Frans Hals the Elder was a Dutch Golden Age painter of portraits, who lived and worked in Haarlem. He is known for his loose painterly brushwork, helping introduce a lively style of painting to Dutch art. Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century group portraiture. Hals was born in 1582 or 1583 in Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands, as the son of cloth merchant Franchois Fransz Hals van Mechelen and his second wife Adriaentje van Geertenryck. Like many, Hals' parents fled during the Fall of Antwerp from the south to Haarlem in the new Dutch Republic in the north, where he lived for the remainder of his life. Hals studied under Flemish émigré Karel van Mander, whose Mannerist influence, however, is noticeable in Hals' work. In 1610, Hals became a member of the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke, he started to earn money as an art restorer for the city council, he worked on their large art collection that Karel van Mander had described in his Schilderboeck published in Haarlem in 1604.

The most notable of these were the works of Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Jan van Scorel, Jan Mostaert that hung in the St John's Church in Haarlem. The restoration work was paid for by the city of Haarlem, since all Catholic religious art had been confiscated after the satisfactie van Haarlem had been reversed in 1578, which had given Catholics equal rights to Protestants. However, the entire collection of paintings was not formally possessed by the city council until 1625, after the city fathers had decided which paintings were suitable for the city hall; the remaining art, considered too "Roman Catholic" was sold to Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen, a fellow guild member, on the condition that he remove it from the city. It was in this cultural context that Hals began his career in portraiture, since the market had disappeared for religious themes; the earliest known example of Hals' art is the portrait of Jacobus Zaffius. His'breakthrough' came with the life-sized group portrait The Banquet of the Officers of the St George Militia Company in 1616.

His most noted portrait today is the one of René Descartes which he made in 1649. Frans Hals married his first wife Anneke Harmensdochter around 1610. Frans was of Catholic birth, however, so their marriage was recorded in the city hall and not in church; the exact date is unknown because the older marriage records of the Haarlem city hall before 1688 have not been preserved. Anneke was born 2 January 1590 as the daughter of bleacher Harmen Dircksz and Pietertje Claesdr Ghijblant, her maternal grandfather, linen producer Claes Ghijblant of Spaarne 42, bequeathed the couple the grave in St Bavo's Church where both are buried, though Frans took over 40 years to join his first wife there. Anneke died in 1615, shortly after the birth of their third child and, of the three, Harmen survived infancy and one had died before Hals' second marriage; as biographer Seymour Slive has pointed out, older stories of Hals abusing his first wife were confused with another Haarlem resident of the same name. Indeed, at the time of these charges, the artist had no wife to mistreat, as Anneke had died in May 1615.

Historical accounts of Hals' propensity for drink have been based on embellished anecdotes of his early biographers, namely Arnold Houbraken, with no direct evidence existing documenting such. After his first wife died, Hals took on the young daughter of a fishmonger to look after his children and, in 1617, he married Lysbeth Reyniers, they married in Spaarndam, a small village outside the banns of Haarlem, because she was 8 months pregnant. Hals was a devoted father, they went on to have eight children. Contemporaries such as Rembrandt moved their households according to the caprices of their patrons, but Hals remained in Haarlem and insisted that his customers come to him. According to the Haarlem archives, a schutterstuk that Hals started in Amsterdam was finished by Pieter Codde because Hals refused to paint in Amsterdam, insisting that the militiamen come to Haarlem to sit for their portraits. For this reason, we can be sure that all sitters were either from Haarlem or were visiting Haarlem when they had their portraits made.

Hals' work was in demand through much of his life, but he lived so long that he went out of style as a painter and experienced financial difficulties. In addition to his painting, he worked as a restorer, art dealer, art tax expert for the city councilors, his creditors took him to court several times, he sold his belongings to settle his debt with a baker in 1652. The inventory of the property seized mentions only three mattresses and bolsters, an armoire, a table, five pictures. Left destitute, he was given an annuity of 200 florins in 1664 by the municipality; the Dutch nation fought for independence during the Eighty Years' War, Hals was a member of the local schutterij, a military guild. He included a self-portrait in his 1639 painting of the St Joris company, according to its 19th-century painting frame, it was not common for ordinary members to be painted, as that privilege was reserved for the officers. Hals painted the company three times, he was a member of a local chamber of rhetoric, in 1644 he became chairman of the Guild of St Luke.

Frans Hals was buried in the city's St Bavo's Church. He had been receiving a city pension, unusual and a sign of the esteem with which he was regarded. After his death, his widow applied for aid and was admitted to the local almshouse, where she died. Hals is best known fo

The Life Theater, known as the Teofilo Villonco Building, was an Art Deco movie theater located Quiapo, Manila. It was designed by Pablo Antonio. During its operational years as a movie theater, the Life Theater was reserved for blockbuster movies due to its large audience capacity and air conditioning system; the building is owned by Remy Villongco of Malabon, son of Dr. Teofilo Villonco, whose family is involved in the theater industry; the building was demolished in 2018 for the construction of Foinix Center, a 33-storey commercial building. Its facade will be incorporated into the design of the new high-rise building. Erected in 1941, Life Theater was designed in Art Deco style; the theater was meant to show only Tagalog films. Ang Maestra, where Rosa del Rosario and Rogelio dela Rosa starred, was the first movie showed upon the theater's opening; the theater was destroyed following the aftermath of World War II. It was rebuilt in 1946 with an upgraded seating capacity of 1,144; the Hollywood film, A Thousand and One Nights was the first movie.

The theater continued to feature several films, both in English and Tagalog until the mid-1950s when Sampaguita Pictures took over the theater. The Life Theater was owned by Romeo Villonco, who continued his father, Dr. Teofilo Villonco's enterprise; the Palace Theater located along Ronquillo Street in Quiapo was owned by the Villoncos. The Villoncos, together with the De Leon and Navoa families ran LVN Pictures; the name of the film studio is an acronym. Premieres were held in this venue when movie stars were dressed by famous couturiers, sometimes dressed up the characters they were portrayed in the movie; the actors and actresses were transported to the theater by a new air-conditioned bus owned by Sampaguita Pictures causing heavy traffic build-up on nearby roads. The theater shut down in the 1990s when moviegoers began shifting to malls for shopping and entertainment pleasures, it now houses booths selling cheap goods. As of June 2018, the building is condemned and put barricades on it for demolition despite a heritage building.

Rumors that a mall is about to built in that location. The white facade of the theater contains both elements of Art Deco and neoclassical architecture due to the building's streamlining and scaled round columns, each adorned with a conical finial; the theater was adorned with aluminum buffles, consistent with its Art Deco design. Along with the Times Theater, the theater is found along Quezon Boulevard in Quiapo, it has since been converted to a shopping center

The Cushman Village Historic District is a historic district encompassing a portion of the Cushman Village area of Amherst, a significant mill village during the 19th century. It is centered on the triangle formed by Bridge and Pine Streets in northeastern Amherst, arose because of the presence of falls on the Mill River, whose water power was harnessed for mills as early as the mid-18th century. Two houses survive from the colonial period; the village, although it was defined for many years by the mills, no longer has any industrial buildings, as they were demolished or destroyed by fire. Most of the houses in the district were built before 1860, the peak of the village's industrial activity; the district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. Cushman Village is located in northeastern Amherst, in an area where the plains of the Connecticut River to the west give way to hillier terrain; the Mill River runs westward in this area to the north of the village, before turning south and emptying into the Connecticut.

In 1738 Nathaniel Kellogg was granted water rights to establish a grist mill on the Mill River's "great falls". By the late 18th century there were at least six mills of various types operating on the river, there were clusters of mill-related worker housing nearby; the oldest surviving house was built sometime before 1759, now stands at 24 Leverett Road. Small textile mills were built on the river in the first half of the 19th century, but most were either destroyed by fire, or were replaced by construction; the arrival of the railroad and the establishment of a depot, helped give a center to the growing village. Between about 1835 and 1930 mills established by the Cushman brothers came to dominate the local economic landscape, it was during the mid-19th century. Although not always built by the mill owners, the Cushmans owned a great deal of the local housing stock by the 1870s. Much of it was in conservative architectural styles, with a large amount of Greek Revival construction persisting into the 1880s while modest versions of Italianate, Second Empire, Queen Anne Victorians were being built.

The house at 131 Bridge Street is a mill owner's residence, is one of the village's more elaborate expressions of the Greek Revival. National Register of Historic Places listings in Hampshire County, Massachusetts