London in 1927 from Tim Sparke on Vimeo.
Around the time that technicolor features were first introduced to theaters, British film pioneer Clause Friese-Greene was experimenting with video travelogues using the color process that his father, a noted cinematographer, was experimenting with. Vimeo recently published Friese-Greene’s gorgeous video of London, filmed in 1926 for his cross-country travelogue The Open Road. (more…)
+ POOL, a proposed floating pool whose walls will filter millions of gallons of the East River daily, is all the rage with New Yorkers now as its Kickstarter gets over 40% funded in the past week. This isn’t their first Kickstarter either, with a campaign two years ago yielding $41,000 in under a week. These funds were used to perform filtration testing in the East River, with great results:
We tested 19 different parameters for 10 weeks under the guidance of researchers from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and saw a huge reduction in contaminants across all counts. The materials even cleaned on the worst days, right after big storms, proving that + POOL is starting to work.
+ POOL has partnered with engineers at ARUP, designers at IDEO, and consultants at Storefront for Art and Architecture and Architezer and have an impressive list of advisors, which range from senators to Olympic swimmers. Advisor Paul Kelterborn from the Municipal Art Society tells Untapped that “+ POOL is one of the most exciting new grassroots ideas for making NYC more livable. It simultaneously cleans the river–one of our city’s best assets–while creating an incredible new amenity that is fun and innovative. New York is a crowded place and so pushing ourselves to rethink boundaries is brilliant!”
+ POOL’s clever Kickstarter, which enables you to buy a tile of the proposed pool as an individual or as a group, also comes with options for preview “dips” once the pool is ready. New York City is no stranger to floating pools, with the city-supported Floating Pool Lady, a repurposed barge converted into a seven-lane pool in 2006. But this initiative is really a return to an earlier historical push, albeit less recreational. Floating pools were commonplace sites during the 19th century. Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall built 5 pools and by the end of the 19th century, there were more than 20 pools on the city’s shorelines. The New York Times reports that:
Women were allowed in the pools three days a week and half a day on Sundays. Men had their own separate three and a half days, and there were differences. The women wore bathing outfits; the men swam nude. But the pools were little more than enclosures that let the swimmers paddle about in brackish river water. In a city that was short on bathtubs — at first, anyway — cleanliness mattered more than exercise.In terms of design, Badeschiff in Berlin is one of our favorite barge pools but + POOL definitely takes cues from it. According to Brokelyn, “At a minimum, +POOL is looking to sell 1,400 tiles so that they can fund the construction of the test pool this summer. On the optimistic side, if they sell 5,000 tiles they say they can build their custom filtration system and test it early.”
Get in touch with the author @untappedmich. All photos via the + POOL Kickstarter.
Moses Gates reports on fun finds inside the Paris catacombs
Last fall we explored with Hidden Cities author, Moses Gates, in the largest Census tract in New York City, Co-Op City. Following the release of his book Hidden Cities, Moses became well-known for his exploration of the top of the Chrysler Building and supporting the re-opening of observations decks in New York City, now closed to the public.
But before this, Moses was known as a cataphile and urban explorer, with his vast experience in the underworld with Steve Duncan of UnderCity. As a follow-up to our roundup of catacombs around the world, we asked Moses some fun questions about his time in the catacombs:
The facade of Taipei’s historic Grand Hotel
One of Taipei’s most standout and recognizable buildings is the Grand Hotel, known in Chinese as the “Yuanshan Great Hotel” to locals. Once the tallest building in Taiwan (although it has been long overshadowed by newer skyscrapers), it is one of the few remaining examples of Chinese classical architecture present in Taiwan and is a permanent fixture in Taiwanese history and politics. (more…)
The National Trust for Historical Preservation announces its 2013 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Places today via live Twitter chat at 11am. Follow the action on Twitter at @presnation and join the conversation using the hashtag #savingplaces
Worldport Terminal at JFK Airport – Jamaica, New York. The distinctive flying-saucer-shaped Worldport Terminal at New York’s JFK Airport has been a symbol of the Jet Age since it first opened in 1960, but now sits empty and unused, waiting for a creative reuse plan. Unlike the famous TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport, Worldport lacks landmark status due to the number of alterations to the building over the years.
The MetroNaps facility on the 24th floor of the Empire State Building. Source: NY Times.
For all the talk about NYC being the city that never sleeps, we were surprised (and delighted) when we discovered that there’s an entire floor of “nap pods” in the Empire State Building. At MetroNaps on the 24th floor, tired New Yorkers can kick back in a space-ship-like chair to catch some much-needed zzz’s in twenty minute intervals. (more…)
