High Line

High Line PDF Author: Joshua David
Publisher: FSG Originals
ISBN: 9780374532994
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
How two New Yorkers led the transformation of a derelict elevated railway into a grand--and beloved--open space The High Line, a new park atop an ele-vated rail structure on Manhattan's West Side, is among the most innovative urban reclamation projects in memory. The story of how it came to be is a remarkable one: two young citizens with no prior experience in planning and development collaborated with their neighbors, elected officials, artists, local business owners, and leaders of burgeoning movements in horticulture and landscape architecture to create a park celebrated worldwide as a model for creatively designed, socially vibrant, ecologically sound public space. Joshua David and Robert Hammond met in 1999 at a community board meeting to consider the fate of the High Line. Built in the 1930s, it carried freight trains to the West Side when the area was defined by factories and warehouses. But when trains were replaced by truck transport, the High Line became obsolete. By century's end it was a rusty, forbidding ruin. Plants grew between the tracks, giving it a wild and striking beauty. David and Hammond loved the ruin and saw in it an opportunity to create a new way to experience their city. Over ten years, they did so. In this candid and inspiring book-- lavishly illustrated--they tell how they relied on skill, luck, and good timing: a crucial court ruling, an inspiring design contest, the enthusiasm of Mayor Bloomberg, the concern for urban planning issues following 9/11. Now the High Line--a half-mile expanse of plants, paths, staircases, and framed vistas--runs through a transformed West Side and reminds us that extraordinary things are possible when creative people work together for the common good.

High Line

High Line PDF Author: Joshua David
Publisher: FSG Originals
ISBN: 9780374532994
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book Here

Book Description
How two New Yorkers led the transformation of a derelict elevated railway into a grand--and beloved--open space The High Line, a new park atop an ele-vated rail structure on Manhattan's West Side, is among the most innovative urban reclamation projects in memory. The story of how it came to be is a remarkable one: two young citizens with no prior experience in planning and development collaborated with their neighbors, elected officials, artists, local business owners, and leaders of burgeoning movements in horticulture and landscape architecture to create a park celebrated worldwide as a model for creatively designed, socially vibrant, ecologically sound public space. Joshua David and Robert Hammond met in 1999 at a community board meeting to consider the fate of the High Line. Built in the 1930s, it carried freight trains to the West Side when the area was defined by factories and warehouses. But when trains were replaced by truck transport, the High Line became obsolete. By century's end it was a rusty, forbidding ruin. Plants grew between the tracks, giving it a wild and striking beauty. David and Hammond loved the ruin and saw in it an opportunity to create a new way to experience their city. Over ten years, they did so. In this candid and inspiring book-- lavishly illustrated--they tell how they relied on skill, luck, and good timing: a crucial court ruling, an inspiring design contest, the enthusiasm of Mayor Bloomberg, the concern for urban planning issues following 9/11. Now the High Line--a half-mile expanse of plants, paths, staircases, and framed vistas--runs through a transformed West Side and reminds us that extraordinary things are possible when creative people work together for the common good.

Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky

Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky PDF Author: Patrick Hamilton
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 159017772X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 521

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Book Description
NYRB Classics presents 3 darkly humorous, atmospheric novellas of love and disappointment, set in a run-down London pub after WWI—from the author of the Hitchcock classics Gaslight and Rope. “Bleak and brilliant. . . an authentic lost classic.” —The Guardian Featuring a Dickensian cast of pubcrawlers, prostitutes, lowlifes, and just plain losers who are looking for love—or just an ear to bend—Hamilton’s novels are a triumph of deft characterization, offbeat humor, unlikely compassion, and raw suspense. In recent years, Hamilton has undergone a remarkable revival, with his champions including Doris Lessing, David Lodge, Nick Hornby, and Sarah Waters. Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is a tale of obsession and betrayal that centers on a seedy pub in a run-down part of London. Bob the waiter skimps and saves and fantasizes about writing a novel, until he falls for the pretty prostitute Jenny and blows it all. Kindly Ella, Bob’s co-worker, adores Bob, but is condemned to enjoy nothing more than the attentions of the insufferable Mr. Eccles; Jenny, out on the street, is out of love, hope, and money. We watch with pity and horror as these three vulnerable and yet compellingly ordinary people meet and play out bitter comedies of longing and frustration. Included: The Midnight Bell (1929) The Siege of Pleasure (1932) The Plains of Cement (1934)

A Ladder to the Sky

A Ladder to the Sky PDF Author: John Boyne
Publisher: Hogarth
ISBN: 1984823035
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
“A satire of writerly ambition wrapped in a psychological thriller . . . An homage to Patricia Highsmith, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe, but its execution is entirely Boyne’s own.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for fame. The one thing he doesn’t have is talent—but he’s not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don’t need to be his own. Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful – but desperately lonely – older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice’s first novel. Once Maurice has had a taste of literary fame, he knows he can stop at nothing in pursuit of that high. Moving from the Amalfi Coast, where he matches wits with Gore Vidal, to Manhattan and London, Maurice hones his talent for deceit and manipulation, preying on the talented and vulnerable in his cold-blooded climb to the top. But the higher he climbs, the further he has to fall. . . . Sweeping across the late twentieth century, A Ladder to the Sky is a fascinating portrait of a relentlessly immoral man, a tour de force of storytelling, and the next great novel from an acclaimed literary virtuoso. Praise for A Ladder to the Sky “Boyne's mastery of perspective, last seen in The Heart's Invisible Furies, works beautifully here. . . . Boyne understands that it's far more interesting and satisfying for a reader to see that narcissist in action than to be told a catchall phrase. Each step Maurice Swift takes skyward reveals a new layer of calumny he's willing to engage in, and the desperation behind it . . . so dark it seems almost impossible to enjoy reading A Ladder to the Sky as much as you definitely will enjoy reading it.”—NPR “Delicious . . . spins out over several decades with thrilling unpredictability, following Maurice as he masters the art of co-opting the stories of others in increasingly dubious ways. And while the book reads as a thriller with a body count that would make Highsmith proud, it is also an exploration of morality and art: Where is the line between inspiration and thievery? To whom does a story belong?”—Vanity Fair

The Sky is Falling!

The Sky is Falling! PDF Author: Peter Biskind
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241373905
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
'You'll never look at your favourite movies and TV shows the same way again. And you shouldn't' Steven Soderbergh 'Insanely readable' Slavoj Zizek 'Your book was ... like a bag of pot, with me saying, 'I'm not gonna smoke.' But I was insatiable' Quentin Tarantino on Easy Riders, Raging Bulls In The Sky is Falling! bestselling cultural critic Peter Biskind takes us on a dizzying ride across two decades of pop culture to show how the TV and movies we love - from Game of Thrones and 24 to Homeland and Iron Man - have taught us to love political extremism. Welcome to a darkly pessimistic, apocalyptic world where winter has come, the dead are walking, and ultra violence, revenge and torture are all in a day's work. Welcome to the new normal.

Beautiful New Sky

Beautiful New Sky PDF Author: Ines Geipel
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509560009
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
It was a bold, ambitious and wildly arrogant idea: extending the reach of communism into space. Spurred on by the defeat of Hitler and the competitive rivalry with the United States, the Soviet space programme saw a frenetic surge of scientific activity focused on the objective of demonstrating Communist mastery beyond the confines of the Earth. In order to create the optimally standardized bodies that cosmonauts would require, top secret military laboratories were set up in 1970s East Germany. The New Man – the modern colonist of space – was intensively trained for the purpose of surviving years of weightlessness in outer space. Experiments were carried out in prisons, hospitals and army barracks with the aim of creating the perfect body: self-sufficient and able to endure extreme conditions for as long as possible. In order to exert dominance over space, it was first necessary to exert total control over those who were being trained to conquer it. Ines Geipel unravels this largely unknown and extraordinary history by delving into East German military records and talking to those who bear the scars of this state-inflicted trauma. Some of the older scientists conducting experiments had already served under the Nazi regime; others threw themselves into collaborating with the Stasi via the military research programme in order to avoid dealing with the war’s emotional legacy. Written like a thriller and infused with empathy from someone who had herself experienced the debilitating effects of state-administered doping programmes in the former GDR, this book exposes some of the most disturbing episodes in Germany’s recent past.

Half the Sky

Half the Sky PDF Author: Nicholas D. Kristof
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307387097
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation—the oppression of women and girls in the developing world. From the bestselling authors of Tightrope, two of our most fiercely moral voices With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope. They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad. That Cambodian girl eventually escaped from her brothel and, with assistance from an aid group, built a thriving retail business that supports her family. The Ethiopian woman had her injuries repaired and in time became a surgeon. A Zimbabwean mother of five, counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate and became an expert on AIDS. Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty. Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential reading for every global citizen.

Under a White Sky

Under a White Sky PDF Author: Elizabeth Kolbert
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0593136292
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction returns to humanity’s transformative impact on the environment, now asking: After doing so much damage, can we change nature, this time to save it? RECOMMENDED BY PRESIDENT OBAMA AND BILL GATES • SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR WRITING • ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, Esquire, Smithsonian Magazine, Vulture, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal • “Beautifully and insistently, Kolbert shows us that it is time to think radically about the ways we manage the environment.”—Helen Macdonald, The New York Times That man should have dominion “over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” is a prophecy that has hardened into fact. So pervasive are human impacts on the planet that it’s said we live in a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. In Under a White Sky, Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. Along the way, she meets biologists who are trying to preserve the world’s rarest fish, which lives in a single tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a “super coral” that can survive on a hotter globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth. One way to look at human civilization, says Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in defying nature. In The Sixth Extinction, she explored the ways in which our capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world. Now she examines how the very sorts of interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the only hope for its salvation. By turns inspiring, terrifying, and darkly comic, Under a White Sky is an utterly original examination of the challenges we face.

The Only Plane in the Sky

The Only Plane in the Sky PDF Author: Garrett M. Graff
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 150118220X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “This is history at its most immediate and moving…A marvelous and memorable book.” —Jon Meacham ​“Remarkable…A priceless civic gift…On page after page, a reader will encounter words that startle, or make him angry, or heartbroken.” —The Wall Street Journal “Had me turning each page with my heart in my throat…There’s been a lot written about 9/11, but nothing like this. I urge you to read it.” —Katie Couric The first comprehensive oral history of September 11, 2001—a panoramic narrative woven from voices on the front lines of an unprecedented national trauma. Over the past eighteen years, monumental literature has been published about 9/11, from Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower to The 9/11 Commission Report. But one perspective has been missing up to this point—a 360-degree account of the day told through firsthand. Now, in The Only Plane in the Sky, Garrett Graff tells the story of the day as it was lived—in the words of those who lived it. Drawing on never-before-published transcripts, declassified documents, original interviews, and oral histories from nearly five hundred government officials, first responders, witnesses, survivors, friends, and family members, he paints the most vivid and human portrait of the September 11 attacks yet. Beginning in the predawn hours of airports in the Northeast, we meet the ticket agents who unknowingly usher terrorists onto their flights, and the flight attendants inside the hijacked planes. In New York, first responders confront a scene of unimaginable horror at the Twin Towers. From a secret bunker under the White House, officials watch for incoming planes on radar. Aboard unarmed fighter jets in the air, pilots make a pact to fly into a hijacked airliner if necessary to bring it down. In the skies above Pennsylvania, civilians aboard United 93 make the ultimate sacrifice in their place. Then, as the day moves forward and flights are grounded nationwide, Air Force One circles the country alone, its passengers isolated and afraid. More than simply a collection of eyewitness testimonies, The Only Plane in the Sky is the historic narrative of how ordinary people grappled with extraordinary events in real time: the father and son caught on different ends of the impact zone; the firefighter searching for his wife who works at the World Trade Center; the operator of in-flight telephone calls who promises to share a passenger’s last words with his family; the beloved FDNY chaplain who bravely performs last rites for the dying, losing his own life when the Towers collapse; and the generals at the Pentagon who break down and weep when they are barred from trying to rescue their colleagues. At once a powerful tribute to the courage of everyday Americans and an essential addition to the literature of 9/11, The Only Plane in the Sky weaves together the unforgettable personal experiences of the men and women who found themselves caught at the center of an unprecedented human drama. The result is a unique, profound, and searing exploration of humanity on a day that changed the course of history, and all of our lives.

The Rock from the Sky

The Rock from the Sky PDF Author: Jon Klassen
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 1536222682
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
Look up! From the Caldecott Medal–winning creator of the hat trilogy comes a new deadpan gem. There is a spot. It is a good spot. It is the perfect spot to stand. There is no reason to ever leave. But somewhere above there is also a rock. A rock from the sky. Here comes The Rock from the Sky, a hilarious meditation on the workings of friendship, fate, shared futuristic visions, and that funny feeling you get that there’s something off somewhere, but you just can’t put your finger on it. Merging broad visual suspense with wry wit, celebrated picture book creator Jon Klassen gives us a wholly original comedy for the ages.

The Sheltering Sky

The Sheltering Sky PDF Author: Paul Bowles
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780720605877
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
A beautiful 65th anniversary paperback edition of the landmark literary work by acclaimed author Paul Bowles. In this classic work of psychological terror, Paul Bowles examines the ways in which Americans apprehend an alien culture--and the ways in which their incomprehension destroys them. The story of three American travelers adrift in the cities and deserts of North Africa after World War II, The Sheltering Sky is at once merciless and heartbreaking in its compassion. It etches the limits of human reason and intelligence--perhaps even the limits of human life--when they touch the unfathomable emptiness and impassive cruelty of the desert.