I follow the Ig Nobel awards every year, but have resigned myself to the fact that, like the Nobel awards, they focus on science rather than engineering. This year has a happy exception: an award was given in mechanical engineering to a team that found a way to use dead spiders as gripping claws. Spider Photo by Julian Schultz on Unsplash
Union Station in Utica currently serves Amtrak and the Adirondack Scenic Railroad; it was built by the New York Central Railroad and also was used by the Lackawanna and the New York, Ontario and Western. The picture above shows a picturesque restored engine and tender sitting on a siding next to the station tracks. There’s …
Yesterday’s Curbed article on the sale of a luxury apartment in the old Police Headquarters on Centre Street had, by accident, a nice illustration of the difference between the way architects think and the way engineers think. The apartment in question is at the top of the north end of the building, and features a shallow …
The last article in the Scientific American “New York” issue is somewhat different than the others. The others may have included some speculation that did not come true, but were all based on infrastructure that was in construction or in existence at the time of publication. “Freight Distribution by Subway” was about a proposal to build a …
The construction of Penn Station itself was less daring than the construction of Grand Central Terminal, for the simple reason that Penn Station was not in use until the work was effectively complete. The complex system of construction in sections used at Grand Central (and described yesterday) was a logistical work-around to keep the existing …
