1.
Charles Dickens
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Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the worlds best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era and his works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity, born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors prison. Dickenss literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers, within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the publication of narrative fiction. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audiences reaction, and he modified his plot. For example, when his wifes chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities and his plots were carefully constructed, and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the poor chipped in hapennies to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up. Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age and his 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also adapted, and, like many of his novels. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London, Dickens has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for his realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of depth, loose writing. The term Dickensian is used to something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings. Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on 7 February 1812, at 1 Mile End Terrace, Landport in Portsea Island and his father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and was temporarily stationed in the district. He asked Christopher Huffam, rigger to His Majestys Navy, gentleman, Huffam is thought to be the inspiration for Paul Dombey, the owner of a shipping company in Dickenss eponymous Dombey and Son. In January 1815 John Dickens was called back to London, when Charles was four, they relocated to Sheerness, and thence to Chatham, Kent, where he spent his formative years until the age of 11. His early life seems to have been idyllic, though he himself a very small. Charles spent time outdoors but also read voraciously, including the novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding, as well as Robinson Crusoe
2.
Steinway & Sons
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Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway, is an American-German piano company, founded in 1853 in Manhattan, New York City, by German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg. The companys growth led to the opening of a factory in Queens, New York City, the factory in Queens supplies the Americas and the factory in Hamburg supplies the rest of the world. Bechstein, Bösendorfer and Blüthner, Steinway & Sons is referred to as one of the Big Four piano manufacturers, Steinway has been described as the preeminent piano company, known for making pianos of high quality and for inventions within the area of piano development. Steinway has been granted 126 patents in piano making, the first in 1857, the companys share of the high-end grand piano market consistently exceeds 80 percent. Steinway pianos have received numerous awards, one of the first is a gold medal in 1855 at the American Institute Fair at the New York Crystal Palace. From 1855 to 1862, Steinway pianos received 35 gold medals, several awards and recognitions followed, including 3 medals at the International Exposition of 1867 in Paris. The European part of the company holds a royal warrant of appointment to Queen Elizabeth II, Steinway pianos are made at the factories in Hamburg and Queens. In addition to the flagship Steinway piano line, Steinway markets two less expensive brands of piano sold under the brand names Boston and Essex. The Boston brand is for the market and the Essex brand is for the entry-level market. Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg first made pianos in the 1820s from his house in Seesen and he made pianos under the Steinweg brand until he emigrated from Germany to America in 1850 with his wife and eight of his nine children. The eldest son, C. F. Theodor Steinweg, remained in Germany, and continued making the Steinweg brand of pianos, partnering with Friedrich Grotrian, in 1853, Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg founded Steinway & Sons. His first workshop in America was in a loft at the back of 85 Varick Street in the Manhattan district of New York City. The first piano made by Steinway & Sons was given the number 483 because Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg had built 482 pianos in Germany, a year later, demand was such that the company moved to larger premises at 82–88 Walker Street. It was not until 1864 that the family anglicized their name from Steinweg to Steinway, by the 1860s, Steinway had built a new factory at Park Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Street where it covered a whole block. With a workforce of 350 men, production increased from 500 to nearly 1,800 pianos per year, the employees were mostly German immigrants and the official language of the company was German. Almost half of the companys 126 patented inventions were developed by the first, Steinways pianos won prizes at exhibitions in New York City, London, and Paris. By 1862, Steinway pianos had received more than 35 medals, part of Steinways early reputation arose from its successes in trade fairs. In 1865, the Steinway family sent a letter to C. F, C. F. Theodor Steinweg obeyed, selling his share of the German piano company to his partner, Wilhelm Grotrian, and two other workmen, Adolph Helfferich and H. G. W
3.
William Steinway
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William Steinway, also known as Wilhelm Steinway, son of Steinway & Sons founder Henry E. Steinway, was a businessman and civic leader who was influential in the development of Astoria, New York. Steinway was born in Seesen, Brunswick, the son of Henry Engelhard Steinway. In Germany, he received an education and was also given instruction in languages. He then became an apprentice in a factory, where he spent two years. He came to the United States with his father and brothers in 1850, with his father and his brothers Charles and Henry, he founded the firm of Steinway & Sons in 1853. /52th Street. In 1866, Steinway erected Steinway Hall to make a place for the exhibition of the highest musical skill and it was a huge success for the company. He also founded the Steinway Concert & Artist department, which is working today. In 1870, William began building a town, Steinway Village, on 400 acres in northern Astoria. Near the factory was housing for his workers, a church, library, in 1929, a resort area which Steinway developed just east of Astoria, in North Beach, was converted into North Beach Airport, later renamed LaGuardia Airport. His successor in the company was Charles Herman Steinway and it was recently revealed, when nine volumes of Steinways personal diaries, covering 35 years, were made public on-line by The Smithsonian Institution, that he was devastated by his wifes adultery. Steinway married Regina Roos in Buffalo, New York in April 1861 and he was 26 and she 17 and the couple were deeply in love. The marriage lasted 16 years and included a series of affairs which Steinway found personally devastating, Regina was to become pregnant six times – two children were still-born and a third miscarried. One son was illegitimate and moved with his mother to France when she divorced in 1876, as early as 1876, the gifted designer and Daimler confidant Wilhelm Maybach had come to know William Steinway. Steinway, like Daimler, quite rightly believed these was a future for the internal combustion engine. After William Steinway returned to America, plans quickly materialized, on September 29,1888, Daimler Motor Company of New York was founded and initially produced gas and petroleum engines for stationary and marine applications. 1896/97 the American Daimler was produced in the premises of the Steinway Astoria plant, following Steinways early death in 1896, his heirs werent convinced about the project and sold all their shares to the General Electric Company in 1898. The factory was renamed Daimler Manufacturing Company, today, the hand polished wood inside the Daimler AG companys luxury top brand cars named Maybach is made by Steinways factory in Hamburg, Germany. During the 1890s, Steinway began a project to extend his company towns horse-drawn trolley line under the East River and this project would eventually lead to the IRT Flushing Line
4.
14th Street (Manhattan)
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14th Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Presently primarily a street, in the earlier history of New York City 14th Street was an upscale location. At Broadway, 14th Street forms the border of Union Square. It is also considered the boundary of Greenwich Village, Alphabet City, and the East Village, and the southern boundary of Chelsea, Flatiron/Lower Midtown. 14th Street marks the terminus of Manhattans grid system. North of 14th Street, the make up a near-perfect grid that runs in numerical order. South of 14th, the grid continues in the East Village almost perfectly, but not so in Greenwich Village, the street was designated by the Commissioners Plan of 1811 as the southernmost of 15 east-west streets that would be 100 feet in width. West 14th Street begins at an interchange with New York State Route 9A northeast of Greenwich Village, at the end of the interchange, it intersects with 10th Avenue. The street continues east, intersecting with Washington Street, Ninth Avenue/Hudson Street, Eighth Avenue, Seventh Avenue, Sixth Avenue, after Fifth Avenue, West 14th Street becomes East 14th Street and goes on to form the southern border of Union Square between University Place and Fourth Avenue. East of Fourth Avenue, 14th Street forms the end of Irving Place. 14th Street then intersects with Third Avenue, which forms the border between the neighborhoods of the East Village to the south and Gramercy to the north. The street goes on to intersect with Second Avenue, the location of the future 14th Street station in the unfunded Phase 3 of the Second Avenue Subway, at First Avenue, 14th Street widens from a four-lane road to a six-lane divided boulevard with a westbound service road. It then intersects with the main thoroughfares of Alphabet City, Avenue A, Avenue B, and Avenue C, 14th Street is well served by the New York City Subway. The BMT Canarsie Line runs underneath 14th Street from Eighth Avenue to the East River, stopping at First Avenue, Third Avenue, Union Square, Sixth Avenue, the line is served at all times by the L train. Two New York City Bus routes serve the street, M14A. From west to east, points of interest include Hudson River Park, High Line, Union Square Park, Manhattan streets, 1-14 Notes New York Songlines, 14th Street, a virtual walking tour
5.
University Place (Manhattan)
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Although the roadway continues north of 14th Street as Union Square West, the two streets run in opposite directions, both feeding into 14th Street. Until the late 1990s, University Place was a two-way street, the street contains numerous shops and restaurants, many of which cater to students at NYU and The New School. University Place was formerly part of Wooster Street, but received a new name in 1838, the street was the original location of the Union Theological Seminary in 1838, and the New York Society Library moved there in 1856
6.
Fifth Avenue
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Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare going through the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It stretches from West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square North at Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village and it is considered among the most expensive and best shopping streets in the world. The lower stretch of Fifth Avenue extended the stylish neighborhood of Washington Square northwards, Fifth Avenue is the central scene in Edith Whartons 1920 Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Age of Innocence. The novel describes New Yorks social elite in the 1870s and provides context to Fifth Avenue. Originally a narrower thoroughfare, much of Fifth Avenue south of Central Park was widened in 1908, the midtown blocks, now famously commercial, were largely a residential district until the start of the 20th century. In 1906 his department store, B. Altman and Company, the result was the creation of a high-end shopping district that attracted fashionable women and the upscale stores that wished to serve them. Lord & Taylors flagship store is located on Fifth Avenue near the Empire State Building. In the 1920s traffic towers controlled important intersections from 14th to 59th Streets, traffic crosses the river on the Madison Avenue Bridge. Fifth Avenue serves as the line for house numbering and west-east streets in Manhattan. It separates, for example, East 59th Street from West 59th Street, the most expensive street in the world moniker changes depending on currency fluctuations and local economic conditions from year to year. For several years starting in the mid-1990s, the district between 49th and 57th Streets was ranked as having the worlds most expensive retail spaces on a cost per square foot basis. In 2008, Forbes magazine ranked Fifth Avenue as being the most expensive street in the world, some of the most coveted real estate on Fifth Avenue are the penthouses perched atop the buildings. The American Planning Association compiled a list of 2012 Great Places in America and this historic street has many world-renowned museums, businesses and stores, parks, luxury apartments, and historical landmarks that are reminiscent of its history and vision for the future. Below is a list of sites on Fifth Avenue with their designation dates,500 Fifth Avenue Building – December 14,2010 Aeolian Building – – December 10,2002 George W. It recognizes structures, buildings, sites, and districts associated with important events, people, Fifth Avenue from 142nd Street to 135th Street carries two-way traffic. Fifth Avenue carries one-way traffic southbound from 135th Street to Washington Square North, the changeover to one-way traffic south of 135th Street took place on January 14,1966, at which time Madison Avenue was changed to one way uptown. From 124th Street to 120th Street, Fifth Avenue is cut off by Marcus Garvey Park, Fifth Avenue is one of the few major streets in Manhattan along which streetcars did not operate. Instead, Fifth Avenue Coach offered a more to the taste of fashionable gentlefolk
7.
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
8.
Academy of Music (New York City)
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The Academy of Music was a New York City opera house, located on the northeast corner of East 14th Street and Irving Place in Manhattan. The 4, 000-seat hall opened on October 2,1854, the review in The New York Times declared it to be an acoustical triumph, but In every other aspect. The Academys opera season became the center of life for New Yorks elite. The Academy of Music has been described as the first successful dedicated opera house in the United States, by May 1853, the interior has been dismantled and the furnishings sold off, with the shell of the building sold to the Mercantile Library Association. The stages proscenium opening was 48 feet, with an additional 35 feet in the wings, the height of the proscenium opening was 30 feet. Its first opera season was from October through December 1854, the Max Maretzek Italian Opera Company was engaged by US actor James Henry Hackett. The company performed Bellinis Norma for the inauguration of the theatre with Giulia Grisi in the title role, Maretzeks company performed an annual season at the Academy through 1878. His company was not the group active at the opera house as the theater during this time. Musicologist George Whitney Martin writes, New Yorks Academy of Music, from 1854 to 1883 the citys leading house for opera, because it was primarily a real estate venture run by a board of investors seeking the highest rent possible. The Academy hosted several American premieres, including Rigoletto, Il trovatore, La traviata, Aida, Lohengrin, Die Walkure, in 1860 it was the site of a reception for the Prince of Wales. These balls were covered by the press, which did little to dim the enthusiasm or ribald behavior of the participants, one reporter wrote that women were thrown in the air and then sexually assaulted amid the jeers and laughter of the other drunken wretches on the floor. Not a whisper of shame in the crowd and these spectacles grew in size over the following decades, in 1876, one such ball was attended by over 4000 people. Still, it was the season that made the Academy the mainstay of social life for New Yorks uppertens. This emblem of social prominence was passed down generation to generation. The Metropolitans new opera house at Broadway and 39th Street, twice the size of the Academy and it contained three tiers of elegant boxes to display the wealth of the citys new economic leaders. The new opera house was an instant success with New York society and music lovers alike, in 1888 the Academy began to offer vaudeville. From January 28 to March 1901, a revival of Clyde Fitchs play Barbara Frietchie appeared there, the venue was rented by labor organizations in the early 1900s and used to stage rallies. In 1926 it was demolished, along with its neighbor Tammany Hall, on the south side of 14th Street across from the site of the opera house, a movie theatre opened in 1927 which took the name the Academy of Music
9.
Gas lighting
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Gas lighting is production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, such as hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, or natural gas. Before electricity became widespread and economical to allow for general public use, gas was the most popular method of outdoor and indoor lighting in cities. Early gas lights were ignited manually, but many designs are self-igniting. In addition, some urban historical districts retain gas street lighting, early lighting fuels consisted of olive oil, beeswax, fish oil, whale oil, sesame oil, nut oil, and similar substances. These were the most commonly used fuels until the late 18th century, chinese records dating back 1,700 years note the use of natural gas in the home for light and heat via bamboo pipes to the dwellings. Public illumination preceded the discovery and adoption of gaslight by centuries, in 1417, Sir Henry Barton, Mayor of London, ordained lanterns with lights to be hung out on the winter evenings between Hallowtide and Candlemasse. Paris was first lit by an order issued in 1524, and, in the beginning of the 16th century, in coal mining, accumulating and escaping gases were known originally for their adverse effects rather than their useful qualities. Coal miners described two types of gases, one called the choke damp and the fire damp. In 1667, a paper detailing the effects of gases was entitled, A Description of a Well and Earth in Lancashire taking Fire. Imparted by Thomas Shirley, Esq an eye-witness, stephen Hales was the first person who procured a flammable fluid from the actual distillation of coal. His experiments with this object are related in the first volume of his Vegetable Statics and these results seemed to have passed without notice for several years. This paper contained some striking facts relating to the flammability and other properties of coal-gas, the principal properties of coal-gas were demonstrated to different members of the Royal Society, and showed that after keeping the gas some time, it still retained its flammability. The scientists of the time still saw no purpose for it. John Clayton, in an extract from a letter in the Philosophical Transactions for 1735, calls gas the spirit of coal and this spirit happened to catch fire, by coming in contact with a candle as it escaped from a fracture in one of his distillatory vessels. By preserving the gas in bladders, he entertained his friends, william Murdoch was the first to exploit the flammability of gas for the practical application of lighting. He worked for Matthew Boulton and James Watt at their Soho Foundry steam engine works in Birmingham and he first lit his own house in Redruth, Cornwall in 1792. In 1798, he used gas to light the building of the Soho Foundry and in 1802 lit the outside in a public display of gas lighting. One of the employees at the Soho Foundry, Samuel Clegg, Clegg left his job to set up his own gas lighting business, the Gas Lighting and Coke Company
10.
New York Philharmonic
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It is one of the leading American orchestras popularly referred to as the Big Five. The Philharmonics home is David Geffen Hall, known as Avery Fisher Hall until September 2015, founded in 1842, the orchestra is one of the oldest musical institutions in the United States and the oldest of the Big Five orchestras. Its record-setting 14, 000th concert was given in December 2004, the New York Philharmonic was founded in 1842 by the American conductor Ureli Corelli Hill, with the aid of the Irish composer William Vincent Wallace. The orchestra was called the Philharmonic Society of New York. It was the third Philharmonic on American soil since 1799, and had as its intended purpose, the first concert of the Philharmonic Society took place on December 7,1842 in the Apollo Rooms on lower Broadway before an audience of 600. The concert opened with Beethovens Symphony No, the musicians operated as a cooperative society, deciding by a majority vote such issues as who would become a member, which music would be performed and who among them would conduct. At the end of the season, the players would divide any proceeds among themselves, after only a dozen public performances and barely four years old, the Philharmonic organized a concert to raise funds to build a new music hall. The centerpiece was the American premiere of Beethovens Symphony No,9, to take place at Castle Garden on the southern tip of Manhattan. About 400 instrumental and vocal performers gathered for this premiere, which was conducted by George Loder, the chorals were translated into what would be the first English performance anywhere in the world. However, with the expensive US$2.00 ticket price and a war rally uptown, the audience was kept away. Although judged by some as an odd work with all those singers kept at bay until the end, during the Philharmonics first seven seasons, seven musicians alternated the conducting duties. In addition to Hill, Timm and Étienne, these were William Alpers, George Loder, Louis Wiegers and this changed in 1849 when Theodore Eisfeld was installed as sole conductor for the season. Eisfeld, later along with Carl Bergmann, would be the conductor until 1865 and that year Eisfeld returned to Europe, and Bergmann continued to conduct the Society until his death in 1876. Leopold Damrosch, Franz Liszts former concertmaster at Weimar, served as conductor of the Philharmonic for the 1876/77 season, but failing to win support from the Philharmonics public, he left to create the rival Symphony Society of New York in 1878. Upon his death in 1885, his 23-year-old son Walter took over, Carnegie Hall would remain the orchestras home until 1962. The Philharmonic in 1877 was in financial condition, caused by the paltry income from five concerts in the 1876/77 season that brought in an average of only $168 per concert. At first the Philharmonics suggestion offended Thomas because he was unwilling to disband his own orchestra, because of the desperate financial circumstances, the Philharmonic offered Theodore Thomas the conductorship without conditions, and he began conducting the orchestra in the autumn of 1877. He left in 1891 to found the Chicago Symphony, taking thirteen Philharmonic musicians with him, another celebrated conductor, Anton Seidl, followed Thomas on the Philharmonic podium, serving until 1898
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