New York's Forgotten Substations

New York's Forgotten Substations PDF Author: Christopher Payne
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN: 9781568983554
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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Book Description
His photographs and detailed drawings bring these lost treasures to life, while his text tells their story. Anyone interested in the art of industrial America will find this book a delight."--BOOK JACKET.

New York's Forgotten Substations

New York's Forgotten Substations PDF Author: Christopher Payne
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN: 9781568983554
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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Book Description
His photographs and detailed drawings bring these lost treasures to life, while his text tells their story. Anyone interested in the art of industrial America will find this book a delight."--BOOK JACKET.

Asylum

Asylum PDF Author: Christopher Payne
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0262013495
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Powerful photographs of the grand exteriors and crumbling interiors of America's abandoned state mental hospitals. For more than half the nation's history, vast mental hospitals were a prominent feature of the American landscape. From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth, over 250 institutions for the insane were built throughout the United States; by 1948, they housed more than a half million patients. The blueprint for these hospitals was set by Pennsylvania hospital superintendant Thomas Story Kirkbride: a central administration building flanked symmetrically by pavilions and surrounded by lavish grounds with pastoral vistas. Kirkbride and others believed that well-designed buildings and grounds, a peaceful environment, a regimen of fresh air, and places for work, exercise, and cultural activities would heal mental illness. But in the second half of the twentieth century, after the introduction of psychotropic drugs and policy shifts toward community-based care, patient populations declined dramatically, leaving many of these beautiful, massive buildings—and the patients who lived in them—neglected and abandoned. Architect and photographer Christopher Payne spent six years documenting the decay of state mental hospitals like these, visiting seventy institutions in thirty states. Through his lens we see splendid, palatial exteriors (some designed by such prominent architects as H. H. Richardson and Samuel Sloan) and crumbling interiors—chairs stacked against walls with peeling paint in a grand hallway; brightly colored toothbrushes still hanging on a rack; stacks of suitcases, never packed for the trip home. Accompanying Payne's striking and powerful photographs is an essay by Oliver Sacks (who described his own experience working at a state mental hospital in his book Awakenings). Sacks pays tribute to Payne's photographs and to the lives once lived in these places, “where one could be both mad and safe.”

North Brother Island

North Brother Island PDF Author: Randall Mason
Publisher: Empire State Editions
ISBN: 9780823257713
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
A photographic survey of North Brother Island, an uninhabited island of ruins in New York City that was once home to a variety of institutional uses, including a quarantine hospital and juvenile drug treatment center.

Making Steinway

Making Steinway PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692596593
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Photographer Christopher Payne was granted unique access to the legendary Steinway & Sons factory in Astoria, New York. The result was this ravishing book showing every aspect of the making of the world's finest pianos.

Lavoirs

Lavoirs PDF Author: Mireille Roddier
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN: 9781568983929
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
No building better embodies the ineffable qualities of rural France than the lavoir, the communal washhouse that, until a few decades ago, was the central gathering place for women in many small villages across the French countryside -" as much a part of communal life as the market. These open-air laundry rooms first appeared for the private use of the social elite in the seventeenth century but flourished as public spaces after the Revolution. Later, they became architectural monuments of regional styles and local materials, often hand-cut stone and hewn timbers, revealing centuries of masonry and woodworking tradition. As running water and modern appliances became standard in French homes after World War II, the lavoirs were abandoned, and with them three hundred years of women's gathering and conversation. In spite of the efforts of preservationists, hundreds of them have faced abandonment, vandalism, and decay. Through stunning duotone photographs, thoughtful sketches, and detailed watercolors, Mireille Roddier safeguards these places of haunting beauty. Her text outlines the history, politics, health, water technology, and social background of the buildings and unveils them as an important architectural type worthy of our study, admiration, and protection.

New York Underground

New York Underground PDF Author: Julia Solis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000143619
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Did alligators ever really live in New York's sewers? What's it like to explore the old aqueducts beneath the city? How many levels are beneath Grand Central Station? And how exactly did the pneumatic tube system that New York's post offices used to employ work? In this richly illustrated historical tour of New York's vast underground systems, Julia Solis answers all these questions and much, much more. New York Underground takes readers through ingenious criminal escape routes, abandoned subway stations, and dark crypts beneath lower Manhattan to expose the city's basic anatomy. While the city is justly famous for what lies above ground, its underground passages are equally legendary and tell us just as much about how the city works.

Dead Tech

Dead Tech PDF Author: Rolf Steinberg
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780940512221
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description


The Years of Rice and Salt

The Years of Rice and Salt PDF Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Spectra
ISBN: 0553897608
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 777

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Book Description
With the same unique vision that brought his now classic Mars trilogy to vivid life, bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson boldly imagines an alternate history of the last seven hundred years. In his grandest work yet, the acclaimed storyteller constructs a world vastly different from the one we know. . . . “A thoughtful, magisterial alternate history from one of science fiction’s most important writers.”—The New York Times Book Review It is the fourteenth century and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur—the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe’s population was destroyed. But what if the plague had killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? This is a look at the history that could have been—one that stretches across centuries, sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, and spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation. Through the eyes of soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, slaves and scholars, Robinson navigates a world where Buddhism and Islam are the most influential and practiced religions, while Christianity is merely a historical footnote. Probing the most profound questions as only he can, Robinson shines his extraordinary light on the place of religion, culture, power—and even love—in this bold New World. “Exceptional and engrossing.”—New York Post “Ambitious . . . ingenious.”—Newsday

Hudson Valley Ruins

Hudson Valley Ruins PDF Author: Thomas E. Rinaldi
Publisher: UPNE
ISBN: 9781584655985
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
An elegant homage to the many deserted buildings along the Hudson River--and a plea for their preservation.

Networks of Power

Networks of Power PDF Author: Thomas Parke Hughes
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801846144
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description
Awarded the Dexter Prize by the Society for the History of Technology, this book offers a comparative history of the evolution of modern electric power systems. It described large-scale technological change and demonstrates that technology cannot be understood unless placed in a cultural context.