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Let’s start at the end of one story, the story of the dump, with the view from way up on top of it.

Let’s start at the peak of what was once a steaming, stinking, seagull-infested mountain of trash, a peak that is now green, or greenish, or maybe more like a green-hued brown, the tall grasses having been recently mown by the sanitation workers still operating at Fresh Kills, on the western shore of Staten Island. Today the sun dries the once slime-covered slopes, as a few hawks circle in big, slow swoops and a jet makes a lazy approach to Newark, just across the Arthur Kill. The sky, when viewed from atop a twenty-story heap of slowly decomposing garbage—the so-called South Mound, a Tribeca-size drumlin surrounded by other trash mounds, some as long as a mile—is the kind of big blue that you expect to see somewhere else, like the middle of Missouri. It’s a great wide-open bowl, fringed with green hills (some real, some garbage-filled) that are some of the highest points on the Atlantic seaboard south of Maine. Meanwhile, at your feet, hook-shaped white plastic tubes vent methane, the gas that builds up naturally in a landfill, a by-product of refuse being slowly digested by underground bacteria. The hissing of landfill gas is soft and gentle, like the sound of a far-off mountain stream or the stove left on in your apartment.

But as you look a little longer, it’s definitely not a Missouri view, and the unmistakable landmarks come into focus: a tower on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, a span of the Outerbridge Crossing, and, on Coney Island, the very top of the parachute jump. In the foreground, trucks enter the landfill, climbing the mounds and dumping clean soil over not-so-clean soil. It’s all part of a radical plan to turn Fresh Kills landfill into Fresh Kills Park, with mountain bikers and kayakers and ballplayers sharing 2,315 acres of open space with restored maritime forests, with chestnut trees dotting dry prairies, with new or revived sweet-gum swamps, maybe a fox scooting through persimmon copses or a deer through a new birch thicket.

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abandoned luncheonette

abandoned police station wtf

via zoller
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timberframe cabin project via materialicious

I've started on a timberframed cabin project. I'm making the parts here in Nebraska, and hauling them out to some land in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Wyoming (about a mile from the Continental Divide near Encampment) where I will assemble them into a small cabin. The site is on the edge of the Medicine Bow National Forest, and has a small stream running across it. That cabin will be where I stay and keep my tools as I build a larger cabin over the next decade or so.
the above quote was from when he was just getting started and now hes pretty well finished up the cabin, so you can review the whole construction process start to completion. well done. nice project.


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must listen sunday evenings on wfmu radio 91.1 fm ~ streaming online ~ archived

gaylord fields from 5 - 7 pm

monica lynch from 7 - 9 pm

honorable mention: venerable music radio online stream 78 rpm era music 247


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Smothered: The Censorship Struggles of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour examines the turmoil that surrounded the late-1960s variety show. With a young and brash stable of writers and performers, including Steve Martin and Rob Reiner, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour brought an edgy new brand of political comedy to the airwaves for three seasons. When they were fired in 1969, brothers Tom and Dick Smothers took their network, CBS, to court ... and won. This is the fascinating, true story as told by its key players, including the Smothers Brothers, show writers Rob Reiner and Mason William, performers Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Harry Belafonte, and former CBS executives.


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Guitar evanglists, singing preachers and the like....

at the hound
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the endangered french cafe


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Shipping Container Steel Building - Plans & Manuals CD


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shakerst

Shaker Stove/Built-in Closet
Rendered by John W. Kelleher (artist), c. 1938
watercolor, graphite, and gouache on paper
overall: 27.8 x 20.6 cm (10 15/16 x 8 1/8 in.)
Original IAD Object: 68" high; 17" wide (closet)
Index of American Design
1943.8.13677


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science class tables via workalicious


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arts & architecture




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hendrix for everyone

and lou too


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jinhua-architecture-park


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electric mini cooper


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The Fontainebleau was gutted to the studs, its 22-acre grounds completely redrawn. Developers added three upscale signature chefs' restaurants and an enormous new beachfront spa to accommodate 1,504 guest rooms -- just under half of them suites in two new towers. Each features granite counters, walk-in showers and separate jetted tubs, flat-screen TVs and even a new Apple computer. That last part is the centerpiece of the "paperless" hotel -- meaning all guest correspondence will be electronic.

New owner Jeffrey Soffer's team, which bought the property for $500 million and shelled out another $500 million in upgrades, is also opening Fontainebleaus in Las Vegas (fall 2009), Dubai and a fourth, to-be-named location.

Though they wanted a new identity, designers strove to retain architect Morris Lapidus' original vision. For example, Lapidus' affinity for circles is clear throughout the hotel's spacious hallways, where elaborate chandeliers by Ai WeiWei, a consultant for the Beijing Olympics' Bird's Nest main stadium, hang from high-ceiling insets.

The grand lobby's original white-and-black bow-tie floor pattern was recreated out of new materials, and its furrowed columns were preserved and refurbished.

So too was the Fontainebleau's famed "Staircase to Nowhere," which historically led to a small coat room just above the lobby. Belles and beaus would take an elevator up, check their coats and descend the stairs for a grand entrance. The coat check is gone -- not a terribly sensible feature in the tropics, anyway -- but the runway remains.

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alan zweibel on lopate


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left wing political graphics


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45 Vintage ‘Space Age’ Illustrations

via zoller
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rain water harvesting


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dat dere


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frank lloyd wright an autobiography

rubble trench foundation


The desert offered a new challenge in materials. The architect's primary solution was "desert rubblestone wall" construction, usually shortened to "desert masonry." There are many ways of acheiving this, but all involved placing large stones into forms, then pouring concrete around the stones while leaving most of the face next to the form exposed. in the Bott house (S.404) wet sand was forced between form and stone surface before the concrete was poured. In the Austin house (S.345) crumpled newspaper was used instead of sand to keep stone faces from being covered with concrete. At Taliesin West, the mortar was allowed to seep around the edges of the stone face, and surplus was the chipped away to reveal the stone surface. Often, the stone was washed with acid to bring out its color.

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The Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, has opted to court controversy with plans (to be announced at a 9 a.m. press conference today) that will plant a new 90,000-square-foot, Renzo Piano-designed building just west of Louis Kahn's 120,000-square-foot 1972 masterpiece.


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SOLD!

105: Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) Cow (Wallpaper)
Lot # 0105
Estimates: $3000 - $4000
Start Price: $1500
Sale Title: Post-War and Contemporary Art View entire catalog
Sale Location : Lambertville, New Jersey
Sale Date 9:00 AM PST - Nov 15th, 2008
Description Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) Cow (Wallpaper), 1966;
Screenprint in colors (framed); From the edition of unknown size; Rubber stamp
signature in left margin; 41 3/4" x 27 3/4" (sight); Printer: Bill Miller's Wallpaper Studio, Inc., New York; Publisher: Factory Editions, New York for an exhibition at Leo
Castelli Gallery; Literature: F. & S. ll.11; Provenance: Leo Castelli Gallery, New York; Private Collection, New York
Hammer Price $4750

108: Mike Bidlo (American, b. 1954) Not Warhol (Cow Wallpaper)
Lot # 0108
Estimates: $1500 - $2000
Start Price: $750
Sale Title: Post-War and Contemporary Art View entire catalog
Sale Location : Lambertville, New Jersey
Sale Date 9:00 AM PST - Nov 15th, 2008
Description Mike Bidlo (American, b. 1954) Not Warhol (Cow Wallpaper), 1984;
Screenprint (framed); Signed; 42 1/4" x 33 3/8" (sight); Provenance: Private Collection, New York
Hammer Price $4500


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LONDON: Recession. Depression. Slump. Crash. Whatever it's called, and however severe it turns out to be, the economic crisis is bound to affect design. The question is how? Judging by design's fate in past recessions, it will suffer in this one. Some designers' clients will go out of business, and others will cut costs. Research and development budgets will be slashed. Designers' jobs will be lost, and projects scrapped. But there may be positive consequences too. Design has always coped well with austerity, and is especially well-equipped to do so now.

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