The pneumatic system for transporting mail, active in NYC from 1897-1953. Very neat. Systems like this are still in use at many banks, with trash management, and some research libraries.
nyc
The New York Public Library is training computers to recognize building shapes and other information from old city maps, and they need your help! Take a few minutes to help hone the data; no experience or knowledge required! This is a very neat experiment in crowdsourcing data aggregation for use to improve civic society.
The Jew, the Jew, and the Gentile
My friend Valerie and I were biking back to Clinton Hill from Williamsburg. It was evening; she wanted to take the Wythe route through the Jewish part of the neighborhood, as it was better lit and less hilly. I noticed a woman in a traditional white long sleeve blouse, long black skirt, and tights signaling quietly but clearly to me with her finger as if to ask a question. Valerie hadn’t seen and kept biking, but I slowed to a stop.
“Excuse me, do you have a moment?” she asked.
We’re trained to run the other direction in those situations (thanks, Greenpeace), but I saw no clipboard in sight. It was also a very quiet street; I wondered how long she had been standing there. I said sure.
“Could you possibly turn off our air conditioner; it’s getting colder than we expected but can’t do it ourselves.”
It wasn’t Shabbat, but I realized that similar Jewish law regarding “work” (like turning a switch on or off) might apply on holidays, so I asked if it was because of Sukkot, to which she said yes.
“Ok, let me make sure my friend will watch my bike.”I thought for a second and then realized what I needed to disclose: “I should tell you that I’m also Jewish but do not follow the same observance custom; does that matter.”
“Oh, yes, it does matter; it won’t work. Is your friend Jewish?”
“No,” I replied, a bit stunned that I couldn’t perform this mitzvah myself. I also felt apologetic. “I hope it’s not offensive that I don’t observe this custom.”
She warmly thanked me for letting her know, and Valerie agreed without missing a beat to go in and turn the switch off. I stayed with bikes and she went in.
When Valerie emerged 5 minutes later, the woman sent her out with cups of water and gave a friendly wave and thanked us again, and we hopped back on our bikes and rode away.
Everything about this little interaction was exciting to both of us. Like anyone would be, we were curious; who in New York doesn’t like seeing any and every apartment possible and how people live? I was also so thrilled that Valerie could – and proud that she willingly did – perform this mitzvah for a family enjoying dinner during the holiday. I was also a bit jealous and uncomfortable that I couldn’t perform the task myself – I had no moral issue with it – but at the same time, I felt a sense of community with a person whose reality seemed so different from my own, because despite my style of dress and relative ambivalence towards the holiday, I was still a Jew in her eyes. I loved too that traditional observance truly mattered so much to this woman, despite how odd it seems in today’s times.
One more Brooklyn story…
Beautiful chills from this New York City Ballet video posted on September 12 at sunrise. Read more.
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
Neat maps used to tell New York stories that come from tax data. All my favorite things!
From Touching Strangers by Richard Renaldi.
Nineteen days. That is the time it took to put up a 28-unit, six-story apartment building in the Inwood section of Manhattan this summer. The secret? Modular construction.
(via Crain’s New York)
(Source: http://player.vimeo.com/)
Great news clip on accessibility through one East Village resident’s eyes.
(via Former Ms. Wheelchair America Struggles with East Village Curbs and Steps)
(Source: http://download.macromedia.com/)
Did you know: Area Codes
Q. Why was New York City’s original area code 212?
A. Because it was easy to dial.
When area codes were introduced to speed the calling of long-distance numbers, telephones had rotary dials. The nearest digit to the dialing stopper, and thus the digit that could be dialed the quickest, was 1. Next came 2, and then 3.
It would seem the original numbering plan in 1947 assigned the fewest necessary clicks on the rotary dial to the most populous area codes, with New York City’s topping the list. Originally, operators used the area codes, which preceded by many years the actual direct dialing of long-distance numbers by much of the public.
There were also a few other rules. The original North American numbering plan apparently had only 0 or 1 as the middle numeral, with 0 meaning a whole state using the same area code, and 1 meaning a state that had several area codes within it. Another rule was that there shouldn’t be two of the same digit in a row. Since New York State had several area codes, the middle digit needed to be 1. The first and third digits were the fastest remaining option, 2.
By the same system of minimizing the clicks, Los Angeles had 213 and Chicago had 312.
Read this via the New York Times this morning and found it quite interesting. Then, I wondered how other area codes were distributed, so I looked up a list. While upper/central Michigan would have had the short end of the stick in the rotary phone days with 989, at least one can now dial these digits conveniently in the same row on most mobile devices.
Be patient—and tough.
a New York teaching.
Read more in a well-articulated post by Sarah Hopela on what she learned in NYC.
