How quickly darkness falls at Equinox time – and how quick we must be to reach horizon-hugging planet Venus soon after sunset and Mercury before sunrise in the twilit sky. Find a horizon view to the west-southwest to watch for Venus to appear above the sunset glow within half an hour of sundown. In the...
The night sky at Whiskey Creek Observatory, Arenas Valley, New Mexico, evening of 28 January 2014. The glow from Silver City, New Mexico can be seen at the lower left. photo courtesy: Kent DeGroff
Of late, the South Street Seaport Museum has felt like a parent suffering through empty-nest syndrome, or at least “empty-dock syndrome.” During the summer, one of its children, the four-masted sailing vessel Peking, left for good, on its way to a new home in Hamburg’s German Port Museum. The other beloved child, the full-rigged ship...
1763- In Campo Maior, Portugal, at 3 am, a storm hits the Armory, located on the Castle’s main tower, which contains 6000 arrobas (a Portuguese and Spanish unit of mass) of gunpowder and 5000 pieces of ammunition. An explosion ensues, followed by fire, killing two-thirds of its inhabitants. 1810 – With the Grito de Dolores,...
With a wind speed of 165 mph, Hurricane Ivan was large long-lived ( 22 days) Cape Verde-type hurricane that caused widespread damage in the Caribbean and United States. It took 123 lives in the affected areas of Texas and the Grand Cayman islands
This year’s Battery Park City Block Party (slated for Sunday, September 18, on the Esplanade Plaza, overlooking North Cove Marina) might be the last, as the community leaders who founded the event prepare to hand responsibility to successors who have yet to come forward, or else let the celebration become part of the community’s history....
This year’s Battery Park City Block Party (slated for Sunday, September 18, on the Esplanade Plaza, overlooking North Cove Marina) might be the last, as the community leaders who founded the event prepare to hand responsibility to successors who have yet to come forward, or else let the celebration become part of the community’s history....
On September 11, thousands gathered at Ground Zero to honor those killed fifteen years earlier when commercial airliners were repurposed into deadly missiles, striking a blow at an iconic symbol of capitalism by targeting prominent buildings in New York’s Financial District. On September 16, tens of thousands walk down Wall Street unaware that nearly a...
The Presumed Target: Apparently believing that big things come in small packages, J. P. Morgan & Company settled into its new headquarters at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in 1913. Occupying an unidentified, unadorned four-story stone building in a growing neighborhood of steel-frame corporate skyscrapers, the firm saw no need for extra notoriety or additional rent.