridge grade. Also offered are 3 afternoon trips from Roanoke, Virginia to Radford, Virginia which will traverse both the Montgomery tunnel and the Christiansburg grade. Both follow former Norfolk and Western mainlines that were historically served by the Class J locomotives

Century Apartments by Emilio Guerra

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Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States of America

If you want to know more about my walks and photos, check out my blog.

The Century Apartments, extending along the entire blockfront of Central Park West between West 62nd Street to West 63rd Street, anchors the southern end of one of New York City's finest residential boulevards, tfith twin towers rising 300 feet from the street, this building is one of a small group of related structures that help give Central Park West its distinctive silhouette. Designed in 1930 by Irwin S. Chanin of the Chanin Construction Company, the Century Apartments is among the most sophisticated residential Art Deco buildings in New York and is a major work by one of America's pioneering Art Deco designers.

Built in 1931, the Century was among the last buildings erected as part of the early 20th-century redevelopment of Central Park West. Central Park West, a continuation of Eighth Avenue, runs along the western edge of Central Park. Development along this prime avenue occurred very slowly, lagging substantially behind the general development of the Upper West Side. When Frederick Law Olmsted laid out Central Park he saw that the presence of the park would raise the value of land immediately adjacent to it. Olmsted expected these areas to develop as prime residential streets. Land speculation did indeed occur on Central Park West. However, the west side of the park never attracted the extremely wealthy people who could afford the inflated prices of land bordering on the park. Thus, while the side streets of the Upper West Side were built up with rows of speculative houses, Central Park West remained largely undeveloped.

A survey of Central Park West published in February 1893 shows that of the three blocks between 60th and 96th Streets (the American Museum of Natural History, located between 77th and 81st Streets is counted as one block) nineteen were either totally vacant or contained old shanties and frame houses. Other blocks were partially vacant. South of 71st Street every blockfront was empty except for the southernmost frontages which contained the Durland Riding Academy and the Van Norman Institute. 1

The earliest residential improvement on Central Park West, and one of its great architectural monuments was the Dakota, a designated New York City Landmark, at 72nd Street. Built in 1880-84, this eight-story building established Central Park West's character as a street of multiple dwellings. In 1890, by which time the Dakota had been joined by two apartment hotels, the St. Remo on 75th Street and the Beresford on 81st Street, as well as several flat houses, real estate broker F. R. Houghton noted that:

Central Park West seems to have only one future— it is destined to become an avenue of grand apartment houses and hotels. Everything tends that way. It is too public a thoroughfare to become a private residential avenue 3

However, it wasn't until several years later that Central Park West experienced the construction boom that Houghton had predicted.

The first concentrated building boom on Central Park West occurred at the turn of the century when a significant number of elegant residential and institutional buildings were erected south of 96th Street. These include some of the finest apartment houses in New York, such as the Prasada (1904) at 65th Street, the Langham (1905) at 73rd Street, the Kenilworth (1908) at 75th Street, and the St. Urban (1904) at 89th Street, as well as such institutional structures as the Ethical Culture Society School and Meeting House (1902, 1909) at 63rd and 64th Streets, Holy Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church (1903) at 65th Street, the Second Church of Christ, Scientist (1898) at 68th Street, the Congregation Shearith Israel Synagogue (1895) at 70th Street, the Universalist Church of the Divine Paternity (1898) at 76th Street, and the Progress Club (now the Walden School, 1902) at 88th Street.

The presence of these fine apatment buildings and institutions on Central Park West reflects the coming of age of the Upper West Side. The Upper West Side had developed in the final decades of the 19th century as an enclave of upper middle-class life. Affluent middle-class families were attracted to the area by the quality of its housing, the presence of Riverside Park and Central Park, and by the accessibility of the neighborhood. As the Upper West Side became more and more desirable, developers began to build on the more expensive sites bordering the parks, and Central Park West began to be transformed into an elegant avenue of tall buildings that contrasted dramatically in scale to low rise residential Fifth Avenue. 4

In 1909 the new Central Park West apartment houses and institutions were joined by one of New York City's most sumptuous buildings, the New Theatre designed by Carrere & Hastings. This elegant limestone structure extended along the entire blockfront between 62nd Street and 63rd Street and was erected to house a subsidized theater company that would be artistically and physically separate from the commercial theaters centered around Times Square. This was not a successful artistic venture and the effort to establish a classical theater company at the New Theatre failed. In 1911 the theater was renamed the Century and it became a commercial house, albeit one located far from the commercial theater center. In 1920 the Shubert Organization gained control of the theater, and they managed it until its sale to the Chanin Construction Company in 1930.

During World War I construction on Central Park West slowed, but between 1920 and 1931 the area was transformed as the vacant sites were filled and many of the early apartment hotels and flats were replaced by new apartment houses. This final phase of Central Park West's development culminated in 1929-31 with the construction of the four twin-towered buildings that gave Central Park West its characteristic skyline. The distinctive form of the Century at 62nd and 63rd Streets, the Majestic (1930) at 71st-72nd Streets, the San Remo (1929) at 74th-75th Streets, and the Eldorado (1929) at 90th-91st Streets has come to symbolize the high quality of residential design of New York's Upper West Side.

Two of these great twin-towered buildings, the Majestic and Century, are Art Deco style structures designed and constructed by Irwin S. Chanin, one of New York City's leading builders and a pioneer in the design of Art Deco buildings in America. Irwin Salmon Chanin was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Soon after his birth the family returned to its native Ukraine, remaining there until 1907 when they moved back to Bensonhurst. Chanin graduated from Cooper Union in 1915 having studied engineering and architecture. His earliest employment was as an engineer working on subway construction in New York and Philadelphia. In 1919, after a brief stint in the army, Chanin began his building activities by constructing two houses in Bensonhurst. The success of this modest venture led to the construction of other one- and two-family houses in Bensonhurst as well as the formation of the Chanin Construction Company. In 1924 Chanin entered the real estate field in Manhattan with the erection of the Fur Center Building.

Also in that year Chanin began the construction of the first of a series of Broadway theaters. These theaters— all designed by architect Herbert Krapp—the 46th Street, Biltmore, Mansfield (now Brooks Atkinson), Royale, Majestic, and Masque (now Golden) have excellent sightlines and acoustics and only a single balcony; they remain among the finest Broadway houses. Chanin also built three large movie houses—the Loew's Coney Island (1925), Reilly & Hall, architects; the Roxy (1927), Walter Ahlschlager, architect; and the Beacon (1927-28), Walter Ahlschlager, architect. In 1925 Chanin spent four weeks in Paris visiting the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes. This decorative arts exhibition had a profound influence on American architecture as American architects began to adapt the ornamental forms they had seen in Paris to their buildings. The first architects In the United States to use what have come to be known as Art Deco forms on major architectural works were Chanin and Ely

Jacques Kahn, both of whom had visited the Paris exhibition.^ Art Deco motifs first appear in Chanin's work at the Lincoln Hotel (now the Milford Plaza Hotel) built in 1927 as part of a complex of buildings that included the Royale, Majestic, and Masque Theatres.

The Lincoln was a traditionally styled structure designed by Schwartz & Gross. For the lobby and dining room, however, Chanin designed Art Deco wall panels and furnishings. The Lincoln Hotel interiors were followed by the Chanin Building of 1927-29 located at the southwest corner of East 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. At the time the Chanin Building was designed, Chanin was not a registered architect. Chanin hired Sloan & Robertson, a rather conservative architectural firm responsible for the nearby Graybar Building, to examine the plans prepared by the Chanin Construction Company* Sloan & Robertson were only responsible for the exterior form of the building. Chanin personally supervised the decoration of the building. The building is filled with French-inspired Art Deco motifs, many executed under Chanin's direction by French-trained sculptor Rene Chambellan.

In 1930 Chanin became a registered architect and he was responsible for the design of the two Central Park West apartment buildings, but both projects had their genesis in plans for other building types. In April 1929, the Chanin Construction Company purchased the old Hotel Majestic on Central Park West between 71st Street and 72nd Street, intending to replace the old structure with a 45-story hotel.^ As designed, this was a dramatically-massed Art Deco structure, but the building situation in New York following the stock market crash precluded the construction of such an ambitious and risky project. In June 1930 it was announced that a 29-story twin-towered apartment house would rise on the site. According to Chanin, the design of this building was somewhat experimental—he wished to see if Art Deco forms would be accepted for a residential building.

Chanin's official involvement with the Century site began on May 28, 1929, when it was announced that the Chanin Construction Company would purchase the entire city block bounded by Broadway, Central Park West, West 62nd Street, and West 63rd Street. The site included the Century Theatre on Central Park West, Daly's Theatre on 63rd Street, and an apartment house and two garages on Broadway. Chanin announced that he would build a 65-story skyscraper on the site, that would, according to the New York Times, "be revolutionary in design and use."8 The Century Theatre was the property of the Shubert Organization, and in order to acquire the Central Park West site, Chanin was forced to sell them his interest in the Royale, Masque, and Majestic Theatres. The Shubert Organization had purchased a half interest in these theaters in 1928 and, according to Chanin, had had an interest in acquiring full control.

In August 1929 Chanin announced specific plans for the newly acquired Century Theatre site. He proposed to build an office and hotel that would be "an innovation in international relations."^ The building, to be known as the Palais de France, was to house the French consulate and tourist board, and the offices of French commercial firms. Chanin was to design the new building which would be in a "modern French [style] adapted to the exigencies of American skyscraper construction.In other words, this was to be an Art Deco style building using forms similar to those already in evidence at the Chanin Building. The building was to have three stories of permanent exhibition space for the display of French manufactured goods and for an international display of automobiles, airplanes, and yachts. There would also be shops on the ground floor. The next 27 stories were to be a hotel, while the top 30 stories were to be the French offices.

The conception of a Palais de France for New York reflects Chanin's interest in France and French culture. He wished to provide a building where French and American art and commerce could be united. While Chanin was impressed with European, and particularly French, modern design, he felt that America had successfully adapted these forms to create its own design idiom:

While Europe is the motherland in the development of the so-called modernistic tendencies in design, it is my own opinion that America is rationalizing these ideas and is making them fit into the scheme of things more successfully than Europe. I did not see abroad'any modernistic interiors or furniture that approaches either in beauty or usefulness that which is becoming fairly common in New York.H

The Palais de France was to unite a modern American structure with the finest modern French products.

Chanin and banker S.W. Straus traveled to France to arrange the sale of the Century site to the French. Negotiations seemed to be progressing, but no money was forthcoming from French banks, and in October 1930, Chanin announced that the Palais de France scheme had been dropped and that he would build a twin-towered apartment house similar in concept to the Majestic, then under construction. This building was to contain small apartments of from two to seven rooms "to meet the demand for this type of housing accommodation along Central Park West."12 According to Irwin Chanin the Century's apartments are smaller than those of earlier buildings because of the difficulty in renting large apartments during the Depression. The earlier Majestic had large apartments, some of which were difficult to rent and so the Century was planned with smaller, but still carefully laid out units.^ The Century, designed a year after the Majestic, is considered by Chanin to be a finer work.

He particularly noted that the crown of Century is a more complex creation and that the building has finer bay windows and balconies, and special glass.

The Century was the last of the four great Central Park West twin-towered apartment buildings. It is these buildings which prompted the New York Times to write that the west side "skyline bids fair to be ere long as beautifully fantastic as it is where the river mingles in the bay."^-^ The tower forms of the Century, Majestic, San Remo, and Eldorado came about as a result of the multiple dwelling law passed by the New York State Legislature in 1929. This law mandated an increase in yard and court area, but allowed residential buildings to rise higher than before, legalizing setbacks and towers in this building type for the first time. The bill limited the height of street walls to time the width of the street, but, on plots of over 25,000 square feet, allowed towers that could rise up to three times the width of the street.

The Century is a sophisticated essay in "modern American" or Art Deco design. The facade exhibits a complex balance of horizontal an^ vertical elements that creates a dynamic design tension. The nineteen-story superstructure forms a street wall that hugs the lot line on all three main elevations and lines up with the older pre-1929 buildings on Central Park West, while the towers rise up to proclaim the advent of a new zoning scheme and a modern style of architecture. The bands of tan and light brown brick, the long corner windows, and the cantilevered balconies lend a strong horizontal force to the design, but these are balanced by the vertical thrust of the projecting bowed window bays with their vertical brick ornament, by the rust-colored brick spandrel panels, and by the recessed window bays of the towers. The geometric masses that crown the towers also display this complex balance of horizontal and vertical forms.

On a smaller scale, the pattern of window mullions echoes the balance of horizontal and vertical elements found elsewhere. This is particularly true at the corner solaria with their strong horizontal mullions and rhythm of narrow and wider vertical mullions. These solaria are an important feature of the Century's design, and they, along with the other windows of the building, were equipped with a special imported English glass that allowed ultra-violat rays Into the apartments. Much of the Century's interest lies in the manipulation of such structural features as the brickwork, windows, bays, and balconies. Ornament, placed sparingly on the exterior, is used to highlight major focal points of the building such as the entrances, setbacks, and crowns. It is the crowns, visible from Central Park and as far east as Fifth Avenue, that are, appropriately, given the most dramatic ornamental form. The buttressed crowns with their corner fins and arched rear projections are one of New York City's major architectural adornments.

When it opened, the Century contained 417 suites and 1,688 rooms. Among its special features were sunken drawing rooms with fireplaces, creak-proof floors of walnut and selected hardwoods, free standing showers, duplex suites, and lobbies adjacent to the three entrances that displayed the finest in contemporary American design. In addition, there was a private landscaped garden located within the U-shaped plan of the building. The garden walls are faced with the same brick used for the street facades, reflecting Chanin*s effort to have the eighty-foot wide garden take on the form of a street, so that when residents looked out of their garden windows they did not have the feeling of living in a dark court.

The quality of the Century's design and its location near Hidtown offices and the theater district have attracted many prominent tenants including members of the Chanin family, Ethel Merman, Lee Shubert, Nanette Fabray, Jack Dempsey, Joey Heatherton, Mark Connolly, Theodore Sorensan, Carol Lawrence, Robert Goulet, Bill Cullin, and Leo Lindy (of cheesecake fame).

Description

The Century Apartments faces onto Central Park West between 62nd and 63rd Streets and extends back 250 feet on both side streets. The massing of this 30-story building is divided into a massive nineteen-story base that runs along the lot line on all three elevations and a pair of tall towers set at the Central Park West corners. The structure rests on a low rose-colored granite watertable, above which is a one- and two-story ochre-colored stone base. In the center of the Central Park West facade, the one-story stone base is pierced by the main entrance. The lobby is entered through a pair of glass doors protected by stylized geometric Art Deco style grilles of "white metal." The doors are set within a modest white metal enframement. The entrance ensemble is surrounded by the same rose-colored granite used on the watertable. This surround is framed by quoin-like forms ending in raised vertical moldings. To either side of the entrance are window groups and doors leading to professional apartments.

There are stores at either corner. The storefronts are not original, but they are set within the original openings. The commercial space at the 62nd Street corner was originally planned to house a bank, but due to the Depression the two-story space remained vacant. After World War II the space was divided and an apartment was created .on the second floor.

In its massing and ornamentation the Century Apartments displays a sophisticated balance between horizontal and vertical elements. Vertically, the main mass of the symmetrical apartment house can be divided,into five pavilions, each separated by shallow bow windows. The three central sections are faced with a tan brick that was chosen because of its resemblance to the color of limestone. The facade is enlivened with wide bands of light brown brick set between all of the windows with the exception of those beside the vertical bowed bays at either end. The central pavilion, above the entrance, is articulated by two windows on each of the floors between two and fifteen (exterior floor numbers may not always correspond with the interior numbering system). As with all of the windows of the building the sash consists of metal casements. Each window is divided into several movable and stationary panes by thin metal mullions.

The balance between the vertical and horizontal mullions echoes the overall balance of the building. In the central section each window consists of two movable casements. Long rectangular panes flank the casements while four stationary panes are set above and four jalousie windows are set below. There are concrete sill bands below each window.

Flanking the central section and separated from it by pairs of bowed window bays are pavilions that consist of pairs of small single casement windows and a double casement. The bowed bays rise vertically from the second floor. Bands of tan and light brown brick are located between the bays of each pair. The bowed window of each apartment is set below the level of the other windows indicating the presence of sunken drawing (living)rooms. Each of the bow windows Is divided into five parts with three narrow casements flanked by stationary panes. There are fixed transoms above and jalousies below. The bays are enlivened by the use of rust-colored brick spandrels ornamented with vertical bands of projecting bricks laid at an angle.

The rows of angled bricks continue the vertical Lines of the window mullions. Each window in the bay has a concrete sill and a brick lintel.

The corner sections of the building are faced entirely in tan brick and are articulated by large glass solaria. The end pavilions are separated from the central portion of the building by single bowed bays identical in form to those already described. These bays rise to the seventeenth floor, two stories higher than the central bays. Each solaria consists of eight windows on Central Park West and three on the side street. With the exception of the end panes on Central Park West all of these are movable casements. These large window groups have strongly articulated horizontal metal mullions and a rhythm narrow and wider mullions.

The sixteenth through nineteenth floors form a transitional zone between the main mass of the building and the towers above. Each of these floors contains cantilevered concrete balconies guarded by metal railings ornamented with Art Deco style chevron patterns.

The twin towers soar upwards to the ornamental crowns that identify the building from afar. The towers are faced with tan brick with light brown bands at the corners. The windows, with their metal mullions, are of the type discussed above. On Central Park West, beginning above the twentieth floor, the four central windows of each tower are ornamented by bold goemetric brick patterns. At the thirtieth floor each tower sets back to form the unique top that gives the Century its distinctive, recognizable silhouette. Like the massing and ornamentation of the facades and^the arrangement -a£»ithe windows _ these crowns exhibit a complex interaction of horizontal and vertical elements. Each consists of a main geometric mass (housing a water tower) that is supported by buttresses. The vertical thrust of the buttresses is countered by concrete "fins that straddle each corner of the towers.

At the northwest corner of the north tower and the corresponding southwest corner of the south tower arched projections with incised channels rise almost to the roofline (that to the south has been poorly rebuilt). These add to the dynamic silhouette of each tower.

The side street elevations of the Century step down in accordance with zoning rules. There are four major levels on each side street elevation, each of which is topped by projecting concrete balconies. The tan brick facades are interrupted in three locations by pairs of ornamental rust-colored brick window spandrels. On the ground floor are a succession of doors leading to professional offices and secondary residential entrances similar in design to that of the front elevation. At the rear, on each street, are geometric Art Deco gates leading to the service entrances. Geometric water tower pavilions, similar in form to the tower crowns, are located above the roofline of each side street facade.

The main mass of the Century is laid out on a U-shaped plan with a central garden that is visible from the public park and drive of the Lincoln Plaza Apartments off Broadway. The inner elevations of the Century are faced with the same tan brick used elsewhere and are articulated with a similar fenestration pattern. The use of the same face brick on the private inner court that was used for the public facades was unusual and evinces a desire on Mr. Chanin's part to design and build a building of the highest residential quality. The court created by the U-shaped plan was laid out as a garden for the enjoyment of the tenants. This garden, with its four brick pylons, survives.

There have been only two serious alterations to the Century since its completion. These are the alteration to the arched fin of the south tower, previously noted, and the removal of the original windows and brickwork from the twentieth and twenty-first floors of the Central Park West elevation of the south tower. Other alterations have occurred to the windows of the north tower penthouse and to several other apartment windows.

The Century Apartments stands today as a testament to the vision of architect and builder Irwin S. Chanin. In its characteristic twin-towered form, it remains one of the landmarks of Central Park West and is one of the major Art Deco style apartment buildings in America.

- From the 1985 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

India - Uttar Pradesh - Varanasi - Streetlife - 420dd by Manfred Sommer

Varanasi, also known as Benares, or Kashi is an Indian city on the banks of the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh, 320 kilometres south-east of the state capital, Lucknow. It is the holiest of the seven sacred cities (Sapta Puri) in Hinduism, and Jainism, and played an important role in the development of Buddhism. Some Hindus believe that death at Varanasi brings salvation. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Varanasi is also known as the favourite city of the Hindu deity Lord Shiva as it has been mentioned in the Rigveda that this city in older times was known as Kashi or "Shiv ki Nagri".

The Kashi Naresh (Maharaja of Kashi) is the chief cultural patron of Varanasi, and an essential part of all religious celebrations. The culture of Varanasi is closely associated with the Ganges. The city has been a cultural centre of North India for several thousand years, and has a history that is older than most of the major world religions. The Benares Gharana form of Hindustani classical music was developed in Varanasi, and many prominent Indian philosophers, poets, writers, and musicians live or have lived in Varanasi. Gautama Buddha gave his first sermon at Sarnath, located near Varanasi.

Varanasi is the spiritual capital of India. It is often referred to as "the holy city of India", "the religious capital of India", "the city of Shiva", and "the city of learning". Scholarly books have been written in the city, including the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas. Today, there is a temple of his namesake in the city, the Tulsi Manas Mandir. The current temples and religious institutions in the city are dated to the 18th century. One of the largest residential universities of Asia, the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), is located here.

ETYMOLOGY

The name Varanasi possibly originates from the names of the two rivers: Varuna, still flowing in Varanasi, and Asi, a small stream near Assi Ghat. The old city does lie on the north shores of Ganges River bounded by its two tributaries Varuna and Asi. Another speculation is that the city derives its name from the river Varuna, which was called Varanasi in olden times.[11] This is generally disregarded by historians. Through the ages, Varanasi has been known by many names including Kāśī or Kashi (used by pilgrims dating from Buddha's days), Kāśikā (the shining one), Avimukta ("never forsaken" by Shiva), Ānandavana (the forest of bliss), and Rudravāsa (the place where Rudra/Śiva resides).

In the Rigveda, the city is referred to as Kāśī or Kashi, the luminous city as an eminent seat of learning. The name Kāśī is also mentioned in the Skanda Purana. In one verse, Shiva says, "The three worlds form one city of mine, and Kāśī is my royal palace therein." The name Kashi may be translated as "City of Light".

HISTORY

According to legend, Varanasi was founded by the God Shiva. The Pandavas, the heroes of the Hindu epic Mahabharata are also stated to have visited the city in search of Shiva to atone for their sins of fratricide and Brāhmanahatya that they had committed during the climactic Kurukshetra war. It is regarded as one of seven holy cities which can provide Moksha:

The earliest known archaeological evidence suggests that settlement around Varanasi in the Ganga valley (the seat of Vedic religion and philosophy) began in the 11th or 12th century BC, placing it among the world's oldest continually inhabited cities. These archaeological remains suggest that the Varanasi area was populated by Vedic people. However, the Atharvaveda (the oldest known text referencing the city), which dates to approximately the same period, suggests that the area was populated by indigenous tribes. It is possible that archaeological evidence of these previous inhabitants has yet to be discovered. Recent excavations at Aktha and Ramnagar, two sites very near to Varanasi, show them to be from 1800 BC, suggesting Varanasi started to be inhabited by that time too. Varanasi was also home to Parshva, the 23rd Jain Tirthankara and the earliest Tirthankara accepted as a historical figure in the 8th century BC.

Varanasi grew as an important industrial centre, famous for its muslin and silk fabrics, perfumes, ivory works, and sculpture. During the time of Gautama Buddha (born circa 567 BC), Varanasi was the capital of the Kingdom of Kashi. Buddha is believed to have founded Buddhism here around 528 BC when he gave his first sermon, "Turning the Wheel of Law", at nearby Sarnath. The celebrated Chinese traveller Xuanzang, who visited the city around 635 AD, attested that the city was a centre of religious and artistic activities, and that it extended for about 5 kilometres along the western bank of the Ganges. When Xuanzang, also known as Hiuen Tsiang, visited Varanasi in the 7th century, he named it "Polonisse" and wrote that the city had some 30 temples with about 30 monks. The city's religious importance continued to grow in the 8th century, when Adi Shankara established the worship of Shiva as an official sect of Varanasi.

In ancient times, Varanasi was connected by a road starting from Taxila and ending at Pataliputra during the Mauryan Empire. In 1194, the city succumbed to Turkish Muslim rule under Qutb-ud-din Aibak, who ordered the destruction of some one thousand temples in the city. The city went into decline over some three centuries of Muslim occupation, although new temples were erected in the 13th century after the Afghan invasion. Feroz Shah ordered further destruction of Hindu temples in the Varanasi area in 1376. The Afghan ruler Sikander Lodi continued the suppression of Hinduism in the city and destroyed most of the remaining older temples in 1496. Despite the Muslim rule, Varanasi remained the centre of activity for intellectuals and theologians during the Middle Ages, which further contributed to its reputation as a cultural centre of religion and education. Several major figures of the Bhakti movement were born in Varanasi, including Kabir who was born here in 1389 and hailed as "the most outstanding of the saint-poets of Bhakti cult (devotion) and mysticism of 15th-Century India"; and Ravidas, a 15th-century socio-religious reformer, mystic, poet, traveller, and spiritual figure, who was born and lived in the city and employed in the tannery industry. Similarly, numerous eminent scholars and preachers visited the city from across India and south Asia. Guru Nanak Dev visited Varanasi for Shivratri in 1507, a trip that played a large role in the founding of Sikhism.

In the 16th century, Varanasi experienced a cultural revival under the Muslim Mughal emperor Akbar who invested in the city, and built two large temples dedicated to Shiva and Vishnu. The Raja of Poona established the Annapurnamandir and the 200 metres Akbari Bridge was also completed during this period. The earliest tourists began arriving in the city during the 16th century. In 1665, the French traveller Jean Baptiste Tavernier described the architectural beauty of the Vindu Madhava temple on the side of the Ganges. The road infrastructure was also improved during this period and extended from Kolkata to Peshawar by Emperor Sher Shah Suri; later during the British Raj it came to be known as the famous Grand Trunk Road. In 1656, emperor Aurangzeb ordered the destruction of many temples and the building of mosques, causing the city to experience a temporary setback. However, after Aurangazeb's death, most of India was ruled by a confederacy of pro-Hindu kings. Much of modern Varanasi was built during this time by the Rajput and Maratha kings, especially during the 18th century, and most of the important buildings in the city today date to this period. The kings continued to be important through much of the British rule (1775–1947 AD), including the Maharaja of Benares, or Kashi Naresh. The kingdom of Benares was given official status by the Mughals in 1737, and continued as a dynasty-governed area until Indian independence in 1947, during the reign of Dr. Vibhuti Narayan Singh. In the 18th century, Muhammad Shah ordered the construction of an observatory on the Ganges, attached to Man Mandir Ghat, designed to discover imperfections in the calendar in order to revise existing astronomical tables. Tourism in the city began to flourish in the 18th century. In 1791, under the rule of the British Governor-General Warren Hastings, Jonathan Duncan founded a Sanskrit College in Varanasi. In 1867, the establishment of the Varanasi Municipal Board led to significant improvements in the city.

In 1897, Mark Twain, the renowned Indophile, said of Varanasi, "Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together." In 1910, the British made Varanasi a new Indian state, with Ramanagar as its headquarters but with no jurisdiction over the city of Varanasi itself. Kashi Naresh still resides in the Ramnagar Fort which is situated to the east of Varanasi, across the Ganges. Ramnagar Fort and its museum are the repository of the history of the kings of Varanasi. Since the 18th century, the fort has been the home of Kashi Naresh, deeply revered by the local people. He is the religious head and some devout inhabitants consider him to be the incarnation of Shiva. He is also the chief cultural patron and an essential part of all religious celebrations.

A massacre by British troops, of the Indian troops stationed here and of the population of the city, took place during the early stages of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Annie Besant worked in Varanasi to promote theosophy and founded the Central Hindu College which later became a foundation for the creation of Banaras Hindu University as a secular university in 1916. Her purpose in founding the Central Hindu College in Varanasi was that she "wanted to bring men of all religions together under the ideal of brotherhood in order to promote Indian cultural values and to remove ill-will among different sections of the Indian population."

Varanasi was ceded to the Union of India on 15 October 1948. After the death of Dr. Vibhuti Narayan Singh in 2000, his son Anant Narayan Singh became the figurehead king, responsible for upholding the traditional duties of a Kashi Naresh.

MAIN SIGHTS

Varanasi's "Old City", the quarter near the banks of the Ganga river, has crowded narrow winding lanes flanked by road-side shops and scores of Hindu temples. As atmospheric as it is confusing, Varanasi's labyrinthine Old City has a rich culture, attracting many travellers and tourists. The main residential areas of Varanasi (especially for the middle and upper classes) are situated in regions far from the ghats; they are more spacious and less polluted.

Museums in and around Varanasi include Jantar Mantar, Sarnath Museum, Bharat Kala Bhawan and Ramnagar Fort.

JANTAR MANTAR

The Jantar Mantar observatory (1737) is located above the ghats on the Ganges, much above the high water level in the Ganges next to the Manmandir Ghat, near to Dasaswamedh Ghat and adjoining the palace of Raja Jai Singh of Jaipur. Compared to the observatories at Jaipur and Delhi, it is less well equipped but has a unique equatorial sundial which is functional and allows measurements to be monitored and recorded by one person.

RAMNAGAR FORT

The Ramnagar Fort located near the Ganges River on its eastern bank, opposite to the Tulsi Ghat, was built in the 18th century by Kashi Naresh Raja Balwant Singh with creamy chunar sandstone. It is in a typically Mughal style of architecture with carved balconies, open courtyards, and scenic pavilions. At present the fort is not in good repair. The fort and its museum are the repository of the history of the kings of Benares. It has been the home of the Kashi Naresh since the 18th century. The current king and the resident of the fort is Anant Narayan Singh who is also known as the Maharaja of Varanasi even though this royal title has been abolished since 1971. Labeled "an eccentric museum", it has a rare collection of American vintage cars, sedan chairs (bejeweled), an impressive weaponry hall and a rare astrological clock. In addition, manuscripts, especially religious writings, are housed in the Saraswati Bhawan. Also included is a precious handwritten manuscript by Goswami Tulsidas. Many books illustrated in the Mughal miniature style, with beautifully designed covers are also part of the collections. Because of its scenic location on the banks of the Ganges, it is frequently used as an outdoor shooting location for films. The film titled Banaras is one of the popular movies shot here. However, only a part of the fort is open for public viewing as the rest of the area is the residence of the Kashi Naresh and his family. It is 14 kilometres from Varanasi.

GHATS

Ghats are embankments made in steps of stone slabs along the river bank where pilgrims perform ritual ablutions. Ghats in Varanasi are an integral complement to the concept of divinity represented in physical, metaphysical and supernatural elements. All the ghats are locations on "the divine cosmic road", indicative of "its manifest transcendental dimension" Varanasi has at least 84 ghats. Steps in the ghats lead to the banks of River Ganges, including the Dashashwamedh Ghat, the Manikarnika Ghat, the Panchganga Ghat and the Harishchandra Ghat (where Hindus cremate their dead). Many ghats are associated with legends and several are now privately owned.

Many of the ghats were built when the city was under Maratha control. Marathas, Shindes (Scindias), Holkars, Bhonsles, and Peshwas stand out as patrons of present-day Varanasi. Most of the ghats are bathing ghats, while others are used as cremation sites. A morning boat ride on the Ganges across the ghats is a popular visitor attraction. The extensive stretches of ghats enhance the river front with a multitude of shrines, temples and palaces built "tier on tier above the water’s edge".

The Dashashwamedh Ghat is the main and probably the oldest ghat of Varansi located on the Ganges, close to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple. It is believed that Brahma created it to welcome Shiva and sacrificed ten horses during the Dasa -Ashwamedha yajna performed here. Above the ghat and close to it, there are also temples dedicated to Sulatankesvara, Brahmesvara, Varahesvara, Abhaya Vinayaka, Ganga (the Ganges), and Bandi Devi which are part of important pilgrimage journeys. A group of priests perform "Agni Pooja" (Worship to Fire) daily in the evening at this ghat as a dedication to Shiva, Ganga, Surya (Sun), Agni (Fire), and the whole universe. Special aartis are held on Tuesdays and on religious festivals.

The Manikarnika Ghat is the Mahasmasana (meaning: "great cremation ground") and is the primary site for Hindu cremation in the city. Adjoining the ghat, there are raised platforms that are used for death anniversary rituals. It is said that an ear-ring (Manikarnika) of Shiva or his wife Sati fell here. According to a myth related to the Tarakesvara Temple, a Shiva temple at the ghat, Shiva whispers the Taraka mantra ("Prayer of the crossing") in the ear of the dead. Fourth-century Gupta period inscriptions mention this ghat. However, the current ghat as a permanent riverside embankment was built in 1302 and has been renovated at least three times.

TEMPLES

Among the estimated 23000 temples in Varanasi, the most worshiped are: the Kashi Vishwanath Temple of Shiva; the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple; and the Durga Temple known for the band of monkeys that reside in the large trees nearby.

Located on the outskirts of the Ganges, the Kashi Vishwanath Temple – dedicated to Varanasi's presiding deity Shiva (Vishwanath – "Lord of the world") – is an important Hindu temple and one of the 12 Jyotirlinga Shiva temples. It is believed that a single view of Vishwanath Jyotirlinga is worth more than that of other jyotirlingas. The temple has been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times. The Gyanvapi Mosque, which is adjacent to the temple, is the original site of the temple. The temple, as it exists now, also called Golden Temple, was built in 1780 by Queen Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore. The two pinnacles of the temple are covered in gold, donated in 1839 by Ranjit Singh, the ruler of the Punjab and the remaining dome is also planned to be gold plated by the Ministry of Culture & Religious Affairs of Uttar Pradesh. On 28 January 1983, the temple was taken over by the government of Uttar Pradesh and its management was transferred to a trust with then Kashi Naresh, Vibhuti Narayan Singh, as president and an executive committee with a Divisional Commissioner as chairman. Numerous rituals, prayers and aratis are held daily, starting from 2:30 am till 11:00 pm.

The Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple is one of the sacred temples of the Hindu god Hanuman situated by the Assi River, on the way to the Durga and New Vishwanath temples within the Banaras Hindu University campus. The present temple structure was built in early 1900s by the educationist and freedom fighter, Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, the founder of Banaras Hindu University. It is believed the temple was built on the very spot where the medieval Hindu saint Tulsidas had a vision of Hanuman. Thousands flock to the temple on Tuesdays and Saturdays, weekdays associated with Hanuman. On 7 March 2006, in a terrorist attack one of the three explosions hit the temple while the Aarti was in progress when numerous devotees and people attending a wedding were present and many were injured. However, normal worship was resumed the next day with devotees visiting the temple and reciting hymns of Hanuman Chalisa (authored by Tulidas) and Sundarkand (a booklet of these hymns is provided free of charge in the temple). After the terrorist incident, a permanent police post was set up inside the temple.

There are two temples named "Durga" in Varanasi, Durga Mandir (built about 500 years ago), and Durga Kund (built in the 18th century). Thousands of Hindu devotees visit Durga Kund during Navratri to worship the goddess Durga. The temple, built in Nagara architectural style, has multi-tiered spires[96] and is stained red with ochre, representing the red colour of Durga. The building has a rectangular tank of water called the Durga Kund ("Kund" meaning a pond or pool). Every year on the occasion of Nag Panchami, the act of depicting the god Vishnu reclining on the serpent Shesha is recreated in the Kund.

While the Annapurna Temple, located close to the Kashi Vishwanath temple, is dedicated to Annapurna, the goddess of food, the Sankatha Temple close to the Sindhia Ghat is dedicated to Sankatha, the goddess of remedy. The Sankatha temple has a large sculpture of a lion and a nine temple cluster dedicated to the nine planets.

Kalabhairav Temple, an ancient temple located near the Head Post Office at Visheshar Ganj, is dedicated to Kala-Bhairava, the guardian (Kotwal) of Varanasi. The Mrithyunjay Mahadev Temple, dedicated to Shiva, is situated on the way to Daranagar to Kalbhairav temple. A well near the temple has some religious significance as its water source is believed to be fed from several underground streams, having curative powers.

The New Vishwanath Temple located in the campus of Banaras Hindu University is a modern temple which was planned by Pandit Malviya and built by the Birlas. The Tulsi Manas Temple, nearby the Durga Temple, is a modern temple dedicated to the god Rama. It is built at the place where Tulsidas authored the Ramcharitmanas, which narrates the life of Rama. Many verses from this epic are inscribed on the temple walls.

The Bharat Mata Temple, dedicated to the national personification of India, was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi in 1936. It has relief maps of India carved in marble. Babu Shiv Prasad Gupta and Durga Prasad Khatri, leading numismatists, antiquarians and nationalist leaders, donated funds for its construction.

RELIGION

HINDUISM

Varanasi is one of the holiest cities and centres of pilgrimage for Hindus of all denominations. It is one of the seven Hindu holiest cities (Sapta Puri), considered the giver of salvation (moksha). Over 50,000 Brahmins live in Varanasi, providing religious services to the masses. Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges remits sins and that dying in Kashi ensures release of a person's soul from the cycle of its transmigrations. Thus, many Hindus arrive here for dying.

As the home to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple Jyotirlinga, it is very sacred for Shaivism. Varanasi is also a Shakti Peetha, where the temple to goddess Vishalakshi stands, believed to be the spot where the goddess Sati's earrings fell. Hindus of the Shakti sect make a pilgrimage to the city because they regard the River Ganges itself to be the Goddess Shakti. Adi Shankara wrote his commentaries on Hinduism here, leading to the great Hindu revival.

In 2001, Hindus made up approximately 84% of the population of Varanasi District.

ISLAM

Varanasi is one of the holiest cities and centres of pilgrimage for Hindus of all denominations. It is one of the seven Hindu holiest cities (Sapta Puri), considered the giver of salvation (moksha). Over 50,000 Brahmins live in Varanasi, providing religious services to the masses. Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges remits sins and that dying in Kashi ensures release of a person's soul from the cycle of its transmigrations. Thus, many Hindus arrive here for dying.

As the home to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple Jyotirlinga, it is very sacred for Shaivism. Varanasi is also a Shakti Peetha, where the temple to goddess Vishalakshi stands, believed to be the spot where the goddess Sati's earrings fell. Hindus of the Shakti sect make a pilgrimage to the city because they regard the River Ganges itself to be the Goddess Shakti. Adi Shankara wrote his commentaries on Hinduism here, leading to the great Hindu revival.

In 2001, Hindus made up approximately 84% of the population of Varanasi District.

OTHERS

At the 2001 census, persons of other religions or no religion made up 0.4% of the population of Varanasi District.

Varanasi is a pilgrimage site for Jains along with Hindus and Buddhists. It is believed to be the birthplace of Suparshvanath, Shreyansanath, and Parshva, who are respectively the seventh, eleventh, and twenty-third Jain Tirthankars and as such Varanasi is a holy city for Jains. Shree Parshvanath Digambar Jain Tirth Kshetra (Digambar Jain Temple) is situated in Bhelupur, Varanasi. This temple is of great religious importance to the Jain Religion.

Sarnath, a suburb of Varanasi, is a place of Buddhist pilgrimage. It is the site of the deer park where Siddhartha Gautama of Nepal is said to have given his first sermon about the basic principles of Buddhism. The Dhamek Stupa is one of the few pre-Ashokan stupas still in existence, though only its foundation remains. Also remaining is the Chaukhandi Stupa commemorating the spot where Buddha met his first disciples in the 5th century. An octagonal tower was built later there.

Guru Nanak Dev visited Varanasi for Shivratri in 1507 and had an encounter which with other events forms the basis for the story of the founding of Sikhism. Varanasi also hosts the Roman Catholic Diocese of Varanasi, and has an insignificant Jewish expatriate community. Varanasi is home to numerous tribal faiths which are not easily classified.

Dalits are 13% of population Of Varanasi city. Most dalits are followers of Guru Ravidass. So Shri Guru Ravidass Janam Asthan is important place of pilgrimage for Ravidasis from all around India.

RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS

On Mahashivaratri (February) – which is dedicated to Shiva – a procession of Shiva proceeds from the Mahamrityunjaya Temple to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple.

Dhrupad Mela is a five-day musical festival devoted to dhrupad style held at Tulsi Ghat in February–March.

The Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple celebrates Hanuman Jayanti (March–April), the birthday of Hanuman with great fervour. A special puja, aarti, and a public procession is organized. Starting in 1923, the temple organizes a five-day classical music and dance concert festival titled Sankat Mochan Sangeet Samaroh in this period, when iconic artists from all parts of India are invited to perform.

The Ramlila of Ramnagar is a dramatic enactment of Rama's legend, as told in Ramacharitamanasa. The plays, sponsored by Kashi Naresh, are performed in Ramnagar every evening for 31 days. On the last day, the festivities reach a crescendo as Rama vanquishes the demon king Ravana. Kashi Naresh Udit Narayan Singh started this tradition around 1830.

Bharat Milap celebrates the meeting of Rama and his younger brother Bharata after the return of the former after 14 years of exile. It is celebrated during October–November, a day after the festival of Vijayadashami. Kashi Naresh attends this festival in his regal attire resplendent in regal finery. The festival attracts a large number of devotees.

Nag Nathaiya, celebrated on the fourth lunar day of the dark fortnight of the Hindu month of Kartik (October–November), that commemorates the victory of the god Krishna over the serpent Kaliya. On this occasion, a large Kadamba tree (Neolamarckia cadamba) branch is planted on the banks of the Ganges so that a boy acting the role of Krishna can jump into the river on to the effigy representing Kaliya. He stands over the effigy in a dancing pose playing the flute; the effigy and the boy standing on it is given a swirl in front of the audience. People watch the display standing on the banks of the river or from boats.

Ganga Mahotsav is a five-day music festival organized by the Uttar Pradesh Tourism Department, held in November–December culminating a day before Kartik Poornima (Dev Deepawali). On Kartik Poornima also called the Ganges festival, the Ganges is venerated by arti offered by thousands of pilgrims who release lighted lamps to float in the river from the ghats.

Annually Jashne-Eid Miladunnabi is celebrated on the day of Barawafat in huge numbers by Muslims in a huge rally coming from all the parts of the city and meeting up at Beniya Bagh.

WIKIPEDIA

Budget Day Demonstration In Dublin (5th. December 2012) by William Murphy

Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed - Press Release:

Budget 2013 and unemployment

After much speculation Budget 2013 has finally been announced. The Budget does not do enough in two vital areas. It will make the path to work, education and training more difficult for unemployed people and will further undermine the social insurance model, a model that the Minister sees as integral to our social protection system.

As predicted the duration an unemployed person can stay on Jobseekers Benefit has been cut from 12 months to 9 if he or she has made over 260 PRSI contributions. Similarly, if the person has paid less than 260 contributions they will only now have an entitlement to a JB payment for 6 months. So, for example, a person who has worked for 20 years or more and whose partner is working may find themselves cut adrift from any supports from the State after nine months. Yet he or she will be unemployed, see him or herself as unemployed but they will receive no supports from the State to assist them to get back to work.

Yet the State will be taking more PRSI contributions off all workers as anyone earning over €352 per week will pay on everything after: this is a regressive step and will particularly hit low income workers.

Another striking feature of the budget is the cutting of supports for unemployed people undertaking further education and training. This will hit in particular young people for whom Jobseekers Allowance had been cut in the past to encourage them to take up education and training options. The rationale for offering participants a full rate was to support people to re-skill themselves, to improve their chances of securing employment. Yet the cut to the Cost of Education Allowance; the equalisation of a training allowance with a participant’s previous social welfare payment; and a maximum limit of €160 for young people will make it harder for people to go down this path as they will find it unaffordable.

Child Benefit has not only been cut by €10: it has also been cut from €148 for the third child to €130; and from €160 for 4th child+ to €140. The provision of additional childcare or early years supports may be of benefit to some families. However, for many families struggling on a social welfare payment or a low income job this cut in Child Benefit is further exacerbated by the cut in the Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance. This payment has been cut from €150 to €100 for children of primary age; and from €250 to €200 for children aged 12+. Yet the cost of education continues to rise. According to the last Consumer Price Index education inflation ran at 6.7% in comparison to a national average of 1.2%.

The INOU is acutely aware of the importance of local and community development in providing important supports and services to unemployed people including the provision of access to employment. At a time when increasing demand on the ground it is disappointing to see further expenditure cuts envisaged for these programmes.

On a positive note the maintenance of the basic social welfare rate, as sought by the INOU, is to be welcomed. As are the additional places in Community Employment, TUS, JobBridge: it is critical important that these supports are meaningful for participants and lead on to decent employment.

STAR WARS : Meanwhile Inside Cell 2187 by DarkJediKnight

2

Adding to the speculation of how much influence "The Wizard of Oz" had on Episode IV of "Star Wars" was the rumor that, in the first draft, Luke destroyed the Death Star by throwing a bucket of water at it.