And the highest paid public employee in your state is…
The Shoemaker - Made in Brooklyn: The Shoemaker Frank Catalfumo is a 91 year old shoemaker and repairer in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. He first opened the doors to F&C Shoes in 1945 and continues to work five days a week alongside his son Michael. If you’re ever in the area, make sure to stop by the shop and listen to one of Frank’s amazing stories about life in Brooklyn back in the day. View the photo gallery here: http://bit.ly/174jfvL Directed by Dustin Cohen, Filmed by Dustin Cohen and Michael Hurley, Edited by Bill Kemmler, Color Grading by Simon Biswas.
These vegetated surfaces don’t just look pretty. They have other benefits as well, including cooling city blocks, reducing loud noises, and improving a building’s energy efficiency.What’s more, a recent modeling study shows that green walls can potentially reduce large amounts of air pollution in what’s called a “street canyon,” or the corridor between tall buildings.
For the study, Thomas Pugh, a biogeochemist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, and his colleagues created a computer model of a green wall with generic vegetation in a Western European city. Then they recorded chemical reactions based on a variety of factors, such as wind speed and building placement.
The simulation revealed a clear pattern: A green wall in a street canyon trapped or absorbed large amounts of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter—both pollutants harmful to people, said Pugh. Compared with reducing emissions from cars, little attention has been focused on how to trap or take up more of the pollutants, added Pugh, whose study was published last year in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
That’s why the green-wall study is “putting forward an alternative solution that might allow [governments] to improve air quality in these problem hot spots,” he said.Compared with reducing emissions from cars, little attention has been focused on how to trap or take up more of the pollutants, added Pugh, whose study was published last year in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
That’s why the green-wall study is “putting forward an alternative solution that might allow [governments] to improve air quality in these problem hot spots,” he said.
Dieter Rams - less but better. Designer Dieter Rams
Traffic Reduction 101
A Cold Shoulder in Vienna
The Wall Street Journal had a nice little article about Rudolf Scheer & Sohne last week. It reminded me of one of the benefits of being in Moscow. Whereas living in the US can be a bit geographically isolating, Moscow is a relatively short plane ride to East Asia or Western Europe. I was actually going to stop by Vienna last year on my way to Berlin, but when my plans in Germany were cancelled, so were the ones in Austria.It’s quite regrettable because Vienna is said to be a sort of holdover from 19th century Europe, where every city had bespoke tailors, milliners, cordwainers, and glovemakers. Many of those Old World operations have moved on to ready-to-wear or simply disappeared in the 20th century, but Vienna seems to have kept much of these traditions alive, especially in shoemaking. In that trade alone, there’s Balint, Materna, Maftei, and Elfie Riedl, just to name a few. Some of these firms are said to be able to turn around a trial shoe within twenty-four hours, which makes stopover visits especially appealing.
at Tanganyika Wildlife Park
The shadow of punk rock has eclipsed countless new dawns under its fundamental negativity and its lazy equation of rejection with action.
William Logsdail - St. Paul’s and Ludgate Hill (c. 1884).
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