Posts tagged WNYC
Lost Subways: Abandoned Stations & Unbuilt Lines
WNYC’s Jim O’Grady explores all of NYC’s planned and abandoned subway lines. And check out the interactive map, which overlays the once-planned lines (a Brooklyn-Staten Island connector?!) with the current map.
via @WNYC
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NYC Evacuation Zone Map
Another excellent tool from www.wnyc.org
Assorted browsers display the map in different ways at first launch. Scroll and Zoom until the map centers on NYC.
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The Real Music Man
Thursday, August 25, 2011 - 06:51 AM
Steve Jobs is not a musician, or a record producer, or a composer, at least not as far as anyone knows. But he has profoundly changed the way we hear music, the way music is produced, the way music is marketed. His twin masterstrokes, the iPod and iTunes, didn’t just make music more portable - we’d been heading in that direction since the Walkman 30 years ago. His innovations made music easy to find, to manage, to sort and re-sort, and to hear even in a noisy environment.
When Steve Jobs announced yesterday that he was stepping down as CEO of Apple, it marked the end of an era. You could argue whether the worlds of personal computing or communication would have been fundamentally different without Jobs and his steady parade of irresistible toys - desktops, laptops, tablets, phones. After all, other companies have been competing with Apple in these fields all along. But you simply cannot argue about his impact on the world of music.
Of course, this came at the cost of sound fidelity; you have to compress the sound quite a bit, meaning the lows become mediums and the highs also become mediums, changing the dynamic nature of the music dramatically. This in turn has affected how many modern recordings are made. But despite some inevitable pushback, it seems that most people are willing to give up the sonic purity of a beautifully-mastered recording with a wide dynamic range for a convenient sound file that they can actually hear in the car. And most record producers seem willing to follow suit.
Jobs’ inventions have helped make music an almost ubiquitous part of our lives. It’s a great irony that the cutting edge of Western technology has brought us closer to something that musicologists have long described, often with barely-disguised envy, in traditional cultures like those of sub-Saharan Africa or native Australians: the central role of music in daily life. Ancient cultures will have music for births, deaths, and every milestone in between. There are songs for chores, songs for hunting, songs for calling the livestock. Now, we have playlists for going into labor, for a long car ride, for a quiet date, for a hopefully hotter date, for hitting the treadmill. And don’t forget about marketing - there is hardly a better way to break a new band than to get their music onto an iTunes commercial.
Some say Jobs’ iWorld has cheapened music. Or they worry that the easy access to almost any music will make it less likely that people will MAKE music themselves. Well, there seem to be more bands then ever, and iTunes is a key way for artists and labels to actually make money; it offers an easy, relatively affordable, legal alternative to file-sharing.
For a guy who never recorded a song, or signed a band, or founded a label or a music festival, Steve Jobs has probably had more of an impact on the music world than any other person in the last quarter century - and possibly since Thomas Edison. Apple will no doubt continue, but what has distinguished Apple, and made it such a rarity among organizations of this scale, is that its corporate vision has essentially been a single individual’s vision - and that individual has just left the building.
Check out more from John Schaefer and the WNYC team here: http://www.wnyc.org
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www99GR81.com
Honoring Those Lost on 9/11/01
WNYC and WQXR in New York are crowd-sourcing suggestions for a musical remembrance of the events of 9/11/01 and the passing of a decade since the attacks.
This is an opportunity for each of us to contribute. Details are below.
What music would you like to hear as you think about the events of 10 years ago? What music would you like to share with your fellow New Yorkers?
WNYC and WQXR want to enhance the spirit of this anniversary for all of our listeners. So we are creating a special playlist of music of all genres suggested by listeners to mark the occasion. We want you to be a part of it.
Your suggestions will be played on a special online stream that will launch in early September on WNYC.org and WQXR.org. And the songs will be used to program both stations on the afternoon of September 11, 2011.
If you leave a suggestion, please consider leaving a story to go with it, so we can tell it as part of this project. Even better, you can tell it yourself by calling our dedicated suggestion line.
To participate, please call 1-800-543-2543 or fill out the survey here.
> See the pieces that have already been suggested.
You’ll be able to listen to the Measuring Time project beginning at noon, Sunday September 11, on 93.9 FM. It’s all part of a weekend of special programming from WNYC devoted to the anniversary. We’ll post a complete listing of all our 9/11 Tenth Anniversary specials in early August.
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Progress at the World Trade Center
Stephen Nessen from WNYC.org continues to provide us with incredible photographs from all over New York City. One of the subjects to which he returns continuously is the World Trade Center site where he has been documenting photographically the progress being made.
Above are a few of his most recent shots (he clearly has no fear of heights!) and you can find more here at WNYC.org.
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Obit of the Day: Why Memorize, When You Can Prompt?
Via wnyc
When Hub Schlafly was approached by his boss at 20th Centuy Fox to design a machine that would feed actors their lines while on television he responded, “Piece of cake.” He created the first teleprompter in one half of a suitcase which contained a rolled script that was hand-cranked. It worked so well that Schlafly and his boss, Irving Kahn, quit Fox to start TelePrompTer, Corp.
Their invention was first used in 1950 on the soap opera, The First Hundred Years. It gained momentum, though when, in 1952, former president Herbert Hoover used a prompter at the Republican National Convention. (Actually, it was a news item because Hoover panicked when he went off-script and the prompter stopped and he asked, on mic, for it to start again.)
The teleprompter became ubiquitous on television and in politics. The version above, the Lens Line Prompting System, was the third generation allowing actors to look into the camera directly. Schlafly received an Emmy for his work in 1999.
(Image courtesy of manhattaninfidel.com)Not an issue in radio, but thanks anyway, Hub.
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Soundcheck
Va wnyc:
One of the perks— being able to wander downstairs and watch artists like Femi Kuti - and his 11 piece band! - in the Soundcheck studios.
— Jody, BL Show
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Trump’s Business Troubles and Triumphs
By Anna Sale / Bob Hennelly
Before Donald Trump’s visit to Boca Raton last weekend stoked the enthusiasm of his Tea Party fans, the Sunshine State was already a power center in the Trump universe. Florida’s home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, Trump Grande, and Trump Hollywood, so it’s not surprising that it figures into Trump’s pre-campaign campaigning.
Indeed, his political fortunes may come down to a 12-block section of downtown Tampa.
That’s where a convention center, a federal courthouse and an abandoned lot all sit, within easy walking distance from each other.
The empty lot was to be home to Trump Tower Tampa, a 52-story luxury apartment project that went bust. A trial is scheduled in December at the federal courthouse, in a lawsuit that Tower investors have brought against Trump to recoup some of the money they lost in the failed project. And a few blocks away is the St. Pete Times Forum, where the eventual Republican victor (whoever that may be) will claim the nomination in August 2012.
As Donald J. Trump fuels speculation that he wants to be the one making that nomination speech, it’s worth a look at the business record he’s made a central part of his pitch. He has been wildly successful and made lots of money on his own projects. Other money has been made on “Trump” projects where he did nothing but sell the rights to his name. He’s also had spectacular failures, leading to bankruptcy court and investor lawsuits, and when that happens, the blame flies.
Read the entire article on WNYC.org
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Niche Market - Streit’s Matzos
Streit’s matzo bakery on the Lower East Side, which opened its doors on Rivington Street in 1925, may be the oldest factory of its kind in the country. Nestled among the trendy bars and restaurants that now populate the neighborhood, the family-owned factory pumps out 8 million boxes of the unleavened bread most notably consumed by Jews during the eight days of Passover.
The family-run venture started with Aron Streit, an immigrant from Austria, who opened the shop to cater to the Jewish population. Now, Aron’s great grandson, Alan Adler, runs the business with two of his cousins. Adler keeps a lot of family traditions, even smoking a cigar while working at the factory, like his great-grandfather did.
Of the 8 million boxes of matzo produced in the factory annually, 2.5 million are Kosher for Passover. This special kind of matzo is made with flour and water only, and the dough must be mixed, go through machinery and be baked within 18 minutes under Jewish law.
During the production season, Streit’s has six rabbis supervising the matzo-making process. A timer is set to go off every 15 minutes in the second-floor mixing room so rabbis know to alternate mixers since old dough is allowed in subsequent batches.
After the dough is mixed, it falls down a chute to the first floor and onto a sheet that perforates it before rolling it into the 72-foot long original oven, which cooks the dough at 900 degrees and produces 1,000 pounds of matzo an hour.
Workers break it into squares and send it back upstairs in metal crates on a conveyer belt so it can get packaged.
Today, most of the Jewish community in the neighborhood has dispersed, and the majority of Streit’s business is wholesale to supermarkets. They still have a retail store attached to the bakery where a box of matzo sells for $2.
The Streit family said they will stay put on the Lower East Side despite the inconveniences of having a factory in Manhattan. They believe the original oven and the New York City water are what makes the taste of Streit’s matzo unique.
Read the rest of the story here at WNYC.org.
@99GR81
A Preview of the 2nd Avenue Subway
Photo by Stephen Nessen from WNYC.org
Check out more photos at www.99GR81.com
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Support Public Radio!
Check out the latest from WNYC in New York and follow them at @WNYC
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#video #wnyc
Future of Journalism @WNYC
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Judee, The Gift Collector
Check out the latest in the “Know Your Neighbor” series from WNYC.org and @JennHsu
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