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Night View of Lower Manhattan from the Metropolitan Tower 1920
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“This city is not about other people or buildings or streets but about your mental structure. If we remember what Kafka writes about his Castle, we get a sense of it. Cities really are mental conditions.”
— Ai Weiwei [noosphere]
This photograph, taken October 13, 1932 from the rapidly rising, $250,000,000 Rockefeller Center, shows the Empire State Building dominating the scene. In the left center glows the single light atop the Metropolitan Tower and in the foreground stands the building at 500 Fifth Avenue.
Photo: Associated Press
USS SUMNER - War Diary, 6/1-30/45, NARA ID 77464207.
DID YOU RETARD YOUR CLOCKS?
Not a typo, not un-PC, but Navy’s usage of “retard”
Daylight Savings Time has been discussed, used, amended and abandoned starting around WWI. Of course we have related records including Congressional debates, political cartoons, and the surprising (to us) use of the term “retarded” by the US Navy in re: time changes!
Circular No. 50-24: Daylight Saving Time, 9/8/1924. NARA ID 6882506.
WWI Poster: Saving Daylight! NARA ID 512689.
Opposition to Daylight Savings, Clifford Berryman cartoon, 5/25/1922, NARA ID 6011733.
Marcus M. Marks, Chair of the Nat'l. Daylight Saving Movement, signals to set hands of the great clock in the Metropolitan Tower, NYC, 3/31/1918.
Untitled cartoon by Clifford Berryman, 5/25/1922, NARA ID 6011373
Imperial Germany became the first country to institute Daylight Saving Time on April 6, 1916, when the Federal Council (Bundesrat) ordered an additional hour of daylight be added from May through September. The U.S. embassy in Berlin reported this initiative. Read more in diplomatic records archivist David Langbart's Text Message post Daylight Saving Time Begins, 1916. See also his 3-part series on the origins and early implementation of Daylight Savings Time:
DST – The Early Experiences I: Germany
DST – The Early Experiences II: France
DST – The Early Experiences III: Great Britain
Don't use the time change as an excuse for slacking off at work!
WWII poster, NARA ID 515611.
Architecture in Chicago (No. 2)
The buildings and architecture of Chicago have influenced and reflected the history of American architecture. The built environment of Chicago is reflective of the city's history and multicultural heritage, featuring prominent buildings in a variety of styles by many important architects. Since most structures within the downtown area were destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 (the most famous exception being the Water Tower) Chicago buildings are noted for their originality rather than their antiquity.
Chicago is world-famous for its plethora of unique architectural styles, from Chicago Bungalows and Two-Flats to the grand Graystones along Logan Boulevard and Lawndale Avenue, from the skyscrapers of the Loop as well as a wealth of sacred architecture such as the city's ornate "Polish Cathedrals".
Source: Wikipedia
Daylight Savings Time Begins Today in the U.S.!
“Ceremonies as clock is pushed ahead one hour. Marcus M. Marks, Chairman of National Daylight Saving Movement, pushing the hands around from two to three on the master clock that controls the big dials on the Metropolitan Tower, New York City, as the Daylight Saving Law went into effect” 3/31/1918
File Unit: Ceremonies and Parades, 1917 - 1918. Series: American Unofficial Collection of World War I Photographs, 1917 - 1918. Record Group 165: Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, 1860 - 1952.
Architecture in Chicago (No. 5)
Numerous architects have constructed landmark buildings of varying styles in Chicago. Among them are the so-called "Chicago seven": James Ingo Freed, Tom Beeby, Larry Booth, Stuart Cohen, James Nagle, Stanley Tigerman, and Ben Weese. Daniel Burnham led the design of the "White City" of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition which some historians claim led to a revival of Neo-Classical architecture throughout Chicago and the entire United States. It is true that the "White City" represented anything other than its host city's architecture. While Burnham did develop the 1909 "Plan for Chicago", perhaps the first comprehensive city plan in the U.S, in a Neo-Classical style, many of Chicago's most progressive skyscrapers occurred after the Exposition closed, between 1894 and 1899. Louis Sullivan said that the fair set the course of American architecture back by two decades, but even his finest Chicago work, the Schlesinger and Meyer (later Carson, Pirie, Scott) store, was built in 1899 five years after the "White City" and ten years before Burnham's Plan.
Sullivan's comments should be viewed in the context of his complicated relationship with Burnham. Erik Larson's history of the Columbian Exposition, The Devil in the White City, correctly points out that the building techniques developed during the construction of the many buildings of the fair were entirely modern, even if they were adorned in a way Sullivan found aesthetically distasteful.
Chicago is well known for its wealth of public art, including works by such artistic heavyweights as Chagall, Picasso, Miró and Abakanowicz that are all to be found outdoors.
City sculptures additionally honor the many people and topics reflecting the rich history of Chicago. There are monuments to:
Tadeusz Kościuszko by Kazimierz Chodzinski
Nicholas Copernicus by Bertel Thorvaldsen
Karel Havlíček Borovský by Joseph Strachovsky
Pope John Paul II, several different monuments (including by Czesław Dźwigaj)
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk by Albin Polasek
Irv Kupcinet by Preston Jackson
Abraham Lincoln by Augustus Saint Gaudens
The Heald Square Monument featuring George Washington, Haym Salomon, and Robert Morris by Lorado Taft, (completed by Leonard Crunelle)
Christopher Columbus by Carl Brioschi
General John A. Logan by Augustus Saint Gaudens
Harry Caray by Omri Amrany and Lou Cella
Jack Brickhouse by Jerry McKenna
A memorial to the Haymarket affair by Mary Brogger
A memorial to the Great Northern Migration by Alison Saar
There are also plans to erect a 1:1-scale replica of Wacław Szymanowski's statue of Frédéric Chopin along Chicago's lakefront. in addition to a different sculpture commemorating the artist in Chopin Park.
In the 21st century, Chicago has become a leading urban focus for landscape architecture, and the architecture of public places. Building on 19th-20th century legacies of architects such as, Burnham, Frederick Olmsted, Jens Jensen and Alfred Caldwell, modern projects include Millennium Park, Northerly Island, the 606, the Chicago Riverwalk, Maggie Daley Park, and proposals in Jackson Park.
Source: Wikipedia
Nathalie Régnier-Kagan (ed.), The Metropolitan Tower, A Pedagogical Research Initiated by Michel Kagan, Zürich, Park Books, 2025. »
View from the Metropolitan Tower, 1920
