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The real bogeyman turns out not be private ownership but architects, especially those in thrall to Le Corbusier, the evil genius of Modernism. In this scenario, hapless working-class families were 'thrust' up in the air by 'arrogant' architects and planners who built 'dehumanising' tower blocks out of 'ugly, brutal' concrete. Surely poor building and lack of amenities are the main issue here, otherwise why do residents of the Barbican (which features concrete, 30-storey buildings and much-castigated walkways), say, or the flashy new residential towers which have sprung up recently all over the place – Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Canary Wharf – feel no need to burn cars, spray obscene graffiti or defecate in the lifts?
'The sameness drives me half mad,' she complains of the 'conforming' and 'anonymous' Wood estate, yet what could be more conforming than the Nash Terraces of Regent's Park, among the most sought after and priciest houses in the country? And in condemning flat living she barely acknowledges that one large area of the UK – Scotland – has a very long and harmonious history of housing all classes in flats.
This myopic view of architecture leads Hanley – in a curious mirror image of the messianic architects of the 1960s – to invest it with more power than it possesses on its own to transform society. She and her neighbours in East London wish to see their 1960s estate demolished and rebuilt as much as possible as small houses with gardens. I sincerely hope that she is right that this will transform their lives, but the troubled North Peckham estate, which underwent just such a reinvention a decade ago, suggests that it takes more than 'comforting lines of terraced houses and pleasing low-rise apartments' to make a happy council estate.
Hanley's mix of popular history, polemic and personal memoir bears a strong resemblance to another insider's working-class history – Michael Collins's The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class, and it shares that book's strengths – passion, first-hand vividness – and its weaknesses – partiality, solipsism, historical myopia and most of all a failure to integrate the personal with the polemical. Rather like the council estates themselves, a good idea on paper that does not deliver in practice.
A Louisiana plan called the Small Rental Property Program is designed to help owners of rental properties damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
It's part of The Road Home program, which was started last summer with $7.5 billion of federal money. Most of the Road Home funds are intended for Louisiana homeowners, but $800 million of the recovery money has been earmarked for landlords who own up to four rental properties.
dirty linen
more rainy day blizzard music to watch
the new this old house project is doing a green job on a 1926 austin tx craftsman bungalow
The architecture may be old at This Old House's new project in Austin, Texas, but the thinking is thoroughly modern. For the first time, the show is going totally "green"—using as many environmentally friendly building products and methods as possible—and creating a functional home for a contemporary blended family.
state fair part 2
texas state fair freak tent 1978
from old and water damaged negatives / photog jaschw
toyota houses
poglecto
white-bread and embedded
10 summer of haight photos (for mike - psyber exclusive)
lambertville in on the delaware nj
starting at $200K
untitled, 1968
rip dan christensen
In the late 1960s, Christensen, 64, found that the realism of his classical art training was restrictive and began using spray guns to paint colorful stacked loops on canvas, winning him critical acclaim, The New York Times said. Besides the process of painting and experimentation, he was concerned about how color interacted
liberty harbor north
When complete, the neighborhood of Liberty Harbor North will be the most thorough exemplification to date of the principles of the New Urbanism. Due to its high-density housing, multiple transit connections, and pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use streetscape, this development is likely to serve as a textbook model for healthy urban growth in the future.
Located just a half mile west of the Hudson River on the north bank of the Morris Canal, the 80-acre brownfield site in Jersey City boasts dramatic views of Lower Manhattan to the east and the Statue of Liberty to the south. A new light rail will provide two stops in the neighborhood; and the Grove Street PATH Train, with service to both Lower Manhattan and Midtown, is a five-minute walk away. A water taxi offers convenient access to Lower Manhattan, and New York Waterways has expressed interest in providing large-scale ferry service in the near future. The site is bordered by the Van Vorst neighborhood to the east and the Hamilton Park neighborhood to the north-- two historic neighborhoods worthy of emulation.
“People are super busy, constantly on the go, and want a more subdued, uncomplicated home environment,” said Shawn Henderson, eBay’s design director. There has been a significant dip in sales of antiques on the Web site, he said, and although he could not quantify the change, he said there is so little interest that search terms like “Federal” and “Queen Anne” are not even on the radar. People want midcentury Modern, Art Deco or Craftsman style pieces from the 20th century.
In addition to fancying a newer, cleaner look, buyers do not want to risk making mistakes in buying antiques. “There are so many fake antiques on the market right now that people don’t want to bother with them,” said J. Randall Powers, an interior designer in Houston. Fakes have become more common in the last 10 years as improved technology has allowed for closer approximations. At most, he said, his clients might buy a single antique to serve as an accent or contrast to their mostly modern décor.
[...]
“Why would you pay a fortune for a lesser-quality, mediocre antique when you could get an über-antique reproduction for the same price?”
PSF : A lot of your songs involved writing new lyrics for songs.
Tuli : It's a very old tradition. I used it a lot when I didn't have a band. The earliest singers I remember that did this was (Martin) Luther who took popular songs of the period and made church hymns out them. He said 'why should the devil have the best of tunes.' Then Joe Hill in the early part of the 1900's used church hymns and changed them into radical pop songs.
Long-haired preachers come out every night
Try and tell you what's wrong and what's right
But when asked about something to eat
They are sure, they are sure to repeat
'You'll get pie...
You'll get pie in the sky when you die (that's a lie)
Work and pray
Live on hay
You'll get pie in the sky when you die (it's a lie)'
So it's an old tradition. I call them para-songs.
dead soda society
via vz
vegas on the arabian gulf
rip texas girl anna nicole
Worker Shortages Post-Katrina Send Businesses out of Mississippi
Facing a housing shortage along the Gulf Coast, many companies are finding it difficult to find employees and as a result, are being forced to relocate. The NewsHour reports on how Mississippi businesses are grappling with the economic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
IMPORTING FOREIGN WORKERS
JEFFREY KAYE: Some Mississippi companies are using workers from much farther away than neighboring states. They're importing hundreds of employees from abroad.
Late last year, Signal International, an oil rig construction and repair company, brought in some 300 workers from India. Working as welders and pipe fitters, they've been issued temporary visas by the federal government under a program that allows companies that can't find U.S. employees to import foreign nationals.
The Indian workers live in housing inside the shipyard. They have to pay room and board. The company wouldn't let us shoot there, nor would they provide a representative for an on-camera interview. But off-camera, a Signal vice president told us the company also uses hundreds of workers, provided by labor contractors, including many guest workers from Mexico.
The Mexican workers -- about 300 of them -- live in a fenced-in compound at a site that's near the shipyard. When we started to interview the workers, the labor contractor that brought them in, Knight's Marine and Industrial Services, told us to leave. They refused to answer any questions.
The workers live in wooden sheds without windows, plumbing or insulation. They sleep in bunk beds -- six to a cabin -- where they store food. These pictures were taken and provided to us by workers who asked to remain anonymous, saying they feared retribution.
Putting foreign workers up in sheds may represent an extreme response to the labor shortage. But Mississippi businesses worry that the problem will not be resolved easily or soon. Bruce Nourse is vice president of MGM's Beau Rivage Casino in Biloxi.
BRUCE NOURSE, Beau Rivage Casino: We lost about 70,000 homes on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We have never built more than 2,500 homes in one year on the Gulf Coast. So just by virtue of that fact, it'll take us years to recoup what we had prior to the storm.
JEFFREY KAYE: The rebuilding brings with it a catch-22: As government and insurance money flows in, the demand for workers will be even more urgent.
spinal tap
BIG BOYS Austin TX punk, 'Funk Off' / 'Baby, Let's Play God'