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siva3155 · 5 years

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400+ TOP HARBOUR Engineering Interview Questions and Answers

HARBOUR Engineering Interview Questions :-

1. Explain About Harbours? Harbours: A harbour can be defined as a sheltered area of the sea in which vessels could be launched, built or taken for repair; or could seek refuge in time of storm; or provide for loading and unloading of cargo and passengers.Harbours are broadly classified as: Natural harbours. Semi-natural harbours. Artificial harbours. 2. Explain About Natural Harbours? Natural harbours: Natural formations affording safe discharge facilities for ships on sea coasts, in the form of creeks and basins, are called natural harbours. With the rapid development of navies engaged either in commerce or war,improved accommodation and facilities for repairs, storage of cargo and connected amenities had to be provided in natural harbours. The size and draft of present day vessels have necessitated the works improvement for natural harbours. The factors such as local geographical features, growth of population, development of the area, etc. have made the natural harbours big and attractive. Bombay and Kandla are, examples of natural harbours 3. Explain About Semi-natural Harbours? Semi-natural harbours: This type of harbour is protected on sides by headlands protection and it requires man-made protection only at the entrance. Vishakhapatnam is a semi-natural harbour. 4. Explain Artificial Harbours? Artificial harbours: Where such natural facilities are not available, countries having a seaboard had to create or construct such shelters making use of engineering skill and methods, and such harbours are called artificial or man-made harbours. Madras is an artificial harbour. Thus, a naval vessel could obtain shelter during bad weather within a tract or area of water close to the shore, providing a good hold for anchoring, protected by natural or artificial harbour walls against the fury of storms. 5. What Is Natural Roadsteads And Artificial Roadsteads? Natural roadsteads: A deep navigable channel with a protective natural bank or shoal to seaward is a good example of a natural roadstead. A confined area naturally enclosed by islands as in a creek if available is known as a circumscribed natural roadstead. Artificial roadsteads: These may be created suitably by constructing a breakwater or wall parallel to the coast or curvilinear from the coast

6. What Is The Accessibility And Size Of Harbours? Accessibility and size of harbours : Accessibility depends on the location of the harbours. The harbour entrance should be designed and located for quick easy negotiation by ships, overtaken by storms. At the same time, it should be narrow enough not to expose the harbour to the effects of the stormy sea. Maximum dimensions upto 180 have been adopted The entrance is generally placed of the sea, with a passage to the interior of the harbour so arranged as to minimize the effect of rough seas. Thus; the size is determined by: Accommodation required. Convenience for maneuvering and navigation. Adaptability to natural features. 7. How Do We Do Site Selection For A Harbour? The guiding factors which play a great role in choice of site for a harbour are as follows : Availability of cheap land and construction materials. Transport and communication facilities. Natural protection from winds and waves. Industrial development of the locality. Sea-bed subsoil and foundation conditions. Traffic potentiality of harbour. Availability of electrical energy and fresh water. Favorable marine conditions. Defence and strategic aspects. 8. How The Shape Of A Harbour Should Be? The following principles should be kept in mind: In order to protect the harbour from the sea waves, one of the pier heads should project a little beyond the other. Inside the pier heads, the width should widen very rapidly. The general shape of the harbours should be obtained by a series of straight lengths and no re-entrant angle should be allowed. 9. Explain About Harbour Planning? It is necessary to carry out a thorough survey of the neighbourhood including the foreshore and the depths of water in the vicinity The borings on land should also be made so as to know the probable subsurface conditions on land. It will be helpful in locating the harbour works correctly. The nature of the harbour, whether sheltered or not, should be studied. The existence of sea insect undermine the foundations should be noted. The problem of silting or erosion of coastline should be carefully studied. The natural metrological phenomenoa should be studied at site especially with respect to frequency of storms, rainfall, range of tides, maximum and, minimum temperature and of winds, humidity, direction and velocity of currents, etc. 10. Explain About Ports And Classification Of Ports? Ports: The term port is used to indicate a harbour where terminal facilities, such a stores, landing of passengers and cargo, etc. are added to it. Thus, a harbour consists of the waterways and channels as far as the pier head lines and a port includes everything on the landward side of those lines i.e. piers, slips, wharves, sheds, tracks, handling equipment, etc. Classification of ports: Depending upon the location, the ports can be classified as; Canal ports. River ports. Sea ports. 11. Explain The Requirement For Port Design? Port design: The design of a port should be made while keeping in mind the following requirements: The entrance channel should be such that the ships can come in and go out easily. The ships should be able to turn in the basin itself. The alignment of quays should be such that the ships can come along side easily even when there is an on-shore wind. The width behind the quay should be sufficient to deal with the goods. There should be enough provision for railway tracks to take care for loading and unloading of cargo. 12. What Are The Requirements For Good Port Design? It should be centrally situated for the hinterland. For a port, the hinterland is that part of the country behind it which can be served with economy and efficiency by the port. It should get good tonnage i .e. charge per tonne of cargo handled by it. It should have good communication with the rest of country. It should be populous It should be advance in culture, trade and industry. It should be a place of defence and for resisting the sea-borne invasion It should command valuable and extensive trade. It should be capable of easy, smooth and economic development. It should afford shelter to all ships and at all seasons of the years It should provide the maximum facilities to all the visiting ships including the servicing of ships. 13. Explain About Tides And Waves? Tides: Tides on the coast-line are caused by the sun and moon. The effect of tides is to artificially raise and lower the mean sea level during certain stated periods. This apparent variation of mean sea level is known as the tidal range. Spring tides and Neap tides: At new and full moon or rather a day or two after (or twice in each lunar month), the tides rise higher and fall lower than at other times and these are called Spring tides. Also one or two days after the moon is in her quarter i.e. about seven days from new and full moons (twice in a lunar month), the tides rise and fall less than at other times and are then called neap tides. Waves and wind: The ‘sea wave’ is by far the most powerful force acting on harbour barriers and against which the engineer has to contend. The wave has the impulse of a huge battering ram and equipped with the point of a pick axe and chisel edge”. It is the most in compressible natural phenomena. The formation of storm waves takes place in the open sea due to the action of wind. Water waves are of two kinds: Waves of oscillation Waves of translation; The former are stationary, while the latter possess forward motion. But all translatory waves originally start as waves of oscillation and, become translatory by further wind action. The harbour engineer’s main concern is the translatory wave. 14. What Is Breakwater And Explain Its Alignment? Breakwaters: The protective barrier constructed to enclose harbours and to keep the harbour waters undisturbed by the effect of heavy and strong seas are called breakwaters. Alignment: A good alignment for a breakwater is to have straight converging arms so that the angle of inter section does not exceed 60 degrees. It is desirable to avoid straight parallel or diverging arms running out to sea. 15. Explain The Design Of Breakwaters? Design of breakwaters: Following information should he collected before the design of a breakwater: Character of coastal currents Cost and availability of materials of construction Directions and force of prevailing winds Nature of the bottom or foundation Probable maximum height, force and intensity of waves. ! The three important rules to be observed in the design of a breakwater are as under: The design should be based on the extreme phenomena of the wind and waves, and not on the mean or the average. The height of the wave should he determined by Using the equation H = 034¥Fand the height of wall should be decided accordingly by making sufficient allowance for freeboard. It should be seen that the material in the foundation is not subject to scour. 16. Explain The Detrimental Forces Acting On Breakwaters? Detrimental forces acting on breakwaters: Hydrostatic force: This force reduces the apparent weight and hence, the marine structures suffer these losses to a great extent unless the foundations are absolutely impervious. External forces: The intensity of external forces, especially wind and wave action, is enormous. The power of wind produces vibrations in the masonry structure and weakens the different courses of masonry. In a similar way, the wave when it recedes induces ‘suction action and it results in the erosion of the foundation unless it is made safe and secure. 17. Explain The Classification Of Breakwaters? Breakwaters are classified mainly into three types: Heap or mound breakwater. Mound with superstructure. Upright wall breakwater. 18. Explain Heap Or Mound Breakwater? Heap or mound breakwater : It is a heterogeneous assemblage of natural rubble, undressed stone blocks, rip rap, supplemented in many cases by artificial blocks of huge bulk and weight, the whole being deposited without any regard to bond or bedding. This is the simplest type and is constructed by tipping or dumping of rubble stones into the sea till the heap or mound emerges out of the water, the mound being consolidated and its side slopes regulated by the action of the waves. The quantity of rubble depends upon the depth, rise of tides and waves and exposure. On exposed sites, the waves gradually drag down the mound, giving it a flat slope on the sea face. As far as possible, such flattening has to he protected. The disturbing action of the waves is the most between the high and low water levels. Consequently, all protective methods are adopted above the low water level. Protection is also very necessary to the top of the mound and outer or exposed face. 19. What Are Wharves? Wharves: Platforms or landing places are necessary for ships to come, close enough to the shore, for purposes of embarkation, disembarkation, etc. at the same time. These platform locations should give sufficient depth of water for the ship to float. Such platforms are, called wharves. They are built out into or on to. the water Thus, a wharf affords a working platform alongside the ship in continuity of the shore. A wharf is quay but the term wharf is generally used for an open structure of piles or posts with bracings, jutting from the shore towards the sea. A wharf may be a sheet pile wall or it may consist of a piled projection with or without artificial retention of soil some distance behind or it may be a gravity wall. Wharves may either be parallel to the shore and abutting against it or they may project into the water either at right angles or oblique to the shore. The former type is adopted at places where depth of water is sufficient for the ships to berth, say 10 m to 12 m The latter type is adopted at places where depth of water near the shore is not enough for the ships to enter safely. The level of wharf should be above the high water level. But at the same time, it should be economical to load the vessels when the water level is low. Wharf should act as a unit when there is an impact from any vessel. Hence, it should be properly braced and bolted. It is desirable to provide rounded corners for wharves which art likely to be used by large vessels. Such a construction will result in a smooth entry of vessels into the slips 20. What Are Piers? Piers : The structures which are built perpendicular or oblique to the shore of a river or sea are known as piers. In the sea the piers are constructed where the sea is not deep and the natural harbour is not convenient for allowing the ships to berth adjacent to the shore. In many cases, the piers are constructed with piles, columns and braces leaving good space for the ocean current to flow without causing any obstruction. The dimensions of a pier should be worked out very carefully. Its length should be sufficient to accommodate the longest ship likely to take its advantage. In other words, it should project beyond the bow or stern of the ship so as to protect its hull. Its width should be sufficient to satisfy its utility. It can be stated that the pier should be of sufficient width to allow easy unloading of cargo without any undue delay. 21. What Is Quays? Quays : Wharves along and parallel to the’ shore, are generally called quays and their protection walls are called quay walls 22. Explain The Design Process Of Quay Walls? They are built to retain and protect the embankment or filling: Factors affecting the design are as follows Character of foundation; Pressure due to water that finds its way to the real of the wall; Effect of buoyancy for the portion of the wall submerged; Earth pressure at rear; Weight of the wall itself; live load of vehicles passing on the platform at the rear; dead load of the goods stored on the platform; force of impact of vessels; etc. Quay wails are designed similar to retaining walls; But on the water side, they are subject to varying water pressure (owing to level variations due to tides), and on the land side, earth and contained water pressures, with proper allowances for surcharge. 23. Explain About Jetties? Jetties : These are the structures in the form of piled projections and they are built out from the shore to deep water and they may be constructed either for a navigable river or in the sea. In rivers, the jetties divert the current away from the river bank and thus, the scouring action is prevented. As the current is diverted to deep waters, the navigation is also controlled. In the sea, the jetties are pr at places where harbour entrance is affected by littoral drift or the sea is shallow for a long distance. Thus, they extend from the shore to the deep sea to receive the ships. In a limiting sense, a jetty is defined as a narrow structure projecting from the shore into water with berths on one or both sides and sometimes at the end also. Jetties are exposed to severe wave action and their structural design is similar to that of breakwater. However, the designed standards may be released to a certain extent due to the fact that the jetties are usually built normal to the most dangerous wave front. The impact caused by the berthing ships will depend on the skill of the berthing officer, local condition of currents, wind, etc. The berthing velocity depends upon the condition of approach, wind, etc. and it decreases with the increase in the size of the ships 24. What Is A Fender? Fender : The cushion which is provided on the face of jetty for ships to come in contact is known as fender. It is provided for various forms and is made of different materials. The common material used as fender for jetties is the framework of timber pile driven into the sea bed at a short distance from the jetty and filling the space with coiled rope, springs, rubber, buffers, etc. The fender system controls the relative motion between dock and ship caused by wind and waves. Hence, it also prevents the paint of ships being damaged. For the purpose of classification, the fenders can be classified in the following four categories: Rubbing strips. Timber grill. Gravity-type fendering system. Rubber tendering. 25. Explain About Rubbing Strips? Rubbing strips: In its simplest form, the fender system adopted for small vessels consists of rubbing strips of timber, coir padding or used rubber tyres It is also convenient to use pneumatic inflated tyres, either by suspending them or installing them at right angles to jetty face. The inflated big-size tyres are useful to transfer cargo between mother ship and daughter ships. The pneumatic rubber fenders are very useful for transferring cargo from ship to ship of big sizes. 26. Explain About Timber Grill? Timber grill: This system consists merely of vertical and horizontal timber members fixed to the face piles. This is a simple form of fender and to make it more effective, energy fender piles may be driven along the jetty face with cushion or spring inserted between them. 27. Explain Gravity-type Fendering System? Gravity-type fendering system: As the ships grew in size, this s came into force and in its simplest form, it consists of a weighty fender which is raised up when there is an impact of the berthing ship and thus, the initial energy of shock, is absorbed. 28. What Is Rubber Tendering? Rubber tendering: Due to the development of rubber technology and with, further growth in ship size, rubber fendering is preferred at present. The shapes of rubber fenders may be cylindrical, square, V-shape or cell type. 29. Explain About Signals? Signals: The approach channel of a modern port should be clearly defined o demarcated by the provision of suitable signals. Thus, signals will be required at the following places: Light ships have to be provided at important changes in the direction of the route of ships. Lighted beacons are to be fixed on river banks Buoys are required at entrance channels to ports Requirements of a signal : It should be conspicuously visible, from a long distance. It should not vary in character and should be positively recognizable. It should be simple for identification. 30. What Are The Types Of Signals? Types of signals: The signals are broadly divided into the following three categories Light signals Fog signals Audible signals. The first classification of light signals is very important. Fog signals and audible signals are occasionally used. Read the full article

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stovelift5-blog · 5 years

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How We Reached 100k Visitors Using These 9 Simple Guidelines [With Infographic]

Recently, the number of Four Dots website visitors reached 100k on the dot (or four), which made us revisit some of our main digital marketing tactics, take a closer look at some of our previous moves, and delve a bit deeper into what exactly helped us reach the 100k visitors mark.

Digital marketing has always been a stormy sea to sail upon, but since we know that smooth seas never make skilled sailors (cliche-metaphor count: 1), our brave Four Dots team decided to pivot our ship towards the turbulent, open sea and progress bow-first into the unknown.

In hindsight, the ride was sometimes jumpy and sometimes smooth, but enjoyable and edifying, nonetheless.

As we are predominantly an SEO company, our blog’s main goal isn’t reaching as many unique visitors as possible within a short timeframe. But hitting 100k does feel good, we won’t lie about that. Which is exactly why our team felt determined to share some neat and, more importantly, actionable guidelines we assembled, tested and deployed throughout the years. Guidelines that will hopefully be quite helpful to both young digital marketing companies and aspiring freelancers.

But first, let’s go over some of the most useful metrics we gleaned from our website, and why they were more than helpful.

Some stats, stat!

The metrics we tracked are mainly about who is coming to our website. Knowing your target audience is vital for any business, so here’s what we found about our valued users:

Most read blog posts:

1. Use SSL/HTTPS To Rank & Look Better on Google (35.50%) 2. How PornHub Dominates with Content Marketing (8.08%) 3. The Inbound Growth Hacking Bible (2.71%) 4. 2017 Content Marketing Calendar (2.42%) 5. 19 Experts Recommend SEO and WordPress Plugins (1.87%)

But what exactly drove 100k visitors to our website? What helped us attract this loyal audience? The answer lies within the following 9 tips.

1. Have a Fast, Responsive and Intuitive Website

Much like the eyes are the window to your soul, your website is the window to your business (cliche-metaphor count: 2). Your web pages are often the very first impression you get to make on your potential clients, so you must be sure to come off as professional as possible right from the get-go.

This is why having a fast, responsive and intuitive platform makes all the difference. Making sure it is easy on the eyes won’t hurt either.

2. Create Quality, Engaging and Informative Content that Covers Relevant Topics

Once you have a cool-looking, working, and easily reachable shop, it is time to fill it with quality products. Offering useful and relevant content is the main ingredient for audience engagement, brand growth/development, and your ultimate success in the annoyingly metamorphic digital marketing landscape.

Quality content and a deep understanding of what your audience responds to the most can make or break all the other efforts you’ve previously made or will have made in the future.

3. Know Your Target Audience and How to Find Them

One of the most vital, yet for some reason often overlooked, aspects of a successful agency, digital marketing or otherwise, is – knowing your target audience. This is why tracking the right metrics, and more importantly, knowing how to utilize them efficiently, is the key to fast clientele growth.

Barking up the wrong tree results in nothing but noise and a waste of both energy and time. However, finding a tree with a squirrel isn’t always a walk in the park (cliche-metaphor count: 3). This is where defining your target audience and knowing how and where to reach them comes into play.

After all, you probably wouldn’t try opening a death metal band t-shirts stand in the middle of the Disney World, right? (though this does sound like a true Sunday-funday)

4. Make Sure You Have Flawless and Fast Customer Support Service

Establishing a professional relationship with your clients is a must, but treating them like family and making them feel like they are all members of a small community is what truly makes an impact on your customers. So, having a resourceful and reliable customer support service should be one of your top priorities. This includes engaging in constructive conversations with your users via:

On-site customer support

Facebook group

Other social media networks…

Here’s an informative article on how the team behind one of our marketing tools – Reportz – managed to achieve fast growth: How to Build and Grow a Successful Facebook Group in Under a Month.

5. Skills. Expertise. Experience.

In the cruel and oversaturated world of content marketing, only the best survive. And to be among those, your company must be comprised of people who are:

eager to learn

eager to acquire new skills

hungry for experience

not afraid to step out of their comfort zone

Chain is only as strong as its weakest link, especially in the world of SEO (cliche-metaphor count: 4), so don’t hesitate to say goodbye to your weakest links whenever there’s the apparent need for it.

6. Data Transparency and Security

Clients are what makes the business world go round, so making sure they always get what they need is more than necessary. In the online world, clients don’t only seek quality service, they also want to know that their data is secure. This is something we at Four Dots take very seriously and our clients reciprocate by staying loyal to us.

7. Guest Blogging on Websites and Platforms With High Rep

One of the best inbound marketing strategies that can help you drive traffic to your website is to write blog posts for other successful platforms. This way you will be able to:

Get more visitors

Reach new audiences

Increase exposure

Build credibility

8. Develop Your Own Tools that Can Help Others within Your Niche

Aristotle once said: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence/Quality is not an act, it is a habit, and every once in a while there comes a time when you need to take matters into your own hands and build your own quality software.” Ok, this last part wasn’t by Aristotle, but it IS true.

When our company got fed up with Google captchas and other bottlenecks inherent to manual link prospecting, we went out there and created our own potent link prospecting tool – Dibz.

When we realized we have too many clients for which we need to create monthly or weekly reports, and that we were “wasting” hours and hours on assembling metrics and creating reports, we developed a potent data-tracking and reporting piece of software – Reportz.

When we needed a smart and intuitive way to check the status of our links and a place where we could have all the details related to our links right at our fingertips, we developed an advanced link management tool – Base.

These useful pieces of software helped us gain thousands of satisfied new users in a very short period of time.

Wanna grow? Then create.

9. Quality Social Media Marketing Campaign

Social media networks have become the very fulcrum of online marketing. Devising a powerful social media marketing strategy is obligatory for any digital marketing agency that wants to reach new customers and seeks fast clientele growth.

Create profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn… and use these omnipresent and rather influential platforms to promote your content. Of course, make sure you don’t overdo it by posting too often and commenting wherever and whenever you can. This will almost instantly create a spammy vibe around your brand.

Thank you for reading all the way through. We hope you found these tips as helpful as we have. Now go and deploy some of these tactics to your own business and wait for your own 100.000th visitor. Remember, opportunity only knocks once (cliche-metaphor count: 5).

For a quick overview, we have compiled the methods that allowed us to reach these visitors and presented them in this infographic:

If you find this infographic and tips useful, feel free to share them with your friends on social media.

Share this infographic made by Four Dots on your site

<h3>Share this infographic made by <a href=’https://fourdots.com’>Four Dots</a> on your site</h3><a href=’https://fourdots.com/blog/100k-visitors-using-9-simple-guidelines-infographic’><img src=’https://fourdots.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Infographic-100k-website-visitors.png’ alt=’Infographic with tips for reaching 100k visitors on a website’ width=’1024px’ border=’0′ /></a>

Source: https://fourdots.com/blog/100k-visitors-using-9-simple-guidelines-infographic-4189

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madarko-blog1 · 7 years

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Green water

Emily has just finished her swimming workout at the public pool of Lento town. Her home was a few blocks away so she preferred walking every night after her training, enjoying the quietness of the town. She moved to Lento only the year before after her father went through a financial crisis and couldn’t afford their old house, her father decided to move there since it’s a new town and the houses are a lot cheaper and it’s only 37 minutes drive from his work. Although she managed to make new friends, she missed her old ones greatly. Looking at the green trees decorating the streets with their leaves swiftly dancing with the shallow wind made her feel comfortable, alive. She only didn’t enjoy the appearance of the unfinished constructions on the blocks to her side, apparently the government had to cut funding for the town for the sake of armament, Emily hated that governments choose weaponry over the social development of their own country. No one was walking down the street at the time, and the cars passing by were too low in count that the town feels empty, void of people.

Despite all the quietness Emily heard that strange muffled sound, she tried to make sense of it but couldn’t, so she got a little closer to the unfinished building next to her, but the sound was gone, she was completely baffled. She stood there for a little while, trying to understand what that strange sound was, devastated, she decided to continue moving along to her home, as she managed a few steps she heard it again, but this time it was clearer, harder to decode, but a lot clearer, that’s someone’s voice! Emily retracted her steps, got a lot closer and she finally managed to make sense of it, a high pitched girl voice crying “Help!” in distress. Emily was terrified, after all there’s no one along the street to ask for help and the empty unfinished constructions were dark, should she call the police? “Definitely call the police!” she thought, but the voice didn’t stop, she couldn’t help but get closer, maybe she can help, she won’t let that girl crying down. Subtly getting closer to the voice she managed to enter the construction and took a rather unclear look at the girl.

“Oh my god! Alice!” shouted Emily. Alice is Emily’s best friend from high-school since she moved to Lento. “What happened to you?!” she hurried to the girl, her hands and legs were tied rather unprofessionally, as if someone in a hurry. Emily quickly tried untying her friend but she was devastated that Alice stopped talking altogether, maybe that she finally managed to find help made her quite? Emily was trying with all her strength to untie the ropes, she finally managed to let her friend’s hands get loose. “Alice! Talk to me!” cried Emily, but still nothing, as soon as she tried to untie her legs Alice started talking “You bastard!”. “What? What’s wrong?” said Emily, confused. “You tied me up and now you pretend you come for help? What do you think yourself? The devil?” said Alice in a cold monotonic voice. “What are you talking about?” thought Emily, but before she managed to get all the words out she noticed a large metal pipe in Alice’s hand racing to her head, she tried to leap the attack but failed to, and she fell to the ground with a great pain in her head. Meanwhile, Alice managed to get her legs loose, and after a while, Emily managed to get on her feet again. “What the hell are you doing?! What are you talking about?!” shouted Emily. But the pipe reaching for her head again with it’s reflective surface shining dimly in the low lit building was more of an elaborate answer than any Alice could manage to say, this time Emily leaped the attack and, only naturally, tried to pin Alice down. Emily finally managed to drop the pipe of Alice’s hand -and its dropping sound was so loud that she thought it must have been thunder- “What’s going on?” demanded Emily again, still no response from Alice’s side. Alice pinned Emily down and tried to asphyxiate her. Emily quickly managed to grab the pipe and met Alice’s head with a welcoming hit. Alice dropped to the floor, yet Emily didn’t stop there, she kept hitting her with the pipe until there was blood everywhere and before she could understand it, she noticed her best friend’s head was blasted, completely unrecognizable. “Oh... what have I done?” said Emily to herself, in a frightened tone. Emily dropped to her knees, and the tears rushing from her made everything blurry, she felt a bit relieved thinking that her friend’s head was unrecognizable due to her blurred vision not the fact that she has just smashed it. After a little while, Emily managed to get her clear thoughts back, “Nobody should know about this” she thought, surely Alice was her best friend but she couldn’t risk getting imprisoned for that, it was all an accident but nobody would understand that, she would be framed for it. After the last funding cuts, no one would be around here in a few months anyway, she thought if she left her just there and ran for her home no one would find out about this. But what about the blood on her clothes? Someone would notice that! But since the town is not yet occupied, she thought with some care she can leap to her home with no one noticing, her father isn’t off work yet and it would take him 37 minutes at least, she can reach home in 11 minutes only and since her mother committed suicide 3 years earlier, her home would be empty by now. She got on her feet and ran as quickly as she could, tracing the dark paths of the street and after 8 minutes only, she got home, both puzzled and relieved that no one was there to notice her.

“I’ve to get rid of these clothes!” released Emily to the air, she took them off, piled them and hid them somewhere to deal with them later. She took a shower to get any remaining blood off of her. Her father got home while she was still having a shower -probably she took longer than she thought, people tend to think more under showers and lose track of time- and she only wished her father won’t notice anything.

“Emily, sweetheart. I brought us dinner, wanna join?” said her father. “Be right there in a minute” responded Emily. “Sweetheart” repeated Emily in her head, Am I? I just smashed a poor girl’s head, I doubt I even have a heart. She got out quickly, got dressed up and joined her dad for dinner. “Listen, your birthday party is tomorrow, we will hold it here, invite your friends in. I’m preparing the best party ever for you.” Party? after what happened tonight? I can’t hold a party. “That won’t be necessary, dad” said Emily lowering her head. “Oh, come on, my sweet Emily is turning 16, that’s a definite party call, it’s all arranged already. Also you’d have some nice time with your new friends here, maybe you’ll finally get along fine with them, especially Alice, I see you like her” said her dad. Alice?! Why did you have to bring the name up? She felt her eyes getting teary but she managed to hold it. “I’m on vacation tomorrow, I’ll drive you to your friends’ homes and we would pick them up, I already called their parents and invited them”. What? No! I can’t go to Alice’s, that’s a terrible idea! But refusing would raise suspensions and that’s the least she wanted. She finally agreed to her father’s plan.

On the next day her father drove her to her friends’ as promised, she had only 3 friends there, they picked Zoe up and she was very thrilled to go to the party, next came Alice’s turn. Emily was terrified, how her parents would be, they must have been devastated their girl didn’t get home last night. She was hesitating to get off the car and go to the front door, but she pulled her self up and managed the few footsteps, managed to knock the door and it got opened and... “Hey, Babe! Your dad already told me everything we would rock you the best party ever!” said Alice. Emily felt her heartbeat bouncing the air around her chest, she was perplexed, completely void of words to say, she just hung in the air with eyes wide open. “What’s wrong?” demanded Alice. “No..Nothing” said Emily. “Come on, we gotta go, better not miss any moment of the day” cheered Alice. Emily fell along, tracking her footsteps back to the car, baffled, confused, devastated. She got in silently with a little pale face. Emily was contemplating everything, all memories from the night before, she couldn’t escape her head. While on the road, Alice was cheering Emily up, but Emily was almost deaf to her words, but only those resonated in her ears “Oh look, the public pool, I wonder when will they finish the construction, I know you wanna do your swimming workout there.” What? She rushed her gaze to the window, noticing the big “Under Construction” sign over the pool site.

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jam2289 · 5 years

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Explorations in Business - Part 3 of ?

This is my third time trying to write this article in the last two weeks.

Here was my last attempt.

- - - - - - -

I always wanted to have an interesting life, and I do.

I have done the classics like mountain climbing, skydiving, alligator wrestling, whitewater rafting, running with bulls, scuba diving, ice luging, road tripping, etc. I officiated my second wedding this weekend, I just arranged to borrow the staffs, swords, and dueling pistols for one of my four speeches at the Harry Potter festival in Sparta, Michigan this summer, I'm writing notes for the comic book I'm working on, and the philosophy papers I'm working on, and the fictional tales I'm working on, and I'm editing horror stories for the "Horror Without Borders" anthology for the Russian publisher I'm working with. All of that just starts to hit on the interesting things I've done, but I have a bit of a problem.

Since I've focused so much on doing interesting things that almost all of the values I've fulfilled in life have been experiential values, and that's become a strong habit now. What my life is mostly missing is the productive side of the equation, the creative values. Obviously I've started to change that, that's what the writing is about and that's what starting the business is about. But, the transition is not smooth. Rewiring the brain is not easy or fast. In a general sense you could say I have developed the skill of consuming life, but not the skill of producing life.

remuneration, just and unjust society, catallactics and cratics

Two weeks ago I put the MeditateWithJeff.com website up. I posted it to a number of groups about pain and meditation. Only the pain groups make sense. I had a few people go to the site. I didn't accurately track it because I just used the cheapest version of Weebly. But, 11 people watched the video I had on the site. It was a Youtube link, so some might have come from there, but I set it up so that you would probably only get to the video through the website. But, only three people filled in any part of the survey section that I had set up. Out of that only one person filled in the contact information.

- - - - - - -

Normally when I start writing an article I just grind on it until it's done, I go through it once for editing, and I hit publish. I had to stop on this article because I had a chiropractic appointment, and when I got back the words just weren't coming out anymore.

To finish the idea that I started in that aborted article, I sent an email to Wendy saying that I would like to talk about what she thought of what I was doing with meditatewithjeff.com and how I could make it the most helpful for her. Let me look up the actual email because maybe my communication is just bad, but she never responded. Here's the email.

- - - - - - -

Hi, I appreciate you filling out the info on my site. If it's possible I would like to get on a video conference with you this week. The survey questions are great, but more can be learned when you're really talking to someone. Is there a time on Wednesday that would work?

Jeff Martin

- - - - - - -

Apparently I need to get better at writing those. One of the other people that responded to the survey questions said that they really wanted me to reach out to them so that we could talk, but they didn't give me any contact information.

I had planned to have at least one conversation before doing anything else. When that one conversation never happened I just didn't do anything else. It's kind of pathetic, a complete lack of initiative. It saddens me to observe this in myself. So, we will dive deep and fast into what's wrong with my psychology and how I might fix it, then I will jump into a bunch of business decisions that I need to work out.

Here's the problem, when I had my misadventure in Africa a few years ago it was a bit traumatic. It was definitely dramatic. I've been traumatized before and it took me years to learn how to fix that, but I did. Now that I have that knowledge it's not too hard to use it again. Trauma isn't really an issue for me anymore. The issue came after the event itself.

Over the next couple of years my ability to do anything was hammered into the ground. I lost my physical abilities to the point of not being able to walk across the street to get the mail without having to take multiple breaks to lean on cars and catch my breath. I lost my short term ability to the point where I could only repeat back three numbers at a time, the average is about 7 or 8, and with the collapes of my short term memory down went my IQ too. Losing long term memories was the scariest part. It's trippy to realize that you've forgotten things you used to know, because you're not sure what else you've forgotten and you have no way of founding out. It feels like your life is being erased. Without these abilities you can't really do anything in life. One failure can be recovered from, two failures can be ignored, three failures can be overcome, you can convince yourself to keep trying after four failures. Eventually though, eventually it wears you down.

Those couple of years wore me down. I'm not sure how many years they took off my lifespan, it was not insignificant. But the detrimental thing that happened is that it erased my idea of my future self. It was hard realizing that I was no longer how I defined myself. I used to think of myself as an intelligent adventurer. I could no longer call myself either of those things. That's bad. It's worse to realize that you don't really have any reason to make plans for the future. If you can't do anything and you're losing your memory then your future is short, there's just no reason to construct an idea of a future self.

When I think of myself in the future I think of nothing. I don't see myself in the future. I see the future as being without me. That's no longer the case at this point. My health is doing pretty well. I joined the high IQ society Mensa after having brain damage. I should have ideas about my future because I have a future, there's just been a lag in my mind building that future self again.

I noticed this problem sometime in the last two years, this not being able to think of myself in the future outside of the next couple of months. And that's a problem, because it's a problem that I haven't been able to address. I've been working on it. I've been writing out goals, ideas, and plans. I have a ton of plans for writing projects. I've developed a value chart based on an expansion I made to the work done by psychologist Viktor Frankl. I've used a technique adapted from psychologist Carl Jung to incorporate dissociated parts of my personality that have shown up in various dreams and such. These things have helped. They've changed my personality to some extent, but not enough.

Which brings me to what I need to do. This is what I think has the best chance of causing a significant personality change in a positive direction, but it's uncomfortable just thinking about it. That's often a good sign that you're on the right path. The psychologist Jordan Peterson talks about how the Soviet writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn did it when he was in the gulags. You need to figure out every major mistake you've made in your life. You need to look at every major thing that has gone wrong, why and how it went wrong, what you could have done differently, and what you should have done.

The reason that we have memories is so that we can do better at living in the future. I do not see myself as doing better at living in the future. I want to. I think that it's logical that I could, but it feels inauthentic. So it's reasonable to think that I have ineffectively adjusted to my surroundings because I made the wrong choices about how to perceive and act in the world. If I could process those decisions and make better ones then it's reasonable to think that I would change my ability to live.

It only makes sense to do this in writing because writing is thought that you can refine. So, that is an uncomfortable process that I will soon start on my blog at JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com, JeffThinks.com, and/or Jeff.Irish. I am logically looking forward to it, emotionally I am not.

Now, back to the business. The FounderCo meeting in Holland went well today. It was focused on marketing. I am a step behind that, still trying to find the product-market fit. Or, more traditionally labeled as market research and product development. Or, more honestly labeled as trying to figure out what the heck I'm selling and who I'm selling it to.

My idea in one sentence is something like this: I help people with chronic pain use meditation to change their perception of that pain so that they can live and function better. Every time I say it, it comes out a little differently.

The mentor I sat down with today was also a Jeff. There are a lot of us. Jeff was throwing ideas at me off the cuff after I started him down the path of my idea and explained where I was in the process. Here's his basic perspective. What I need to do is get clear about my customer persona. Then I need to find out what makes my solution different and position my company in that way. I could kill my business right at the start with pricing so I should talk to a number of potential customers to try to feel that out. I should know more about my competitors. I need to work on getting strategic referral partners. I should develop some cheap lead products that will help people to trust me so that they will buy more expensive programs. I also need to find some credibility.

That's all pretty good stuff. Things I have to think about. Hard problems.

My discussion group was interesting. It's a valuable part of the meeting. Liz asked me what my gimmick was after I told her the basic idea of MeditateWithJeff.com. I was a bit confused by that and said that the closest thing to a gimmick that I have is my personal story. It took several minutes to tell, but it seemed to connect with people. In person I connect well, especially when telling stories. It's all of that practice in Toastmasters meetings. I think the story can be my credibility and eliminate the need for any kind of gimmick. I hope so because otherwise I don't have credibility and I don't like gimmicks.

For the last part of the meeting I talked with Hailey about literature. It was great. I have a lot of good conversations with a lot of interesting people, but that was the most engaging one for me in the last few weeks. It's funny because I came away from that discussion feeling enlivened, and knowing a few things of note about Hailey. But, she now knows quite a lot about me for such a short discussion. She has the skill of listening in spades. I didn't fully realize that until I was walking away. A great skill to have.

So, business decisions. Let's see what I can work out here. Here's another version of my one sentence that I wrote down: I help people in chronic pain learn to perceive that pain in a new and more manageable way.

That sounds pretty good. One issue is that this isn't completely true. It's a statement that might be true in the future if things go well. Eric Weinstein is the capital investment manager for billionaire Peter Thiel. He talks about what success takes. It's about crossing an adaptive valley. Imagine you're on a hill in one spot. You can't go any higher. But, you can see a mountain. Now, to get to that mountain you not only have to climb, you also have to go down this hill and across the valley. When you start you're not even sure you can do it. You say you can do it, and then we find out if you really can when you try. That's what that statement is, it's on the other side of the adaptive valley.

One thing I think I am making progress on is describing what the problem with chronic pain is and how that might change. It's been getting better verbally as I've talked with people about it. The basic idea is that the pain takes up all of your awareness. You can't focus on anything else, you can't think of anything else. It's like one of the warning lights coming on in your car. Maybe you need an oil change. But, instead of just having a light come on, there's a siren with flashing lights right in the middle of your car. You cover your ears, but now you've let go of the steering wheel. You have to grab on again. The lights are flashing in your eyes and you can't think with all of the sound. That's what intense chronic pain is like, it takes over your entire awareness.

We're not trying to turn off the warning light. Actually, we want the warning light on. Today at the business meeting Liz asked me if I have made myself impervious to other types of pain. I have not. And, I don't want to. I still want to be aware of the pain in my neck and head. The pain is there for a reason. It's important to be able to feel it to be aware of things getting better or worse. If I do something that throws my spine too far out of place I will start to get cognitive issues in just a few days in a small way. If I went a few weeks without a chiropractic adjustment in that situation I would start to have fairly severe memory issues again. I need to know if there's an issue, I need to be aware of the warning signal.

All I want to do is turn off the flashing lights and siren. I don't need those. I know there's an important problem and I'm doing my best to fix the situation. But I can't fully fix it. I will remain aware of it and monitor it, but I need to be able to function in life. I need to be able to do things. So I need to turn off those lights and siren, and that's what I do with my meditation technique.

A business consultant at the meeting asked me how often I meditate. I think my answer surprised him. I'm inconsistent. I meditate here and there. I've found that to manage the pain I probably need to meditate every few weeks. I think the longest I've gone without meditating was two months and still managed it fairly well. A lot of people meditate to stay calm and focused. I think that for that thing then daily practice is probably important, but it's completely different for chronic pain management. The need fluctuates based on what's happening in your life.

I think a key part of my customer persona is that they are committed. I think that this will often go with desperation in the case of chronic pain. That's unfortunate, but it's the reality. I've been there. And that's the point, to help them. I think this contradicts the idea of having cheap products and services. Then people can just "try it out." Well, that's not going to work. If you just play with this what's going to happen is that it's going to be uncomfortable and then you're going to quit. I'm fairly tough. I broke my collarbone in football practice when I was 13. I didn't even take a break. I kept practicing. I didn't go to the doctor. I didn't miss a practice. I didn't miss a game. I had issues holding my arm up. I couldn't get in my stance on that hand and had to rest it across my thigh. It was harder to hold onto the ball. It hurt like hell. I was stupid. But I played the whole second half of the season with that collarbone healing on its own. So, I think I can say that I'm fairly tough, but I almost quit using this meditation technique for the pain issues in my spine. It's not easy.

I think that's why I might go against almost everyone's advice and not do a cheap product. The people that I'll have have tried other things and they didn't work, they've been waiting for the pain to go away and it hasn't, they're desperate and committed, and willing to take a plunge and see what happens. Maybe I could have a video that essentially lays out how to do everything. Maybe I sell this for... I have no idea. Let's say 200 dollars? Then, if you want to really dive in you can join the group. The first month is 500 dollars and includes three private sessions. The normal monthly fee after that is 100 dollars a month and we do a weekly live call. I'm not sure that makes sense.

I think I need to engage local pain groups, but I kind of want to go to them with something. I need to reach out to people with lists, but I want to have something before I do that too. Maybe I could reach out to these people before I have anything and say what I'm trying to do. That might work. Maybe I could just write my story and reach out with that.

I will probably incorporate some mention of pain in a speech I give this month. Not a specific focus on this, but hitting on it somewhat. That will continue my development of articulating this subject.

I think that maybe I should just be trying to arrange calls with potential customers rather than any type of survey.

I should develop a FAQ section. I think that might help me to figure out what people will be confused or unsure about and address it. I got that idea from the meeting two weeks ago. There were a lot of people that do marketing and advertising for a living at that meeting. It was interesting to hear their ideas about how I should structure my products. There's a bit of consensus that I should sell something cheap, but I see problems on that path. Matt mentioned that he got some business advice before which was to do the opposite of what people say. I pointed out that the problem with that is that the advice isn't really consistent, so what should I do the opposite of if the opposite of one suggestion is just another suggestion from someone else. How do you decide who to be contradictory to? I joked that maybe I should do nothing because no one had proposed that so it would be the opposite of everyone. Unfortunately, that is closest to what I've done over the past two weeks.

Here's a similar problem. This is my list of favorite business books.

- - - - - - -

Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout

Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way by Jim Lundy

Zero to One by Peter Thiel

The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle

Sell or Be Sold by Grant Cardone

The Knack of Selling Yourself by James Mangan

Good Profit by Charles Koch

Magnetic Sponsoring by Mike Dillard

The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki

The Leadership Crisis and the Free Market Cure by John Allison

The Millionaire Messenger by Brendon Burchard

How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Bettger

Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz

Principles by Ray Dalio

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins

How to Win at the Sport of Business by Mark Cuban

My Life and the Principles for Success by Ross Perot

Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham

How Power Selling Brought Me Success in Six Hours by Pierce Brooks

Straight Line Persuasion by Jordan Belfort

The Millionaire Fastlane by M J DeMarco

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

Not Fade Away by Peter Barton

Dare to Succeed by Mark Burnett

Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson

- - - - - - -

The problem is that there is a lot of contradictory advice in there. I remember Grant Cardone talking about how you could have success following his advice or the advice of Dave Ramsey, but not both.

I think that I might be thinking too low on the price. I feel weird with high price things because I've had little interaction with high price things, but it's useful because my margins would be high enough to be able to afford advertising, and then my fate would be in my own hands.

Let's try to think in some unusual ways. I often do that on accident anyway.

The three major objections that you usually have to address for most products are: not enough time, not enough money, won't work for me.

Can I answer any of these in odd ways?

"I don't have enough time."

"You're right. If it's not a priority in your life then you don't have the type of issue that I address."

"I don't have enough money."

(I feel for these people, I really do, because I have been in this situation my entire life.)

"You're right. If you can't find the money for this then it hasn't become a high enough priority for you."

(I don't feel good about that one. What if I had some sort of scholarship program? Maybe.)

"This won't work for me."

"You're right. The number one predictor of success is the number of times you're willing to try. It won't work for someone that won't try, and try again."

That's an interesting line of thought. I was having trouble thinking about who my customer persona should be, and when I was looking through "Positioning" they mentioned that you could figure out who shouldn't use your product. I immediately thought of people that are "just interested." The people that are just dabbling won't find success with my technique. Having a lot of those customers just means that I would have a high failure rate. So, what about just eliminating them?

I'm still having trouble figuring out what my product offer should really be. I started with the idea of a few personal sessions and then daily group calls. Now I'm thinking weekly calls that will be recorded and available because how many people are going to show up if I have these calls daily? I don't know, but I think it might be low. Maybe I should have a cheaper video on the front end.

What if I just did personal consultations at high prices and then worried about scaling and such later? I don't know.

I do think that I have a decent schedule worked out for a group call.

- - - - - - -

Welcome

Short version of my story

Why we do this, what works, what doesn't

How we do this

Awareness games

Meditation

Good session example

Non-satisfactory session example

Good session example

Questions

- - - - - - -

And I've found this marketing format that I like.

- - - - - - -

Who it's for

Problem

Why their current method won't solve their problem

How I discovered what works

How to get it

- - - - - - -

Some version of a combination of those things might work well for a webinar.

It's late. I'm tired. I have to teach in a few hours. I will have to think on this more tomorrow.

________________________________________________

You can find more of what I'm doing at http://www.JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com

0 notes

steenpaal · 5 years

Text

Hyde Park, Chicago - Wikipedia

Community in Chicago, Illinois, United States

Community area in Illinois, United States

Hyde Park is a neighborhood and community area on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. It is located on the shore of Lake Michigan seven miles (11 km) south of the Chicago Loop.

Hyde Park's official boundaries are 51st Street/Hyde Park Boulevard on the north, the Midway Plaisance (between 59th and 60th streets) on the south, Washington Park on the west, and Lake Michigan on the east.[3] According to another definition, a section to the north between 47th Street[4] and 51st Street/Hyde Park Boulevard is also included as part of Hyde Park, although this area is officially the southern part of the Kenwood community area. The area encompassing Hyde Park and the southern part of Kenwood is sometimes referred to as Hyde Park-Kenwood.[5]

Hyde Park is home to the University of Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry, and two of Chicago's four historic sites listed in the original 1966 National Register of Historic Places (Chicago Pile-1, the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, and Robie House).[6] In the early 21st century, Hyde Park received national attention for its association with U.S. President Barack Obama, who, before running for president, was a law lecturer at the University of Chicago.

History

Founding and early years

In 1853, Paul Cornell, a real estate speculator and cousin of Cornell University founder Ezra Cornell, purchased 300 acres (1.2 km2) of land[7] between 51st and 55th streets along the shore of Lake Michigan,[8] with the idea of attracting other Chicago businessmen and their families to the area.[7] The land was located seven miles south of Downtown Chicago in a rural area that enjoyed weather tempered by the lake – cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. It was conveniently located near the Illinois Central Railroad, which had been constructed two years earlier. Cornell successfully negotiated land in exchange for a railroad station at 53rd Street. Hyde Park quickly became a suburban retreat for affluent Chicagoans who wanted to escape the noise and congestion of the rapidly growing city.

In 1857, the Hyde Park House, an upscale hotel, was built on the shore of Lake Michigan near the 53rd Street railroad station.[7] For two decades, the Hyde Park House served as a focal point of Hyde Park social life. During this period, it was visited or lived in by many prominent guests, including Mary Todd Lincoln, who lived there with her children for two and a half months in the summer of 1865 (shortly after her husband was assassinated).[9] The Hyde Park House burned down in an 1879 fire. The Sisson Hotel was built on the site in 1918 and was eventually converted into a condominium building (the Hampton House).

In 1861, Hyde Park was incorporated as an independent township (called Hyde Park Township). Its boundaries were Pershing Road (39th Street) on the north, 138th Street on the south, State Street on the west, and Lake Michigan and the Indiana state line on the east.[10] The territory of the township encompassed most of what is now the South Side of Chicago. Hyde Park Township remained independent of Chicago until it was annexed to the city in 1889.[11] After annexation, the definition of Hyde Park as a Chicago neighborhood was restricted to the historic core of the former township, centered on Cornell's initial development between 51st and 55th streets near the lakefront.

The Hyde Park Herald, the neighborhood's community newspaper, was established in 1882 and continues to be published weekly.

Growth and notability

In 1891 (two years after Hyde Park was annexed to the city of Chicago),[7] the University of Chicago was established in Hyde Park through the philanthropy of John D. Rockefeller and the leadership of William Rainey Harper.[8] The University of Chicago eventually grew into one of the world's most prestigious universities, and is now associated with eighty-nine Nobel Prize laureates.[12]

In 1893, Hyde Park hosted the World's Columbian Exposition (a world's fair marking the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World). The World's Columbian Exposition brought fame to the neighborhood, which gave rise to an inflow of new residents and spurred new development that gradually started transforming Hyde Park into a more urban area. However, since most of the structures built for the fair were temporary, it left few direct traces in the neighborhood. The only major structure from the fair that is still standing today is Charles Atwood's Palace of Fine Arts, which has since been converted into the Museum of Science and Industry.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, many upscale hotels were built in Hyde Park (mostly along the lakefront). Hyde Park became a resort area in Chicago.[8] Most of these hotels closed during the Great Depression, and were eventually converted into apartment and condominium buildings (most of which are still standing today).

Historical images of Hyde Park can be found in Explore Chicago Collections, a digital repository made available by Chicago Collections archives, libraries and other cultural institutions in the city.[13]

Racial integration, economic decline, and urban renewal

Until the middle of the twentieth century, Hyde Park remained an almost exclusively white neighborhood (despite its proximity to Chicago's Black Belt). Hyde Parkers relied on racially restrictive covenants to keep African Americans out of the neighborhood. At the time, the use of such covenants was supported by the University of Chicago.[14]

After the Supreme Court banned racially restrictive covenants in 1948, African Americans began moving into Hyde Park, and the neighborhood gradually became multiracial. In 1955, civil rights activist Leon Despres was elected alderman of Hyde Park and held the position for twenty years.[15] Despres argued passionately for racial integration and fair housing on the floor of the Chicago City Council, and became known as the "liberal conscience of Chicago" for often casting the sole dissenting vote against the policies of Chicago's then-mayor Richard J. Daley.[16]

During the 1950s, Hyde Park experienced economic decline as a result of the white flight that followed the rapid inflow of African Americans into the neighborhood.[8] In the 1950s and 1960s, the University of Chicago, in its effort to counteract these trends, sponsored one of the largest urban renewal plans in the nation.[17][18] The plan involved the demolition and redevelopment of entire blocks of decayed buildings with the goal of creating an "interracial community of high standards."[5] After the plan was carried out, Hyde Park's average income soared by seventy percent, but its African American population fell by forty percent, since the substandard housing primarily occupied by low-income African Americans had been purchased, torn down, and replaced, with the residents not being able to afford to remain in the newly rehabilitated areas. The ultimate result of the renewal plan was that Hyde Park did not experience the economic depression that occurred in the surrounding areas and became a racially integrated middle-class neighborhood.

Subdivisions

The southwestern part of Hyde Park serves as the campus of the

University of Chicago

, one of the world's most prestigious universities.

The University of Chicago

The central campus of the University of Chicago—including Pritzker School of Medicine, the University of Chicago Hospital, the historic Main Quadrangles, and the Booth School of Business—is bounded by Washington Park on the west, 55th Street on the north, University Ave. on the east, and 61st Street on the south, placing most of the University within Hyde Park's southwestern quadrant (with the remainder, south of the Midway, being in Woodlawn). The University also owns a number of additional properties throughout Hyde Park, with many concentrated along a narrow corridor along 59th Street between the central campus and the Metra tracks—including, for example, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and International House. Due to the University's proximity, the blocks just east of the central campus are dominated by (privately owned) student and faculty residences.

East Hyde Park

Looking east along South Shore Drive near 55th St. in Hyde Park (aka East Hyde Park)

The part of Hyde Park located east of the Metra tracks is locally called East Hyde Park. This area, the part of Hyde Park nearest to Lake Michigan, has a large number of high-rise condominiums, many of them facing the lakefront. In this respect, East Hyde Park differs markedly from the rest of Hyde Park, where the vast majority of residences are either three-story apartment buildings or single-family homes (with only a small number of high-rise condominiums).

South Kenwood

Although the neighborhood bounded by 47th Street on the north, 51st Street (Hyde Park Boulevard) on the south, Cottage Grove Avenue on the west, and Lake Michigan on the east is officially the southern half of the Kenwood community area, it is often considered part of Hyde Park due to the two areas' shared culture and history; "Hyde Park-Kenwood" is thus sometimes applied to this collective area (as in, e.g., the "Hyde Park-Kenwood Historic District"). Some differences are nonetheless apparent: unlike Hyde Park, which is dominated by three- and four-story apartment buildings and modest family homes, southern Kenwood boasts a great many luxurious mansions, built mainly at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries for wealthy Chicagoans. A number of prominent Chicagoans currently reside or own homes in this area, including former U.S. president Barack Obama and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Boxer Muhammad Ali and former Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad also once resided in south Kenwood.

Demographics

Historical population Census Pop. %± 193048,017—194050,5505.3%195055,2069.2%196045,577−17.4%197033,531−26.4%198031,198−7.0%199028,630−8.2%200029,9204.5%201025,681−14.2%Est. 201526,8934.7%[19]

Diversity

U.S. President

Barack Obama

has lived near Hyde Park for more than twenty years.

Hyde Park is one of Chicago's most racially diverse neighborhoods. Its population is 46.8% White, 29.9% African American, 12.1% Asian American, 7.0% Hispanic, and 4.2% of other races or of more than one race.[1] There are significant differences between the racial demographics of the part of Hyde Park south of 55th Street (most of which is part of the University of Chicago campus) and the part of Hyde Park north of 55th Street. Residents south of 55th Street are predominantly White and Asian American, with only a relatively small percentage being African American. North of 55th Street, on the other hand, African Americans make up approximately half of the population. The population of the northwestern corner of Hyde Park (north of 55th Street and west of Drexel Avenue) is almost 100% African American.[20]

Hyde Park's location in the center of the predominantly African American South Side of Chicago as well as its large population of well-to-do black residents have made it an important cultural and political hub of Chicago's black community. Many of Chicago's prominent African American politicians live or have lived in Hyde Park, including former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington,[21] former U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun,[22] and former U.S. President Barack Obama.[14]

Politics

Hyde Parkers of all racial backgrounds are known for being staunchly liberal in their political views. About 95% of the residents vote for Democratic candidates in general elections.[14]

Landmarks

The following Hyde Park community area properties have been added to the National Register of Historic Places: Chicago Beach Hotel, Arthur H. Compton House, East Park Towers, Chicago Pile-1, Flamingo-on-the-Lake Apartments, Isadore H. Heller House, Charles Hitchcock Hall, Hotel Del Prado, Hotel Windermere East, Frank R. Lillie House, Robert A. Millikan House, Poinsettia Apartments, Promontory Apartments, Frederick C. Robie House, George Herbert Jones Laboratory, St. Thomas Church and Convent, Shoreland Hotel, German submarine U-505, and University Apartments.

In addition, the NRHP Hyde Park-Kenwood Historic District and Jackson Park Historic Landscape District and Midway Plaisance are located, at least in part, within the Hyde Park community area.

Promontory Point

Promontory Point is a man-made peninsula that extends out into Lake Michigan at 55th Street, providing views of the Downtown Chicago skyline to the north. Promontory Point is a common location for picnicking, sunbathing, and swimming. It made news as the location of the wedding reception between George Lucas and Mellody Hobson in June 2013. [23]

Jackson Park

The southeastern corner of Hyde Park contains the northern end of Jackson Park. Jackson Park consists of lagoons surrounding an island in the middle (called the Wooded Island), on which a small Japanese garden is located. It is home to a large population of beavers and over two dozen species of birds. The Midway Plaisance, a wide boulevard that runs from Stony Island Avenue to Cottage Grove Avenue between 59th and 60th streets, connects Jackson Park to Washington Park (located to the west of Hyde Park).

Shopping districts

The courtyard of the Hyde Park Shopping Center.

53rd, 55th, and 57th streets host most of the businesses in Hyde Park.

53rd Street

53rd Street is Hyde Park's oldest shopping district, lined with many small businesses and restaurants offering various dining options. Harper Court, a small-business-oriented shopping center, extends north of 53rd Street along Harper Avenue. A farmers' market is held there in the summer.

55th Street

The segment of 55th Street between the Metra line and the lake offers a series of ethnic restaurants serving Thai, Japanese, and Korean cuisine. To the west of the Metra line between 54th and 55th streets lies the Hyde Park Shopping Center. The shopping center was formerly anchored by the Treasure Island grocery store, and also includes a Walgreens, Ace Hardware, Office Depot, Potbelly Sandwich Works, the Bonjour Bakery and Cafe, and an upscale French restaurant called "La Petite Folie."

57th Street

57th Street is noted for its independent bookstores, including the South Side branch of Powell's and the general-readership branch of the Seminary Co-op bookstore, known as "57th Street Books." 57th Street also offers the Medici Restaurant and Bakery, TrueNorth Cafe, and the Salonica Restaurant, along with small grocery stores, hair stylists, and dry cleaners. On the first weekend in June, the venerable 57th Street Art Fair takes up 57th Street between Kimbark and Kenwood avenues.

Museums

Educational institutions

Churches and houses of worship

Rohr Chabad at the University of Chicago and Hyde Park

Transportation

Hyde Park is connected to the rest of the city by CTA buses and the Metra Electric Line. CTA buses provide express service to the downtown, and they also allow transfers to Red Line and Green Line trains to the Loop. The Metra Electric Line, which uses the tracks of the former Illinois Central Railroad, has several stops in Hyde Park and provides service to Millennium Station in the downtown.

CTA bus services:

2 Hyde Park Express

4 Cottage Grove

6 Jackson Park Express

10 Museum of Science and Industry

15 Jeffery Local

28 Stony Island

55 Garfield

Additional CTA bus services, paid for by the University of Chicago:

171 University of Chicago/Hyde Park

172 University of Chicago/Kenwood

192 University of Chicago Hospitals Express

Notable current and former residents

Gertrude Abercrombie[24] – painter

Muhammad Ali – boxer

Bill Ayers[25] – educator and activist

Saul Bellow[26] – writer, 1976 Nobel Prize laureate

Lee Botts[27] – environmentalist

Carol Moseley Braun[22] – U.S. Senator from Illinois

Oscar Brown, Jr. - singer, songwriter, playwright, poet, civil rights activist, and actor.

Paul Butterfield[28] – blues musician

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar[29] – astrophysicist, 1983 Nobel Prize laureate

James W. Cronin[29] – physicist, 1980 Nobel Prize laureate

Clarence Darrow[30] – lawyer

Barbara Flynn Currie, former Illinois House of Representatives Majority Leader

Leon Despres[15] – civil rights activist

William Dodd[31] – U.S. Ambassador to Germany

Bernardine Dohrn[32] – lawyer and activist

Paul Douglas – U.S. Senator from Illinois

Arne Duncan[33] – U.S. Secretary of Education

Amelia Earhart (day resident as student of Hyde Park High School)[34] – aviator

Kurt Elling[35] – jazz musician

Louis Farrakhan[36] – leader of the Nation of Islam.

Enrico Fermi – physicist, 1938 Nobel Prize laureate

Marshall Field – founder of Marshall Field's

Susan Fiske[37] – social psychologist

Milton Friedman[14] - economist, 1976 Noble Prize recipient, taught economics at the University of Chicago (1946-1977)

Francis Fukuyama – political scientist

Caroline Glick - Journalist

Dick Gregory[38] – comedian, activist

Bonnie Harris - painter[39]

Hugh Hefner[40] – magazine publisher, founder of Playboy

Maria Hinojosa - journalist

Mahalia Jackson – gospel singer

Elena Kagan – Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

R. Kelly - Singer-songwriter

Chaka Khan - singer

Mary Todd Lincoln[9] – wife of 16th U.S. President Abraham Lincoln

John A. List - Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, University of Chicago

Vic Mensa - rapper

Albert Abraham Michelson – physicist, 1907 Nobel Prize laureate

Robert Andrews Millikan – physicist, 1923 Nobel Prize laureate, Robert A. Millikan House is National Historic Landmark

Elijah Muhammad – former leader of the Nation of Islam

Barack Obama[14] – 44th President of the United States

Richard Posner – former federal judge and senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School

Toni Preckwinkle – Cook County Board President, activist

Kwame Raoul – Illinois Attorney General

Janet D. Rowley - Cytogeneticist and cancer research pioneer[41]

Antonin Scalia[14][42] – Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, residency at the University of Chicago Law School (1977-1982)

John Paul Stevens[43] – Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

George Stigler[29] – economist, 1982 Nobel Prize laureate

James Tiptree, Jr.[44] – author

Swami Vivekananda[45] – monk, spiritual leader

Harold Washington[21] – Mayor of Chicago

Jody Watley – singer

Henry Clay Work – composer

Hubert Louis Will – federal judge

Gallery

Shops and restaurants on 53rd Street.

A monument marking the location of the first kiss between Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, located on the corner of 53rd Street and Dorchester Avenue.

Downtown Chicago and lakefront condominiums in Hyde Park as seen from the northern side of Promontory Point.

References

^ a b c d "Community Data Snapshot - Hyde Park" (PDF). MetroPulse. Retrieved April 13, 2017.

^ Paral, Rob. "Chicago Census Data". Archived from the original on 5 October 2013. Retrieved 9 October 2012.

^ "Guides and Maps - Neighborhood Maps: Hyde Park and Bronzeville" (PDF). City of Chicago. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 26, 2012. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ "Business Directory (C): Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage-Hyde Park". Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce. Archived from the original on February 26, 2012. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ a b "The Hyde Park-Kenwood Urban Renewal Story". Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ National Park Service (2007-01-23). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.

^ a b c d "Paul Cornell - Founder of Hyde Park". Hyde Park Historical Society. Archived from the original on February 4, 2012. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ a b c d Grinnell, Max. "Hyde Park". Chicago Historical Society. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ a b Cornelius, James (April 4, 2011). "Two new stories about the Lincolns". Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum. Archived from the original on November 24, 2011. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ Keating, Ann Durkin (2005). "Annexations and Additions to the City of Chicago". The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago Historical Society. Retrieved 2007-07-18.

^ Keating, Ann Durkin (2005). "Hyde Park Township". The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago Historical Society. Retrieved 2007-07-19.

^ "Nobel Laureates". University of Chicago. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ Long, Elizabeth. "A Single Portal to Chicago's History". The University of Chicago News. Retrieved 17 September 2016.

^ a b c d e f Slevin, Peter (October 16, 2008). "Uncommon Ground". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ a b Grossman, Ron (May 7, 2009). "Leon Despres, 1908-2009: Chicago alderman challenged elder Mayor Daley: Liberal voice of city, 101, also championed civil rights and political reforms". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ Wilgoren, Jodi (May 31, 2005). "Age 97, and Still at War With the Old Daley Machine". New York Times. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ "Hyde Park Featured on TV Show". Hyde Park Herald. January 16, 1957. Retrieved July 31, 2009.

^ "Hyde Parkers Tell Renewal Story". Hyde Park Herald. January 30, 1957. Retrieved July 31, 2009.

^ Paral, Rob. "Chicago Community Areas Historical Data". Chicago Community Areas Historical Data. Archived from the original on 18 March 2013. Retrieved 29 August 2012.

^ Rankin, Bill. "Chicago Boundaries - radicalcartography". Retrieved July 10, 2013.

^ a b "Monk Parakeets in Hyde Park and beyond". Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ a b Rodkin, Dennis (November 24, 2010). "Carol Moseley Braun Puts Her Hyde Park Home Up for Sale". Chicago (magazine). Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ Geiger, Kim; Delgado, Jennifer. "Promontory Point to serve as stage for star-studded wedding reception". Chicago Tribune. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2014-07-09.

^ "GERTRUDE ABERCROMBIE (1909 - 1977)". Corbett vs. Dempsey reproduced from Art in Chicago 1945 - 1995. Archived from the original on September 20, 2012. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ Remnick, David (November 4, 2008). "MR. AYERS'S NEIGHBORHOOD". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ Yoe, Mary Ruth (June 2005). "He seized the day". University of Chicago Magazine. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ "LEE BOTTS--HON. PETER J. VISCLOSKY of indiana in the house of representatives: Wednesday, February 13, 2008". Government Printing Office. February 13, 2008. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ Spink, George. "Blues for Big John's". Jazz Institute of Chicago. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ a b c Epstein, Nadine (May 29, 1985). "U. Of C. Seems To Get Nobel Supply On Demand". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ Ciccone, F. Richard (April 22, 1999). "Impact Players: The 100 Most Significant Chicagoans Of The Twentieth Century The Great Defender: Clarence Darrow". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ "William Dodd: The U.S. Ambassador In Hitler's Berlin". National Public Radio. May 9, 2011. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ "AN INTERVIEW WITH BILL AYERS". The Point Magazine. Spring 2012. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ Janega, James (December 16, 2008). "Duncan to join Obama Cabinet: Chicago schools chief is his pick for education secretary". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ "Timeline: Amelia Earhart, 1897-1937". American Experience, Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ Welch, Will (November 24, 2009). "Kurt Elling: Live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue". GQ. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ Kleban Mills, Barbara (September 17, 1990). "Predicting Disaster for a Racist America, Louis Farrakhan Envisions An African Homeland for U.S. Blacks". People Magazine. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ "Susan T. Fiske". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Archived from the original on January 4, 2013. Retrieved August 31, 2012.

^ Johnson, Steve (October 25, 2009). "Dick Gregory on Obama, longevity, comic geniuses". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ "Bonnie Harris (1870-1962)". Hyde Park Art Center. Retrieved 15 December 2015.

^ Grinnell, Max. "Playboy". Chicago Historical Society. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-12-18/news/ct-obit-janet-rowley-20131219_1_cancer-cells-gleevec-ovarian-cancer

^ Shipp, E. R. (July 26, 1986), "Scalia's Midwestern colleagues cite his love of debate, poker, and piano", The New York Times, retrieved January 13, 2010

^ Mullen, William (April 9, 2010). "John Paul Stevens' Chicago ties: Before Supreme Court, Hyde Park native's life was centered in the city". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ Phillips, Julie (2006). "James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon - Alice Bradley Sheldon, 1915-1987". St. Martin's Press. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

^ Kloehn, Steve (October 9, 1996). "Swami Bhashyananda, Hindu Leader". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved February 27, 2012.

External links

Places adjacent to Hyde Park, Chicago

0 notes

zanytimetravelenthusiast-blog · 5 years

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Viral Vidly Review And Bonus

Viral Vidly Review - Are you looking for even more knowledge about Viral Vidly? Please read through my straightforward evaluation about it prior to choosing, to evaluate the weak points and also strengths of it. Can it deserve your time and effort and also cash?

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Viral Vidly Testimonial & Review

Developer: Ali G.

Item: ViralVidly

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#Viral Vidly

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destiny-smasher · 7 years

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So I did the “get to know me” meme on Twitter but because of how Twitter functions now it’s a hard to follow mess of a thread. Decided to post it all here -- and hey, if any of ya’ll are curious, feel free to read.

1) When I was 10 my abusive stepdad threw a spray at me. I ducked -- it scraped my head. Sent to school bleeding b/c he was too stoned to realize it'd get noticed and I'd get pulled out of that environment immediately. This moment changed my life, left a scar on head.

If I hadn't ducked, would've hit my stomach. No cut. Whole childhood would've been different. My first Butterfly Effect Moment.

2) I started writing fiction about Pokémon. First-person, from the Mons perspective. Rotating point of view each scene.

3) I moved on to crazy crossover fanfic where I constructed an entire war, personal and political motivations, so many ideas I still like?

4) Part of this involved detailed drawings of Mario-themed Keyblades I wish I still had.

5) Paper Mario 1&2 are some of my most influential inspirations. expanded such a simple world so much so fluidly. (Harder than it looks)

6) When I was a kid my sister would wake me st like 6am to watch dubbed Sailor Moon. Bothered me they all sounded like same person.

7) I can recognize voices very well and even specific sounds and songs. Couple years back my roommate ran a test - playlist of 100 NES tracks, he'd play the first NOTE, singular, and I could recognize exactly where it was from if I'd played the game.

8) My first computer was a PC I bought w/$ saved up during an entire summer of custodial work in HS. Had no Internet.

So I'd use the public library's very slow connection to download things to floppy disk and copy them over.

Eventually, I was able to graduate to a USB. Obtaining music was hellish so I treasured each song I could download -- most from OC Remix.

9) We had this tiny rabbit ears TV that could get WB and Fox sometimes if it was set up in a specific corner of my sister's room

And so I would desperately use it to try and stay up to date on Pokémon and Digimon, it was so bad

10) Teen Titans was arguably the most influential piece of media for my teenage mind. It formed the base of so much I care about re:stories

Fleshed out, varied protags who grew together and each had their times to step up and step down. Action w/character dev context.

Fantastic themes important for growing humans; awesome moments "between the panels" instead of all comic book melodrama and action.

Then everything changed when TT GO attacked and pissed on everything smart and thoughtful because MONEYYYYY

11) Cowboy Bebop was the first "good" anime I ever saw and blew my mind open about what animated stories could do -- i.e. Not just kid stuff

I don't like "anime" in general because most of its common tropes but the shit out of me even worse than most western toon tropes

And yet like 50-75% of my most favorite shows ARE anime because thoughtful animated storytelling has so much potential.

11) I predicted months before Last of Us came out that you'd play as Ellie but when it happened I had to stop, cry happy tears.

I predicted the second I saw the Left Behind trailer what was going on w/those two and again, still had to stop and cry happy tears.

(I seem to have pretty good gaydar now but I also don't like, ship everyone together all the time)

It just hits me so hard when actual canon queerness happens in mass media and is done well, but we're still so bad at following through.

12) Favorite m/m ship: Troy and Abed in the Morning. Favorite w/w ship: Max and Chloe BFF Pirates 2008.

ATLA ships: Tokka the most, also Katang, also Smellershot. ATLA makes me more open to shipping than any other series?

Like, Zutara makes me feel kinda gross and some of the crack ships like Sokka/Azula scare me but otherwise I'm pretty chill w/ATLA ships?

13) When I was a kid, and we'd role play, I always wanted to play the girl characters. I was surrounded by boys so they always were weirded.

It was weird to me, too, honestly.

Now it makes perfect goddamn sense.

14) Apparently I was kidnapped as a baby by some mobster or something but it's hard to tell with my mom what's real or not.

15) Smash Bros. Melee was the first game I ever got genuinely hype over before launch. I still remember being startled to discover it --

-- existed via E3 trailer on GameTrailers back on my goddamn dialup connection in 2001. I had to wait all fuckin' day for that thing to load

And when it did, it was GLORIOUS (and had FZero music, which at the time I did not recognize) and I was FLOORED.

The screenshots made the game look too good to be real, and I was instantly sold on the GameCube, the first time I NEEDED new hardware Day 1

I got SSBM as an Xmas gift before my grandpa's GCN present arrived, so for a week or two all I could do was stare at the box/manual/disc

That game kind of changed my life -- SSB64 was the first time I'd gotten so invested in a multiplayer game, and SSBM crushed it.

A fire was born in me -- competition, something I'd never been much interested in w/games before, not against actual humans.

Those months between E3 2001 and finally getting to play SSBM felt like forever. And thus did I post online fiction for the first time.

That's actually how I met @SDiDuro , my first 'Internet friend' and what I'd consider to be my first proper 'reader.'

16) After college, I ended up working at a call center because it was the only job I could find and I needed to support my disabled wife.

DURING college, I gave up on writing fiction and had focused on gaming editorial through a site where I'd engaged with an online community

But that empty space between phone calls eventually got filled in by writing fiction on a notepad, with a pen, inspired by Street Fighter 4.

Eventually, this evolved and radically changed into what is now (still in dev) DownRight Fierce.

Back then, I had no idea I'd be motivated to DO this, though -- write original fiction -- but the fire had been re-lit.

I wanted to write.

I was sickened by my "naive" adolescence crossover fics and wiped them from my http://FF.net profile and started anew.

Having just come off of ATLA 1st time, I knew I wanted to explore that world/characters more, so I wrote a story about Toph & puberty.

That serving as "practice," I then went on to write SRU, and...well, that...changed EVERYTHING.

17) My biological dad (who I have never met) has OCD, to the point where he apparently washed his skin raw trying to avoid germs?

So as soon as I showed enthusiasm in gaming, my parents FREAKED and worried I was exhibiting OCD and they brought the hammer down.

They made me feel BAD for writing about video games when I wasn't playing them, but they never READ anything I fucking wrote.

Even now, my mom tries to comment on what a good writer I supposedly am, yet when I ask for her thoughts, I ask what she's read?

Silence.

I wasn't writing fiction based on games because I was THAT addicted to games.

I did it because a storyteller was awakening within me --

-- and I told stories through the worlds and characters I was familiar with.

(And my first genuinely "serious" fic was Teen Titans, anyway)

But even now, it really hurts that my parents will sometimes try to guilt me over not calling or whatever the fuck, when they never READ

never supported, and actively DISCOURAGED my writing, my storytelling, refused to understanding why I loved games.

18) I never watched Avatar until after college (years after it had finished), and I watched it because of the live action movie.

I watched halfway through the season 1 of the cartoon to get "read up" on it. Then the movie. Which was horrible. Then the rest of season 1.

At that point, the movie utterly baffled me. My wife and I proceeded to marathon the rest of the series. And it became my fav story ever.

But I ironically owe it to that terrible live action movie. ^_^;;

19) My taste in music is really weird. I couldn't tell you what my favorite genres are, and even fav musicians is hard.

Like, every year my top three fav musicians "change" because I just add more to the pile and spend the year focused on their music.

But music inspires my storytelling more than any other medium, I'd say -- in terms of me actually planning and growing ideas.

I didn't just give Nishiko and Seiko last names of my two fav game composers as tongue-in-cheek. In fact, that's not why I did it at all.

I gave them those names because I wanted some element of their very design to express how Japanese composers inspired me in my teen years.

#get to know me #personal

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livingwithashipname-blog · 8 years

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Ermanda's Inner Sanctum: Scorpion 3.18 "Don't Burst My Bubble"

This is another solid episode for February sweeps! We have a good wrap on some arcs and get more development on continuous ones. This episode also has great team feels like those from episode 3.12 Ice Ca-Cabes! I am going to address the consequences of choice with the most prominent moments of this episode. I have talked about this in previous reviews with a ship or one character, but the theme is so apparent for everyone! Let's go there!!!

Sylvester

Sly loses the election. Boo! However, the results are not surprising after the release of Patel's social media mudslinging ad. Major shifts occur when veterans of the armed forces are pulled into any political sphere. But his pursuits introduce him to new people that would have never realized his political potential, his bravery, and his genius. While Sly may not be Alderman of W. Altadenia, I hope this election cycle encourages him to do more in his community beyond filing the Warlock's Chest as a building protected under the historic zoning commission!

The Consequences of Choices

Relationships are hard. This is why those committed must continuously work to sustain them. People change along with situations. The choices we make in love, whether platonic or romantic, determine the course of our relationships with others and our lives as individuals. This is true of the ships in this episode, Taige and Callie. Both of these relationships have their challenges - Paige and Tim's transition to long-distance and Cabe and Allie's age gap. But in the end, the individuals who make up these pairings decide to end their unions because of choices surrounding occupation. Happy and Walter realize that they are capable of beating the odds when his comes their EQ. The choices they make in all manner of friendship prove to serve them well.

Cabe

Cabe has been alone for 20 years, so he is initially apprehensive and rusty when it comes to asking Allie out on a date. Additionally, they are campaign rivals. Despite Cabe's concerns over their age difference, they choose to make it work and accept one another as they are. Yet, Allie's choices as campaign manager for the opposition place a strain on their relationship. Allie has made it known that she works with Patel for the money even though he's not a great boss, but she performs some really great gestures for Sylvester to have a real shot in the Alderman election. However, her good deeds are squashed when she chooses to follow Patel's orders and uploads a smear ad of Sylvester that negatively impacts his image. Cabe is shocked that she would upload something so falsified! Allie could have declined, but she chooses her job anyways. This pushes him to do the same and end things with Allie. Cabe is loyal to the geniuses and Paige who are his surrogate children and he doesn't want to contradict the lessons they learn from him as a father figure. It's unfortunate for Cabe because it has been so long, but I have hope that he will find someone better.

Paige

Paige has a somber conversation with Tim at the top of the episode. No specifics are given in that moment, but we can deduce by Paige's behavior that things are not good between them. She reveals at the end of the episode that she and Tim break up because they realize things would not continue to work between them long-term, especially with Tim's 8-month service extension job offer. This result is not surprising from a character perspective. Toby once alluded to this possibility in 3.11 Wreck the Halls. He said that men like Tim are not desk workers; they thrive in leadership roles. Granted, we have not heard much about Tim since his departure, but it seems as if he found himself in a place he calls home and one of them would have to make a job sacrifice in the future that would end in a win-lose situation. Plus, we are left to assume that the split is amicable given that Paige says it's a decision upon which they both agree. There's not enough dialogue from canon to suggest otherwise. Yet, this choice leaves Paige in a heartbreakingly familiar place. The father of her child, Drew, chose to chase after his baseball career instead of handling his responsibilities as a father. He abandoned Ralph and her. Even though Tim doesn't do the same in this situation, Paige has encountered two romantic situations where occupation is a relationship stumbling block. And it hurts to deal with the fact that who she is and where she is at this point in her life with Ralph doesn't align with the lives of these men. When is someone going to choose her? She has faced this with Drew, Tim, Veronica, and Walter. But the members of Team Scorpion always look out for one another. And with Walter improving his friendship skills, Paige can find support in her heartbreak.

It is also important to note that Walter and Paige have become victims of the same lesson/construct (choosing something else over love). This point also factors into The Waige Flip. In season 2, Walter succumbs to fear and chooses team efficiency over love. Even when he realizes his mistake, his choices in rectification work against him and he hurts Paige, further pushing her to Tim. In season 3, Paige chooses to stick with the logical choice at the time, but also ignores her hesitations. Even though Walter and Paige have expressed love for one another in various ways throughout this series, desire is not enough to make anything romantic happen between them. Both of them have to make the decision to commit when the opportunity arises!

Side note: Isn't it interesting that Cabe and Paige, the two who experience breakups this episode, share a dance with one another during the dance party? 😉😉

Happy

Happy is finally on par with everyone else and has a friend outside the cyclone! Granted, we don’t know if Paige has a number of friends either, but it is safe to assume that she has acquaintances at least (parents from Ralph’s school, servers from waitressing days, babysitters). Anyways, Happy (Sprocketace77) has worked with SparkplugADAptor522 for two month and knows very little about her. She asks questions but doesn't get any answers. Once Happy's chat with her goes uncharacteristically silent, she hacks the site and retrieves her name and address. Happy's choice to check on Ada, despite Toby's concerns, saves Ada's life. Throughout the rescue, Happy takes control, finds a way to calm Ada during the process even though this is not her strong suit, and bonds with her struggles at Toby and Paige’s insistence and encouragement even though she doubts her ability. (Sound familiar?! 😉) Unfortunately, Ada's condition prevents any possibility for her to attend Happy's wedding even with an invite, but the whole experience proves to Happy that she is able to create and cultivate friendships with normals. I hope that she will get another opportunity to include Ada in her life through VR (maybe the wedding)!!! As Marissa (aka. @whatthehellisaquintis) said Monday night, it’s always a great feeling to bond with internet friends!

Walter

HOLY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!! Walter is on the fast track to EQ improvement. This episode gives us his progress in spades! He doesn't prod when he sees Paige in distress or when she lies to him. He takes the hint from Happy and allows her to take the lead in Ada's rescue. He identifies Happy's task to keep Ada calm with conversation as another means of emotional support in contrast to giving space (which promotes efficiency). He recognizes good friendship techniques when Happy encourages Ada during the meat locker's sterilization process and when she waits at her computer for Ada to login to the chat room. He fixes Paige's chair and gives her a VR headset so that her chats with Tim make her feel closer to him. When he learns of their split, he provides Paige with emotional support in her moment of sorrow. Paige is definitely aware of his progress, acknowledges it, and thanks him for his efforts. In terms of Waige potential, this is a positive for Walter. This is what Paige once appreciated from Tim that she couldn’t get from Walter last year. And it adds more to The Waige Flip of season 3. But I have to admit that Walter using an advice column in a magazine you would find in your local supermarket is hilarious! That’s so dumb and yet so smart at the same time! It's dumb that he considers the information as a refutable source of behavioral advice as Toby mentions to him, but it's smart when you look at the information as that which appeals to normals. If he wants to have a better friendship with a normal, it would be good to use a source of information that normals utilize in their daily lives. Furthermore, his progress is even more impressive when you consider that he chooses to better himself by his own volition BEFORE the Taige breakup. He doesn't seek Paige or Toby's advice like he usually does. He does his own research in preparation so he doesn't commit an atrocity! I appreciate the writers for this because his motivations to be sincere and supportive shouldn't stem from an opportunity he once lost. They should occur regardless of circumstance. He is doing better than Happy in this venture!!! Walter's progress deserves a standing ovation!

Drabbles...

Omgness guys!!! We get some form of confirmation that Toby and Happy live together!!! My babies are domesticated! 😍💚😍💚😍💚😍💚😍💚😍

Ralph is growing up guys! He is concerned that his legs look skinny in shorts and this is why he doesn't want to go on a beach field trip. Aww!!!

It looks like Toby has picked up tuxedoes with that cake. I didn't get a good look at them so I wonder if these are choices or they are the actual suits the guys will wear at the wedding. All in all, the Quintis wedding planning is so exciting! Toby is leading the charge for his big wedding! I love the flip of traditional gender roles!

The auto-biotic isolator looked really nice!!

Ada: You must be Walter. Happy said he was a whackadoodle. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Walter: I might consider calling her "Snappy" because she keeps snapping at us. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Ada is so impressive! The way she stacked her furniture to use the mattress in that manner was amazing!!

W (to Toby): You’re not the only shrink in the world. 😂😂😂

Did anyone take notice to how Toby speaks to Ada in this episode?! He speaks in a tender tone like he usually does with Happy. It's kind of adorable considering he identified Ada as another Happy Quinn!

Loved that Paige's waitressing experience contributed in the rescue! 🙌🏾🙌🏾👍🏾

Cousin Buzzy's hat... 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Ada got to feel the sun on her face because of Happy Quinn and Team Scorpion! 🙌🏾🙌🏾👏🏾👏🏾💛💛💛

Gotta point this out... Happy takes her comm out of her ear and gives it to Ada's dad. He puts it in his ear. After he's done, he hands the comm back to Happy and she places it back into her ear. Eww!!!! 😳😳😳 Where was Sly in that moment?! Lol!

Ada must have some strong lungs because I can't hold my breath for a minute! Haven't trained myself to do that! Kudos to her! 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾

It was so nice to see all the geniuses show so much concern on their faces waiting for Ada to emerge from the honey!! Emotional progress ftw!!! 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾

Btw, what does Andolo's family restaurant now use to refrigerate their food items since Ada is there for 4 days? I hope the restaurant doesn't get a visit from a food safety inspector anytime soon! 😂😂

I need Walter to create a Scorpion-esque miracle and find a donor for Ada! She is another guest character that needs to return!!

Happy and Walter are friendship goals! 💛💛💛🙌🏾🙌🏾

#ermanda's inner sanctum #cbs scorpion #s03e18 #don't burst my bubble #scorpion cbs #episode review #team scorpion #livingwithashipname

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webart-studio · 6 years

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Eight eCommerce Tendencies That Are Figuring out The Way forward for On-line Retail

Digital buying has its roots again in 1979 when an English inventor related a modified TV to a pc, which was able to transaction-processing, by way of a phone line to construct the inspiration on which the entire eCommerce business is constructed.

From shopping for garments for a special day to reserving a cab to succeed in your vacation spot – most transactions are executed on an eCommerce platform. And as you will have observed, among the largest entrepreneurs of latest instances are the homeowners of profitable eCommerce companies.

It goes with out saying that eCommerce websites have entered every family positioned in not simply the US but in addition throughout numerous international locations of the world. And entrepreneurs at the moment are specializing in eCommerce traits to resolve what ought to be their advertising technique to enhance gross sales and conversions within the upcoming months. Whereas some traits are as clear as day, others require a little analysis and commentary.

Properly, in case you are keen to study concerning the newest traits within the eCommerce panorama, you’ve gotten come to the suitable place. Listed here are among the most vital eCommerce traits which might be going to resolve the way forward for the eCommerce business.

1. Personalised expertise

There’s no denying that personalised expertise goes to play a significant position in shaping the eCommerce business within the coming years. In response to an Accenture Analysis report, 43 p.c of U.S. customers are extra seemingly to decide on the businesses that personalize their expertise. The report additionally highlights the truth that 41 p.c of U.S. customers switched firms over an absence of belief and poor personalization.

Picture Supply: Mediapost

The report additional reveals that 48 p.c of customers are more likely to store extra once they obtain a customized expertise. It has come to gentle that 74% of individuals hate to see irrelevant content material each day. Sadly, most entrepreneurs haven’t been in a position to supply such a customized expertise, which is costing them a major quantity of income.

In response to Gartner, companies with the profitable implementation of personalization in eCommerce can be having fun with a 15 p.c revenue increase by 2020.

2. A number of buying channels

A research carried out by the Harvard Enterprise Overview which investigated 46,000 buyers, revealed that 73 p.c of the individuals used a number of channels to do their buying. Should you go searching, you will note that individuals have already began to contemplate a number of channels earlier than making a purchase order. And this development is just going to get greater with time.

A research by Canalys additional reveals that 22 p.c of North American retailers already prioritize omnichannel efforts as they’ve discovered optimistic outcomes by implementing these efforts. 30 p.c of the surveyed sellers talked about {that a} lack of capital is holding them again from offering an omnichannel expertise to prospects.

You’ll be able to guess what sort of revolution the eCommerce panorama goes to expertise as soon as the retailers pay money for vital capital as a result of they’ve already acknowledged the potential of the multichannel expertise. In response to Forbes Insights, 73 p.c of shops consider that multichannel is essential to them.

3. Customer support automation

As we transfer in direction of the age of automation, there’s little doubt that buyer interactions are additionally going to be automated. In response to Zendesk, 85% of all buyer interactions can be dealt with with none help from human brokers by 2020. For now, 42 p.c of B2C prospects went on to buy extra after receiving customer support expertise.

Since a fast decision is a precedence, 25% of buyer help and companies can be built-in with digital help by 2020 for sooner help. Apparently, synthetic intelligence will be capable of deal with 45% of buyer questions from the reside chat by itself, a 2018 report suggests.

4. Crypto-currencies as a fee technique

Cryptocurrencies have already began to make a distinction within the discipline of finance. And it’s only a matter of time when cryptocurrencies exchange credit score/debit playing cards as the most well-liked eCommerce fee technique. In actual fact, a PayPal Exec predicts that there’s a “Very excessive probability” that Bitcoin could grow to be a well-liked fee technique.

Since cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin carry a low transaction payment (round 0.3%), they’re set to grow to be one of many hottest eCommerce fee strategies by 2021, with a market share of 16.5 p.c.

5. On-site and in-app cellular commerce

In response to Enterprise Insider, cellular eCommerce will make up 45 p.c of the full eCommerce income (round $284 billion) by the yr 2020. Already 56 p.c of customers use their cellphones to analysis merchandise at their dwelling. Will probably be no shock if purchases by way of cellular gadgets improve considerably within the subsequent few years.

Picture Supply: Digiday.com

Walmart cellular eCommerce web site elevated its cellular gross sales by 98 p.c simply by optimizing it and bettering the design. Exxel additionally witnessed a 272% improve in cellular conversion fee and 193% enchancment in year-on-year cellular income by optimizing its cellular eCommerce platform.

6. Similar-day supply

Delivering merchandise on the identical day could seem difficult to most warehouses (77% of them) at the moment, however 38 p.c of consumers anticipate the excessive road retailers to supply same-day supply. In actual fact, 72 p.c of patrons would store extra if they’d the choice of getting same-day supply.

In 2015, Macy’s made a partnership with Deliv to supply same-day supply at simply $5. This transfer helped them acquire the #2 spot amongst on-line attire retailers in 2016. So, you may think about what can occur to companies that are in a position to ship merchandise on the identical day within the close to future.

7. Quicker supply

On condition that same-day supply has the potential to spice up gross sales of eCommerce websites of latest instances, maybe it’s essential take into consideration extra superior supply companies to remain on prime of eCommerce traits. In response to the Walker Sands, 79 p.c of US customers are keen to request drone supply if the product may be delivered inside an hour.

Picture Supply: Businessinsider.com

It’s predicted that 40 p.c of parcels can be delivered inside 2 hours by 2020. You can be shocked to know that 73 p.c of individuals in a survey mentioned that they might pay as much as $10 for drone supply on at present’s date.

8. Growing use of video

In the previous few years, the consumption of video content material has taken a hike. And the eCommerce business is all set to reap the advantages of it. A report suggests that 60 p.c of customers would relatively watch a product video than learn a product description. Not simply that, customers are 64-85% extra more likely to make a purchase order after watching a product video.

Surprisingly, 58 p.c of customers consider that firms with product movies are extra reliable. Moreover, product pages with movies have 37 p.c extra likelihood of an add-to-cart conversion than product pages with no movies. There’s no doubting why nearly all of eCommerce platforms are placing movies on their product pages.

Wrapping up

These traits talked about above have already began to form the business for tomorrow, and each sensible marketer has already begun making their transfer to remain on prime of those altering traits. If you would like your small business to develop into one thing massive, this can be your likelihood to make the suitable transfer and switch your small enterprise right into a profitable eCommerce platform within the close to future.

Visitor creator: Being a versed blogger, Arif Rashid has discovered the inspiration within the technology of millennial whereas creativity connects to your writing. He tries to find new traits on this planet on technological features. Love to put in writing blogs endlessly and enlightening others. He develops the talents and mindset to navigate fixed change and construct resilience. Presently he’s half time author at MyAssignmentHelp.

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tonyduncanbb73 · 6 years

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Sorry, the State Doesn’t Want You Drinking CBD-Infused Beer

And other Boston-area beer and liquor news, updated weekly

As the Massachusetts beer scene continues its fast-paced growth, we’re tracking beer-related news bites right here: brewery openings and closures, links to interesting features from other publications, and more. We’re throwing in some liquor news for good measure, too. This piece is updated most Thursdays, and the most recent additions are at the top. Email [email protected] with any Massachusetts beer or liquor news that should be on our radar.

Check out our 2017 archive of beer news here, and for a more in-depth look at the scene, check out the archive of our Beer & Mortar feature series.

March 29, 2018

ASHLAND — Medfield-based, athlete-founded Zelus Beer Company — which produces “hydration-friendly” beers that are “crafted for your active lifestyle,” with low alcohol content — will open a pop-up taproom and beer garden at the Corner Spot in Ashland (6 Cherry St.) from April 13 to April 26, offering tasters, pints, and merch. There will also be a food truck onsite, as well as music and other events. Keep an eye on the Zelus website for scheduling information and updates.

EVERETT — With retail cannabis sales set to begin on July 1, one local brewery was hoping to be the first in the state to infuse beer with CBD, an active compound in cannabis that is thought to have some potential medical benefits without the psychoactive effects caused by another well-known cannabis compound, THC. Down the Road Beer Co. (199 Ashland St.) hoped to add CBD to its newly released Goopmassta Session IPA, but the state’s Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission said no: “Infusing or otherwise adding cannabinoid extract in alcoholic beverages is considered adulteration of alcohol,” which is a no-no. (Industrial hemp, however, is allowed in the manufacture of alcohol in Massachusetts under certain conditions.) Want to try CBD-infused beer? Head to Vermont and seek out Long Trail Brewing’s Medicator. In Oregon, Coalition Brewing is also making a CBD-infused beer, Two Flowers IPA.

HARVARD — Carlson Orchards (115 Oak Hill Rd.), which has been producing non-alcoholic apple cider for decades, is getting into the hard cider game, the company announced this week, thanks in part to some consultation with the Stormalong Cider team — neighbors at New England Apple Products in Leominster, where Carlson Orchards’ non-alcoholic cider is produced. “We wanted to produce a hard cider that was similar to our premium farmstand cider and ultimately decided to make an ‘unfiltered’ hard cider for increased apple taste and character,” said Carlson Orchards president Frank Carlson, via press release. The first off-site release will be 16-ounce cans of Oak Hill Blend, distributed around the state via the Massachusetts Beverage Alliance, available starting April 1. Stay tuned for a potential fall 2018 opening of a tasting room onsite at Carlson Orchards.

MASHPEE — Today, March 29, is opening day for Cape Cod’s Naukabout Brewery & Taproom (13 Lake Ave.), a seven-barrel brewhouse with lake and river views. It’s open from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. today and 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. this Friday and Saturday (closed on Sunday). The opening lineup of beers includes Quittin’ Time, a “juicy” and “tropical” New England IPA; the triple dry-hopped Tides double IPA; a 3.5%-er, Stormborn Stout; and more.

SOUTH DEERFIELD — Berkshire Brewing Company (12 Railroad St.), which has been around since 1994, could soon open an 850-square-foot taproom that’ll operate a few days a week, with 20 taps, pretzels from Baked in Shelburne Falls, and food trucks outside on summer weekends. (Customers will also be able to bring in their own food.) There will be room for about 55 people inside. Why now? A recent amendment to a state law is now making it possible for the brewery — which has a pub-brewer wholesale license — to move from only offering free samples during tours to actually selling poured beer (but not packaged beer) onsite.

SOUTH END, BOSTON — Heading to the SoWa Open Market to shop and eat? It takes place on Sundays from May 6 to October 28, from 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and starting at 11 a.m. each week, you can drink some beer, too. The Power Station (540 Harrison Ave.) will become the Beer Barn, courtesy of Craft Collective, serving up a rotating selection of beers and ciders. There’ll also be lawn games, live music, and more.

March 22, 2018

Greater Good Imperial Brewing Company/Facebook

Greater Good Imperial Brewing Company

FALL RIVER — Canned Heat Craft Beer Company (52 Ferry St.) could open as soon as early May; the team plans to can (of course) and distribute the beer, and there will also be tasting hours at the space, which will include cold food and a patio. Canned Heat has been previewing some potential beers on Facebook, including Limesicle, a milkshake IPA made with lime peel and vanilla bean; Aloha Brown, an English-style brown that will be aged on toasted coconut; and a Portuguese-inspired pilsner.

HAMPTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE — Smuttynose Brewing Company (105 Towle Farm Rd.) has been sold for an undisclosed amount to Runnymede Investments, a venture capital and investment firm based in North Hampton, New Hampshire, that intends to help the brand “not only survive, but…thrive.” Former Boston Beer Company executive Rich Lindsay, who was briefly CFO for Night Shift Brewing, will be CEO.

MARLBOROUGH — Walden Woods Brewing(277 Main St.) is so, so close to opening. It was supposed to happen this past weekend, but there were some delays. Look for it within the next few weeks.

ROSLINDALE — Alas, the season is about to end for Trillium’s temporary beer hall at the Roslindale Substation (4228 Washington St.). This Sunday will be the final day; check out some details for the last few events here.

SPRINGFIELD — In a Mass. Brew Bros. blind, bracket-style tasting of 20 Massachusetts New England IPAs, the victor was a nanobrewery in planning, Rustic Brewing Company, with a brew called Hop Blind. Lots of more established breweries were included, such as Trillium, Idle Hands, Tree House, and Lord Hobo. Western Mass. apparently has a lot to look forward to when Rustic opens, focusing on New England IPAs and milkshake IPAs.

WALTHAM — Contract brand Mighty Squirrel Brewing Co. will get its own permanent home later this year, likely around fall — a 23,000-square-foot brewery and taproom right by Beaver Brook Reservation (411 Waverley Oaks Rd.). The large space will include a second taproom for overflow and private events, two patios, and a 30-barrel system, as well as an additional five-barrel pilot system for experimentation. The brand launched a few years back with the aim of producing protein-packed post-workout beers, but these days, Mighty Squirrel has moved away from those recipes, instead producing beers such as the hazy Cloud Candy IPA, Mocha Stout milk stout, and Kiwi White Belgian white ale.

WORCESTER — Greater Good Imperial Brewing Company(55 Millbrook St.), which focuses on imperial ales and lagers between 8% and 14% ABV (hence the name), has debuted its 100-person taproom; here’s the schedule for the first couple of weeks. Greater Good’s kitchen, dubbed Toast (stylized “TOAST.”), is serving up five types of grilled cheese, plus soft pretzels, hot dogs, and other snacks.

March 15, 2018

Trillium/Facebook

Trillium’s original Fort Point location

DOWNTOWN BOSTON — At the Royale over the weekend, a number of local bartenders took part in the annual Speed Rack competition, a speed bartending competition by and for women that raises money for breast cancer charities (and visibility for women in the bartending industry). This year, Tainah Soares (of A4cade in Cambridge) was crowned Miss Speed Rack New England, and she’ll go on to compete at the national finals in May, taking place in Chicago.

DOWNTOWN CROSSING, BOSTON — Democracy Brewing(35 Temple St.) — one of several exciting Boston-area brewery openings potentially slated for spring 2018 — is three months into construction and shared some renderings of what it’ll look like when it’s complete. Democracy Brewing is located in the longtime Windsor Button space.

FORT POINT, BOSTON — Trillium Brewing Company’s forthcoming Fort Point location at 47 Farnsworth St. — a move from its original spot in the neighborhood (369 Congress St.) that will result in a much larger and more awesome space — is moving along. BLDUP has a March construction update on the 16,000-square-foot project, noting that a permit has been submitted for restaurant occupancy. The two-story space, which could open by the end of the year, will include a brewpub with a full kitchen and microbrewery, bar on each floor, a room for private events, a retail shop, and two outdoor patios — one of which will be on the roof.

ROSLINDALE, BOSTON — Distraction Brewing Company (2 Belgrade Ave.) has now secured its Massachusetts farmer-brewery license, which lets it produce beer. Still in the works: a pouring license, zoning, and building the taproom.

WEYMOUTH — In addition to Barrel House Z (95 Woodrock Rd.), which opened a year and a half ago, and the forthcoming Article Fifteen (835 Washington St.) (see February 8 update below), Weymouth has even more beer on the way. Vitamin Sea Brewing has signed a lease near Barrel House Z and could open a 10-barrel brewery and taproom by the end of 2018, featuring a patio and rotating food trucks.

March 1, 2018

Greater Good/Facebook

Growlers at Greater Good Imperial Brewing Company, opening soon in Worcester

BOSTON — Prepare for beer gardens. Once the season arrives, Trillium’s popular Greenway garden will likely make a comeback this year, as the Herald reports, and that’s not all: The Greenway Conservancy is trying to find a brewery for “Dewey Square Drinkery,” a pop-up bar that would be open at least a couple days a week in Dewey Square. Stay tuned, and in the meantime, catch Trillium’s other seasonal beer garden — an indoor one — at the Roslindale Substation (4228 Washington St.)

CAMBRIDGE TO MEXICO CITY — Moe Isaza, bar manager atPammy’s(928 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge), is currently competing for his third time in the annual Bacardi Legacy Cocktail Competition, and he’s already made it quite far — he’ll be one of just two United States finalists competing globally in Mexico City against about 30 international bartenders on April 25. The US finalists were pulled from a field of 720 recipes submissions, narrowed down through several stages of judging and competition. Isaza’s drink is called the Poderoso and includes Bacardi Ocho, coffee liqueur (paying homage to Colombia, where Isaza was born before coming to East Boston as a four-year-old), pineapple juice, amaro, and a muddled lemon wedge.

EVERETT TO PAWTUCKET AND BEYOND — Night Shift Brewing (87 Santilli Hwy., Everett) is outgrowing its home and is now doing some contract brewing out of the Isle Brewers Guild cooperative in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, adding about 10,000 barrels a year to Night Shift’s output. And it’s the Everett brewery’s first foray into Rhode Island; it doesn’t yet distribute there, but its beers made at Isle Brewers Guild will be on tap and in cans at the Guild taproom.

In other Night Shift news, Braintree’s Widowmaker Brewing(220 Wood Rd.) has signed on with Night Shift Distributing (Night Shift Brewing’s sibling distribution arm) to take things to the next level (previously self-distributing to around 30 nearby accounts), hoping to spread around the whole Greater Boston area, not just the South Shore. Keep an eye out for Widowmaker’s Ecstasy of Gold American IPA and 50 Year Storm Double IPA around town, likely followed soon by the Donut Shop Stout.

And in other Night Shift news, Night Shift Distributing recently brought its first gluten-free brewery into its portfolio, Ghostfish Brewing out of Seattle. Four-packs began to hit Massachusetts shelves a couple weeks ago; look for Ghostfish’s Grapefruit IPA, Meteor Shower Blonde Ale, and Shrouded Summit Belgian White Ale.

IPSWICH — Privateer Rum (11 Brady Dr.) announced today that Maggie Campbell — head distiller since 2012, vice president since 2015 — has risen through the ranks again. She’s now president of the company, working alongside founder and CEO Andrew Cabot to further grow the seven-year-old brand, including doubling Privateer’s production capacity this year. (Privateer also recently debuted a new tasting room at the distillery.) Campbell is a familiar and distinguished face in the distilling world (and wine world, too), appearing on a number of boards and committees, as well as winning plenty of awards and recognition for her work at Privateer.

MALDEN — In case you missed yesterday’s news, Malden is getting lots more beer.

WORCESTER — Here’s a sneak peek inside Greater Good Imperial Brewing Company(55 Millbrook St.), set to open later this month with a focus on hefty imperial brews. The 100-person taproom will also have live music, games, and some food, such as panini and pretzels.

February 23, 2018

American Fresh/Facebook

American Fresh Assembly Row patio

SOMERVILLE — Somerville Brewing Company, aka Slumbrew, will be temporarily bringing back its outdoor beer garden at Assembly Row. “We’ll be back this summer with outdoor drinking and dining right at Assembly Row,” said cofounder Caitlin Jewell in a Facebook live video today. “We have bands and bocce and fun.” The beer garden, which was open in warmer seasons and covered up by a tent in colder seasons, was around for nearly three years before shutting down in fall 2017. A couple months later, Somerville Brewing Company opened up a full-service restaurant and bar, American Fresh Brewhouse, just down the block at 490 Foley St. in Assembly Row. Plus, there’s also the original Somerville Brewing location, a brewery and taproom in Somerville’s Boynton Yards neighborhood, right by Union Square (15 Ward St.)

In a Facebook thread, Jewell mentioned that this time around the beer garden will have “no tent, just fresh air.” She also noted that the “current plan” is that it’s just coming back for this upcoming warm season; the land is still slated to be built upon — part of Assembly Row’s seemingly never-ending development — but plans got delayed by a year.

Another beer update elsewhere in Somerville: On March 3, Winter Hill Brewing Co.(328 Broadway, Winter Hill, Somerville)will introduce its new milk stout, Large Iced Regular. The name — and the winter release date — is an homage to New Englanders’ year-round iced coffee obsession, and the stout is infused with Counter Culture Hologram coffee. In honor of the release, the brewery will be serving a special Union Square Donuts doughnut on March 3, while supplies last; the doughnut glaze is made using the beer.

February 16, 2018

Pretty Things [official photo]

Pretty Things’ Fluffy White Rabbits

BOSTON — Boston Beer Co., which is behind Samuel Adams beer as well as Angry Orchard hard cider, Twisted Tea, and other alcoholic beverages, has a new president: Dave Burwick, who will leave his position of CEO of Peet’s Coffee for the job. He’s also been a member of Boston Beer Co.’s board of directors for over a decade. Burwick succeeds longtime president and CEO Martin Roper. Meanwhile, Boston Beer Co. founder and chairman Jim Koch will continue to hold those positions.

EVERYWHERE — In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, female brewers nationwide — including plenty in Massachusetts — will be brewing beers made with a special Pink Boots blend of hops, named for the Pink Boots organization, which supports women in beer-related careers. (Sales of the hops go to the organization.) Keep an eye out for all the Pink Boots beers appearing at breweries around town later this year.

THE UK — At last, the news that Pretty Things’ rabid Boston fanbase has been waiting for! Well, not exactly. Pretty Things founders Dann and Martha Holley-Paquette have a new brewery project in the works, but it’s all the way overseas in Sheffield, England. The popular Somerville-based Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project ended in late 2015 after a seven-year run; the website, which is still live, describes it as “now an ex-project.”

“We always intended to end it on our terms, and we are happy to have done so,” the duo wrote on their website. “That’s why it was a project!”

The new project will be a microbrewery on the site of the Old Dairy, which, as its name suggests, was once a milk and cheese processing plant. The Holley-Paquettes will reportedly “produce craft beer in bottles and kegs for sale to wholesale customers.”

February 8, 2018

Trillium Brewing Company [official photo]

BOSTON / CANTON — No, a Trillium Brewing Company (369 Congress St., Boston; 110 Shawmut Rd., Canton)truck didn’t get “Storrowed” — that was just a fun bit of Photoshop in order to promote the brewery’s new release, a double IPA called Storrowed. The company describes it as having a “dank nose of sweaty pineapple, mangosteen, and stone fruit [and] intensely juicy flavors of overripe mango, pear flesh, notes of grapefruit pith, and a background hit of raw sugar.” For those who don’t understand the term “Storrowed,” just heed the road signs that prohibit trucks from driving on Storrow Drive. Don’t be that truck that gets stuck at the overpass. You will get stuck.

CAMBRIDGE — Lamplighter Brewing Company (284 Broadway) officially debuts its new back taproom today, February 9, doubling the brewery’s capacity and allowing it to host more private and public events. And it’s got a really great mural.

HAMPTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE — Smuttynose Brewing Company (105 Towle Farm Rd.), which has been a big name in New England’s craft beer world for more than two decades, is for sale. In a note shared by owners Peter Egelston and Joanne Francis on social media and the Smuttynose website, the duo writes: “At this time, in order for our company to continue on the path we embarked on back in 1994, Smuttynose needs someone who can provide financial resources that will move the company forward…We’re strongly committed to making sure this transition is as smooth as possible, and to help the company’s new owner or partner embark on a successful next chapter for Smuttynose and its wonderful staff. We want to emphasize Smuttynose Brewing company is open, brewing our fine beers daily and serving delicious food at Hayseed Restaurant. Many of you have asked how you can help…keep drinking Smuttynose brews and send your rich aunt or uncle our way!”

ROSLINDALE — Distraction Brewing Company (2 Belgrade Ave.) is a big step closer to opening; the brewery has secured its TTB license, meaning that the federal government recognizes it as a brewery. “In other words, we’re one step closer to transforming this raw, beautiful space into a place where our fellow Rozzidents can kick back and enjoy our beer,” the brewery wrote on Facebook late last month. “Still plenty of work to do. But we can’t wait to get our hands dirty.”

WEYMOUTH — There’s a Kickstarter campaign underway to help fund the building of an “epic taproom” for Article Fifteen Brewing (835 Washington St.), a “veteran-owned nano-brewery” that is currently in the buildout phase. The campaign ends in 10 days, and there’s about $4000 left to raise by then. The team has a lease, brewing equipment, and funds to help with the buildout but is seeking a little bit of help to get to the next step of the process. When Article Fifteen opens, it’ll serve beer “inspired by a love of hops and a proud tradition of military, fire, and medical service.”

WORCESTER — Founded in 2014, 3cross Brewing Company (4 Knowlton Ave.) made a change recently: It’s now 3cross Fermentation Cooperative. As the name suggests, it’s now a coop, owned by workers and customers (the first community-owned brewery in the state), and it’s expanding its focus beyond beer to other fermented products.

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pinkarcadecandy · 7 years

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The Death and Life of Atlantic City

SEPTEMBER 5, 2017 ISSUE

Zeno’s paradox down the shore.

By Nick Paumgarten

If not for zany schemes, Atlantic City would be a sand dune. Revel was supposed to be the most opulent casino the place had ever seen.

Mike Hauke opened a pizza and sub shop in Atlantic City in 2009, but only after he had failed in nine tries to rent the space to somebody else. He had bought the building three years earlier on the advice of his father, an accountant who considered distressed real estate a smart long-term bet. This piece of real estate seemed to test the proposition. It was a bedraggled three-story clapboard house that years of neighborhood demolition and neglect had stranded at the edge of several mostly vacant blocks, which together formed an urban badlands reaching all the way to the dunes. This was the South Inlet, a once thriving part of town and now more or less a desolate slum at the northeastern end of Absecon Island, the landmass that is home to Atlantic City and three other municipalities. People from “offshore,” as locals like to call the mainland, tend to think of the island’s Inlet end as north, because it’s upcoast, but locals call it east. Atlantic City has a Bermuda Triangle effect; it can confound a compass.

Three blocks west of Hauke’s place, an immense slab of steel and glass was rising over the badlands: a hotel and casino to be called Revel, destined to be bigger and more opulent than anything Atlantic City had ever seen—two towers, reaching almost fifty stories, nearly four thousand rooms, and parking for more than seven thousand cars. Morgan Stanley, the investment bank, had bought the land in 2006, for seventy million dollars, and sunk about $1.2 billion into the project. (Revel, as some have noted, is “lever” spelled backward.) By the end, the cost of building Revel reached more than $2.4 billion, making it the most expensive private construction project in the history of New Jersey.

Hauke went after the crumbs. Unable to find a commercial tenant for his house’s ground floor (the apartments upstairs were designated Section 8, for low-income tenants), he started selling rudimentary takeout to Revel’s construction crews. Their rush-hour bulk orders overwhelmed his staff, but off hours the place was dead: a trickle of casino workers and, in Hauke’s words, “shitbags, crackheads, hustlers, and pimps.”

Hauke, a recent graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, had spent a couple of years in Hoboken and Manhattan working in marketing, but he had no restaurant experience. One of his first customers was a neighborhood junkie known as V8 Man (“All the white kids are junkies,” Hauke said. “The Inlet does it to everybody”), who, on opening night, picked a fight at the counter with a male prostitute and another customer; Hauke smashed a pizza paddle on the counter and used the sharp end to scare him off. More than once, a guy came in trying to unload stolen merchandise as the victimized storekeeper came running up the street in pursuit. One morning, a neighborhood kid rode by on a bicycle and threw a crude pipe bomb through the window; Hauke chased him in his car and, after cornering him briefly in an abandoned house, hounded him on foot across a vacant tract called Pauline’s Prairie, named after Pauline Hill, a city planner in the sixties who’d had this stretch of the neighborhood bulldozed for urban renewal, which never came. The kid, looking over his shoulder, ran into the side of a parked box truck. The police appeared and put him in cuffs. His grievance was that cops had been patronizing Hauke’s shop and that sheriffs had evicted his cousins, Hauke’s Section 8 tenants, from one of the apartments upstairs. The tenants, according to Hauke, had been running a welfare scam. They’d also been throwing dirty diapers on his customers and fishing for pigeons from the roof.

Hauke hoped that, in spite of such annoyances, Revel would either provide him with an income stream or else buy him out. A few neighborhood property owners said that it would never happen. They’d been holding on for years themselves, in the hope of selling to a big casino, and in the interim they’d been gutted by rising property taxes and ongoing decay. The problem was that the area was zoned for big casino-hotels. You couldn’t build a house, and the few houses left in the neighborhood—most had been demolished or had burned down, accidentally or not—were old and badly battered by the salt air. One of them, down near the beach, across the street from a run-down low-income housing complex called the Waterside, belonged to a teacher Hauke had got to know named Tony Zarych, who’d moved to Atlantic City as a teen-ager forty years earlier, when his family was buying up property around town. He’d worked as a baccarat dealer at the Sands, until it closed (it was demolished in 2007), and now taught English as a second language at an elementary school. He liked to hunt wild turkey offshore and sometimes had carcasses hanging outside. His property taxes had risen sharply, as the city contended with a steep drop in tax revenues from the casinos. “Get out while you can,” Zarych told Hauke.

Sure enough, in 2009, amid the financial meltdown, Revel, only half built, ran out of money. In April, 2010, Morgan Stanley quit the project, booking a loss of almost a billion dollars. Construction stopped. Hauke’s business withered. “There were no more tourists or construction workers,” he recalled. “Mostly just cops. And crackheads wanting free shit.” But something about the city, and about the Inlet’s seaside squalor, made him want to stay on. Maybe it was the fact that his great-grandmother had attended shul in the Inlet. Or that he’d simply got sand in his shoes, as the locals say about those who take to the place.

After grinding along for another year, Hauke shut down the shop, spiffed it up, and rechristened it Tony Boloney’s. He bought a food truck, which he named the Mustache Mobile, and developed a line of pizzas and novelty subs that he marketed as “indigenous Atlantic City grub,” as though he’d revived an obscure provincial cuisine. Soon, Tony Boloney’s began winning foodie awards and luring in not just gamblers, night-clubbers, food-truck connoisseurs, politicians, and cops but also a procession of casino magnates and real-estate speculators who were visiting the neighborhood, often on the sly, to size up the distressed property next door.

At the beginning of 2011, Governor Chris Christie pledged tax incentives to Revel worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars. (The incentives were tied to certain revenue targets, which, in the end, Revel failed to meet.) Christie had evidently decided that Revel’s success was essential to the survival of Atlantic City, and therefore his gubernatorial track record. His pledge helped Revel secure new financing from an array of hedge funds, including Chatham Asset Management and Canyon Capital, which manage hundreds of millions of dollars in New Jersey state pension funds.

Construction resumed, and Christie came to town. After a photo op at a famous sub shop called the White House and a visit to the Revel site, he dropped in at Tony Boloney’s and urged Hauke to keep the place going. “Listen, you gotta stick around,” Christie told him. The Revel executives were emphatic as well: “It’ll look bad if you close. Please don’t go anywhere.” The head of Chatham Asset Management hired Hauke to cater his annual Halloween party, up in Essex County.

“I understand you’ve spent the summer on someone’s ass. Can you tell us what that was like?”

Revel opened in the spring of 2012, with Beyoncé performing a series of concerts in its auditorium. (She also took over the Presidential Suite, relegating Michelle Obama and her daughters to another suite.) The plan had been scaled back—just fourteen hundred rooms, and one tower instead of two. The tower’s midsection had a half-dozen stories not yet built out; you could see clear through it. Still, it was an impressive building, with sleek, airy marbled atriums and lobbies that had little in common with the smoky, windowless, carpeted caverns of the older mega-casinos down the boardwalk. Unlike all the rest, it directed one’s attention to the ocean and had ample outdoor space, a two-acre terrace with firepits and cabanas. Even from the outside, Revel had an ethereal appeal. The reflective glass took on the sky’s hue and became almost invisible at dusk, a stealth casino guarding the edge of town.

If only. During construction, a tower crane collapsed. Lightning struck a worker’s cement bucket and killed him. Three top Revel executives died in a plane crash. A guest plunged from one of several escalators that climbed vertiginously through the heart of the lobby. A couple were found dead of an apparent drug overdose in a suite. The N.F.L. player Ray Rice punched out his fiancée in an elevator, and the surveillance video went viral.

The casino wasn’t making nearly as much money as the developers had anticipated. Some observers blamed the layout—the hotel-room elevators didn’t access the casino floor, and a long, tortuous trip from the entrance to the check-in desk didn’t take you through it, either—or the fact that Revel prohibited smoking, or that its slot machines didn’t seem to pay out, or that it was stingy with the comps. Even though occupancy was decent and the night clubs and restaurants were busy, the tables and slots weren’t taking in enough to offset the cost of operating the place—the burden of debt service, high property taxes, bad leases with the tenants, and an expensive arrangement for power and light. Within a year of opening, Revel filed for bankruptcy. It restructured and emerged from Chapter 11 a few months later, but the economics still didn’t make sense, and so, in the spring of 2014, it went bankrupt once again. Finally, last September, unable to find a buyer, it closed.

From the time Morgan Stanley began searching in vain for equity partners, Revel had been in play, and all along Tony Boloney’s had served as an informal commissary for would-be investors and buyers. Among those whom Hauke and his staff said they’d seen were Steve Wynn, who had sold the Golden Nugget in 1987 and vowed never to come back; various hedge-funders from New York; and a group of Chinese men—the Export-Import Bank of China was at one point in talks to buy a piece—who took over Hauke’s tables and held meetings for hours, without ordering anything.

A mysterious character in tattered clothing and a handlebar mustache had been showing up a few times a year, engaging the staff in conversation about space travel and Elon Musk. He claimed to represent someone who was going to buy Revel. Hauke and his team were skeptical, but one day last summer, just before the casino closed, the man rolled up in a baby-blue Bentley convertible. Maybe he was for real. “My guy’s going to offer ninety million,” he said. His guy, he went on, was from Florida and intended to erect a “Tower of Geniuses” on the Revel site, a high-rise think tank, which would draw on nasa and the federal government’s aviation-research facility at Atlantic City Airport, just offshore.

If not for zany schemes, Atlantic City would still be a sand dune. Within weeks, news broke that a little-known Florida developer named Glenn Straub, the owner of Palm Beach Polo Golf and Country Club, had offered ninety million dollars to buy Revel. Straub wanted to put up the aborted second tower and fill it with academics and scientists charged with solving the world’s problems: your Tower of Geniuses. Few in town took this seriously, but, as far as the bankruptcy was concerned, he’d established a baseline. Everything has a clearing price. The bad news was that Straub’s offer was less than four cents on the dollar—a chilling signal of how far Atlantic City had fallen and may yet fall. The good news was that the building—and you might even say the town—was worth anything at all.

Most cities exist as a consequence of commercial or strategic utility. Atlantic City is more of a proposition and a ploy. The town fathers of Cape May, the first American seaside resort, weren’t interested in a railway, or perhaps the class of people who’d ride in on one—the well-to-do arrived from Philadelphia by boat—so a group of investors built, in 1854, what became known as a “railroad to nowhere,” to a spot a little way up the coast that was more or less the shortest possible distance from Philadelphia to the sea. Over the decades, and with the industrial-era advent of leisure time and disposable income, this forsaken wedge of salt marsh and sand became “the world’s playground”—a crucible of conspicuous consumption and a stage for the aspirations and masquerades of visitors and entrepreneurs. In some respects, Atlantic City was where America learned how to turn idle entertainment into big business. For a while, it was home to some of the world’s grandest hotels (the Marlborough-Blenheim was the largest reinforced-concrete building in the world, and was later imploded in the music video for Bruce Springsteen’s “Atlantic City”), as well as some of its more ardent iniquities and diversions. The night clubs were as often as not fronts for backroom gambling halls, intermittently tolerated by the authorities.

The city, like so many, has its racial demons. At the turn of the twentieth century, Atlantic City had one of the highest African-American populations of any city north of the Mason-Dixon Line, owing to the abundance of jobs in the hotels. The archetypal amusement was that of white working-class visitors kicking back in the boardwalk’s famous wicker rolling chairs while black people did the pushing—a “public performance of racial dominance,” notes the historian Bryant Simon, in “Boardwalk of Dreams.” Though the Northside, traditionally a black neighborhood, had been a thriving district, the decline in tourism to the city, after the Second World War, hit it hard. With the rise of affordable air travel, people started going to Florida and the Caribbean instead. The city desegregated. Disneyland opened.

Legalized gambling was supposed to rescue the city from its obsolescence as a resort and convention town, a condition that came to national attention during the 1964 Democratic Convention there and grew more conspicuous as the decade wore on. A dozen years later, the state passed the Casino Control Act, which was, at least ostensibly, an attempt to reverse the decline. But, perhaps predictably, a lot of the money that flowed in flowed right back out—to the casino operators and their financing schemes (“I made a lot of money in Atlantic City,” Donald Trump said at the recent Republican debate. “And I’m very proud of it”) and to their subsequent efforts to lobby for the approval of casino gambling in other states. New Jersey, which taxes the casinos to fund a seniors’ prescription-drug program, among other things, always got its piece.

Neglect of the city has been attributed to a bloated municipal payroll—a budget nearly double what it was ten years ago—and the years of corruption and mismanagement in city government. Some blame the suffocating effect of the casinos, which are boxed off from the city and are designed to keep patrons inside losing money rather than outside spending it. Others point to the thorny old problem of race or the dreary question of the structure of municipal government statewide.

“He’s very self-loathing, but not enough.”

The dividing line between south and north, and between white and black, used to be Atlantic Avenue, the main commercial street, which runs parallel to the sea. It was where South Jersey shopped for wedding dresses and jewelry; now it’s a gantlet of shabby storefronts and fast-food joints, running toward and away from the New Jersey Transit bus terminal. In the streets that run from the boardwalk, dilapidation and squalor are not hard to find. Wood’s Loan Office, a pawnshop established in 1927, is owned and operated by Martin Wood, a seventy-nine-year-old Atlantic City native. Wood, who is white (his grandfather, a metallurgist, came to town from Lithuania at the end of the nineteenth century and used to scavenge for junk on the beach with a horse-drawn wagon), has noticed an uptick in the number of shopping bags from the outlet mall, a few blocks away. In his opinion, the sixties were worse. “It’s not that bad here. Yet.” Twenty years ago, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority moved the pawnshop a few blocks, in an effort to remedy the city’s oft-lamented lack of a supermarket. “But they opened a discount liquor store next door to the new supermarket,” Wood said. “That was not a good move. They wound up with winos hanging around. People were scared to go to the supermarket. So it closed up.”

“Atlantic City turned its back on the boardwalk,” Paul Steelman, a prominent casino architect who grew up nearby, said. “It’s the most prominent pedestrian walkway in the world. It’s got everything going for it except the buildings that are on it.” His solution: “Cut holes in the casinos and let out all those people, all that capital.”

In order to prevent monopolies, the Casino Control Act stipulated that no one could own more than three casinos. In the eighties, Donald Trump became the first to hit that limit. Eventually, the provision was scrapped, and by 2014 Caesars owned four. Carl Icahn now effectively controls a quarter of the market with just two casinos, the Tropicana and the Taj Mahal.

Does Atlantic City need more gambling, or less? There are proponents on both sides. Some favor alternative entertainments (concerts, water parks, polo, legalized marijuana) or the panacean potential of higher education (Stockton University, a state college headquartered offshore, has long wanted an Atlantic City campus). A few push for smaller boutique casinos, and others swear by the existing big-box regimen, just done better. In Las Vegas the ratio of revenue is two-thirds non-gaming to one-third gaming. In Atlantic City the situation is reversed. Since 2006, gaming revenue has dropped by half, from a peak of $5.2 billion to $2.7 billion. As that stream dries up, logic suggests tapping others. And yet the casinos remain lucrative. Divided among eight casinos—that’s how many are left—$2.7 billion isn’t bad. This may be the locals’ most commonly stated reassurance. The city has a higher concentration of casinos than anywhere outside Nevada. It gets twenty-five million visitors a year.

I asked Steve Perskie, who wrote the Casino Control Act as a state legislator representing Atlantic City, if casinos, in the final accounting, had been good for the town. “Compared to what?” he replied. “Imagine Atlantic City without them.”

When word gets out that a city is on the skids, people seem eager to imagine post-apocalyptic desolation, a rusting ruin at Ozymandian remove from the glory days. But American cities don’t seem to die that way. They keep sopping up tax dollars and risk capital, thwarting big ideas and emergency relief, chewing up opportunists and champions.

Two weeks after the shuttering of Revel, Trump Plaza closed—the fourth casino to do so in 2014. The first was the Atlantic Club, né the Golden Nugget, built in 1980 by Steve Wynn, with financing by Michael Milken and one of the earliest iterations of the junk bond, and then owned (and rechristened), in succession, by Bally’s, Hilton, and Resorts International. Two competitors, Tropicana (owned by Icahn) and Caesars (controlled by the private-equity firms Apollo Management and TPG Capital), bought out the bankrupt Atlantic Club, closed it, and divvied up the scraps. Next came the Showboat. It was profitable, but its owner, Caesars, hobbled by debt, needed to consolidate. (The amputation failed: in January, Caesars declared bankruptcy; another of its holdings, the Bally’s casino, has been rumored to be the next to go.) Meanwhile, Trump Entertainment Resorts declared bankruptcy (its fourth), and Icahn, who’d bought up Trump’s debt, played a game of chicken with the casino workers’ union and the state. (Donald Trump himself no longer runs the company or the casinos, and he has sued to have his name removed.) In December, the Trump Taj Mahal was about to close; Icahn, having squeezed the state and the union for concessions on taxes and benefits, found twenty million dollars to keep it open, and since then it has limped along, a zombie casbah.

It’s not all the big shots’ fault. There’s just been less money to go around. Atlantic City has lost its monopoly on legalized gambling on the East Coast. First came the casinos on Indian reservations in Connecticut, in the nineties, and then, in recent years, the advance of gaming across state lines, in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and upstate New York. (Some industry experts will tell you that Manhattan is destined to have tables, too.) Now there’s talk of casinos in North Jersey, which, along with video-slot parlors at the racetracks (“racinos”), would cannibalize the action in Atlantic City.

Neighboring states approved legalized gambling in the hope that it would do for their economies and state treasuries what it once did for New Jersey’s. Perhaps they should hope instead that it does not. The casino closures in Atlantic City have contributed to the loss of nearly ten thousand jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and who knows how many associated income streams, reputable or not. The city has fewer than forty thousand permanent residents; the majority of Atlantic City’s workers live offshore, in the townships of Atlantic County, which, in the first quarter of this year, led the nation in foreclosures. Property taxes in the city have doubled since 2008 and were up twenty-nine per cent in 2014, to make up for the drop in tax revenue from the casinos and in the taxable value of the property. The city is around four hundred million dollars in debt. Earlier this year, its credit rating was downgraded to junk-bond status.

After convening a few summits on the predicament in Atlantic City, which resulted in a dire report, Governor Christie, in January, appointed two emergency managers, Kevin Lavin and Kevyn Orr, to oversee the city’s finances, wresting control from the mayor and the city council. The fact that Orr had previously served as Detroit’s emergency manager, steering Detroit into and out of bankruptcy, led observers to predict that he’d been hired to do the same for Atlantic City. Perhaps mercifully, the mayor, Don Guardian, was relieved of some of the hardest decisions, about who and how many to fire and what services to deprive the citizens of. “A good manager welcomes a good auditor,” he told me. The mess was now Christie’s. Presiding over the first bankruptcy for a New Jersey municipality since the Great Depression would not help his Presidential ambitions, and, perhaps more important, it would raise the already high costs of borrowing across a state whose finances are very grim. Christie staked a lot on his rescue of Atlantic City, and so far the bet’s not looking so good.

In May, the city submitted a plan to lay off two hundred city workers, about a fifth of the municipal workforce. Orr returned to private practice, having been paid seventy thousand dollars for three months of part-time work. (He’d billed the state nine hundred and fifty dollars an hour.)

Abandonment, and the spectre of bankruptcy, intensified the bleakness of the winter in Atlantic City. At one end of the boardwalk, Revel loomed dark. At night, the blare of piped-in pop warped in the wind, and floodlight spilled out over the dunes, which, post-Sandy, were just a layer of sand atop an armature of giant sandbags. The obituarists who came to gawk didn’t have to bother going so far. On the façade of the first casino that one saw after pulling off the expressway there was the ghost lettering of the immense sign that once spelled out “Trump Plaza” and, beneath it, a billboard that read “The Center of It All.” (The small print read “Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-gambler”—advice, maybe, for the city itself.) Visitors regularly stopped to photograph this, to add to their portfolio of what some locals, resenting the attention, considered ruin porn.

The greatest ruin was to the lives of the thousands who’d lost their jobs. One morning, I met Dawn Inglin, who had gone to work as a cocktail waitress at the Plaza when it first opened, in 1984. She’d come to town three years before, when a friend got her a role in a dinner-theatre company down shore, in Ocean City, and then she found herself auditioning at Harrah’s, which, in those days, used cocktail waitresses as dancers in its TV commercials. “The choreography was difficult,” she recalled.

When she applied for a job at the Plaza, she auditioned for Donald Trump at Trump Tower, in Manhattan. She remembers a weigh-in, and an interview in a bathing suit, and she and the others were required to wear two-and-a-half-inch heels. (When I met her, she had her hair up and was wearing a smart lavender suit.) “I very much enjoyed working for Donald Trump,” Inglin said. “When he was there, it was tip-top. You’d’ve thought he was the Messiah.”

Inglin’s generation of casino workers, whose professional primes track the birth and decline of the industry in Atlantic City, speak wistfully of the abundance and camaraderie of the halcyon days. “Back in the eighties and nineties, the money flowed. It was glamorous,” Inglin said. “Then the attention and the business was diverted from the Plaza to the Taj. Things started closing. Restaurants, room service. For four or five years, there were constant rumors that this or that person was going to buy us. I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of people who were going to save us. The last few years were so stressful. You watched people lose their jobs. They were taking away severance, the machines disappearing, equipment rolling past you.”

After thirty years, she was fourth in seniority among cocktail waitresses at the Plaza and was making $8.99 an hour, plus benefits. It ended last September. “When we found out we were closing, we were standing at the bar—the last bar in the casino. We saw it on the six-o’clock news. We were frantic.”

Despite coming up empty in a search for another job, Inglin felt that she was going to be all right. Since the Plaza closed, she has been attending classes at the community college in pursuit of a degree in human services—a growth field in these parts. “We have an addiction problem here,” she said.

I met a bus driver named Kip Brown, who worked the Port Authority route, up and back each morning, for Academy Bus Lines. He had been at Academy for fifteen years and was No. 3 in seniority, out of seventy drivers in the region. As ridership has fallen, Academy has been cutting back on its schedule. The number of visitors arriving by bus is an eighth of what it was a quarter century ago. In the spring, Brown, just forty-seven, retired.

Now he was looking for work as a livery driver. Brown also used to work in the casinos, at the Showboat, bussing tables, and at Trump’s Castle, stripping and waxing floors. “When Donald and Ivana came to the casino, the bosses would order all the black people off the floor,” he said. “It was the eighties, I was a teen-ager, but I remember it: they put us all in the back.”

He lives in the Northside, on Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard, in a house that, like many in town, was inundated during Hurricane Sandy. “Sandy: that was the beginning of the fall of Atlantic City,” he said. Because of the rise in property taxes, the value of the house is well below the value of the mortgage, so he is stuck with it. “If I could get out of my house, I would. I don’t want to live in Atlantic City, to be honest with you.” Recently, one of the employees at his cousin’s corner store had been killed in an armed robbery.

Atlantic City has had three great bosses, political or otherwise. In the decades prior to the First World War, Louis Kuehnle, a transplanted New Yorker and powerful Republican known to all as the Commodore, turned the resort into a bustling metropolis and the state party into a patron and beneficiary of the evolving local aptitude for vice. Enoch (Nucky) Johnson, his successor and the basis for the Steve Buscemi character in “Boardwalk Empire,” continued this work and presided over Atlantic City’s glory years, during Prohibition, which, largely thanks to his efforts, never really pertained. The third was Hap Farley, a Republican legislator and master puller of wires, whose political swan song was his support, behind the scenes, for the second (and successful) attempt, in 1976, to pass the state bill to legalize gambling in Atlantic City.

Since then, there have been party bosses, governors, and mayors with varying degrees of power and venality, but no kingfish of the stature of the Commodore, Nucky, or Hap. “I’ll give you Atlantic City,” the mayor of Camden said, to F.B.I. agents disguised as Arabs during the Abscam sting. “Without me, you do nothing.” But by then such an offer was beyond the reach of any one man. In city politics, the Democrats held sway. (The electorate is now thirty per cent Hispanic and forty per cent black; Democrats outnumber Republicans nine to one.) The only Republican elected to* City Hall in the casino era was James Usry, the city’s first black mayor, who got caught up in a corruption investigation that cost him the 1990 election—until 2013, when, to the great surprise of the city’s political establishment, Don Guardian, a gay white Republican, beat Lorenzo (Rennie) Langford, an African-American, by fewer than four hundred votes.

Langford, out of the public eye since then, has been writing a memoir and working as a substitute teacher. He lives in the same modest split-level that he’s been in for twenty-eight years (“In two years it’ll be paid for”), on a street in the Northside that has been renamed L. T. Langford Lane. We talked in his “man lair,” a furnished subfloor with jazz paraphernalia and a wall of fame: his wife, Nynell, with him and Jay Z and Beyoncé; Stevie Wonder; Janet Jackson; Michael Vick; and Lionel Richie. He had on a Champion sweatshirt, jeans, and Nikes. His grandfather had come to town in the twenties, bought some trucks, and won trash-removal contracts at the big hotels. Langford’s father dropped out of high school and worked in a factory. Langford went to college, then dealer school at the Casino Career Institute, on the Black Horse Pike, one of the old Atlantic City arteries, and started at Caesars when it opened, in 1979. He spent fourteen years in the industry—as a floor supervisor at the Playboy and a pit boss at the Atlantis and the Taj Mahal. In 1992, he ran for city council.

People dish a lot of dirt about Rennie—how he’d put his extended family on the payroll; how he had sued the city and, after becoming mayor, got a settlement of more than four hundred thousand dollars (a judge later ordered him to repay it); how his wife’s goddaughter, the pop singer Ashanti, got paid twenty thousand dollars for spending a day at the Atlantic City high school—but it’s hard, when you’re in his home, hearing his side, not to admire his cheek, in the hurly-burly of Chris Christie’s New Jersey, or not to credit his assessment that in the end what has befallen Atlantic City could not have been prevented by any mere satrap.

“You can’t take a solo after every serve.”

“For the last four years, everything was my fault,” he said. “No matter how many times I talked about neighboring jurisdictions or the national economy, it was ‘Langford, it’s your fault.’ ” As for the Revel project, he says that from the start he’d considered it “extremely risky” in a saturated market, and that it got such extravagant support from Christie and the state because it was a way to steer the support of the construction unions to the Governor and his party. Langford said, “What Christie thought would be his shining achievement will be the albatross around his neck.”

His successor, Guardian, is sixty-two and from North Jersey. He is a former Boy Scouts of America executive. (“I couldn’t have gotten out at a better time,” he told me; he left just before the Scouts’ policy regarding homosexuality became a national controversy.) Guardian made his name, locally, as the head of the city’s Special Improvement District. He was a keen advocate and errand man for the tourist precincts, the guy out on the boardwalk on his bicycle at dawn, picking up the plastic cups. He was not a part of any machine, but he worked tirelessly to round up votes, and Langford, having survived a bruising, expensive primary and confident of the black vote, apparently got complacent. Guardian also picked up the support of the state’s Republican establishment and of the unions, in light of his promises to put “cranes in the sky.”

Guardian has been frank about the city’s predicament yet optimistic about its prospects. He has a jolly goofball air and a tireless enthusiasm for particulars. He wears bow ties and has trouble pronouncing his “r”s and “l”s. His partner of twenty-one years, Louis Fatato, whom he married last summer, runs a spa at the Borgata. Guardian is routinely unpunctual and speaks off the cuff with enough dash that Chris Filiciello, his chief of staff, usually sticks close to keep watch. At City Hall, a dreary D.M.V.-like cube of concrete and glass, they share an office on the seventh floor, with sweeping views toward Revel and the South Inlet. When I visited, Filiciello looked on coolly from his desk, dipping into a tub of animal crackers, while Guardian enumerated some of the intractable financial problems the city faces. “If I can take eighty million out of the budget, that’s sustainable, but that’s not feasible right now, not if we want to provide public safety and public works. I can get forty out.”

In public, he projects a no-bullshit boosterism reminiscent of Ed Koch. He was the keynote speaker at this year’s annual luncheon of the Metropolitan Business and Citizens Association, a kind of super-charged chamber of commerce. The luncheon was at Caesars Palace, on the day, as it happens, that Caesars, the parent company, declared bankruptcy. The Palladium Ballroom was filled with glad-handers, as the casino’s employees—employed for now—poker-facedly delivered pats of butter molded into the profile of Augustus.

“You think you had a bad day?” Guardian began. “I woke up this morning, Caesars filed bankruptcy, all three elevators are broken in City Hall, and there’s a major water leak at public works.” He went on, “Hey, at least we’re not Detroit!”

“Last year, I promised you a root canal,” Guardian told the crowd. “I just forgot the Novocain.” But the good news was that “the root canal is over and the healing is about to begin.” Or, as he said at the end, “2015’s got to be better than 2014. 2014 sucked!”

The hosts of the luncheon, and the founders of the M.B.C.A., were the local philanthropists Gary Hill and John Schultz. Schultz, an Atlantic City native and three-term city councilman, and Hill, from Reading, Pennsylvania, made their money operating night clubs (Studio Six, Club Tru) in a forlorn stretch of town where the Sands used to be. Eventually, the casinos figured out the night-club business, so Schultz and Hill got out, and started giving their money away. Twenty years ago, they bought an old building near the clubs, next door to a porn shop, and converted the top three floors into a triplex they called Casa Del Cielo, where they live together and preside as ambassadors, of a kind, over various gaudy but charitable entertainments. In a way, they are avatars of the town’s long-dormant gay scene, which has reawakened in recent years.

The night of the luncheon, they had me up for a drink. Past a suite of paintings by Ringo Starr and a library shelved with scrapbooks chronicling Hill and Schultz’s twenty-seven years together, a loggia led to a heated pool, which they once filled with wine corks. Here and there were garish furnishings salvaged from the casinos: headboards from Trump Plaza, smokestacks and banquettes from the Showboat, chandeliers from the Sands. Last summer, they hosted Mayor Guardian’s wedding; Schultz officiated. The event was catered by Hauke and Tony Boloney’s.

It was hard to find a building or enterprise in the city limits that was not in some way touched by crisis and folly. But none was more conspicuous, and of greater likely consequence to the city in the long run, than Revel. Last September, with Glenn Straub’s ninety-million-dollar offer as the stalking horse, the bankruptcy court held an auction to sell it. The winner, at a hundred and ten million dollars, was Brookfield Property Partners, based in Toronto. Brookfield owned the Atlantis in Nassau and the Hard Rock in Las Vegas, and so saw some synergy here, but it couldn’t make a deal with the owners of Revel’s adjacent power plant, which had been built solely for Revel and was charging Revel three million dollars a month for utilities. (The power plant was a separate, independently owned entity, called ACR Energy Partners—an arrangement that has proved poisonous.) In November, Brookfield decided to forfeit its deposit, of eleven million dollars, and walk away. The only bid left, apparently, was the one predicated on a Tower of Geniuses.

Straub began unfurling his plans. He said he’d spend three hundred million dollars building the second tower and another half billion to buy up derelict property around town. He’d refurbish Bader Field, the defunct downtown airport, and establish an equestrian center for two thousand horses, polo fields, high-speed ferries to Manhattan, a life-extension university, and the world’s biggest indoor water park.

Whenever I called Straub, he answered his own phone and seemed not to have assistants or gatekeepers, or any kind of filter at all. The first time he picked up, at his club, he told me, through bites of an apple, that he had just finished playing a polo match, that he lived and worked on a yacht, that he was debt-free, and that he had two brilliant adult daughters with whom he had failed to spend enough time. Once, he answered his phone as he was getting fingerprinted by the Casino Control Commission, for his gambling-license application. Another time, he announced that he was at a urinal. With bankruptcy-court procedures in mind, I asked, “So what comes next?” and he replied, “I wash my hands.”

Straub invited me to meet him at Revel one day in February, on one of his trips to town. He tended to fly up on Spirit Airways, to save money. When I arrived, he was still busy trying to buy Bader Field. (The city, the Mayor had told me, wanted far more for it than Straub was willing to pay.) Straub also talked of buying the racetrack, Trump Plaza, the Showboat, and several large tracts of undeveloped land in various parts of the city. At times, he talked as though he’d bought some of these things already.

“Have ye seen a whale that matches this swatch?”

In the all but abandoned Revel corporate offices, overlooking a slatey winter sea, two of the remaining Revel employees were waiting for Straub to arrive. They didn’t work for him yet, but, given that he was the putative buyer, they allowed him to use the space and they were inclined to be deferential.

“It’s kind of hard to believe Glenn Straub might be our white knight, but here we are,” one said.

“Just a tip,” the other said. “He likes to be called Mr. Straub.”

Straub arrived alone, wearing a zip-up hoodie under a blazer. He had a Florida tan and hair that was brushed back and reddish-brown. He’s trim, at sixty-eight, and he had the bent gait of an aging country-club athlete. In a kitchenette, he made a sandwich for himself and sat down in a conference room with a view down the boardwalk: in the foreground, the empty lot that would one day, he hoped, be home to his water park, and then, stretching south, the casino cordillera—Showboat, Taj, Resorts, Bally’s, Caesars, Trump, Trop.

“It’ll be done the right way,” Straub said. “I’ll actually wash the windows here. It’ll cost a couple of dollars. There must be ten million windows in this frigging place. That’s the first thing we’ll do. Get the laser light shows and wash the windows and hire four thousand employees. That way, I’ll get the politicians. ‘Oh, Straub, I know him. I want to do business with one of his marinas,’ or whatever. . . . Get their attention. ‘Guys, I got a high-speed ferry. . . . Midtown Manhattan, what do you got there for a pier?’ Politicians can get you into that place that you can’t get into.”

Straub’s way of talking in a stream-of-consciousness rush, in the manner of an Appalachian Don King, often made his big plans seem scattershot and his tactical explanations disjointed, at least to someone not adept in vulture finance. “He has a learning disability,” his daughter Kim, a branding consultant in New York, told me. “When he was a kid, when it was time to read aloud in class, he’d count the people who were supposed to read before him and then, just before his turn, go to the rest room. He’s a bit of a savant.”

Straub comes from Wheeling, West Virginia, where his father had a business providing transportation to the Texas Eastern pipeline and later owned auto-leasing franchises and taxi fleets. “So you worked, and if you didn’t work Dad got the belt out and beat your butt,” Straub said. “Anyway, he died, just when I got my driver’s license.” After high school, Straub and a brother helped run the businesses. In time, they owned a network of sand and gravel quarries and concrete and asphalt plants; highway- and airport-construction contracts made them rich. (In recent years, those long-moribund quarries, in the upper Ohio River Valley, have been found to sit atop vast reserves of oil and gas, extractable by horizontal drill, making Straub even richer.)

Straub retired at forty, moving his family (his wife, from whom he divorced in 2007, and two daughters) to Florida. “I lasted six months,” he said. He started investing in distressed and bankrupt properties. It was a good time to have cash on hand. In the wake of the savings-and-loan crisis, at a Resolution Trust Corporation auction, he bought a twenty-two-hundred-acre golf and polo club in Wellington, for $27.1 million. It was called Palm Beach Polo. “All of a sudden, people were giving me a half a million dollars for an acre,” he said. “I sold two or three hundred million dollars’ worth, and we still have another thousand acres down there.” A big driver was the equestrian center: “Never once thought it would turn out to be a gold mine, but it did turn out to be a gold mine, because then the Bloombergs of the world and their daughters, and all the movie stars’ daughters, they would go down there, and they would have the big Olympic stars do the show jumping, and there was this thing called polo. I didn’t know what a polo game looked like. They put you on a horse. And I thought, This isn’t that hard. I was good in sports, amateur sports. I can hit things. I can pick a fly out of the air.”

Straub has been called “the dictator of Palm Beach polo.” His reign has been contentious. In numerous lawsuits, he has been accused of neglecting his residents, as well as the grounds, and charging undue fees. In 2010, he was tried, and ultimately acquitted, on criminal charges of polluting protected wetlands. He was once convicted of contempt, after interfering with a federal marshal who’d come to seize a yacht at a marina Straub owned. He tried to appeal the verdict all the way to the Supreme Court, without success. Through the years, he has been proudly litigious. “If you check me out, I’m pretty good at protecting our rights in the court system,” Straub told me.

In the conference room, he told me about his idea for an ocean liner. “An old ocean liner, like the QE2. I’m gonna buy it,” he said. He squeezed mayonnaise from a packet. “Bring this ocean liner in, and I don’t know if you’ve been around Ripley’s down in Orlando, the whole building shaking and everything else. I’m gonna teach my kids, or my kids’ kids, what World War II was all about, and the Holocaust, and Zeros coming in from Japan, and so when you go inside this thing, this ship, it’s gonna make you feel like you’re being bombed, like Pearl Harbor when the damned Zeros came in, took out our whole fleet in the Pacific. The ship’s suites where the crew used to be will be for my construction workers, because if we’re gonna spend this kind of money up here I need to get cheap housing for them, so instead of shipping them back to Philadelphia and bringing them here every day I’ll let them store themselves in the bottom of the ship. It’ll be like the back lots at M-G-M.”

Throughout the winter, Straub made regular trips to Atlantic City and to the federal bankruptcy court in Camden, where he pressed his attempt to have his bid approved. Amid innumerable motions, hearings, and rulings, attorneys representing bank lenders, unsecured creditors, jilted tenants, other prospective buyers, the power company, and the gutted estate argued for and against his offer, sometimes changing sides as the circumstances evolved. Other bidders waded in and wandered off. The power company remained a sticking point. The lawyers racked up their fees and did their pressers on the courthouse steps.

One cold morning in February, Straub arrived at the courthouse in a gray suit, with a trenchcoat slung over his shoulders. He said he’d left his cell phone in a bathroom at the airport, and someone had retrieved it and was sending it back. He looked at the pairs of lawyers filing in through the door. “A few more guys and we’ll get a soccer game going here,” he said. “I wish I was getting paid a thousand bucks an hour.” Straub’s lawyer, Stuart Moskovitz, of Freehold, not normally a bankruptcy attorney, called them the “bankruptcy cabal.” It was essentially the deadline on Straub’s bid, now at ninety-five million dollars, but he had failed to close, owing to some unresolved questions about his obligation to old leaseholders and to the power plant.

“We need to know what we’re buying,” Moskovitz said.

Revel’s lawyer told the judge, “We’re ready to move on to another buyer.”

“Can I get back to you when there’s someone to overhear me?”

Problem was there didn’t seem to be one. With this in mind, Straub and Moskovitz had been threatening to put in a much lower bid if their offer fell through. At one point, Straub stood and handed his lawyer a piece of paper. Moskovitz read aloud, “Sometimes the judge has to protect the debtor from himself.”

In the back of the courtroom, a lanky man in a yellow sweater, his graying hair perfectly in place and his eyes darting around, fidgeted with his fingers as though he were handling invisible chopsticks. His name was Vincent Crandon. He was a low-profile Jersey dealmaker from Mahwah, and he had been circling various properties in Atlantic City for years, to no avail. He’d failed in attempts to buy Trump Plaza and the Atlantic Club. Early on, he’d been after a bricks-and-mortar property to go with an Internet-gaming company. But his quest had morphed into something else, and so now he just lurked, waiting for the court, or perhaps the entropy of Atlantic City, to scuttle Straub’s bid. Quietly casting himself as the new white knight, he’d submitted an offer, but so far it had gone unacknowledged.

“Straub is done,” Crandon told me later. “We’ve put in a better offer. We’re sitting back, taking our time.” He added, “Straub thinks he’s the only guy in town.”

The town, and the sellers, seemed to think so, too. After the ninety-five-million-dollar offer fell apart, Straub put in a lower bid, for eighty-two million, and lawyers for Revel and the lenders, increasingly desperate, supported it in court. At the beginning of April, the presiding judge, Gloria Burns, who said she would not let the case delay her impending retirement, abruptly ruled in favor of Straub. The questions of the tenants and power plant remained unresolved. For a few days, anyway, the town experienced something like hope.

Atlantic City, formerly a breeding ground for big ideas, was now a tar pit—trapping financial mastodons and big-eyed dreamers, whether or not their intentions were pure, as the capricious gods of commerce looked on. Revel kept luring in new ones. In April, the day after Straub took ownership of Revel, he called Crandon and—according to Crandon, anyway; Straub denies it—offered to flip the property to him for a hundred million dollars. A couple of days later, Crandon drove down to Atlantic City. With Revel blacked out (owing to the inevitable dispute between Straub and ACR, the power company), the only people allowed inside were security officers from the Casino Control Commission. They stood in darkness guarding acres of idled slot machines, which Straub wasn’t technically authorized to own, since he had no gaming license. So, according to Crandon, the two men who would decide Revel’s fate met in one of its parking garages. Crandon had along one of his partners, Don Marrandino, an Atlantic City native known as Rockin’ Don, for his music-industry connections. He had been the president of Hard Rock in Las Vegas and of Caesars East Coast operations. Straub was accompanied by Tara Lordi, his adviser and “toxic-asset manager,” a horsewoman and former banker. Crandon says Straub told them he wanted much more than a hundred million for Revel, but at least he now had a possible out, and Crandon had an in. (Straub says the meeting never happened.)

Crandon had been eying Revel for a year. Crandon, who is fifty-three, grew up in Delaware, but his parents were from New Jersey, and as a kid he worked at a service station his grandfather owned on the Black Horse Pike. His surname used to be Ceccola; Crandon is an adaptation of Cranendonk. His father-in-law is Theodor Cranendonk, a wealthy Dutch oil trader who was once imprisoned in Italy on charges of delivering thirty bazookas to the Mafia. (“It was all made up,” Crandon says. According to Crandon, Dutch commandoes sprung Cranendonk from a prison hospital and brought him back to the Netherlands.) One of Crandon’s investment vehicles is called MidOil, but Cranendonk was not involved in the Revel bid. “He doesn’t do gambling,” Crandon said.

Crandon said his group—“We’re Jersey guys”—planned to spend hundreds of millions reconfiguring the space. The new name would be Rebel. Crandon said they were planning a forty-night Bon Jovi residency. Rockin’ Don had the pull.

The money wasn’t from Jersey guys. Crandon says he spent a marathon weekend in town and in New York wooing representatives from a Chinese real-estate firm that had been buying up properties around the United States. Crandon’s group and the Chinese were betting that Macau, the Asian gambling mecca, was tapped out, amid a Chinese government crackdown on corruption and gambling, and that travellers from mainland China would soon be including South Jersey on their U.S. itineraries. The Atlantic City airport would be the hub for jumbo-jet charters from Asia. The margins are better if you can lure a plane from Hong Kong than a bus from Port Authority. Atlantic City, born in proximity to the population and early industrial wealth of Philadelphia, would now reach halfway around the world for money and the guests from whom to separate it.

Crandon believed that Straub was planning to demolish Revel. A consultant had told him you could net a hundred million dollars if you sold it off as spare parts. There was a precedent: In 2004, Straub bought Miami Arena for twenty-eight million dollars, half what the city had paid to build it. He promised to turn it into a venue for horse shows, conventions, and minor-league sports, to help revive downtown Miami. “Tearing it down serves nobody’s purpose,” Straub said at the time. Four years later, he tore it down.

Events on the ground in Atlantic City seemed to be pushing Straub in that direction. As soon as he bought Revel, he found himself, not unexpectedly, in a war with ACR, the power plant, and thus, in short order, with the city. The maneuverings often seemed frivolous and petty, except that a city was at stake. Straub refused to pay ACR the three million a month for power, and ACR refused to provide it for free. And so Revel remained dark: no light, heat, air, or water, no sprinklers or alarms. The city’s fire marshal deemed the building unsafe, and the city rescinded Straub’s certificate of occupancy and began fining him five thousand dollars a day. Observers wondered about catastrophic fire and debilitating mold.

Straub dug in. He told reporters, as he unsuccessfully challenged the plant’s owners in court, “We’ll erase them off the map.” He brought in a fleet of diesel generators and parked them outside the casino. But he had no permits, and ACR owned much of the connecting infrastructure. Back to court they went. Straub, the loser again, sent the generators away. He told me, referring to city and state officials, “If they won’t work with me, I’ll just go back to Miami.” Publicly, he made the threat explicit: “I’ll tear the building down.”

To circumvent ACR, Straub had set about trying to buy the empty casino next door, the Showboat, and tap into its power plant instead. The Showboat’s owner, at the moment, was Stockton University, the state college, which, a few months earlier, had bought it to establish a long-desired Atlantic City campus. The university had paid just ten dollars a square foot. “You can’t even buy tile at Home Depot for ten dollars a square foot!” Herman Saatkamp, Stockton’s president, told me.

“Seltzer . . . seltzer!”

But the campus plan had suddenly fallen apart, when Trump Entertainment, owners of the Taj Mahal, next door, unexpectedly opted to enforce an old covenant mandating that the Showboat be a casino-hotel, and nothing else. Icahn, who controls Trump, didn’t want a college campus next door. “Who is this guy?” Bob McDevitt, the president of Local 54, the casino workers’ union, said of Icahn, with whom he has been feuding for a year. “How does he get to decide everything? He’s disembowelling the city.”

Icahn blames the unions. “I saved the Tropicana, which was bankrupt, and made it into one of the only vibrant and surviving casinos in Atlantic City,” he told me. “I have also saved the Taj Mahal and have saved six thousand jobs. Bob McDevitt has caused three casinos to close and the loss of thousands of jobs. Ask yourself: Who is the villain of this story?” Capital or labor? Germany or Greece? Depends on whom you talk to. In July, Taj workers, having lost many of their benefits, voted to authorize a strike.

At any rate, now Stockton was stuck with a vacated casino on its balance sheet and monthly maintenance costs of four hundred thousand dollars. That’ll buy you a lot of tile. And so Saatkamp, the university’s president, who is also a leading scholar of George Santayana (“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”), rushed into a provisional agreement to flip the Showboat to Straub. At the end of April, Saatkamp, out of his depth in these sharky waters, resigned as Stockton’s president, his tenure scuttled by the Showboat and Revel mess. Santayana: “Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon.”

Throughout the spring, Crandon pressed for a deal while Straub held out for more. Straub told me, “Everyone says, ‘Oh, you’re so fucking smart, Mr. Straub.’ And I’m saying, ‘I’m not smart. I can just outlast everybody.’ ” Tara Lordi e-mailed Crandon one afternoon in early April:

Can you kindly by the place so I can get back to the warm weather I’m freezing my ass off here.

In early May, according to Crandon, the two men met aboard Straub’s yacht, the Triumphant Lady, which he’d brought north to Atlantic City and docked at the Golden Nugget. Crandon says they actually shook on a deal, for a hundred and thirty-two million dollars. (Straub denies this meeting took place and in general was dismissive when I asked him about Crandon, referring to him as “Kramden.”)

But they continued to haggle over terms and timing as Crandon worked out his arrangement with the Chinese. There were stories of Straub stiffing a local law firm, and of his filling a truck with Revel fixtures and tools, bound for Florida. (He denies wrongdoing in both cases.) His deal to buy the Showboat foundered, and a court gave Stockton the go-ahead to seek another buyer. As weeks passed, Crandon made promises that he’d soon hold the keys to Revel, and then the deal would recede again: Zeno’s paradox down the shore.

At the end of June, Crandon texted me to say that his deal with Straub was off. “Greed and evil have destroyed A.C.” He explained, “What happened is we got circumvented.” Straub, apparently, had cut him out of the loop and gone directly to the Chinese. He had come to see the potential of junkets from overseas. Crandon sent photos of Tara Lordi in Shanghai with a Chinese man, whom he still, vestigially, called “my partner”: “2 days after that photo, Chinese canceled our deal.” Crandon vowed revenge: “We will keep it in litigation for years. No one will get Revel.”

If Straub was really planning to sell to the Chinese, he wasn’t saying. Lordi says she went to Shanghai to play polo. Straub said he was looking for groups to help manage the hotel and the casino. All the while, Revel remained closed. Still no light shows or clean windows, to say nothing of the four thousand new jobs the city so desperately needed. Revel’s remaining employees were let go. There was no one left, really, except for the security guards overlooking the slots, in the sweltering heat of an un-air-conditioned glass box in high summer.

“No word on Revel, Showboat, or any of these things,” Mike Hauke said, down at Tony Boloney’s. “It’s frustrating.” Weekends were busy, weekdays were soft. It was hard to make decisions or plans. “Sometimes, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, you drive around town and see four or five cars.” The talk at the shop was mostly about water parks, or the recent news about the mysterious disappearance of three million dollars, which the Langford administration had given to a Bronx businessman in 2013, for a community-loan program that seems to have never made a loan. ♦

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