We’re overdue for some Bing on this page. Crosby not only sings, he provides percussion for Rhythm on the River, from the 1940 film of the same name.
The Esherick House
A few years after completing the Trenton Bath House, Louis Kahn designed the one-bedroom Esherick house for a bookstore owner who want plenty of reading nooks. The current owners conducted a 17 month restoration of the house.
Modernism and Louis Kahn’s Trenton Bath House
What does concrete block want? Probably a sympathetic and historically accurate restoration.
Louis Kahn is considered one of the most important architects of the twentieth century, but his early career was unremarkable. When Kahn was about fifty, he traveled through Italy, Greece, and Egypt. The ancient architecture he studied there transformed him, and when he returned to the United States, one of the first buildings he designed was the Trenton Bath House, one component of the Trenton Jewish Community Center. This unassuming structure, completed in 1957, is a landmark in Modernism and marks a turning point in Kahn’s design vision, and in twentieth century architecture.
Internship at Ashfall
One internship available Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Site in Nebraska.
A single internship will be offered for late summer/early autumn for field studies in vertebrate paleontology. With preference to geology or biology students, the position is open to college students with a genuine interest in, and knowledge of vertebrate paleontology, especially those aspiring to further their experience outside of the classroom. Duties include excavation, sorting of micro-vertebrate fossils, prep lab tasks, interpretive duties and other park support tasks.
* 30-34 hour workweek. $11.50 per hour.
* E-mail: rick.otto@UNL.EDU for details and application form.
* Find out more about the Ashfall site at www.ashfall.unl.edu
* Deadline: Applications will be accepted until the position has been filled.
How did Lamoka Lake get its name?
Lamoka is a word that you don’t see used much other than for the lake itself, and the prehistoric archaeological culture found along its shores. Does anyone know where its name came from?
On early maps, including the 1829 Atlas of New York and the 1869 New Map of the State of New York, Lamoka is named Mud Lake, and Waneta Lake to the north is called Little Lake. By 1874, in an atlas of Schuyler County, Lamoka Lake appears on the map, although Little Lake is still used for Waneta. In the 1879 book History of Tioga, Chemung, Tompkins and Schuyler Counties, New York, “Lamoka” is used repeatedly, and Little Lake has become “Wanetta.”
I’m not surprised they changed the name – there are at least 30 other Mud lakes in New York, and Lamoka has a nice sound to it—but I’d like to know where they got the name from.
If anybody knows, or has any clues, please leave a comment!
Archaeology at Petra 1929
The site of Petra in Jordan had been a tourist destination for almost a century when two British archaeologists, George Horsfield and Agnes Conway, arrived in what was then called the British Mandate Transjordan. Petra 1929 transcribes the field journal of their excavations in and around the Nabataean city.
Bald Eagles Flirting with Disaster and a Megabus
You think having more bald eagles is a good thing, until two of them take their courtship ritual onto the New Jersey Turnpike.
Video by jboi4 on reddit, from South Jersey (Salem County?).
Canal Bridgetender’s Houses
These three small houses are located along the Delaware and Raritan Canal in Trenton, where movable bridges formerly crossed the canal. Houses were provided so the bridgetenders were always available to swing the bridge out of the way as a canal barge passed through.
The Hanover Street house was renovated when Thomas Edison State College built the large building that partially surrounds it. The Calhoun Street house appears to be stabilized, while the Prospect Street house looks occupied.
Hanover Street Bridgetender’s House. Source: TCM
Calhoun Street Bridgetender’s House. Source: TCM
Calhoun Street Bridgetender’s House. Source: TCM
James Bond’s Passenger Pigeon Egg
This passenger pigeon egg is from the collection of James Bond, the real ornithologist and inspiration for the fictional spy. Bond worked at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and specialized in Caribbean birds. According to the label, the egg was collected in 1849 (not by Bond, who was born in 1900). It was later obtained by Jacques Perrin de Brichambaut and is now in the collection of the Muséum de Toulouse (Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de la ville de Toulouse) in France.
Lost Silent Films
Fritzi Kramer on Why We Should Keeping Searching for Lost Silent Films. More on Mr. and Mrs. Drew, Diplomatic Henry, and the plaid pants at Movies Silently.
