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Happy 126th birthday, storm-ready Lady Liberty!

On October 28th, 1886, President Grover Cleveland led the dedication ceremony for the Statue of Liberty (officially named Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde). 

One-hundred twenty-six years later to the day, "Lady Liberty" is bracing herself for some pretty darn breezey weather! Hurricane Sandy is, to quote NY1's head meteorologist, "for real, on her way, and looks to be pretty strong." The MTA is closing the subway system at 7:00 p.m. tonight and suspending bus service at 9:00 p.m. PATH trains will suspect service at midnight. New York City schools are closed tomorrow, Monday, October 29th.

It's advised that during the storm's height if you don't have to be outside, don't be, and if you're on the lower levers of a building with street- or park-facing windows, keep your shades closed since they could help contain glass in the highly unlikely event of flying debris shattering your window.

Well, at least New Yorkers will have something to talk about around the water cooler on Tuesday morning...and on social media since a few hours ago, ad nauseum.

Image: Wikipedia photo; watercolor Storm Heading for New York by HikingArtist

NB4L - New Bus For London

New Bus For London. (“NB4L”)

In service in 2012.

Manufacturer :  Wrightbus

Capacity :  87 (lower: 22 seats, 1 wheelchair space, 25 standing; upper deck: 40 seats)

Operator(s): Arriva London

Length :  11.2 m (36 ft 9 in)

Width : 2.55 m (8 ft 4 in)

Height :  4.4 m (14 ft 5 in)

Doors : 3

Weight :  11.8 t (13.0 short tons)

Engine(s) :  diesel-electric hybrid drive system

 

Chamber of Commerce, AFL-CIO, and the President agree: Extending the Transportation Bill

Calls from the usually opposing US Chamber of Commerce and the ALF-CIO to invest in America's transportation infrastructor date back to January.

From recent remarks by President Obama:

At the end of September, if Congress doesn’t act, funding for our roads and bridges will expire. This would put a stop to highway construction, bridge repair, mass transit systems and other important projects.... And it would affect thousands of construction workers....
.....
Right away, over 4,000 workers would be furloughed without pay. If it’s delayed for just 10 days, we will lose nearly $1 billion in highway funding that we can never get back. And if we wait even longer, almost 1 million workers could be in danger of losing their jobs over the next year.

....In Virginia, 19,000 jobs are at risk. In Minnesota, more than 12,000. And in Florida, over 35,000 people could be out of work if Congress doesn’t act.

That makes no sense – and it’s completely avoidable....

via www.webwire.com

End of the Era, but "Antiques Garage Gets a Little More Time"

[W]here Andy Warhol, Susan Sontag and Greta Garbo once wandered through the flea markets along a four-block stretch of Avenue of the Americas stuffed with more than 700 hustler’s booths, there is now only the Antiques Garage, home to 100 booths on a busy weekend. And the clock is ticking for the Garage as well.

The Garage, a two-story playland of antique ephemera, was set to close at the end of the month to make way for development, a victim of the Chelsea gentrification that it helped usher in. But this week, its founder announced that it would be able to stay on a bit longer, after agreeing to a new month-to-month lease.

via www.nytimes.com

The sterilizing, corporatizing, small business-obliterating, middle-class squeezing gentrification of Manhattan has been well underway for nearly 20 years now, and The Garage--a weekend indoor flea market set up in a 2-story parking garage--is one of the last holdouts in Chelsea, a neighborhood roughly between W. 28th St. and W. 14th St. and between Broadway and the Hudson River). But, its days are numbered.

From the article:

The [Garage's] second floor often feels less frenetic than downstairs, but customers can find an eclectic mix of merchandise, from fabric, statuary and paintings like these to 17th-century works on paper.

(Image: Photo by Yana Paskova for The New York Times; caption:

Kanae Matsuda shops for vintage mirrors amid the paintings, prints, jewelry, handbags, rugs, fabrics and furniture available on two floors of the garage, on 25th Street between Avenue of the Americas and Seventh Avenue.")

Mark Powers', "The Shipping Forecast"

"The Shipping Forecast," by Mark Power, Magnum Photos, Member (since 2007).

Intangible and mysterious, familiar yet obscure, the Shipping Forecast is broadcast four times a day on BBC Radio 4. Power's photographs are a response to the clash between the pictures built up in his imagination since childhood and the reality of the places he found.

His photography project took four years to complete, and was exhibited 1997-1999.