1.
MetLife Tower
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Designed by the architectural firm of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons and built by the Hedden Construction Company, the tower is modeled after the Campanile in Venice, Italy. Inside the building is the New York Edition Hotel, a 273-room luxury hotel opened in 2015. The tower was an addition to the original 11-story, full-block Metropolitan Life Home Office building. Plans for the tower were first announced in 1905, in 1953-57, the original Home Office building was replaced with the current building, designed by D. Everett Waid. Then, between 1960 and 1964, the Tower itself was modernized by Lloyd Morgan and Eugene V. Meroni, there are four clock faces, one on each side of the tower, located from the 25th to 27th floors. Each clock face is 26.5 feet in diameter with each number being four feet tall, the minute hands each weigh half a ton. Much of the original ornamentation was removed. At its southeastern corner, it includes an entrance to the 23rd Street New York City Subway station serving the 46 <6> trains. In 1905, Metropolitan Life bought a lot at the corner of Madison Avenue and 24th Street. Finished in 1909, the served as world headquarters of the company until 2005. It was the worlds tallest building until 1913, when it was surpassed by the Woolworth Building, in the early 1950s, Metropolitan Life started to renovate its entire headquarters, as well as demolish auxiliary structures in lieu of a new limestone, art moderne building. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978, and a New York City landmark in 1989. The gilded cupola at the top of the building serves as an eternal light which stays illuminated even after the rest of the lighting system has been turned off for the night. In March 2005, SL Green Realty Corp. bought the tower, in May 2007, the tower and adjacent air rights were subsequently sold for $200 million to Africa Israel Investments. In 2011, Tommy Hilfiger and a signed a contract to buy the building for $170 million, planning to transform it into Hilfigers first hotel. However Hilfiger backed off the project in September 2011, Africa Israel then sold the tower to Marriott International in October 2011 for $165 million. Marriott announced in January 2012 that they are converting the tower to the New York Edition Hotel, Edition is Marriotts boutique hotel line, run in association with Ian Schrager. The three Edition hotels, in London, Miami and New York, were sold by Marriott in January 2013 for $815 Million to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the New York property was conveyed to its new owner on its completion
2.
Metropolitan Life North Building
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The Metropolitan Life North Building, now known as Eleven Madison, is a 30-story art deco skyscraper on Madison Square Park in Manhattan, New York City, at 11-25 Madison Avenue. The building is bordered by East 24th Street, Madison Avenue, East 25th Street and Park Avenue South, the North Building was built on the site of Richard Upjohns original Madison Square Presbyterian Church. The second church, designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead and White was built in 1906, as part of the Metropolitan Life Home Office Complex, the North Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 19,1996. The building was acquired by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company to make way for the 48-story Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, Upjohns building was demolished in 1909. The North Building was designed in the 1920s by Harvey Wiley Corbett, however, due to the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and onset of the Great Depression, the construction was halted at floor 29 in 1933. Metropolitan Life had originally planned to have a 100-story tower, still, when construction was completed on the 25-story base in 1950, there were no plans to build the extra stories. The building, which has 2,200,000 square feet of space, was constructed in three stages, and was completed in 1950. It is finished on the outside with Alabama limestone and marble detailing, the building features four vaulted corner entrances, and its bulk is mitigated by numerous setbacks and its polygonal shape. The building contains 30 elevators, enough to serve the originally-planned 100 floors, from 1994-1997, the building, which has served time as Met Lifes records warehouse, had its interior redesigned by Haines Lundberg Waehler and the exterior renovated, all at the cost of $300 million. In early 2016, Sony Corporation of America plans to move into the building, after their lease expires at 550 Madison Avenue, which was acquired by Cherit Group. The 1981 thriller Eyewitness used the lobby as the place where William Hurts character was employed as a janitor. Other scenes from the film were there as well. Director Martin Scorsese used the building as the location for Griffin Dunnes office in the 1985 film After Hours, woody Allens 1986 Radio Days utilized the North Building for the building where the offices of a broadcasting network were located. Slick Ricks 1998 album The Great Adventures of Slick Rick features a photo of the building on its cover, in the 2011 film The Adjustment Bureau, the buildings lobby is used as a setting for some scenes. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Madison Square Presbyterian Church Madison Square Presbyterian Church List of buildings with 100 floors or more in-Arch. net, Building and Annex Original building design at Skyscraper Page Design of finished building at Skyscraper Page
3.
International Style (architecture)
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A visually weightless quality engendered by the use of cantilever construction. Glass and steel, in combination with usually less visible reinforced concrete, are the materials of the construction. Commissioned in 1931 by the director of the Museum of Modern Art, Alfred H. Barr Jr. The original exhibition catalogue was then followed up immediately by the book titled The International Style, the aesthetics-based definition of The International Style identified, categorized and expanded upon characteristics said to be common to Modernism across the world and its stylistic aspects. Hitchcock and Johnson identified three principles, the expression of volume rather than mass, the emphasis on rather than preconceived symmetry. The aim of Hitchcock and Johnson was to define a style that would encapsulate this modern architecture, all the works in the 1932 Museum of Modern Art exhibition were carefully selected, only displaying those that strictly followed these rules. Many Modernists disliked the term, believing that they had arrived at an approach to architecture that transcended style, the British architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner commented, To me what had been achieved in 1914 was the style of the century. It never occurred to me to look beyond, here was the one and only style which fitted all those aspects which mattered, aspects of economics and sociology, of materials and function. It seems folly to think anybody would wish to abandon it. The exhibition Modern Architecture, International Exhibition opened on February 9,1932, at the Museum of Modern Art, in the Heckscher Building at Fifth Avenue and 56th Street in New York. In the largest exhibition space, Room C, were works by Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Room B was a section titled Housing, presenting the need for a new domestic environment” as it had been identified by historian and critic Lewis Mumford. In Room D were works by Raymond Hood and Richard Neutra, among these works was shown Alvar Aaltos Turun Sanomat newspaper offices building in Turku, Finland. The exhibition is significant for its approach to the architectural exhibition. Highly curated in nature, the 1932 exhibition was driven by a desire to promote and consolidate the theory of international modernism, as such, the exhibition featured prominently the work of the core of the modernist group. With Van Der Rohe, Corbusier, Oud, and Gropius at the forefront, moMAs then director Alfred H. Barr hired art historians Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock to curate the museums first architectural exhibition. In 1929, Johnson attended the ceremony of his sister in Wellesley College, where he met Barr. In one month, Barr would be interviewed by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller for the position of the director of the MOMA, Barr added Johnson to MOMAs Junior Advisory Committee. Hitchcock graduated in 1924 after having completed his studies in three years and spending his senior year in architecture
4.
Park Avenue
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Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the borough of Manhattan, and is also a wide one-way pair in the Bronx. For most of the length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west. Park Avenues entire length was formerly called Fourth Avenue, the title applies to the section between the Bowery and 14th Street. Meanwhile, the section between 14th and 17th Street is called Union Square East, and between 17th and 32nd Streets, the name Park Avenue South is used, in the Bronx, Park Avenue runs in several segments between the Major Deegan Expressway and Fordham Road. Park Avenue was originally known as Fourth Avenue and carried the tracks of the New York, the railroad originally ran through an open cut through Murray Hill, which was covered with grates and grass between 34th and 40th Street in the early 1850s. A section of park was later renamed Park Avenue in 1860. When Grand Central Depot was opened in the 1870s, the tracks between 56th and 93rd Streets were sunk out of sight and, in 1888, Park Avenue was extended to north of Grand Central. In 1936 the elevated Park Avenue Viaduct was built around the station to allow traffic to pass unimpeded. In October 1937, a part of the Murray Hill Tunnel was reopened for road traffic, efforts to promote a Grand Park Avenue Expressway to Grand Concourse in the Bronx were unavailing. A tradition was introduced in 1945 as a memorial to American soldiers killed in action, on May 5,1959, the New York City Council voted 20–1 to change the name of Fourth Avenue between 17th and 32nd Streets to Park Avenue South. In 1963, the Pan Am Building, straddling Park Avenue atop Grand Central Terminal, was built between the automotive viaducts, on March 12,2014, two apartment buildings near 116th Street,1644 and 1646 Park Avenue, were destroyed in a gas explosion. Eight people were killed and many others were injured, the road that becomes Park Avenue originates as the Bowery. From Cooper Square at 8th Street to Union Square at 14th Street, it is known as Fourth Avenue, at 14th Street, it turns slightly northeast to align with other avenues drawn up in the Commissioners Plan of 1811. From 17th Street to 32nd Street, it is known as Park Avenue South, above 32nd Street, for the remainder of its distance, it is known as Park Avenue, a 140-foot-wide boulevard. Between 33rd Street and 40th Street, the northbound lane descends into the Murray Hill Tunnel. The bridge, one of two structures in Manhattan known as the Park Avenue Viaduct, returns to level at 46th Street after going through the Helmsley Building. The IRT Lexington Avenue Line runs under this portion of the street, once the line reaches Grand Central – 42nd Street, it shifts east to Lexington Avenue. From 47th to 97th Streets, Metro-North Railroad tracks run in a tunnel underneath Park Avenue, in the 1920s the portion of Park Avenue from Grand Central Terminal to 96th Street saw extensive apartment building construction
5.
Manhattan
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Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, and the citys historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, founded on November 1,1683, Manhattan is often described as the cultural and financial capital of the world and hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Many multinational media conglomerates are based in the borough and it is historically documented to have been purchased by Dutch colonists from Native Americans in 1626 for 60 guilders which equals US$1062 today. New York County is the United States second-smallest county by land area, on business days, the influx of commuters increases that number to over 3.9 million, or more than 170,000 people per square mile. Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York Citys five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, the City of New York was founded at the southern tip of Manhattan, and the borough houses New York City Hall, the seat of the citys government. The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, a 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata, twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River. The word Manhattan has been translated as island of hills from the Lenape language. The United States Postal Service prefers that mail addressed to Manhattan use New York, NY rather than Manhattan, the area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano – sailing in service of King Francis I of France – was the first European to visit the area that would become New York City. It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, a permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the citadel of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam, the 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City. In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 to US$23, variable-rate myth being a contradiction in terms, the purchase price remains forever frozen at twenty-four dollars, as Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace remarked in their history of New York. Sixty guilders in 1626 was valued at approximately $1,000 in 2006, based on the price of silver, Straight Dope author Cecil Adams calculated an equivalent of $72 in 1992. In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony, New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2,1653. In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland and renamed it New York after the English Duke of York and Albany, the Dutch Republic regained it in August 1673 with a fleet of 21 ships, renaming the city New Orange. Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of battles in the early American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16,1776. The city, greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the campaign, became the British political, British occupation lasted until November 25,1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city
6.
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
7.
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
8.
Tishman Speyer
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Tishman Speyer Properties is an American worldwide real estate building and operating company set up in 1978 by two founding partners, Robert Tishman and Jerry Speyer. The firm was founded in 1978 by Robert V. Tishman, Speyer, entering the European market ten years later, and moving into Latin America in 1995. The company expanded into China in 2006, Tishman Speyer’s properties include such well-known icons as New York City’s Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, and CitySpire Center. Internationally, Tishman owns São Paulo’s North Tower and they previously owned London’s Millbank Tower and are currently the property manager of the building. In 2012, Nike leased over 54,000 square feet from Tishman Speyers $2.5 billion mixed-use project in Shanghai, the company is a member of REBNY
9.
Irvine Company
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The Irvine Company is an American private company focused on real estate development. The company was founded by the Irvine family and is wholly owned by Donald Bren. Since the company is private, its financials are not released to the public, however, Donald Bren is the richest real estate developer in the United States, valued at $15.2 billion. The Irvine Company grew from the premise of a 185-square-mile ranch founded by James Irvine I, Benjamin and Thomas Flint, Irvine and his partners began by purchasing the Rancho San Joaquin, which constitutes the coastal half of the present-day ranch, from Jose Antonio Sepulveda. A drought that killed his livestock forced Sepulveda to sell his ranch in 1864, the partners purchased Rancho Lomas de Santiago—largely unfarmable due to its steep, hilly terrain—in 1866 from William Wolfskill, who had used it largely as a sheep ranch. Flint, Bixby and Irvine were among the claimants of a lawsuit that divided Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana in 1868. Irish-born Irvine met Collis Huntington, soon to become one of the Central Pacific Railroad magnates on the trip across the Atlantic, rather than cementing a friendship, a disagreement that lasted throughout their lives resulted. When Huntingtons Southern Pacific Railroad needed Irvines land for its route between Orange County and San Diego, Irvine refused, when SP crews began laying tracks on Irvine land without permission, ranch hands with shotguns confronted the crews. Eventually, Irvine gave the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway permission to build on his ranch, when Irvine died in 1886, trustees, left in control of the ranch until James II turned 25, tried to sell it at auction. Between the late 1800s to the 1970s, the Irvine Company engaged in operations on the property. At the time, his Irvine Company had been purchasing further adjoining parcels of land, o there considerable riding to be done, in 1953, the National Scout Jamboree was held on Irvine Ranch land in the area of what is now Fashion Island Shopping Center. Jamboree Road, running from Newport Beach to Orange, was built to people to travel to the jamboree from nearby train stations. In 1959, the Irvine Company donated 1,000 acres, the university and company, together with architect William Pereira, designed the Irvine Ranch Master Plan for developing the surrounding area. The city of Irvine, whose citizens officially incorporated it in 1971, by the late 1970s, the Irvine Company had ceased its cattle business. In 1977, real estate developer Donald Bren began buying Irvine Company shares from the Irvine family, with the Irvine Companys cattle operations finished, the Irvine Company sold the Bommer Canyon area to the City of Irvine between 1981 and 1982. The City of Irvine purchased the land with grants obtained from the 1974 California Bond Act, by 1983, Bren was the majority owner of the Irvine Company. By 1996, he had purchased all outstanding shares to be the owner of the Irvine Company. The Irvine Company develops suburban master-planned communities throughout central and southern Orange County, in addition to buildings in Santa Monica, Silicon Valley
10.
Emery Roth
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His sons continued in the family enterprise, largely expanding the firm under the name Emery Roth & Sons. Born in Sečovce, Austria-Hungary to a Jewish family, he emigrated to the United States at the age of 13 after his family fell into poverty upon his fathers death. He began his apprenticeship as a draftsman in the Chicago offices of Burnham & Root. At the Exposition Roth also designed one of his first solo projects, there he met Richard Morris Hunt, who was impressed with his skills and invited Roth to work in his office in New York. Following Hunts premature death in 1895, Roth moved to the office of Ogden Codman, Jr. a designer, in 1938, Roth included his sons Julian and Richard as partners. Julian specialized in construction costs and building materials and technology, while Richard was named the principal architect. In the 1950s and 1960s Emery Roth & Sons became the most influential firm in New York and contributed substantially in changing the appearance of Midtown. In that particular period of time Emery Roth & Sons designed dozens of office buildings, mostly with curtain wall facades. Beginning in the mid-1960s, the firm was hired as associate architects in large-scale projects like the Pan Am Building, the World Trade Center. In the early 1960s, Richard Roths son, Richard Roth, Jr. became the generation to join the firm, eventually rising to chief architect CEO. As the firm expanded and diversified over six decades, it remained a business through the 1990s. In 1988 Richard Roth Jrs daughter Robyn Roth-Moise joined the firm as comptroller, Richard Roth Jrs son Richard Lee Roth joined the firm in 1982 and became the chief specification writer for Emery Roth & Sons. Both retired from the firm when Richard Roth Jr retired and was replaced as the companys CEO in 1993 by Robert Sobel, but only three years later, in 1996, the firm ceased to operate, apparently because of financial distress. Emerys great-grandson Richard Lee Roth currently works in the architectural profession and resides in South Florida. P
11.
Pietro Belluschi
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Pietro Belluschi was an Italian-born American architect, a leader of the Modern Movement in architecture, and was responsible for the design of over 1,000 buildings. Born in Italy, Belluschis architectural career began as a draftsman in a Portland, Oregon and he achieved a national reputation within about 20 years, largely for his 1947 aluminum-clad Equitable Building. He won the 1972 AIA Gold Medal, pietro Belluschi was born in Ancona, Italy, in 1899. He grew up in Italy and served in the Italian armed forces during World War I when Italy was allied with Great Britain, France, serving in the army he fought against the Austrians at the battles of Caporetto and Vittorio Veneto. After the war, Belluschi studied at the University of Rome and he moved to the United States in 1923, despite speaking no English, and finished his education—as an exchange student on a scholarship—at Cornell University with a second degree in civil engineering. Instead of returning to Italy, he worked briefly as an engineer in Idaho earning $5 per day. He remained in the U. S. as friends in Italy had cautioned him to not return home because of the rise to power of Benito Mussolini, at Doyles office, Belluschi rose rapidly, soon becoming chief designer. After Doyle died in 1928, the firm took him into partnership in 1933, by 1943, Belluschi had assumed control of the firm by buying out all the other partners and was practicing under his own name. In 1951, Belluschi became Dean of the architecture and planning school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, when he accepted the position of dean and moved to Massachusetts, he transferred his office in Portland to the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. The move reduced his income from $150,000 to a salary of $15,000. Belluschis churches and residences differed from his commercial works, Belluschi was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1952. In 1953, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member and he served as a presidential appointee on the U. S. Commission of Fine Arts from 1950 to 1955 and he was a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects, and was awarded the AIA Gold Medal, the highest award given by the institute, in 1972. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1991 for his lifetime achievements, Belluschi was on the jury that selected the winning design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D. C. After leaving MIT in 1965, he continued to work, Belluschi would design and consult on both buildings and issues surrounding urban planning. Pietro Belluschi was married first to Helen Hemmila on December 1,1934, after her death in 1962, he married in 1965 Marjorie or Margaret. Pietro Belluschi died in Portland on February 14,1994
12.
Walter Gropius
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Born in Berlin, Walter Gropius was the third child of Walter Adolph Gropius and Manon Auguste Pauline Scharnweber. In 1915 Gropius married Alma Mahler, widow of Gustav Mahler, Walter and Almas daughter, named Manon after Walters mother, was born in 1916. When Manon died of polio at age 18, in 1935, Gropius and Alma divorced in 1920. On 16 October 1923, Gropius married Ilse Frank, and they remained together until his death in 1969 and they adopted a daughter together, Beate Gropius, known as Ati. Ise Gropius died on 9 June 1983 in Lexington, Massachusetts, Walter Gropius was drafted August 1914 and served as a sergeant and then as a lieutenant in the signal corps in the First World War. He survived being buried under rubble and dead bodies, and shot out of the sky with a dead pilot. He was awarded the Iron Cross twice, Gropius then, like his father and his great-uncle Martin Gropius before him, became an architect. Gropius could not draw, and was dependent on collaborators and partner-interpreters throughout his career, in school he hired an assistant to complete his homework for him. His fellow employees at this time included Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, in 1910 Gropius left the firm of Behrens and together with fellow employee Adolf Meyer established a practice in Berlin. Together they share credit for one of the seminal modernist buildings created during this period, the Faguswerk in Alfeld-an-der-Leine, Germany, the factory is now regarded as one of the crucial founding monuments of European modernism. Gropius was commissioned in 1913 to design a car for the Prussian Railroad Locomotive Works in Königsberg and this locomotive was unique and the first of its kind in Germany and perhaps in Europe. Other works of early period include the office and factory building for the Werkbund Exhibition in Cologne. In 1913, Gropius published an article about The Development of Industrial Buildings, Gropiuss career was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Called up immediately as a reservist, Gropius served as a sergeant major at the Western front during the war years and was wounded, Gropius was awarded an Iron Cross while fighting for four years for Germany on the Western Front. Gropiuss career advanced in the postwar period, henry van de Velde, the master of the Grand-Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar was asked to step down in 1915 due to his Belgian nationality. His recommendation for Gropius to succeed him led eventually to Gropiuss appointment as master of the school in 1919, in principle, the Bauhaus represented an opportunity to extend beauty and quality to every home through well designed industrially produced objects. The Bauhaus program was experimental and the emphasis, was theoretical, one example product of the Bauhaus was the armchair F51, designed for the Bauhauss directors room in 1920 – nowadays a re-edition in the market, manufactured by the German company TECTA/Lauenfoerde. In 1919, Gropius was involved in the Glass Chain utopian expressionist correspondence under the pseudonym Mass
13.
Skyscraper
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A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building having multiple floors. When the term was used in the 1880s it described a building of 10 to 20 floors. Mostly designed for office, commercial and residential uses, a skyscraper can also be called a high-rise, for buildings above a height of 300 m, the term supertall can be used, while skyscrapers reaching beyond 600 m are classified as megatall. One common feature of skyscrapers is having a steel framework that supports curtain walls and these curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete. Modern skyscrapers walls are not load-bearing, and most skyscrapers are characterized by surface areas of windows made possible by steel frames. However, skyscrapers can have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls with a surface area of windows. Modern skyscrapers often have a structure, and are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist wind, seismic. To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure, and transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a design with setbacks, a relatively big building may be considered a skyscraper if it protrudes well above its built environment and changes the overall skyline. The maximum height of structures has progressed historically with building methods and technologies, the Burj Khalifa is currently the tallest building in the world. High-rise buildings are considered shorter than skyscrapers, the first steel-frame skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, Illinois in 1885. Even the scholars making the argument find it to be purely academic and this definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry, which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicagos Monadnock Building. What is the characteristic of the tall office building. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and it must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line. Some structural engineers define a highrise as any vertical construction for which wind is a significant load factor than earthquake or weight. Note that this criterion fits not only high-rises but some other tall structures, the word skyscraper often carries a connotation of pride and achievement. A loose convention of some in the United States and Europe draws the limit of a skyscraper at 150 m or 490 ft. The tallest building in ancient times was the 146 m Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt and it was not surpassed in height for thousands of years, the 14th century AD Lincoln Cathedral being conjectured by many to have exceeded it
14.
45th Street (Manhattan)
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The New York City borough of Manhattan contains 228 numbered east–west streets, the majority of them created by the Commissioners Plan of 1811. These streets do not run exactly east–west, because the plan is aligned with the Hudson River, rather than with the cardinal direction. Thus, the grids west is approximately 29 degrees north of true west, the grid covers the length of the island from 14th Street north. All numbered streets carry an East or West prefix, which changes from one to the other at Broadway below 8th Street, the numbered streets carry crosstown traffic. In general, but with exceptions, even-numbered streets are one-way eastbound. Most wider streets, and a few of the narrow ones, some streets in that area that do continue farther west change direction before reaching the Hudson River. 220th Street is the highest numbered street on Manhattan Island, but Marble Hill is also within the borough of Manhattan, the numbering system continues in the Bronx, up to 263rd Street. The lowest numbered street in Manhattan is East First Street, which runs through Alphabet City near East Houston Street, there is also a First Place in Battery Park City. East 1st Street begins just north of East Houston Street at Avenue A, peretz Square, a small triangular sliver park where Houston Street, First Street and First Avenue meet marks the spot where the grid takes hold. East 2nd Street begins just north of East Houston Street at Avenue C, the East end of East 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th Streets is Avenue D, with East 6th Street continuing further Eastward and connecting to FDR Drive. The west end of these streets is the Bowery and Third Avenue, except for 3rd Street and 4th Street, great Jones Street connects East 3rd to West 3rd. For 4th Street, see 4th Street, East 5th Street goes west to Cooper Square, but is interrupted between Avenues B and C by The Earth School, Public School 364, and between First Avenue and Avenue A by the Village View Apartments. West 8th Street is an important local shopping street, 8th Street between Avenue A and Third Avenue is called St Marks Place, but it is counted in the length below. M8 bus route operates eastbound on 8th Street and westbound on 9th Street between Avenue A and Sixth Avenue, 10th Street begins at the FDR Drive and Avenue C. West of Sixth Avenue, it turns southward about 40 degrees to join the Greenwich Village street grid, because West 4th Street turns northward at Sixth Avenue, it intersects 10th, 11th and 12th and 13th Streets in the West Village. The M8 bus operates on 10th Street in both directions between Avenue D and Avenue A, and eastbound between West Street and Sixth Avenue, 10th Street has an eastbound bike lane from West Street to the East River. In 2009, the section of 10th Street between Avenue A and the East River had bicycle markings and sharrows installed, but it still has no dedicated bike lane. West 10th Street was previously named Amos Street for Charles Chistopher Amos, the end of West 10th Street toward the Hudson River was once the home of Newgate Prison, New York Citys first prison and the United States second
15.
Grand Central Terminal
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Grand Central Terminal is a commuter, rapid transit railroad terminal at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States. Its platforms, all ground, serve 41 tracks on the upper level and 26 on the lower, though the total number of tracks along platforms. The terminal serves commuters traveling on the Metro-North Railroad to Westchester, Putnam, until 1991, the terminal served Amtrak, which moved to nearby Pennsylvania Station upon completion of the Empire Connection. The East Side Access project is underway to bring Long Island Rail Road service to the terminal, Grand Central Terminal has intricate designs both on its inside and outside. In addition, it contains a vast interior main concourse, the terminal is one of the worlds most visited tourist attractions, with 21.9 million visitors in 2013. Unlike other Metro-North stations, Grand Central Terminal is not owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Grand Central Station is the name of the nearby U. S. Post Office station at 450 Lexington Avenue, but may refer to the Grand Central – 42nd Street subway station that is located next to the terminal. The tracks are numbered according to their location in the terminal building, the upper-level tracks are numbered 11 to 42 east to west. Tracks 22 and 31 were removed in the late 1990s to build concourses for Grand Central North, Track 12 was removed to expand the platform between tracks 11 and 13 and track 14 is only used for loading a garbage train. The lower level has 27 tracks, numbered 100 to 126, east to west, currently, only tracks 102–112, odd-numbered tracks are usually on the east side of the platform, even-numbered tracks on the west. Grand Central Terminal has both monumental spaces and meticulously crafted detail, especially on its facade, in a February 2013 BBC News article, historian David Cannadine described it as one of the most majestic buildings of the twentieth century. In 2013, Grand Central Terminal hosted 21.6 million visitors, among them are chain stores, including a Starbucks coffee shop, a Rite Aid pharmacy and, as of December 2011, an Apple Store. Other chain restaurants include a Shake Shack, Grand Central Terminals 49-acre basements are among the largest in the city. This includes M42, a secret sub-basement under the terminal that contains the AC to DC converters used to supply DC traction current to the tracks. The exact location of M42 is a guarded secret and does not appear on maps, though it has been shown on the History Channel program Cities of the Underworld. Two of the rotary converters were not removed in the late 20th century when solid-state ones took over their job. During World War II, this facility was closely guarded because its sabotage would have impaired troop movement on the Eastern Seaboard. It is said that any unauthorized person entering the facility during the war risked being shot on sight, abwehr sent two spies to sabotage it, they were arrested by the FBI before they could strike
16.
Midtown Manhattan
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Midtown Manhattan, or Midtown, represents the central lengthwise portion of the borough and island of Manhattan in New York City. Along Manhattans north-south long axis, Midtown Manhattan separates Lower Manhattan from Upper Manhattan, the majority of New York Citys skyscrapers, including its tallest hotels and apartment towers, lie within Midtown. Midtown spans the island of Manhattan along an east-west axis, being bounded by the East River on its east. The Encyclopedia of New York City defines Midtown as being from 34th Street to 59th Street and it is sometimes broken into Midtown East and Midtown West, or north and south as in the New York City Police Departments Midtown North and Midtown South precincts. Midtown South can refer to the part of Midtown between 23rd Street and around 42nd Street, Midtown West can refer to the area between 34th and 59th Streets, and between 5th and 12th Avenues. Midtown East can refer to the area between 42nd and 59th Streets, and between 5th Avenue and the East River, in other sources these districts are referred to as separate central business districts. Midtown Manhattan, along with Lower Manhattan, is one of the leading financial centers. Midtown Manhattan is the countrys largest central business district and it has the headquarters of major companies, including 4Kids Entertainment, Barnes & Noble, Bloomberg L. P. The New York Institute of Finance is located in Midtown Manhattan, Haier operates its United States offices in the Haier Building at 1356 Broadway, the building used to be a building of the Greenwich Savings Bank. Haier held the ceremony on March 4,2002. Sumitomo Corporation operates its New York Office, the headquarters of the corporations United States operations, el Als North American headquarters are in Midtown. The Air France USA regional headquarters are in 125 West 55th Street in Midtown Manhattan, hachette Book Group USA has its headquarters in 237 Park Avenue. In 1994 Alitalia considered moving its USA headquarters from Midtown to Lower Manhattan, global Infrastructure Partners has an office in Midtown Manhattan. Biotechnology is emerging in Midtown Manhattan, bolstered by the strength in academic scientific research and public. Aer Lingus had its United States offices in Midtown, in 1997, Aer Lingus announced that it was moving its North American headquarters to Melville, New York, in Suffolk County. New York City Department of Education public schools in Midtown Manhattan include Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School, private schools include The Beekman School, Rebecca School, and a number of private language and music centers. The La Scuola dItalia Guglielmo Marconi Italian international school will move to West Midtown in 2016, in addition to its well-known Main Branch research library—now known as the Stephen A. Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal are major railroad stations located in Midtown Manhattan, the Port Authority Bus Terminal is also in Midtown
17.
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
18.
Pan American World Airways
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It was also a founding member of the International Air Transport Association, the global airline industry association. Identified by its blue logo, the use of the word Clipper in aircraft names and call signs, and the white pilot uniform caps. In an era dominated by flag carriers that were wholly or majority government-owned, during most of the jet era, Pan Ams flagship terminal was the Worldport located at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Arnold and Spaatz drew up the prospectus for Pan American when SCADTA hired a company in Delaware to obtain air mail contracts from the U. S. government. Pan American was able to obtain the U. S. mail delivery contract to Cuba and their operation had the all-important landing rights for Havana, having acquired American International Airways, a small airline established in 1926 by John K. Bevier as a service from Key West, Florida, to Havana. ACA met its deadline of having an air service operating by October 19,1927 by chartering a Fairchild FC-2 floatplane from a small Dominican Republic carrier. The Atlantic, Gulf, and Caribbean Airways company was established on October 11,1927 by New York City investment banker Richard Hoyt and this company merged with PAA and ACA on June 23,1928. Richard Hoyt was named as president of the new Aviation Corporation of the Americas, Trippe became operational head of Pan American Airways, the new companys principal operating subsidiary. The government further helped Pan Am by insulating it from its U. S. competitors, the airline expanded internationally, benefiting from a virtual monopoly on foreign routes. Trippe and his associates planned to extend Pan Ams network through all of Central, by the end of the year, Pan Am offered flights along the west coast of South America to Peru. Its Brazilian subsidiary NYRBA do Brasil was later renamed as Panair do Brasil, Pan Am also partnered with Grace Shipping Company in 1929 to form Pan American-Grace Airways, better known as Panagra, to gain a foothold to destinations in South America. The Aviation Corporation of the Americas changed its name to Pan American Airways Corporation in 1931, during the day, use of the compass while judging drift from sea currents was normal procedure, at night, all flight crews were trained to use celestial navigation. In bad weather, pilots used dead reckoning and timed turns, making landings at fogged-in harbors by landing out to sea. Many pilots had merchant marine certifications and radio licenses as well as pilot certificates, before World War II it was not unusual for a captain to make engine repairs at remote locations. Pan Ams mechanics and support staff were similarly trained, newly hired applicants were frequently paired with experienced flight mechanics in several areas of the company until they had achieved proficiency in all aircraft types. Many crews supported repair operations by flying in spare parts to planes stranded overseas, Pan Am started its South American routes with Consolidated Commodore and Sikorsky S-38 flying boats. The S-40, larger than the eight-passenger S-38, began flying for Pan Am in 1931, carrying the nicknames American Clipper, Southern Clipper, and Caribbean Clipper, they were the first of the series of 28 Clippers that symbolized Pan Am between 1931 and 1946
19.
Juan Trippe
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Juan Terry Trippe was an American commercial aviation pioneer, entrepreneur and the founder of Pan American World Airways, one of the iconic airlines of the 20th century. Trippe was born in Sea Bright, New Jersey, on June 27,1899, because of his forename he is widely assumed to have been of Spanish descent, but his family was actually Northern European in ancestry and settled in Maryland in 1664. He was named after Juanita Terry, the Venezuelan wife of his great-uncle, Trippe attended the Bovea School and graduated from the Hill School in 1917. He enrolled at Yale University but left when the United States entered World War I to apply for training with the U. S. Navy. After completing training in June 1918, he was designated as a Naval Aviator and was commissioned as an Ensign in the U. S. Naval Reserve, however, the end of World War I precluded him from flying in combat. Demobilized from active duty, he returned to Yale, graduating in 1921, while there, he was a member of St. Anthony Hall and of the Skull and Bones society. Trippe was treasurer at the meet of the National Intercollegiate Flying Association in 1920. After graduation from Yale, Trippe began working on Wall Street, in 1922 he raised money from his old Yale classmates, selling them stock in his new airline, an air-taxi service for the rich and powerful called Long Island Airways. Once again tapping his wealthy friends from Yale, Trippe invested in an airline named Colonial Air Transport, which was awarded a new route, interested in operating to the Caribbean, Trippe created the Aviation Corporation of the Americas. Based in Florida, the company would evolve into the unofficial US flag carrier, Pan American Airways, the return flight from Havana to Key West, in a Pan Am Fokker F. VII, took place October 29, being delayed from the 28th by rain. Later, Trippe bought the China National Aviation Corporation to provide air service in the Republic of China. Pan Am became the first airline to cross the Pacific Ocean with the famous Clipper flying boats, Trippe served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the airline for all but about two years between the founding of the company and the Second World War. Sonny Whitney, a stockholder, managed to seize this position and he later regretted his action and allowed Trippe to retake it. For a long time Trippe refused to pardon Whitney, at one point, he even agreed to meet Whitney for lunch for a reconciliation but changed his mind and turned around shortly after departing from his office in the Chrysler Building. Pan Am continued to expand worldwide throughout World War II, Trippe is responsible for several innovations in the airline world. Trippe quickly recognized the opportunities presented by jet aircraft and ordered several Boeing 707, Pan Ams first scheduled jet flight was operated on October 26,1958 by 707 Clipper America out of Idlewild International Airport to Le Bourget Airport, Paris. The new jets allowed Pan Am to cut the time nearly in half, introduce lower fares. In 1965, Trippe asked his friend Bill Allen at Boeing to produce a much larger than the 707
20.
Helmsley Building
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Traffic exits and enters the Park Avenue Viaduct through the building, through two portals, one for uptown traffic and one for downtown. They connect to Park Avenue proper at East 46th Street, the building was designated a New York City Landmark in 1987. Before the electrification of the New York Central Railroad in 1912–1913, the electrification and subsequent covering of the yards enabled the continuation of Park Avenue to the north and the construction of new buildings. Among them was the New York Central Building, in 1913, New York Central bore a concept for a visual termination point in the city. The New York Central Railroad Company built their 34-story headquarters at 230 Park Ave, New York City, New York in 1929. The top of the building is pyramidal, and capped by an ornate cupola, the impressive lobby, planned as a corridor connecting 45th and 46th Streets, echoes the magnificence of the exterior. The design and ornamentation celebrate the prowess of the New York Central Railroad, a sense of imperial grandeur is created by marble walls and bronze detail, which includes extensive use of the railroad’s initials. The Chinese Red elevator doors open into cabs with red walls, wood moldings, gift domes, when New York Central sold the building, General Tire & Rubber Company renamed the building the New York General Building. The building was renamed as the C and T in Central were chiseled into G and E respectively. When General Tire & Rubber Company sold the building to Helmsley-Spear, Leona Helmsley renamed the building The Helmsley Building, which is its current name. The building was purchased by Max Capital for $253 million, but in 2006 was sold again to Istithmar and it was later sold to Goldman Sachs in 2007 for over $1 billion. In May 2015, the building was sold for $1.2 billion to property firm RXR Realty, the building is shown as one of the skyscrapers still standing in the movie A. I. It was also used as one of the New York City filming locations for the non-narrative film Baraka, an interior boardroom was used in The Godfather, as the location of an important meeting between New Yorks Five Families, to show their influence in society. Railroad murals can be seen behind the actors, however, the exterior used for the shot was the Federal Reserve Bank of New York building at 33 Liberty Street. In Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged, the Helmsley Building is described as the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad Building, office of the protagonist of the novel, Dagny Taggart
21.
55 Water Street
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55 Water Street is a 687-foot-tall skyscraper in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City, on the East River. The 53-story,3. 5-million-square-foot structure was completed in 1972, emery Roth & Sons designed the building, which is tied with 277 Park Avenue as the 40th-tallest building in New York City. When it was completed it was the largest office building in the world, in an arrangement with the Office of Lower Manhattan Development, it was built on a superblock created from four adjoining city blocks, suppressing the western part of Front Street. Its closest competitors in square footage are the Met Life Building at 3,140,000 square feet and 111 Eighth Avenue at 2,900,000 square feet, one World Trade Center has roughly the same square footage. The now-destroyed World Trade Center was also bigger when it opened in 1970–71, on the north side of the tower is a 15-story wing with a sloping facade and terraces facing the river. The largest terrace forms a privately owned public space known as the Elevated Acre, about 30 feet above street level and accessible via escalator and stairs from the sidewalk on Water Street. The creation of space allowed the developers to increase the total square footage of 55 Water Street beyond what zoning regulations would otherwise have allowed on the site. The Elevated Acre was originally planned as part of a series of public spaces along East River. The Elevated Acre is available for rental as a venue for events and weddings. The original 4, 800-square-metre plaza was designed by M. Paul Friedberg & Associates, the plan also proposed adding 35 feet to the north tower. To compensate for the loss of space, Goldman Sachs proposed paying for various improvements of public space nearby. The plans were dropped and Goldman Sachs cited economic conditions as the reason although some neighborhood residents had begun to voice opposition. The building, its plazas and Jeannette Park have been renovated and redesigned by Lee S. Jablin of Harman Jablin Architects, the Elevated Acre was renovated in 2005 by Rogers Marvel Architects and Ken Smith Landscape Architects. 55 Water Street was the last major building built by Uris Buildings Corporation, since 1993 the building has been owned by Retirement Systems of Alabama who acquired it from Olympia & York. On November 23,2012, while repairs were being conducted a fire caused injuries to 27 people—mostly those working on the lower levels, to prepare for future storms the buildings owner plans to relocate electrical equipment from the basement to the third floor starting in late 2013. The building is the headquarters of EmblemHealth, HIP Health Plan of New York, which became a part of EmblemHealth, moved there with 2,000 employees in October 2004. It was the largest corporate relocation in downtown Manhattan following the September 11 attacks, Standard & Poors, a corporate rating agency, FXCM, a forex broker and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation are also headquartered in the building. The New York City Department of Transportation also has offices in the building, mcGraw Hill Financial, parent of Standard & Poors, moved its headquarters from its namesake building to 55 Water Street in June 2015
22.
MetLife
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MetLife, Inc. is the holding corporation for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, better known as MetLife, and its affiliates. MetLife is among the largest global providers of insurance, annuities, the firm was founded on March 24,1868. The company went public in 2000, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, MetLife holds leading market positions in the United States, Japan, Latin America, Asia’s Pacific region, Europe, and the Middle East. MetLife serves 90 of the largest Fortune 500 companies, in January 2016, the company announced that it would spin off U. S. Retail business, including life insurance and annuities for the retail market. They will maintain the MetLife name on MetLife Stadium, on March 6,2017, the separated U. S. Retail business launched Brighthouse Financial – an independent company focused on life insurance, as of 2010, the company was organized into five segments, Insurance Products, Retirement Products, the US Business, and International. The Insurance Products division was the largest unit, accounting for 53% of 2009 revenue, by 2015, a division referred to as Americas had emerged. As of 2011, MetLifes chief executive officer was Steve Kandarian, Kandarian also served as the companys chairman of the board and president as of 2015. Hired in 2013, John Hele served as chief officer for the company as of 2015. In 2015, MetLife hired Hugh Dineen to fill the new role of chief marketing officer within the US Business Unit, safeguard Health Enterprises, Inc. and Tower Square Securities, Inc. MetLife Bank was sold to GE Capital in 2013, and MetLife exited the banking business, the predecessor company to MetLife began in 1863 when a group of New York City businessmen raised $100,000 to found the National Union Life and Limb Insurance Company. The company insured Civil War sailors and soldiers against disabilities due to wounds, accidents. On March 24,1868, it known as Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. A severe business depression that began with the Panic of 1873 forced the company to contract, by 1880, sales had exceeded a quarter million of such policies, resulting in nearly $1 million in revenue from premiums. In 1909, MetLife had become the nation’s largest life insurer in the United States, in 1907, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company tower was commissioned to serve as MetLife’s 23rd Street headquarters in Lower Manhattan. Completed two years later, the building was the worlds tallest until 1913 and remained the headquarters until 2005. For many years, an illustration of the building featured prominently in MetLife’s advertising, by 1930, MetLife insured every fifth man, woman, and child in the United States and Canada
23.
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower
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Designed by the architectural firm of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons and built by the Hedden Construction Company, the tower is modeled after the Campanile in Venice, Italy. Inside the building is the New York Edition Hotel, a 273-room luxury hotel opened in 2015. The tower was an addition to the original 11-story, full-block Metropolitan Life Home Office building. Plans for the tower were first announced in 1905, in 1953-57, the original Home Office building was replaced with the current building, designed by D. Everett Waid. Then, between 1960 and 1964, the Tower itself was modernized by Lloyd Morgan and Eugene V. Meroni, there are four clock faces, one on each side of the tower, located from the 25th to 27th floors. Each clock face is 26.5 feet in diameter with each number being four feet tall, the minute hands each weigh half a ton. Much of the original ornamentation was removed. At its southeastern corner, it includes an entrance to the 23rd Street New York City Subway station serving the 46 <6> trains. In 1905, Metropolitan Life bought a lot at the corner of Madison Avenue and 24th Street. Finished in 1909, the served as world headquarters of the company until 2005. It was the worlds tallest building until 1913, when it was surpassed by the Woolworth Building, in the early 1950s, Metropolitan Life started to renovate its entire headquarters, as well as demolish auxiliary structures in lieu of a new limestone, art moderne building. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978, and a New York City landmark in 1989. The gilded cupola at the top of the building serves as an eternal light which stays illuminated even after the rest of the lighting system has been turned off for the night. In March 2005, SL Green Realty Corp. bought the tower, in May 2007, the tower and adjacent air rights were subsequently sold for $200 million to Africa Israel Investments. In 2011, Tommy Hilfiger and a signed a contract to buy the building for $170 million, planning to transform it into Hilfigers first hotel. However Hilfiger backed off the project in September 2011, Africa Israel then sold the tower to Marriott International in October 2011 for $165 million. Marriott announced in January 2012 that they are converting the tower to the New York Edition Hotel, Edition is Marriotts boutique hotel line, run in association with Ian Schrager. The three Edition hotels, in London, Miami and New York, were sold by Marriott in January 2013 for $815 Million to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the New York property was conveyed to its new owner on its completion
24.
Neon
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Neon is a chemical element with symbol Ne and atomic number 10 and is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert gas under standard conditions. It was discovered in 1898 as one of the three residual rare inert elements remaining in dry air, after nitrogen, oxygen, argon and carbon dioxide were removed. Neon was the second of three rare gases to be discovered, and was immediately recognized as a new element from its bright red emission spectrum. The name neon is derived from the Greek word, νέον, neuter singular form of νέος, Neon is chemically inert and forms no uncharged chemical compounds. The compounds of neon include ionic molecules, molecules held together by van der Waals forces and clathrates, during cosmic nucleogenesis of the elements, large amounts of neon are built up from the alpha-capture fusion process in stars. Although neon is a common element in the universe and solar system. It composes about 18.2 ppm of air by volume, the reason for neons relative scarcity on Earth and the inner planets is that neon is highly volatile and forms no compounds to fix it to solids. As a result, it escaped from the planetesimals under the warmth of the newly ignited Sun in the early Solar System, even the atmosphere of Jupiter is somewhat depleted of neon, presumably for this reason. It is also lighter than air, causing it to escape even from Earths atmosphere, Neon gives a distinct reddish-orange glow when used in low-voltage neon glow lamps, high-voltage discharge tubes and neon advertising signs. The red emission line from neon also causes the well known red light of helium–neon lasers, Neon is used in some plasma tube and refrigerant applications but has few other commercial uses. It is commercially extracted by the distillation of liquid air. Since air is the source, it is considerably more expensive than helium. Neon, was discovered in 1898 by the British chemists Sir William Ramsay, Neon was discovered when Ramsay chilled a sample of air until it became a liquid, then warmed the liquid and captured the gases as they boiled off. The gases nitrogen, oxygen, and argon had been identified, first to be identified was krypton. The next, after krypton had been removed, was a gas which gave a brilliant red light under spectroscopic discharge and this gas, identified in June, was named neon, the Greek analogue of novum, suggested by Ramsays son. A second gas was reported along with neon, having approximately the same density as argon but with a different spectrum – Ramsay. However, subsequent spectroscopic analysis revealed it to be contaminated with carbon monoxide
