1.
National Register of Historic Places
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The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
2.
Beaux-Arts architecture
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Beaux-Arts architecture expresses the academic neoclassical architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The style of instruction that produced Beaux-Arts architecture continued without interruption until 1968. The Beaux-Arts style heavily influenced the architecture of the United States in the period from 1880 to 1920, in contrast, many European architects of the period 1860–1914 outside France gravitated away from Beaux-Arts and towards their own national academic centers. American architects of the Beaux-Arts generation often returned to Greek models, for the first time, repertories of photographs supplemented meticulous scale drawings and on-site renderings of details. Beaux-Arts training emphasized the production of quick conceptual sketches, highly finished perspective presentation drawings, close attention to the program, site considerations tended toward social and urbane contexts. In the façade shown to the right, Diana grasps the cornice she sits on in an action typical of Beaux-Arts integration of sculpture with architecture. A sense of appropriate idiom at the craftsman level supported the teams of the first truly modern architectural offices. The prestige of the École gave the style Beaux-Arts a second wind in combining the new manner with the traditional training and they were followed by an entire generation. Henry Hobson Richardson absorbed Beaux-Arts lessons in massing and spatial planning and his Beaux-Arts training taught him to transcend slavish copying and recreate in the essential fully digested and idiomatic manner of his models. Richardson evolved a personal style freed of historicism that was influential in early Modernism. The White City of the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago was a triumph of the movement, the Beaux-Arts curriculum was subsequently begun at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. From 1916, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City schooled architects, painters, bosworth, Carnegie Mellon University, designed by Henry Hornbostel, and the University of Texas, designed by Paul Philippe Cret. Beaux-Arts architecture also brought a civic face to the railroad, two of the best American examples of the Beaux-Arts tradition stand within a few blocks of each other, Grand Central Terminal and the New York Public Library. Another prominent U. S. example of the style is the largest academic dormitory in the world, in the late 1800s, during the years when Beaux-Arts architecture was at a peak in France, Americans were one of the largest groups of foreigners in Paris. Many of them were architects and students of architecture who brought this back to America. Beaux-Arts was very prominent in public buildings in Canada in the early 20th century, notably all three prairie provinces legislative buildings are in this style. Buenos Aires is a center of Beaux-Arts architecture which continued to be built as late as the 1950s, national Theatre, Melbourne General Post Office building, Forrest Place, Perth Argus Building. Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York, A Photographic Guide United States, sixteenth Street Architecture – profiles of Beaux-Arts architecture in Washington D. C
3.
Apartment
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An apartment or a flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building, correctly, on a single level without a stair. In Scotland it is called a block of flats or, if its a traditional building, a tenement. Apartments may be owned by an owner/occupier, by leasehold tenure or rented by tenants, the term apartment is favoured in North America. In the UK, the apartment is more usual in professional real estate and architectural circles where otherwise the term flat is commonly. Technically multi-storey apartments are referred to as duplex indicating the number of floors within the property, usage generally follows the British in Ireland, Singapore, Hong Kong and most Commonwealth nations. In Malaysian English, flat often denotes a housing block of lesser quality meant for lower-income groups, while apartment is more generic, in Australian English, the term flat is traditionally used, but the term unit is frequently used. More recently, the apartment is being used. Tenement law refers to the basis of permanent property such as land or rents. It may be combined as in Messuage or Tenement to encompass all the land, buildings. Most apartments are in buildings designed for the purpose, but large older houses are divided into apartments. The word apartment denotes a unit or section in a building. In some locations, particularly the United States, the word connotes a rental unit owned by the building owner, in the England and Wales, some flat owners own shares in the company that owns the freehold of the building as well as holding the flat under a lease. This is commonly known as a share of freehold flat, the freehold company has the right to collect annual ground rents from each of the flat owners in the building. The freeholder can also develop or sell the building, subject to the usual planning and this does not happen in Scotland, where long leasehold of residential property was formerly unusual, and is now not possible. In some countries the word unit is a general term referring to both apartments and rental business suites. The word unit is used only in the context of a specific building. This building has three units or Im going to rent a unit in this building, but not Im going to rent a unit somewhere, in Australia, a unit refers to flats, apartments or even semi-detached houses. An industrial, warehouse, or commercial space converted to an apartment is called a loft
4.
Embassy Row
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By extension, the name may be used to encompass nearby streets which also host diplomatic buildings. The segment between Scott Circle and Sheridan Circle gained the nickname Millionaires Row, the Great Depression caused many to sell their homes. The expansive old estates proved well-suited for use as embassies, and also as lodges of social clubs, giving Embassy Row its present name, the greatest number of embassies and chanceries moved to Embassy Row and the neighboring Kalorama neighborhood in the 1940s and early 1950s. More recently, several prominent think tanks have clustered in that area, many of Embassy Rows diplomatic buildings open to the public once a year in May, an initiative nicknamed Passport DC. This event was started in 2007 by the embassies of states of the European Union. Within this program, the EU embassies still open on a separate day, a separate program, the Embassy Series, started in 1994 and coordinates concerts organized in the embassy buildings. Embassy Row is protected as the Massachusetts Avenue Historic District, created in 1974 following controversy about the demolition of townhouses on 1722-28 Massachusetts Ave NW. Many of its buildings are listed in the DC Inventory of Historic Sites. The Western boundary used here is identical to that of the Historic District, however, some describe Embassy Row as extending as far west as Wisconsin Avenue NW. This section of Massachusetts Avenue was the one known as the Millionaires Row of Washington, D. C. in the late 19th, mcGuire House, now Embassy of Chile 1740 Massachusetts Ave NW, Paul H. S. Peyton Russell House, now Embassy of Kenya 2251 R St NW, a special case is the statue of Winston Churchill, which has one foot on the grounds of the British Embassy and the other on federal land to symbolize the UK-US alliance. In the early days of Washington, D. C. most diplomats, thorntons choice of location, at a time when Dupont Circle was still almost entirely undeveloped, may be considered the origin of Embassy Row as a diplomatic neighborhood. In the first three decades of the 20th Century, several European legations gathered farther North-East, on a section of 16th Street near Meridian Hill Park. This area was developed by local resident Mary Foote Henderson to attract embassies. However, the neighborhood was hit by the Great Depression, former embassy buildings in the Meridian Hill area include those of France, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, Egypt, Italy, and Brazil. The embassies of Cuba, Lithuania, and Poland are still located in the Meridian Hill neighborhood, a bit further up 16th Street, the Embassy Building No. 10, built in the late 1920s, never served as an embassy despite being designed as one. A number of embassies are scattered south of Massachusetts Avenue and closer to the National Mall, notably those of Canada, Mexico, Spain, Saudi Arabia
5.
Andrew Mellon
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Andrew William Mellon was an American banker, businessman, industrialist, philanthropist, art collector, and politician. From the wealthy Mellon family of Pennsylvania, he established a vast business empire before transitioning into politics. He served as United States Secretary of the Treasury from March 9,1921 to February 12,1932, presiding over the years of the 1920s. Leaving office after the onset of the Great Depression, he served as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. A conservative Republican, Mellon lowered taxes and government spending in the aftermath of World War I, Mellon was born in Pennsylvania on March 24,1855. His name is listed on the 1860 Census as William A. Mellon and his father was Thomas Mellon, a banker and judge who was a Scots-Irish immigrant from County Tyrone, Ireland, his mother was Sarah Jane Negley Mellon. He had three brothers, Thomas A. James R. and Samuel, and he also had a younger brother named Richard B. He was educated at the Western University of Pennsylvania and left before graduating, in 1872 his father set him up in a lumber and coal business, which he soon turned into a profitable enterprise. He joined his fathers banking firm, T, Mellon & Sons, in 1880 and two years later had ownership of the bank transferred to him. In 1889, Mellon helped organize the Union Trust Company and Union Savings Bank of Pittsburgh and he also branched into industrial activities, oil, steel, shipbuilding, and construction. Areas where Mellons backing created giant enterprises included aluminum, industrial abrasives, Mellon financed Charles Martin Hall, whose refinery grew into the Aluminum Company of America. He became the partner of Edward Goodrich Acheson in manufacturing silicon carbide and he created an entire industry through his help to Heinrich Koppers, inventor of coke ovens which transformed industrial waste into usable products such as coal-gas, coal-tar, and sulfur. He also became an investor in the New York Shipbuilding Corporation. Mellon was one of the wealthiest people in the United States, while he served as Secretary of the U. S. Treasury Department his wealth peaked at around $300–$400 million in 1929–1930. Mellon was a member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, along with his closest friends Henry Clay Frick and Philander Knox, Mellon served as a director of the Pittsburgh National Bank of Commerce. Mellon also was one-third owner with Frick and one Charles W. Mauck in the Old Overholt whiskey distillery in West Overton, at the time, Old Overholt was one of the largest and most respected whiskey producers in the country. In 1907, as prohibition became more popular across the country, Frick and Mellon removed their names from the distilling license and it is believed that Mellons connections in the Treasury Department are what allowed the company to secure a medicinal permit during Prohibition. This permit allowed Overholt to sell existing whiskey stocks to druggists for medicinal use, when Frick died in December 1919, he left his share to Mellon
6.
Dupont Circle
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Dupont Circle is a traffic circle, park, neighborhood, and historic district in Northwest Washington, D. C. The traffic circle is located at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue NW, Connecticut Avenue NW, New Hampshire Avenue NW, P Street NW, and 19th Street NW. The Dupont Circle neighborhood is bounded approximately by 16th Street NW to the east, 22nd Street NW to the west, M Street NW to the south, the local government Advisory Neighborhood Commission and the Dupont Circle Historic District have slightly different boundaries. The circle is named for Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont, the area that now constitutes Dupont Circle was once home to a brickyard and slaughterhouse. Improvements made in the 1870s by a board of public works headed by Alexander Boss Shepherd transformed the area into a residential neighborhood. In 1871, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction of the circle, then called Pacific Circle. On February 25,1882, Congress renamed it Dupont Circle, unveiled on December 20,1884, the statue was sculpted by Launt Thompson, and the circle was landscaped with exotic flowers and ornamental trees. In 1920, the current double-tiered white marble fountain replaced the statue, during the 1870s and 1880s, mansions were built along Massachusetts Avenue, one of Washingtons grand avenues, and townhouses were built throughout the neighborhood. In 1872, the British built a new embassy on Connecticut Avenue, stewarts Castle was built in 1873 on the north side of the circle. By the 1920s, Connecticut Avenue was more commercial in character, some residences, including Senator Philetus Sawyers mansion at Connecticut and R Street, were demolished to make way for office buildings and shops. The Patterson House, at 15 Dupont Circle, served as a residence for President Calvin Coolidge while the actual White House was being repaired in 1927. In 1933, the National Park Service took over administering the circle, Connecticut Avenue was widened in the late 1920s, and increased traffic in the neighborhood caused a great deal of congestion in the circle, making it difficult for pedestrians to get around. Medians were installed in 1948, in the circle, to separate the traffic on Massachusetts Avenue from the local traffic. In 1949 traffic tunnels and a streetcar station were built under the circle as part of the now-defunct Capital Transit project. The tunnels allowed trams and vehicles traveling along Connecticut Avenue to pass more quickly past the circle, when streetcar service ended in 1962, the entrances to the underground station were filled in and paved over, leaving only the traffic tunnel. The neighborhood declined after World War II and particularly after the 1968 riots, the neighborhood took on a bohemian feel and became popular among the gay and lesbian community. D. C. s first gay bookstore, Lambda Rising, opened in 1974, in 1975, the store ran the worlds first gay-oriented television commercial. Gentrification accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s, and the area is now a mainstream and trendy location with coffeehouses, restaurants, bars
7.
Heritage Documentation Programs
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These programs were established to document historic places in the United States. Records consist of measured drawings, archival photographs, and written reports, in 1933, NPS established the Historic American Buildings Survey following a proposal by Charles E. Peterson, a young landscape architect in the agency. It was founded as a constructive program for architects, draftsmen. Guided by field instructions from Washington, D. C. the first HABS recorders were tasked with documenting a representative sampling of Americas architectural heritage, by creating an archive of historic architecture, HABS provided a database of primary source material and documentation for the then-fledgling historic preservation movement. Earlier private projects included the White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs, notable HABS photographers include Jack Boucher, who worked for the project for over 40 years. The Historic American Engineering Record program was founded on January 10,1969, by NPS, HAER documents historic mechanical and engineering artifacts. Since the advent of HAER, the program is typically called HABS/HAER. Today much of the work of HABS/HAER is done by student teams during the summer, eric DeLony headed HAER from 1971 to 2003. In October 2000, NPS and the American Society of Landscape Architects established a sister program, a predecessor, the Historic American Landscape and Garden Project, recorded historic Massachusetts gardens between 1935 and 1940. That project was funded by the Works Progress Administration, but was administered by HABS, the permanent collection of HABS/HAER/HALS are housed at the Library of Congress, which was established in 1790 as the replacement reference library of the United States Congress. It has since expanded to serve as the National Library of the United States, U. S. publishers are required to deposit a copy of every copyrighted and published work, book monograph. As a branch of the United States Government, its works are in the public domain in the US. Many images, drawings, and documents are available through the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, including proposed, demolished, and existing structures, locales, projects, and designs. Jack Boucher, former HABS/HAER photographer Jet Lowe, former HAER photographer National Register of Historic Places HAER,30 Years of Recording Our Technological Heritage, IA, The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology. Documenting Complexity, The Historic American Engineering Record and Americas Technological History, IA, The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology. National Park Service−NPS, official Heritage Documentation Programs website
8.
Sumner Welles
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Benjamin Sumner Welles was an American government official and diplomat in the Foreign Service. He was a foreign policy adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and served as Under Secretary of State from 1937 to 1943. Benjamin Sumner Welles was born in New York City, the son of Benjamin J. Welles and Frances Wyeth Swan and he preferred to be called Sumner after his famous relative Charles Sumner, a leading Senator from Massachusetts during the Civil War and Reconstruction. His family was wealthy and was connected to the eras most prominent families and he was a grandnephew of Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, known as the Mrs. Astor. Among his ancestors were Thomas Welles, a colonial Governor of Connecticut, the Welles family was also connected to the Roosevelts. A cousin of Sumner Welles married James Rosy Roosevelt, Jr. half brother of future President Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the age of 10, Welles was entered in Miss Kearnys Day School for Boys in New York City. In September 1904, he entered Groton School in Massachusetts, where he remained for six years, there he roomed with Hall Roosevelt, the brother of Eleanor Roosevelt. He served as a page at Franklin D. Roosevelts wedding to Eleanor in March 1905 at the age of 12, Welles attended Harvard College where he studied economics, Iberian literature and culture, and graduated after three years in 1914. Sumner Welles married Esther Hope Slater of Boston, the sister of a Harvard roommate on April 14,1915, in Webster and she came from a similarly prominent family that owned a textile empire based in Massachusetts. She was descended from industrialist Samuel Slater and granddaughter of the Boston painter William Morris Hunt, Welles and his wife had two sons, Benjamin Welles, a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, later his fathers biographer, and Arnold Welles. Slater obtained a divorce from Welles in Paris in 1923 on grounds of abandonment, Welles occasionally gained public notice for his art dealings. In 1925, for example, he sold a collection of Japanese screens that had been on exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for several years. Welles married Mathilde Scott Townsend, an international beauty whose portrait had been painted by John Singer Sargent, on June 27,1925. Until World War II, the Welleses lived on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D. C. in the landmark Townsend Mansion, designed by Carrère and Hastings and she died in 1949 of peritonitis while vacationing in Switzerland with her husband. He entertained foreign dignitaries and diplomats there and hosted meetings of senior officials. FDR used the site as an escape from the city as well. Welles married Harriette Appleton Post, a friend, in New York City on January 8,1952. Although the two men were mistaken for cousins, Welles was no relation to director Orson Welles
9.
Albert Gallatin
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Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin was a Swiss-American politician, diplomat, ethnologist and linguist. He served as a Representative, Senator, United States Ambassador and was the longest-serving United States Secretary of the Treasury, in 1831, he helped found the University of the City of New York, now New York University. Born in Geneva in present-day Switzerland, Gallatin immigrated to America in the 1780s and was naturalized in Morgantown and he ultimately settled in western Pennsylvania. He was politically active against the Federalist Party program and was elected to the United States Senate in 1793, however, he was removed from office by a 14–12 party-line vote after a protest raised by his opponents suggested he did not meet the required nine years of citizenship. Two years later, he was elected to the House of Representatives and he also helped found the House Committee on Finance and often engineered withholding of finances by the House as a method of overriding executive actions to which he objected. He was secretary from 1801 until February 1814, under both Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, holding the longest tenure in office in American history. Gallatin never wanted the position and was humiliated when forced to withdraw from the race because he lacked popular support, in 1826 and 1827, he served as Ambassador to Great Britain and negotiated several useful agreements, such as a ten-year extension of the joint occupation of Oregon. Gallatin settled in New York City after his return to the US and it was intended to offer university education to the working and merchant classes as well as the wealthy. He became president of the National Bank in New York City and his last great endeavor was founding the American Ethnological Society in 1842 and serving as its president until 1848. With his studies of the languages of Native Americans, he has called the father of American ethnology. At his death in 1849, Gallatin was the last surviving member of the Jefferson Cabinet, Gallatin was born in Geneva, Switzerland, to wealthy Jean Gallatin and his wife, Sophie Albertine Rollaz. Gallatins family had influence in Switzerland, and many family members held distinguished positions in the magistracy, military. Gallatins father, a merchant, died in 1765, followed by his mother in April 1770. Now orphaned, Gallatin was taken into the care of Mademoiselle Pictet, in January 1773, Gallatin was sent to boarding school. The democratic spirit of the United States attracted him and he decided to emigrate, in April 1780, he secretly left Geneva with his classmate Henri Serre. Carrying letters of recommendation from eminent Colonials that the Gallatin family procured, the men left France in May, sailing on an American ship. They reached Cape Ann on July 14 and arrived in Boston the next day, bored with monotonous Bostonian life, the men set sail with a Swiss female companion, to the settlement of Machias, located on the northeastern tip of the Maine frontier. At Machias, Gallatin operated a bartering venture, in which he dealt with a variety of goods and he enjoyed the simple life and the natural environment surrounding him
10.
National Gallery of Art
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The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D. C. located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was established in 1937 for the American people by a joint resolution of the United States Congress. Andrew W. Mellon donated an art collection and funds for construction. The Gallery often presents temporary special exhibitions spanning the world and the history of art and it is one of the largest museums in North America. In 1930 Mellon formed the A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, when quizzed by Abbot, he explained that the project was in the hands of the Trust and that its decisions were partly dependent on the attitude of the Government towards the gift. Designed by architect John Russell Pope, the new structure was completed and accepted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on behalf of the American people on March 17,1941. Neither Mellon nor Pope lived to see the completed, both died in late August 1937, only two months after excavation had begun. At the time of its inception it was the largest marble structure in the world, as anticipated by Mellon, the creation of the National Gallery encouraged the donation of other substantial art collections by a number of private donors. The Gallerys East Building was constructed in the 1970s on much of the land left over from the original congressional joint resolution. It was funded by Mellons children Paul Mellon and Ailsa Mellon Bruce, designed by famed architect I. M. Pei, the contemporary structure was completed in 1978 and was opened on June 1 of that year by President Jimmy Carter. The new building was built to house the Museums collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures. The design received a National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1981, the final addition to the complex is the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. Completed and opened to the public on May 23,1999, the National Gallery of Art is supported through a private-public partnership. The United States federal government provides funds, through annual appropriations, to support the museums operations, all artwork, as well as special programs, are provided through private donations and funds. The museum is not part of the Smithsonian Institution, noted directors of the National Gallery have included David E. Finley, Jr. John Walker, and J. Carter Brown. Rusty Powell III is the current director, entry to both buildings of the National Gallery of Art is free of charge. From Monday through Saturday, the museum is open from 10 a. m. –5 p. m. it is open from 11 –6 p. m. on Sundays and it is closed on December 25 and January 1. The museum comprises two buildings, the West Building and the East Building linked by an underground passage
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