#siscovanilla

While walking my routes for the USPS, I'm keeping my eye open for any historical buildings. The building in the foreground (300/333 East 33rd Street) and the background (333/343 East 30th Street) which are part of the Kips Bay Plaza complex were designed by famed architect I.M. Pei.

According to the website Kips Bay Towers at 300 East 33rd Street: Review and Ratings on cityrealty.com:

"Pei, then an architect with the Webb & Knapp development company headed by William Zeckendorf, collaborated with the architectural firm S. J. Kessler & Sons on the development.

The south tower was completed in 1960 and the north tower in 1966.

Their strict geometry is typical of much of his work: good, solid, clean-cut modernity with no frills. His firm's greatest fame lies in its later work such as the great East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the new glass pyramid entrance to the Louvre Museum in Paris and the Bank of China tower in Hong Kong.

These two long buildings are parallel to, but offset from, one another and are placed horizontally, east-to-west, on the large, landscaped site. An earlier plan for the site, developed by the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill had called for six buildings, but Pei wanted fewer to create more open space."

I didn't realize the history behind the complex until a tenant who has been living there since the building opened gave me a heads up.

#IMPei #ArchitecturalHistory #NewYorkHistory #NYHistory #NYCHistory #BuildingsOfNYC #History #Historia #Histoire #Geschichte #HistorySisco #HistorySiscoDeliversTheMail #SiscoVanilla #SiscoVanillaDeliversTheMail

Today's Urban Exploration post focuses on The Hell's Gate Bridge (originally named the New York Connecting Railroad Bridge or the East River Arch Bridge,) which is an icon of the Astoria landscape.

Connecting Astoria Queens and Randall's and Wards Islands, the bridge crosses over the Hell Gate waterway which is a small but very treacherous stretch of water. Named by the Dutch as Hellegat (hell channel), many a ship throughout the centuries has met their demise there. Rumor has it that Hell Gate is the home to sunken treasure that came from the 1780 shipwreck of the British ship H.M.S. Hussar.

The bridge was designed by famed civil engineer Gustav Lindenthal and built by the American Bridge company for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Construction started in 1912, Hell's Gate Bridge was completed in 1916. It would be dedicated and opened on March 9, 1917.

The main arch is 305 feet above the river’s average high-level water mark. The bridge deck is 135 feet above the average high-level water mark, and the deck is 93 feet wide. Measuring at 1,017 feet in length, the Hell's Gate Bridge was the longest steel arch bridge in the world. It held that title until 1933 with the completion of the Bayonne Bridge that connects Bayonne, New Jersey and Staten Island, New York. One cool feature of the bridge's arches is that you can walk under them while walking the footpath on Randall's and Wards Islands.

In total three bridges make up the Hell Gate Bridge. The other two span over Randall's and Wards Island and the Bronx Kill (Dutch for Little Stream.) The bridge connects New York and New England rail traffic for Amtrak and the CSX freight line.

Happy Rainy Sunday August 22

#SylviaPlath #ICantStandTheRain #BlameItOnTheRain #TheRainDontMind #Hardwork #HardWorkPaysOff #RollingUpYourSleeves #GettingYourHandsDirty #LeadByExample #Motivation #Success #Failure #Resilience #SiscoVanilla #SiscoVanillaIsStepping #SiscoVanillaHitsTheBricks

I've gone through a number of the money/finance emails that I get and have noticed that budgeting is a recurring theme. So I wanted to highlight a couple of ways that I am able to put money away.

First I pay myself 20% of my tips after every bar shift. I sock it away until I reach $1000 and then use it to pay off debt in one chunk or put it away. I stared this in 2018 and have been able to save and pay off a considerable amount of debt. This is something that I wish I had come up with sooner.

Secondly having an additional income stream makes this possible. I set aside a certain amount from my BN check for the house budget. Anything extra gets put aside. Once I reach a certain amount, I take that and apply it towards payimg off debt.

With today being the 31st Anniversary of the release of Nelson Mandela from a South African prison, I wanted to post two of my favorite Mandela quotes. Mandela was jailed in 1964 to a life sentence of hard labor for his stance against Apartheid as part of the African National Congress (ANC). He would serve a total of 26 years in jail before his release by South African President F.W. de Klerk.  His continued work with the newly reinstated ANC and de Klerk led to the end of Apartheid and his earning the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize (with de Klerk) and being elected to the Presidency of South Africa in 1994 in the first free elections in the history of South Africa.