Charles Aznavour was a French-Armenian singer and diplomat. Aznavour was known for his distinctive tenor voice: clear and ringing in its upper reaches, with gravelly and profound low notes. In a career as a composer and songwriter, spanning over 70 years, he recorded more than 1,200 songs interpreted in 9 languages. Moreover, he co-wrote more than 1,000 songs for himself and others. Aznavour was one of France's most enduring singers, he sold 180 million records during his lifetime and was dubbed France's Frank Sinatra, while music critic Stephen Holden described Aznavour as a "French pop deity". He was arguably the most famous Armenian of his time. In 1998, Aznavour was named Entertainer of the Century by CNN and users of Time Online from around the globe, he was recognized as the century's outstanding performer, with nearly 18% of the total vote, edging out Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan. Jean Cocteau said: "Before Aznavour, despair was unpopular". Aznavour sang for presidents and royalty, as well as at humanitarian events.

In response to the 1988 Armenian earthquake, he founded the charitable organization Aznavour for Armenia along with his long-time friend impresario Levon Sayan. In 2009, he was appointed ambassador of Armenia to Switzerland, as well as Armenia's permanent delegate to the United Nations at Geneva, he started his last world tour in 2014. On 24 August 2017, Aznavour was awarded the 2,618th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; that year, he and his sister were awarded the Raoul Wallenberg Award for sheltering Jews during World War II. His last concert took place in NHK Hall in Osaka on 19 September 2018. Aznavour was born at the clinic Tarnier at 89, rue d'Assas in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 6th arrondissement of Paris, into a family of artists living on rue Monsieur-le-Prince, he was named Shahnour Vaghinag Aznavourian, by his parents, Armenian immigrants Michael Aznavourian and Knar Baghdasarian, an Armenian from Smyrna. His father sang in restaurants in France before establishing a Caucasian restaurant called Le Caucase.

Charles's parents introduced him to performing at an early age, he dropped out of school at age nine, took the stage name "Aznavour". During the German occupation of France during World War II, Aznavour and his family hid “a number of people who were persecuted by the Nazis, while Charles and his sister Aida were involved in rescue activities.” Their work was recognized in a statement issued in 2017 by President of Israel. That year and Aida received the Raoul Wallenberg Award for their wartime activities. "The Aznavours were linked to the Missak Manouchian Resistance Group and in this context they offered shelter to Armenians and others at their own Paris flat, risking their own lives." Aznavour was familiar with performing on stage by the time he began his career as a musician. At the age of nine, he had roles in a play called Un Petit Diable à Paris and a film entitled La Guerre des Gosses. Aznavour turned to professional dancing and performed in several nightclubs. In 1944, he and actor Pierre Roche began a partnership and in collaborative efforts performed in numerous nightclubs.

It was through this partnership that Aznavour began to sing. The partnership's first successes were in Canada in 1948-1950. Meanwhile, Aznavour wrote his first song entitled J'ai Bu in 1950. During the early stages of his career, Aznavour opened for Edith Piaf at the Moulin Rouge. Piaf advised him to pursue a career in singing. Piaf helped Aznavour develop a distinctive voice. Sometimes described as "France's Frank Sinatra", Aznavour sang about love, he wrote or co-wrote musicals, more than one thousand songs, recorded ninety-one studio albums. Aznavour's voice was shaded towards the tenor range, but possessed the low range and coloration more typical of a baritone, contributing to his unique sound. Aznavour spoke and sang in many languages, which helped him perform at Carnegie Hall, in the US, other major venues around the world, he recorded at least one song from the 18th-century Armenian poet Sayat-Nova, a popular song, Im Yare in Armenian. "Que C'est Triste Venise", sung in French, Spanish and German, was successful the mid 1960s.1972 saw the release of his 23rd studio album, "Idiote je t'aime...", which contained among others, two of his classics - Les plaisirs démodés et Comme ils disent, the latter dealing with homosexuality, which at the time, was revolutionary.

In 1974, Aznavour became a major success in the United Kingdom when his song "She" was number 1 on the UK Singles Chart for four weeks during a fourteen-week run. His other well-known song in the UK was the 1973 "The Old Fashioned Way", on UK charts for 15 weeks. Artists who have recorded his songs and collaborated with Aznavour include Édith Piaf, Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, Andrea Bocelli, Bing Crosby, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Dusty Springfield, Liza Minnelli, Mia Martini, Elton John, Serge Gainsbourg, Josh Groban, Petula Clark, Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, José Carreras, Laura Pausini, Roy Clark, Nana Mouskouri and Julio Iglesias. Fellow Fren

Cryptomelane is a potassium manganese oxide mineral with formula K8O16. In 1942 the name cryptomelane was proposed as part of an effort to sort out the manganese oxide minerals referred to as psilomelane. Cryptomelane was identified and defined based on X-ray diffraction studies of samples from Tombstone, Arizona. Cryptomelane was approved in 1982 by the International Mineralogical Association; the type locality is the Tombstone District, Cochise County, Arizona, US. The name comes from the Greek for hidden and black, in reference to the confusion and difficulty in recognition of the various black manganese oxide minerals referred to as psilomelane, the collective term for hard manganese oxides, it is of rather common occurrence in oxidized manganese deposits where it occurs as replacements and open space fillings in veins and vugs. It occurs in association with pyrolusite, braunite, chalcophanite and various other manganese oxides

The Strand Theatre, sometimes known as the 1918 Strand Theatre, at 647 Fulton Street and Rockwell Place, adjacent to Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theatre, was a vaudeville house, home to BRIC and UrbanGlass following a two-year renovation from 2011 to 2013. The theatre was built for vaudeville with a maximum capacity of nearly 4,000 by architect Thomas W. Lamb and hosted talent including Houdini. Following the demise of vaudeville, it was converted into a movie theater. From 1920 to 1927 the theatre was managed by Edward L. Hyman, a popular exhibitionist that attracted audiences with his elaborate musical productions; the theater was affiliated with Warner Brothers in the 1940s prior to its sale to Fabian Theaters in 1948. In 1953 it became, it spent time as a bowling alley and a print shop. Subsequent to that, it was gutted internally and converted into a glass factory when the city took it over due to tax foreclosure, which it remained until early in the 20th century when UrbanGlass moved in the late 1980s and BRIC followed suit in 1993.

When a printing company that operated on the first floor left in the mid 1990s, UrbanGlass and BRIC began discussions of renovating the space. Media related to Strand Theatre at Wikimedia Commons Brooklyn Strand Theatre and Majestic Theatre circa 1941. Online at the New York Public Library, image ID: 706529f. Three movie titles can be seen: The Nurse's Secret, Roar of the Press, Caught in the Draft, all from 1941, according to the Internet Movie Database website