A foggy Saturday morning, 62 years ago, the Empire State Building encountered a US Army B-25 Mitchell twin-engined medium bomber aircraft in less than ideal conditions. In 1945 the Empire State Building was still the world's tallest building, a record it held for 23 years until eclipsed by the World Trade Towers' North Tower.

After the completion of World War II, Lieutenant Colonel William F. Smith was flying a B-52D from Bedford, Massachusetts to eventually return to home base in South Dakota. The weather at the time left much to be desired, dense fog had covered the tristate region. Smith had at first been directed to land at LaGuardia by air traffic control, requesting that he terminate the current leg to Newark, New Jersey. Being a decorated veteran of over 100 combat missions, Smith believed he could navigate the think fog. At 9:40am, soon after a fateful right rudder maneuver just past the Chrysler Building, the B-25D collided with the Empire State Building at 200mph (320kph). Smith and two other occupants in the plane were killed. Eleven of the building's occupants also perished. Hitting the building, between the 79th and 80th floors, had caused extensive damage, however, the building was still open on the following Monday.

The crash extensively damaged the elevators in the building, yet they were still used to transport the injured. Betty Lou Oliver, an elevator operator on the 80th floor, was initially injured but survived the impact. After being placed in an elevator to return to the ground to receive medical attention, the already damaged elevator cables finally gave way. Oliver plunged 75 stories into the sub-basement. Amazingly she survived, setting a world record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded.

Labels: history, new york

Fantastic reds and blues here. The author fittingly titled this Liberty Chess with the wonderful little pawns, the cranes, guarding the queen, or the king. I know the statue is a female, but that doesn't really fit with the chess theme, then!

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This is a "classic." I watched this for the first time a few years ago. I love the stupid humor in this thing. My favorite is "Silly Hats Only."
this post includes an embedded video available here

Labels: video

I love touchless bathrooms. It isn't that I'm afraid of germs or anything, I just -know- that a lot of people (hopefully mainly kids) never wash their hands. Thats no problem during the bathroom visit up until the sink. Unless the sink is an auto-off sink, you have to touch the faucet, then the paper towel dispenser, then the door. Touchless bathrooms solved this problem by utilizing sensors to turn the water on, dispense a towel, and even flush the toilet when you've finished. However, not all touchless bathrooms truly are touchless. Some touchless bathrooms don't have touchless paper towel dispensers, and nearly all of them have the biggest problem of all... manually operated doors. Ideally a bathroom shouldn't have an in/out door, and they should use a snaked hallway to enter, thus eliminating the need for a privacy door.

The bathrooms at the United Nation's visitors area are touchless, yet feature an in/out door. I'll have to let them slide since the restroom was certainly built before the touchless technology. A simple solution for this problem is to use your foot to operate the door. Now if only the door wasn't extra heavy, using your foot wouldn't be such a chore.

Just saw this on Anderson Cooper 360. How did they organize this?!
this post includes an embedded video availible here

Labels: video

Bryn Tassell makes me seriously jealous! Not only are his photos generally a higher quality than mine, but he gets to see places like this! Unfortunately I live on a large sandbar bordered by two major cities.

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Labels: flickr