THE NEW YORK CITY YELLOW CAB TAXI & TRAVIS BICKLE

Today, The Grandma has visited Travis Bickle, who has explained the history of the New York City taxicabs to her.

Meanwhile, The Newtons have continued preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied Present Perfect vs. Past Simple.

More info: Present Perfect vs. Past Simple

In New York City, taxicabs come in two varieties: yellow and green; they are widely recognizable symbols of the city.

Taxis painted yellow (medallion taxis) are able to pick up passengers anywhere in the five boroughs. Those painted apple green (street hail livery vehicles, commonly known as "boro taxis"), which began to appear in August 2013, are allowed to pick up passengers in Upper Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens (excluding LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport), and Staten Island.

Both types have the same fare structure. Taxicabs are operated by private companies and licensed by the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC). It also oversees over 40,000 other for-hire vehicles, including black cars, commuter vans, and ambulettes.

The medallion system was created in 1937 as a government imposed limitation on the supply of taxicabs, requiring that a medallion be purchased for the right to operate a taxi. Thereafter, New York did not sell any medallions until 1996, when it auctioned slightly more than 2,000. The lack of new medallions resulted in such a shortage that by 2014 they were selling for more than $1 million each, with about 14,000 medallions in existence. Since then, the increase in rideshare vehicles, which numbered about 63,000 in 2015 and 100,000 by August 2018, has drastically reduced the market price of medallions.

As of September 2012, there are around 7,990 hybrid taxi vehicles, representing almost 59% of the taxis in service -the most in any city in North America.

More information: Classic New York History

The first taxicab company in New York City was the Samuel's Electric Carriage and Wagon Company (E.C.W.C.), which began running 12 electric hansom cabs in July 1897. 

The company ran until 1898 with up to 62 cabs operating until it was reformed by its financiers to form the Electric Vehicle Company. The company then built the Electrobat electric car, and had up to 100 taxicabs running in total by 1899.

On May 20, 1899, Jacob German, driving an electric taxicab received the first speeding ticket in the United States. Later that year, on September 13, Henry Bliss became the first victim of an automotive accident in the United States when he was hit by an electric taxicab as he was helping a friend from a streetcar.

By the early 1900s the Electric Vehicle Company was running up to 1,000 electric taxicabs on the streets of New York City until, in January 1907, a fire destroyed 300 of these vehicles, which, in conjunction with the Panic of 1907 caused the company to collapse.

The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission has enforced strict requirements for the color of medallion taxicabs since the late 1960s. According to the Rules of New York City, The exterior of the vehicle must be painted taxi yellow (Dupont M6284 or its equivalent), except for trim. Samples of paint color and shade are to be submitted to the commission for approval. The specified M6284 paint code is actually a Ford code for school bus yellow.

More information: Time

Taxi Driver is a 1976 American film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Paul Schrader, and starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Leonard Harris, and Albert Brooks. Set in a decaying and morally bankrupt New York City following the Vietnam War, the film follows Travis Bickle (De Niro), a taxi driver and veteran, and his deteriorating mental state as he works nights in the city.

With The Wrong Man (1956) and A Bigger Splash (1973) as inspiration, Scorsese wanted the film to feel like a dream to audiences. With cinematographer Michael Chapman, filming began in the summer of 1975 in New York City, with actors taking pay cuts to ensure that the project could be completed on a low budget of $1.9 million. Production concluded that same year, with a score being composed by Bernard Herrmann in his final score, which he finished just several hours before his death; the film is dedicated to him.

The film was theatrically released by Columbia Pictures on February 7, 1976, where it was a critical and commercial success, despite generating controversy for its graphic violence at the climactic ending, and casting of then 12-year-old Foster in the role of a child prostitute. The film received numerous accolades including the 1976 Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or, and four nominations at the 49th Academy Awards, including for Best Picture, Best Actor (for De Niro), and Best Supporting Actress (for Foster).

Although Taxi Driver generated further controversy for its role in John Hinckley Jr.'s motive to attempt to assassinate then-President Ronald Reagan, the film has remained popular, culturally significant and inspirational of its time.

In 1994, the film was considered culturally, historically or aesthetically significant by the US Library of Congress, and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

In 2012, Sight & Sound named it the 31st-best film ever in its decennial critics' poll, ranked with The Godfather Part II, and the fifth-greatest film of all time on its directors' poll.

More information: Roger Ebert

 'Taxi Driver' is one of those films
that is groundbreaking in how much
you're inside this character's head.
It uses voice-over in a revolutionary way
where the audience is invited
as a co-conspirator to the whole story line.

Sam Esmail

NEW YORK HARBOR, 'SAILING' WITH ROD STEWART

Today, The Grandma has visited New York Harbor and she has remembered the first time she watched the Rod Stewart's Sailing music video.

Meanwhile, The Newtons have continued preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied Past Simple vs. Past Continuous.

More information: Past Simple vs. Continuous 

New York Harbor is at the mouth of the Hudson River where it empties into New York Bay near the East River tidal estuary, and then into the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of the United States. 

It is one of the largest natural harbours in the world, and is frequently named the best natural harbour in the world.

It is also known as Upper New York Bay, which is enclosed by the New York City boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island and the Hudson County, New Jersey, municipalities of Jersey City and Bayonne.

The name may also refer to the entirety of New York Bay including Lower New York Bay. Although the United States Board on Geographic Names does not use the term, New York Harbor has important historical, governmental, commercial, and ecological usages.

The harbour is fed by the waters of the Hudson River (historically called the North River as it passes Manhattan), as well as the Gowanus Canal. It is connected to Lower New York Bay by the Narrows, to Newark Bay by the Kill Van Kull, and to Long Island Sound by the East River, which despite the name, is actually a tidal strait. It provides the main passage for the waters of the Hudson River as it empties through the Narrows. The channel of the Hudson as it passes through the harbour is called the Anchorage Channel and is approximately 50 feet deep in the midpoint of the harbour.

A project to replace two water mains between Brooklyn and Staten Island which will eventually allowing for dredging of the channel to nearly 30 m was begun in April 2012.

It contains several islands including Governors Island, near the mouth of the East River, as well Ellis Island, Liberty Island, and Robbins Reef which are supported by a large underwater reef on the New Jersey side of the harbor. The reef was historically one of the largest oyster beds in the world and provided a staple for the diet of all classes of citizens both locally and regionally until the end of the 19th century, when the beds succumbed to pollution.

Historically, it has played an extremely important role in the commerce of the New York metropolitan area. 

The Statue of Liberty National Monument recalls the immigrant experience during the late 19th and early 20th century.

Since the 1950s, container ship traffic has been primarily routed through the Kill Van Kull to Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal, where it is consolidated for easier automated transfer to land conveyance. As a consequence, the waterfront industries of the Harbor experienced a decline leading to diverse plans for revitalization, though important maritime uses remain at Red Hook, Port Jersey, MOTBY, Constable Hook, and parts of the Staten Island shore. Liberty State Park opened in 1976. In recent years, it has become a popular site for recreation sailing and kayaking.

More information: World Atlas

The harbour is traversed by the Staten Island Ferry, which runs between Whitehall Street at the southernmost tip of Manhattan near Battery Park (South Ferry) and St. George Ferry Terminal on Richmond Terrace in Staten Island near Richmond County Borough Hall and Richmond County Supreme Court. NY Waterway operates routes across the bay and through The Narrows to locations near Sandy Hook.

The harbour supports a very diverse population of marine species, allowing for recreational fishing, most commonly for striped bass and bluefish.

The original population of the 16th century New York Harbor, the Lenape, used the waterways for fishing and travel. 

In 1524 Giovanni da Verrazzano anchored in what is now called the Narrows, the strait between Staten Island and Long Island that connects the Upper and Lower New York Bay, where he received a canoe party of Lenape.

In 1824 the first American drydock was completed on the East River. Because of its location and depth, the Port grew rapidly with the introduction of steamships; and then with the completion in 1825 of the Erie Canal New York became the most important transshipping port between Europe and the interior of the United States, as well as coastwise destinations.

By about 1840, more passengers and a greater tonnage of cargo came through the port of New York than all other major harbours in the country combined and by 1900 it was one of the great international ports. The Morris Canal carried anthracite and freight from Pennsylvania through New Jersey to its terminus at the mouth of the Hudson in Jersey City. Portions in the harbour are now part of Liberty State Park.

The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) stands on Liberty Island in the harbour, while the nearby main port of entry at Ellis Island processed 12 million arrivals from 1892 to 1954. 

The Statue of Liberty National Monument, encompassing both islands, recalls the period of massive immigration to the United States at the turn of the 20th century. While many stayed in the region, others spread across America, with more than 10 million leaving from the nearby Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal.

More information: Archaeology

Sailing is a song composed by Gavin Sutherland of the Sutherland Brothers in 1972, best known as a 1975 international hit for Rod Stewart.

Sailing was written and recorded by the Sutherland Brothers -a duo consisting of Gavin and Iain Sutherland- in a June 1972 session. The brothers provided their own backing with Gavin on bass drum and Iain on harmonium. They intended the song to have a Celtic feel to it, and overdubbed their vocals.

Gavin Sutherland said of the song, Most people take the song to be about a young guy telling his girl that he's crossing the Atlantic to be with her. and with a grin, continued In fact the song's got nothing to do with romance or ships; it's an account of mankind's spiritual odyssey through life on his way to freedom and fulfillment with the Supreme Being.

Sailing was recorded by Rod Stewart for his first album recorded in North America rather than Great Britain: Atlantic Crossing, which was recorded April -June 1975 at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio with Tom Dowd producing.

The first single from the album, Sailing afforded Stewart an international hit notably in the UK where Sailing was No. 1.

The first music video for Sailing was filmed in the Port of Dublin and also featured footage shot on the major Dublin thoroughfare Moore Street: featuring Stewart and his partner Britt Ekland, the video aired on the Top of the Pops broadcast of 28 August 1975.  

Another music video for Sailing was shot in New York Harbor in 1978, and would become one of the first to be aired on MTV when it launched on 1 August 1981.

More information: Song Facts

We are sailing, we are sailing
Home again
'Cross the sea
We are sailing
Stormy waters
To be near you
To be free.

Gavin & Iain Sutherland

CHELSEA, THE LGTBQ+ COMMUNITY & PRIDE DAY IN NYC

Today, The Grandma has been visiting Chelsea in Manhattan.

Meanwhile, The Newtons have continued preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied Past Continuous.

More info: Past Continuous 

Chelsea is a neighbourhood on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City.

The area's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south, the Hudson River and West Street to the west, and Sixth Avenue to the east, with its northern boundary variously described as near the upper 20s or 34th Street, the next major crosstown street to the north.

To the northwest of Chelsea is the neighbourhood of Hell's Kitchen, as well as Hudson Yards; to the northeast are the Garment District and the remainder of Midtown South; to the east are NoMad and the Flatiron District; to the southwest is the Meatpacking District; and to the south and southeast are the West Village and the remainder of Greenwich Village. 

Chelsea is named after the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London, England.

Chelsea contains the Chelsea Historic District and its extension, which were designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1970 and 1981 respectively. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and expanded in 1982 to include contiguous blocks containing particularly significant examples of period architecture.

The neighbourhood is primarily residential, with a mix of tenements, apartment blocks, city housing projects, townhouses, and renovated rowhouses, but its many retail businesses reflect the ethnic and social diversity of the population.  

The area has a large LGBTQ population.

Chelsea is also known as one of the centers of the city's art world, with over 200 galleries in the neighbourhood. As of 2015, due to the area's gentrification, there is a widening income gap between the wealthy living in luxury buildings and the poor living in housing projects, who are, at times, across the street from each other.

More information: The High Line

Chelsea takes its name from the estate and Georgian-style house of retired British Major Thomas Clarke, who obtained the property when he bought the farm of Jacob Somerindyck on August 16, 1750.

The land was bounded by what would become 21st and 24th Streets, from the Hudson River to Eighth Avenue. Clarke chose the name Chelsea after the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London, England. Clarke passed the estate on to his daughter, Charity, who, with her husband Benjamin Moore, added land on the south of the estate, extending it to 19th Street. The house was the birthplace of their son, Clement Clarke Moore, who in turn inherited the property. Moore is generally credited with writing A Visit From St. Nicholas and was the author of the first Greek and Hebrew lexicons printed in the United States.

In 1827, Moore gave the land of his apple orchard to the Episcopal Diocese of New York for the General Theological Seminary, which built its brownstone Gothic, tree-shaded campus south of the manor house. Despite his objections to the Commissioner's Plan of 1811, which ran the new Ninth Avenue through the middle of his estate, Moore began the development of Chelsea with the help of James N. Wells, dividing it up into lots along Ninth Avenue and selling them to well-heeled New Yorkers.

Covenants in the deeds of sale specified what could be built on the land -stables, manufacturing and commercial uses were forbidden- as well as architectural details of the buildings.

The new neighbourhood thrived for three decades, with many single family homes and rowhouses, in the process expanding past the original boundaries of Clarke's estate, but an industrial zone also began to develop along the Hudson.

In 1847 the Hudson River Railroad laid its freight tracks up a right-of-way between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, separating Chelsea from the Hudson River waterfront. By the time of the Civil War, the area west of Ninth Avenue and below 20th Street was the location of numerous distilleries making turpentine and camphene, a lamp fuel. In addition, the huge Manhattan Gas Works complex, which converted bituminous coal into gas, was located at Ninth Avenue and 18th Street.

The industrialization of western Chelsea brought immigrant populations from many countries to work in the factories, including a large number of Irish immigrants, who dominated work on the Hudson River piers that lined the nearby waterfront and the truck terminals integrated with the freight railroad spur.

As well as the piers, warehouses and factories, the industrial area west of Tenth Avenue also included lumberyards and breweries, and tenements built to house the workers. With the immigrant population came the political domination of the neighbourhood by the Tammany Hall machine, as well as festering ethnic tensions: around 67 people died in a riot between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants on July 12, 1871, which took place around 24th Street and Eighth Avenue.

More information: The Bowery Boys History

The social problems of the area's workers provoked John Lovejoy Elliot to form the Hudson Guild in 1897, one of the first settlement houses -private organizations designed to provide social services.

A theater district had formed in the area by 1869, and soon West 23rd Street was the center of American theater, led by Pike's Opera House (1868, demolished 1960), on the northwest corner of Eighth Avenue. Chelsea was an early center for the motion picture industry before World War I. Some of Mary Pickford's first pictures were made on the top floors of an armory building at 221 West 26th Street, while other studios were located on 23rd and 21st Streets.

London Terrace was one of the world's largest apartment blocks when it opened in 1930, with a swimming pool, solarium, gymnasium, and doormen dressed as London bobbies. Other major housing complexes in the Chelsea area are Penn South, a 1962 cooperative housing development sponsored by the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union, and the New York City Housing Authority-built and -operated Fulton Houses and Chelsea-Elliot Houses.

The massive 23-story Art Deco Walker Building, which spans the block between 17th and 18th Streets just off of Seventh Avenue, was built in the early 1930s. It typifies the real estate activity of the district, as it has been converted in 2012 to residential apartments on the top 16 floors, with Verizon retaining the lower seven floors.

In the early 1940s, tons of uranium for the Manhattan Project were stored in the Baker & Williams Warehouse at 513-519 West 20th Street. The uranium was removed and a decontamination project at the site was completed during the early 1990s.

People of many different cultures live in Chelsea.  

Chelsea is famous for having a large LGBTQ population, with one of Chelsea's census tracts reporting that 22% of its residents were gay couples, and is known for its social diversity and inclusion.

Eighth Avenue is a center for LGBT-oriented shopping and dining, and from 16th to 22nd Streets between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, mid-nineteenth-century brick and brownstone townhouses are still occupied, a few even restored to single family use.

More information: Triplemint

I saw 'Brokeback Mountain' in a packed house in Chelsea,
New York, when I was filming a Bollywood film there.
Chelsea, being a predominately gay neighbourhood,
had the most euphoric reaction.
I saw couples holding hands and crying at the end.
It was the most heartening viewing
I have ever been to.

Karan Johar

TIMES SQUARE, THE MAJOR COMMERCIAL PLACE IN NYC

Today, The Grandma has been walking across Times Square.

Meanwhile, The Newtons have continued preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied Used to.

More information: Used to

Times Square is a major commercial intersection, entertainment center, and neighbourhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York. 

It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent Duffy Square, Times Square is a bowtie-shaped space five blocks long between 42nd and 47th Streets.

Brightly lit by numerous billboards and advertisements, it is sometimes referred to as the Crossroads of the World, the Center of the Universe, the heart of the Great White Way, and the heart of the world. One of the world's busiest pedestrian areas, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world's entertainment industry.

Times Square is one of the world's most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated 50 million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of them tourists, while over 460,000 pedestrians walk through Times Square on its busiest days.

Formerly known as Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to the then newly erected Times Building, now One Times Square.

It is the site of the annual New Year's Eve ball drop, which began on December 31, 1907, and continues to attract over a million visitors to Times Square every year.

Times Square, specifically the intersection of Broadway and 42nd Street, is also the eastern terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the first road across the United States.

Times Square functions as a town square, but is not geometrically a square; it is closer in shape to a bowtie, with two triangles emanating roughly north and south from 45th Street, where Seventh Avenue intersects Broadway. The area is bounded by West 42nd street, West 47th street, 7th Avenue, and Broadway. Broadway runs diagonally, crossing through the horizontal and vertical street grid of Manhattan laid down by the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, and that intersection creates the bowtie shape of Times Square.

More information: Times Square

Times Square is the official name of the southern triangle, below 45th Street, but the northern triangle is officially Duffy Square. It was dedicated in 1937 to World War I chaplain Father Francis P. Duffy of the 69th New York Infantry Regiment, and is the site of a memorial to him. There is also a statue of composer and entertainer George M. Cohan, and the TKTS discount ticket booth for Broadway and off-Broadway theaters.

When Manhattan Island was first settled by the Dutch, three small streams united near what is now 10th Avenue and 40th Street. These three streams formed the Great Kill, in Dutch Grote Kil. From there the Great Kill wound through the low-lying Reed Valley, known for fish and waterfowl, and emptied into a deep bay in the Hudson River at the present 42nd Street. The name was retained in a tiny hamlet, Great Kill, that became a center for carriage-making, as the upland to the south and east became known as Longacre.

Before and after the American Revolution, the area belonged to John Morin Scott, a general of the New York militia, in which he served under George Washington. Scott's manor house was at what is currently 43rd Street, surrounded by countryside used for farming and breeding horses. In the first half of the 19th century, it became one of the prized possessions of John Jacob Astor, who made a second fortune selling off lots to hotels and other real estate concerns as the city rapidly spread uptown.

By 1872, the area had become the center of New York's horse carriage industry. The locality had not previously been given a name, and city authorities called it Longacre Square after Long Acre in London, where the horse and carriage trade was centered in that city. William Henry Vanderbilt owned and ran the American Horse Exchange there. In 1910, it became the Winter Garden Theatre.

As more profitable commerce and industrialization of Lower Manhattan pushed homes, theaters, and prostitution northward from the Tenderloin District, Longacre Square became nicknamed the Thieves Lair for its rollicking reputation as a low entertainment district. The first theater on the square, the Olympia, was built by cigar manufacturer and impresario Oscar Hammerstein I. According to Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, By the early 1890s this once sparsely settled stretch of Broadway was ablaze with electric light and thronged by crowds of middle- and upper-class theatre, restaurant and cafe patrons.

Times Square is the site of the annual New Year's Eve ball drop. About one million revelers crowd Times Square for the New Year's Eve celebrations, more than twice the usual number of visitors the area usually receives daily. However, for the millennium celebration on December 31, 1999, published reports stated approximately two million people overflowed Times Square, flowing from Sixth Avenue to Eighth Avenue and back on Broadway and Seventh Avenue to 59th Street, making it the largest gathering in Times Square since August 1945 during celebrations marking the end of World War II.

On December 31, 1907, a ball signifying New Year's Day was first dropped at Times Square, and the Square has held the main New Year's celebration in New York City ever since.

More information: The Culture Trip

 It's New York City, you want to be shown in Times Square.
You want your picture there. You want those kind of things.
To inspire people, that's really what it's about.

RJ Barrett

SIMON & GARFUNKEL, THE CONCERT IN CENTRAL PARK

Today, The Grandma has been walking across Central Park.

 

She loves this place, and she has remembered when she was there on September 19, 1981 listening to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel in an unforgettable concert where they played one of her favourite songs, A heart in New York.

Meanwhile, The Newtons have continued preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied Since/For.

More information: Since/For 

The Concert in Central Park is the first live album by American folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel, released on February 16, 1982, by Warner Bros. Records.

It was recorded on September 19, 1981, at a free benefit concert on the Great Lawn in Central Park, New York City, where the pair performed in front of an audience reported at the time as 500,000 people.

Later estimates determined that the maximum number of people who could fit in the park space was 48,500. A film of the event was shown on TV and released on video. Proceeds went toward the redevelopment and maintenance of the park, which had deteriorated due to lack of municipal funding.  

The concert and album marked the start of a three-year reunion of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.

The concept of a benefit concert in Central Park had been proposed by Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis and promoter Ron Delsener. Television channel HBO agreed to carry the concert, and they worked with Delsener to decide on Simon and Garfunkel as the appropriate act for this event. Besides hit songs from their years as a duo, their set-list included material from their solo careers, and covers.

The show consisted of 21 songs, though two were not used in the live album. Among the songs performed were the classics The Sound of Silence, Mrs. Robinson, and The Boxer; the event concluded with a reprise of Simon's song Late in the Evening. Ongoing personal tensions between the duo led them to decide against a permanent reunion, despite the success of the concert and a subsequent world tour.

More information: Grunge

The album and film were released the year after the concert. Simon and Garfunkel's performance was praised by music critics and the album was commercially successful; it peaked at number six on the Billboard 200 album charts and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

The video recordings were initially broadcast on HBO and were subsequently made available on Laserdisc, CED, VHS and DVD. A single was released of Simon and Garfunkel's live performance of The Everly Brothers's song Wake Up Little Susie, which reached No. 27 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982; it is the duo's last Top 40 hit.

New York City's Central Park, an oasis that functions as the city's green lung, was in a state of deterioration in the mid-1970s. Though Central Park had been designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962, at the start of the 1980s, the city lacked the financial resources to spend an estimated US$3,000,000 to restore or even to maintain the park. The nonprofit Central Park Conservancy was founded in 1980, and began a successful campaign to raise renovation funds.

The concert took place on Saturday, September 19, 1981, on the Great Lawn, the central open space of Central Park. The first spectators, many carrying chairs or picnic blankets, arrived at daybreak to secure a good spot.

The Parks Department originally expected about 300,000 attendees. Although rain fell throughout the day and continued until the start of the concert, an estimated 500,000 audience members made this the seventh-largest concert attendance in the United States in history. Later estimates determined that the maximum number of people who could fit in the park space was 48,500.

More information: Ultimate Classic Rock

 New York, to that tall skyline I come, flyin' in from London to your door

New York, lookin' down on Central Park

Where they say you should not wander after dark

New York, like a scene from all those movies

But you're real enough to me, but there's a heart

A heart that lives in New York

A heart in New York, a rose on the street

I write my song to that city heartbeat

A heart in New York, love in her eye, 

an open door and a friend for the night
New York, you got money on your mind
And my words won't make a dime's worth a difference, 

so here's to you New York.

 

Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel

LAW & ORDER: SVU, OLIVIA BENSON & HER POLICE TEAM

Today, The Grandma has visited Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler, the two main members of the Special Victims Unit (SVU) in the New York City Police Department.

Meanwhile, The Newtons have continued preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied the Present Perfect.

More info: Present Perfect 

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, often abbreviated to Law & Order: SVU or just SVU, is an American crime drama television series created by Dick Wolf's own production company, Wolf Entertainment, for NBC.

The first spin-off of Law & Order, it starred Christopher Meloni as Det. Elliot Stabler until Meloni left the series in 2011 after 12 seasons, and Mariska Hargitay as Detective (ultimately promoted to Captain) Olivia Benson, now the commanding officer of the Special Victims Unit after originally having been Stabler's partner in a fictionalized version of the New York City Police Department.

Meloni reprised his role as Stabler in 2021 in the spin-off series Law & Order: Organized Crime.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit follows the style of the original Law & Order in that some episodes are loosely based on real crimes that have received media attention.

The show premiered on September 20, 1999. After the premiere of its 21st season in September 2019, the series became TV’s longest-running primetime U.S. live-action series in the history of television and the only live-action primetime series that debuted in the 1990s and is still producing new episodes.

As of October 21, 2021, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has aired 500 original episodes, more than surpassing the episode count of the original Law & Order series. In terms of all-time episode count for a primetime scripted series, SVU now ranks fourth behind The Simpsons (with 710 episodes), Gunsmoke (with 635 episodes), and Lassie (with 591 episodes).

In February 2020, the series was renewed through its 24th season. The 23rd season premiered on September 23, 2021, during which the show aired its milestone 500th episode.

The series has received 91 award nominations, winning 33 awards. Mariska Hargitay was the first regular cast member on any Law & Order series to win an Emmy Award when she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2006.

Based out of the NYPD New York City Police Department's 16th precinct in Manhattan, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit delves into the dark side of the New York underworld as the detectives of a new elite force, the Special Victims Unit (SVU for short), investigate and prosecute various sexually oriented crimes, including rape, child sexual abuse and domestic violence.

Many exterior scenes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit are filmed on location in New York City, Wolf's hometown, throughout all five of New York City's boroughs.

Fort Lee, New Jersey served as the filming location for Detective Elliot Stabler's residence in Queens, New York.

More information: NBC

Some things, you can put them behind you...
but they do change you.

Olivia Benson

S. JOHN THE DIVINE CATHEDRAL, MORNING SIDE HEIGHTS

Today, June 24, is the festivity of Saint John, a great day for The Grandma, and to commemorate it, she has visited the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights, Manhattan.

Meanwhile, The Newtons have continued preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied the Possessive Adjectives.

More information: Possessive Adjectives

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, sometimes referred to as St. John's and also nicknamed St. John the Unfinished, is the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of New York.

It is at 1047 Amsterdam Avenue in the Morningside Heights neighbourhood of Manhattan in New York City, between West 110th Street (also known as Cathedral Parkway) and West 113th Street.

The cathedral is an unfinished building, with only two-thirds of the proposed building completed, due to several major stylistic changes and work interruptions. The original design, in the Byzantine Revival and Romanesque Revival styles, began construction in 1892.

After the opening of the crossing in 1909, the overall plan was changed to a Gothic Revival design. The completion of the nave was delayed until 1941 due to various funding shortfalls, and little progress has occurred since then, except for an addition to the tower at the nave's southwest corner.

After a large fire damaged part of the cathedral in 2001, it was renovated and rededicated in 2008. The towers above the western facade, as well as the southern transept and a proposed steeple above the crossing, have not been completed.

Despite being incomplete, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine is the world's sixth-largest church by area and either the largest or second-largest Anglican cathedral. The floor area of St. John's is 11,200 m2, spanning a length of 183 m, while the roof height of the nave is 54 m. Since the cathedral's interior is so large, it has been used for hundreds of events and art exhibitions. In addition, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine has been involved in various advocacy initiatives throughout its history.

More information: The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine

The cathedral close includes numerous buildings: the Leake & Watts Orphan Asylum Building, the cathedral proper, the St. Faith's House, the Choir School, the Deanery, and the Bishop's House.

The buildings are designed in several different styles and were built over prolonged periods of construction, with the Leake & Watts Orphan Asylum predating the cathedral itself. The cathedral close was collectively designated an official city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2017.

The neighbourhood of Morningside Heights was thinly settled in the 17th century by the Dutch, then by the British.

It remained rural through the mid-19th century, with two exceptions. The first was the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum, no longer extant, which opened on the site of the Columbia University campus near 116th Street in 1821.

The other was Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum, bounded by 110th Street to the south and 113th Street to the north, which later became the current cathedral site. The Leake and Watts asylum was incorporated in 1831 under act of the New York State Legislature, and three years later, 10 ha land at the corner of Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway) and 110th Street was purchased from the Bloomingdale Asylum.

The initial plans for the asylum were drawn up by Ithiel Town, but were revised several times to keep the costs within the asylum's budget. The cornerstone of the asylum was laid in 1838, and it was completed in 1843.

More information: Masonry Magazine

None of the dead come back. But some stay.

St. John the Divine

CATALAN & OCCITAN CLOISTERS, WASHINGTON HEIGHTS

Today, The Grandma has visited a great friend, Jo Martinez, one of the youngest officers of the New York Police Department to make homicide detective. 

Together, they have visited the Cloisters, a museum in Washington Heights (Jo's neighbourhood) where they have discovered Catalan and Occitan cloisters that were bought during last century and carried from Europe to America, stone by stone.

The Grandma loves Romanesque art, and Jo and she have spent a wonderful day discovering more secrets about these legendary stones. One of this cloisters, Sant Miquel de Cuixà, was originally erected at the Benedictine Abbey of Sant Miquel de Cuixà on Mont Canigó in North Catalonia which was founded in 878.

The Grandma has wanted to visit the cloisters because today is a very important day for the Catalan Countries. They welcome to the Flama del Canigó. It combines with the Sant Joan midsummer celebrations to evoke the common identity of Catalan-speaking lands.

More information: 'La Flama del Canigó', fire that joins Catalan lands

On foot or horseback, by car, bike, boat and any possible means of transport, the Flama del Canigó reaches every corner of the land, thanks to the efforts of numerous groups and associations. 

Each village, town and city receives the flame in it own way, with music, devils and dance but always with a shared ritual. Everywhere, when the flame has reached its destination, before the bonfires are lit, a common message is read out to remind everyone of its significance.

Meanwhile, The Newtons have continued preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied the Past Simple of To Be verb.

More information: To Be (Past Simple)

The Cloisters, also known as the Met Cloisters, is a museum in Fort Tryon Park in Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York City, specializing in European medieval art and architecture, with a focus on the Romanesque and Gothic periods.

Governed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it contains a large collection of medieval artworks shown in the architectural settings of Occitan and Catalan monasteries and abbeys. 

Its buildings are centered around four cloisters -the Cuixà, Saint-Guilhem, Bonnefont and Trie- that were acquired by American sculptor and art dealer George Grey Barnard in France before 1913, and moved to New York. 

Barnard's collection was bought for the museum by financier and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Other major sources of objects were the collections of J. P. Morgan and Joseph Brummer.

Rockefeller purchased the museum site in Washington Heights in 1930, and donated it and the Bayard collection to the Metropolitan in 1931. Upon its opening on May 10, 1938, the Cloisters was described as a collection shown informally in a picturesque setting, which stimulates imagination and creates a receptive mood for enjoyment.

More information: The MET Museum

The basis for the museum's architectural structure came from the collection of George Grey Barnard, an American sculptor and collector who almost single-handedly established a medieval art museum near his home in the Fort Washington section of Upper Manhattan.

Barnard was primarily interested in the abbeys and churches founded by monastic orders from the 12th century. Following centuries of pillage and destruction during wars and revolutions, stones from many of these buildings were reused by local populations.

Reputedly he paid $25,000 for the Trie buildings, $25,000 for the Bonnefort and $100,000 for the Cuixà cloisters.

Located on the south side of the building's main level, the Cuixà cloisters are the museum's centerpiece both structurally and thematically. They were originally erected at the Benedictine Abbey of Sant Miquel de Cuixà on Mont Canigó in North Catalonia which was founded in 878.

The monastery was abandoned in 1791 and fell into disrepair; its roof collapsed in 1835 and its bell tower fell in 1839. About half of its stonework was moved to New York between 1906 and 1907. The installation became one of the first major undertakings by the Metropolitan after it acquired Barnard's collection. After intensive work over the fall and winter of 1925-26, the Cuixà cloisters were opened to the public on April 1, 1926.

The Bonnefont cloisters were assembled from several Occitan monasteries, but mostly come from a late 12th-century Cistercian Abbaye de Bonnefont at Bonnefont-en-Comminges, southwest of Tolosa.

The Bonnefont is on the upper level of the museum and gives a view of the Hudson River and the cliffs of the Palisades.

More information: Patrimoni

Washington Heights is a neighborhood in the uppermost part of the New York City borough of Manhattan.

It is named for Fort Washington, a fortification constructed at the highest natural point on Manhattan Island by Continental Army troops to defend the area from the British forces during the American Revolutionary War.

Washington Heights is bordered by Inwood to the north along Dyckman Street, by Harlem to the south along 155th Street, by the Harlem River and Coogan's Bluff to the east, and by the Hudson River to the west.

Washington Heights, which before the 20th century was sparsely populated by luxurious mansions and single-family homes, rapidly developed during the early 1900s as it became connected to the rest of Manhattan via the A, C, and 1 subway lines.

Beginning as a middle-class neighbourhood with many Irish and Eastern European immigrants, the neighbourhood has at various points been home to communities of German Jews, Greek Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and Russian Americans.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, White residents began to leave the neighbourhood for nearby suburbs as the Black and Latino populations increased. Dominican Americans became the dominant group by the 1980s despite facing economic difficulties, leading the neighbourhood to its status in the 21st century as the most prominent Dominican community in the United States. While crime became a serious issue during the crack cocaine crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, in the 2000s Washington Heights became a much safer community and began to experience some upward mobility as well as gentrification.

Washington Heights is set apart among Manhattan neighbourhoods for its high residential density despite the lack of modern construction, with the majority of its few high-rise buildings belonging to the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. Other higher education institutions include Yeshiva University and Boricua College.

The neighbourhood has generous access to green space in Fort Washington Park, Highbridge Park, and Fort Tryon Park, home to the historical landmarks the Little Red Lighthouse, the High Bridge Water Tower, and the Cloisters respectively.

Other points of interest include Audubon Terrace, the Morris-Jumel Mansion, the United Palace, the Audubon Ballroom, and the Fort Washington Avenue Armory.

More information: Washington Heights

 Externally nothing much is altered for the present;
the basic tendency of Romanesque art
remains anti-naturalistic and hieratic.

Arnold Hauser

CATALAN INSTITUTE OF AMERICA IN NEW YORK CITY

Today, The Grandma has visited her compatriots in New York City. 

 

She has visited the Catalan Institute of America where she has met Mary Ann Newman, and she has spent a wonderful day explaining and listening to common cultural stories. 

Later, she has visited the International Office of Catalonia in New York to work about future business and investments.

Meanwhile, The Newtons have been preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied the Past Simple (Irregular Verbs). 

More information: Past Simple (Irregular Verbs)

The Catalan Institute of America is a non-profit membership organization working to celebrate Catalan culture, language, and heritage in New York City and beyond.

Since its inception, the Catalan Institute of America has been a meeting point for everyone who has an interest in Catalan language and culture in the United States and has been instrumental in creating a visible Catalan presence in the New York area.

The Catalan Institute of America works hard to foster a sense of community among Catalan-Americans and Catalan expatriates, provides guidance for newly arrived Catalans in the United States, and is proud to sponsor regular Catalan language courses.

More information: Catalan Institute of America

Mary Ann Newman is the director of the Farragut Fund for Catalan Culture in the US. 

She is a translator, editor, and occasional writer on Catalan culture. She has translated a novel and a short story collection by Quim Monzó, essays by Xavier Rubert de Ventós, and a collection of poems by Josep Carner.

She graduated from New York University's Washington Square College in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

In 1985, she graduated with a doctorate from New York University.

As of 2019, her latest translation is Private Life by Josep Maria de Sagarra, published by Archipelago Books. She was awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi.

More information: El Nacional

I think we'll be around for another 100 years,

or 200, if the planet lasts!

Mary Ann Newman

FLUSHING MEADOWS, ENJOYING THE US OPEN TENNIS

Today, The Grandma has visited Flushing Meadows, the public park in the northern part of Queens, whose attractions include the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

The Grandma loves tennis and it has been a wonderful experience for her.

Meanwhile, The Newtons have been preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied the Past Simple (Regular Verbs). 

More information: Past Simple (Regular Verbs)

Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, often referred to as Flushing Meadows Park, or simply Flushing Meadows, is a public park in the northern part of Queens, New York City.

It is bounded by I-678 (Van Wyck Expressway) on the east, Grand Central Parkway on the west, Flushing Bay on the north, and Union Turnpike on the south. 

Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is the fourth-largest public park in New York City, with a total area of 363 ha.

Until the 19th century, the site consisted of wetlands straddling the Flushing River, which traverses the region from north to south. Starting in the first decade of the 20th century, it was used as a dumping ground for ashes, since at the time, the land was so far away from the developed parts of New York City as to be considered almost worthless.

New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses first conceived the idea of developing a large park in Flushing Meadow in the 1920s as part of a system of parks across eastern Queens. 

Flushing Meadows-Corona Park was created as the site of the 1939 New York World's Fair and also hosted the 1964 New York World's Fair.

Following the 1964 fair, the park fell into disrepair, although some improvements have taken place since the 1990s and 2000s.

Flushing Meadows-Corona Park retains much of the layout from the 1939 World's Fair. Its attractions include the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the current venue for the US Open tennis tournament; Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets baseball team; the New York Hall of Science; the Queens Museum; the Queens Theatre in the Park; the Queens Zoo; the Unisphere; and the New York State Pavilion.

It formerly contained Shea Stadium, demolished in 2009. The Flushing River continues to run through the park, and two large lakes called Meadow and Willow Lakes take up much of the park's area south of the Long Island Expressway.

Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is owned and maintained by New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also known as NYC Parks. 

Private, non-profit groups such as the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Conservancy and the Alliance for Flushing Meadows–Corona Park provide additional funds, services, and support. The park is at the eastern edge of the area encompassed by Queens Community Board 4.

The park is named after the nearby neighbourhoods of Flushing and Corona, which are separated by the park. The name Flushing is a corruption of the port town of Vlissingen in the Netherlands.

By the 19th century, the word flushing had become associated with a cleansing by rushing water. Corona was added to the name during the 1964 New York World's Fair.

More information: NYC Parks

During at least three glacial periods, including the Wisconsin glaciation around 20,000 years ago, ice sheets advanced south across North America carving moraines, valleys, and hills. In particular, bays and estuaries were formed along the north shore of Long Island.

During glaciation, what is now Flushing Meadows Park was formed just north of the terminal moraine that runs across Long Island, which consisted of sand, gravel, clay and boulders. The moraine created a drainage divide, with rivers north of the moraine such as the future Flushing River emptying into the north shore.

The Flushing Meadows site became a glacial lake, and then a salt marsh after the ice melted. Prior to glaciation, the Flushing River valley was used by the Hudson River to drain southward into the Atlantic Ocean. Through the 19th century, the site continued to consist of wetlands straddling Flushing River. Species inhabiting the site included waterfowl and fiddler crab, with fish using water pools for spawning.

The area was first settled by Algonquian Native Americans of Long Island (referred to erroneously as Mantinecocks). They consisted of the Canarsee and Rockaway Lenape groups, which inhabited coastal wetlands across Queens and Brooklyn.

Beginning in 1640, Dutch settlers moved into the area, establishing the town of Newtown to the west of the site (which would become Elmhurst, Corona, and other areas in western Queens), and the town of Flushing to the east.

The meadows became known as the Corona Meadows. 

By 1666, the Native American population had been displaced from the Flushing Meadows site by European settlers, although a deed reserved the right to hunt on the land for the Native Americans. Several wealthy landowners began building farmhouses on the site in the mid-to-late 17th century.

The meadows provided numerous natural resources for settlers, including timber, water, fertile soil, and grass and hay for grazing domestic animals. During the American Revolution, a farmhouse on the site of the modern World's Fair Marina was used as a headquarters for British forces.

More information: Experience First

The USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is a stadium complex within Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, New York City. 

It has been the home of the US Open Grand Slam tennis tournament, played every year in August and September, since 1978 and is operated by the United States Tennis Association (USTA).

The facility has 22 courts inside its 0.188 km2. The complex's three stadiums are among the largest tennis stadiums in the world; Arthur Ashe Stadium tops the global list with a listed capacity of 23,200. All 33 courts used the DecoTurf cushioned acrylic surface since the facility was built in 1978. However, in March 2020, the USTA announced that Laykold would become the new court surface supplier beginning with the 2020 tournament.

Near Citi Field (home of the New York Mets) as well as LaGuardia Airport, the tennis center is open to the public for play except during the US Open, junior and wood-racquet competitions.

Formerly called the USTA National Tennis Center, the facility was rededicated for Billie Jean King on August 28, 2006.

More information: US Open

The first time I played golf was in Flushing Meadows,
Queens, when I was about 16 or 17.
They had an 18-hole pitch-and-putt.
My buddies and I would hop the fence
and sneak on and play.

Ray Romano