FLUSHING MEADOWS, ENJOYING THE US OPEN TENNIS

Today, The Grandma has visited Flushing Meadows, the public park in Queens, that includes the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. She loves tennis and it has been a wonderful experience. 

Meanwhile, The Grangers have been practising some English vocabulary about Inside the House and Food and Drink.

Download Inside the House Vocabulary

 

More information: Inside the House

 

Download Food and Drink Vocabulary

 

More information: Food and Drink

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

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, CATALAN & OCCITAN CLOISTERS

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.

More information: Patrimoni

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.

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: The MET Museum

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

D-DAY, CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT

Today, The Newtons & The Grandma have returned to Barcelona. After some weeks enjoying New York City, the D-Day has arrived and The Newtons have an interesting adventure to live: an A2 Cambridge English Exam.

 

They haven't been alone. David Stone has accompanied this part of The Newtons' family in this important day.

Good luck Fatimas, Raquel and Yamina! You have already won this game.

Cambridge Assessment English or Cambridge English develops and produces Cambridge English Qualifications and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS).

The organisation contributed to the development of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), the standard used around the world to benchmark language skills, and its qualifications and tests are aligned with CEFR levels.

Cambridge Assessment English is part of Cambridge Assessment, a non-teaching department of the University of Cambridge which merged with Cambridge University Press to form Cambridge University Press & Assessment in August 2021.

Each Cambridge English Qualifications focuses on a level of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR).

English qualifications designed for adult learners. A2 Key, B1 Preliminary and B2 First have the same exam format as the schools versions of these qualifications, but use different topics and content suited to adult learners.

In the 1980s Cambridge Assessment English, the British Council and IDP Education formed the international IELTS partnership which delivers the IELTS tests.

More information: Cambridge English

In 2010 Cambridge Assessment English and the English Language Institute Testing and Certificate Division of the University of Michigan agreed to form a not-for-profit collaboration known as CaMLA (Cambridge Michigan Language Assessments). Cambridge Assessment English owns 65% of the venture.

Since 2011 Cambridge Exams Publishing, a partnership between Cambridge Assessment English and the English Language Teaching (ELT) business of Cambridge University Press, develops official Cambridge preparation materials for Cambridge English and IELTS exams.

In 2013 Cambridge Assessment English formed a joint venture with the Box Hill Institute to deliver the Occupational English Test, known as OET.

In 2019 Cambridge Assessment English acquired English Language iTutoring (ELiT), an artificial intelligence developed off technology from the University of Cambridge, to support new English language assessment products.

Cambridge Assessment English was involved in the early development of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and all Cambridge English qualifications and tests are aligned with the levels described by the CEFR.

Each Cambridge English Qualification targets specific CEFR levels but the exam also contains test material at the adjacent levels. For example B2 First is aimed at B2, but there are also test items that cover B1 and C1. This allows for inferences to be drawn about candidates’ abilities if they are a level below or above the one targeted. Candidates are encouraged to take the exam most suitable to their needs and level of ability.

More information: Cambridge English

In 1913 the exam could be taken in Cambridge or London, for a fee of £3 (approximately £293 in 2012 prices). The exam lasted 12 hours and included:

-Translation from English into French or German: 2 hours.

-Translation from French or German into English, and English Grammar: 2.5 hours.

-English Essay: 2 hours.

-English Literature: 3 hours.

-English Phonetics: 1.5 hours.

-Oral test: dictation (30 minutes); reading aloud and conversation (30 minutes).

The main influence behind the design of the exam was the grammar-translation teaching approach, which aims to establish reading knowledge, rather than ability to communicate in the language.

In 1913, the first requirement for CPE candidates was to translate texts. Translation remained prominent in foreign language teaching up until the 1960s. It was a core part of CPE until 1975 and an optional part until 1989.

However, CPE was also influenced by Henry Sweet and his book published in 1900: A Practical Study of Languages: A Guide for Teachers and Learners, which argued that the most natural method of teaching languages was through conversation. Due to this influence, speaking was part of Cambridge English exams from the very beginning.

-1209. University of Cambridge founded.

-1534. Cambridge University Press founded.

-1858. University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) founded.

-1913. Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE) introduced. Now known as C2 Proficiency.

-1939. Lower Certificate in English (LCE) introduced. Renamed First Certificate in English (FCE) in 1975 and now known as B2 First.

-1941. Joint agreement with the British Council-British Council centres established.

-1943-1947. Preliminary English Test (PET) introduced. It was reintroduced in 1980 and is now known as B1 Preliminary.

-1971. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) initiated.

-1988. The Royal Society of Arts (RSA) Examination Board becomes part of UCLES.

-1989. Specialist EFL research and evaluation unit established.

-1989. IELTS launched. A simplified and shortened version of ELTS launched in 1980.

-1990. Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE) founded.

-1991. Certificate in Advanced English (CAE) introduced. Now known as C1 Advanced.

-1993. Business English Certificates (BEC) launched.

-1994. Key English Test (KET) introduced. Now known as A2 Key.

-1995. University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations (UODLE) becomes part of UCLES

-1997. Young Learner English Tests (YLE) introduced. Now known as Pre-A1 Starter, A1 Movers, and A2 Flyers.

-1997. BULATS launched.

-2001. CEFR published.

-2002. UCLES EFL renamed University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations (Cambridge ESOL).

-2002. One million Cambridge ESOL exam candidates.

-2010. CaMLA established (Cambridge Michigan Language Assessments).

-2011. Cambridge Exams Publishing joint venture with Cambridge University Press established.

-2013. Cambridge ESOL renamed Cambridge English Language Assessment.

-2015. Cambridge English Scale introduced.

-2016. Linguaskill reading and listening introduced.

-2016. Linguaskill writing introduced.

-2017. Cambridge English Language Assessment renamed Cambridge Assessment English.

-2020. The University of Cambridge announces it plans to merge two of its non-teaching departments, Cambridge Assessment and Cambridge University Press.

-2021. Cambridge Assessment and Cambridge University Press merge to become Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

More information: Cambridge English

Cambridge is heaven, I am convinced
it is the nicest place in the world to live.
As you walk round, most people look incredibly bright,
as if they are probably off to win a Nobel prize.

Sophie Hannah

NEW YORK CITY & THE NEWTONS, MEMORIES 'FOREVER'

Today, The Newtons and The Grandma have enjoyed their last day in New York City. Before saying goodbye to this amazing city, The Grandma has visited two great old friends, Dr Henry Morgan and Detective Jo Martinez. She wants to remember NYC forever.

 

Forever is an American fantasy crime drama television series that aired on ABC as part of the 2014–15 fall television season. 

Created by Matt Miller, it centers on the character of Dr. Henry Morgan, an immortal New York City medical examiner who uses his extensive knowledge to assist the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in solving crimes and to discover a way to end his immortality. Flashbacks within each episode reveal various details of Henry's life.

The series' network aired a sneak preview on September 22, 2014, and resumed the series at 10 p.m. EST on September 23, 2014. Reception of the series was mixed. In the United States, television critics were divided over the series' similarity to other crime dramas and its premise. In contrast, voters in several online polls ranked the series as one of the best of the television season.

Although ABC gave the series a full-season episode order on November 7, 2014, it cancelled Forever after one season. ABC cited the show's low ratings as the rationale behind the decision.

Television critics believed that other factors explained the network's decision, as the show gained viewers who watched up to seven days later on their DVRs. Fans of the series reacted strongly, creating a social media campaign to save the series; despite these efforts, the series remains canceled.

More information: Just Watch

Dr. Henry Morgan (Ioan Gruffudd) is a New York City medical examiner who studies the dead for criminal cases, and to solve the mystery of his own immortality.

His first death was 200 years ago while trying to treat a slave as a doctor aboard a ship in the African slave trade; one of the ship's owners becomes frustrated with the time and effort Henry is putting into this and orders him to stop, shooting Henry and throwing him overboard when he fails to comply.

Each time he dies, Henry disappears almost immediately and returns to life naked in a nearby body of water, the only sign of injury being a scar at the site of his original gunshot wound from long ago. He has also stopped aging.

Henry's long life has given him broad knowledge and remarkable observation skills which impress most people he encounters, including New York Police Department Detective Jo Martinez (Alana de la Garza). Only antiquarian Abe (Judd Hirsch), whom Henry and his now-deceased wife Abigail found as a newborn in a German concentration camp during World War II, knows that he is immortal.

Henry is stalked by Adam, who is also an immortal, and claims to have been alive for around 2,000 years.

The concept for Forever came from a conversation between series creator Matt Miller and his five-year-old son about death. After the conversation, Miller began to imagine what life would be like if a person was immortal but everyone else, including that person's own children, were mortals.

He created a character who viewed immortality as a curse because of the pain of seeing family and friends die and who would attempt to find a way to end his immortality. That concept informed Miller's decision to make his character a doctor-turned-medical examiner who used his occupation for research into his immortality and Miller's decision to structure the series as a procedural. The details about the character's immortality and his ability and his desire to end it would serve as the series' main story arc.

Another series-long story arc explored how other people learn of Henry's immortality. The first storyline in the arc was the season's second story arc, Henry's determination to learn the identity of a second immortal who knows about it.

The second immortal character's morals would contrast his protagonist's morals, serving as an antagonist for the main character. As for the family element, Miller created a family with a 35-year-old immortal having a mortal son in his 70s.

Miller stated in an interview with BuddyTV writer Catherine Cabanela that he had never seen that type of family on television before, and he believed that it provide the show with an emotional element.

To demonstrate Henry's immortality, Miller decided that Henry would die and would feel the pain every time he died. Anything on Henry's body would disappear with his body during each death.

Miller felt that Henry's naked rebirth in water would be an interesting way to keep the show's protagonist alive during the series by completing the death and rebirth process; the nakedness would create several comedic moments within the series.

Miller intended to use Henry's death and rebirth process sporadically after the first two episodes so that the series would focus on Henry's long life.

The first person cast was Judd Hirsch as Abe. When Miller and casting director Barbara Fiorentino developed a list of actors for the role, they felt that Hirsch would be the best actor to portray Abe. Hirsch was the first person asked about the role. When they sent the script to him, Hirsch liked the series' premise, its historical aspect, its intelligence,and the idea that the audience would see life from Henry's perspective.

Two days after casting Hirsch, Ioan Gruffudd was cast as Dr. Henry Morgan. Miller wanted the actors to read the script so that he could see whether the audience would believe that the man had been alive for over 200 years.

The search for an actor to portray Henry was more difficult than Miller expected. Miller and Fiorentino unsuccessfully auditioned actors from New York City, Los Angeles, Canada, London, Australia, and South Africa for the role, but the role was uncast.

One day, Miller noticed Gruffudd in the carpool lane while they picked up their children from preschool. For Miller, Gruffudd's period work, such as in the series Horatio Hornblower, made him an obvious selection for the role. Gruffudd liked the script and felt that he could portray Henry. The story, the science fiction element, and the believability also attracted Gruffudd to the role.

More information: Forever Fandom

Alana de la Garza was cast as NYPD Detective Jo Martinez. The show's procedural aspect, the series' serialized nature, and the believability of the world interested de la Garza. She also liked the idea that, in contrast to de la Garza's characters on other procedurals, Jo had flaws.

Beginning with the pilot, Miller structured each episode by telling two stories in the episode. The first was a traditional procedural plotline. The second story was a flashback from Henry's past.

The flashback either related to the episode's main present-day storyline, such as Henry's involvement in investigating the Jack the Ripper case, or was a scene from Henry's backstory, such as his life in the Lower East Side's tenements in the 1890s. Both the father-son relationship between Henry and Abe and one of the two season-long story arcs, Henry's relationship with his wife Abigail, were told through flashbacks.

When planning an episode, the writers started with the idea for the episode and determined the main story arc. They discussed which plot element could be associated with a previous incident from Henry's life and how the flashbacks connected the two stories. From there, they determined Abe's viewpoint about the case or his connection to the case. Then, they planned the story on whiteboard.

One plot device used in the pilot, Henry's pocket watch, proved to be difficult to use in subsequent episodes. In the beginning, the writers would have Henry's pocket watch fall out of his pocket so that it would not disappear with the rest of his body. It became more difficult for writers to develop believable scenarios in which Henry would lose his watch, so they did not write it into the plot as frequently in later episodes.

Miller and the filming crew had planned to film the rebirth scenes in the pilot in several bodies of water, but they could film it in only one location. During the episode's production, Gruffudd and the crew filmed the rebirth scene against a green screen in a university swimming pool due to the strength of the East River's current. The crew later covered Gruffudd with water.

To depict Henry's death in different years, the crew refilmed the scene with Gruffudd wearing various hair styles. The producers then edited the scene by superimposing the film of Gruffudd's swim in the pool with film of the East River to give the illusion that the scene occurred in the river.

More information: IMDb

Yes, some memories are precious...
and we need to hang on to them.
But Emily Dickinson wrote,
'Forever is composed of nows,'
and she's right.
If we root ourselves too deeply in the past,
we'll miss what's right in front of us.

 

Henry Morgan

CAROLE KING KLEIN, YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND IN NEW YORK

Today, The Grandma has visited an old New Yorker friend, Carole King.

 

Meanwhile, The Newtons have been preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have practised some A2 Speaking Practice.

 

More info: A2 Speaking

Carole King Klein (born Carol Joan Klein; February 9, 1942) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who has been active since 1958, initially as one of the staff songwriters at the Brill Building and later as a solo artist.

Regarded as one of the most significant and influential musicians of all time, King is the most successful female songwriter of the latter half of the 20th century in the US, having written or co-written 118 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100.

King also wrote 61 hits that charted in the UK, making her the most successful female songwriter on the UK singles charts between 1962 and 2005.

King's major success began in the 1960s when she and her first husband, Gerry Goffin, wrote more than two dozen chart hits, many of which have become standards, for numerous artists.

She has continued writing for other artists since then. King's success as a performer in her own right did not come until the 1970s, when she sang her own songs, accompanying herself on the piano, in a series of albums and concerts.

After experiencing commercial disappointment with her debut album Writer, King scored her breakthrough with the album Tapestry, which topped the U.S. album chart for 15 weeks in 1971 and remained on the charts for more than six years.

More information: Carole King

King has made 25 solo albums, the most successful being Tapestry, which held the record for most weeks at No. 1 by a female artist for more than 20 years. Her record sales were estimated at more than 75 million copies worldwide.

She has won four Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a performer and songwriter. She is the recipient of the 2013 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the first woman to be so honoured. She is also a 2015 Kennedy Center Honoree.

King was born Carol Joan Klein on February 9, 1942, in Manhattan, New York City, to Jewish parents Eugenia, a teacher, and Sidney N. Klein, a firefighter.

King attended Queens College, where she met Gerry Goffin, who was to become her songwriting partner. When she was 17, they married in a Jewish ceremony on Long Island in August 1959 after King became pregnant with her first daughter, Louise.

They quit college and took day jobs, Goffin working as an assistant chemist and King as a secretary. They wrote songs together in the evening.

Neil Sedaka, who had dated King when he was still in high school, had a hit in 1959 with Oh! Carol. Goffin took the tune and wrote the playful response, Oh! Neil, which King recorded and released as a single the same year. The B-side contained the Goffin-King song A Very Special Boy. The single was not a success. After writing the Shirelles' Billboard Hot 100 number 1 hit Will You Love Me Tomorrow, the first No.1 hit by a black girl group, Goffin and King gave up their daytime jobs to concentrate on writing. Will You Love Me Tomorrow became a standard.

More information: Twitter-Carole King

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue,
an everlasting vision of the ever changing view.

Carole King

ENJOY THE ROCKEFELLER CENTER & THE TOP OF THE ROCK

Today, The Grandma has visited the Rockefeller Center and the Top of the Rock Observation Deck.

 

Meanwhile, The Newtons have been preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have practised some A2 Listening Practice.

 

More info: Exam English

 

30 Rockefeller Plaza (officially the Comcast Building; formerly RCA Building and GE Building) is a skyscraper that forms the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in the Midtown Manhattan neighbourhood of New York City.

Completed in 1933, the 66-story, 260 m building was designed in the Art Deco style by Raymond Hood, Rockefeller Center's lead architect. 

30 Rockefeller Plaza was known for main tenant, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), from its opening in 1933 until 1988 and then for General Electric until 2015, when it was renamed for its current owner, Comcast.

The building also houses the headquarters and New York studios of television network NBC; the headquarters is sometimes called 30 Rock, a nickname that inspired an NBC sitcom of the same name. The tallest structure in Rockefeller Center, the building is the 28th tallest in New York City and the 60th tallest in the United States.

30 Rockefeller Plaza's massing consists of three parts: the main 66-story tower to the east, a windowless section at the center, and a 16-story annex to the west. Though the building was designed to conform with the 1916 Zoning Resolution, it rises mostly as a slab, with setbacks mostly for aesthetic value. The facade is made of limestone, with granite at the base, as well as about 6,000 windows separated by aluminum spandrels.

In addition to its offices and studios, 30 Rockefeller Plaza contains the Rainbow Room restaurant and an observation deck called Top of the Rock. 

30 Rockefeller Plaza also includes numerous artworks and formerly contained the mural Man at the Crossroads by Diego Rivera.

The entire Rockefeller Center complex is a New York City designated landmark and a National Historic Landmark, and parts of 30 Rockefeller Plaza's interior are also New York City landmarks.

30 Rockefeller Plaza was developed as part of the construction of Rockefeller Center, and work on its superstructure started in March 1932. 

The first tenant moved into the building on April 22, 1933, but its official opening was delayed due to controversy over Man at the Crossroads.

The Rainbow Room and the observation deck opened in the mid-1930s, and retail space was added to the ground floor in the 1950s. The building remained almost fully occupied through the 20th century and was renamed for GE in 1988. Since the late 1990s, NBC has owned most of the lower floors, while Tishman Speyer has operated the rest of the building. 

30 Rockefeller Plaza was extensively renovated in 2014 and was renamed for Comcast in 2015.

30 Rockefeller Plaza is part of the Rockefeller Center complex in the Midtown Manhattan neighbourhood of New York City. It was intended as the central structure of Rockefeller Center, both physically and symbolically.

The construction of Rockefeller Center occurred between 1932 and 1940 on land that John D. Rockefeller Jr. leased from Columbia University. 

The Rockefeller Center site was originally supposed to be occupied by a new opera house for the Metropolitan Opera.

More information: Rockefeller Center

Father was the eldest son and the heir apparent,
and he set the standard for being a Rockefeller very high,
so every achievement was taken for granted
and perfection was the norm.

 

David Rockefeller

VISITING THE BRONX WITH KERRY MARISA WASHINGTON

Today, The Grandma has visited the Bronx accompanied by one of her closest friends, Kerry Washington, who was born in this incredible neighbourhood.

Meanwhile, The Newtons have been preparing their Cambridge Exam. 

 

They have practised some English tests.

 

 More info: English Exam

Kerry Marisa Washington (born January 31, 1977) is an American actress, producer, and director.

 

She gained wide public recognition for starring as crisis management expert Olivia Pope in the ABC drama series Scandal (2012–2018). For her role, she was twice nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and once for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress -Television Series Drama. 

 

Her portrayal of Anita Hill in the HBO television political thriller film Confirmation (2016), and her role as Mia Warren in the Hulu miniseries Little Fires Everywhere (2020), both earned nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.

In film, Washington is known for her roles as Della Bea Robinson in Ray (2004), as Kay in The Last King of Scotland (2006), as Alicia Masters in the live-action Fantastic Four films of 2005 and 2007, and as Broomhilda von Shaft in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012). She has also starred in the independent films Our Song (2000), The Dead Girl (2006), Mother and Child (2009), Night Catches Us (2010), and American Son (2019).

Time magazine included Washington in its Time 100 list of most influential people in 2014.

In 2018, Forbes named her the eighth highest-paid television actress. Washington has won a Primetime Emmy Award and five NAACP Image Awards, including The President's Award.

Washington was born in the Bronx, New York City, the daughter of Valerie, a professor and educational consultant, and Earl Washington, a real estate broker. Her father's family is of African American origin, having moved from South Carolina to Brooklyn.

Her mother's family is from Manhattan, and Washington has said that her mother is from a mixed-race background and from Jamaica, so she is partly English and Scottish and Native American, but also descended from enslaved Africans in the Caribbean.

More information: Twitter-Kerry Washington

The Bronx is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York.

It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New York City borough of Queens, across the East River.

The Bronx has a land area of 109 km2 and a population of 1,472,654 in the 2020 census. If each borough were ranked as a city, the Bronx would rank as the ninth-most-populous in the U.S. Of the five boroughs, it has the fourth-largest area, fourth-highest population, and third-highest population density.

It is the only borough of New York City not primarily on an island. With a population that is 54.8% Hispanic as of 2020, it is the only majority-Hispanic county in the Northeastern United States and the fourth-most-populous nationwide.

The Bronx is divided by the Bronx River into a hillier section in the west, and a flatter eastern section. East and west street names are divided by Jerome Avenue. The West Bronx was annexed to New York City in 1874, and the areas east of the Bronx River in 1895.

Bronx County was separated from New York County in 1914. About a quarter of the Bronx's area is open space, including Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Bronx Zoo in the borough's north and center.

The Thain Family Forest at the New York Botanical Garden is thousands of years old; it is New York City's largest remaining tract of the original forest that once covered the city. These open spaces are primarily on land reserved in the late 19th century as urban development progressed north and east from Manhattan.

The word Bronx originated with Faroese-born Jonas Bronck, who established the first settlement in the area as part of the New Netherland colony in 1639.

European settlers displaced the native Lenape after 1643. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Bronx received many immigrant and migrant groups as it was transformed into an urban community, first from European countries (particularly Ireland, Germany, Italy and Eastern Europe) and later from the Caribbean region (particularly Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Haiti, Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, and the Dominican Republic), as well as African American migrants from the southern United States, Panama, Honduras, West Africans, and South Asians.

The Bronx contains the poorest congressional district in the United States, the 15th. There are, however, some upper-income, as well as middle-income neighborhoods such as Riverdale, Fieldston, Spuyten Duyvil, Schuylerville, Pelham Bay, Pelham Gardens, Morris Park, and Country Club.

Parts of the Bronx saw a steep decline in population, livable housing, and quality of life in the late 1960s, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and into the early 1990s, culminating in a wave of arson in the late 1970s. The South Bronx, in particular, experienced severe urban decay. The borough began experiencing new population growth starting in the late 1990s and continuing to the present day.

 More information: The Bronx Historical Society

I am born and raised in the Bronx.
Where I grew up, it is a really working-class neighborhood
and it does give you a really good work ethic.

Cara Buono

MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, FROM BOXING TO CONCERTS

Today, The Grandma has visited Madison Square Garden in New York City.

 

Meanwhile, The Newtons have been preparing their Cambridge Exam. 

 

They have studied some vocabulary about Irregular Verbs.

 

More info: Irregular Verbs

 

Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylvania Station. 

 

It is the fourth venue to bear the name Madison Square Garden; the first two (1879 and 1890) were located on Madison Square, on East 26th Street and Madison Avenue, with the third Madison Square Garden (1925) farther uptown at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street.

The Garden is used for professional ice hockey and basketball, as well as boxing, concerts, ice shows, circuses, professional wrestling and other forms of sports and entertainment. It is close to other midtown Manhattan landmarks, including the Empire State Building, Koreatown, and Macy's at Herald Square.

It is home to the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League (NHL), the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and was home to the New York Liberty (WNBA) from 1997 to 2017.

Originally called Madison Square Garden Center, the Garden opened on February 11, 1968, and is the oldest major sporting facility in the New York metropolitan area. It is the oldest arena in the NBA and the NHL.

As of 2016, MSG is also the second-busiest music arena in the world in terms of ticket sales. Including two major renovations, its total construction cost was approximately $1.1 billion, and it has been ranked as one of the 10 most expensive stadium venues ever built. It is part of the Pennsylvania Plaza office and retail complex, named for the railway station. Several other operating entities related to the Garden share its name.

Madison Square is formed by the intersection of 5th Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in Manhattan. It was named after James Madison, fourth President of the United States.

Madison Square Garden sits directly atop a major transportation hub in Pennsylvania Station, featuring access to commuter rail service from the Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit, as well as Amtrak. The Garden is also accessible via the New York City Subway. The A, ​C, and ​E trains stop at 8th Avenue and the 1, ​2, and ​3 trains at 7th Avenue in Penn Station. The Garden can also be reached from nearby Herald Square with the B, ​D, ​F, <F>, ​M​, N, ​Q, ​R, and ​W trains at the 34th Street -Herald Square station as well as PATH train service from the 33rd Street station.

More information: Madison Square Garden

 One night in 1974, I made the comment,
'Here I am, this fat kid, the son of a plumber.
I don't look like a body builder;
fist fight in a parking lot, it doesn't matter.
I'm getting ready to sell out this building.
I'm going to sell out Madison Square Garden one day.
This is the American Dream. I'm living it.'

Dusty Rhodes

NOLITA, ENJOYING THE BEST CATALAN CUISINE IN NYC

Today, The Grandma has visited some of the most important Catalan restaurants in Nolita, New York City.

Meanwhile, The Newtons have been preparing their Cambridge Exam. 

 

They have studied some vocabulary about Tourism and Shopping.

 

 

More information: Tourism & Shopping

Nolita, sometimes written as NoLIta or NoLita, and deriving from North of Little Italy is a neighbourhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.

 

Nolita is situated in Lower Manhattan, bounded on the north by Houston Street, on the east by the Bowery, on the south roughly by Broome Street, and on the west by Lafayette Street.

It lies east of SoHo, south of NoHo, west of the Lower East Side, and north of Little Italy and Chinatown.

The neighbourhood was long regarded as part of Little Italy, but has lost its recognizable Italian character in recent decades because of rapidly rising rents. The Feast of San Gennaro, dedicated to Saint Januarius Pope of Naples, is held in the neighbourhood every year following Labor Day, on Mulberry Street between Houston and Grand Streets.

The feast, as recreated on Elizabeth Street between Prince and Houston Streets, was featured in the film The Godfather Part II.

In the second half of the 1990s, the neighbourhood saw an influx of yuppies and an explosion of expensive retail boutiques and restaurants and bars. After unsuccessful tries to pitch it as part of SoHo, real estate promoters and others came up with several different names for consideration for this newly upscale neighborhood. 

The name that stuck, as documented in an article on May 5, 1996, in the New York Times city section debating various monikers for the newly trendy area, was Nolita, an abbreviation for North of Little Italy. This name follows the pattern started by SoHo (South of Houston Street) and TriBeCa (Triangle Below Canal Street).

The neighbourhood includes St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, at the intersection of Mulberry, Mott, and Prince Streets, which opened in 1815 and was rebuilt in 1868 after a fire. The cornerstone was laid on June 8, 1809. This building served as New York City's Roman Catholic cathedral until the new St. Patrick's Cathedral was opened on Fifth Avenue in Midtown in 1879.

St. Patrick's Old Cathedral is now a parish church. In 2010, St. Patrick's Old Cathedral was honoured and became The Basilica at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral.

The Puck Building, a nine-story-high ornate structure built in 1885 on the corner of Houston and Lafayette Streets, originally housed the headquarters of the now-defunct Puck Magazine.

Since 2010, a Little Australia has emerged and is growing in Nolita on Mulberry Street and Mott Street.

More information: Compass

In the middle of Little Italy little
did we know that we riddled
some middleman who didn't do diddily.

Big Pun

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS SCHOOL

Today, The Grandma has visited Columbia University in the City of New York, one of the most pretigious universities around the world.

 

Meanwhile, The Newtons have been preparing their Cambridge Exam. 

 

They have studied some vocabulary about Countries and The Classroom.

 

More info: Countries & The Classroom 

 

Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private Ivy League research university in New York City.

Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan, Columbia is the oldest institution of higher education in New York and the fifth-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and is considered one of the most prestigious schools in the world.

It is one of nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence, seven of which belong to the Ivy League. Columbia is ranked among the top universities in the world.

Columbia was established by royal charter under George II of Great Britain.

It was renamed Columbia College in 1784 following the American Revolution, and in 1787 was placed under a private board of trustees headed by former students Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. In 1896, the campus was moved to its current location in Morningside Heights and renamed Columbia University.

Columbia scientists and scholars have played a pivotal role in scientific breakthroughs including brain-computer interface; the laser and maser; nuclear magnetic resonance; the first nuclear pile; the first nuclear fission reaction in the Americas; the first evidence for plate tectonics and continental drift; and much of the initial research and planning for the Manhattan Project during World War II.

Columbia is organized into twenty schools, including four undergraduate schools and 16 graduate schools. The university's research efforts include the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and accelerator laboratories with Big Tech firms such as Amazon and IBM.

More information: Columbia

Columbia is a founding member of the Association of American Universities and was the first school in the United States to grant the MD degree. The university also annually administers the Pulitzer Prize. With over 14.5 million volumes, Columbia University Library is the third-largest private research library in the United States.

As of December 2021, its alumni, faculty, and staff have included: seven Founding Fathers of the United States; four U.S. presidents; 33 foreign heads of state; two secretaries-general of the United Nations; ten justices of the United States Supreme Court, one of whom currently serves; 99 Nobel laureates; 125 National Academy of Sciences members; 53 living billionaires; 22 Olympic medalists; 33 Academy Award winners; and 125 Pulitzer Prize recipients.

Discussions regarding the founding of a college in the Province of New York began as early as 1704, at which time Colonel Lewis Morris wrote to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the missionary arm of the Church of England, persuading the society that New York City was an ideal community in which to establish a college. However, it was not until the founding of the College of New Jersey (renamed Princeton) across the Hudson River in New Jersey that the City of New York seriously considered founding a college.

In 1746, an act was passed by the general assembly of New York to raise funds for the foundation of a new college. In 1751, the assembly appointed a commission of ten New York residents, seven of whom were members of the Church of England, to direct the funds accrued by the state lottery towards the foundation of a college.

The majority of Columbia's graduate and undergraduate studies are conducted in Morningside Heights on Seth Low's late-19th century vision of a university campus where all disciplines could be taught at one location. The campus was designed along Beaux-Arts planning principles by the architects McKim, Mead & White. Columbia's main campus occupies more than six city blocks, or 13 ha, in Morningside Heights, New York City, a neighbourhood that contains a number of academic institutions.

More information: History of New York City

 Some years ago I became president of Columbia University
nd learned within 24 hours to be ready
to speak at the drop of a hat,
and I learned something more,
the trustees were expected to be ready
to speak at the passing of the hat.

Dwight D. Eisenhower