A slight digression, to discuss photographs. Since I started more-or-less-daily blogging a few years ago, I’ve tried to always have at least one image per post. Sometimes they’re old drawings; sometime maps; once in a while it’s an image of an old text. Most of the time, at least one image is a photograph. And, …
I started full-time work as an engineer in the spring of 1987. A lot has changed since then. My desk set-up at that time was a pad of graph paper for calculations, a Texas Instruments calculator (still on my desk), and a bunch of #3 pencils. There was one phone where four people’s desks met …
I used the piece of an old magazine above a while back to illustrate the cross-section of a Phoenix column: a group of arc segments with flanges that allow them to be riveted together into a circular column. I haven’t seen that many Phoenix columns, in part because most of the remaining structures with them …
I’m going to slide in a second helping of Berenice Abbott’s “Changing New York” project this week. The picture above, taken on April 9, 1936, shows the Theoline tied up at pier 11 in the East River. Pier 11 is still around although greatly changed: it’s the hub of the new ferry service that began with the …
