Mexicali in Baja California

7 October 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

House of Culture © Thelmadatter

House of Culture © Thelmadatter

Mexicali is the capital city of the Mexican state of Baja California and seat of the Municipality of Mexicali. The City of Mexicali has a population of 690,00, according to the 2010 census, while the population of the entire metropolitan area reaches 1,000,000; making the city and metropolitan area the second most populous in Baja California. The city maintains a highly educated and skilled population, as it has modernized and become an important population center in the desert region. Founded on March 14, 1903, Mexicali is situated on the Mexico–United States border adjacent to its sister city Calexico in California, with which it forms a dual-state, international population center, Calexico–Mexicali.   read more…

Theme Week Washington, D.C. – President’s Park

30 September 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  10 minutes

President's Park with White House © Ad Meskens/cc-by-sa-3.0

President’s Park with White House © Ad Meskens/cc-by-sa-3.0

President’s Park, located in Washington, D.C., encompasses the White House, a visitor center, Lafayette Square, and The Ellipse. President’s Park was the original name of Lafayette Square. The current President’s Park is administered by the National Park Service. The White House Visitor Center is located in the north end of the Herbert C. Hoover Building (the Department of Commerce headquarters between 14th Street and 15th Street on Pennsylvania Avenue NW). Since September 11, 2001, the visitor center no longer serves as a starting point for those going on a reserved tour of the White House. The various exhibits provide an alternative visitor experience for those who did not schedule a tour. The themes of the six permanent exhibits are First Families, Symbols & Images, White House Architecture, White House Interiors, Working White House, and Ceremonies and Celebrations. Other exhibits change throughout the year.   read more…

Central Park in Manhattan

16 September 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  35 minutes

Central Park, seen from Rockefeller Center © Alfred Hutter

Central Park, seen from Rockefeller Center © Alfred Hutter

Central Park is an urban park in middle-upper Manhattan, within New York City. Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States, with 40 million visitors in 2013. It is also one of the most filmed locations in the world. The Park was established in 1857 on 778 acres (315 ha) of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, a landscape architect and an architect, respectively, won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they titled the “Greensward Plan”. Construction began the same year and the park’s first area was opened to the public in the winter of 1858. Construction continued during the American Civil War farther south, and was expanded to its current size of 843 acres (341 ha) in 1873. Central Park was designated a National Historic Landmark (listed by the U.S. Department of the Interior and administered by the National Park Service) in 1962. The Park was managed for decades by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, and is currently managed by the Central Park Conservancy under contract with the municipal government in a public-private partnership. The Conservancy is a non-profit organization that contributes 75 percent of Central Park’s $65 million annual budget and is responsible for all basic care of the 843-acre park.   read more…

Canal Street in Manhattan

9 September 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City, Shopping Reading Time:  8 minutes

Canal Street, at the corner Baxter Street © Pacific Coast Highway/cc-by-sa-3.0

Canal Street, at the corner Baxter Street © Pacific Coast Highway/cc-by-sa-3.0

Canal Street is a major east-west street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, running from East Broadway between Essex and Jefferson Streets in the east, to West Street between Watts and Spring Street in the west. It runs through the neighborhood of Chinatown, and forms the southern boundaries of SoHo and Little Italy as well as the northern boundary of Tribeca. The street acts as a major connector between Jersey City, via the Holland Tunnel (I-78), and Brooklyn, via the Manhattan Bridge. It is a two-way street for most of its length – from West Street to the Manhattan Bridge – with two unidirectional stretches between Forsyth Street and the Manhattan Bridge. Early in the 20th century, the jewelry trade centered on the corner of Canal Street and Bowery, but moved mid century to the modern Diamond District on 47th Street. In the 1920s, the Citizens Savings Bank built a notable domed headquarters at the intersection’s southwest corner which remains a local landmark. The portion of Canal Street around Sixth Avenue was New York’s principal market for electronics parts for a quarter-century after the closing of Radio Row for the building of the World Trade Center.   read more…

Carnegie Hall in New York

2 September 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City, Opera Houses, Theaters, Libraries Reading Time:  11 minutes

© Martin Dürrschnabel/cc-by-sa-2.5

© Martin Dürrschnabel/cc-by-sa-2.5

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park. Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1891, it is one of the most prestigious venues in the world for both classical music and popular music. Carnegie Hall has its own artistic programming, development, and marketing departments, and presents about 250 performances each season. It is also rented out to performing groups. The hall has not had a resident company since 1962, when the New York Philharmonic moved to Lincoln Center‘s Philharmonic Hall (renamed Avery Fisher Hall in 1973 and David Geffen Hall in 2015). Carnegie Hall has 3,671 seats, divided among its three auditoriums.   read more…

Fontainebleau Miami Beach

31 August 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Hotels, Miami / South Florida Reading Time:  8 minutes

© Ebyabe/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Ebyabe/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Fontainebleau Miami Beach (also known as Fontainebleau Hotel) is one of the most historically and architecturally significant (Miami Modern architecture) hotels in Miami Beach. Opened in 1954 and designed by Morris Lapidus, it was arguably the most luxurious hotel in Miami Beach, and is thought to be the most significant building of Lapidus’s career. In 2007, the Fontainebleau Hotel was ranked ninety-third in the American Institute of Architects list of “America’s Favorite Architecture“. On April 18, 2012, the AIA’s Florida Chapter ranked the Fontainebleau first on its list of Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places. The Fontainebleau Miami Beach is situated on oceanfront Collins Avenue in the heart of Millionaire’s Row and is currently owned by Fontainebleau Resorts. Fronting the Atlantic Ocean, the 1,504-room resort features two new towers, 12 restaurants and bars. a 40,000-square-foot (3,700 m2) spa with mineral-rich water therapies and co-ed swimming pools, and oceanfront poolscape featuring a free-form pool shaped as a re-interpretation of Lapidus’ signature bow-tie design.   read more…

Diamond District in New York City

24 August 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City, Shopping Reading Time:  7 minutes

© ChrisRuvolo/cc-by-sa-4.0

© ChrisRuvolo/cc-by-sa-4.0

47th Street is an east-west running street between First Avenue and the West Side Highway in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Traffic runs one way along the street, from east to west, starting at the headquarters of the United Nations. The street features the Diamond District in a single block (where the street is also known as Diamond Jewelry Way) and also courses through Times Square. The portion of 47th Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue is known as the Diamond District and Diamond Jewelry Way, which hosts a kosher cafe, the IDT Megabite Café. The district was created when dealers moved north to Midtown Manhattan from an earlier district in Lower Manhattan near Canal Street and the Bowery that was created in the 1920s, and from a second district located in the Financial District, near the intersection of Fulton and Nassau Streets, which started in 1931, and also at Maiden Lane, which had existed since the 18th century.   read more…

World Trade Center Transportation Hub in New York City

1 August 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, House of the Month, New York City Reading Time:  8 minutes

© flickr.com - massmatt/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – massmatt/cc-by-2.0

World Trade Center is a terminal station in Lower Manhattan for PATH rail service. It was originally opened on July 19, 1909, as Hudson Terminal, but was torn down, rebuilt as World Trade Center, and re-opened July 6, 1971. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, a temporary station opened in 2003. This station serves as the terminus for the Newark – World Trade Center and Hoboken – World Trade Center routes. The main station house, the Oculus, opened on March 4, 2016, and the terminal was renamed the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, or World Trade Center for short.   read more…

Theme Week New York City – Brooklyn

22 July 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City Reading Time:  18 minutes

Brooklyn Borough Hall © Jim.henderson

Brooklyn Borough Hall © Jim.henderson

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City‘s five boroughs, with a Census-estimated 2,6 million residents in 2015. It is geographically adjacent to the borough of Queens at the southwestern end of Long Island. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, the most populous county in the U.S. state of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, after the county of New York (which is coextensive with the borough of Manhattan). With a land area of 71 square miles (180 km2) and water area of 26 square miles (67 km2), Kings County is New York’s fourth-smallest county by land area and third-smallest by total area, though it is the second-largest among the city’s five boroughs. Today, if it were an independent city, Brooklyn would rank as the fourth most populous city in the U.S., behind only the other boroughs of New York City combined, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The history of European settlement in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years. The settlement began in the 17th century as the small Dutch-founded town of “Breuckelen” on the East River shore of Long Island, grew to be a sizable city in the 19th century, and was consolidated in 1898 with New York City (then confined to Manhattan and part of the Bronx), the remaining rural areas of Kings County, and the largely rural areas of Queens and Staten Island, to form the modern City of New York. In the first decades of the 21st century, Brooklyn has experienced a renaissance as an avant garde destination for hipsters, with concomitant gentrification, dramatic house price increases, and a decrease in housing affordability. Since 2010, Brooklyn has evolved into a thriving hub of entrepreneurship and high technology startup firms, and of postmodern art and design. The borough continues, however, to maintain a distinct culture. Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves. Brooklyn’s official motto, displayed on the Borough seal and flag, is Eendraght Maeckt Maght, which translates from early modern Dutch to “Unity makes strength“.   read more…

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