1.
Paul Auster
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His books have been translated into more than forty languages. Paul Auster was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Jewish middle-class parents of Polish descent, Queenie and he is the older cousin of conservative columnist Lawrence Auster. He grew up in South Orange, New Jersey and Newark, after graduating from Columbia University in 1970, he moved to Paris, France where he earned a living translating French literature. Since returning to the U. S. in 1974, he has published poems, essays and these books are not conventional detective stories organized around a mystery and a series of clues. Rather, he uses the form to address existential issues and questions of identity, space, language. Comparing the two works, Auster said, I believe the world is filled with strange events, reality is a great deal more mysterious than we ever give it credit for. In that sense, the Trilogy grows directly out of The Invention of Solitude, Austers heroes often find themselves obliged to work as part of someone elses inscrutable and larger-than-life schemes. In 1995, Auster wrote and co-directed the films Smoke and Blue in the Face, Austers more recent works, Oracle Night, The Brooklyn Follies, and the novella Travels in the Scriptorium, have also met critical acclaim. He was on the PEN American Center Board of Trustees from 2004-2009, I guess I’m getting to the point where I tell myself if I can’t write another book it’s not a tragedy. Does it matter if I publish 16 or 17 novels, unless it’s absolutely urgent, there’s no point in writing. In 2012, Auster was quoted as saying in an interview that he would not visit Turkey to protest its treatment of journalists, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan replied, As if we need you. Who cares if you come or not, lacans theory declares that we enter the world through words, that we observe the world through our senses, but the world we sense is structured in our mind through language. Thus our unconscious also is structured as a language and this leaves us with a sense of anomaly, we can only perceive the world through language, but we have the feeling that something is missing. This is the sense of being outside language, the world can only be constructed through language, but it always leaves something uncovered, something that cannot be told or be thought of, and may only be sensed. This is one of the themes of Paul Austers writing. Lacan is considered to be one of the key figures of French poststructuralism, the common factor of both ideas is the question of the meaning of symbols for human beings. Austers protagonists are often writers who establish meaning in their lives through writing, edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Beckett and Herman Melville have also had a strong influence on Austers writing. Not only do their characters reappear in Austers work, Auster also uses variations on the themes of these writers and he writes, This idea of contrasts, contradictions, paradox, I think, gets very much to the heart of what novel writing is for me
2.
John Ashbery
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John Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won every major American award for poetry. Renowned for its complexity and opacity, Ashberys work still proves controversial. Ashbery has stated that he wishes his work to be accessible to as people as possible. At the same time, he joked that some critics still view him as a harebrained, homegrown surrealist whose poetry defies even the rules. Ashbery was born in Rochester, New York, the son of Helen, a teacher, and Chester Frederick Ashbery. He was raised on a farm near Lake Ontario, his brother died when they were children, Ashbery was educated at Deerfield Academy, an all-boys school, where he read such poets as W. H. Auden and Dylan Thomas and began writing poetry. Two of his poems were published in Poetry magazine under the name of a classmate who had submitted them without Ashberys knowledge or permission. Ashbery also published a handful of poems, including a sonnet about his love for a fellow student, and a piece of short fiction in the school newspaper. His first ambition was to be a painter, from the age of 11 until he was 15 Ashbery took weekly classes at the art museum in Rochester. Ashbery graduated in 1949 with an A. B. cum laude, from Harvard College, where he was a member of the Harvard Advocate, the literary magazine. He wrote his thesis on the poetry of W. H. Auden. At Harvard he befriended fellow writers Kenneth Koch, Barbara Epstein, V. R. Lang, Frank OHara and Edward Gorey, Ashbery went on to study briefly at New York University, and received an M. A. from Columbia in 1951. After working as a copywriter in New York from 1951 to 1955, from the mid-1950s and he was an editor of the 12 issues of Art and Literature and the New Poetry issue of Harry Mathews Locus Solus. After returning to the United States, he continued his career as an art critic for New York, several years later, he began a stint as an editor at Partisan Review, serving from 1976 to 1980. During the fall of 1963, Ashbery became acquainted with Andy Warhol at a poetry reading at the Literary Theatre in New York. He had previously written favorable reviews of Warhols art, Ashbery returned to New York near the end of 1965 and was welcomed with a large party at the Factory. He became close friends with poet Gerard Malanga, Warhols assistant, in 1967 his poem Europe was used as the central text in Eric Salzmans Foxes and Hedgehogs as part of the New Image of Sound series at Hunter College, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies
3.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
4.
Brooklyn
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Brooklyn is the most populous borough of New York City, with a Census-estimated 2,636,735 residents in 2015. It borders the borough of Queens at the end of Long Island. Today, if New York City dissolved, Brooklyn would rank as the third-most populous city in the U. S. behind Los Angeles, the borough continues, however, to maintain a distinct culture. Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves, Brooklyns official motto, displayed on the Borough seal and flag, is Eendraght Maeckt Maght which translates from early modern Dutch as Unity makes strength. Since 2010, Brooklyn has evolved into a hub of entrepreneurship and high technology startup firms. The history of European settlement in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years, the neighborhood of Marine Park was home to North Americas first tidal mill. It was built by the Dutch, and the foundation can be seen today, however, the area was not formally settled as a town. Many incidents and documents relating to this period are in Gabriel Furmans early compilation, what is today Brooklyn left Dutch hands after the final English conquest of New Netherland in 1664, a prelude to the Second Anglo–Dutch War. The English reorganized the six old Dutch towns on southwestern Long Island as Kings County on November 1,1683 and this tract of land was recognized as a political entity for the first time, and the municipal groundwork was laid for a later expansive idea of Brooklyn identity. On August 27,1776 was fought the Battle of Long Island, the first major engagement fought in the American Revolutionary War after independence was declared, and the largest of the entire conflict. British troops forced Continental Army troops under George Washington off the heights near the sites of Green-Wood Cemetery, Prospect Park. The fortified American positions at Brooklyn Heights consequently became untenable and were evacuated a few days later, One result of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 was the evacuation of the British from New York City, celebrated by residents into the 20th century. The New York Navy Yard operated in Wallabout Bay for the entire 19th century, the first center of urbanization sprang up in the Town of Brooklyn, directly across from Lower Manhattan, which saw the incorporation of the Village of Brooklyn in 1817. Reliable steam ferry service across the East River to Fulton Landing converted Brooklyn Heights into a town for Wall Street. Ferry Road to Jamaica Pass became Fulton Street to East New York, Town and Village were combined to form the first, kernel incarnation of the City of Brooklyn in 1834. Industrial deconcentration in mid-century was bringing shipbuilding and other manufacturing to the part of the county. Each of the two cities and six towns in Kings County remained independent municipalities, and purposely created non-aligning street grids with different naming systems and it later became the most popular and highest circulation afternoon paper in America. The publisher changed to L. Van Anden on April 19,1842, on May 14,1849 the name was shortened to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, on September 5,1938 it was further shortened to Brooklyn Eagle
5.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
6.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
7.
Marty Markowitz
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Martin Marty Markowitz is a former Borough President of Brooklyn, New York City. He was first elected in 2001 after serving 23 years as a New York State Senator and his third and final term ended in December 2013. He was born and raised in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in a Jewish family. His father, Robert, was a waiter at Sids, a kosher delicatessen but died when Marty was nine years old, his mother, Dorothy, Markowitz graduated from Wingate High School in Brooklyns Prospect Lefferts Gardens section in 1962. He took night classes at Brooklyn College for nine years, Markowitz began his public service career in 1971, at the age of 26, by forming the Flatbush Tenants Council in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush. The organization grew into Brooklyn Housing & Family Services, which is the largest tenants advocacy organization operating in New York State today. He was a member of the New York State Senate from 1979 to 2001, sitting in the 183rd, 184th, 185th, 186th, 187th, 188th, 189th, 190th, 191st, 192nd, 193rd and 194th New York State Legislatures. He was known for creating a series of oceanfront concerts and other rather than drafting legislation. Markowitz first ran for Borough President in 1985, but failed to unseat the incumbent Howard Golden, Markowitz subsequently pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for failing to disclose a campaign contribution, he was fined and performed community service. As borough presidents have little real power within city government, Markowitz used the office to be an advocate for Brooklyn, promoting mainstream tourism. In the 2005 New York City mayoral election, he also endorsed Republican incumbent Michael Bloomberg, during the Blackout of 2003, he stood on the Brooklyn Bridge as throngs of fellow Brooklynites trudged home from work in Manhattan, holding a megaphone and cheering Welcome home to Brooklyn. He repeated this during the 2005 New York City transit strike, inviting Brooklynites into Borough Hall for warm drinks and he frequently spoke at public schools in Brooklyn on occasions such as performances and graduations. Markowitz called for demolition of the residences at Admirals Row, saying they are damaged beyond repair, however, the Beardsley / Crawford & Stearns report commissioned by the National Guard as part of the Section 106 review of the property disputes this claim. Markowitz continued promoting affordable housing, as he had in the Senate and he agitated to save Starrett City, the nations largest federally-subsidized housing complex, and keep it affordable forever. As a longtime advocate for seniors, Markowitz campaigned to keep Brooklyn senior centers open when they were threatened with closures due to budget cuts. His office was instrumental in creating two new schools in Brooklyn, the High School for Innovation in Advertising and Media and the Brooklyn Academy of Global Finance. He has supported Brooklyn’s cultural community, including the BAM Cultural District and Issue Project Room, Markowitz has worked to establish Brooklyn’s first-ever LGBT Center for Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Community Pride Center board has been formed to determine a location, former Brooklyn female district leader Renee Collymore worked for him as an executive assistant
8.
Borough president
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A borough president is an elective office in each of the five boroughs of New York City. Borough presidents currently have little power in New York City government and they generally act as advocates for their boroughs at the mayoral agencies, the city council, the New York State government, public corporations, and private businesses. Their authorizing law is codified in title 4, sections 81 to 85 of the New York City Charter, Borough presidents currently have a relatively small discretionary budget for projects within their boroughs. They also act as advocates for their boroughs at mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York State government, public corporations, Borough presidents are currently elected by popular vote to four-year terms, and can serve up to three consecutive terms. Borough presidents influence the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure by appointing NYC community boards, each of the five boroughs has a borough board. They are composed of the president, council members from the borough. Community boards advise on land use and zoning, participate in the city budget process, community boards act in an advisory capacity, and have no authority to make or enforce laws. On January 1,1898, the boroughs of Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, as part of the consolidation, all town and county governments within the city were dissolved, and their powers were given to the city and the boroughs. The boroughs assumed most county functions, but did not replace them, the eastern two-thirds of Queens County was not part of the borough of Queens. The initial city charter established the five borough president offices with terms of four years, the salaries of the presidents of Manhattan, The Bronx, and Brooklyn were $5,000, and those of Queens and Richmond were $3,000. The borough presidents were subject to removal for cause by the mayor, with approval by the governor, in a later writers words, the offices of the borough presidents were created to preserve local pride and affection for the old municipalities after consolidation. Borough presidents gradually gained more authority, assisting in the formulation of more aspects of the city budget and controlling land use, contracts, and franchise powers. Although some borough presidents served for decades, the position was used as a stepping-stone to other elective offices such as judgeships or, in the case of Robert F. Wagner. On March 22,1989, the Supreme Court of the United States, the city charter was quickly revised and passed in a referendum that fall, and the Board of Estimate was abolished. The offices of the presidents were retained, but with greatly reduced power. The borough budgets became the responsibility of the mayor and City Council, Borough presidents currently have a relatively small discretionary budget for projects within their boroughs. The two major remaining appointments of the presidents are one member each on the City Planning Commission. Borough presidents generally adopt specific projects to promote while in office and they also act as advocates for their boroughs at mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York State government, public corporations, and private businesses
9.
Boroughs of New York City
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New York City, in the U. S. state of New York, is composed of five county-level administrative entities called boroughs. They are Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, each borough is coextensive with a county of New York State. The county governments were dissolved when New York City consolidated in 1898, along all city, town. The term borough was adopted to describe a form of administration for each of the five fundamental constituent parts of the newly consolidated city in 1898. Under the 1898 City Charter adopted by the New York State Legislature, the term is also used by politicians to counter a frequent focus on Manhattan and thereby to place all five boroughs on equal footing. In the same vein, the outer boroughs refers to all of the boroughs excluding Manhattan. All of the boroughs were created in 1898 during consolidation, when the current boundaries were established. Ultimately in 1914, the present-day separate Bronx County became the last county to be created in the State of New York, the borough of Queens consists of what formerly was only the western part of a then-larger Queens County. The borough of Staten Island was officially the borough of Richmond until the name was changed in 1975 to reflect its common appellation, there are hundreds of distinct neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs of New York City, many with a definable history and character to call their own. Manhattan is the geographically smallest and most densely populated borough and is home to Central Park and most of the citys skyscrapers. Manhattans population density of 72,033 people per mile in 2015 makes it the highest of any county in the United States. Manhattan is often described as the financial and cultural center of the world, most of the borough is situated on Manhattan Island, at the mouth of the Hudson River. Manhattan Island is loosely divided into Lower, Midtown, and Uptown regions, Uptown Manhattan is divided by Central Park into the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side, and above the park is Harlem. The borough also includes a neighborhood on the United States mainland. New York Citys remaining four boroughs are collectively referred to as the outer boroughs, Brooklyn, on the western tip of Long Island, is the citys most populous borough. Brooklyn is known for its cultural, social, and ethnic diversity, an independent art scene, distinct neighborhoods, downtown Brooklyn is the only central core neighborhood in the outer boroughs. The borough has a long beachfront shoreline including Coney Island, established in the 1870s as one of the earliest amusement grounds in the country, marine Park and Prospect Park are the two largest parks in Brooklyn. Historically a collection of towns and villages founded by the Dutch
10.
Joan Didion
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Joan Didion is an American author best known for her novels and her literary journalism. Her novels and essays explore the disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos, a sense of anxiety or dread permeates much of her work. Joan Didion was born and raised in Sacramento, California, to parents Frank Reese, Didion recalls writing things down as early as age five, though she claims that she never saw herself as a writer until after being published. With this, she identified herself as being a shy, bookish child, then, in 1943 or early 1944, her family settled back in Sacramento, and her father went to Detroit to settle defense contracts for World War I and II. Didion wrote in her 2003 memoir Where I Was From that moving so often made her feel like a perpetual outsider, in 1956, Didion graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. During her senior year, she won first place in an essay contest sponsored by Vogue, in two years at Vogue, Didion worked her way up from promotional copywriter to associate feature editor. While there, she wrote her first novel, Run, River, Play It As It Lays, set in Hollywood, was published in 1970 and A Book of Common Prayer was published in 1977. In 1979, she published The White Album, another collection of pieces from Life, Esquire, The Saturday Evening Post, The New York Times. Her 1983 essay, Salvador, was written after a trip to El Salvador with her husband. Her 1987 nonfiction book, Miami, looked at the Cuban expatriate community in Miami, in 1992, she published After Henry, a collection of twelve geographical essays. In 1996, she published The Last Thing He Wanted, a romantic thriller, Dunne and Didion worked closely together for most of their careers, and indeed much of their writing is intertwined. With Dunne, Didion co-wrote a number of screenplays, including an adaptation of her novel Play It As It Lays for a film that starred Anthony Perkins and she and Dunne also spent eight years adapting the biography of journalist Jessica Savitch into the film Up Close & Personal. She went on a tour following the release of this memoir, doing many readings. She has said that she found the process very therapeutic during her period of mourning, in 2007, she began working on a one-woman adaptation of The Year of Magical Thinking. Produced by Scott Rudin, this Broadway play featured Vanessa Redgrave, although at first she was hesitant about writing a play, she has since found this new genre to be quite exciting. Didion wrote early drafts of the screenplay for an HBO biopic directed by Robert Benton on The Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, sources say it may trace the papers dogged reportage on the Watergate scandal which led to President Richard Nixons resignation. However, Didion is no longer working on that project, in 2011, Knopf published Blue Nights, a memoir about aging. The book focuses on Didions daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne, who died just before her previous memoir and it addresses their relationship with “stunning frankness. ”More generally, the book deals with the anxieties Didion experienced about adopting and raising a child, and also about the aging process
11.
Dennis Lehane
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Dennis Lehane is an American author. He has written novels, the first several were a series of mysteries featuring a couple of protagonists and other recurring characters. Of these, his fourth, Gone, Baby, Gone, was adapted as a 2007 film by the same name, Lehane has taken on different topics in other novels. Those adapted as films of the name included Mystic River, with a 2003 film by the same name, directed by Clint Eastwood. Shutter Island was adapted as a 2010 film directed by Martin Scorsese, Lehane is a graduate of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. Lehane was born and raised in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston and he continues to live in the Boston area, where he sets most of his books. He spent summers on Fieldston Beach in Marshfield, Lehane is the youngest of five children. His father was a foreman for Sears & Roebuck, and his mother worked in a Boston public school cafeteria, both of his parents immigrated from Ireland. His brother, Gerry Lehane, who is two and a half years older than Dennis, trained at the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Gerry is a member of the Invisible City Theatre Company. Lehane married Sheila Lawn, formerly an advocate for the elderly for the city of Boston, Lehane married to Dr. Angela Bernardo, with whom he has one daughter. He lost his beagle, Tessa, in the fall of 2012 and is continuing the search for her and he is a graduate of Boston College High School, Eckerd College, and the graduate program in creative writing at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. He occasionally makes guest appearances as himself in the ABC comedy/drama TV series Castle, Lehanes first novel, A Drink Before the War, which introduced the recurring characters Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, won the 1995 Shamus Award for Best First P. I. Commenting on the movie after a sneak peek, Lehane said, I saw the movie and its terrific, I wasnt gonna say anything if I didnt like it but its really terrific. Reportedly, Lehane has never wanted to write the screenplays for the films, Lehanes novel Mystic River was adapted as a film in 2003, also called Mystic River and directed by Clint Eastwood, it starred Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon. Lehanes first play, Coronado, debuted in New York in December 2005, the play had its regional premiere at American Stage in St. Petersburg in April 2006 and its Midwest premiere in the fall of 2007 with Steep Theatre Company in Chicago. Lehane described working on his novel, The Given Day. The novel opens in 1918 and encompasses the 1919 Boston Police Strike, according to Lehane, The strike changed everything. It had a big effect on the movement, and Prohibition came on the heels of that
12.
John Reed (novelist)
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John Reed is an American novelist. He is the author of four novels, A Still Small Voice, Snowballs Chance with a preface by Alexander Cockburn, The Whole and his fifth book, Tales of Woe, is a collection of twenty-five stories, chronicling true stories of abject misery. Born in 1969 in New York City, Reed is the son of artists David Reed and he attended Hampshire College, and received a Masters in Fine Art in Creative Writing from Columbia University. He teaches at The New School, Reed was an early contributor to, and subsequently an editor with, Open City, a New York literary journal published by Robert Bingham, who later founded the book series. He is affiliated with the New York Press and The Brooklyn Rail, americans are extremely sophisticated in terms of narrative forms, said Reed in an interview. We see it in commercials, we see it on TV, but the narrative forms were talking about are three acts, five acts, depending on how you want to look at it. Theyre all based on a Christian model of sin, suffering, redemption, a Still Small Voice, Reed’s first novel, is a historical novel based on the life of a girl growing up in Kentucky from 1850-1870. Snowballs Chance, Reed’s second novel was a controversial send-up of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and it became a bestseller in the field of books by independent literary publishers. The Whole, Reed’s third novel, parodied MTV and was released in 2005 by MTV Books, the novel described a gigantic hole that appears in the middle of the country, which engulfs four states. Reed, in a new work, returns to the overhaul of canonical English writers in All the Worlds a Grave, fall 2008, Penguin Books. In the literary trick Shakespeares lines are rearranged into a new story, in which Prince Hamlet of Denmark goes to war to claim his bride. Upon a triumphant return home, Hamlet discovers that his mother has murdered his father, visited by his fathers ghost, and goaded by the opportunistic Lieutenant Iago, Hamlet is driven mad by the erroneous belief that Juliet is having an affair with General Romeo. John Reeds website All the Worlds a Grave, book website, the Daily Telegraph, November 22,2002. John Reed, Saint George and the Damn Truth, Moby Lives, John Reed, The Whole, an excerpt, Brooklyn Rail, January 2005. Dinitia Smith, A Pig Returns to the Farm, Thumbing His Snout at Orwell, The New York Times, cathy Young, Blaming the Victim, Reason. com, December 3,2002. Andrea Scrima, Review of Tales of Woe, Rumpus, November 16,2010, interview with Arthur Phillips on rewriting Shakespeare Wikinews, John Reed on Orwell, God, self-destruction and the future of writing
13.
Dave Eggers
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Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He wrote the best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and his writing has appeared in several magazines. Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts, one of four siblings and his father, John K. Eggers, an attorney, was Protestant. His mother, Heidi McSweeney Eggers, a teacher, was Catholic. When Eggers was still a child, the moved to the suburb of Lake Forest, near Chicago. Eggers attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, intending to get a degree in journalism. But, his studies were interrupted by the deaths of both of his parents in 1991–1992, his father in 1991 from brain and lung cancer and these events were chronicled in his first book, the fictionalized A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. At the time, Eggers was 21, and his brother, Christopher, was 8 years old. The two eldest siblings, Bill and Beth, were unable to commit to care for Toph, his brother had a full-time job. As a result, Dave Eggers took the responsibility and he left the University of Illinois and moved to Berkeley, California, with his girlfriend Kirsten and his brother. They initially moved in with Eggers sister, Beth, and her roommate, but eventually found a place in part of town. Toph attended a private school, and Eggers did temp work. Eventually, with his friend David Moodie, he took over a free newspaper called Cups. This gradually evolved into the satirical magazine Might, Eggers lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is married to Vendela Vida, also a writer. Eggerss elder brother, Bill, is a researcher who has worked for several think tanks. Eggerss sister, Beth, committed suicide in November 2001, Eggers briefly spoke about his sisters death during a 2002 fan interview for McSweeneys. He was one of three 2008 TED Prize recipients and his TED Prize wish was for helping community members to personally engage with local public schools. The same year, he was named one of 50 Visionaries Who Are Changing the World by Utne Reader, in 2005, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from Brown University
14.
St. Francis College
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St. Francis College, often referred to as St. Francis of Brooklyn or SFC, is a private, coeducational college located in Brooklyn Heights, New York. It was founded in 1859 by friars of the Order of Servant Franciscans, St. Francis College began as a parochial all-boys academy in the City of Brooklyn and has become a small liberal arts college that has 19 academic departments which offer 72 majors and minors. St. Francis College is an undergraduate institution, yet does have graduate programs in accounting, project management. St. Francis has been ranked nationally and regionally by Forbes magazine, Washington Monthly, Money magazine, St. Francis is set in an urban environment and is considered a commuter college. As of 2015, there were 2,671 undergraduates and 78 graduates, the student to faculty ratio is 17,1 and 55. 9% of classes have 20 or fewer students. The 2,749 students that attend St. Francis College hail from over 80 countries, St. Francis College has been ranked by the New York Times and Forbes as one of the more diverse colleges in the United States. SFC has 19 athletic teams compete in Division I of the NCAA and are known as the Terriers. SFCs teams participate in the Northeast Conference, with the exception of the mens and womens water polo teams compete in the CWPA. This was done at the request of the Bishop of Brooklyn, in 1859 St. Francis College was founded as the St. Francis Academy, the first Catholic school in Brooklyn. St. Francis Academy started in a building on 300 Baltic Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, the first President was founder Brother John McMahon. The Academy expanded and grew to encompass six row houses, with 150 feet of frontage and a former Methodist Church on Baltic Street. Francis College, with the powers to confer diplomas and literary honors possessed by the universities and colleges of New York State. ”St. Francis Academy became St. Francis College. By 1884, St. Francis College encompassed interconnected buildings that were on Baltic and Butler Streets, the entrance to the College was on Baltic Street and the entrance to the monastery was on Butler Street. In June 1892, the college conferred it first Bachelor of Science degree, in 1896, St. Francis fielded the first collegiate men’s basketball team in the New York City. Then in 1902 St. Francis receives its charter from the State of New York in May, from this time on, the College’s curriculum offered only a post-secondary course of study. By 1917, the Colleges enrollment dropped to half due to students enlisting in the military as the United States entered World War I, in 1926, the Franciscan Brothers opened a new facility on Butler Street after raising USD$250,000 through a fundraising campaign dubbed the Great Drive. Less than ten years later, its preparatory school moved out and eventually became a separate institution, St. Francis Preparatory School. As the U. S. moved closer to its entrance into World War II,240 students were enrolled at St. Francis, while the student body remained mostly Irish, the changing demographics of working class Brooklyn were reflected by the growing number of Italian-American students
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St. Francis College Literary Prize
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The St. Francis College Literary Prize is a biennial literary award inaugurated in 2009. The prize of US$50,000 is presented to an author in honor of a third to fifth book of fiction. The winner is selected by a jury and invited to St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York, the SFC Literary Prize is meant to offer encouragement and significant financial support to a mid-career writer. The winner of the prize is announced from a whittled down shortlist during the Brooklyn Book Festival every other year in September,2011 For books published between July 2009 and May 2011. St. Francis College Literary Prize official website
16.
United States dollar
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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
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The New York Times
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The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946
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New York Daily News
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The New York Daily News, officially titled Daily News, is an American newspaper based in New York City. It is the fourth-most widely circulated newspaper in the United States. It was founded in 1919, and was the first U. S. daily printed in tabloid format and it is owned by Mortimer Zuckerman, and is headquartered at 4 New York Plaza in Lower Manhattan. The Daily News was founded by Joseph Medill Patterson in 1919, Patterson and his cousin, Robert R. McCormick were co-publishers of the Chicago Tribune and grandsons of Tribune founder Joseph Medill. On his way back, Patterson met with Alfred Harmsworth, who was the Viscount Northcliffe and publisher of the Daily Mirror, impressed with the advantages of a tabloid, Patterson launched the Daily News on June 26,1919. The Daily News was not a success, and by August 1919. Still, New Yorks many subway commuters found the tabloid format easier to handle, by the time of the papers first anniversary in June 1920, circulation was over 100,000 and by 1925, over a million. Circulation reached its peak in 1947, at 2.4 million daily and 4.7 million on Sunday. The Daily News carried the slogan New Yorks Picture Newspaper from 1920 to 1991, for its emphasis on photographs, and a camera has been part of the newspapers logo from day one. The papers later slogan, developed from a 1985 ad campaign, is New Yorks Hometown Newspaper, while another has been The Eyes, the Ears, the Honest Voice of New York. News-gathering operations were, for a time, organized using two-way radios, prominent sports cartoonists have included Bill Gallo, Bruce Stark and Ed Murawinski. Editorial cartoonists have included C. D. Batchelor, editions were published as extras in 1991 during the brief tenure of Robert Maxwell as publisher. In 1982, and again in the early 1990s during a newspaper strike, in the 1982 instance, the parent Tribune offered the tabloid up for sale. In 1991, millionaire Robert Maxwell offered financial assistance to The News to help it stay in business, when Maxwell died shortly thereafter, The News seceded from his publishing empire, which eventually splintered under questions about whether Maxwell had the financial backing to sustain it. After Maxwells death in 1991, the paper was held together in bankruptcy by existing management, led by editor James Willse, mort Zuckerman bought the paper in 1993. From its founding until 1991, the Daily News was owned by the Tribune Company, in 1948 The News established WPIX, whose call letters were based on The News nickname of New Yorks Picture Newspaper, and later bought what became WPIX-FM, which is now known as WFAN-FM. The News also maintains local bureaux in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens, at City Hall, within One Police Plaza, in January 2012, former News of the World and New York Post editor Colin Myler was appointed editor-in-chief of the Daily News. Myler was replaced by his deputy Jim Rich in September 2015, ather than portraying New York through the partisan divide between liberals and conservatives, The News has played up the more mythic rift between the city’s fiends and heroes
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Publishers Weekly
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Publishers Weekly is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, “The International News Magazine of Book Publishing and Bookselling, with 51 issues a year, the emphasis today is on book reviews. The magazine was founded by bibliographer Frederick Leypoldt in the late 1860s, the publication was a compilation of information about newly published books, collected from publishers and from other sources by Leypoldt, for an audience of booksellers. By 1876, Publishers Weekly was being read by nine tenths of the booksellers in the country, in 1878, Leypoldt sold The Publishers Weekly to his friend Richard Rogers Bowker, in order to free up time for his other bibliographic endeavors. Eventually the publication expanded to include features and articles, harry Thurston Peck was the first editor-in-chief of The Bookman, which began in 1895. Peck worked on its staff from 1895 to 1906, and in 1895, in 1912, Publishers Weekly began to publish its own bestseller lists, patterned after the lists in The Bookman. These were not separated into fiction and non-fiction until 1917, when World War I brought an increased interest in non-fiction by the reading public. Born April 12,1879, in Malden, Massachusetts, Melcher began at age 16 in Bostons Estes & Lauriat Bookstore and he moved to Indianapolis in 1913 for another bookstore job. In 1918, he read in Publishers Weekly that the editorship was vacant. He applied to Richard Rogers Bowker for the job, was hired and he remained with R. R. Bowker for 45 years. While at Publishers Weekly, Melcher began creating space in the publication, in 1919, he teamed with Franklin K. Mathiews, librarian for the Boy Scouts of America, and Anne Carroll Moore, a librarian at the New York Public Library, to create Children’s Book Week. When Bowker died in 1933, Melcher succeeded him as president of the company, in 1943, Publishers Weekly created the Carey–Thomas Award for creative publishing, naming it in honor of Mathew Carey and Isaiah Thomas. In 2008, the circulation was 25,000. It attempts to serve all involved in the creation, production, marketing and sale of the word in book, audio, video. The book review section of Publishers Weekly was added in the early 1940s and grew in importance during the 20th century and through the present time. It currently offers prepublication reviews of 9,000 new trade books each year, in a range of genres and including audiobooks and e-books. These anonymous reviews are short, averaging 200–250 words, and it is not unusual for the section to run as long as 40 pages. In the past, a book review editorial staff of eight editors assigned books to more than 100 freelance reviewers, some are published authors, and others are experts in specific genres or subjects
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Twitter
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Twitter is an online news and social networking service where users post and interact with messages, tweets, restricted to 140 characters. Registered users can post tweets, but those who are unregistered can only read them, users access Twitter through its website interface, SMS or a mobile device app. Twitter Inc. is based in San Francisco, California, United States, Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams and launched in July. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, in 2012, more than 100 million users posted 340 million tweets a day, and the service handled an average of 1.6 billion search queries per day. In 2013, it was one of the ten most-visited websites and has described as the SMS of the Internet. As of 2016, Twitter had more than 319 million monthly active users. On the day of the 2016 U. S. presidential election, Twitter proved to be the largest source of breaking news, Twitters origins lie in a daylong brainstorming session held by board members of the podcasting company Odeo. Jack Dorsey, then a student at New York University. The original project name for the service was twttr, an idea that Williams later ascribed to Noah Glass, inspired by Flickr. The developers initially considered 10958 as a code, but later changed it to 40404 for ease of use. Work on the project started on March 21,2006, when Dorsey published the first Twitter message at 9,50 PM Pacific Standard Time, Dorsey has explained the origin of the Twitter title. we came across the word twitter, and it was just perfect. The definition was a short burst of inconsequential information, and chirps from birds, and thats exactly what the product was. The first Twitter prototype, developed by Dorsey and contractor Florian Weber, was used as a service for Odeo employees. Williams fired Glass, who was silent about his part in Twitters startup until 2011, Twitter spun off into its own company in April 2007. Williams provided insight into the ambiguity that defined this early period in a 2013 interview, With Twitter and they called it a social network, they called it microblogging, but it was hard to define, because it didnt replace anything. There was this path of discovery with something like that, where over time you figure out what it is, Twitter actually changed from what we thought it was in the beginning, which we described as status updates and a social utility. It is that, in part, but the insight we eventually came to was Twitter was really more of an information network than it is a social network, the tipping point for Twitters popularity was the 2007 South by Southwest Interactive conference. During the event, Twitter usage increased from 20,000 tweets per day to 60,000, the Twitter people cleverly placed two 60-inch plasma screens in the conference hallways, exclusively streaming Twitter messages, remarked Newsweeks Steven Levy
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Los Angeles Times
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The Los Angeles Times, commonly referred to as the Times or LA Times, is a paid daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008, the Times is owned by tronc. The Times was first published on December 4,1881, as the Los Angeles Daily Times under the direction of Nathan Cole Jr. and it was first printed at the Mirror printing plant, owned by Jesse Yarnell and T. J. Unable to pay the bill, Cole and Gardiner turned the paper over to the Mirror Company. Mathes had joined the firm, and it was at his insistence that the Times continued publication, in July 1882, Harrison Gray Otis moved from Santa Barbara to become the papers editor. Otis made the Times a financial success, in an era where newspapers were driven by party politics, the Times was directed at Republican readers. As was typical of newspapers of the time, the Times would sit on stories for several days, historian Kevin Starr wrote that Otis was a businessman capable of manipulating the entire apparatus of politics and public opinion for his own enrichment. Otiss editorial policy was based on civic boosterism, extolling the virtues of Los Angeles, the efforts of the Times to fight local unions led to the October 1,1910 bombing of its headquarters, killing twenty-one people. Two union leaders, James and Joseph McNamara, were charged, the American Federation of Labor hired noted trial attorney Clarence Darrow to represent the brothers, who eventually pleaded guilty. Upon Otiss death in 1917, his son-in-law, Harry Chandler, Harry Chandler was succeeded in 1944 by his son, Norman Chandler, who ran the paper during the rapid growth of post-war Los Angeles. Family members are buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery near Paramount Studios, the site also includes a memorial to the Times Building bombing victims. The fourth generation of family publishers, Otis Chandler, held that position from 1960 to 1980, Otis Chandler sought legitimacy and recognition for his familys paper, often forgotten in the power centers of the Northeastern United States due to its geographic and cultural distance. He sought to remake the paper in the model of the nations most respected newspapers, notably The New York Times, believing that the newsroom was the heartbeat of the business, Otis Chandler increased the size and pay of the reporting staff and expanded its national and international reporting. In 1962, the paper joined with the Washington Post to form the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service to syndicate articles from both papers for news organizations. During the 1960s, the paper won four Pulitzer Prizes, more than its previous nine decades combined, eventually the coupon-clipping branches realized that they could make more money investing in something other than newspapers. Under their pressure the companies went public, or split apart, thats the pattern followed over more than a century by the Los Angeles Times under the Chandler family. The papers early history and subsequent transformation was chronicled in an unauthorized history Thinking Big and it has also been the whole or partial subject of nearly thirty dissertations in communications or social science in the past four decades. In 2000, the Tribune Company acquired the Times, placing the paper in co-ownership with then-WB -affiliated KTLA, which Tribune acquired in 1985
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Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
