THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE, LINKING NYC & NJ

The George Washington Bridge

The Grandma is immersed in reading. Today, she has gone to the library to search some information about The George Washington Bridge, the double-decked suspension bridge spanning the Hudson River that connects New York City and New Jersey.

Meanwhile, The Grangers have been practising some English vocabulary about Staying Healthy and The World Around Us, and improving their Speaking. They have also studied Present Perfect.

More information: Present Perfect

Download Staying Healthy Vocabulary

 

More information: Staying Healthy

 

Download The World Around Us Vocabulary

 

More information: The World Around Us

 

Download Cambridge KET Exam Speaking Models (01)

The George Washington Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge spanning the Hudson River and connecting between the Washington Heights neighbourhood of Manhattan in New York City with the borough of Fort Lee in New Jersey.

As of 2016, the George Washington Bridge carried over 103 million vehicles per year, making it the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge. It is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a bi-state government agency that operates infrastructure in the Port of New York area.

The George Washington Bridge is also informally known as the GW Bridge, the GWB, the GW, or the George, and formerly as the Fort Lee Bridge or Hudson River Bridge.

A bridge across the Hudson River was first conceived in 1906. In early 1925, the state legislatures of New York and New Jersey voted to allow for the planning and construction of such a bridge. Construction on the George Washington Bridge started in October 1927; the bridge was ceremonially dedicated on October 24, 1931, and opened to traffic the next day.

More information: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

The opening of the George Washington Bridge contributed to the development of Bergen County, New Jersey, in which Fort Lee is located. The current upper deck was widened from six to eight lanes in 1946. The six-lane lower deck was constructed beneath the existing span from 1958 to 1962 because of increasing traffic flow.

The George Washington Bridge, an important travel corridor within the New York metropolitan area, has an upper level that carries four lanes in each direction and a lower level with three lanes in each direction, for a total of 14 lanes of travel. The speed limit on the bridge is 72 km/h. The bridge's upper level also carries pedestrian and bicycle traffic. US 46, which lies entirely within New Jersey, terminates halfway across the bridge at the state border with New York. At its eastern terminus in New York City, the bridge continues onto the Trans-Manhattan Expressway, part of I-95, connecting to the Cross Bronx Expressway.

The George Washington Bridge

The George Washington Bridge was designed by chief civil engineer Othmar Ammann, design engineer Allston Dana, and assistant chief engineer Edward W. Stearns, with Cass Gilbert as consulting architect. 

It connects Fort Lee, New Jersey, with Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York. The bridge carries 14 lanes of traffic, seven in each direction, on two levels; the upper level contains eight lanes while the lower level contains six lanes. The current upper level opened in 1931, and is 27 m wide. The upper level originally had six lanes, though two more lanes were added in 1946. Although the lower level was part of the original plans for the bridge, it did not open until 1962.

More information: NJ

The upper level has a vertical clearance of 4.3 m, and all trucks and other oversize vehicles must use the upper level. Trucks are banned from the lower level, which has a clearance of 4.1 m. All lanes on both levels are 2.59 m wide. Vehicles carrying hazardous materials  are prohibited on the lower level due to its enclosed nature. HAZMAT-carrying vehicles may use the upper level, provided that they conform to strict guidelines as outlined in the Port Authority's Red Book.

There are two sidewalks on the upper span of the bridge, one on each side. However, cyclists and pedestrians can usually only utilize the southern sidewalk.

The George Washington Bridge measures 1,450 m long and has a main span of 1,100 m. Accounting for the height of the lower deck, the bridge stretches 65 m above mean high water at its center, and 59 m above mean high water under the New York anchorage. The bridge's main span was the longest main bridge span in the world at the time of its opening in 1931, and was nearly double the 560 m of the previous record holder, the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit. It held this title until the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937.

The George Washington Bridge

The George Washington Bridge's total width is 36 m. The suspension towers on each side of the river are each 184 m tall. 

The bridge also contains two anchorages for the main cables. The anchorage on the New York side is a concrete structure, while the anchorage on the New Jersey side is bored directly into the cliff of the Palisades.

The George Washington Bridge is supported by a total of 105,986 wires. There are four main cables, which suspend the upper deck and are held up by the suspension towers. Each main cable contained 61 strands, with each strand made of 434 individual wires, for a total of 26,474 wires per main cable. The cables were then covered by a sheath of weather-resistant steel. The bridge uses a wire-cable design of suspension, wherein the vertical suspender wires are attached directly to the main cables and the deck directly.

More information: New Jersey Monthly

The original design for the George Washington Bridge's suspension towers called for them to be encased in concrete and granite. The granite was supposed to help support the steel structure of the towers, but because this design was yet untested, Ammann ultimately decided that the structure of the towers should be made entirely of steel, with the granite serving only as a facade.

The towers would have also contained elevators to carry sightseers to the top of each tower. However, the facades were postponed as a cost-cutting measure after the start of the Great Depression in 1929, midway through the bridge's construction. The entire weight of the bridge was supported by the steel structure, and the purely decorative masonry could be added at a later date. 

The George Washington Bridge

Even though the steel towers had been left that way for cost reasons, aesthetic critiques of the bare steel towers were favorable. Several groups, such as the American Institute of Steel Construction, believed that covering the steel framework with masonry would be both misleading and fundamentally ugly.

The masonry facades were ultimately never built; the exposed steel towers, with their distinctive criss-crossed bracing, have become one of the George Washington Bridge's most identifiable characteristics.

Since 1947 or 1948, the bridge has flown the world's largest free-flying American flag, measuring at 27 m long, 18 m wide, and 200 kg. Until 1976, the flag was taken out of a garage in New Jersey and manually erected on national holidays. During the United States' bicentennial, a mechanical hoisting system was installed, and the flag was stored along the bridge's girders when not in use.

More information: Stuff Nobody Cares About

It is hoisted on special occasions when weather allows, and appears on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans Day. 

Governors of New Jersey and New York

Since 2006, the flag is also flown on September 11 of each year, honoring those lost in the September 11 attacks. On events where the flag is flown, the tower lights are lit from dusk until 11:59 p.m.

Emergency Medical Services are provided by the Port Authority's Tunnel and Bridge Agents, who periodically conduct drills on the bridge.

The bridge sits near the sites of Fort Washington in New York and Fort Lee in New Jersey, which were fortified positions used by General George Washington and his American forces as they attempted to deter the occupation of New York City in 1776 during the American Revolutionary War. Unsuccessful, Washington evacuated Manhattan by crossing between the two forts.

The George Washington Bridge was dedicated on October 24, 1931, with a ceremony attended by 30,000 guests. The opening ceremony was accompanied by a show from military airplanes, as well as speeches from politicians including New Jersey governor Morgan Foster Larson and New York governor Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The first people to cross the George Washington Bridge were reportedly two elementary school students who roller-skated across the bridge from the New York side. Pedestrians were allowed to walk the length of the George Washington Bridge between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. The bridge was formally opened to traffic the next day.

More information: The Bowery Boys

 

I find that it's best to take one step at a time 

and cross each bridge as they come to you. 

Michael Stuhlbarg

ELLIS ISLAND & THE IMMIGRATION, SYMBOL OF NEW YORK

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Ellis Island, the island in New York Harbor that was the busiest immigrant inspection station.

 

Ellis Island is a federally-owned island in New York Harbor that was the busiest immigrant inspection station in the United States.

 

From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 million immigrants arriving at the Port of New York and New Jersey were processed there under federal law.

Today, it is part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument and is accessible to the public only by ferry. The north side of the island is the site of the main building, now a national museum of immigration. The south side of the island, including the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, is open to the public only through guided tours.

In the 19th century, Ellis Island was the site of Fort Gibson and later became a naval magazine. The first inspection station opened in 1892 and was destroyed by fire in 1897. The second station opened in 1900 and housed facilities for medical quarantines and processing immigrants.

After 1924, Ellis Island was used primarily as a detention centre for migrants. During both World War I and World War II, its facilities were also used by the US military to detain prisoners of war. After the immigration station's closure, the buildings languished for several years until they were partially reopened in 1976. The main building and adjacent structures were completely renovated in 1990.

More information: Statue of Liberty

The 11.1 ha island was greatly expanded by land reclamation between the late 1890s and the 1930s. Jurisdictional disputes between New Jersey and New York State persisted until the 1998 US Supreme Court ruling in New Jersey v. New York.

Ellis Island is in Upper New York Bay, east of Liberty State Park and north of Liberty Island. While most of the island is in Jersey City, New Jersey, a small section is an exclave of New York City.

The island has a land area of 11.1 ha, much of which is from land reclamation. The natural island and contiguous areas comprise 1.89 ha within New York, and are located on the northern portion of the present-day island. The artificial land is part of New Jersey.

The island has been owned and administered by the federal government of the United States since 1808 and operated by the National Park Service since 1965.

Ellis Island was also used by the military for almost 80 years. By the mid-1790s, as a result of the United States' increased military tensions with Britain and France, a U.S. congressional committee drew a map of possible locations for the First System of fortifications to protect major American urban centres such as New York Harbor.

More information: History

The Army had unsuccessfully attempted to use Ellis Island for the convalescence of immigrants as early as 1847.

The new immigration station opened on December 17, 1900, without ceremony. On that day, 2,251 immigrants were processed.

By 1947, shortly after the end of World War II, there were proposals to close Ellis Island due to the massive expenses needed for the upkeep of a relatively small detention centre.

The hospital was closed in 1950–1951 by the United States Public Health Service, and by the early 1950s, there were only 30 to 40 detainees left on the island.

The island's closure was announced in mid-1954, when the federal government announced that it would construct a replacement facility on Manhattan.

Ellis Island closed on November 12, 1954, with the departure of its last detainee, Norwegian merchant seaman Arne Peterssen. At the time, it was estimated that the government would save $900,000 a year from closing the island. The ferryboat Ellis Island, which had operated since 1904, stopped operating two weeks later.

More information: National Park Service

I always remember to go on the Staten Island Ferry
because it's the most amazing view of New York.
And it's free! You see Ellis Island,
and it conjures up something of that great moment:
you know, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
It's staggering.

Tim Pigott-Smith

ELLIS ISLAND & THE IMMIGRATION, SYMBOL OF NEW YORK

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Ellis Island, the island in New York Harbor that was the busiest immigrant inspection station until it ceased operations on a day like today in 1954.

 

Ellis Island is a federally-owned island in New York Harbor that was the busiest immigrant inspection station in the United States.

 

From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 million immigrants arriving at the Port of New York and New Jersey were processed there under federal law.

Today, it is part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument and is accessible to the public only by ferry. The north side of the island is the site of the main building, now a national museum of immigration. The south side of the island, including the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, is open to the public only through guided tours.

In the 19th century, Ellis Island was the site of Fort Gibson and later became a naval magazine. The first inspection station opened in 1892 and was destroyed by fire in 1897. The second station opened in 1900 and housed facilities for medical quarantines and processing immigrants.

After 1924, Ellis Island was used primarily as a detention centre for migrants. During both World War I and World War II, its facilities were also used by the US military to detain prisoners of war. After the immigration station's closure, the buildings languished for several years until they were partially reopened in 1976. The main building and adjacent structures were completely renovated in 1990.

More information: Statue of Liberty

The 11.1 ha island was greatly expanded by land reclamation between the late 1890s and the 1930s. Jurisdictional disputes between New Jersey and New York State persisted until the 1998 US Supreme Court ruling in New Jersey v. New York.

Ellis Island is in Upper New York Bay, east of Liberty State Park and north of Liberty Island. While most of the island is in Jersey City, New Jersey, a small section is an exclave of New York City.

The island has a land area of 11.1 ha, much of which is from land reclamation. The natural island and contiguous areas comprise 1.89 ha within New York, and are located on the northern portion of the present-day island. The artificial land is part of New Jersey.

The island has been owned and administered by the federal government of the United States since 1808 and operated by the National Park Service since 1965.

Ellis Island was also used by the military for almost 80 years. By the mid-1790s, as a result of the United States' increased military tensions with Britain and France, a U.S. congressional committee drew a map of possible locations for the First System of fortifications to protect major American urban centres such as New York Harbor.

More information: History

The Army had unsuccessfully attempted to use Ellis Island for the convalescence of immigrants as early as 1847.

The new immigration station opened on December 17, 1900, without ceremony. On that day, 2,251 immigrants were processed.

By 1947, shortly after the end of World War II, there were proposals to close Ellis Island due to the massive expenses needed for the upkeep of a relatively small detention centre.

The hospital was closed in 1950–1951 by the United States Public Health Service, and by the early 1950s, there were only 30 to 40 detainees left on the island.

The island's closure was announced in mid-1954, when the federal government announced that it would construct a replacement facility on Manhattan.

Ellis Island closed on November 12, 1954, with the departure of its last detainee, Norwegian merchant seaman Arne Peterssen. At the time, it was estimated that the government would save $900,000 a year from closing the island. The ferryboat Ellis Island, which had operated since 1904, stopped operating two weeks later.

More information: National Park Service

I always remember to go on the Staten Island Ferry
because it's the most amazing view of New York.
And it's free! You see Ellis Island,
and it conjures up something of that great moment:
you know, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
It's staggering.

Tim Pigott-Smith

THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE OPENS TO TRAFFIC

The Grandma is immersed in reading. Today, she has gone to the library to search some information about The George Washington Bridge, which was inaugurated on a day like today in 1931.

Before going to the public library, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her First Certificate Language Practice manual (Vocabulary 20).

More information: Word formation 2

The George Washington Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge spanning the Hudson River and connecting between the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City with the borough of Fort Lee in New Jersey.

The George Washington Bridge

As of 2016, the George Washington Bridge carried over 103 million vehicles per year, making it the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge. It is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a bi-state government agency that operates infrastructure in the Port of New York area.

The George Washington Bridge is also informally known as the GW Bridge, the GWB, the GW, or the George, and formerly as the Fort Lee Bridge or Hudson River Bridge.

A bridge across the Hudson River was first conceived in 1906. In early 1925, the state legislatures of New York and New Jersey voted to allow for the planning and construction of such a bridge. Construction on the George Washington Bridge started in October 1927; the bridge was ceremonially dedicated on October 24, 1931, and opened to traffic the next day.

More information: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

The opening of the George Washington Bridge contributed to the development of Bergen County, New Jersey, in which Fort Lee is located. The current upper deck was widened from six to eight lanes in 1946. The six-lane lower deck was constructed beneath the existing span from 1958 to 1962 because of increasing traffic flow.

The George Washington Bridge, an important travel corridor within the New York metropolitan area, has an upper level that carries four lanes in each direction and a lower level with three lanes in each direction, for a total of 14 lanes of travel. The speed limit on the bridge is 72 km/h. The bridge's upper level also carries pedestrian and bicycle traffic. US 46, which lies entirely within New Jersey, terminates halfway across the bridge at the state border with New York. At its eastern terminus in New York City, the bridge continues onto the Trans-Manhattan Expressway, part of I-95, connecting to the Cross Bronx Expressway.

The George Washington Bridge

The George Washington Bridge was designed by chief civil engineer Othmar Ammann, design engineer Allston Dana, and assistant chief engineer Edward W. Stearns, with Cass Gilbert as consulting architect. 

It connects Fort Lee, New Jersey, with Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York. The bridge carries 14 lanes of traffic, seven in each direction, on two levels; the upper level contains eight lanes while the lower level contains six lanes. The current upper level opened in 1931, and is 27 m wide. The upper level originally had six lanes, though two more lanes were added in 1946. Although the lower level was part of the original plans for the bridge, it did not open until 1962.

More information: NJ

The upper level has a vertical clearance of 4.3 m, and all trucks and other oversize vehicles must use the upper level. Trucks are banned from the lower level, which has a clearance of 4.1 m. All lanes on both levels are 2.59 m wide. Vehicles carrying hazardous materials  are prohibited on the lower level due to its enclosed nature. HAZMAT-carrying vehicles may use the upper level, provided that they conform to strict guidelines as outlined in the Port Authority's Red Book.

There are two sidewalks on the upper span of the bridge, one on each side. However, cyclists and pedestrians can usually only utilize the southern sidewalk.

The George Washington Bridge measures 1,450 m long and has a main span of 1,100 m. Accounting for the height of the lower deck, the bridge stretches 65 m above mean high water at its center, and 59 m above mean high water under the New York anchorage. The bridge's main span was the longest main bridge span in the world at the time of its opening in 1931, and was nearly double the 560 m of the previous record holder, the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit. It held this title until the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937.

The George Washington Bridge

The George Washington Bridge's total width is 36 m. The suspension towers on each side of the river are each 184 m tall. 

The bridge also contains two anchorages for the main cables. The anchorage on the New York side is a concrete structure, while the anchorage on the New Jersey side is bored directly into the cliff of the Palisades.

The George Washington Bridge is supported by a total of 105,986 wires. There are four main cables, which suspend the upper deck and are held up by the suspension towers. Each main cable contained 61 strands, with each strand made of 434 individual wires, for a total of 26,474 wires per main cable. The cables were then covered by a sheath of weather-resistant steel. The bridge uses a wire-cable design of suspension, wherein the vertical suspender wires are attached directly to the main cables and the deck directly.

More information: New Jersey Monthly

The original design for the George Washington Bridge's suspension towers called for them to be encased in concrete and granite. The granite was supposed to help support the steel structure of the towers, but because this design was yet untested, Ammann ultimately decided that the structure of the towers should be made entirely of steel, with the granite serving only as a facade.

The towers would have also contained elevators to carry sightseers to the top of each tower. However, the facades were postponed as a cost-cutting measure after the start of the Great Depression in 1929, midway through the bridge's construction. The entire weight of the bridge was supported by the steel structure, and the purely decorative masonry could be added at a later date. 

The George Washington Bridge

Even though the steel towers had been left that way for cost reasons, aesthetic critiques of the bare steel towers were favorable. Several groups, such as the American Institute of Steel Construction, believed that covering the steel framework with masonry would be both misleading and fundamentally ugly.

The masonry facades were ultimately never built; the exposed steel towers, with their distinctive criss-crossed bracing, have become one of the George Washington Bridge's most identifiable characteristics.

Since 1947 or 1948, the bridge has flown the world's largest free-flying American flag, measuring at 27 m long, 18 m wide, and 200 kg. Until 1976, the flag was taken out of a garage in New Jersey and manually erected on national holidays. During the United States' bicentennial, a mechanical hoisting system was installed, and the flag was stored along the bridge's girders when not in use.

More information: Stuff Nobody Cares About

It is hoisted on special occasions when weather allows, and appears on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans Day. 

Governors of New Jersey and New York

Since 2006, the flag is also flown on September 11 of each year, honoring those lost in the September 11 attacks. On events where the flag is flown, the tower lights are lit from dusk until 11:59 p.m.

Emergency Medical Services are provided by the Port Authority's Tunnel and Bridge Agents, who periodically conduct drills on the bridge.

The bridge sits near the sites of Fort Washington in New York and Fort Lee in New Jersey, which were fortified positions used by General George Washington and his American forces as they attempted to deter the occupation of New York City in 1776 during the American Revolutionary War. Unsuccessful, Washington evacuated Manhattan by crossing between the two forts.

The George Washington Bridge was dedicated on October 24, 1931, with a ceremony attended by 30,000 guests. The opening ceremony was accompanied by a show from military airplanes, as well as speeches from politicians including New Jersey governor Morgan Foster Larson and New York governor Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The first people to cross the George Washington Bridge were reportedly two elementary school students who roller-skated across the bridge from the New York side. Pedestrians were allowed to walk the length of the George Washington Bridge between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. The bridge was formally opened to traffic the next day.

More information: The Bowery Boys

I find that it's best to take one step at a time 

and cross each bridge as they come to you. 

Michael Stuhlbarg

ATLANTIC CITY: GAMBLING IN THE CITY OF MONOPOLY

Estefanía Bean working as a croupier

Today, The Beans have arrived to Atlantic City in New Jersey. They want to spend a funny day playing in the casinos and relaxing in the resorts. It's a special day for Estefanía Bean because she is having the chance to work as a croupier, her real profession.

Atlantic City is a resort city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, known for its casinos, boardwalks, and beaches. In 2010, it had a population of 39,558. The city was incorporated on May 1, 1854, from portions of Egg Harbor Township and Galloway Township. It borders Absecon, Brigantine, Pleasantville, Ventnor City, West Atlantic City, and the Atlantic Ocean.

More information: Atlantic City, New Jersey 

Atlantic City inspired the American version of the board game Monopoly, especially the street names. Since 1921, Atlantic City has been the home of the Miss America pageant. In 1976, New Jersey voters legalized casino gambling in Atlantic City. The first casino opened two years later.

Some Beans playing with the Monopoly

Because of its location in South Jersey, hugging the Atlantic Ocean between marshlands and islands, Atlantic City was viewed by developers as prime real estate and a potential resort town. In 1853, the first commercial hotel, the Belloe House, was built at the intersection of Massachusetts and Atlantic Avenues.

The first boardwalk was built in 1870 along a portion of the beach in an effort to help hotel owners keep sand out of their lobbies. Businesses were restricted and the boardwalk was removed each year at the end of the peak season. Because of its effectiveness and popularity, the boardwalk was expanded in length and width, and modified several times in subsequent years. The historic length of the boardwalk, before the destructive 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane, was about 11 km and it extended from Atlantic City to Longport, through Ventnor and Margate.

The first road connecting the city to the mainland at Pleasantville was completed in 1870 and charged a 30-cent toll. Albany Avenue was the first road to the mainland available without a toll.

Download Vocabulary for Leisure, Travel and Tourism

By 1878, because of the growing popularity of the city, one railroad line could no longer keep up with demand. Soon, the Philadelphia and Atlantic City Railway was also constructed to transport tourists to Atlantic City. 

At this point massive hotels like The United States and Surf House, as well as smaller rooming houses, had sprung up all over town. The United States Hotel took up a full city block between Atlantic, Pacific, Delaware, and Maryland Avenues. These hotels were not only impressive in size, but featured the most updated amenities, and were considered quite luxurious for their time.

The Beans in Atlantic City, New Jersey

In the early part of the 20th century, Atlantic City went through a radical building boom. Many of the modest boarding houses that dotted the boardwalk were replaced with large hotels. Two of the city's most distinctive hotels were the Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel and the Traymore Hotel.

One by one, additional large hotels were constructed along the boardwalk, including the Brighton, Chelsea, Shelburne, Ambassador, Ritz Carlton, Mayflower, Madison House, and the Breakers. The Quaker-owned Chalfonte House, opened in 1868, and Haddon House, opened in 1869, flanked North Carolina Avenue at the beach end. Over the years, their original wood-frame structures would be enlarged, and even moved closer to the beach.

Download Learn to Play Poker

Well now, everything dies, baby, that's a fact

but maybe everything that dies someday comes back.
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty,
and meet me tonight in Atlantic City.

Bruce Springsteen

THE BEANS DO BUSINESS: INVESTING IN NEW YORK CITY

The Beans doing business

The Beans have continued their English classes. Today, they have reviewed Present Simple vs. Continuous and new activities about Social English.

The family is spending the last days in the city that never sleeps and they have decided to invest there being the new owners of some of the most important and spectacular places and buildings.

They have also known the public transport (subway and bus) and they have created some activities with them.

Download NYC's Most Popular Tourist Attractions

The Grandma has confessed one of her deepest secrets: her first lover. Corto is an intelligent, handsome Maltese man who stole her heart some decades ago. She still loves him and she hasn’t forgotten him.

 

Corto Maltese, an old Grandma's friend

Finally, the family has tried to convince The Grandma to buy a new house in New York City but she hasn't been very interested in it. She has preferred to create a fictional story using some infinitives and play some memory games.

It has been another unforgettable day. Tomorrow, they are leaving the city and they are going to Atlantic City where Estefanía Bean wants to show her skills as a croupier to the rest of her family, and New Jersey where The Grandma wants to visit another old friend and platonic love: Bruce Springsteen.

More information: Present Simple vs. Present Continuous

New York, New York.
I want to wake up in a city, that doesn't sleeps
and find king of the hill, one top of the list,
a number one.

 Frank Sinatra

PAQUI & THE BEANS: WE SHALL NEVER SURRENDER

Paqui Bean

I would like to introduce myself. I'm Paqui Bean a member of The Beans family. I was born in Poland and I'm a horse rider. I like my job but I needed to do something different and I joined to my family and we started to travel. We arrived to New York City last year and we are enjoying our last days in this incredible place symbol of migrations, effort and survival. We're also survivors because we had a terrible experience when a boat sank and we had to be rescued from the Hudson River. Now, we're preparing to visit Atlantic City and New Jersey before staying some days in Washington, DC.

More information: Atlantic City

 

Rafael Casanova defending Barcelona in 1714

The family is learning English and we're working very hard to arrive to our objectives with the help of The Grandma, a bored rich old woman who one day decided to buy a family because she felt alone. 

Everyday, The Grandma explains some grammar and some stories to help us to create compositions and practise listenings. It's not easy for us but we're doing a good job and we have a motto: We shall never surrender.

Today, we have done some exercises about Present Continuous, Air Travel Vocabulary and Connectors before receiving the visit of MJ who has been talking to us about our future exam. We're very excited with it. 

More information: Connectors

Winston Churchill

The Grandma has explained us how history has shown us the importance of civil resistance in wars. From the War of the Austrian, the Civil War or the WWII, the cities have been the objectives os¡f the bombs, so the people could only survive with refuges. 

Now, there are movements of neighbours who want to protect the refuges in Barcelona city.

She has been talking about the same spirit of resistance in different ages in different places but with the same motto: We shall never surrender. 

This is also our motto in this travel, because as Leonard Da Vinci said "the noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding".

Welcome to my family and enjoy with us the rest of our travel across The USA.

Continuous effort, not strength or intelligence,

is the key to unlocking our potential. 

Winston Churchill

B. SPRINGSTEEN & M. DEL MAR BONET: WORLDS APART

Bruce Springsteen published Worlds Apart in 2002. The song was included in the album The Rising. 

Two years later, Maria del Mar Bonet adapted this song to Catalan language and published Mons apart in her album Amic, Amat, a work inspired in Ramon Llull, the Majorcan philosopher who talked about respect, peace and understanding between all cultures and religions in the 13th century.

More information: Quis est Lullus?

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer known for his work with the E Street Band. 

Nicknamed The Boss, he is widely known for his brand of poetic lyrics, Americana, working class, sometimes political sentiments centered on his native New Jersey, his distinctive voice, and his lengthy and energetic stage performances, with concerts from the 1970s to the present decade running at up to four hours in length. 

His artistic endeavors reflect both his personal growth and the zeitgeist of the times.

I hold you in my arms, yeah that's when it starts
I seek faith in your kiss and comfort in your heart
I taste the seed upon your lips, lay my tongue upon your scars
But when I look into your eyes we stand worlds apart

Where the distant oceans sing and rise to the plain
In this dry and troubled country your beauty remains
Down from the mountain road where the highway rolls to dark
'Neath Allah's blessed rain we remain worlds apart

Sometimes the truth just ain't enough
Or is it too much in times like this
Let's throw the truth away we'll find it in this kiss
In your skin upon my skin in the beating of our hearts

May the living let us in before the dead tear us apart
We'll let blood build a bridge over mountains draped in stars
I'll meet you on the ridge between these worlds apart
We've got this moment now to live then it's all just dust and dark

Let's let love give what it gives
Let's let love give what it gives

More information: Bruce Springsteen

 

Maria del Mar Bonet i Verdaguer (born 1947 in Palma, Majorca) is a Balearic singer from the island of Majorca. Bonet studied ceramics in the school of arts, but eventually decided to dedicate herself to music. 

Maria del Mar Bonet i Verdaguer

She arrived in Barcelona in 1967, where she began to sing with the group Els Setze Jutges. 

She has published many folk music albums in Catalan, in spite of the ban on the Catalan language and its music during Francisco Franco's dictatorship. 

In 1985, as a result of her interest and research into North African music, she recorded Anells d’aigua with the Ensemble de Musique Traditionelle of Tunisia.

Jo no sé com has guardat la bellesa entre l'infern
ni com vas poder fugir de l'horror que t'ha esquinçat.
Quan et llepo les ferides veig al fons del teu esguard
el que no puc esborrar: que hem nascut en mons a part.

Més enllà dels oceans, més enllà del crit del mar
on la pluja té l'arrel beneïda per Al·là.
On la lluna cau dels estels sobre un món empolsegat
s'han trobat els nostres cors en un pont que hem aixecat.

En aquests temps que ens ha tocat no serveix la veritat
fem un temps pel nostre amor ple de vida entre la mort.
Acompanyen els estels el camí que hem inventat
el teu cor amb el meu cor per damunt dels mons a part.

Amb la sang i la foscor que hem après a tuejar
no tenim altre moment, no l'hem pogut triar.
La tristesa de la mort dels nostres mons separats
però que doni el nostre amor tot allò que pot donar.

More information: Maria del Mar Bonet

 If understanding followed no rule at all, there would be no good in the understanding nor in the matter understood, and to remain in ignorance would be the greatest good.

Ramon Llull

JULY, 9 1937: FOX VAULT FIRE IN LITTLE FERRY, NJ

Diagram of the 1937 Fox vault fire

On 9 July 1937, a major fire broke out in a 20th Century Fox film storage facility in Little Ferry, New Jersey, United States. It was caused by the spontaneous combustion of nitrate film stored in inadequately-ventilated vaults. The fire resulted in one death and two injuries, and destroyed all of the film in the vault.

This fire was responsible for the loss of most of the silent films produced by Fox Film Corporation before 1932. Also destroyed were Educational Pictures negatives and films of several other studios. It brought attention to the potential for decaying nitrate film to spontaneously ignite, and changed the focus of film preservation efforts to include a greater focus on fire safety.

The early motion picture industry primarily used nitrocellulose film stock, commonly called nitrate film. This film is flammable, and produces its own oxygen supply as it burns. 

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Nitrate fires burn rapidly, and cannot typically be extinguished, capable of burning even underwater. Additionally, nitrocellulose is subject to thermal decomposition and hydrolysis, breaking down over time in the presence of high temperatures and moisture. This decaying film stock releases nitrogen oxides that themselves contribute to the decay and make the damaged film burn more easily. Under the right conditions, nitrate film can even spontaneously combust. 

Nitrocellulose Motion Picture Film Decomposition

In part because of substantial variability in the manufacturing of early film, there is considerable uncertainty about the circumstances necessary for self-ignition. Sustained temperatures of 41 °C or higher, large quantities of nitrate film, increased humidity, poor ventilation, and aged or decaying film have all been considered risk factors. 

Most such fires in film archives have taken place in heat waves during summer months, in closed facilities with limited ventilation, exacerbating several of these variables. Especially in confined areas, such fires can result in explosions.

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Although 20th Century Fox officials at the time remarked that only old films were destroyed, the 1937 Fox vault fire is now understood as a significant loss of American film heritage. Film historian Anthony Slide called the destruction of the Fox Film Corporation vault the most tragic American nitrate fire. The highest-quality examples of every Fox film produced prior to 1932 were destroyed. Although copies located elsewhere allowed some of these films to survive, mostly as lower-quality prints or mere fragments of film, more than 75% of Fox's feature films from before 1930 are completely lost. 

The Forbidden Path one of the Fox lost films

Total or near total losses occurred for many Fox performers including Theda Bara, Valeska Suratt, William Farnum, George Walsh and notorious celebutante performer Evelyn Nesbit, who made roughly a dozen films for the studio. As he had moved to Fox in 1918, much Tom Mix material was also lost. 

The destruction of the Little Ferry facility spurred an interest in fire safety as an aspect of film preservation. Unlike previous large nitrate film fires, the spontaneous combustion of decomposing film stock was determined to be responsible. Investigators suggested that the older nitrocellulose film stored in the archive was of lower quality than then-current film and thus more prone to instability. 

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The Society of Motion Picture Engineers's Committee on Preservation of Film, three months after the vault fire, cited recent and rather extensive film fires as evidence that existing preservation efforts had failed to adequately address the fire problem. More heavily reinforced film vaults were suggested, to prevent fires in a single vault from destroying entire archival facilities. Film storage cabinets with ventilation and cooling systems were also proposed, as was further research into improving the quality of cellulose acetate film to encourage its use as a safer replacement for nitrate film.

To be good is to be forgotten. 

I'm going to be so bad I'll always be remembered. 

Theda Bara