EYES TO THE SKY October 17 – 30, 2016

Without losing sleep, step out under pre-dawn skies to commune with planet Jupiter and the great star patterns normally seen in the evening skies of winter and early spring. During the final weeks of Eastern Daylight Time (which ends on November 6th), the sun rises after 7 o’clock, making for dark mornings charged with starlight...
A planet-laden panorama for week of October 17. Courtesy of SkyandTelescope.com

Street Fight

The Battery Park City Committee of Community Board 1 (CB1) passed a resolution at its October 5 meeting, calling upon the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) to halt its ongoing initiative to consider a possible redesign of South end Avenue. The boards of six condominium apartment buildings have also enacted resolutions calling for a similar...

RiverWatch

Saturday, October 15 Anthem of the Seas Inbound 6:30 am (Bayonne); outbound 4:00 pm; Bermuda Disney Magic Inbound 6:45 am; outbound 4:30 pm; Bahamas/Port Canaveral, FL Norwegian Gem Inbound 7:15 am; outbound 4:30 pm; San Juan, P.R. via Eastern Caribbean Regal Princess Inbound 5:15 am (Brooklyn); outbound 5:30 pm; Canada/New England Viking Star Outbound pm;...

Today in History

1066 – Norman Conquest: Battle of Hastings: In England on Senlac Hill, seven miles from Hastings, the Norman forces of William the Conqueror defeat the English army and kill King Harold II of England. 1322 – Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland’s independence....
Claude Graham White flying his Farman biplane along W. Executive Ave. Washington D.C. Oct. 14, 1910

Time Lapse Cartography

“This is about how you tell the story of a neighborhood,” reflects, Abby Suckle, president of CultureNOW. “And Lower Manhattan is all about history.” This is how Ms. Suckle describes the vision behind an extraordinary new local atlas, the “Lower Manhattan: Then and NOW” map.” Ms. Suckle, an architect whose contribution to the Downtown streetscape...
CultureNow president Abby Suckle presents the organization's new mash-up map of Lower Manhattan's history to Community Board 1 in September.

Today in History

54 – Emperor Claudius is poisoned to death under mysterious circumstances. His 17-year-old stepson Nero succeeds him. 1307 – Hundreds of Knights Templar in France are simultaneously arrested by agents of Phillip the Fair, to be later tortured into a “confession” of heresy. 1773 – The Whirlpool Galaxy is discovered by Charles Messier. 1792 –...
A colorized, magnified electron microscope image of the Ebola virus growing out of an infected VERO 46 cell. Image by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases