1917, THE SILENT PARADE TAKES PLACE IN NEW YORK CITY

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Negro Silent Protest Parade, that took place in New York City, in protest against murders, lynchings, and other violence directed towards African Americans, on a day like today in 1917.

The Negro Silent Protest Parade, commonly known as the Silent Parade, was a silent march of about 10,000 African Americans along Fifth Avenue starting at 57th Street in New York City on July 28, 1917. The event was organized by the NAACP, church, and community leaders to protest violence directed towards African Americans, such as recent lynchings in Waco and Memphis. The parade was precipitated by the East St. Louis riots in May and July 1917 where at least 40 black people were killed by white mobs, in part touched off by a labor dispute where blacks were used for strike breaking.

Prior to May 1917, there began a migration of blacks fleeing threats to life and liberty in the South. Tensions in East St. Louis, Illinois, were brewing between white and black workers. Many blacks had found employment in the local industry. In Spring 1917, the mostly white employees of the Aluminum Ore Company voted for a labor strike and the Company recruited hundreds of blacks to replace them. The situation exploded after rumors of black men and white women fraternizing began to circulate.

Thousands of white men descended on East St. Louis and began attacking African Americans. They destroyed buildings and beat people. The rioting died down, only to rise with vigor again several weeks later. After an incident in which a police officer was shot by black residents of the city, thousands of whites marched and rioted in the city again. The Encyclopedia of the Harlem Rennaissance states that Eyewitnesses likened the mob to a manhunt, describing how rioters sought out blacks to beat, mutilate, stab, shoot, hang, and burn.

The brutality of the attacks by mobs of white people and the refusal by the authorities to protect innocent lives contributed to the responsive measures taken by some African Americans in St. Louis and the nation.

In the midst of record heat in New York City on July 28, an estimated 8,000 to 15,000 African Americans marched in silent protest to the lynchings, as in Waco, Memphis, and especially the East St. Louis riots. The march began at 57th Street, down Fifth Avenue, to its end at 23rd Street.

Protesters carried signs that highlighted their discontent. Some signs and banners appealed directly to President Woodrow Wilson. A mounted police escort led the parade. Women and children were next, dressed in white. They were followed by the men, dressed in black. People of all races looked on from both sides of Fifth Avenue. The New York Age estimated that fully fifteen thousand Negroes, who should have taken an active part, looked on."

Black boy scouts handed out fliers describing why they were marching. During the parade, white people stopped to listen to black people explain the reasons for the march and other white bystanders expressed support and sympathy. Some of the messages written on fliers were:

-We march because by the Grace of God and the force of truth, the dangerous, hampering walls of prejudice and inhuman injustices must fall.

-We march because we deem it a crime to be silent in the face of such barbaric acts.

-We march because we want our children to live a better life and enjoy fairer conditions than have fallen to our lot.

The parade was the very first protest of its kind in New York, and the second instance of African Americans publicly demonstrating for civil rights.

The Silent Parade evoked empathy by Jewish people who remembered pogroms against them and also inspired the media to express support of African Americans in their struggle against lynching and oppression.

More information: Beinecke Library

It is impossible to struggle for civil rights,
equal rights for blacks, without including whites.
Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air:
we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it.

Maya Angelou

IT'S SUCH A PERFECT DAY, I'M GLAD I SPEND IT WITH YOU

Today, The Grandma had a meeting with some old friends who she hadn't seen for a long time. It was a fantastic rencounter and they were talking about their lives during these last years. 

For The Grandma, it was a perfect day, as perfect as the Lou Reed's song, the wonderful New Yorker singer, who was a great fan of Gabriel Ferrater's works, the Catalan poet.

Lou Reed is one of The Grandma's favourite singers and she remembers strongly when, in 2007, she could listen to him with his wife Laurie Anderson and Patti Smith in the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City reading Catalan poetry. It was an amazing experience, it was another perfect day, like yesterday.

More information: Institut Ramon Llull

Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942-October 27, 2013) was an American musician, singer and songwriter. He was the lead guitarist, singer and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and also had a solo career that spanned five decades. The Velvet Underground achieved little commercial success during their existence, but are now regarded as one of the most influential bands in the history of underground and alternative rock music.

After leaving the band in 1970, Reed released twenty solo studio albums. His second, Transformer (1972), was produced by David Bowie and arranged by Mick Ronson, and brought mainstream recognition.

After Transformer, the less commercial Berlin reached No. 7 on the UK Albums Chart. Rock n Roll Animal, a live album released in 1974, sold strongly, and Sally Can't Dance (1974) peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard 200, but for a period Reed's work did not translate into sales, leading him deeper into drug addiction and alcoholism.

Reed cleaned up in the early 80s, and gradually returned to prominence with New Sensations (1984), reaching a critical and commercial later career peak with his 1989 album New York.

Reed participated in a revival of the Velvet Underground in the 1990s, and made several more albums, including a tribute to his mentor Andy Warhol. He contributed music to two theatrical interpretations of 19th-century writers, one of which he developed into an album. He married his third wife Laurie Anderson in 2008, and recorded the album Lulu with Metallica. 

More information: Lou Reed

Reed's distinctive deadpan voice, poetic lyrics and experimental guitar playing were trademarks throughout his long career.

Lewis Allan Reed was born on March 2, 1942 at Beth El Hospital, now Brookdale, in Brooklyn and grew up in Freeport, Long Island. Reed's family was Jewish; his father had changed his name from Rabinowitz to Reed. Reed said that although he was Jewish, his real god was rock 'n' roll.

In 1964, Reed moved to New York City to work as an in-house songwriter for Pickwick Records. That year he wrote and recorded the single The Ostrich, a parody of popular dance songs of the time, which included lines such as put your head on the floor and have somebody step on it. His employers felt that the song had hit potential, and assembled a supporting band to help promote the recording.

The ad hoc band, called The Primitives, included Welsh musician John Cale, who had recently moved to New York to study music and was playing viola in composer La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, along with Tony Conrad. 

Cale and Conrad were surprised to find that for The Ostrich, Reed tuned each string of his guitar to the same note, which they began to call his ostrich guitar tuning. This technique created a drone effect similar to their experimentation in Young's avant-garde ensemble. Disappointed with Reed's performance, Cale was nevertheless impressed by Reed's early repertoire, including Heroin, and a partnership began to evolve.

Throughout the 1970s, Reed was a heavy user of methamphetamine and alcohol.

In February 2000, Reed worked with Robert Wilson at the Thalia Theater again, on Poe-Try, another production inspired by the works of a 19th-century writer, this time Edgar Allan Poe.

More information: Brain Pickings

In April 2000, Reed released Ecstasy. In January 2003, Reed released a two-CD set, The Raven, based on it. The album consists of songs written by Reed and spoken-word performances of reworked and rewritten texts of Edgar Allan Poe by the actors, set to electronic music composed by Reed. It features David Bowie and Ornette Coleman.  A single disc CD version of the album, focusing on the music, was also released.

Reed had suffered hepatitis and diabetes for several years. In October 27, 2013, he died fat his home in East Hampton, New York, at the age of 71. 

More information: ABC

 

 

 Music should come crashing out of your speakers

and grab you, and the lyrics should challenge whatever 

preconceived notions that listener has.

Lou Reed

'NYC SONG' BY EDDIE & THE CRUISERS, GREAT MEMORIES

Today, The Grandma has been watching an 80's classic film, Eddie and the Cruisers, whose soundtrack is a genuine masterpiece with great songs about New York City, the city that she visited with The Grangers and can't forget.

Eddie and the Cruisers is a 1983 American musical drama film directed by Martin Davidson with the screenplay written by the director and Arlene Davidson, based on the novel by P. F. Kluge. The sequel Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! followed in 1989.

A television reporter named Maggie Foley investigates the mysterious disappearance of cult rock star Eddie Wilson. 

Flashbacks dramatize Eddie's life and the rise and fall of his rock and roll band, Eddie and the Cruisers. The band gets its start at a club in Somers Point, New Jersey named Tony Mart's. Not adept at writing lyrics, Eddie hires Frank Ridgeway aka Wordman to be the band's keyboard player and lyricist, over the protests of band manager Doc Robbins and bassist Sal Amato.

Rounding out the Cruisers are saxophonist Wendell Newton, background singer and Eddie's girlfriend Joann Carlino, and drummer Kenny Hopkins.

The band's first album, Tender Years, becomes a major hit, but recording their next album, A Season in Hell, turns out to be a nightmare. Inspired by the bleak, fatalistic poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, Eddie wants something far more ambitious than their previous pop songs and he pushes his bandmates beyond their limits, musically and personally.

Eddie wants to be great, but bassist Sal replies, We ain't great. We're just some guys from Jersey. Eddie makes it clear that if the band cannot be great, there is no reason to ever play music again.

A Season in Hell is rejected by Satin Records on the grounds that it is dark and strange. In the early morning hours, Eddie's car crashes through the railing and over the Stainton Memorial Causeway. Eddie vanishes without a trace, his body never found.

Vance asked Davidson to describe his fictitious band and their music. Initially, Davidson said that the Cruisers sounded like Dion and the Belmonts, but when they meet Frank, they have elements of Jim Morrison and The Doors.

However, Davidson did not want to lose sight of the fact that the Cruisers were essentially a Jersey bar band, and he thought of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The filmmaker told Vance to find him someone that could produce music that contained elements of these three bands.

Davidson was getting close to rehearsals when Vance called him and said that he had found the band -John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band from Providence, Rhode Island.

Hey little girl take me by the hand
Walk with me down this boardwalk
Once last time again
I want to see those pretty pier lights
I want to hear those carnival sounds
I want to stop right at the top again
When the ferris wheel goes round
Well you say that I've been restless
And you don't understand
Tomorrow I'll be leavin' on that
Morning train
I gotta leave this candy apple town behind
I gotta get out while I still can
I'm going to New York City
With this guitar in my hand
I've been wishin on these stars too long
I've been playin in these bars too long
I've been hold up in your arms too long
I've been a prisoner of my heart too long
I'm goin' to New York City
Gotta find out where I stand
And I'll be walking down broadway
With this guitar in my hand
Well I sing for the tourists
Bout a dream life on the water
but when the dream it gets broken
this life gets harder and harder
I gotta leave this candy apple town behind
I gotta get out while I still can
I'm going to New York City
With this guitar in my hand
I've been wishin on these stars too long
I've been playin in these bars too long
I've been hold up in your arms too long
I've been a prisoner of my heart too long
I'm goin to New York City
Gotta find out where I stand
And I'll be walking down Broadway
With this guitar in my hand

 More information: Roger Ebert

 If you can't be great,
then there's no sense in ever playing music again.

Eddie Wilson

SMOKE FROM CANADIAN FIRES ARRIVES TO NEW YORK

Today, The Grandma has been reading some news from Reuters Agency about the situation of the air pollution in the US East Coast due to the Canadian fires (more than 400, 200 without control).

Schools across the U.S. East Coast canceled outdoor activities, airline traffic slowed and millions of Americans were urged to stay indoors on Wednesday as smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted south, blanketing cities in thick, yellow haze.

The U.S. National Weather Service issued air quality alerts for virtually the entire Atlantic seaboard. Health officials from Vermont to South Carolina and as far west as Ohio and Kansas warned residents that spending time outdoors could cause respiratory problems due to high levels of fine particulates in the atmosphere.

"It's critical that Americans experiencing dangerous air pollution, especially those with health conditions, listen to local authorities to protect themselves and their families," President Joe Biden said on Twitter.

U.S. private forecasting service AccuWeather said thick haze and soot extending from high elevations to ground level marked the worst outbreak of wildfire smoke to blanket the Northeastern U.S. in more than 20 years.

New York's famous skyline, usually visible for miles, appeared to vanish in an otherworldly veil of smoke, which some residents said made them feel unwell.

"It makes breathing difficult," Mohammed Abass said as he walked down Broadway in Manhattan. "I've been scheduled for a road test for driving, for my driving license today, and it was canceled."

The smoky air was especially tough on people toiling outdoors, such as Chris Ricciardi, owner of Neighbor's Envy Landscaping in Roxbury, New Jersey. He said he and his crew were curtailing work hours and wearing masks they used for heavy pollen.

"We don't have the luxury to stop working," he said. "We want to keep our exposure to the smoke to a minimum, but what can you really do about it?"

Angel Emmanuel Ramirez, 29, a fashion stylist at a Givenchy outlet in Manhattan, said he and fellow workers began feeling ill and closed up shop early when they realized the smell of smoke was permeating the store.

"It's so intense, you would think the wildfire was happening right across the river, not up in Canada," Ramirez said.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul called the situation an "emergency crisis," saying the air pollution index for parts of her state were eight times above normal.

Reduced visibility from the haze forced the Federal Aviation Administration to slow air traffic into the New York City area and Philadelphia from elsewhere on the East Coast and upper Midwest, with flight delays averaging about a half hour.
Schools up and down the East Coast called off outdoor activities, including sports, field trips and recesses.

A Broadway matinee of "Prima Facie" was halted after 10 minutes when actress Jodie Comer had difficulty breathing due to poor air quality. The show was restarted with understudy Dani Arlington going on for Comer in the role of Tessa, a production spokesperson said in a statement.

Even Major League Baseball was impacted, as the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies both postponed home games scheduled for Wednesday. A National Women's Soccer League match in Harrison, New Jersey, was also rescheduled, as was a WNBA women's basketball game in Brooklyn.

In some areas, the air quality index (AQI), which measures major pollutants including particulate matter produced by fires, was well above 400, according to Airnow, which sets 100 as "unhealthy" and 300 as "hazardous."

At noon (1600 GMT), Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was recording the nation's worst air quality index, with an AQI reading of 410. Among major cities, New York had the highest AQI in the world on Wednesday afternoon at 342, about double the index for chronically polluted cities such as Dubai (168) and Delhi (164), according to IQAir.

The smoke billowed over the U.S. border from Canada, where hundreds of forest fires have scorched 9.4 million acres (3.8 million hectares) and forced 120,000 people from their homes in an unusually early and intense start to the wildfire season.

The skies above New York and many other North American cities grew progressively hazier through Wednesday, with an eerie yellowish tinge filtering through the smoky canopy. The air smelled like burning wood.

Wildfire smoke has been linked with higher rates of heart attacks and strokes, increases in emergency room visits for asthma and other respiratory conditions, eye irritation, itchy skin and rashes, among other problems.

A Home Depot store in Manhattan sold out of air purifiers and masks. New York Road Runners canceled events intended to mark Global Running Day.

"This is not the day to train for a marathon or to do an outside event with your children," New York Mayor Eric Adams advised. "If you are older or have heart or breathing problems or an older adult, you should remain inside."

Pedestrians donned face masks in numbers that brought to mind the worst days of the coronavirus pandemic.

Tyrone Sylvester, 66, playing chess in Manhattan's Union Square as he has on most days for 30 years, but wearing a mask, said he had never seen the city's air quality so bad.

"When the sun looks like that," he said, pointing out the bronze-like orb visible through the smoky sky, "we know something's wrong. This is what global warming looks like."

Poor air quality is likely to persist into the weekend, with a developing storm system expected to shift the smoke westward across the Great Lakes and deeper south through the Ohio Valley and into the mid-Atlantic region, AccuWeather said.

Reporting by Tyler Clifford in New York and Denny Thomas in Canada; Additional reporting by Nancy Lapid, Julia Harte, Brad Brooks and Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Joseph Ax and Steve Gorman; Editing by David Gregorio, Rosalba O'Brien and Jamie Freed

More information: The Guardian

 It isn't pollution that's harming the environment.
It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.

Dan Quayle

JFK, LAGUARDIA & NEWARK LIBERTY, LEAVING NEW YORK

Today, The Grangers & The Grandma have stayed at John F. Kennedy International Airport. They have finished their trip to New York City and they are going to return to Barcelona, where they are going to finish their preparation of their A2 Cambridge Exam.

During the fly, The Grangers have been improving their Listening skills. 

 

John F. Kennedy International Airport is one of the three airports that you can find in New York and New Jersey.

John F. Kennedy International Airport (IATA: JFK, ICAO: KJFK, FAA LID: JFK), colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK, is the main international airport serving New York City.

The airport is the busiest of the six airports in the New York airport system, the 13th-busiest airport in the United States, and the busiest international air passenger gateway into North America. More than ninety airlines operate from the airport, with nonstop or direct flights to destinations in all six inhabited continents.

JFK is located in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, 26 km southeast of Midtown Manhattan.

The airport features six passenger terminals and four runways.  

JFK is a hub for both American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, and it is the primary operating base for JetBlue. JFK was also formerly a hub for Pan Am, TWA, Eastern, National, Northwest, and Tower Air.

The facility opened in 1948 as New York International Airport and was commonly known as Idlewild Airport. Following U.S. President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the airport was renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport as a tribute to the 35th President.

John F. Kennedy International Airport was originally called Idlewild Airport (IATA: IDL, ICAO: KIDL, FAA LID: IDL) after the Idlewild Beach Golf Course that it displaced.

It was built to relieve LaGuardia Field, which had become overcrowded after its 1939 opening. 

In late 1941, mayor Fiorello La Guardia announced that the city had tentatively chosen a large area of marshland on Jamaica Bay, which included the Idlewild Golf Course as well as a summer hotel and a landing strip called the Jamaica Sea-Airport, for a new airfield. Title to the land was conveyed to the city at the end of December 1941. Construction began in 1943, though the airport's final layout was not yet decided upon.

More information: John F. Kennedy International Airport

LaGuardia Airport (IATA: LGA, ICAO: KLGA, FAA LID: LGA) is a civil airport in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York City.

Covering 280 ha in its present form, the facility was established in 1929 and began operating as a public airport in 1939. It is named after former New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia.

The airport primarily accommodates airline service to domestic, and limited international, destinations.

As of 2019, it was the third-busiest airport in the New York metropolitan area behind John F. Kennedy and Newark airports, and the twenty-first busiest in the United States by passenger volume. 

While the airport is a hub for both American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, commercial service is strictly governed by unique regulations including a curfew, a slot system, and a perimeter rule prohibiting most nonstop flights to or from destinations greater than 2,400 km.

Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, LaGuardia was notable for having obsolete and dirty facilities, inefficient air operations, and poor customer service metrics. 

Responding to these criticisms, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) in 2015 announced a multibillion-dollar reconstruction of the airport's passenger infrastructure, which is expected to be complete by 2025.

Prior to human development, the coastlines of Bowery Bay and Flushing Bay converged at a natural point that comprised the eventual northern shoreline of Newtown, Queens.

By 1857 the area partially contained the estate of Benjamin Pike Jr., which was soon purchased and consolidated with other property by William Steinway.

In June 1886, Steinway opened a summer resort development known as Bowery Bay Beach on the peninsula. Originally featuring a bathing pavilion, beach, lawns, and boathouse, the resort was renamed North Beach and later expanded with the addition of Gala Amusement Park.

By the turn of the century, North Beach's German-influenced development drew comparisons to Brooklyn's Coney Island. Its fortunes would soon turn, however, as Prohibition in the United States and war-related anti-German sentiment presented significant challenges to the resort's profitability. These factors, combined with increased industrialization and pollution of the Queens waterfront, made the area untenable as a leisure destination, and it was abandoned at some point in the 1920s.

In April 1929, New York Air Terminals, Inc. announced plans to open a private seaplane base at North Beach later that summer. The 81 ha facility was christened on June 15 and initially featured 0.81 ha concrete plateau connected to the water by a 120 m amphibious aircraft ramp, with the former resort converted to a passenger terminal.

Opening-day festivities for the new airport were attended by a crowd of 5,000, and included Air Races with Curtiss Seagulls and Sikorsky flying boats, a dedication address by Borough President George U. Harvey, and the commencement of airline service to Albany and Atlantic City by Coastal Airways and Curtiss Flying Service.

One month later, service to Boston was launched using Savoia-Marchetti S.55 aircraft operated by Airvia.

More information: LaGuardia Airport

Newark Liberty International Airport (IATA: EWR, ICAO: KEWR, FAA LID: EWR), originally Newark Metropolitan Airport and later Newark International Airport, is an international airport straddling the boundary between the cities of Newark in Essex County and Elizabeth in Union County, New Jersey. 

It is jointly owned by the cities and leased to its operator, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The airport is located 4.8 km south of Downtown Newark and 14 km west-southwest of Manhattan in New York City. 

It is near the Newark Airport Interchange, the junction between Interstate 95 and Interstate 78 (both components of the New Jersey Turnpike), as well as U.S. Routes 1 and 9, which has junctions with U.S. Route 22, Route 81 and Route 21. 

 

AirTrain Newark connects the terminals with the Newark Liberty International Airport Station. The station is served by NJ Transit's Northeast Corridor Line and North Jersey Coast Line. Amtrak's Northeast Regional and Keystone Service trains also stop at the Newark Liberty International Airport station.

The City of Newark built the airport on 28 ha of marshland in 1928 and the Army Air Corps operated the facility during World War II. 

The airport was constructed adjacent to Port Newark. After the Port Authority took it over in 1948, an instrument runway, a terminal building, a control tower and an air cargo center were added. The airport's Building 51 from 1935 is a National Historic Landmark.

Newark is one of three major airports serving the New York metropolitan area; the others are John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, which are also operated by the Port Authority. The airport handles almost as many flights as JFK, despite being 40 percent of JFK's land size.

More information: Newark Liberty International Airport

 There are those airports which make you feel better,
and there are those airports that, when you go there,
your heart sinks: you can't wait to get out of there.
They both function as airports,
but it's the things that you can't measure
that make them different.

Norman Foster

THE WORLD TRADE CENTER, DESTRUCTION & REBUILDING

Today, The Grandma has visited One World Trade Center, the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City.

One World Trade Center (also known as One World Trade, One WTC, and formerly Freedom Tower) is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City.

One WTC is the tallest building in the United States, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, and the seventh-tallest in the world. The supertall structure has the same name as the North Tower of the original World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The new skyscraper stands on the northwest corner of the 6.5 ha World Trade Center site, on the site of the original 6 World Trade Center. It is bounded by West Street to the west, Vesey Street to the north, Fulton Street to the south, and Washington Street to the east.

The building's architect is David Childs, whose firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) also designed the Burj Khalifa and the Willis Tower. The construction of below-ground utility relocations, footings, and foundations for the new building began on April 27, 2006.

One World Trade Center became the tallest structure in New York City on April 30, 2012, when it surpassed the height of the Empire State Building. The tower's steel structure was topped out on August 30, 2012. 

More information: WTC

On May 10, 2013, the final component of the skyscraper's spire was installed, making the building, including its spire, reach a total height of 541 m. Its height in feet is a deliberate reference to the year when the United States Declaration of Independence was signed. The building opened on November 3, 2014; the One World Observatory opened on May 29, 2015.

On March 26, 2009, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) confirmed that the building would be officially known by its legal name of One World Trade Center, rather than its colloquial name of Freedom Tower. The building has 94 stories, with the top floor numbered 104.

The new World Trade Center complex will eventually include five high-rise office buildings built along Greenwich Street, as well as the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, located just south of One World Trade Center where the original Twin Towers stood. The construction of the new building is part of an effort to memorialize and rebuild following the destruction of the original World Trade Center complex.

The construction of the World Trade Center, of which the Twin Towers (One and Two World Trade Center) were the centerpieces, was conceived as an urban renewal project and spearheaded by David Rockefeller. The project was intended to help revitalize Lower Manhattan.

The project was planned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which hired architect Minoru Yamasaki. He came up with the idea of building twin towers. After extensive negotiations, the New Jersey and New York State governments, which supervise the Port Authority, consented to the construction of the World Trade Center at the Radio Row site, located in the lower-west area of Manhattan.

To satisfy the New Jersey government, the Port Authority agreed to buy the bankrupt Hudson & Manhattan Railroad (renamed to Port Authority Trans-Hudson), which transported commuters from New Jersey to Lower Manhattan.

More information: 911 Memorial

 We live in downtown Manhattan 

and we have pretty big windows
that looked right at the World Trade Center.
I was home along with Kai 

and we watched it all happen.
I was holding him in my arms 

and we were looking out
the window when the second plane hit.

Jennifer Connelly

CENTRAL PARK, THE URBAN PARK IN NEW YORK CITY

Today, The Grandma has been enjoying Central Park, the urban park in Manhattan, New York City, that comprises 341 ha between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side.

 

Meanwhile, The Grangers have been preparing their Cambridge Exam.

 

More information: English Revealed

 

Central Park is an urban park in Manhattan, New York City. It comprises 341 ha between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side, roughly bounded by Fifth Avenue on the east, Central Park West (Eighth Avenue) on the west, Central Park South (59th Street) on the south, and Central Park North (110th Street) on the north. Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States, with 40 million visitors in 2013, and one of the most filmed locations in the world.

 

More information: Central Park Conservancy

 

The park was established in 1857 on 315 ha of land acquired by the city. In 1858, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and architect/landscape designer Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they titled the Greensward Plan. 

Construction began the same year, and the park's first area was opened to the public in the winter of 1858. Construction north of the park continued during the American Civil War in the 1860s, and the park was expanded to its current size in 1873. 

After a period of decline in the early 20th century, Robert Moses started a program to clean up Central Park. Another decline in the late 20th century spurred the creation of the Central Park Conservancy in 1980, which refurbished many parts of the park during the 1980s and 1990s.

Central Park was designated a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1962, which in April 2017 placed it on the tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage Sites. 

The park, managed for decades by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, is currently managed by the Central Park Conservancy under contract with the municipal government in a public-private partnership. The Conservancy is a non-profit organization that contributes 75 percent of Central Park's $65 million annual budget and is responsible for all basic care of the 341 ha park.

 

More information: Central Park

 I walk the line of great unknowns
But I never question those
And I go back to where we last met
And tell you so
Tell you so
In New York
In New York

 

The Boxer Rebellion

MADAME TUSSAUDS, THE MOST POPULAR WAX MUSEUM

Today, The Grandma has been visiting Madame Tussauds New York, the wax museum located on 42nd Street close to Times Square in New York City. 

Madame Tussauds was founded by the wax sculptor, Marie Tussaud, and is now operated by the United Kingdom-based entertainment company, Merlin Entertainments. 

The Madame Tussauds New York location opened in November 2000 with five floors of attraction space and over 200 figures; it has quickly become a popular destination in New York City.

More information: Madame Tussauds New York

Marie Tussaud was born as Marie Grosholtz in 1761 in Strasbourg, France. Her mother worked as a housekeeper for Dr. Philippe Curtius in Bern, Switzerland, who was a physician skilled in wax modelling. Curtius taught Tussaud the art of wax modelling.

In 1777, Tussaud created her first wax sculpture of Voltaire and soon after began sculpting death masks of notable victims in the French Revolution. These masks were then held up as revolutionary flags and paraded through the streets of Paris. 

In 1794, Marie's mentor, Dr. Phillipe Curtius, died and Tussaud inherited his entire collection.

Marie married Francois Tussaud in 1795 lent a new name to the show: Madame Tussaud's. By 1835 Marie had settled down in Baker Street, London, and opened a museum, Madame Tussaud's. This part of the exhibition included victims of the French Revolution and newly created figures of murderers and other criminals. Several famous people were added to the exhibition, including Lord Nelson, and Sir Walter Scott. Some sculptures done by Marie Tussaud herself still exist. 

More information: Madame Tussauds London

The gallery originally contained some 400 different figures, but fire damage in 1925, coupled with German bombs in 1941, has rendered most of these older models defunct. The casts themselves have survived allowing the historical waxworks to be remade. 

These can be seen in the museum's history exhibit. The oldest figure on display is that of Madame du Barry, otherwise known as sleeping beauty, and this figure is located at Madame Tussauds London. In 1842, Tussaud made a self-portrait, which is now on display at several Madame Tussauds locations. On 15 April 1850, Madame Tussaud died in her sleep.

In 1883, the restricted space and rising cost of the Baker Street site prompted Marie Tussaud's grandson, Joseph Randall, to commission the building at its current location on Marylebone Road. The new exhibition galleries were opened on 14 July 1884 and were a great success. A limited company was formed in 1888 to attract fresh capital, but had to be dissolved after disagreements between the family shareholders. In February 1889, The Tussaud's group was sold to a group of businessmen led by Edwin Josiah Poyse.

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The figure making process for Madame Tussauds is about four months long and each figure costs about $300,000 to produce start to finish. The process begins with a sitting with the subject to decide on the figure's pose, outfit, hair, and makeup. 

After these details are agreed upon, the studio artists from Madame Tussauds take over 250 precise measurements and photographs of the subject. 

Once all the measurements have been recorded, the studio artists begin crafting the figures. They start by creating a metal armature that serves as a skeleton for the figure. This skeleton is then cast in fibre glass to create the body. 

While the body is made, the figure's head is carefully sculpted out of clay and a variety of tools until a perfect likeness is achieved. 

After the clay has dried, a plaster mould is made of the head and cut into thirteen pieces that allows the artists to remove the mould and put it back together. 

Once this is completed, the wax is melted down and poured into the mould, creating the figure's head. 

Then, the teeth and eyes are fitted and each piece of hair is inserted individually. The process of hair insertion takes about two weeks to complete. 

Once this is finished, Madame Tussauds' artists cut and style the hair and apply the figure's makeup using several shades of oil based paints to build the exact colours and tones. 

Once these steps are finalized, the figure can then be dressed and accessorized.

More information: Daily Mail

 

A sense is what has the power of receiving 

into itself the sensible forms 

of things without the matter, 

in the way in which a piece of wax 

takes on the impress of a signet-ring 

without the iron or gold.

 

Aristotle

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

and cross each bridge as they come to you. 

Michael Stuhlbarg