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Journal News

I will be eliminating , my Russian journal. I will repost some of the stuff from there in .
In addition to badly floundering community, I just created . I’ll put my subway rants there. While there will be few subscribers, I will be crossposting in my own journal.

Unfortunately, there is no “plugging” mechanism in livejournal. I would love to get more readers, but there is no easy way to promote my journal and communities. I think I’ve seen a post about a feature like that in someone’s blog, but I can’t find the link. I need a good url manager. In any way, plugs are appreciated here, at Deadprogrammer Inc.

Also, here’s a beef I have with you, readers. Every time I ask for some interesting blog recommendations you are silent. What’s up with that? Don’t you know any good journals?

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IRT – Going Your Way

What was the logo of IRT (Interborough Rapid Transportation Corporation)?
I am not sure, but it looks like the designer that was in charge of the corporate image of the first NYC subway company really liked wings.

A genderless angel holding a winged subway wheel from an $100 IRT stock certificate I recently purchased for 25 bucks.

A logo I scanned from a reprint of “Interborough Rapid Transit ; the New York Subway , It’s Construction and Equipment” which I mentioned before. Wheee. Notice the third power carrying rail. Cute.

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Worldwide Plaza


I see this building daily. I’ve even been inside a few times attending some sort of Microsoft training (they have a few floors there). After I took this picture I decided to find out a few things about the triangular beacon on the top.

Turns out that it’s called “David’s Diamond” (after David Childs of SOM). Digging deeper, I found out that the diamond was put together on the ground, then disassembled and assembled again on the top. And if I understand this correctly, the diamond was made by “Mohawks who live on a reservation near Montreal”. That’s so freaking cool.

More than that, the smaller tower of the Worldwide Plaza complex contains condominiums. $0.55M to $0.75M for a 2-bedroom. Hey, compared to what you can have for that much in Brighton Beach it’s a good deal methinks. A two bedroom in Oceana goes for $535,000 these days. Huh.

Maybe there will be a time in the future, in a galaxy far, far away when middle class people (an not just the upper and proletariat) will be able to afford to live in a highrise in Manhattan. But so far it looks like that’s not happening any time soon.

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Normal People Don’t Think About This Stuff

If you pay attention to NYC infrastructure like I do, you might have noticed little lights that sit on street lamp poles on certain intersections.

For a long time I tried to guess their purpose. I thought that they had somemething to do with street lamps. Maybe indicating when light bulbs need changing. But they do not appear on all street lamps. And sometimes they would be attached to a telephone or a power pole. Sometimes they would be lit up, and sometimes not. They do not appear on all intersections. A mystery, right?

I’ve searched the net finding nothing. Finally I found a reasonable explanation in Time Out New York magazine. The little lights simply appear on the intersections where a fire alarm telegraph box used to be located.

I knew about fire alarm telegraph boxes from an awesome book Underneath New York. You see, those fire and police alarm pull boxes that were retired a few years back in fact were automatic telegraph boxes. They all shared the same circuit which would be normally closed. When somebody pulled the handle, a clockwork mechanism would rotate a little wheel with a pattern of bumps. The bumps would break the circuit and transmit an id of the pull box in Morse code to a nearby fire station. I guess they did not handle collisions — if two boxes were activated at the same type there would be trouble.

I wonder how much electricity is wasted on those things.

Some links:
Interesting, ADT stands for American District Telegraph. I didn’t know.
Some pretty cool pictures of fire telegraph control rooms.
A site about Fire Alarm Telegraph Systems

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The Rocketship Building

I really like seeing this building in the morning. The rising steam makes it look like a rocket. I still don’t know what generates the steam. Probably a cooling plant or something. It’s not the GE building like I mentioned earlier though. It’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza.