bicycles | RR gems

In Sundry Department- 

Here’s a very short post.  About bicycling, footware, large-scale transportation; and other.

For an update on bicyling, see The Quest to Reinvent Bicycling.

And, just when you were wondering if something has been forgotten about reinventing bicycling, check out the updated cycling footware for women who sometimes bike to parties…or work.

50 years ago late last month demolition started on architect McKim, Mead and White’s masterful Pennsylvania Station in New York City. This act of architectural vandalism spurred Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Sen. Patrick Moynihan, Mayor Robert Wagner, architect Philip Johnson and the Municipal Art Society to lead a lengthy but successful campaign to save the other architectural gem of mass transit in Manhattan, Grand Central Terminal. Victory was assured by the Supreme Court in 1975 when it upheld the New York Landmarks Preservation law. (I was working for the Landmarks Preservation Commission that summer while in grad school.) You can visit or travel through Grand Central anytime (thankfully). But visiting the original Penn Station can only be through archived materials and photos. To see a small collection of great photos of one of the most awe-inspiring buildings I’m old enough to have seen once, click here. Some days after demolition, the photographer of the building images observed: “People suddenly realized that New York could tear down things it should never have torn down.”

Grand Central Terminal, according to Travel + Leisure magazine, is the 6th most visited tourist attraction (21.6 million folks/year) in the world.

If you’ve ever eaten some clams or soup or a full meal at the Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant (in continuous operation since 1913), while people-watching or admiring its Guastavino tile vaulting, you’ve got one quite good reason for appreciating the New York Landmarks law that’s been instrumental in saving the place.

(other) In Sundry Department– Energy Auditing

There’s a new app for mobile phones called OneStopGreen. It guides you through a Harry-Homeowner-type energy audit of your home. Search for it in your mobile apps.