#Raphoe North

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1612 – Dungannon, Co Tyrone, is the first of 40 new boroughs to be incorporated.

Historically Tyrone stretched as far north as Lough Foyle, and comprised part of modern day County Derry east of the River Foyle. The majority of County Derry was carved out of Tyrone between 1610 – 1620 when that land went to the Guilds of London to set up profit making schemes based on natural resources located there. Tyrone was the traditional stronghold of the various O’Neill clans and…

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Marines parade down Fifth Avenue to Penn Station, ca. 1950. The train will take them to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina before they depart for Korea.

Photo: Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

[ifreakingloveroyals]

Through the Years → Maria Teresa, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg (132/∞)

22 June 2004 | National Day In Luxembourg, Grand Duke Henri And Grand Duchess Maria Teresa In Wiltz (North Of Luxembourg) (Photo by Francis DEMANGE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

[vintagemanhattanskyline]

Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking north. Late Spring, 1970. 

The 102-story Empire State Building (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, 1931) are visible on the foreground, at center. Above it are the Rockefeller Center and Avenue of the Americas’ skyscraper corridor with the J.P Stevens Building (Emery Roth & Sons, 1971) and Exxon Building (Harrison & Abramovitz, 1971) shows under construction. The steel skeleton under construction on the extreme left is the One Astor Plaza (Kahn & Jacobs, 1972). The General Motos Building (Edward Durell Stone-Emery Roth & Sons, 1968) are visible on the top of the picture, at center. Park Avenue skyscrapers with the Pan Am Building (Walter Gropius_Emery Roth & Sons-Pietro Belluschi, 1963) are visible at right,

Photo: Laurence Lowry-Rapho Guillumette.

Source: “El Mundo en que Vivimos. Vol. 5. América”. (Barcelona, Spain, Instituto Gallach de Librería y Ediciones, S.L.,1973).

[rjzimmerman]

Not only did the European colonists engage in genocide (yeah, I call it that) against Native Americans, but they and their immigrant dogs engaged in the equivalent genocidal actions to eliminate the dogs that were native to North America. Or maybe the ancient dogs just did a collective sigh and went away to their version of the rainbow bridge.

A sculpture of a pre-Columbian dog at the Museo Amparo in Puebla, Mexico.CreditVeronique Durruty/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images

Excerpt:

Before Europeans began to colonize the Americas about 500 years ago, the land, north and south, was populated with people who had been here for thousands of years. And their dogs.

The devastation visited on the native human inhabitants of North and South America is well known. Whether their dogs survived in some form, perhaps only as a portion of the DNA of some modern dogs, has been a matter of dispute. The available evidence indicated that only traces were present in current breeds and mixed breed dogs, but questions remained.

An international team of researchers who conducted the most detailed and thorough study yet of ancient and modern dog DNA  reported Thursday in the journal Science that new evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the so-called pre-contact dogs have disappeared to an extent similar to the Neanderthals. The study found no more than 4 percent of pre-contact dog DNA in any sample, and those results could be interpreted as zero. By comparison, some modern humans may have a bit more than two percent Neanderthal DNA.

Greger Larson at the University of Oxford, an author of the paper, and the leader of an international effort to investigate the evolution and domestication of dogs, said the study emphasizes how inseparable are the fates of humans and their animals.

“The Europeans come through. They knock out the humans. They knock out the dogs,” he said. Given the necessary caveats that a pocket of dogs with substantial ancient American ancestry could turn up somewhere, Dr. Larson said that he was convinced by the evidence so far that, “It’s a complete disappearance.”

The ancient American dogs, derived from East Asian ancestors, evolved into their own group, distinct from their ancestors, and from modern dogs. They are related to but distinct from Arctic breeds like huskies and malamutes, which appear to have arrived with later migrations into North America.

The American dogs spread with humans through both continents and remained undisturbed for more than 9,000 years until the arrival of European colonists. And then they were gone.  Until further notice, that is. There are odd bits of data, like a Carolina dog with 30 percent of its genome that is either pre-contact dog — highly unlikely, or, more probably, genetic material from Arctic breeds. Genomic science is never free of anomalies.

[isfeed]

Monarch butterflies saw a resurgence in Mexico

Monarch butterflies saw a resurgence in Mexico

Photo by Sylvain CORDIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Monarch butterflies might be tougher than we give them credit for. The orange beauties made a surprising comeback in Mexico this winter, environmental organizations and Mexico’s commission for natural protected areas announced this week. To avoid frigid temperatures further north, the butterflies flutter thousands of miles south from Canada…

[guardiannews24]

Kim Jong Un Calls U.S. North Korea's 'Biggest Enemy,' Vows To Advance Nuclear Arsenal : NPR

Kim Jong Un Calls U.S. North Korea’s ‘Biggest Enemy,’ Vows To Advance Nuclear Arsenal : NPR

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of Pyongyang General Hospital on March 17, 2020, North Korea. API/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption API/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of Pyongyang General Hospital on March 17, 2020,…

[kentonramsey]

In 2020 Fashion Became Existential — Here’s Why That’s A Good Thing

PARIS, France – FEBRUARY 25: A model walks the runway during the Marine Serre Ready to Wear Fall/Winter 2020_2021 show as part of the Paris Fashion Week on February 25th, 2020. (Photo by Victor VIRGILE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

2020 has been a devastating year — more than 1.7 million people have died from COVID-19, millions are out of work and struggling to pay their bills, and, running through it all, there were record-breaking natural disasters fuelled by climate change. Understandably, that has created a number of complex emotions, and, as result, existentialist musings — some of which fashion is now (quite literally) wearing on its sleeve. 

At the start of this year, Korean fashion brand Harlan + Holden opened an “Existential retail” experience in Seoul, urging customers to spend less time shopping and more time pondering “what truly matters,” while Marine Serre showed a dystopian Fall 2020 collection that simultaneously tackled death and love of life. In March, Parisian vegan footwear brand Rombaut released a collection that depicted apocalyptic-style climate imagery. Rick Owens and Balenciaga also got dark for Spring 2021. On the product side, there are now Online Ceramic’s “We’re all going to die” tees and stickers, as well as Jiwinaia’s “Numb” earrings. The fashion industry, it seems, is taking inspiration from the existentialist movement — that flourished in Europe in the 1940s and 1950s and was popularised as self-description by thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, and Gabriel Marcel — and is more interested in exploring death and, ultimately, the meaning of life.

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Iva Paska, Ph.D., a sociologist from the University North in Croatia and founder of Existentia, a website born from Paska’s own existential questions and research, views this as little surprise. “Times like these invite us to rediscover the teachings of existentialism,” she says. “Within current circumstances, it seems as if all these things that we usually take for granted are called into question. As if the rug of existential weaving that holds our everyday life is now being pulled under our feet and we are starting to see beneath it… death, illness, aloneness.”

Mirroring that sentiment, Mats Rombaut, founder and creative director of Rombaut, says the Spring-Summer 2020 dystopian imagery was inspired by reflection about the current state of the world. “[And] not just the recent pandemic either, which is just a consequence of how we have mistreated this planet for a long time,” he tells Refinery29. “I think everyone had to think in an existentialist way during these uncertain times.”

From experience, Rombaut says existentialism can prompt a fashion brand to evaluate its future, asking questions like: Where do we go from here? Does it make economic sense to continue? Does it make sense for humanity to continue like this? If not, how can we change? He predicts that the “real existentialism still has to show” with more brands closing down.

This is already taking place as chain retailers, department stores, and small designers alike struggle to stay afloat, with 2020 bringing a consecutive list of closures, including Century 21, Sies Marjan, Totokaelo, and Need Supply. It’s also evident through brands like Gucci, Saint Laurent, and more leaving the archaic Fashion Month calendar that encourages brands to produce collections at lightning speed that leaves little room for creativity and creates more clothing than we can ever wear in our lifetime. Amongst the mass layoffs of retail workers, and the cancellation of roughly $1.5 billion worth of orders (approximately £1.2 million) from an industry that relies on more than 150 million underpaid workers in lower-income countries (predominantly BIPOC women), the pandemic has poked enough holes in the fashion industry’s unsustainable production model that it’s becoming increasingly impossible for people to ignore. Naturally, this leads to an existential reevaluation of fashion’s entire purpose.

Rombaut’s latest collection, “Next Life,” centres around the human struggle for survival. “The personal mental struggles humans go through, the general mood of depression, and current health of the planet,” he adds. “These were themes already present in the collection and in the Rombaut narrative before the pandemic hit.” These themes have also previously been explored by brands like Collina Strada, a label that has long highlighted the issue of climate change while sending messages of hope and optimism. This is also Rombaut’s approach, too, asking questions like: Will the next generation do better?

Marilynn H. Johnson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the University of San Diego’s philosophy department — who is currently working on a book that explores the philosophical meaning of bodily adornment, including clothing — notes that it’s not uncommon for existential thoughts, brought on as a result of an unprecedented event, to eventually take a turn for the positive and inspire people to appreciate life.  

“As you look throughout history at the time after people have been controlled, there’s a big boom in terms of fashion and people living it up,” she says. Think, for example, the Roaring Twenties, with its celebratory flapper aesthetic, following WWI. Or the upbeat tie-dye and psychedelic prints of the ’60s that people wore as they expressed their opposition to the Vietnam War and support for the Civil Rights Movement. “People will get sick of feeling numb, and there’ll be a backlash in the other direction,” says Johnson. 

Ian Olasov, Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College and Medgar Evers College and author of Ask a Philosopher, says it’s easy to understand the connection between fashion and existentialist messaging. “It’s not hard to see people’s relationships to their own mortality growing with existential threats. The type of fashion trends you’re talking about are invitations for some sort of authentic connection with other people,” he says. “I could imagine people wearing ‘numb’ earrings ironically, but I could also imagine it as a sort of sincere bid for connection.” 

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While fashion has a looser definition of it, Olasov reminds us not to always associate existential thinking with morbidity, and not to confuse it with nihilism. While existentialism suggests that we can construct our own meaning within a world that has none, nihilism is the belief that not only is there no intrinsic meaning in the universe and it’s pointless to even try to construct our own.

“Existential means different things to different people so, for some people, it’s orienting your life around mortality or morbidity,” he says. “But in some existential philosophy, there’s a connection between authenticity being in light of your mortality. That kind of honesty about the facts of the situations you find yourself in and the honesty about your own freedom and responsibility in dealing with them.” This concept of authenticity is something, he explains, is currently appealing to a lot of people. He also points to stoicism — a concept that encourages living in accordance with nature — which he’s seen an increasing interest in, as offering people a way to deal with intense emotions. 

While it’s evident that the rise in existentialist thought as a result of the pandemic is seeping its way into our fashion choices (and no doubt will continue to rear its head across T-shirts, new shopping experiences, and sneaker campaigns as we enter the new year), it doesn’t mean that we’re caught in a negative spiral with no way out. Instead, it may be indicating a desire for connection and a growing interest in questioning why things and outdated systems still exist. This could be particularly important for the future of an industry that has long excluded people and encouraged overproduction and overconsumption over sustainability — and needs to change.

As Sartre put it, “Life begins on the other side of despair.” If fashion is currently in despair, it means that new life, designs, and ideas are on their way.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

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In 2020 Fashion Became Existential — Here’s Why That’s A Good Thing published first on https://mariakistler.tumblr.com/

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1612 – Dungannon, Co Tyrone, is the first of 40 new boroughs to be incorporated.

#OTD in 1612 – Dungannon, Co Tyrone, is the first of 40 new boroughs to be incorporated.

Historically Tyrone stretched as far north as Lough Foyle, and comprised part of modern day County Derry east of the River Foyle. The majority of County Derry was carved out of Tyrone between 1610 – 1620 when that land went to the Guilds of London to set up profit making schemes based on natural resources located there. Tyrone was the traditional stronghold of the various O’Neill clans and…

[caveartfair]

Fernando Botero Became Famous Despite the Art World’s Scorn

Fernando Botero in Monaco on February 14, 2001. Photo by Alain Benainous / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images.

Let’s get one thing straight: Liking Fernando Botero is not very cool. But who cares about being cool? Personally, I’ve always been a fan of the Colombian artist’s curvaceous whimsies, his paintings and sculptures that capture a very singular, very rotund world. When I visited Bogotá a few years back, a stop at the Museo Botero was one of my personal highlights; the impressive institution houses countless works by the artist himself, as well as a bounty of Impressionist and modern paintings that he donated from his own collection. And while I don’t have the cash to ever buy a Botero of my own, my living room bookshelf proudly sports a tiny replica of his iconic Big Hand (1976) sculpture. It greets me every morning, a pudgy wave hello to start my day.

Botero may be an international, populist favorite, but most North American critics won’t give him the time of day. That strange tension is at the heart of a new documentary, called Botero, by the director Don Millar. Botero traces the artist’s life story—from an impoverished childhood in Medellín in the 1940s to his current peak, at the age of 87, with a studio in Monaco and unimaginable wealth and success.

Hand, 2012. Fernando Botero Waddington Custot

Sculptures by Fernando Botero in the Lustgarten, Berlin. Photo by Ilona Studre / ullstein bild via Getty Images.

We follow a young Botero, the son of a seamstress and a salesman, as he consigned his first watercolor paintings to a local vendor more accustomed to selling tickets to the bullfight. He worked as a newspaper illustrator; fell in love with the draftsmanship of Italian Renaissance artists; and eventually traveled and settled in Europe. Success did not come easily; the studios of his early days were almost heroically crummy. In the 1960s, he relocated for a time to New York City where, as he says in the documentary, he was treated like “a leper” due to the ongoing “dictatorship of abstract art.”

Still, Botero kept plugging away, arriving at the style he’s retained into the present day: puffy, almost cartoonish figures navigating a landscape where everything they encounter—animals, objects, foliage—is equally round and squishy. Importantly, he’s maintained throughout his career that he’s not painting fatness, but rather volume.

Monalisa a caballo , 1961. Fernando Botero Ascaso Gallery

Young Girl with Pink Flower, 1968. Fernando Botero Galeria Freites

In 1959, Botero painted a version of the Mona Lisa as a 12-year-old that eventually ended up in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. He moved to Paris and suffered the tragic death of a child in an accident that he alchemized into a powerful series of paintings. In the 1970s, he took up sculpture with a passion, translating his two-dimensional experiments in what he calls “generosity” and “fullness” into epic, lovable bronze works. Throughout the decades, he remained committed to his style, despite criticisms. There are some, Botero says in Botero, who feel that “if art gives pleasure, it’s been prostituted, which is ridiculous…art has to give pleasure.”

Millar’s documentary taps Rosalind Krauss, a theorist and former editor of Artforum and October, to serve in the role of high-culture Botero-hater. She does not disappoint. Krauss finds the artist’s output “terrible” and likens his characters to “the Pillsbury Dough-Boy.” She refers to a major installation of Botero’s public works in the ’90s, on Park Avenue in New York, as “an invasion.” The problem, Krauss explains, is that “he’s speaking down to the viewer…I am a viewer who is not convinced, or amused.”

Still-life with Watermelon , 1973. Fernando Botero Gary Nader

Despite such criticisms, the Columbian artist has made a career out of expanding his reach, and not just in terms of the market. This is a man who says, earnestly, that his goal is “to touch the heart of everyone in the world,” and that humor is important since it “creates a small door for the spectator…and makes it easy to enter the work.”

That’s not to say that every Botero painting is easy. He’s captured the drug-fueled political violence of Columbia in the 1980s and ’90s, including Masacre de Mejor Esquina (1997)—a work that shows a terror attack, with his iconically fat characters dead or dying. Following the revelations of torture by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib, Botero launched into a harrowing series of paintings and drawings depicting that abuse in graphic detail. None of these works were for sale; they were donated to the Berkeley Art Museum in California. While he took these detours into weighty topicality, Botero still continued to create series depicting moments of simple joy: chubby cats, circus clowns, dancing lovers.

Nudist Family, 2009. Fernando Botero Christie's

In many ways, it might be a mistake to interpret even the cheerier paintings as being uncomplicated. “I believe Botero is popular because, at a superficial glance, his paintings are easy to understand and don’t require any academic training to appreciate,” explained Patricia Tompkins, director of New York’s James Goodman Gallery. “It takes more study to truly appreciate Botero’s social criticism. The early ‘fat’ people depicted the ‘Haves’ in Columbia: the aristocracy, the Church, and the military.”

Pierre Levai, chairman of Marlborough Gallery, first met Botero in New York circa 1968. During their initial studio visit, he recalled seeing vibrant canvases: “still lifes, people walking in the street, dancing, eating and drinking together. Very human paintings.” What he was doing was not popular—“he was definitely not in tune” with trends, Levai said—but Botero’s debut exhibition with Marlborough sold out. And so began a decades-long relationship that continues to this day.

Grapes, 1987. Fernando Botero Galerie AM PARK

Pase de pecho, 1991. Fernando Botero Galería Daniel Cardani

Levai blames American critics’ reluctance to embrace the Columbian superstar partly on cultural prejudice, what he sees as a “a kind of disdain for what came from Latin America.” Personally, that seems a less likely culprit than an elitist tendency to scorn what seems too popular—as if accessibility is the same thing as a craven desire to please, at all costs. Regardless, Levai has been struck by the ongoing scarcity of critical attention that Botero receives in New York, for instance, as opposed to Europe. A late 2018 exhibition of new work in the city was greeted by silence, he said, in terms of media coverage; when the same show traveled to Madrid, and later Barcelona, it was lauded with articles in major newspapers like El Pais.

And yet there’s a difference between critical and popular attention, of course. As Levai noted, everyday comparisons to Botero are commonplace, having entered the collective imagination. Someone of a certain physique might well be described as “looking like a Botero,” he said—in the same way that Rubenesque might be a comprehensible adjective, even for those who aren’t familiar with Peter Paul Rubens.

Mother and Child , 2003. Fernando Botero Opera Gallery

After Holbein, 2009. Fernando Botero Gary Nader

While there are subtexts floating beneath the surface, it’s true that most of Botero’s paintings and sculptures reach out to the viewer; they want to be admired, delighted in, chuckled over. “I think a lot of people are somewhat intimidated by contemporary art because they don’t ‘get it,’” said Botero director Don Millar. “This isn’t the case with Botero, which allows him to reach far beyond salons, galleries, and classrooms. I think his use of humor is something the world could use a little more of, especially now. I was surprised to learn that Botero is not at all interested in the views of critics and academics—something that does, I imagine, aggravate their attitude toward his work. He is playing a much different game.”

Indeed, for every Rosalind Krauss spitting on Botero’s populist appeal, there are a thousand earnest followers—from South America to China—who find his work delightful and life-affirming, rather than kitschy and unrigorous. Time will tell, but I suspect that art history will be kind to Botero. “In spite of the ignorance of the so-called intelligentsia,” Levai said, “he went everywhere.”

from Artsy News

[nightmare-afton-cosplay]

The Craziest Details Inside America’s Largest Private Home

Fotoluminate LLC/Shutterstock

The Biltmore is called the “grandest private home in America,” but even that doesn’t do it justice.

At 178,926 square feet, the Gilded Age estate dwarfs the White House by a factor of three and puts Hearst Castle (at 70,000 square feet) to shame. It’s about the same size as a Walmart Supercenter, but it’s a whole lot more impressive.

The Biltmore, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, was the brainchild of George Washington Vanderbilt II. Built between 1889 and 1895 and designed by architect Richard Morris and landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, the estate is a picture of opulence but also a technological marvel, boasting the first ever bowling alley in a private home, a washing machine and an electrically lit indoor swimming pool. Biltmore opened its doors to visitors in the 1930s, and it is still run by Vanderbilt descendants. Today the house attracts upwards of a million guests every year.

The site is the subject of an in-depth history “The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home” (Touchstone) written by Denise Kiernan of the bestselling “The Girls of Atomic City.” Here, we’ve pulled some of the most outlandish details about Biltmore from the book:

The library

The library

Remi BENALI/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

George Vanderbilt’s most prized room was his two-story, 40-by-60-foot library, with 10,000 or so volumes handpicked from his own personal collection. George was considered “the best-read man in the country” and averaged 81 books a year. The library was crowned by the painting “The Chariot of Aurora” by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, which once hung in the Pisani Palace in Venice.

The structure

The estate took six years to complete. A special three-mile railroad spur, which cost George Vanderbilt $80,000 to create (over $2 million today), ferried men and materials to work. Construction on the house required 1,000 workers and 60 stonemasons. A woodworking factory and a brick kiln, which produced 32,000 bricks a day, were also built on site.

New Yorkers were recruited south to build. Stonecutters, employed by James Sinclair & Company, a New York contractor that worked on Vanderbilt homes in New York, did the stonework. Architect Richard Morris Hunt designed the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. And Frederick Law Olmstead, a landscape architect famous for designing Central Park and Prospect Park, groomed the grounds to be “an exercise in sustained suspense,” writes Kiernan.

A visitor was meant to ride through the Lodge Gate and wind through three miles of canopied forest past sculptures of St. Louis and Joan of Arc by Austrian sculptor Karl Bitter until finally arriving at the magnificent home.

The house, which opened its doors in 1895, comprises 178,926 square feet (about 4 acres) of floor space and 135,280 square feet of living area. It has 250 rooms with 35 bedrooms, three kitchens, 65 fireplaces and 16 chimneys.

The Biltmore was originally situated on 125,000 acres, though the family sold parcels off to defray the cost of running the estate. Now it has 8,000 acres, which is about 12 square miles.

The founders

George Vanderbilt came up with the name Biltmore from the Dutch land of his ancestors. One of George’s earliest ancestors to come to America was Jan Aartsen van der Bilt—from Bildt in Holland. George liked the sound of Bilt and tried various incarnations—including “Bilton”—before landing on Biltmore.

When George and Edith’s daughter Cornelia married in 1925, the dairy farm on site made her a massive ice-cream cake 4-feet high with 26 gallons of fresh ice cream. “May your joys be as many as the sands of the sea,” read the cake’s inscription (that’s a lot better than Happy Birthday).

On May 15, 1930, Edith Vanderbilt opened the Biltmore home to the public to offset the costs of running the estate (George died of appendicitis in 1914). At the time, yearly taxes were $50,000, around $800,000 today. The first admission was $2 per adult and $1 per child under 12. The first year 40,000 people visited the Biltmore, minting $64,000 for the estate (though it still operated in the red). By 1968, 96,000 people visited the Biltmore a year. That year the estate saw its first profit: $16.32.

Today tickets cost $65 to $85, depending on whether you visit the gussied-up house during the holiday season (a higher cost). A million visitors take the voyage to the Biltmore every year to see the gardens, wander the home, stay in the hotels, eat in its many restaurants or for weddings and corporate events. Biltmore’s winery is the most visited winery in the United States. The current CEO is William “Bill” Amherst Vanderbilt Cecil Jr., a direct descendant of George and Edith Vanderbilt. Private ownership means that the estate receives no government grants, nor is it eligible for not-for-profit tax breaks.

The amenities

There was a piggery, a poultry farm and a fully functioning dairy farm on the grounds. Entertaining a revolving door of guests required lots of refrigeration during a time when most Americans still used iceboxes. Biltmore fridges used ammonia gas and could hold 500 pounds of meats and vegetables and 50 gallons of liquid at 40 degrees, the approximate temperature of modern fridges.

The house was an electrical wonder with 180 electrical outlets and 288 light fixtures. No wonder the electrical switchboard was 6 feet by 17 feet.

The basement houses a 70,000-gallon indoor swimming pool complete with underwater electrical lighting (positively cutting edge when built). Also in the basement is the first ever two-lane bowling alley built in a private residence.

The laundry system had washing “machines” (for the rest of the country the first laundromat wouldn’t open for another 30 years), a precursor to the ones we know today. These machines could spin and extract, all powered by overhead belts. Heated drying racks accommodated the numerous linens.

Boilers, designed by New York-based company John D. Clarke, provided the heat. The boilers used wood and coal, which heated water and created steam that traveled through pipes in the house. Natural convection wafted the heat upward, warming the toes of visitors. In two weeks alone in the winter of 1900, 25 tons of coal were burned.

The banquet hall

The banquet hall

Remi BENALI/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Most holiday feasts were served in the banquet hall, the largest room in the house at 72 feet long by 42 feet wide with a 70-foot ceiling, three fireplaces and an organ gallery. The original dining table could extend to 40 feet and easily accommodate 64 guests.

The post The Craziest Details Inside America’s Largest Private Home appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

from https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/craziest-details-inside-americas-largest-private-home/

[vintagemanhattanskyline]

Aerial view looking north of Lower Manhattan’s Financial DIstrict skyscrapers. Spring, 1970. The Twin Towers of World Trade Center under construction are on left. Midtown Manhattan skyscrapers with Empire State Building can be visible above, background.

Photo: Laurence Lowry-Rapho Guillumette.

Source: Yves Pélicier, Francisco Alonso-Fernández. "Enciclopedia de la Psicología y la Pedagogía. Vol. 4". Madrid-París. Sedmay-Lidis. 1979

[kacydeneen]

'Highly Contagious' Box of Urine Triggers Evacuation of Seattle Area Movie Theater

A Seattle area movie theater was evacuated on Friday after mistakenly receiving a leaking package that contained bodily fluids, NBC News reports.

The North Bend Theatre in North Bend, Washington — about 30 miles east of Seattle — received a box marked "highly contagious human substance" on Friday night, according to a Twitter thread from Eastside Fire & Rescue. Authorities later determined that the box contained human urine.

UN Chief Warns of 'Point of No Return' on Climate Change

The theater manager had opened the box when it arrived. It was "leaking an unknown liquid," according to an announcement on the theater's website.

Police, fire and hazmat teams responded to the call that evening. They evacuated the theater and isolated the box, which contained one package of urine, according to spokesmen from Eastside Fire & Rescue. Authorities sent the sample to a local medical center, which confirmed that it was human urine.

Justices Take Up Gun Case, Though Disputed Law Has Changed

The theater manager was taken to a hospital as a precaution. He did not sustain injuries as a result of the incident.

Photo Credit: Alain BENAINOUS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images 'Highly Contagious' Box of Urine Triggers Evacuation of Seattle Area Movie Theater published first on Miami News

[ulsterhistoricalfoundation]

January Book Offers

We are pleased to present our January book offers, featuring superb savings on a number of our publications.

The sale will end on 01 February so please act quickly to take advantage of these incredible prices.

Please note that some titles included in this sale will only have a few copies left so be sure to order quickly to avoid disappointment, as they will be sold on a first-come first-served basis, and when they’re gone, they’re gone.

A Directory of Ulster Doctors (who qualified before 1901)

£50.00 to £19.99

A Very Independent County: Parliamentary Elections in Armagh

£24.99 to £3.99

Artist and Aristocrat: The Life and Work of Lady Mabel Annesley

£16.99 to £4.99

Belmore: The Lowry-Corry families of Castle Coole

£29.99 to £9.99

Bunting's Messiah

£10.00 to £1.99

Captain Cohonny: Constantine Maguire of Tempo, 1777-1834

£10.00 to £1.99

Clergy of Cashel Emly and Leighlin

£50.00 to £10.00

Clergy of Derry & Raphoe

£40.00 to £5.00

Clergy of Dublin & Glendalough

£50.00 to £5.00

Clergy of Killaloe

£50.00 to £5.00

Clergy of Kilmore

£50.00 to £5.00

Clergy of Ossory

£49.99 to £10.00

Clergy of Tuam

£50.00 to £5.00

Clergy of Waterford

£50.00 to £5.00

Contemporary Design Secrets

£19.99 to £1.99

Dallan's Elegy for Columba

£24.99 to £9.99

Derry: Beyond the Walls

£10.00 to £1.00

Directory of Irish Family History Research, no. 37, 2014

£6.99 to £1.99

Directory of Irish Family History Research, no. 38, 2015

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From Special Care to Specialist Treatment: History of Muckamore Abbey

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From Ulster to Canada: The Life and Times of Wilson Benson 1821-1911

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George Best Will Not Be Playing Today

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Ordnance Survey Memoir sale - 50% off selected volumes

Selected volumes in the excellent resource that is the Ordnance Survey Memoir collection are now HALF PRICE! If you are not aware of this series, the Ordnance Survey Memoirs provide copious background information on the character and habits of the people who lived in Ireland during the early part of the nineteenth century.

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The Best Work Perk: Jobs That Pay All (or Most) of Your Rent

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Around the country, it’s getting ever harder for the other 99% to pay for housing, as both apartments and home prices just keep going up and up … and up. Where will it end? Even well-paid techies are complaining that their hefty salaries aren’t high enough to make ends meet in some of America’s most expensive cities.

But, increasingly, some savvy individuals are finding alternatives. Folks with flexible lifestyles are tapping into careers, or at least gigs, that offer free or heavily subsidized housing.

For instance, instead of forking over the national median monthly rent of $950 for a one-bedroom apartment, some are staying in a swanky abode with adorable, furry friends for the price of, well, nothing. Similarly, instead of paying a median $1,491 a month for a mortgage, property taxes, insurance, and other homeownership-related costs, others are living in charmingly rustic accommodations in the great outdoors for a heavily discounted rate. (Rental data are as of May 1 from Apartment List, and monthly homeownership costs are from the U.S. Census Bureau.)

Check out these stories of folks who’ve lucked into jobs with free, or at least dirt-cheap, housing. Maybe you’ll be inspired to make a lifestyle change yourself—at least for a while. After all, those savings could well go toward a down payment on a home of your own.

Live like a nomad and play with cute animals: Become a pet sitter

Animal lovers in the know have long been aware of the need for at-home pet sitters, but a plethora of apps and websites make it easier than ever to match sitters with folks seeking live-in caregivers for their homes and fur babies while they’re out of town. Welcome to the pet-based gig economy!

And those who do it say the lifestyle has saved them quite a bit of dough over the years.

Pet sitters

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Thierry, 54, and Miyuki, 59, have been sitting full time for the past five years and part time before that. In 2007, the married couple (who don’t want their last name used) quit their jobs—he as a French instructor, she as an executive assistant—to travel the world. They chose destinations based on marathons Thierry wanted to run.

They spend six months a year in Japan, three months at a time, and are booked in Tokyo through the end of August. They have pet-sat and occasionally house-sat in the U.S., Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Nepal, France, and Japan. Although they aren’t paid for their sitting gigs, and use their savings for living expenses, the work allows them to travel the world while reducing their lodging and transportation costs by 80% to 90%.

Initially, they found pet-sitting gigs through friends and word of mouth. Now, they find work through the website TrustedHousesitters.com, which connects pet owners and sitters all over the world.

One of the most luxurious sits they did was at a house in Copacabana, Australia, with a pool, gardener, and access to a car. The house was on the market, so Thierry and Miyuki were in constant touch with the real estate agent—organizing open houses, facilitating prospective buyers’ visits, making sure the pool and garden were in pristine condition, and looking after a 14-year-old cat that was not allowed in the house while it was on the market. They also had to make sure the furniture used for staging remained undamaged.

“We thrive on knowing we are making a huge difference to owners [who have] very old cats, blind dogs, or extremely sick animals, or who have several pets, who couldn’t afford overpriced boarding,” says Thierry.

Love the outdoors? Work and live in a national park

The wilderness is calling—and for those nature lovers who can’t wait until vacation time to go camping, the National Park Service might qualify as a dream employer.

Though housing isn’t free, the park service offers lower-cost rentals for some necessary employees. This perk is often reserved for law enforcement rangers, medics, and maintenance and water quality workers, who are required to live within parks that aren’t close to civilization. That’s because outside ambulance response times can easily top two or three hours in the larger reserves.  

If this is your office, you may be in line for cheap housing.

Sylvain GRANDADAM/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Park housing also helps to ensure employees aren’t saddled with 200-mile roundtrip commutes. The accommodations can run from rustic bunkhouses to shared apartments and duplexes and even private houses, says John Craig, a district ranger at Everglades National Park in Florida.

The subsidized housing helped him to save up for a single-family home that he recently bought with his wife in Homestead, FL.

“The cost of housing is based on how remote you are and the square footage and how new it is and what condition it’s in,” Craig says. “It’s generally cheaper than whatever the local community pays, though the park service tries to have some kind of equity between local market rates and [cost of] park housing.”

Craig was required to live in park housing for his first eight years with the park service as a law enforcement ranger. For two years, he shared one of four flats in a quadplex at the Point Reyes National Seashore. Each flat had two bedrooms, and bathrooms, living rooms, and kitchens were shared.

“You’re living in a national park in one of the most beautiful places in America,” Craig says. “When I walk out my front door, I’m at work.”

Relive your college days—in a student dorm

Returning to college dorm life can be quite a different experience after your prime beer pong days are over. Those brave enough to embrace and actually organize student programs and events can score free housing plus utilities at many universities. In exchange, these staff members typically must be on call at all hours for any urgent resident problems.

Gaby Bermudez, 25, spent the past four months in a spacious and furnished one-bedroom apartment on the scenic campus of Dominican University of California as the residence life coordinator for 450 students. The small, private school is about 20 miles north of San Francisco in San Rafael, CA.

Her duties included making sure student resident advisers in dorms were putting together programs and overseeing everything from roommate fights to building work orders. On top of the free digs, which would have cost her well over $2,000 a month on the open rental market, she received a salary in the mid-$50,000s.

“Living on campus is one of the biggest perks of the job,” she says. “And living in Marin County and not paying rent saves me a lot.”

The post The Best Work Perk: Jobs That Pay All (or Most) of Your Rent appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

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The Craziest Details Inside America’s Largest Private Home

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The Biltmore is called the “grandest private home in America,” but even that doesn’t do it justice.

At 178,926 square feet, the Gilded Age estate dwarfs the White House by a factor of three and puts Hearst Castle (at 70,000 square feet) to shame. It’s about the same size as a Walmart Supercenter, but it’s a whole lot more impressive.

The Biltmore, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, was the brainchild of George Washington Vanderbilt II. Built between 1889 and 1895 and designed by architect Richard Morris and landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, the estate is a picture of opulence but also a technological marvel, boasting the first ever bowling alley in a private home, a washing machine and an electrically lit indoor swimming pool. Biltmore opened its doors to visitors in the 1930s, and it is still run by Vanderbilt descendants. Today the house attracts upwards of a million guests every year.

The site is the subject of an in-depth history “The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home” (Touchstone) written by Denise Kiernan of the bestselling “The Girls of Atomic City.” Here, we’ve pulled some of the most outlandish details about Biltmore from the book:

The library The library

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George Vanderbilt’s most prized room was his two-story, 40-by-60-foot library, with 10,000 or so volumes handpicked from his own personal collection. George was considered “the best-read man in the country” and averaged 81 books a year. The library was crowned by the painting “The Chariot of Aurora” by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, which once hung in the Pisani Palace in Venice.

The structure

The estate took six years to complete. A special three-mile railroad spur, which cost George Vanderbilt $80,000 to create (over $2 million today), ferried men and materials to work. Construction on the house required 1,000 workers and 60 stonemasons. A woodworking factory and a brick kiln, which produced 32,000 bricks a day, were also built on site.

New Yorkers were recruited south to build. Stonecutters, employed by James Sinclair & Company, a New York contractor that worked on Vanderbilt homes in New York, did the stonework. Architect Richard Morris Hunt designed the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. And Frederick Law Olmstead, a landscape architect famous for designing Central Park and Prospect Park, groomed the grounds to be “an exercise in sustained suspense,” writes Kiernan.

A visitor was meant to ride through the Lodge Gate and wind through three miles of canopied forest past sculptures of St. Louis and Joan of Arc by Austrian sculptor Karl Bitter until finally arriving at the magnificent home.

The house, which opened its doors in 1895, comprises 178,926 square feet (about 4 acres) of floor space and 135,280 square feet of living area. It has 250 rooms with 35 bedrooms, three kitchens, 65 fireplaces and 16 chimneys.

The Biltmore was originally situated on 125,000 acres, though the family sold parcels off to defray the cost of running the estate. Now it has 8,000 acres, which is about 12 square miles.

The founders

George Vanderbilt came up with the name Biltmore from the Dutch land of his ancestors. One of George’s earliest ancestors to come to America was Jan Aartsen van der Bilt—from Bildt in Holland. George liked the sound of Bilt and tried various incarnations—including “Bilton”—before landing on Biltmore.

When George and Edith’s daughter Cornelia married in 1925, the dairy farm on site made her a massive ice-cream cake 4-feet high with 26 gallons of fresh ice cream. “May your joys be as many as the sands of the sea,” read the cake’s inscription (that’s a lot better than Happy Birthday).

On May 15, 1930, Edith Vanderbilt opened the Biltmore home to the public to offset the costs of running the estate (George died of appendicitis in 1914). At the time, yearly taxes were $50,000, around $800,000 today. The first admission was $2 per adult and $1 per child under 12. The first year 40,000 people visited the Biltmore, minting $64,000 for the estate (though it still operated in the red). By 1968, 96,000 people visited the Biltmore a year. That year the estate saw its first profit: $16.32.

Today tickets cost $65 to $85, depending on whether you visit the gussied-up house during the holiday season (a higher cost). A million visitors take the voyage to the Biltmore every year to see the gardens, wander the home, stay in the hotels, eat in its many restaurants or for weddings and corporate events. Biltmore’s winery is the most visited winery in the United States. The current CEO is William “Bill” Amherst Vanderbilt Cecil Jr., a direct descendant of George and Edith Vanderbilt. Private ownership means that the estate receives no government grants, nor is it eligible for not-for-profit tax breaks.

The amenities

There was a piggery, a poultry farm and a fully functioning dairy farm on the grounds. Entertaining a revolving door of guests required lots of refrigeration during a time when most Americans still used iceboxes. Biltmore fridges used ammonia gas and could hold 500 pounds of meats and vegetables and 50 gallons of liquid at 40 degrees, the approximate temperature of modern fridges.

The house was an electrical wonder with 180 electrical outlets and 288 light fixtures. No wonder the electrical switchboard was 6 feet by 17 feet.

The basement houses a 70,000-gallon indoor swimming pool complete with underwater electrical lighting (positively cutting edge when built). Also in the basement is the first ever two-lane bowling alley built in a private residence.

The laundry system had washing “machines” (for the rest of the country the first laundromat wouldn’t open for another 30 years), a precursor to the ones we know today. These machines could spin and extract, all powered by overhead belts. Heated drying racks accommodated the numerous linens.

Boilers, designed by New York-based company John D. Clarke, provided the heat. The boilers used wood and coal, which heated water and created steam that traveled through pipes in the house. Natural convection wafted the heat upward, warming the toes of visitors. In two weeks alone in the winter of 1900, 25 tons of coal were burned.

The banquet hall The banquet hall

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Most holiday feasts were served in the banquet hall, the largest room in the house at 72 feet long by 42 feet wide with a 70-foot ceiling, three fireplaces and an organ gallery. The original dining table could extend to 40 feet and easily accommodate 64 guests.

The post The Craziest Details Inside America’s Largest Private Home appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

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