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lkugroup1 · 5 days ago

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Comprehensive Guide to Multifamily Housing Development & Engineering in New Jersey

Multifamily housing development is a key aspect of urban growth and sustainable living. New Jersey, with its thriving economy and proximity to major metropolitan areas, is witnessing a surge in demand for multifamily units. These developments not only provide essential housing options but also play a critical role in enhancing the infrastructure, economy, and quality of life within communities. The engineering involved in these projects requires a thorough understanding of urban planning, mechanical systems, electrical integration, and sustainable design practices. This article delves into the core elements of multifamily housing development and engineering in NJ, with a focus on creating energy-efficient, cost-effective, and long-lasting solutions.

Why Multifamily Housing Development in New Jersey is Vital

The demand for multifamily housing in New Jersey has reached new heights due to a variety of factors. The state's population is growing steadily, and with major cities like Newark, Jersey City, and Trenton attracting both businesses and residents, the need for affordable, high-quality housing has never been more pressing. Additionally, New Jersey’s proximity to New York City and Philadelphia makes it an attractive location for workers who seek affordable housing options without sacrificing access to urban amenities and job opportunities.

Key Drivers of Multifamily Housing Development in NJ

Urbanization: As more people migrate to cities for job opportunities, the demand for apartment buildings, condominiums, and townhouses has increased exponentially. This urban shift has made multifamily developments an essential component of future planning.

Population Growth: With a population that continues to grow, especially in suburban areas near transit hubs, multifamily housing provides a scalable solution to meet housing needs while preventing urban sprawl.

Economic Factors: The economic boom in sectors like finance, healthcare, and technology has brought a wave of skilled workers to New Jersey. Developers are meeting this demand with high-end multifamily buildings and mixed-use developments.

Transit-Oriented Development (TOD): New Jersey's expansive transit network, including commuter rail and bus systems, supports a growing demand for multifamily housing near transportation hubs. These TOD projects are pivotal in ensuring that residents have easy access to jobs and services.

The Role of Engineering in Multifamily Housing Development

Engineering is the backbone of any successful multifamily housing project. From structural integrity to energy efficiency, every aspect of a multifamily building must be meticulously planned and executed to ensure safety, sustainability, and long-term viability.

Mechanical Engineering in Multifamily Housing

Mechanical engineering in multifamily developments encompasses a broad range of systems, including HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), plumbing, and fire protection systems. These systems must be designed for efficiency, functionality, and compliance with local building codes. Key considerations include:

Energy Efficiency: Advanced HVAC systems, such as variable refrigerant flow (VRF) systems, are commonly used to improve energy efficiency while maintaining comfort. By using less energy to heat and cool spaces, these systems reduce the building's overall environmental footprint and operating costs.

Water Conservation: Plumbing systems in multifamily housing must be designed with water conservation in mind. Low-flow fixtures, rainwater harvesting systems, and smart water management solutions help minimize consumption while maintaining comfort for residents.

Indoor Air Quality: Proper ventilation systems, air filtration, and humidity control are critical in creating a healthy indoor environment. Mechanical engineers design systems that ensure optimal air circulation and filtration to promote well-being for building occupants.

Electrical Engineering for Multifamily Housing Projects

Electrical engineering plays a crucial role in providing safe, efficient, and reliable power to multifamily developments. The electrical systems need to be robust enough to support modern living demands, including the rise of electric vehicles, smart home devices, and energy-efficient lighting.

Smart Grid Technology: With the increasing adoption of smart devices in homes, electrical systems are evolving to incorporate smart grids. These systems enable real-time monitoring of energy use and help optimize power distribution, making them ideal for sustainable building practices.

Energy-Efficient Lighting: Modern LED lighting and automated lighting controls reduce electricity consumption while providing better illumination for residents. Electrical engineers work with designers to integrate these solutions seamlessly into the building's design.

Backup Power Systems: In areas prone to outages, multifamily buildings often require backup power solutions. Engineers design reliable systems that ensure critical systems, such as elevators and emergency lighting, remain operational during power disruptions.

Civil Engineering and Structural Integrity

The structural engineering of multifamily housing projects focuses on the design and construction of buildings that can withstand environmental stresses and ensure the safety of residents. This includes considerations such as:

Seismic and Wind Resistance: Engineers must assess the geographical location of the development and design the structure to withstand potential natural disasters, including earthquakes, heavy winds, and flooding.

Sustainable Materials: The use of sustainable and locally sourced materials is becoming increasingly important in multifamily housing development. Civil engineers are tasked with selecting materials that provide durability while minimizing environmental impact.

Foundation and Framing: Structural engineers must design foundations and frameworks that support the weight of the building, its inhabitants, and any potential future upgrades or changes. This involves calculating load-bearing capacities and ensuring that the structure remains stable throughout its lifespan.

Sustainability and Green Engineering in Multifamily Housing

Sustainability is at the forefront of modern multifamily housing projects. As environmental concerns grow, developers and engineers are focusing on creating green buildings that minimize energy consumption and reduce the carbon footprint. Green engineering practices not only benefit the environment but also contribute to lower operating costs and improved resident satisfaction.

Energy-Efficient Building Design

Energy-efficient design principles are a cornerstone of sustainable multifamily housing development. Key features include:

Insulation and Thermal Performance: Proper insulation reduces heat loss in winter and keeps interiors cool in the summer, minimizing the need for artificial heating and cooling. Engineers often recommend high-performance insulation materials and windows with low thermal transmittance to improve the building’s energy efficiency.

Solar Power Integration: Solar panels are increasingly being integrated into multifamily housing projects to harness renewable energy. Engineers design systems that integrate solar panels into the building's structure, ensuring that they are efficient and aesthetically pleasing.

LEED Certification: Many multifamily housing projects in New Jersey are striving for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. This internationally recognized standard ensures that buildings meet high environmental performance standards, from energy and water conservation to indoor environmental quality and sustainability.

Water Conservation and Management

Effective water management systems are a vital component of green engineering. Multifamily housing projects must incorporate sustainable solutions such as:

Greywater Recycling: The use of greywater (wastewater from sinks, showers, and laundry) for irrigation and non-potable uses reduces the demand on freshwater resources.

Low-Impact Development (LID): LID strategies, such as rain gardens and permeable pavements, help manage stormwater runoff and reduce flooding risks in urban environments.

Conclusion: The Future of Multifamily Housing Development in NJ

As New Jersey continues to grow, the need for multifamily housing will only increase. Engineering plays a pivotal role in ensuring that these developments are not only functional and safe but also sustainable and energy-efficient. Through innovations in mechanical, electrical, and structural engineering, as well as a focus on sustainable practices, developers can meet the demands of modern living while contributing to a greener future.

With advancements in technology, smarter building designs, and a growing emphasis on sustainability, the future of multifamily housing development in New Jersey is promising. Engineers and developers alike are working to create buildings that are not only well-suited to the needs of today’s residents but also capable of adapting to future demands.

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myforrest2 · 3 months ago

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badstepsmoving · 8 months ago

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charlie's statistics.

statistics.

nickname/alias. char, charles age. 48 date of birth. july 4th gender. trans-man. to note: charlie is not publicly out, the only people who know are mac and dee. if you write either of those muses, you do not need to go along with this part of my canon (charlie will still be trans, but your mac or dee does not need to know). whatever you're comfortable with. pronouns. he/him/his orientation. biromantic, demisexual. race/ethnicity. white height. 5'5 hair. dark brown, graying at the sides right above his ears. often messy and unkept (and greasy) eyes. green piercings. n/a tattoos. "badnew" tattooes on his left forearm parents. shelley kelly (deceased), bonnie kelly siblings. bunny and candy kelly pets. n/a occupation. janitor and occasional bartender at paddy's irish pub hometown. philadelphia pennsylvania current residence. philadelphia, pennsylvania likes. slimy and slippery things, ghouls, adventures, cats, cheap beer dislikes. loud sudden noises, crowded spaces, being told what to do. hobbies. exploring, dressing in costumes, writing music, singing, hanging out under bridges, wandering the sewers. positive traits. kind, empathetic neutral traits. restless, concerned negative traits. emotionally reactive, quick to anger, reckless alignment. chaotic neutral neurodivergencies & disorders. anxiety, cptsd, depression, autism. personality. very kind and loving, has a big heart. can come across as a bit odd or silly but always means well.

biography.

charlie kelly was born on february 9th, 1976. charlie was raised by his mother, bonnie kelly. his father, however, was never in the picture. he often felt of himself as an outcast, having a hard time connecting with other children. he struggled in school with reading and writing. the only other kid he seemed to connect with was ronald mcdonald, who would end up dubbing the nickname “mac”. during high school charlie continued to be picked on by other students. he was often chastised and called “dirtgrub”. he didn’t fully understand that other kids were making fun of him. he stuck with his friends, spending most of his time skipping class with mac and spending it under the bleachers. when he looks back on his high school experience, he is convinced that he was a cool kid, blocking out a lot of the negative memories. charlie found his love for music in high school, finding it a good way to release his emotions. music always came easy to him. he was always able to listen to a song and play the melody on the piano, eventually he learned how to add harmonies and other musical elements. through out high school he also worked a series of odd jobs to get extra money, helping support his mother by pitching in money for bills. he didn’t spend much of it, he ended up putting most of it away in a savings account. in 1998 he began working as a manager at south philly skate, a local roller rink. mac also got a job at the roller rink. charlie was very passionate about his job, and once he heard word that the owner of the rink, smokey, was going to shut the rink down due to financial troubles, he knew he needed to save the business. so him, mac, and his friend dennis came up with an idea to buy the rink. when they approached smokey with the idea, he informed them that it wasn’t actually the roller rink that he was going to have to shut down, but a dive bar down the street. once “the gang” purchased paddy’s pub, charlie began working at the bar as a janitor.

verses.

one - set post season 16. charlie currently works at paddy's irish pub and lives in a small apartment with frank reynolds. two - charlie has just graduated from high school. he does odd jobs for people in his neighborhood, usually maintenance or plumbing work as well as pest control. (charlie can be anywhere from 18 - 22 in this verse). three - this verse is set right after charlie, mac, and dennis purchas paddy's pub from smoky. charlie is 25 in this verse, and just getting started as a janitor at paddy's. he lives in his own apartment. four - this verse is set after "the gang gets a new member". after charlie is kicked out of the gang, he ends up staying away. he kicks frank out of his apartment, and keeps his job as a high school janitor. he has moved on from the gang, gotten sober, and spends most of his free time creating and writing music.

#charlie / bio.

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myplumber · 1 year ago

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pttiedu · 1 year ago

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Career Opportunities In Steamfitting: A Look At The Job Market

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wearemsi · 2 years ago

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okay-victoria · 3 years ago

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Random Personal Rant

For anyone somehow here not from the original thread, this started off me getting asked what finishing school is and me getting shit off my chest that is only mildly relevant about how I could both be of the social class that gets sent to finishing school and grows up on welfare.

With an understanding that in many parts of the world it wouldn't qualify as so, as far as the US goes, my dad is from what counts as a very old money family from Baltimore & Philadelphia. Both his siblings went to college and one now owns a major hedge fund, and his sister is married to a C-level executive at a huge conglomerate. His parents went to college. His grandparents went to college. All eight of his great grandparents went to college. My dad...did not go to college. He was not about that life, and while I don't mean it as an insult, when I say his primary occupation until I was ~5 was a drummer in a mediocre band I mean that he opened for a lot of great acts, and if you lived in the Boston to Atlanta area in the 80s you may have heard him play, but he was never a huge national name. But he wasn't an amateur band playing for free at some random local gig either.

My mom grew up on a chicken farm in a Mennonite family in Pennsylvania but also completely rejected her heritage and became a model, sort of like my father, of mediocre status. Not Giselle Bundchen, but had national contracts and if you have a Graco ad/box from 1990-1993 you might see both me and her on it. They met because my mom's friends placed bets, one each, on who could sleep with a member of their favorite local band first and my mom picked my dad and...my mom was actually supposed to go be a model in Tokyo and found out she was pregnant with me and couldn't go 😂

So, after my parents had two kids back to back with a third on the way and determined they needed lifestyles more in line with having three children, they became much poorer than they originally were because my mom stopped working and my dad, with a barely-passed-high-school education but needing a true "day job" worked day labor in construction. My dad's father was too proud to give us money/help if my dad didn't beg for it; despite having eventually four young children my dad never did so we ended up on all the state assistance programs one could imagine. My grandma jokes that dinners at my parents house were BYOC - bring your own chair, because we didn't own any.

My mother and paternal grandmother had no such pride issues and I live in eternal gratitude that my welfare childhood was not as crappy as it should have been because my grandmother would have my mom accompany her on grocery runs and buy us food without my father or grandfather knowing, and every Christmas and birthday my grandparents/godparents could give us the one big ticket gift all the kids wanted that year. But, on the other side, I once got stung by a bee inside my mouth because my brother threw a hairbrush through a cracked window at me and broke it and we couldn't afford to fix it for about two years and a hornet got in one day and rested himself in my coke can (my parents were the very American type that fed me coca-cola in baby bottles at age 8 when I was jealous of my younger siblings lol).

It is hard not to believe in "toxic masculinity" when two men warring over dumbass pride issues would rather their children/grandchildren go without food than suck it up and decide 'help' isn't the worst word in the English language, and you know you've only been saved by two women who came from totally different backgrounds and entirely disapproved of each other but reached out the hand to shake when it came down to toddlers getting the short end of the don't-bend-the-knee stick. It wasn't that either of the men were bad people, I loved them both and got along great with both, but on a societal level I feel they were socialized in a very fucked up way if that was the end result, as both claimed "male pride" in these instances [my dad took multiple thousands of dollars I'd saved from working during college from me during the 2008-2010 financial crisis and didn't tell me and that was the reason I was given for why I hadn't been informed/asked, because it would be too emotionally difficult for an adult man to ask a young woman. My graduation present was them repaying me 1/3 of the money they'd taken from me without asking because I'd like, trusted them when it had been in a joint account that was a holdover from when I was <18 and couldn't have my own bank account].

While in some ways my parents on the surface achieved the American dream of going from nothing to a bunch of money, the real factor in play was that my dad's father was the bank. My parents had no credit and couldn't get real loans. My dad worked construction and during the two major periods that flipping houses was very lucrative, he never had to get an actual loan or pay actual interest, he just had to ask his father to pay out cash and then repay him at a flat 2% interest rate that didn't even accrue over time, just...whenever you are ready, repay the value of the loan + 2%. Because my father was doing something productive, in these instances, my grandfather was happy to pay, because it wasn't giving away money, it was loaning it. I had a very weird situation of mostly being poor but like also getting taken to the "big donors" events at the Kennedy Center and my grandparents regularly buying me a dress as a child worth more than my mom's wedding dress and also needing to pretend I fit in with these people.

And look. When I say "these people"...honestly, by and large, most wealthy people, whether inherited or not, are not the assholes you want to imagine. Most of them are extremely nice. Most of them are generous when it comes to the less fortunate who are in their personal sphere of being. Most of them are just really out of touch. The 100% kindest of all of them that I know once relayed to me that she thought people would be happier if once a year they did what she did...go to the airport with a purse packed full of absolute necessities, buy a one way ticket to the most appealing destination on the flight board, buy your clothes and book your accommodations after you'd arrived, and come back after you felt you'd 'centered' yourself. She didn't understand why there were so many unhappy people who weren't taking this very obvious route to being happier. I didn't quite know how to explain that saying "most" people couldn't afford to do that either financially or from a job/career angle didn't even cover it, as "most" sounds like 70% instead of 99.7%.

I was both my parents eldest son and eldest daughter in the worst combination possible. I was the eldest son because I was the most stereotypically male of all my siblings, in everything from desire to physically fight the battles I was given to dislike of shopping/fashion to lack of emotional connection to my relationships, so I can now fix your average household plumbing/drywall/electrical issue better than most "city" guys I interact with and remain less clingy to them in the process. I was also very much the oldest daughter from a responsibility perspective, I managed our household and from age 10 - 24 managed the finances of our family business, my mom almost died giving birth to my youngest brother after a ruptured uterus that should never have happened in the first place if we had adequate insurance to get her a non-emergency C-section (I was just past 9 years old at the time) and I was informally withdrawn from school for two years to take care of the family when she couldn't because there is no paid parental leave in the US and we got double-fucked by the medical industry because she got a bad "mesh" put in and then had to have a further surgery to repair that which we also had to pay for and didn't have the money to win a lawsuit over.

I don't know quite how to put this, but in the deepest fuck you of the universe, my rich-immigrant-ggggg grandfather's money led to him owning banks, insurance companies, etc, and the family cashed out in a big way when their ownership was bought by and merged with what is now Cigna, one of the biggest US healthcare insurers, and my nuclear family specifically got screwed by the American health insurance industry, but anyway, we were the people selected for that karmic comeuppance so if you want to feel schadenfreude at my expense, I'll allow it without begrudging the sentiment, my family might have fucked up your family’s life too, not just their own.

I got up twice a night to feed my brother because my dad had to sleep unmolested in my room to get to work and my mom was too weak to carry my brother or even hold him against her while she nursed so I had to hold him up to her. Adjusting to living in a city and hearing lots of random noises all the time was not easy when I'd had mom sound instincts from age 9.

I learned to drive the fall my youngest bro was born because my mom couldn't and I had to get my middle brother to preschool and go the grocery store on my own. While I hold absolutely no ill will towards my father or grandfather for this and given that about 1/3 of my paternal family either has an autism diagnosis or should, I fully feel the struggles they both went through to be communicated with, my father wouldn't ask for help, and my grandmother that lived 20 minutes away couldn't give enough help because my grandfather refused to do a single dish on his own as that was outside their "marriage contract" type agreement and she couldn't ever stay with us overnight when there wasn't a clearly-communicated need, so they let the burden fall on a 9 - 11 year old child and that really shaped a lot of my life in both good and bad ways. My youngest brother is 22, and we have only just climbed out of the medical debt his birth left us with between my dad's life insurance and my oldest brother and I paying for the extra cost of out-of-state college tuition.

The irony of all of this is that because my father died before his father, when my grandmother dies, my siblings and I will all inherit enough money (as a non-blood relative my mom, despite keeping her vows to part at death and not having remarried in eight years, is cut out entirely) to make this a non-issue, but my grandfather couldn't conscience spotting his unluckiest child some money in the end of days to pay for my youngest two brothers' education and take that worry off my father as he was dying. The day before he died I had to hold him down in bed to keep him from trying to climb in his truck to go to work because he was so anxious about trying to provide for us in spite of his father having fuck you money, because his father didn't think it was fair to the other siblings (who, at the time, still owned a major hedge fund and were married to a C-level executive of a huge conglomerate). A day and a half later I went back to my job because at the time I was then the sole provider for the family and didn't want to risk asking for the standard week's bereavement leave when I knew I was capable of showing up at work the next day and was fresh out of college so hadn't built up a reputation yet.

My father worked the day each of us was born, so I suppose it is only fair and he smiled at the choice. In spite of what it may seem, I gave a baller and very heartfelt speech at his funeral to all his rich friends that over and above everything, he'd taught us how to be happy with our own lives no matter what, and multiple of them emailed my mom in the aftermath to say they'd reassessed their relationship with their children in light of it, although...tbh I kind of doubt that lasted and they probably changed nothing 😅. The last good talk I had with him, two weeks before he died [his liver was going and it sent toxins to his brain that de-personed him after that and he no longer recognized me as his daughter, but as his sister], I reassured him that though we would all be sad he'd gone, we'd live on just fine without him because that's how he'd raised us, and according to my mom that was what gave him the final bit of peace he needed. Although honestly, I don't think I will ever see the strength in another human again that it took my grandmother to sit next to him and stroke his hand and tell him to close his eyes and imagine he was happy on a beach and die, for God's sake, because he was unaware and in pain and just prolonging it for our sake by then.

That type of obsession my grandfather had with assessing his children and grandchildren on the basis of economic productivity and a very black and white idea of "fair" is one you don't easily forget, I promise you. My hedge fund uncle is currently positioning himself to screw us out of our inheritance because of janky writing in the will and I'm doing my fuck all best to gain the wherewithal to go toe-to-toe with this cold motherfucker in court as the oldest and representative member of my happily much nicer and softer younger brothers who I want to remain that way not because I even care that much about the money, I know what bills affect your credit first and what you can put off paying and all of us have good enough career prospects to do our own thing, but just because I want to give the middle finger to a man that was a multi-millionaire and drew lines on his milk and orange juice bottles when I came over so he knew if I drank what my parents couldn't afford when I was approximately six. Anyway, ask me why I support major reforms in wealth taxation. I don't care who it goes to, just not that guy, you feel?

Having expendable income was very exciting for a bit after I started working but once I got to the hateable point of assessing my annual bonus and internally complaining that I'd spent the money I should have spent on a Sauternes cellar to drop five digits on bedset materials (to be fair they are drop dead gorgeous, very comfy and the factory pays a living wage for people to handmake the sheets/duvets/pillows to people in San Francisco, which is not cheap, so maybe I did more good than harm with that), I two seconds later nodded to myself and went "the government needs to confiscate more money from me". The narrative is always that the "undeserving" will use it for dumb things they don't need like iPhones or refrigerators...?...but like...I could also have gone to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a very nice sheet/comforter set for at most a tenth of what I paid so am I really spending it responsibly either....?....who is going to get more joy out of this misspent money....?....not me, that is for sure, I probably would have had more fun going to BBB and laying on all the demo beds and buying something there.

My lifelong dream, which may become possible if/when I do have something of an inheritance, is to provide food security for one of the many towns in the US were most residents don't have it. It's the thing I remember the most distinctly over the years. I never could quite believe it when I got to the point that I could just...pay to eat at a restaurant. One of the most disappointed my mother has ever been in me is when I was twenty five and confessed I actually had no idea how much a gallon of milk cost in a city grocery store besides that it was probably between $1 and $5, because I didn't have to know. For now I make a weekly drop off of my excess produce to a mom group I met under somewhat weird circumstances but I was walking through the cut-through that went through the low-income housing back to my apartment at like 2 AM on a Saturday and these moms were out there partying and smoking weed with their kids all strapped in strollers around or the older ones watched by a rotating member of the group and I felt very safe and like these moms had a very good vibe of both living their own lives [seriously for mental health parents but in most cases specifically mothers need to be able to keep up relationships with people their age] but keeping their children safe and accounted for while doing so and trying their fuckin' best against all the odds to figure out how to make that happen when life had dealt them a shit hand.

...anyway, looping way back to the original question of what finishing school is, when I was almost done with middle school my dad had built a legit construction business that then very quickly took off because we lived in a commutable zip code to the now-rich-in-their-own-right people he went to high school with who trusted him to redo their homes. We eventually moved to that zip code but I stayed and commuted back to my old high school. But, i was a pretty wild kid which my father appreciated for a long while because I would follow him around on jobs and enjoy doing physical labor, but once I was mid-puberty and also he had to maybe show me to his high school friends that did not fly.

I snapped - not broke, snapped - my left thumb and my parents had to trap me like a wild animal to get me to go the hospital. Then I got a deep cut that partially injured a tendon in my leg and at eleven I tried to beat the shit out of my dad to prevent him from picking me up to strap me in the car and go to the hopsital. Next I got a deep splinter due to my eternal-barefoot tendencies and it wouldn't come out so got infected and I refused to go to the doctor [another weird back story but I was minorly sexually assaulted [[to be clear, not raped or anything big traumatic]] when I was eight and had to stay in hospital for a week and my parents couldn't be with me all the time so I have a permanent heebie-jeebie about going to the hospital, not true anxiety, I will go if I know I need to and I don't breathe heavy or anything, and I'm actually not permanently weirded out by sex or anything, just doctors in hospitals specifically I kind of unconsciously try to justify not needing to the extent I can rationalize it] and my dad was tired of my antics so he was like "fine if you don't go I will slice your foot in half with a Swiss Army knife to get it out" and I called his bluff and laid down on the floor, stuck my foot on his lap, and he didn't really know what to do when a barely fourteen year old girl called his bluff so my brothers watched in fascinated but horrified awe as I got my foot sliced open spectacularly so that the infection/splinter could come out and I didn't even make a sound out of spite despite it being quite painful to my recollection almost twenty years later.

They saw me cry from pain exactly one time when while trying to break up a fight between all three of them (it was over ice cream) I got pushed and my ankle got dislocated and what actually made me cry was snapping it back in place and they realized it was not a joke. These dumb assholes that I love have ragged on me for "skipping" chores the day after I was in the hospital because the day before that I had to spend 18 hours running Thanksgiving as a good sub-hostess like I didn't have a serious infection that needed treating and couldn't rest because none of them were up to any task beyond peeling potatoes.

After the Swiss Army knife incident, my dad's discussion of sending me to finishing school became real, which I knew when my mom made me take a walk with her and talked about it. Finishing school is like...etiquette school....? In ye olden day when finishing high school was not the norm for anyone, wealthy men finished high school and wealthy women often went to "finishing" school to have a combined education on being a proper lady but also being able to hold a decent conversation with your presumably-educated husband, so it wasn't entirely etiquette non-academic. It was more just like "what a rich man wants in a wife" school, which was sort of household management and knowing enough about cleaning/cooking to correct the staff if they fucked up, how to be a polite hostess, and how to not entirely bore him when you were alone together and had done your five minutes of sex or whatever so actually had to have a conversation. In modern times it has obviously expanded to be less bleak.

I said miss me with that, I can be a girl on my own, so I went full throttle into the girliest sport they offer in high school and ever since have gained the inestimable advantage of knowing how to also use femininity to my advantage, which I am very grateful to my parents for making me learn. It would be great if we lived in a world where that didn't count, but it did/still does, and they really set me up to operate in all the worlds.

It is weird for me to tell the story to Internet strangers because it's one of those things that makes your parents sound terrible and abusive in the general tone of the Internet nowadays, and while I support gender nonconforming children I don't remember my childhood or parents that way. But, I feel like the bits and pieces of my life I've given don't always make a ton of sense together without the context, so here it is, and in the end, I think a number of parts of it are areas where you can probably understand where it makes me have the opinions I do when I write.

Anyhoo, this makes my life sound far worse than it is, I actually have a great life and I am not unhappy with it at all and feel I was on the whole blessed with many more turns of luck than unluck, so, please, do not take this as a depressed artist rant, it is more like a rant of a very energetic person who rants about a lot of things all the time and didn’t need to come out but just did because the question was asked and the time was right with my life being in a bit of flux to think about how I got where I am and where I want to go and why.

Always remember no matter what problems it seems like I have, if I didn’t solve them on my 2 year round the world traveling hiatus I took from working, it’s my own fault, I definitely had the time and money to solve them and just chose not to.

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pttedu · 2 months ago

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Pipefitter Career Overview: Roles, Salary & Educational Path

A pipefitter career is a rewarding path with diverse roles. Read more to learn about different job roles, educational paths, and career outlook.

#pipefitter jobs in philadelphia #pipefitter vs plumber #pipefitter apprenticeship program in philadelphia #best plumbing schools in philadelphia #plumbing certification program in philadelphia #plumbing career in philadelphia #plumbing courses in philadelphia #plumbing school in philadelphia #plumbing training in philadelphia #plumbing classes in philadelphia #learn plumbing in philadelphia #plumbing program in philadelphia

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chiseler · 3 years ago

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The Bombing of Black Wall Street

O.W. Gurley

On the night of May 13th, 1985, as Derek Davis has so eloquently documented in previous issues of The Chiseler, the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a packet of C4 explosives onto the West Philly house occupied by MOVE, a black radical group whose sociopolitical agenda was fuzzy at best. You should read Davis’ stories to more fully understand how and why this came to pass, but suffice it to say in the end eleven people in the house (including several children) were killed, and some sixty surrounding homes—an entire city block’s worth—were allowed to burn to the ground.

At noon on September sixteenth, 1920, a group of anarchists detonated a horse-drawn cart packed with explosives and shrapnel in the middle of Wall Street, killing thirty-eight capitalists and sending hundreds more to area hospitals.

Nine months after the Wall Street bombing and sixty-four years before MOVE, an incident which in a way echoed both events took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but with far more devastating results. The Bombing of Black Wall Street, as it was sometimes known, would go on to be just as forgotten, at least in white history books, as both the MOVE and Wall Street bombings.

In 1906, a wealthy black entrepreneur named O.W. Gurley moved from Arkansas to Tulsa, where he bought up forty acres of land on the northern outskirts of the predominately white town. He had a plan in mind, and would only sell parcels of the land to other African-Americans, especially those trying to escape the brutal economic conditions in Tennessee.

Within a decade, the resulting thirty-four square block community, which had been dubbed Greenwood, had evolved into one of the most affluent regions of the state, and certainly the wealthiest and most successful black-owned business district in the country. A few of the new residents had even struck it rich when oil was discovered nearby. Along with the grocery, clothing and hardware stores that lined the main commercial strip, Greenwood boasted its own schools, churches, doctors, banks, law offices, restaurants, movie theaters, a post office and a public transportation system. The houses had indoor plumbing, and, even that early in the history of aviation, six of the residents owned private airplanes. Thanks to Segregation laws which prohibited blacks from shopping in nearby Whites-Only stores, the African-American residents of Greenwood shopped at their own local stores, which kept money circulating in the community, only bolstering their economic strength.

By all accounts, the people who lived there were extremely proud of what they had forged, especially the school system, insisting each and every child of Greenwood receive a full and solid education.

Although generally referred to as “Little Africa” or “Niggertown” in the Tulsa Tribune, Tulsa World, and other local papers, the residents of Greenwood preferred to think of it as Black Wall Street, a nickname that has stuck to this day.

As you might imagine, the much poorer white residents in surrounding Tulsa resented the wealth and success of their black neighbors. This resentment was only fueled by the local papers, in particular the Tribune. Taking their lead from the local chapter of the Klan, more often than not the Tribune’s writers insisted, despite all evidence to the contrary, on caricaturing the residents of “Little Africa” as either stupid, shiftless, shuffling drunks or drug crazed, wild-eyed criminals and rapists running wild in the streets. Meanwhile, editorial writers over at the World even recommended conscripting the Klan to restore law and order to the community.

Combining the reality with the grotesque cartoon proved to be a poor white racist’s worst nightmare. Not only were those blacks in Greenwood subhuman, they were rich subhumans. Jesus God Almighty!

The simmering anger reached the boiling point on May 30th, 1921 when seventeen-year-old (and white) Sarah Page accused nineteen-year-old (and black) shoeshine man Dick Rowland of rape. Page worked as an elevator operator in Tulsa’s Drexel Building, and claimed Rowland attacked her while she was on the job. No one really knows to this day what happened in that elevator, but later investigators who’ve looked into the case genrtally agree there was no rape. Rowland would claim he either bumped into Page accidentally or stepped on her foot—he couldn’t remember. At the time it didn’t matter. The following morning’s Tribune ran a racially inflammatory, lurid account of the fictional crime in which they essentially declared Rowland guilty. A hearing was scheduled for that afternoon, and the paper further erroneously reported the gallows was already being built outside the courthouse for that night’s hanging.

Whether or not a rape had occurred was, to be honest, irrelevant. It was simply the easiest and cheapest way to rile up the angry white masses. If the paper had run an article about economic disparity and racial class resentment turned on its head, all it would have encouraged its white readers to do is flip forward to the sports section.

The residents of Greenwood understood this, and on the 31st, the day of the hearing, a group of men, some of them armed, showed up outside the courthouse in hopes of protecting Rowland. When they arrived they found themselves facing off with the much larger (and better-armed) angry white mob, there to ensure Rowland was hanged, trial or no trial.

Words were exchanged and a few scuffles broke out. A white man reportedly approached an armed African-American WWI vet, and demanded he hand over his gun. When the vet refused and the white tried to wrest it from him, the gun went off, and the riot was underway.

Realizing they were outnumbered, the mob from Greenwood retreated towards home, only to be pursued by the white mob, both on foot and in pickups.

It’s worth noting that the confrontation outside the courthouse had gone on for several hours before the few cops onhand to keep the peace finally called for backup. When all hell broke loose after that gunshot, the cops quickly began deputizing whites on the fly, giving them the authority to make arrests. A few did, and an internment camp set up at the local fairgrounds quickly began to fill. Most of the new deputies didn’t bother, and just started shooting.

As the white mob entered Greenwood, they immediately began looting and torching every building they passed. For the next twelve hours they rampaged through the neighborhood, whooping and hooting as they smashed windows, kicked in doors, took potshots at fleeing residents, and set fire to anything that wasn’t already ablaze. Several eyewitness reports claim two small planes flying over the community started dropping what some believe were kerosene bombs and others believe was dynamite on the already raging inferno. Firemen who arrived on the scene to douse the fires were turned back at gunpoint by the rioters.

The number of white families from nearby neighborhoods—a lot of mothers and children—who gathered around the edges of Greenwood to watch the carnage has led some to believe the attack was planned well in advance, likely by the Klan. They were just waiting for an excuse.

The National Guard arrived shortly before noon on June 1st, but by then most of the rioters had gone home. Along with trying to control the flames, the Guardsmen also began arresting Greenwood’s residents. By the time the fires were put out, all thirty-four square blocks of Black Wall Street had been burned to the ground. An estimated three hundred had been killed, another eight hundred hospitalized, ten thousand were left homeless, six thousand were being held in the internment camp at the fairgrounds, and six hundred businesses had been destroyed. No whites were arrested or charged for their role in the massacre.

Some of the dead, it was reported, were buried in mass graves, others dumped in a nearby river, and still others dropped into the shafts of a local coal mine.

The coverage of the destruction of Black Wall Street in the following day’s Tulsa World included the headlines “Fear of Another Uprising” and “Difficult to Check Negroes.” To this day, white media outlets continue to refer to the incident as “The Tulsa Race Riot,” when they refer to it at all. The Tribune quietly removed the front page story about the alleged rape from all their bound editions, and all police and fire department files about the incident mysteriously vanished.

The day after the riot, all charges were dropped against Dick Rowland (who had been safely hidden away in a jail cell throughout it all), and upon his release he quickly and quietly left town.

Only one of Black Wall Street’s buildings was left standing, and those who survived vowed they would rebuild. They did, too, to an extent, but they were never able to fully reclaim the spirit and status the community once had. Making things more difficult, Greenwood was in a prime location in terms of business expansion. City politicians, anxious to reclaim that land, began devaluing Greenwood property, hoping they might encourage residents to sell out and move far away.

Ironically, the real death blow to Black Wall Street came when Segregation was overturned in Oklahoma in the late ’50s and early ’60s, and most Greenwood residents decided they were happy to take their business to formerly whites-only stores.

Seventy-five years after the massacre, the state of Oklahoma ordered an investigation into the events of May 31st-June 1st, 1921. When the investigation ended in 2001, it was suggested a scholarship fund be set up, and reparations be paid to the families of the victims. A few scholarships were handed out before the program was discontinued three years later, but no reparations were ever paid.

by Jim Knipfel

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stevepotterwrites · 4 years ago

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A Review of David Lynch Biography/Memoir “Room to Dream”

As one might well expect from a book about the life and work of the eccentric auteur David Lynch, Room to Dream is by turns hilarious, heartbreaking, and a little strange. Biography and memoir in one, each chapter contains two sections separated by three or four pages of black-and-white photos from the time period covered in the chapter. First, we get a well-researched and clearly-presented biographical take featuring input from Lynch’s friends, family members, and collaborators. Former L.A. Times journalist Kristine McKenna does a fine job of keeping the story of Lynch’s improbable rise moving along. She gets out of the way and lets her interviewees do the talking when that’s best and weaves their recollections effectively giving us glimpses of the different stages of Lynch’s life and career from multiple angles. In the second section of each chapter, Lynch takes over and revisits the past in his own words. He goes into greater detail, sometimes, focusing on an aspect of the story that wasn’t covered in as much depth in Ms. McKenna’s section sometimes building on what others said. On a few occasions, he remembers things differently and disagrees with what others have said. For example, Lynch believes that Anthony Hopkins tried to get him fired from directing The Elephant Man. Ms. McKenna’s conclusion, based on her research, is that Hopkins complained bitterly about Lynch but stopped short of demanding he be fired and replaced. Who can really say for sure which account is closer to the truth? Either way, Lynch had the last laugh. The Elephant Man was a critical success and received eight Oscar nominations including Best Director. His career was launched. As much as one may be put off by Hopkins’ snotty attitude and presumption, regardless of whether or not he actually pushed to remove and replace Lynch or merely complained about him, his concern about being directed by a complete unknown isn’t really too surprising. Lynch was an inexperienced young director whose only full-length film was a bizarre, unclassifiable, no-budget, black-and-white surrealistic nightmare starring a bunch of actors no one had ever heard of before and which had only been shown as the midnight movie at a handful of art house theaters in the States. Yes, it’s recognized as a classic now and, yes, Lynch has become a legend, but at the time he was a completely unknown young American directing a cast of highly-acclaimed British actors including stage legend John Gielgud. Incredible. Thankfully, producer Mel Brooks had great faith in Lynch and admirably threw his full support behind him despite the reservations Hopkins and, quite likely, though less vocally, others had.Lynch’s rise was an astonishingly steep career trajectory by any measure. He made the animated short loop Six Men Getting Sick in 1966 and the live-action short The Grandmother in 1968 while a student at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Those opened the door to the American Film Institute in California where over a five-year period, on a tiny budget, with a small dedicated crew, he made Eraserhead. That film, in turn, convinced Mel Brooks that Lynch was the guy he was looking for to direct The Elephant Man starring his wife, Anne Bancroft, among many other fine performers. Then came hard lessons learned from the $40 million (estimate according to IMDb) big-budget disaster of Dune. Despite that not going so well, producer Dino De Laurentiis gave Lynch the go-ahead to direct Blue Velvet with full creative control. Lynch found his groove and went on to create the body of work he is best known for. What we see examples of repeatedly throughout Room to Dream that at least in part explains his success is how Lynch’s charisma, contagious enthusiasm for his projects, and dedication to his craft and vision engenders a sense of loyalty from his actors, crew and other collaborators. The section of the book which recounts Catherine Coulson’s final performance in her iconic role of Margaret Lanterman, AKA the Log Lady, may well have you weeping when you read it. Her scenes will take on a deeper poignancy when you watch Twin Peaks: The Return again. Ms. Coulson was a key member of the Eraserhead team who worked tirelessly to help get that film made even donating her waitressing tips to the cause. Many of those sharing stories in the book are world-famous — Isabella Rossellini, Kyle Maclachlan, Laura Dern, Sting, John Hurt, Sissy Spacek — but some of the most illuminating insights come from lesser-known behind-the-scenes talents. One of my favorites is handyman and jack-of-all-trades, Alfredo Ponce. Mr. Ponce was doing some landscaping work in Lynch’s neighbor’s yard in the mid-nineties. Lynch struck up a conversation with him and the two hit it off. Lynch hired him to do some cleaning. He has been working for Lynch ever since taking care of everything from landscaping to plumbing to electrical work to mechanical repairs to building a set for Inland Empire. “People see me here cleaning or raking leaves and they think nothing — they don’t know how much I know,” Mr. Ponce says. “I can smell things from far away, and I can see immediately when someone comes up here who doesn’t have David’s best interest at heart. The negative energy — I can see that, and I’ve seen a lot of people come and go. David’s an easygoing, nice person and he can be taken advantage of, so I try to protect him. Anybody who works here has to be somebody I trust.” Ponce’s picture jibes with the overall depiction of Lynch in the book. While he’s had his fallings out, breakups, business deals gone wrong and so forth the general consensus seems to be that he’s a pretty nice guy. On a scale of Dale Cooper doppelgangers, he’d likely hew more toward the Dougie Jones side of the spectrum than the Evil Coop zone. No doubt the man can be cantankerous, cranky, foul-mouthed and ill-tempered when confronted with realities that get in his way, as demonstrated in this clip below from the making of Twin Peaks: The Return, but some Hollywood veterans who’ve worked with him describe the experience as among the nicest, most pleasant and least dysfunctional gigs they’ve had in their long careers. The man has manners. He’s considerate. He knows everybody on set by name and acknowledges their contributions far beyond the directorial norm. This may in part be due to his long commitment to the daily practice of Transcendental Meditation. We also see Lynch’s maniacal attention to detail. He’ll fuss over something on set that likely won’t even be visible on screen in the end. To get the feel of the scene just right, it is important for him that all of the details be just so, just right. And, of course, if one gets to the point of fussing over minor details that won’t ever show, it’s only because there’s nothing left to fuss with. Everything is just right and ready to go. He’s like the short story writer who knows he is done with a story when he finds himself putting commas back in that he’d previously cut. Yet coupled with that powerful desire to get the set to look just the way he envisioned it is the seemingly contradictory willingness to embrace chance and serendipity, to spontaneously incorporate a new element that presents itself into the work. Lynch’s best friend since high school, the production designer and artistic director Jack Fisk, who has worked with many of the finest directors in Hollywood including the Coen Brothers and Terrence Malick and is every bit as well-respected as Lynch in the movie industry (though far less famous to the general public) gives an example of this from when they were teenagers obsessed with painting. A large moth flew onto one of Lynch’s wet paintings, got trapped and flailed away trying to break loose. While another painter might have been upset and set to work to remove the moth and smooth over the disrupted section of paint, Lynch was thrilled and at once accepted the dying moth’s struggle and eventual death as a part of the painting. Many years later, in a now famous incident, set designer Frank Silva accidentally got himself trapped on the set of Laura Palmer’s bedroom when he blocked the exit door with a dresser. He hid behind the bed during the filming of a scene. Lynch was intrigued by the thought of an unseen character hiding in the room. In a later scene in the Palmers’ living room, Silva’s face was accidentally shown reflected in a mirror. Clearly, he was supposed to be in the show. Lynch incorporated Silva into the series as a central figure, the evil, interdimensional being BOB who possesses Leland Palmer and makes him do bad things. It is hard to imagine Twin Peaks without BOB but such a version might have been if Mr. Lynch was less open to influence, if he didn’t allow himself the room to dream. Room to Dream. What a perfect title. Mr. Lynch managed to find himself the room to dream and to bring those dreams alive on film, on record, and on canvas so the rest of us can dream along with him. He got past the most common destroyer of artistic ambition — concerned, well-meaning parents who don’t understand what you’re doing — and found collaborators who did get it. That this is a book Lynch fans will enjoy goes without saying, but it’s also a good choice more generally for anyone interested in how movies get made or those who simply enjoy a good memoir.

-- Steve Potter

https://bookfreak.us/2018/10/21/david-lynchs-room-to-dream/

#david lynch #room to dream #biography #memoir #moviemaking #eraserhead #blue velvet #muholland drive #dune #the elephant man #lost highway #wild at heart

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