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.
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
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The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is the New York City agency charged with administering the citys Landmarks Preservation Law. It is the largest municipal preservation agency in the nation, according to the Landmarks Preservation Law, a building must be at least thirty years old before the Commission can declare it a landmark. City law also allows for the Commissions decision to be overturned if an appeal is filed within 90 days, the goal of New York Citys landmarks law is to preserve the aesthetically and historically important buildings, structures, and other objects that make up the New York City vista. These regulations are designed to allow property owners to continue to use and maintain their properties. The commission preserves not only significant buildings, but the overall historical sense of place of neighborhoods that are designated as historic districts. The Commission helps preserve the Citys landmark properties by regulating changes to their significant features, the role of the Commission has evolved over time, especially with the changing real estate market in New York City. The Landmarks Preservation Commissions first public hearing occurred in September,1965 over the future of the Astor Library on Lafayette Street in Manhattan, the building was designated a New York City Landmark. Subsequently, the building was reused as The Public Theater. Twenty-five years later, the Commission was cited by David Dinkins as having preserved New York Citys municipal identity and this success is believed to be due, in part, to the general acceptance of the commission by the citys developers. The Commission was headquartered in the Mutual Reserve Building from 1967 to 1980, and later the Old New York Evening Post Building from 1980 to 1987. As of April 16,2014, there are more than 31,000 landmark properties in New York City, the total number of protected sites includes 1,332 individual landmarks,115 interior landmarks and 10 scenic landmarks. Some of these are also National Historic Landmarks sites, and many are National Registered Historic Places, one of the most prominent decisions in which the Commission was involved was the preservation of the Grand Central Terminal with the assistance of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. This success is cited as significant due to the Commissions origins following the destruction of Pennsylvania Station. In 1989, the Commission designated the Ladies Mile Historic District, the next year marked the first time in the Commissions history that a proposed landmark, the Guggenheim Museum, received a unanimous vote by the Commission members. One of the most controversial properties was 2 Columbus Circle, which remained at the center of a discussion over its future for a number of years. Cultural landmarks, such as Greenwich Villages Stonewall Inn, are recognized as not for their architecture. A commission-designated historic district for the South Street Seaport has been active since 1977 and was extended on July 11,1989 and this group included the Historic Districts Council, the Save Our Seaport community group, the New Amsterdam Market, and the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance. They had encouraged others to write letters to the Landmarks Preservation Commission to support formal designation or district protection, however, in 2013, the Landmarks Preservation Commission declined to hold a hearing to consider this landmark designation or to expand the district
3.
Brooklyn Heights
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Brooklyn Heights is an affluent residential neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Originally referred to as Brooklyn Village, it has been a prominent area of Brooklyn since 1834, the neighborhood is noted for its low-rise architecture and its many brownstone rowhouses, most of them built prior to the Civil War. It also has an abundance of churches and other religious institutions. Brooklyns first art gallery, the Brooklyn Arts Gallery, was opened in Brooklyn Heights in 1958, in 1965, a large part of Brooklyn Heights was protected from unchecked development by the creation of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District, the first such district in New York City. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966, directly across the East River from Manhattan and connected to it by subways and regular ferry service, Brooklyn Heights is also easily accessible from Downtown Brooklyn. The neighborhood stretches from Old Fulton Street near the Brooklyn Bridge south to Atlantic Avenue and from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to Court Street, adjacent neighborhoods are Dumbo, Downtown Brooklyn, Cobble Hill, and Boerum Hill. Columbia Heights, an upscale six-block-long street next to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, is considered to be its own neighborhood. As of 2000, Brooklyn Heights had a population of 22,594 people, the neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 2, and is served by the 84th Precinct of the New York City Police Department at 301 Gold Street in nearby Downtown Brooklyn. Brooklyn Heights occupies a palisade that rises sharply from the rivers edge, before the Dutch settled on Long Island in the middle of the seventeenth century, this promontory was called Ihpetonga by the native Lenape American Indians. Ferries across the East River were running as early as 1642, the most significant of the ferries went between the current Fulton Street and Peck Slip in Manhattan, and was run by Cornelius Dirksen. The ferry service helped the area to thrive, with both farms and some factories along the water, but the higher ground was sparsely used. They later sold part of their land to John Jackson, who created the Vinegar Hill community, Pierrepont had accumulated 60 acres of land, including 800 feet which directly overlooked the harbor, all of which he planned to sub-divide. Since his intention was to sell to merchants and bankers who lived in Manhattan, he needed easy access between Brooklyn Heights and New York City, which Fultons company provided. A resident of the Heights could leave the office at three oclock, have dinner at home at four oclock, and still have time for a drive to the outskirts of town. A select neighborhood and circle of society, where there had been only seven houses in the Heights in 1807, by 1860 there were over six hundred of them, and by 1890 the area was almost completely developed. Throughout the 19th century, Brooklyn Heights remained an elegant neighborhood and its development gave rise to offshoots such as Cobble Hill and, later, Carroll Gardens. Beecher was a nationally-known figure famous on the circuit for his novel oratorical style, in which he employed humor, dialect. To dramatize the plight of those held in captivity, Beecher once brought a female slave to the church and held an auction, with the highest bidder purchasing not the slave, but her freedom
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.
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
7.
Gamaliel King
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His practice began as a builder in Brooklyn in the 1820s, in 1823 he and Joseph Moser were commissioned to build the York Methodist Episcopal Church, which was dedicated 6 June 1824. The following year, he was at Pineapple Street, corner of Hicks, in 1826, he was at Orange Street, listed as a builder, but in subsequent years supplementing his income as a grocer. None of his work can be identified today, if any of his structures still stand. Carys dry-goods shop and warehouse among the first fully cast iron-fronted buildings in the world, the effect was akin to a narrow slice of Venetian Renaissance palazzo. In the original competition in 1835 Kings design had come in second, in New York King and Kellum built the simple Italianate Friends Meeting House, on Gramercy Park South, once reputedly a stop on the Underground Railroad and now housing the Brotherhood Synagogue. The Gothic Revival Washington Square United Methodist Church that was built in 1860 and was designed by Gamaliel King, according to Elliot Willensky, guide to New York City, 4th edition, was stripped of its remaining interiors and turned into condominiums in 2006. In Brooklyn King designed some of the citys finest churches, exemplified today by the 12th Street Dutch Reformed Church, Park Slope, later, in partnership with William H. Willcox he built the Kings County Savings Bank in Williamsburgh, Brooklyn. The disappearance of his office archive means that there is no way to assess the scope of his work for private clients, mary M. Thacher surmises that three houses built round Lamberts Cove, Stonington, Connecticut, are the only documented houses attributed to King still standing today. The house of James Ingersoll Day was demolished following the Hurricane of 1938 but the Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer house on Pine Point, and the Stanton house, Linden Hall remain. It is also likely that the undocumented Cove Lawn built in 1856 by the youngest of three Palmer brothers, Captain Theodore Dwight Palmer, was designed by Gamaliel King. The Italianate King-Jellison House,330 Engle Street, Tenafly, New Jersey, jellison, a printer in New York City, who married Sarah King, is attributed to King. In addition to his career as architect, Gamaliel King was a member of the New York State Assembly in 1846, Gamaliel Kings parents were Abraham King and Bethia Parshall King of Shelter Island. On 19 June 1819, he married Catherine Oliver Snow, daughter of John Snow and Catherine Oliver Snow of Brooklyn, with her had five children, Gamaliel and Catherine King are buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn
8.
Greek Revival architecture
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The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture, the term was first used by Charles Robert Cockerell in a lecture he gave as Professor of Architecture to the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1842. With a newfound access to Greece, or initially the books produced by the few who had actually been able to visit the sites, archaeologist-architects of the period studied the Doric and Ionic orders. This was especially the case in Britain, Germany and the United States, Greek Revival architecture took a different course in a number of countries, lasting until the Civil War in America and even later in Scotland. Despite the unbounded prestige of ancient Greece amongst the elite of Europe. The monuments of Greek antiquity were known chiefly from Pausanias and other literary sources, visiting Ottoman Greece was difficult and dangerous business prior to the period of stagnation beginning with the Great Turkish War. Few Grand Tourists called on Athens during the first half of the 18th century and it would take until the expedition funded by the Society of Dilettanti of 1751 by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett before serious archaeological inquiry began in earnest. Access to the originals in Greece itself only became easier after the Greek War of Independence ended in 1832, Lord Byrons participation, following James Stuarts travels to Greece in the early 1750s, intellectual curiosity quickly led to a desire to emulate. Stuart was commissioned after his return from Greece by George Lyttelton to produce the first Greek building in England, arguably the greatest British exponent of the style was Decimus Burton. In London twenty three Greek Revival Commissioners churches were built between 1817 and 1829, the most notable being St. Pancras church by William and Henry William Inwood. Such was the popularity of the Doric in Edinburgh that the city now enjoys a striking visual uniformity, nevertheless, Greek continued to be in favour in Scotland well into the 1870s in the singular figure of Alexander Thomson, known as Greek Thomson. In Germany, the Greek revival is predominantly found in two centres, Berlin and Munich, the earliest Greek building was the Brandenburg Gate by Carl Gotthard Langhans, who modelled it on the Propylaea. Ten years after the death of Frederick the Great, the Berlin Akademie initiated a competition for a monument to the king that would promote morality, similarly, in Munich von Klenzes Glyptothek and Walhalla were the fulfilment of Gillys vision of an orderly and moral German world. The purity and seriousness of the style was intended as an assertion of German national values and partly intended as a riposte to France. By comparison, the Greek revival in France was never popular with either the state or the public, what little there is started with Charles de Waillys crypt in the church of St Leu-St Gilles, and Claude Nicolas Ledouxs Barriere des Bonshommes. It would take until Laboustres Neo-Grec of the Second Empire for the Greek revival to flower briefly in France, the style was especially attractive in Russia, if only because they shared the Eastern Orthodox faith with the Greeks. The historic centre of Saint Petersburg was rebuilt by Alexander I of Russia, the Saint Petersburg Bourse on Vasilievsky Island has a temple front with 44 Doric columns. Leo von Klenzes expansion of the palace that is now the Hermitage Museum is another example of the style, following the Greek War of Independence, Romantic Nationalist ideology encouraged the use of historically Greek architectural styles in place of Ottoman or pan-European ones
9.
Tuckahoe marble
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Tuckahoe marble is a type of marble named after the village of Tuckahoe, New York or alternatively the neighborhood of Inwood in Manhattan, New York City. It is found in Eastchester and extending southward to parts of the Bronx, such as Kingsbridge, Mott Haven, Melrose and Tremont and it has long been quarried at Tuckahoe as well as at Ossining, Hastings, and Thornwood, hence the alternate name, Westchester marble. It is part of the Inwood Formation, which also intrudes into western Connecticut and it dates from the Late Cambrian to the Early Ordovician ages. Inwood marble is a high quality marble first discovered in 1822 in the town of Tuckahoe in Westchester County, the marble is from the larger Inwood Formation or deposit, which stretches in a northeasterly direction from mid-Manhattan through southern Westchester. The marble is characterized scientifically as a marble and varies in color from a light gray to light green. A distinctive characteristic is the size of the calcite and dolomite particles that primarily compose the stone. Oxidation of these iron-bearing minerals causes certain varieties of the marble to turn orange-brown when the stone is exposed to weather, locally quarried Manhattan schist and sandstone from the lower Hudson Valley were typically used before marble became more popular. By the late 18th century, marble was being produced by a number of quarries in northern Manhattan, the most well-known quarry that supplied stone from the deposit was in the area now known as Tuckahoe. This Tuckahoe marble was nearly white in color and considered by many to be of the highest grade. Many federal buildings destroyed by the British during the War of 1812 were rebuilt with Tuckahoe marble, the commercial marble industry first developed along the Bronx River. In 1818 the Tuckahoe Marble Quarry opened and eventually became a producer of marble for the world. These local marble quarries were the reason that the state government of New York chose Sing Sing as the site of a new prison in 1825. From 1865 to 1871, hundreds of Scottish and Irish laborers blasted huge quantities of marble from the quarry at Hastings-on-Hudson, by the 1880s, Hastings Pavement was producing the paving blocks used extensively in Central Park and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Between 1895 and 1900, Hastings Pavement produced 10 million such blocks and shipped throughout the U. S. and to cities in Canada, Brazil. White Tuckahoe marble supplied the early United States with a material suitable for the neoclassical architecture popular in Americas early public buildings. Quarrying of Tuckahoe Marble ceased in 1930, Inwood marble was used to construct the burial vaults at the New York Marble Cemetery and the New York City Marble Cemetery, both repositories of influential and prominent early citizens. T. Stewart Company Store, Manhattan Brooklyn Borough Hall Tweed Courthouse, Manhattan Washington Square Arch, Marble House, Newport, Rhode Island Washington Monument, Washington, D. C. List of types of marble Torres, Louis, Tuckahoe Marble, The Rise and Fall of an Industry in Eastchester, New York, 1822-1930, Harrison, N. Y
