JacquelineDempsey posted:

Not a wiki article, just an anecdote for those who like a good creepy story about airplane crashes.

I lived on Long Island when TWA Flight 800 went down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800

A nice regular customer at my bf's video rental store was a NYPD diver. Usually his job entailed going into the Hudson to try to find guns thrown into the river, helping to pull cars that had sunk, that sort of thing. When 800 went down, the authorities called everyone in the area with diving chops to help retrieve bodies and wreckage, even though it was outside NYC proper. He was on that team.

As the diver told it... He's down there and comes across a woman, still belted into her seat. The woman starts moving, and not in a way that matches the ocean current. She looks, incredibly, alive. He checks his tanks to make sure he's not flipping out on nitrogen narcosis; there's no way anyone's still alive who's been down there so long.

Upon closer inspection, her corpse was chock full of crabs feasting on her. Their movement was pulling her around like a puppet.

Needless to say, my bf gave him free rentals on the comedies he was renting to get his mind off that horror. I know it sounds pretty STDH, but we had no reason to not believe dude's story, he never bragged about any exploits prior to that, and the look in the guy's eyes convinced my bf that Dude Had Seen Some Serious poo poo.

JacquelineDempsey posted:

Not a wiki article, just an anecdote for those who like a good creepy story about airplane crashes.

I lived on Long Island when TWA Flight 800 went down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800

A nice regular customer at my bf's video rental store was a NYPD diver. Usually his job entailed going into the Hudson to try to find guns thrown into the river, helping to pull cars that had sunk, that sort of thing. When 800 went down, the authorities called everyone in the area with diving chops to help retrieve bodies and wreckage, even though it was outside NYC proper. He was on that team.

As the diver told it... He's down there and comes across a woman, still belted into her seat. The woman starts moving, and not in a way that matches the ocean current. She looks, incredibly, alive. He checks his tanks to make sure he's not flipping out on nitrogen narcosis; there's no way anyone's still alive who's been down there so long.

Upon closer inspection, her corpse was chock full of crabs feasting on her. Their movement was pulling her around like a puppet.

Needless to say, my bf gave him free rentals on the comedies he was renting to get his mind off that horror. I know it sounds pretty STDH, but we had no reason to not believe dude's story, he never bragged about any exploits prior to that, and the look in the guy's eyes convinced my bf that Dude Had Seen Some Serious poo poo.

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On their first mission together, they would be flying one of the twenty-five B-24s assigned to bomb the harbor of Naples late in the afternoon of April 4. The operation consisted of a two-part attack. A flight of twelve B-24s would go first, followed by a second wave of 13 planes, including the Lady Be Good. After the attack, all planes were expected to return to their bases in North Africa.

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The plane, which was one of the last to depart, took off from Soluch Field shortly after 3 pm. Almost immediately, high winds and obscured visibility prevented it from joining the main bomber formation, so it continued the mission on its own.
Nine B-24s returned to base because of the sandstorm, and four aircraft continued on. They arrived over Naples at 7:50 pm. at 7600 m (25,000 feet). With bad visibility, they did not bomb the primary target, but two B-24s hit their secondary target on the return trip, and two dumped their bombs into the Mediterranean to reduce weight and save fuel.

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Lady Be Good flew back alone from Italy on its return trip to its home base in Libya. At 12:12 a.m. the pilot, Lt. Hatton, radioed to say his automatic direction finder was not working and asked for a location of base.[1] The plane apparently overflew its base, failing to see the flares fired to attract its attention. It continued into the interior of North Africa for the next two hours. At 2 a.m. the crew parachuted to the ground as the Lady Be Good flew 26 km (16 mi) more with no one aboard. It crash-landed in the Calanshio Sand Sea of the Libyan Desert. A search and rescue mission from Soluch Air Base failed to find anything. With no trace of the crew or aircraft, the incident became known as a mystery.

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After the crew abandoned the aircraft, it continued flying southward. The mostly intact wreckage and evidence showing one engine was still operating at the time of impact suggests the aircraft gradually lost altitude in a very shallow descent, reached the flat, open desert floor and landed on its belly.

Literally Kermit posted:

Of course, a military plane abandoned because of a split second decision is one thing, but at least it's not, say, a jet piloted by the dead or anything.

NEXT EFFORTPOST: A LEARJET PILOTED BY FROZEN CORPSES

Keru posted:

I'm looking forward to this.

Literally Kermit posted:

Lady Be Good

JacquelineDempsey posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800

JibbaJabberwocky posted:

There's also a really great documentary about TWA Flight 800 which makes the US investigators involved look really loving sketchy. It comes and goes from Netflix but you can probably find it elsewhere. I'm not really a conspiracy theorist but I definitely believe that that aircraft was shot down by a missile. It even seems likely it was an American missile but regardless of who shot it down, the US definitely covered it up.

A Pinball Wizard posted:

Really? What proof is there besides "someone thought they saw an explosion"?

Any opinions on the temperature at which steel melts?

JibbaJabberwocky posted:

The episode about this crash is my favorite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider but I also really suggest the episodes about Aloha Airlines 243 and the one about the plane landing in the Hudson river.

Centripetal Horse posted:

I like the US Airways flight 1549 story because holy poo poo. Chesley Sullenberger must be one of the most steel-scroted motherfuckers to ever walk the planet. He's in charge of a crippled 75-ton meteor streaking inexorably toward the earth, and it's like his pulse never even speeds up. "We're gonna be in the Hudson [safely lands 150 people on a goddamn river]."

A Pinball Wizard posted:

Really? What proof is there besides "someone thought they saw an explosion"?

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With this activity ongoing, another Wings West aircraft, a Metroliner similar to SkyWest 5569, called the tower reporting they were ready for takeoff. The same local controller queried this aircraft about their position, and they told her they were holding on a taxiway short of 24L. The flight progress strip for this flight had not yet been given to the local controller by the clearance delivery controller (another distraction), and the local controller mistakenly thought this taxiway Metroliner was SkyWest 5569 and thus the runway was clear of aircraft. The first officer of the USAir flight recalled hearing this conversation, but did not remember anyone being cleared to hold on the runway.

The USAir plane touched down near the runway threshold. Just as the nose was being lowered, the first officer noticed SkyWest 5569 on the runway and applied maximum braking, but it was too late. The USAir plane slammed into the Metroliner, crushing it beneath its fuselage. The 737 proceeded to skid down the runway, then veered off the left side and came to rest on the far side of the taxiway against a closed fire station building where it eventually caught fire.

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The only air traffic controller handling the airspace, Peter Nielsen, was working two workstations at the same time. He did not realize the problem in time and thus failed to keep the aircraft at a safe distance from each other. Only less than a minute before the accident did he realize the danger and contacted Flight 2937, instructing the pilot to descend by a thousand feet to avoid collision with crossing traffic (Flight 611). Seconds after the Russian crew initiated the descent, however, their traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) instructed them to climb, while at about the same time the TCAS on Flight 611 instructed the pilots of that aircraft to descend.

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Unaware of the TCAS-issued alerts, Nielsen repeated his instruction to Flight 2937 to descend, giving the Tupolev crew incorrect information as to the position of the DHL plane. Maintenance work was being carried out on the main radar system, which meant that the controllers were forced to use a slower system

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Ōkawa Haruyoshi, who was seven years old and the son of the Sankebetsu village mayor at the time of the incident, grew up to become an excellent bear hunter. He swore an oath to kill ten bears for every victim of the attack. By the time he reached the age of 62, he had killed 102 bears. He then retired and constructed the bear harm cenotaph, a shrine where people can pray for the dead villagers.

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The brown bear suddenly reared its head. Dumbfounded by the sudden appearance of their quarry, all the hunters leveled their rifles at the beast, but only Tani actually fired. Kanako was in the habit of wrapping his trigger in cloth to protect it, which got in the way. And the rest thought that this chase would not go on for long, so they had neglected to needlessly load their rifles.

As soon as Tani pulled the trigger, the beast turned on them, readying to attack Miyamoto Yutarō and Kawabata Jintarō, who were in a state of panic. It was then that Kawabata cried out, swinging down his sickle with all his strength. Miyamoto stared down the bear down the barrel of his rifle. The rest of the young men had already fled.

But the bear, perhaps as unprepared for confrontation as the party, turned its unwieldy frame around and lumbered off towards the hills. Standing up its height surpassed that of a horse’s, and there was a white splotch of fur draped over its blackish-brown chest like a sash.

The men who had scurried away were more surprised than they had even been before, struck mute and faces pale. The way they had scattered like bear cubs had been well observed from the Ōta house. The men who had been abandoned by their comrades returned to the pack, to much rejoicing.

Alereon posted:

This article has a bit about their stupid conspiracy theories, and Wikipedia has a decent summary too. Honestly now that we have the MH17 shoot-down to compare with it seems bizarre to think TWA800 was shot down by a missile. With MH17 you see the expected shrapnel holes in the fuselage left by the fragmentary warhead, as well as fragments embedded in the bodies of the victims. Nothing like that was ever found with TWA 800. The only thing that could be interpreted as evidence is the inconclusive positive test results for explosive residues, but these were trace results and each test detected a different residue, and any real residues would have been washed off while the debris was submerged, so it seems clear that this was a result of contamination. Evidence contamination and inconclusive results are a problem in any investigation and why it's so important to look at the totality of the evidence for things that either confirm or refute a theory, and not just decide what you want to see.

Gibfender posted:

Impeccable timing for this thread. A Germanwings A320 has gone down over the Alps

Literally Kermit posted:

Doesn't look like there's gonna be any survivors.

Last call from the cockpit was a non-standard "Emergency! Emergency!" so it's possible whatever happened, happened quickly. That's a calling card of a lot of the airline crashes I have been researching.

My only response in the face of disasters are jokes in poor taste, so I'll just leave off there.

Alereon posted:

Evidence contamination and inconclusive results are a problem in any investigation and why it's so important to look at the totality of the evidence for things that either confirm or refute a theory, and not just decide what you want to see.

MightyJoe36 posted:

Just about any conspiracy theory can be explained away by this simple statement.

Literally Kermit posted:

It turns out that, regardless if jet fuel can or cannot melt steel beams, it makes them really really hot, and steel loses much of its strength as it heats up.

Also the reason why the Twin Towers looked so much like a controlled collapse wasn't because of secret explosives or anything, it did exactly what it was designed to do, which was pancake downward. The chance of a skyscraper staying intact and just falling over lengthwise, killing far more people, just didn't test well with focus groups, so the architects have to take in worst-case scenarios into consideration.

ElwoodCuse posted:

I can't remember enough specifics to turn it up but I read about a crashed World War 2 plane full of unexploded ordnance. It's underwater and in a busy area so no one will risk salvaging it and the government just put up buoys telling people to stay the hell away.

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The Tybee Island B-47 crash was an incident on February 5, 1958, in which the United States Air Force lost a 7,600-pound (3,400 kg) Mark 15 nuclear bomb in the waters off Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia, United States. During a practice exercise, an F-86 fighter plane collided with the B-47 bomber carrying the bomb. To protect the aircrew from a possible detonation in the event of a crash, the bomb was jettisoned. Following several unsuccessful searches, the bomb was presumed lost somewhere in Wassaw Sound off the shores of Tybee Island.

ElwoodCuse posted:

I can't remember enough specifics to turn it up but I read about a crashed World War 2 plane full of unexploded ordnance. It's underwater and in a busy area so no one will risk salvaging it and the government just put up buoys telling people to stay the hell away.

ElwoodCuse posted:

I can't remember enough specifics to turn it up but I read about a crashed World War 2 plane full of unexploded ordnance. It's underwater and in a busy area so no one will risk salvaging it and the government just put up buoys telling people to stay the hell away.

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The ship was wrecked off the Nore sandbank in the Thames Estuary, near Sheerness in 1944 with around 1,400 tonnes (1,500 short tons) of explosives on board,[1] which continue to be a hazard to the area

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One of the reasons that the explosives have not been removed was the unfortunate outcome of a similar operation in July 1967 to neutralize the contents of Kielce, a ship of Polish origin, sunk in 1946 off Folkestone in the English Channel. During preliminary work Kielce, containing a comparable amount of ordnance, exploded with force equivalent to an earthquake measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale, digging a 20-foot-deep (6 m) crater in the seabed and bringing "panic and chaos" to Folkestone, although no injuries.[1]

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The Beacon was a towering monument intended for the site in Chicago, Illinois of the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Despradelle designed the Beacon to represent the founding of America, and so it consisted of thirteen obelisks which he said represented the original thirteen colonies. The group of obelisks merged to form a single spire soaring 1,500 feet (approximately 457 metres) above Chicago. This is similar to the height of the Sears Tower, built in the city in 1973.

The Beacon would also represent the future with its benefits to be drawn from "technological leaps forward" in the approaching century. At the apex was to be a brilliant beacon of light with a figurative sculpture called Spirit of Progress to embody what Despradelle called the upward-looking Christian in America. The figure would face Lake Michigan as a monument to the genius of the people and to the dominant feature of their life.

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The National American Indian Memorial was a proposed monument to American Indians to be erected on a bluff overlooking the Narrows, the main entrance to New York Harbor. The major part of the memorial was to be a 165-foot-tall (50 m) statue of a representative American Indian warrior atop a substantial foundation building housing a museum of native cultures, similar in scale to the Statue of Liberty several miles to the north. Ground was broken to begin construction in 1913 but the project was never completed and no physical trace remains today...


On George Washington’s Birthday (Feb. 22, 1913), President Taft attended the dedication ceremony, which was to be his last trip as President. Taft used a silver tipped spade to break ground which was followed by Wooden Leg, a Cheyenne Chief, who “hacked at the soil” with a stone ax which had been discovered on Stated Island some 30 years previously. According to the New York Times, the ax-head was thought to have “been in use before Caesar crossed the Rubicon.” Amongst the dignitaries and press there on that rainy day were over thirty Indian chiefs representing fifteen tribes, including Chief Two Moons, a Northern Cheyenne who fought at Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Dr. George Federick Kunz, the president of the American Scenic and Historical Preservation Society, had a special treat for those present at the ceremony. He had convinced Director Robert of the Mint to make the ground breaking the occasion for distributing the new nickel, which bore an Indian head on one side and a buffalo on the other. The first of these coins was given to President Taft and then to the remainder of the guests. It was said that the American Indian depicted on the coin could have been any of the 32 chiefs present at the ceremony.

Sadly, this grand monument was to be never more than a pipe dream. Wanamaker went from being the funder to the fundraiser, Daniel Chester French left to work on other projects, and the First World War turned people’s attentions away from such follies. Even the bronze tablet which had been erected during the ground breaking ceremony vanished decades ago.

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In 1963, the Defense Department proposed a solution: the Deep Underground Command Center, or DUCC.

Studies of a DUCC had been percolating since at least 1962. But it was in 1963 that the proposal reached the president's desk, with the approval of both Secretary of Defense McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk. The DUCC would be a capsule buried 3,500 feet under the Pentagon. Two versions were proposed, a “Moderate” version offering space for 300 people, and an “Austere” version with space for 50, and which could be expanded to the Moderate version if necessary. Elevators would descend from the White House, Pentagon, and State Department to the facility depth, where horizontal tunnels would lead to the capsule.

Officials could descend to the DUCC without leaving their buildings, so there would be no external signs of evacuation – the president could take shelter without the political consequences of visibly leaving Washington, D. C. It was even suggested that officials on the presidential succession list might spend one day a week in the DUCC. That way, no matter what, at least one successor would survive, and be in a position to quickly reestablish control of the military.

It was claimed that the system could withstand multiple direct hits by 200 to 300 megaton nuclear weapons, or by 100 megaton weapons that penetrated to a 70 to 100 foot depth. For comparison's sake, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated had a yield of about 50 megaton, and the largest ever produced in numbers was about 25 megatons. But, in the early 60s, nuclear weapon yields had been steadily growing since their introduction, and 300 megatons seemed like a pessimistic but reasonable extrapolation of Soviet capabilities in the early 70s.

Few details are available on the capsule itself, but some extrapolation is possible based on Army engineering manuals and similar but less extreme facilities. We know the austere version would offer only 5,000 square feet of space, equivalent to a 10' x 10' square for each occupant. The moderate version would be slightly better at 50,000 square feet, or a 13' x 13' square per occupant. The occupied area would be contained within a larger chamber of double the area, and would probably be mounted on gigantic springs to ride out ground shock, which would be the main threat to the system.

It would be theoretically possible to blast out enough dirt to physically breach the DUCC. But a 300 megaton weapon digs only a 967 foot deep crater in granite, requiring four such bombs landing precisely on top of each other to dig out a breach. This sort of accuracy would be difficult even for modern ballistic missiles, although not impossible.

The main damaging mechanism would be the shock wave that is generated in the rock, which would act similarly to an earthquake. Ground shock could directly injure or kill the DUCC's occupants – hence the springs – or it could cause spalling, in which fragments of the chamber roof fall off. To prevent this, the tunnels would probably be lined with cast iron or even stronger materials.

Supplies would be stashed in the capsule for 30 days of “buttoned-up” occupancy, which would hopefully be enough time for surface radiation to cool to survivable levels. Although the main elevator access shafts would probably be collapsed by bombing, multiple tunnels would provide hardened exits outside the likely attack area. In addition, unspecified “hardened communications” would be provided.

In the event of a missile warning, the president and other key officials would reach the protected depths via elevator in only ten minutes, and the capsule in another five. This would be ten minutes less than the time to reach safe distance aboard NEACP. Nonetheless, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were, at best, unenthusiastic about the plan.

In the view of the JCS, the main failing of the DUCC was that it was simply too small. Even the moderate version did not have enough space for an adequate staff. While the president might survive, he would not have the personnel with him to properly analyze the situation and disseminate orders. The JCS estimated that, of the 300 people that could be crammed into the moderate DUCC, at least 175 slots would be filled with personnel for maintenance, communications, housekeeping, and otherwise just keeping the shelter running. The JCS themselves would require a staff of 50 to execute orders received from the president. That left only 75 slots for the president, his advisors, and civilian personnel from the Defense Department, State Department, and other key organizations.

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In May 1908, Edward T. Carlton, an American hotelier, and William Gibbs McAdoo, the president of the New York and New Jersey Railroad Company, traveled to Spain to meet with the renowned Spanish architect, Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) studied architecture in Barcelona, where he was surrounded by neo-classical and romantic designs. Gaudi became famous by reinterpreting these designs and working in the Art Nouveau and Art Moderne styles, and Sagrada Familia in Barcelona is considered to be his greatest work. Carlton and McAdoo sought to add a building based on Gaudi’s unique vision to the New York City skyline. He was asked to design a hotel that would be situated in Lower Manhattan. Gaudi designed multiple sketches of an 980 to 1,100 foot high hotel called the Hotel Atraccion (Hotel Attraction). It contained an exhibition hall, conference rooms, a theater, and five dining rooms, symbolizing the five continents. Had the hotel been built, it would have been the tallest building in New York City, and therefore in the United States. Sadly, this building would never be built (except in an alternative version of New York depicted in the television show fringe). Carlton wanted the hotel to serve the City’s wealthiest and most elite clientele. Gaudi’s remained true to his communist ideals, and he abandoned the project. According to another version of the story, Gaudi fell ill in 1909 and that brought about the end of the project. All that survive are conceptual sketches by Juan Matemala.

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In 1923, the Reverend Christian Reisner of the Methodist Church in Washington Heights conceived of a grand church complex to be located at Broadway and West 173rd Street. Reverend Reisner developed a 40-story church which would have contained a 2,000-seat nave, a five-story basement, a swimming pool, a bowling alley, and would have been topped off with a 75-foot-high rotating cross. John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated $100,000 for the church’s construction. Like the other buildings, the Depression stopped Reverend Reisner from realizing his dreams.

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John D. Rockefeller Jr. proposed this new civic center which included a space for the Metropolitan Opera. When the stock market crashed the Metropolitan Opera was unable to secure funding for a new building. As a result, Rockefeller redesigned his civic center into the Rockefeller Center we know today

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This design by Emery Roth for the National Penn Colosseum was never built:

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The Coney Island Globe Tower was conceived of in 1906 as the largest steel structure ever erected. Samuel Friede designed the 700 foot high globe whose 11 floors were to be filled with restaurants, a vaudeville theater, a roller skating rink, a bowling alley, a slot machines, an Aerial Hippodrome, four large circus rings, a ballroom in the world, an observatory, and weather observation station. Public money poured into the project with claims of 100% returns on investments. After two years of almost no construction, the Globe Tower was revealed to be a grand fraud.

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In 1929, the Metropolitan Life Bldg, comprising the 1893 12-story construction, the 1909 campanile-like tower and the 1919 north annex, was becoming too small to house the continual growing activities of the biggest insurance company. A new building was considered for the full block site between E24th and E25th Streets, designed by Corbett and Waid... which missed to be the highest in the world. The proposed 100-story telescoping tower would have reached a climax in the mountain-like style, with fluted walls, rounded façades, like a compromise between the Irving Trust Bldg and the visionary Hugh Ferriss's drawings. But the 1929 crisis exploded and... was erected only what was previously considered as the base. From a rectangular pedestal rise multiple recessed volumes which have the particularity to become 30-degree angled from the 16th floor on each side of the building, resolving at last in an original dumbell-plan shape from the last setback. As the magnificent Ralph Walker's Irving Trust Bldg, the new Metropolitan Life Annex resembles as a complex structure, covered by a limestone-clad drapery, renouncing to the sacrosanct rigid orthogonal geometry. A brilliant success.

Lured to the project by the client's offer of a high salary and the chance to build a mile-high tower of steel, stone and glass, the, Columbia University-educated architect Harvey Wiley Corbett left his position on the Rockefeller Center design team in order to take up this project in 1928. While construction of this steel-framed structure proceeded through the Depression, the crash of 1929 ultimately reduced the scope of the project. The current office block was once intended to be the base of a mammoth skyscraper, but Corbett's longed-for skyscraper was never built. Clad in Alabama limestone with marble details and richly appointed marble lobbies, the vertically striated surfaces and streamlined undulating masses of this Art Deco building give it a slick if somewhat sinister appearance.

Only the base was built, between 1932 and 1950.

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Proposed in 1925, the Larkin Building would have contained up to 110 stories at 1,208 ft. and was to be located on West 42nd Street (the McGraw Hill Building currently occupies the site)

Hard times fell on this proposal as well as the Larkin Company, which went bankrupt in the 1930s.

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First published in Life Magazine 1946:

The airport would have covered 144 city blocks from 24th to 71st Streets and from Ninth Avenue to the Hudson River. (The view above is looking south.) That's approximately 990 acres 200-feet above the streets of Manhattan.

To quote Life, Zeckendorf thinks the $3 billion price tag "can be paid off by rental income within 55 years after the project is completed." Further, and quite optimistically, "although the Manhattan terminal is still in the drawing-board stage and has not yet had approval of New York officials, the planners expect that the increasing tide of air travel will make their idea a necessity."

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After the victory of America and her “co-belligerents” in the First World War, a temporary victory arch was erected out of wood and plaster to welcome the troops home from Europe. After the arch was dismantled, however, discussions soon arose on how to permanently commemorate the war dead of New York, with a surprising variety of suggestions made. A beautiful water gate for Battery Park was suggested, with a classical arch flanked by Bernini-like curved colonnades, so that a suitable place existed to welcome important dignitaries and visitors to New York. (Little did they know how soon the airlines would replace the ocean lines). Another proposal was for a giant memorial hall located at the site of a shuttered hotel across from Grand Central Terminal, while others suggested a bell tower.

An entirely different proposal, however, was made by the New York architect Alfred C. Bossom (later ennobled as Baron Bossom of Maidstone)....Bossom envisioned a massive work of engineering and transportation: a ‘Memorial Bridge’ spanning the Hudson at Manhattan. As memorials go, however, it was suggested that the ‘Memorial Bridge’ was too large, too impersonal, and too utterly convenient as a public work to serve as a memorial to the dead, and so Bossom promptly rebranded his idea as the ‘Victory Bridge’. The floor of the bridge was described as very high, in accordance with the requirements of the War Department for ocean-going vessels to pass beneath it, but also allowing the New Jersey side to rest upon the heights of Weehawken. The lower level was to hold ten railway tracks side-by-side.

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Trump plans NYSE tower
August 13, 1996: 6:18 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (CNNfn) -- Donald Trump is planning to build the world's tallest building at the end of Wall Street to house the New York Stock Exchange, according to published reports.
The 140-story New York Stock Exchange Tower, as the building would be named, would have 31/2 million square feet of office space, house up to 100,000 office workers and take 31/2 years to build.
At 1,792 feet tall, the proposed building would extend far above the neighboring World Trade Center, currently the fifth tallest building in the world.
"For Trump this is the ultimate," the New York Post quoted a Trump family friend as saying. "Donald is obsessed with that fact that New York should have the world's tallest building."
On Monday, the NYSE said it was mulling a move from its historic Wall Street headquarters, a 93-year-old building.
Both City Hall and NYSE Chief Executive Richard Grasso reportedly greeted the plan with "huge enthusiasm," citing the advantages of bringing the tallest building status back to the Big Apple.
Trump's NYSE plan is designed by architects Kohn Pedersen Fox, the same firm that designed Malaysia's skyscrapers.

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Way back in '91, Swedish architect G. Lars Gullstedt announced plans for two 65-story towers, a new park and other amenities surrounding the Biltmore Hotel. It would've been a multi-BILLION dollar project. Mayor Maynard Jackson headed the press conference; it would BEAT Rockefeller Center. By '93, Swedish debtors were calling on loans. Gullstedt didn't have the dough

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Circa 2006, real estate tycoon Wayne Mason — whose supposed Midas Touch with residential investments helped transform the pastures of Gwinnett County — got really inspired by then-nascent Atlantic Station. Working with a group of Korean investors, Mason bought up two ailing shopping centers totaling 42 acres near Gwinnett Place Mall in Duluth. He called the vision "Global Station." It promised to reshape the suburban skyline and introduce mixed-use living on a scale never seen in suburban Atlanta.

Mason's answer to Atlantic Station was set to include as many as 10 towers, to be built over several years. Early concepts showed the $700 million retail, condo and commercial village with a huge central entertainment area, replete with an amphitheater and exotic architecture. In 2006, Mason projected that construction could start the following year.

Instead, the Recession happened.

The whole shebang went kaput in 2008, when Mason declared that his South Korean counterparts just couldn't line up the financing. And the long, slow decline of Gwinnett Place Mall continued.

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In 1992 the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, owner of the World Trade Center, commissioned Davis Brody & Associates to develop a master plan for the redevelopment of the Center’s public spaces. The public spaces of the World Trade Center complex included the large open-air plaza plus 500,000 square feet of interior retail and circulation space on four different levels.

In 1994 a schematic design was developed to better define the architectural components of the master plan. These components included a monumental screen covering the existing plaza, new plaza structures adding restaurant and retail space and providing new access to the concourse level below, new street-level retail space along the Center’s perimeter and a new public park surrounding the complex.

A major feature of the redevelopment project, the plaza screen was designed to accomplish the following tasks: (1) visually define and unify a three-dimensional multi-purpose outdoor space; (2) mediate the strong cross winds created by the twin towers; (3) serve as a staging element for temporary plaza events. Hung with support cables from the adjacent towers, the plaza screen would require no additional vertical supports on the plaza or concourse levels. Visible from well outside the immediate vicinity, the support cables would serve as a symbol of the New World Trade Center.

Another principle feature of the Center’s redevelopment is the crescent shape North Plaza Building. The 60-foot tall, fully glazed structure would contain dining and interior circulation space along the northern edge of the open plaza. The design successfully creates an appropriately scaled focal point for the Plaza as it provides a single, unified identity to the various tenants and functions of the building.

The schematic design also included a refinement of the master plan’s new concourse level shopping complex. This work included the enhancement of circulation patterns and user orientation, the development of the architectural aesthetics and the integration of structural, mechanical and lighting systems throughout the retail complex.

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The Temple of the Vedic Planetarium will be a stunning spritiual monument, dwarfing the already huge Srila Prabhupada Samadhi Mandir and featuring three giant gold domes. The middle, and largest, dome will house three different altars: one for the Gaudiya Vaishnava line of teachers and disciples, ranging from the Six Goswamis of the 15th century all the way to Srila Prabhupada; one for the Pancha-tattva of Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his associates; and one for Sri-Sri Radha-Madhava and their eight principal gopi servants.


What’s so special about the TOVP? Well, it was back in the 1970s that ISKCON’s founder Srila Prabhupada first expressed his desire to build a Vedic Planetarium at his society’s headquarters in Mayapur, India. “Within the planetarium we will construct a huge, detailed model of the universe as described in the text of the fifth canto of Srimad Bhagavatam,” he said.
Of course, as with everything he did, Srila Prabhupada was acting in fulfillment of the desires of previous spiritual teachers. A grand temple for Mayapur was predicted by none other than Lord Nityananda, the most intimate associate of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, some five hundred years ago. Speaking to Srila Jiva Goswami, the Lord said:
“When our Lord Chaitanya disappears, by His desire, the Ganges will swell. The Ganges water will almost cover Mayapur for a hundred years, and then the water will again recede. For some time only the place will remain, devoid of houses. Then again, by the Lord’s desire, this place will again be manifest, and the devotees will build temples of the Lord. One exceedingly wonderful temple (adbhuta-mandira) will appear from which Gauranga’s eternal service will be preached everywhere.”
Srila Prabhupada wanted this great temple to have a specific look. In July 1976, during a visit to Washington D.C., he instructed Yadubara Dasa and Visakha Dasi to take photographs of the domed Capitol building there, as a basis for the TOVP. And in the early days of ISKCON in London, he gave further detailed instructions on what different parts of the temple should look like, directing many senior devotees make drawings and models of the building.



The Temple of the Vedic Planetarium will be a stunning spritiual monument, dwarfing the already huge Srila Prabhupada Samadhi Mandir and featuring three giant gold domes. The middle, and largest, dome will house three different altars: one for the Gaudiya Vaishnava line of teachers and disciples, ranging from the Six Goswamis of the 15th century all the way to Srila Prabhupada; one for the Pancha-tattva of Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his associates; and one for Sri-Sri Radha-Madhava and their eight principal gopi servants.



In the center of the middle dome, hanging from the ceiling, will be a huge rotating model of the universe as described in sacred texts such as the Srimad-Bhagavatam. Described by Srila Prabhupada in his letters, the model will be in the form of a chandelier, two hundred feet across, and will feature displays explaining how Vedic cosmology corresponds to the visible universe of our experience.
A smaller dome on the TOVP’s right hand side will serve as a separate temple for Krishna’s half-man half lion form, Lord Nrsimhadeva. And on the left hand side of the main temple, another dome will offer an enlivening tour of the various regions of the cosmic creation. Beginning from the lower planets, pilgrims will be able to travel up through the earthly realm and then on to the higher planetary systems, before passing beyond the boundary of the material universe. Within the spiritual realm, visitors will view the various spiritual planets, before finally arriving at the topmost spiritual abode of the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna.

Nckdictator posted:

ISKCON Temple-Planetarium Theater of the Vedic Science and Cosmology

(Surprisingly under construction)

quote:

It reportedly cost $600,000 in materials, and the labor was donated by the devotees. The unpaid workers were often untrained and learned on the job.

Kirtanananda explained, "In the beginning, we didn't even know how to lay blocks. As our Krishna consciousness developed, our building skills developed, then our creativity developed, and the scope of the project developed."

Nckdictator posted:

The Albert Tower, London




No idea.

Comrade Koba posted:

quote:

Fetal abduction is the kidnapping of an unborn child by forcing a pregnant mother to comply with an early cesarean, and then taking the fetus directly from the mother’s womb. The mother is usually murdered, or does not survive the cesarean process. Depending on the age of the fetus, sometimes the child does not survive either.

Fetus abductions often happen at the hands of a friend, and are almost always done by a woman. According to “Abductions from the Womb”, an article by Dr. Marlene Dalley for the RCMP, “In most cases of fetus abduction, the abductor befriends the pregnant victim, all the while planning to kill her and extract the baby by Caesarean section, obviously risking the baby's health and life. Unlike infant abductions, the fetus abductor is so determined to give birth to a child that she actually acts out the fantasy of delivering the baby herself, rather than kidnapping one already born.” The abductors carried out such crimes because they felt a desire to form or strengthen a partner relationship and to live out a fantasy of their own of delivering a child. The people who commit such a crime are often unable to have children of their own or cannot get pregnant again. Pressed for time, they merely take advantage of another woman’s pregnancy. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s spokesperson, Cathy Nahirny, stated in 2007, “Many times the abductor fakes a pregnancy and when it is time to deliver the baby, must abduct someone else's child”. These women begin with a fantasy, a dream of being pregnant, and rather than wake up from that dream, they take someone else’s.

showbiz_liz posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_abduction

This apparently just happened to a friend of a friend of mine (the last case on this list). Luckily, she survived, although her fetus didn't.

showbiz_liz posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_abduction

This apparently just happened to a friend of a friend of mine (the last case on this list). Luckily, she survived, although her fetus didn't.

showbiz_liz posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_abduction

This apparently just happened to a friend of a friend of mine (the last case on this list). Luckily, she survived, although her fetus didn't.