title: Muskrat

text: An adult muskrat is about long, half of that length being the tail, and weighs . That is about four times the weight of the brown rat ("Rattus norvegicus"), though an adult muskrat is only slightly longer. It is almost certainly the largest and heaviest member of the diverse family Cricetidae, which includes all voles, lemmings, and most mice native to the Americas, and hamsters in Eurasia. The muskrat is much smaller than a beaver ("Castor canadensis"), with which they often share habitat.


title: Muskrat

text: Muskrats are covered with short, thick fur, which is medium to dark brown or black in color, with the belly a bit lighter (countershaded); as the animal ages, it turns partly gray. The fur has two layers, which provides protection from cold water. They have long tails covered with scales rather than hair. To aid in swimming, their tails are slightly flattened vertically, a shape that is unique to them. When they walk on land, their tails drag on the ground, which makes their tracks easy to recognize.


title: Muskrat

text: Muskrats spend most of their time in water and are well suited to their semiaquatic life. They can swim underwater for 12 to 17 minutes. Their bodies, like those of seals and whales, are less sensitive to the buildup of carbon dioxide than those of most other mammals. They can close off their ears to keep water out. Their hind feet are webbed and are their main means of propulsion. Their tail functions as a rudder, controlling the direction they swim in.


title: Muskrat

text: Muskrats are found over most of Canada and the United States and a small part of northern Mexico. They were introduced to Europe in the beginning of the 20th century and have become an invasive species in northwestern Europe. They mostly inhabit wetlands, areas in or near saline and freshwater wetlands, rivers, lakes, or ponds. They are not found in Florida, where the round-tailed muskrat, or Florida water rat ("Neofiber alleni"), fills their ecological niche.


title: Muskrat

text: Their populations naturally cycle; in areas where they become abundant, they are capable of removing much of the vegetation in wetlands. They are thought to play a major role in determining the vegetation of prairie wetlands in particular. They also selectively remove preferred plant species, thereby changing the abundance of plant species in many kinds of wetlands. Species commonly eaten include cattail and yellow water lily. Alligators are thought to be an important natural predator, and the absence of muskrats from Florida may in part be the result of alligator predation.


title: Muskrat

text: While much wetland habitat has been eliminated due to human activity, new muskrat habitat has been created by the construction of canals or irrigation channels (e.g., acequias), and the muskrat remains common and widespread. They are able to live alongside streams which contain the sulfurous water that drains away from coal mines. Fish and frogs perish in such streams, yet muskrats may thrive and occupy the wetlands. Muskrats also benefit from human persecution of some of their predators.


title: Muskrat

text: The muskrat is classed as a "prohibited new organism" under New Zealand's Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996, preventing it from being imported into the country.


title: Muskrat

text: In Europe, the muskrat has been included in the list of invasive alien species of Union concern (the Union list) since August 2, 2017. This implies that this species cannot be imported, bred, transported, commercialized, or intentionally released into the environment in the whole of the European Union.


title: Muskrat

text: Muskrats normally live in families consisting of a male and female and their young. During the spring, they often fight with other muskrats over territory and potential mates. Many are injured or killed in these fights. Muskrat families build nests to protect themselves and their young from cold and predators. In streams, ponds, or lakes, muskrats burrow into the bank with an underwater entrance. These entrances are wide. In marshes, push-ups are constructed from vegetation and mud. These push-ups are up to in height. In snowy areas, they keep the openings to their push-ups closed by plugging them with vegetation, which they replace every day. Some muskrat push-ups are swept away in spring floods and have to be replaced each year. Muskrats also build feeding platforms in wetlands. They help maintain open areas in marshes, which helps to provide habitat for aquatic birds.


title: Muskrat

text: Muskrats are most active at night or near dawn and dusk. They feed on cattail and other aquatic vegetation. They do not store food for the winter, but sometimes eat the insides of their push-ups. While they may appear to steal food beavers have stored, more seemingly cooperative partnerships with beavers exist, as featured in the BBC David Attenborough wildlife documentary "The Life of Mammals". Plant materials compose about 95% of their diets, but they also eat small animals, such as freshwater mussels, frogs, crayfish, fish, and small turtles. Muskrats follow trails they make in swamps and ponds. When the water freezes, they continue to follow their trails under the ice.


title: Muskrat

text: Muskrats provide an important food resource for many other animals, including mink, foxes, cougars, coyotes, wolves, lynx, bobcats, raccoons, bears, wolverines, eagles, snakes, alligators, bull sharks, large owls, and hawks. Otters, snapping turtles, herons, bullfrogs, large fish such as pike and largemouth bass, and predatory land reptiles such as monitor lizards prey on baby muskrats. Caribou, moose, and elk sometimes feed on the vegetation which makes up muskrat push-ups during the winter when other food is scarce for them. In their introduced range in the former Soviet Union, the muskrat's greatest predator is the golden jackal. They can be completely eradicated in shallow water bodies, and during the winter of 1948–49 in the Amu Darya (river in central Asia), muskrats constituted 12.3% of jackal faeces contents, and 71% of muskrat houses were destroyed by jackals, 16% of which froze and became unsuitable for muskrat occupation. Jackals also harm the muskrat industry by eating muskrats caught in traps or taking skins left out to dry.


title: Muskrat

text: Muskrats, like most rodents, are prolific breeders. Females can have two or three litters a year of six to eight young each. The babies are born small and hairless and weigh only about . In southern environments, young muskrats mature in six months, while in colder northern environments, it takes about a year. Muskrat populations appear to go through a regular pattern of rise and dramatic decline spread over a six- to 10-year period. Some other rodents, including famously the muskrat's close relatives the lemmings, go through the same type of population changes.


title: Muskrat

text: Native Americans have long considered the muskrat to be a very important animal. Some predict winter snowfall levels by observing the size and timing of muskrat lodge construction.


title: Muskrat

text: In several Native American creation myths, the muskrat dives to the bottom of the primordial sea to bring up the mud from which the earth is created, after other animals have failed in the task.


title: Muskrat

text: Muskrats have sometimes been a food resource for North Americans. In the southeastern portion of Michigan, a longstanding dispensation allows Catholics to consume muskrat as their Friday penance, on Ash Wednesday, and on Lenten Fridays (when the eating of flesh, except for fish, is prohibited); this tradition dates back to at least the early 19th century. In 2019, it was reported that a series of muskrat dinners were held during Lent in the areas along the Detroit River, with up to 900 muskrats being consumed at a single dinner. The preparation involved the removal of the musk glands and the gutting and cleaning of the carcass, before the meat was parboiled for four hours with onion and garlic and finally fried.


title: Muskrat

text: Muskrat fur is warm, becoming prime at the beginning of December in northern North America. In the early 20th century, the trapping of the animal for its fur became an important industry there. During that era, the fur was specially trimmed and dyed to be sold widely in the US as "Hudson seal" fur. Muskrats were introduced at that time to Europe as a fur resource, and spread throughout northern Europe and Asia.


title: Muskrat

text: In some European countries, such as Belgium, France, and the Netherlands, the muskrat is considered an invasive pest, as its burrowing damages the dikes and levees on which these low-lying countries depend for protection from flooding. In those countries, it is trapped, poisoned, and hunted to attempt to keep the population down. Muskrats also eat corn and other farm and garden crops growing near water bodies.


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: The Alan Parsons Project was a British rock band active between 1975 and 1990, whose core membership consisted of producer, audio engineer, musician and composer Alan Parsons and singer, songwriter and pianist Eric Woolfson. They were accompanied by varying session musicians and some relatively consistent session players such as guitarist Ian Bairnson, arranger Andrew Powell, bassist and vocalist David Paton, drummer Stuart Elliott, and vocalists Lenny Zakatek and Chris Rainbow. Parsons and Woolfson shared writing credits on almost all of the Project's songs, with Parsons producing or co-producing all of the band's recordings.


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: The Alan Parsons Project released eleven studio albums in its 15-year career, the most successful being "I Robot" (1977) and "Eye in the Sky" (1982). Many of their albums are conceptual in nature and focus on science fiction, supernatural, literary and sociological themes. Among the group's most popular songs are "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You", "Games People Play", "Time", "Sirius"/"Eye in the Sky" and "Don't Answer Me".


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: Alan Parsons met Eric Woolfson in the canteen of Abbey Road Studios in the summer of 1974. Parsons acted as Assistant Engineer on the Beatles' albums "Abbey Road" (1969) and "Let It Be" (1970), engineered Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon" (1973), and produced several acts for EMI Records. Woolfson, a songwriter and composer, was working as a session pianist while composing material for a concept album based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe.


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: Woolfson's idea was to manage Alan and help his already successful production career. This was the start of their longstanding friendly business relationship. He managed Parsons' career as a producer and engineer through a string of successes, including Pilot, Steve Harley, Cockney Rebel, John Miles, Al Stewart, Ambrosia, and the Hollies. Woolfson came up with the idea of making an album based on developments in the film industry—the focal point of the films' promotion shifted from film stars to directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick. If the film industry was becoming a director's medium, Woolfson felt the music business might well become a producer's medium.


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: Recalling his earlier Edgar Allan Poe material, Woolfson saw a way to combine his and Parsons's talents. Parsons produced and engineered songs written and composed by the two, and the first Alan Parsons Project was begun. The Project's first album, "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" (1976), released by 20th Century Fox Records and including major contributions by all members of Pilot and Ambrosia, was a success, reaching the Top 40 in the US "Billboard" 200 chart. The song "The Raven" featured lead vocals by the actor Leonard Whiting. According to the 2007 re-mastered album liner notes, this was the first rock song to use a digital vocoder, with Alan Parsons speaking lyrics through it, although others such as Bruce Haack pioneered this field in the previous decade.


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: Arista Records then signed the Alan Parsons Project for further albums. Through the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Project's popularity continued to grow. However, the Project was always more popular in North America, Ibero-America, and Continental Europe than in Parsons' home country, never achieving a UK Top 40 single or Top 20 album. The singles "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You", "Games People Play", "Damned If I Do", "Time" (the first single to feature Woolfson's lead vocal) and "Eye in the Sky" had a notable impact on the "Billboard" Hot 100. "Don't Answer Me" became the Project's last successful single in the United States; it reached the top 15 on the American charts in 1984. <br>


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: After those successes, however, the Project began to fade from view. There were fewer hit singles, and declining album sales. 1987's "Gaudi" would be the Project's final release, though it had planned to record an album called "Freudiana" (1990) next.


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: Even though the studio version of "Freudiana" was produced by Parsons (and featured the regular Project session musicians, making it an 'unofficial' Project album), it was primarily Woolfson's idea to turn it into a musical. While Parsons pursued his own solo career and took many session players of the Project on the road for the first time in a successful worldwide tour, Woolfson went on to produce musical plays influenced by the Project's music. "Freudiana", "Gaudi", and "Gambler" were three musicals that included some Project songs like "Eye in the Sky", "Time", "Inside Looking Out", and "Limelight". The live music from "Gambler" was only distributed at the performance site in Mönchengladbach, Germany.


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: In 1979, Parsons, Woolfson, and their record label Arista, had been stalled in contract renegotiations when the two submitted an all-instrumental album tentatively titled "The Sicilian Defence", named after an aggressive opening move in chess, arguably to get out of their recording contract. Arista's refusal to release the album had two known effects: the negotiations led to a renewed contract, and the album was not released at that time.


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: In interviews he gave before his death in 2009, Woolfson said he planned to release one track from the "Sicilian" album, which in 2008 appeared as a bonus track on a CD re-issue of the "Eve" album. Sometime later, after he had relocated the original tapes, Parsons reluctantly agreed to release the album and announced that it would finally be released on an upcoming Project box set called "The Complete Albums Collection" in 2014 for the first time as a bonus disc.


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: Parsons released titles under his name; these were "Try Anything Once" (1993), "On Air" (1996), "The Time Machine" (1999), "A Valid Path" (2004) and "The Secret" (2019). Meanwhile, Woolfson made concept albums titled "Freudiana" (1990), about Sigmund Freud's work on psychology, and "" (2003); this continued from the Alan Parsons Project's first album about Edgar Allan Poe's literature.


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" (1976) was re-mixed in 1987 for release on CD, and included narration by Orson Welles recorded in 1975, but delivered too late to be included on the original album. For the 2007 deluxe edition release, parts of this tape were used for the 1976 Griffith Park Planetarium launch of the original album, the 1987 remix, and various radio spots. All were included as bonus material.


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: The band's sound is described as progressive rock, art rock, progressive pop, and soft rock. "Sirius" is their best-known and most-frequently heard of all Parsons/Woolfson songs. It was used as entrance music by various American sports teams, notably by the Chicago Bulls during their 1990s NBA dynasty. It was also used as the entrance theme for Ricky Steamboat in pro wrestling of the mid-1980s. In addition, "Sirius" is played in a variety of TV shows and movies including the BBC series Record Breakers, the episode "Vanishing Act" of "" and the 2009 film "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs".


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: Vocal duties were shared by guests to complement each song. In later years, Woolfson sang lead on many of the group's hits, including "Time", "Eye in the Sky", and "Don't Answer Me". The record company pressured Parsons to use Woolfson more, but Parsons preferred to use polished proficient singers; Woolfson admitted he was not in that category. In addition to Woolfson, vocalists Chris Rainbow, Lenny Zakatek, John Miles, David Paton, and Colin Blunstone are regulars. Other singers, such as Arthur Brown, Steve Harley, Gary Brooker, Dave Terry a.k.a. Elmer Gantry, Vitamin Z's Geoff Barradale, and Marmalade's Dean Ford, recorded only once or twice with the Project. Parsons sang lead on one song ("The Raven") through a vocoder and backing on a few others, including "To One in Paradise". Both of those songs appeared on "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" (1976). Parsons also sings a prominent counter melody on “Time”.


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: A variety of session musicians worked with the Alan Parsons Project regularly, contributing to the recognizable style of a song despite the varied singer line-up. With Parsons and Woolfson, the studio band consisted of the group Pilot, with Ian Bairnson (guitar), David Paton (bass) and Stuart Tosh (drums). Pilot's keyboardist Billy Lyall contributed. From "Pyramid" (1978) onward, Tosh was replaced by Stuart Elliott of Cockney Rebel. Bairnson played on all albums, and Paton stayed almost until the end. Andrew Powell appeared as arranger of orchestra (and often choirs) on all albums except "Vulture Culture" (1985); he was composing the score of Richard Donner's film "Ladyhawke" (1985). This score was partly in the APP style, recorded by most of the APP regulars, and produced and engineered by Parsons. Powell composed some material for the first two Project albums. For "Vulture Culture" and later, Richard Cottle played as a regular contributor on synthesizers and saxophone.


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: The Alan Parsons Project played live only once under that name during its original incarnation because Woolfson and Parsons held the roles of writing and production, and because of the technical difficulties of re-producing on stage the complex instrumentation used in the studio. In the 1990s, musical production evolved with the technology of digital samplers. The one occasion the band was introduced as 'The Alan Parsons Project' in a live performance was at The Night of the Proms in October 1990. The concerts featured all Project regulars except Woolfson, present behind the scenes, while Parsons stayed at the mixer except for the last song, when he played acoustic guitar.


title: The Alan Parsons Project

text: Since 1993, Alan Parsons continues to perform live as the Alan Parsons Live Project to be distinct from The Alan Parsons Project. The current line up consists of lead singer P.J. Olsson, guitarist Jeffrey Kollman, drummer Danny Thompson, keyboardist Tom Brooks, bass guitarist Guy Erez, vocalist and saxophonist Todd Cooper, and guitarist and vocalist Dan Tracey. In 2013, Alan Parsons Live Project played Colombia with a full choir and orchestra (the Medellin Philharmonic) as 'Alan Parsons Symphonic Project'. A 2-CD live set and a DVD version of this concert were released in May 2016.


title: KickassTorrents

text: KickassTorrents (commonly abbreviated KAT) was a website that provided a directory for torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. It was founded in 2008 and by November 2014, KAT became the most visited BitTorrent directory in the world, overtaking The Pirate Bay, according to the site's Alexa ranking. KAT went offline on 20 July 2016 when the domain was seized by the U.S. government. The site's proxy servers were shut down by its staff at the same time.


title: KickassTorrents

text: In December 2016, former KAT staff members revived the KAT community by creating a website with its predecessor's features and appearance.


title: KickassTorrents

text: KAT was initially launched in November 2008 at the domain name "kickasstorrents.com". In April 2011, it moved to a Philippine domain "kat.ph" after a series of domain name seizures by the US Department of Justice against Demonoid and Torrentz. The site later moved across several different domains, which the operators planned to do every six months, including "ka.tt, kickass.to, kickass.so, kickasstorrents.im" and "kat.cr."


title: KickassTorrents

text: KickassTorrents on its website claimed that it complied with the DMCA and it removed infringing torrents reported by content owners.


title: KickassTorrents

text: On February 28, 2013, Internet service providers (ISPs) in the United Kingdom were ordered by the High Court in London to block access to KickassTorrents, along with two other torrent sites. Judge Richard Arnold ruled that the site's design contributed to copyright infringement. On 14 June, the domain name was changed to Tonga domain name kickass.to as a part of the site's regular domain change.


title: KickassTorrents

text: Later on 23 June, KAT was delisted from Google at the request of the MPAA. In late August 2013, KAT was blocked by Belgian ISPs. In January 2014, several Irish ISPs started blocking KAT, and in February, Twitter started blocking links to KAT, although this was stopped after a few days. In June 2014, KAT was blocked in Malaysia by the Communications and Multimedia Commission for violating copyright law.


title: KickassTorrents

text: In December 2014, the site moved to the Somalia domain name kickass.so, reportedly as a result of site's regular domain change. On 9 February 2015, kickass.so was listed as "banned" on Whois, causing the site to go offline. Later that day, the site reverted to its former domain name kickass.to. On 14 February 2015, it was found that messages mentioning "kickass.to" were blocked on Steam chat, but "kickass.so" and other popular torrent websites were not blocked, only flagged as "potentially malicious".


title: KickassTorrents

text: On 23 April 2015, the site moved to the Isle of Man-based domain kickasstorrents.im but was quickly taken down later that day and on 24 April it was moved to the Costa Rica based domain name kat.cr. By July 2015, the kat.cr address had been removed from Google Search's results. After the removal, the top Google search result for KAT in many locations pointed to a fake KAT site that prompted visitors to download malware.


title: KickassTorrents

text: In October 2015, Portugal bypassed its courts by making a voluntary agreement between ISPs, rightsholders and the Ministry of Culture to block access to KAT and most of the other popular BitTorrent websites. The website had similarly been banned in India for copyright violations during that period. At the same time, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox blocked access to KAT because of security concerns with some of the ads pointing to malware. In April 2016, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox blocked KAT due to phishing concerns. Both blocks were later removed after KAT dealt with the concerns.


title: KickassTorrents

text: On 20 July 2016, the United States Department of Justice announced that it had seized the KAT.cr domain and had identified its alleged owner. Artem Vaulin (), a 30-year-old Ukrainian man known online as "tirm", was detained in Poland after being charged with a four-count U.S. criminal indictment. The remaining domains were taken offline voluntarily after the KAT.cr domain name was seized. Following the seizure of the original KAT domain multiple unofficial mirrors have been put online. These have no connection to the original team who have been urging users to exercise caution. A number of these mirrors have since been taken down.


title: KickassTorrents

text: Vaulin was arrested after investigators cross-referenced an IP address he used for an iTunes transaction with an IP address used to log into KAT's Facebook page. The FBI also posed as an advertiser and obtained details of a bank account associated with the site. The investigation was led by special agent Jared Der-Yeghiayan, who also tracked down Ross Ulbricht, the operator of the online black market Silk Road.


title: KickassTorrents

text: The criminal complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois by Homeland Security Investigations, said that it was in possession of full copies of KAT's hard drives, including its email server. The investigation suggested that KAT made over $12 million per year in advertising revenue.


title: KickassTorrents

text: In late August 2016, the Department of Justice followed the complaint with a full grand jury indictment of Vaulin and two other defendants, Ievgen Kutsenko and Oleksandr Radostin; while Vaulin was still being held in Polish prison. Vaulin has both a Polish and US legal representation Ira Rothken as his lawyers to handle the allegations. In November 2016, a Polish appeals court refused to allow bail for Vaulin, stating the evidence provided by the US is sufficient to keep him in prison.


title: KickassTorrents

text: The case of Artem Vaulin prosecution was officially put on hold after Vaulin "disappeared" from Poland. His bail of $108,000 was forfeited. His legal team was reported has withdrawn from the case after they lost contact with Vaulin.


title: KickassTorrents

text: In mid-December 2016, some of the former KAT staff and moderators launched a website with a similar appearance as the original under the domain katcr.co. The site has been offline since July 2020.


title: Eden Brolin

text: Eden Brolin (born 1994) is an American actress, best known for her role as Charlie Singer in the "Beyond" television series and as Mia in "Yellowstone". She is the daughter of actor Josh Brolin and Alice Adair.


title: Eden Brolin

text: Brolin's first starring role was in the Richard Linklater-produced indie feature "I Dream Too Much". Other credits include "Code Black" and "Manson's Lost Girls".


title: Eden Brolin

text: Brolin stars as the mysterious Charlie Singer in the supernatural drama "Beyond" on the Freeform TV channel. After a well-reviewed performance in season one, she was quickly promoted to a series regular by the network.


title: Eden Brolin

text: Brolin also stars as Mia opposite Kevin Costner in the western drama "Yellowstone", where she plays a barrel racer at the rodeo who becomes friendly with the bunkhouse guys.


title: Eden Brolin

text: In 2020, Brolin starred opposite Liam Hemsworth and Vince Vaughn in the Lionsgate theatrical feature "Arkansas".


title: Eden Brolin

text: Brolin is also the lead singer of the music group known as Atta Boy, and eight years after the band's debut album titled "Out of Sorts" was released, their second album titled "Big Heart Manners" was released on June 26, 2020.


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a 2008 romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. The film stars Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson in lead roles. The plot centers on two American women, Vicky and Cristina, who spend a summer in Barcelona, where they meet an artist, Juan Antonio, who is attracted to both of them, while still enamored of his mentally and emotionally unstable ex-wife María Elena. The film was shot in Spain in Barcelona, Avilés, and Oviedo, and was Allen's fourth consecutive film shot outside the United States.


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, and then received a rolling worldwide general release that started on August 15, 2008, in the United States, and continued in various countries until its June 2009 release in Japan. The film emerged as a commercial success at the box office, becoming one of Allen's highest-grossing films. It received widespread critical acclaim upon release, with particular praise directed towards Cruz's performance.


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: At the 66th Golden Globe Awards, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" received 4 nominations, including Best Actor – Musical or Comedy (Bardem), Best Actress – Musical or Comedy (Hall) and Best Supporting Actress (Cruz), and won Best Film – Musical or Comedy. Cruz also won both the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress, in addition to a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination in the same category.


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: Vicky and Cristina visit Barcelona for the summer, staying with Vicky's distant relative Judy and her husband Mark. While the two are great friends, Vicky is practical and traditional in her approach to love and commitment and is engaged to the reliable Doug, whereas Cristina imagines herself to be a nonconformist, spontaneous but unsure of what she wants from life or love.


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: At an art exhibition, Cristina is intrigued by artist Juan Antonio, who Judy says has suffered a violent relationship with his ex-wife. Later, he brazenly approaches Vicky and Cristina to invite them to join him right away for the weekend in the city of Oviedo, in a small plane he flies himself, for sight-seeing, fine eating and drinking, and hopefully, lovemaking. Cristina is won over by the offer almost at once, but Vicky is unimpressed and reluctant; she, however, eventually decides to accompany her friend anyway, mainly to watch over her.


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: At the end of their first day, Vicky refuses to join Juan Antonio in his hotel room, citing her fidelity to Doug, but Cristina accepts his invitation immediately. Before the lovemaking starts, Cristina suddenly falls ill with digestive complaints, and is put to bed, with food poisoning. Vicky and Juan Antonio proceed to spend the weekend together alone while they wait for Cristina to recuperate. Vicky gradually changes her opinion of Juan Antonio as he tells her about his tumultuous relationship with his former wife, María Elena. Vicky accompanies him to visit his father, an old poet, and then becomes deeply moved by a Spanish guitar performance later that evening. She finally succumbs to Juan Antonio's advances as they walk through a grove of trees in the dark. The next day, with Cristina recovered, the three of them fly back to Barcelona.


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: Feeling guilty, Vicky does not mention the incident to Cristina, and the two begin to grow apart. Vicky starts throwing herself into her studies while Cristina and Juan Antonio take up a relationship. Cristina then moves in with Juan Antonio and begins to discover more about his past. After learning that María Elena attempted to kill herself, Juan Antonio takes her to his home, where Cristina already lives. After some defiance, the two women grow fond of each other. Cristina realizes that the ex-spouses are still in love, and María Elena suggests that Cristina may be the element that can give balance and stability to their relationship. All three become romantically involved with one another.


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: In the meantime, Vicky is joined in Spain by an enthusiastic Doug and the two get married. When Cristina describes her new life with Juan Antonio to Vicky, Vicky becomes secretly jealous, and after a few other awkward moments, she realizes she is unsatisfied in her married life and is still attracted to Juan Antonio. Learning that Judy is similarly unhappy in her marriage, she confides to her, and Judy, who sees her younger self in Vicky, decides to bring Juan Antonio and Vicky together. Meanwhile, Cristina becomes restless and at some point decides to leave Juan Antonio and María Elena; without her, their relationship quickly falls apart again.


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: As the summer winds to a close, Judy arranges for Juan Antonio and Vicky to meet at a party. Juan Antonio begs Vicky to meet him again privately before leaving Spain, which she finally accepts, lying to Doug in the process. At his home, Juan Antonio seduces and wins Vicky over again, but they are interrupted by María Elena who bursts in with a gun, firing wildly as Juan Antonio tries to calm her. Vicky gets shot in the hand in the process, and leaves, shouting they are insane and she could never live like this. She confesses the entire story to Cristina, who never realized how Vicky felt about Juan Antonio, and wishes she could have helped her. Doug, Vicky and Cristina return to the United States; Doug never learns what truly happened, Vicky goes back to her married life, and Cristina is back where she started, still unsure of what she wants from life or love.


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: Spanish actor Joan Pera, who dubbed Allen's voice in the Spanish-language versions of his previous films, makes a cameo appearance.


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: In 2007, controversy arose in Catalonia over the public funding granted to the film, as the high-profile film was presumed not to have needed it; Barcelona's city hall provided one million euro and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia) half a million, or ten percent of the film's budget.


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: This was the third time Allen and Johansson had worked together, following "Match Point" (2005) and "Scoop" (2006). This also marked the second time Hall and Johansson had worked together, the first time being in "The Prestige" (2006).


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: The film featured several paintings by Catalan artist Agustí Puig and included several examples of the work of architect Antoni Gaudí, including his Park Güell.


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: , the film grossed $96 million worldwide; in relation to its $15 million budget, it is one of Allen's most profitable films.


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" garnered the best reviews Allen received since his Academy Award-nominated psychological thriller "Match Point" (also starring Johansson) (2005), particularly for Cruz's performance. The film has an approval rating of 81% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 212 reviews, with an average score of 6.90/10. The site's consensus reads: "A beguiling tragicomedy, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" charms with beautiful views of the Spanish city and a marvelously well-matched cast". Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

text: Scott Tobias wrote in "The A.V. Club" that it was "a witty and ambiguous film that's simultaneously intoxicating and suffused with sadness and doubt." Richard Roeper suggested that Cruz should receive an Academy Award nomination for her performance in the film. Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" praised the film as "the work of a confident and mature artist", referring to Allen. Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" wrote "Although "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" trips along winningly, carried by the beauty of its locations and stars — and all the gauzy romanticism those enchanted places and people imply — it reverberates with implacable melancholy, a sense of loss." Richard Corliss ended his review of the film with ""Vicky Cristina Barcelona" has neither the sardonic heft of Max Ophüls's "La Ronde" (1950) nor the emotional precision of Ingmar Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night" (1955), two films that also dance the change-partners gavotte. But the film is so engaging so much of the time that it feels like a modest rejuvenation: evidence that a summer in Spain can do wonders for a writer-director who may not have outlived his prime." S. Williams of "Momzone" magazine singled out Johansson's performance for praise, writing, "Johansson's acting is syrup: fluid and sweet." Ian Freer of "Empire" gave the film 4 out of 5, and wrote "within Allen's recent output, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is a highlight. See it for beautiful locales, an ambivalent look at human relationships and a clutch of great performances, particularly from Cruz."


title: Conway Twitty

text: Harold Lloyd Jenkins (September 1, 1933 – June 5, 1993), better known by his stage name Conway Twitty, was an American singer and songwriter. Initially a part of the 1950s rockabilly scene, Twitty was best known as a country music performer. From 1971 to 1976, Twitty received a string of Country Music Association awards for duets with Loretta Lynn. He was inducted into both the Country Music and Rockabilly Halls of Fame.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Twitty was known for his frequent use of romantic and sentimental themes in his songs. Due to his following being compared to a religious revival, comedian Jerry Clower nicknamed Twitty "The High Priest of Country Music", the eventual title of his 33rd studio album. Twitty achieved stardom with hit songs like "Hello Darlin'", "You've Never Been This Far Before", and "Linda on My Mind". Twitty topped ""Billboard"'s" Hot Country Songs chart 40 times in his career, a record that stood for 20 years until it was broken by George Strait, and topped the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart once with "It's Only Make Believe". He wrote 11 of his "Billboard" Hot Country Songs top hits.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Twitty was born Harold Lloyd Jenkins on September 1, 1933, in Friars Point, Mississippi. The Jenkins family were of Welsh descent. He was named by his great-uncle, after his favorite silent movie actor Harold Lloyd. The Jenkins family moved to Helena, Arkansas, when Jenkins was 10 years old. In Helena, Jenkins formed his first singing group, the Phillips County Ramblers.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Jenkins had his own local radio show every Saturday morning and liked to play baseball. He was drafted into the United States Army and served in the Far East, during which time he organized a group called the Cimmerons to entertain his fellow soldiers.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Wayne Hause, a neighbor, suggested that Jenkins could make it in the music industry. Soon after hearing Elvis Presley's song "Mystery Train", Jenkins began writing rock-and-roll material. He went to the Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, and worked with Sam Phillips, the owner and founder, to get the "right" sound.


title: Conway Twitty

text: None of Jenkins's Sun recordings were released at the time, but Roy Orbison did record his composition "Rockhouse", which was issued on SUN 251 (flipside "You're My Baby") in 1956.


title: Conway Twitty

text: In 1957, Jenkins decided that his real name was not memorable enough and sought a better show business name. In "The Billboard Book of Number One Hits", Fred Bronson states that the singer was looking at a road map when he spotted Conway, Arkansas, and Twitty, Texas, and chose the name Conway Twitty.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Also, in 1957, under his new name, he recorded briefly for Mercury Records, releasing two unsuccessful singles.


title: Conway Twitty

text: In 1958, using his new stage name, Twitty's fortunes improved while he was with MGM Records, and an Ohio radio station had an inspiration, refraining from playing "I'll Try" (an MGM single that went nowhere in terms of sales, radio play, and jukebox play), instead playing the B-side, "It's Only Make Believe", a song written between sets by Twitty and drummer Jack Nance when they were in Hamilton, Ontario, playing at the Flamingo Lounge. The record took nearly one year to reach and stay at the top spot on the "Billboard" pop music charts in the United States and number 1 in 21 other countries, becoming the first of nine top-40 hits for Twitty. It sold over four million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. That same year, country singer Tabby West of ABC-TV's "Ozark Jubilee" heard Twitty and booked him to appear on the show.


title: Conway Twitty

text: When "It's Only Make Believe" was first released, because of vocal similarities, many listeners assumed that the song was actually recorded by Elvis Presley, using "Conway Twitty" as a pseudonym. Twitty would go on to enjoy rock-and-roll success with songs including "Danny Boy" (Pop number 10) and "Lonely Blue Boy" (Pop number 6). "Lonely Blue Boy", originally titled "Danny", was recorded by Presley for the film "King Creole" but was not used in the soundtrack. This song led to him naming his band the Lonely Blue Boys. They subsequently became the Twitty Birds. As his recording career continued, Twitty's music shifted from rockabilly to rock and roll, and Twitty also recorded some R&B and blues singles.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Twitty always wanted to record country music, and, beginning in 1965, he did just that. Disc jockeys on some country-music radio stations refused to play his first few country albums, because he was known as a rock and roll singer. However, he had his first top five country hit, "The Image of Me", in July 1968, followed by his first number one country song, "Next in Line", in November 1968. Few of his singles beginning in 1968 ranked below the top five.


title: Conway Twitty

text: In 1970, Twitty recorded and released his biggest country hit, "Hello Darlin'", which spent four weeks at the top of the country chart and is one of Twitty's most recognized songs. In 1971, he released his first hit duet with Loretta Lynn, "After the Fire Is Gone". It was a success, and many more followed, including "Lead Me On" (1971); "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man" (1973); "As Soon As I Hang Up the Phone" (1974); "Feelins'" (1975); "I Still Believe in Waltzes"; "I Can't Love You Enough"; and many others. Together, Conway and Loretta (as they were known in their act), won four consecutive Country Music Association awards for vocal duo (1972–75) and a host of other duo and duet awards from other organizations throughout the 1970s.


title: Conway Twitty

text: In 1973, Twitty released "You've Never Been This Far Before", which was number 1 in country for three weeks that September and also reached number 22 on the pop charts. Some more conservative disc jockeys refused to play the song, believing that some of the lyrics were too sexually suggestive.


title: Conway Twitty

text: In 1978, Twitty issued the single "The Grandest Lady of Them All" honoring the "Grand Ole Opry". (Somewhat ironically, Twitty was never inducted into the "Opry" during his lifetime; he remains one of the more prominent Nashville country artists never to have been an Opry member.) The single reached the top 20, peaking at number 16, but it was well below expectations; it was the first time since 1967 that a single of his failed to reach the top ten, as some radio stations refused to play a song honoring the property of a competitor (broadcast by WSM-AM).


title: Conway Twitty

text: Twitty soon renewed his image with a new hairstyle, changing from the slicked-back pompadour style to the curlier style he would keep for the rest of his life; by the late 1970s, Twitty had shifted his musical arrangements into a country pop style he would maintain for the rest of his career. His next 23 consecutive singles all made it into the top 10, with 13 reaching number 1, including "Don't Take It Away", "I May Never Get to Heaven", "Happy Birthday Darlin'" and remakes of major pop hits such as "The Rose" and "Slow Hand" and "Tight Fittin' Jeans", a song written by Michael Huffman, released in June 1981 as the first single from the album "Mr. T". The song was Twitty's 26th number one on the country chart. The single stayed at number one for one week and spent a total of 10 weeks on the country chart. In 1985, going by all weekly music trade charts, the song "Don't Call Him a Cowboy" became the 50th single of his career to achieve a number-1 ranking. He would have five more through 1990, giving him a total of 55 number 1 hits. George Strait matched the feat of 50 number-1 hits in 2002 with his single "She'll Leave You with a Smile" and then reached number 1 for the 56th time in 2007, when the single "Wrapped" hit the top on the Media Base 24/7 list.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Throughout much of Twitty's country music career his recording home was Decca Records, later renamed MCA. He signed with the label in late 1965 but left in 1981, when it appeared MCA was marketing and promoting newer acts; management at the label had changed, in addition to other factors that brought on the decision. He joined Elektra/Asylum in 1982. That label's country music unit merged with sister label Warner Bros. Records in 1983. He stayed with Warner Bros. through early 1987 but then went back to MCA to finish his career. In 1993, shortly before he died, he recorded a new album, "Final Touches".


title: Conway Twitty

text: Twitty also played baseball, his second passion. He received an offer to play with the Philadelphia Phillies after high school, but he was drafted into the United States Army before he could sign the contract. Twitty joined the entrepreneur Larry Schmittou and other country musicians, such as Cal Smith and Jerry Reed in 1977 as investors in the Nashville Sounds, a Minor League Baseball team of the Double-A Southern League, which began playing in 1978. Twitty threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the team's inaugural home opener at Herschel Greer Stadium on April 26, 1978. Twitty would also host celebrity softball games for charity, frequently playing against a team put together by Barbara Mandrell.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Twitty lived for many years in Hendersonville, Tennessee, just north of Nashville, Tennessee, where he built a country music entertainment complex named Twitty City at a cost of over $3.5 million. Twitty and Twitty City were once featured on the TV series "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous", and was also seen in the Nashville episode of the BBC series "Entertainment USA", presented by Jonathan King. Opened in 1982, it was a popular tourist stop throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s; it was shut down in 1994 following a year-long tribute show called Final Touches, when fans and peers in the music business dropped by. The complex was auctioned off and bought by the Trinity Broadcasting Network in June 1994.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Twitty was married four times, to three different women. His first marriage, to Ellen Matthews, lasted from 1953 to 1954. They had married because Ellen was pregnant with their son, Michael. His second, and longest, marriage was to Temple "Mickey" Medley. They were married in 1956 and had three children: Kathy, Joni Lee, and Jimmy Twitty. The couple were divorced in early 1970, but they remarried quietly by the end of 1970. By 1984, after 28 years of marriage on and off, the stress of Twitty's frequent absences took its toll on Mickey, and she and Conway divorced. Mickey Twitty died in 2021. In 1987, Twitty married his 36-year-old office secretary, Delores "Dee" Henry, who became his widow in June 1993.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Twitty made Oklahoma City his home during most of his recording career, from 1963 to 1972. He also lived in Norman, Oklahoma. Twitty performed at the Diamond Ballroom after its opening in 1964. Conway Twitty opened one of his Twitty Burger restaurants at 7200 S. Western Avenue in Oklahoma City.


title: Conway Twitty

text: In 1981, Twitty was exiting his tour bus when he slipped on the steps and fell, hitting his head against the steps. John Hughey, who was Twitty's steel guitar player, found him on the ground. Many people, including family members, said that Twitty underwent a change in personality after the accident.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Twitty served on the board of directors of CMT (Country Music Television) from 1984 to 1988, after Music Village Group (Nyhl Henson, Gilbert Biggers, Hall Hardaway Jr. and Benny and Dean Jaggers) acquired CMTV from Glen Daniels. (Inheriting a copyright infringement suit from Viacom, owner of MTV, settled for an undisclosed sum.) The Music Village Group, built Music Village USA adjacent to Twitty City including a state-of-the-art 1776-seat theatre where CMT unlinked its 24-hour programming and produced live concerts. When Music Village and Twitty was sold in 1989 and CMT in 1990, Conway turned his attention to the burgeoning Branson market playing to sell out crowds. Twitty teamed up again with Nyhl Henson and his team to anchor the new musical home of Conway Twitty and inked the deal the day before his death in June 1993.


title: Conway Twitty

text: On June 4, 1993, Twitty became ill while performing at the Jim Stafford Theatre in Branson, Missouri. He collapsed on his tour bus after the show and was rushed to a hospital. He was rushed into surgery, but died of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, in the early hours of the following morning at Cox South Hospital in Springfield, Missouri at the age of 59. Loretta Lynn, who frequently was his chart making duet partner, was at the hospital because her husband Oliver was recovering from heart surgery, and saw Twitty briefly as he entered the hospital. His last studio album, "Final Touches", was released two months later. Four months after Twitty's death, George Jones included a cover version of "Hello Darlin'" on his album "High-Tech Redneck".


title: Conway Twitty

text: Twitty was buried at Sumner Memorial Gardens in Gallatin, Tennessee in a red granite vault under his birth name Harold L. Jenkins. There are spaces reserved next to him for his wife and his son Michael.


title: Conway Twitty

text: After Twitty's death, his estate became entangled in a lengthy court saga between the estate and family members, heirs, employees and others that lasted over a decade. In one instance, the estate sued two of his daughters, claiming loans were due to be repaid. Five years after his death, The Tennessee Appeals Court referred to that case in its opening sentence with, "This is yet another chapter in the administration of the estate of Harold L. Jenkins, a popular entertainer whose stage name was 'Conway Twitty.'" The court sided with the daughters finding that the accountants and controllers of Twitty's books while he was alive, who later became the Executors of the estate, kept "limited and sketchy information" when it came to the family members. In other instances, employees sued because of oral promises "to be taken care of" by Twitty and often were successful. The court found Twitty rarely, if ever, memorialized contracts with family members, contractors and employees in writing. Oral promises included bonuses of $1000 per year of employment. The estate attempted to reduce that to $100 per year.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Since his death, Twitty's son Michael and grandson Tre have been carrying on his musical legacy. Conway's most recent appearance on the country charts was a duet with Anita Cochran, "(I Want to Hear) A Cheating Song" (2004), which was made possible by splicing Twitty's vocal from old recordings and interviews, recorded over the years. As a result, Twitty's isolated vocal track was transferred to a digital multitrack and digitally reassembled into the new performance. Like the electronic duets of Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves, Hank Williams and Hank Williams Jr. or Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole, Cochran added her vocal to backing tracks that had already been produced along with Twitty's reconstructed vocals.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Currently, Bear Family Records offers the single-disc collection "Conway Rocks", featuring 30 songs, and "The Rock 'n' Roll Years", a comprehensive eight-disc box set showcasing his complete early recordings as a rock artist.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Twitty's success in country music was a key factor in his winning the 1983 case "Harold L. Jenkins (a/k/a Conway Twitty) v. Commissioner" in United States Tax Court. The Internal Revenue Service allowed Twitty to deduct from his taxes, as an "ordinary and necessary" business expense, payments that he had made to repay investors in a defunct fast-food chain called Twitty Burger; the chain disestablished in 1971. The general rule is that the payment of someone else's debts is not deductible. Twitty alleged that his primary motive was "protecting his personal business reputation." The court opinion contained testimony from Twitty about his bond with country music fans. The Tax Court ruled in Twitty's favor and allowed him to deduct these repayments.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Twitty married four times (twice to Mickey). His widow in 1993, Delores "Dee" Henry Jenkins, and his four grown children from the previous marriages, Michael, Joni, Kathy and Jimmy Jenkins, engaged in a public dispute over the estate. Twitty's will had not been updated to account for the fourth marriage, but Tennessee law reserves one third of any estate to the widow. After years of probate, the four children received the rights to Twitty's music, name and image. The rest of the estate went to public auction, where much of the property and memorabilia was sold after his widow rejected the appraised value.


title: Conway Twitty

text: In 2008, controversy again erupted in his family when the four remaining children sued Sony/ATV Music Publishing over an agreement that Twitty and his family signed in 1990. The suit alleged that the terms of the agreement were not fully understood by the children, although they were all adults at the time. It sought to recover copyrights and royalty revenue that the document assigned to the company.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Twitty recorded cover versions of numerous songs, notably "Slow Hand", a major pop hit for the Pointer Sisters; "Rest Your Love on Me", a Top-40 country hit for the Bee Gees; "The Rose", a major pop hit for Bette Midler; and "Heartache Tonight", a major pop hit for The Eagles. Twitty's songs have also been covered numerous times, including four notable covers, George Jones's rendition of "Hello Darlin", Blake Shelton's "Goodbye Time", The Misfits' and Glen Campbell's versions of "It's Only Make Believe" and Elvis Presley's version of "There's a Honky Tonk Angel (Who'll Take Me Back In)". In addition, Kenny Chesney's version of "I'd Love to Lay You Down" was sung and received some airplay, mostly in the concert realm.


title: Conway Twitty

text: Some artists have had hits with songs that Twitty recorded but never released as singles. Among these are the Oak Ridge Boys' top-five hit, "I Wish You Could Have Turned My Head (And Left My Heart Alone)", originally from Twitty's album "Crosswinds" (1979); the Statler Brothers' "You'll Be Back (Every Night in My Dreams)", from Twitty's album "Rest Your Love On Me" (1980); Steve Wariner's "I'm Already Taken" (which Wariner wrote), from Twitty's album "Mr. T" (1981); Lee Greenwood's "It Turns Me Inside Out", from Twitty's album "Southern Comfort" (1982); John Conlee's "In My Eyes", from Twitty's album "Dream Maker" (1982); John Schneider's "What's a Memory Like You (Doin' in a Love Like This?)", from Twitty's album "Chasin' Rainbows" (1985); and Daryle Singletary's "The Note" and Ricky Van Shelton's "Somebody Lied", from Twitty's album "Don't Call Him a Cowboy" (1985).


title: Robert Moses

text: Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid 20th century. Despite never being elected to any office, Moses is regarded as one of the most powerful individuals in the history of the New York City and State governments. The grand scale of his infrastructural projects and his philosophy of urban development influenced a generation of engineers, architects, and urban planners across the United States.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses held various positions throughout his more than forty-year long career. He at times held up to 12 titles simultaneously, including New York City Parks Commissioner and Chairman of the Long Island State Park Commission. Having worked closely with New York Governor Al Smith early in his career, Moses became expert in writing laws and navigating and manipulating the inner workings of state government. He created and led numerous semi-autonomous public authorities, through which he controlled millions of dollars in revenue and directly issued bonds to fund new ventures with little outside input or oversight.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses's projects transformed the New York area and revolutionized the way cities in the U.S. were designed and built. As Long Island State Park Commissioner, Moses oversaw the construction of Jones Beach State Park, the most visited public beach in the United States, and was the primary architect of the New York State Parkway System. As head of the Triborough Bridge Authority, Moses had near-complete control over bridges and tunnels in New York City as well as the tolls collected from them, and built, among others, the Triborough Bridge, the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel, and the Throgs Neck Bridge, as well as several major highways. These roadways and bridges, alongside urban renewal efforts that saw the destruction of huge swaths of tenement housing and their replacement with large public housing projects, transformed the physical fabric of New York and inspired other cities to undertake similar development endeavors.


title: Robert Moses

text: Although he was well-regarded throughout most of his career, Moses's reputation was damaged with the publication of Robert Caro's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography "The Power Broker" (1974). Casting doubt on the supposed benefits of many of Moses's projects, "The Power Broker" painted a picture of Moses as a power-hungry and vindictive man who was not above questionable ethics and wielded excessive power. Caro's book further cast Moses as racist, highlighting the damage to black and other minority communities inflicted by many of Moses's urban renewal and highway construction projects. In large part because of "The Power Broker", Moses is today considered a controversial figure in the history of New York City.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on December 18, 1888, to German Jewish parents, Bella (Silverman) and Emanuel Moses. He spent the first nine years of his life living at 83 Dwight Street in New Haven, two blocks from Yale University. In 1897, the Moses family moved to New York City, where they lived on East 46th Street off Fifth Avenue. Moses's father was a successful department store owner and real estate speculator in New Haven. In order for the family to move to New York City, he sold his real estate holdings and store, then retired. Moses's mother was active in the settlement movement, with her own love of building. Robert Moses and his brother Paul attended several schools for their elementary and secondary education, including the Dwight School and the Mohegan Lake School, a military academy near Peekskill.


title: Robert Moses

text: After graduating from Yale College (B.A., 1909) and Wadham College, Oxford (B.A., Jurisprudence, 1911; M.A., 1913), and earning a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 1914, Moses became attracted to New York City reform politics. A committed idealist, he developed several plans to rid New York of patronage hiring practices, including being the lead author of a 1919 proposal to reorganize the New York state government. None went very far, but Moses, due to his intelligence, caught the notice of Belle Moskowitz, a friend and trusted advisor to Governor Al Smith. When the state Secretary of State's position became appointive rather than elective, Smith named Moses. He served from 1927 to 1929.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses rose to power with Smith, who was elected as governor in 1922, and set in motion a sweeping consolidation of the New York State government. During that period Moses began his first foray into large scale public work initiatives, while drawing on Smith's political power to enact legislation. This helped create the new Long Island State Park Commission and the State Council of Parks. In 1924, Governor Smith appointed Moses chairman of the State Council of Parks and president of the Long Island State Park Commission. This centralization allowed Smith to run a government later used as a model for Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal federal government. Moses also received numerous commissions that he carried out efficiently, such as the development of Jones Beach State Park. Displaying a strong command of law as well as matters of engineering, Moses became known for his skill in drafting legislation, and was called "the best bill drafter in Albany". At a time when the public was accustomed to Tammany Hall corruption and incompetence, Moses was seen as a savior of government.


title: Robert Moses

text: Shortly after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's inauguration in 1933, the federal government found itself with millions of New Deal dollars to spend, yet states and cities had few projects ready. Moses was one of the few local officials who had projects shovel ready. For that reason, New York City was able to obtain significant Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and other Depression-era funding. One of his most influential and longest-lasting positions was that of Parks Commissioner of New York City, a role he served from January 18, 1934, to May 23, 1960.


title: Robert Moses

text: The many offices and professional titles that Moses held gave him unusually broad power to shape urban development in the New York metropolitan region. These include, according to the New York Preservation Archive Project:


title: Robert Moses

text: During the 1920s, Moses sparred with Franklin D. Roosevelt, then head of the Taconic State Park Commission, who favored the prompt construction of a parkway through the Hudson Valley. Moses succeeded in diverting funds to his Long Island parkway projects (the Northern State Parkway, the Southern State Parkway and the Wantagh State Parkway), although the Taconic State Parkway was later completed as well. Moses helped build Long Island's Meadowbrook State Parkway. It was the first fully divided limited access highway in the world.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses was a highly influential figure in the initiation of many of the reforms that restructured New York state's government during the 1920s. A 'Reconstruction Commission' headed by Moses produced a highly influential report that provided recommendations that would largely be adopted, including the consolidation of 187 existing agencies under eighteen departments, a new executive budget system, and the four-year term limit for the governorship.


title: Robert Moses

text: During the Depression, Moses, along with Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, was especially interested in creating new pools and other bathing facilities, such as those in Jacob Riis Park, Jones Beach, and Orchard Beach. He devised a list of 23 pools around the city. The pools would be built using funds from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federal agency created as part of the New Deal to combat the Depression's negative effects.


title: Robert Moses

text: Eleven of these pools were to be designed concurrently and open in 1936. These comprised ten pools at Astoria Park, Betsy Head Park, Crotona Park, Hamilton Fish Park, Highbridge Park, Thomas Jefferson Park, McCarren Park, Red Hook Park, Jackie Robinson Park, and Sunset Park, as well as a standalone facility at Tompkinsville Pool. Moses, along with architects Aymar Embury II and Gilmore David Clarke, created a common design for these proposed aquatic centers. Each location was to have distinct pools for diving, swimming, and wading; bleachers and viewing areas; and bathhouses with locker rooms that could be used as gymnasiums. The pools were to have several common features, such as a minimum length, underwater lighting, heating, filtration, and low-cost construction materials. To fit the requirement for cheap materials, each building would be built using elements of the Streamline Moderne and Classical architectural styles. The buildings would also be near "comfort stations", additional playgrounds, and spruced-up landscapes.


title: Robert Moses

text: Construction for some of the 11 pools began in October 1934. By mid-1936, ten of the eleven WPA-funded pools were completed and were being opened at a rate of one per week. Combined, the facilities could accommodate 66,000 swimmers. The eleven WPA pools were considered for New York City landmark status in 1990. Ten of the pools were designated as New York City landmarks in 2007 and 2008.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses allegedly fought to keep African American swimmers out of his pools and beaches. One subordinate remembers Moses saying the pools should be kept a few degrees colder, allegedly because Moses believed African Americans did not like cold water.


title: Robert Moses

text: Although Moses had power over the construction of all New York City Housing Authority public housing projects and headed many other entities, it was his chairmanship of the Triborough Bridge Authority that gave him the most power.


title: Robert Moses

text: The Triborough Bridge (later officially renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge) opened in 1936, connecting the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens via three separate spans. Language in its Authority's bond contracts and multi-year Commissioner appointments made it largely impervious to pressure from mayors and governors. While New York City and New York State were perpetually strapped for money, the bridge's toll revenues amounted to tens of millions of dollars a year. The Authority was thus able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars by selling bonds, a method also used by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to fund large public construction projects. Toll revenues rose quickly as traffic on the bridges exceeded all projections. Rather than pay off the bonds, Moses used the revenue to build other toll projects, a cycle that would feed on itself.


title: Robert Moses

text: In the late 1930s a municipal controversy raged over whether an additional vehicular link between Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan should be built as a bridge or a tunnel. Bridges can be wider and cheaper to build, but taller and longer bridges use more ramp space at landfall than tunnels do. A "Brooklyn Battery Bridge" would have decimated Battery Park and physically encroached on the financial district, and for this reason, the bridge was opposed by the Regional Plan Association, historical preservationists, Wall Street financial interests, property owners, various high society people, construction unions, the Manhattan borough president, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, and governor Herbert H. Lehman. Despite this, Moses favored a bridge, which could both carry more automobile traffic and serve as a higher visibility monument than a tunnel. LaGuardia and Lehman as usual had little money to spend, in part due to the Great Depression, while the federal government was running low on funds after recently spending $105 million ($1.8 billion in 2016) on the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and other City projects and refused to provide any additional funds to New York. Awash in funds from Triborough Bridge tolls, Moses deemed that money could only be spent on a bridge. He also clashed with the chief engineer of the project, Ole Singstad, who preferred a tunnel instead of a bridge.


title: Robert Moses

text: Only a lack of a key federal approval thwarted the bridge project. President Roosevelt ordered the War Department to assert that bombing a bridge in that location would block East River access to the Brooklyn Navy Yard upstream. Thwarted, Moses dismantled the New York Aquarium on Castle Clinton and moved it to Coney Island in Brooklyn, where it grew much bigger. This was in apparent retaliation, based on specious claims that the proposed tunnel would undermine Castle Clinton's foundation. He also attempted to raze Castle Clinton itself, the historic fort surviving only after being transferred to the federal government. Moses now had no other option for a trans-river crossing than to build a tunnel. He commissioned the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel (now officially the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel), a tunnel connecting Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan. A 1941 publication from the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority claimed that the government had forced them to build a tunnel at "twice the cost, twice the operating fees, twice the difficulty to engineer, and half the traffic," although engineering studies did not support these conclusions, and a tunnel may have held many of the advantages Moses publicly tried to attach to the bridge option.


title: Robert Moses

text: This had not been the first time Moses pressed for a bridge over a tunnel. He had tried to upstage the Tunnel Authority when the Queens-Midtown Tunnel was being planned. He had raised the same arguments, which failed due to their lack of political support.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses's power increased after World War II after Mayor LaGuardia retired and a series of successors consented to almost all of his proposals. Named city "construction coordinator" in 1946 by Mayor William O'Dwyer, Moses became New York City's "de facto" representative in Washington. Moses was also given powers over public housing that had eluded him under LaGuardia. When O'Dwyer was forced to resign in disgrace and was succeeded by Vincent R. Impellitteri, Moses was able to assume even greater behind-the-scenes control over infrastructure projects. One of Moses's first steps after Impellitteri took office was halting the creation of a citywide Comprehensive Zoning Plan underway since 1938 that would have curtailed his nearly unlimited power to build within the city and removed the Zoning Commissioner from power in the process. Moses was also empowered as the sole authority to negotiate in Washington for New York City projects. By 1959, he had overseen construction of 28,000 apartment units on hundreds of acres of land. In clearing the land for high-rises in accordance with the towers in the park concept, which at that time was seen as innovative and beneficial by leaving more grassy areas between high-rises, Moses sometimes destroyed almost as many housing units as he built.


title: Robert Moses

text: From the 1930s to the 1960s, Robert Moses was responsible for the construction of the Triborough, Marine Parkway, Throgs Neck, Bronx-Whitestone, Henry Hudson, and Verrazzano-Narrows Bridges. His other projects included the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and Staten Island Expressway (together constituting most of Interstate 278); the Cross-Bronx Expressway; many New York State parkways; and other highways. Federal interest had shifted from parkway to freeway systems, and the new roads mostly conformed to the new vision, lacking the landscaping or the commercial traffic restrictions of the pre-war highways. He was the mover behind Shea Stadium and Lincoln Center, and contributed to the United Nations headquarters.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses had influence outside the New York area as well. Public officials in many smaller American cities hired him to design freeway networks in the 1940s and early 1950s. For example, Portland, Oregon hired Moses in 1943; his plan included a loop around the city center, with spurs running through neighborhoods. Of this plan, only I-405, its links with I-5, and the Fremont Bridge were built.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses knew how to drive an automobile, but he did not have a valid driver's license. Moses's highways in the first half of the 20th century were parkways—curving, landscaped "ribbon parks" that were intended to be pleasures to travel as well as "lungs for the city"—though the Post–World War II economic expansion and notion of the automotive city brought freeways, most notably in the form of the vast, federally funded Interstate Highway System network.


title: Robert Moses

text: When Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley sought to replace the outdated and dilapidated Ebbets Field, he proposed building a new stadium near the Long Island Rail Road on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue (next to the present-day Barclays Center, home of the NBA Brooklyn Nets). O'Malley urged Moses to help him secure the property through eminent domain, but he refused, having already decided to build a parking garage on the site. Moreover, O'Malley's proposal — to have the city acquire the property for several times as much as he had originally said he was willing to pay — was rejected by both pro- and anti-Moses officials, newspapers, and the public as an unacceptable government subsidy of a private business enterprise.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses envisioned New York's newest stadium being built in Queens' Flushing Meadows on the former (and as it turned out, future) site of the World's Fair, where it would eventually host all three of the city's major league teams of the day. O'Malley vehemently opposed this plan, citing the team's Brooklyn identity. Moses refused to budge, and after the 1957 season the Dodgers left for Los Angeles and the New York Giants left for San Francisco. Moses was later able to build the 55,000-seat multi-purpose Shea Stadium on the site; construction ran from October 1961 to its delayed completion in April 1964. The stadium attracted an expansion franchise: the New York Mets, who played at Shea until 2008, when the stadium was demolished and replaced with Citi Field. The New York Jets football team also played its home games at Shea from 1964 until 1983, after which the team moved its home games to the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses's reputation began to fade during the 1960s. Around this time, Moses's political acumen began to fail him, as he unwisely picked several controversial political battles he could not possibly win. For example, his campaign against the free Shakespeare in the Park program received much negative publicity, and his effort to destroy a shaded playground in Central Park to make way for a parking lot for the expensive Tavern-on-the-Green restaurant earned him many enemies among the middle-class voters of the Upper West Side.


title: Robert Moses

text: The opposition reached a climax over the demolition of Pennsylvania Station, which many attributed to the "development scheme" mentality cultivated by Moses even though it was the impoverished Pennsylvania Railroad that was actually responsible for the demolition. This casual destruction of one of New York's greatest architectural landmarks helped prompt many city residents to turn against Moses's plans to build a Lower Manhattan Expressway, which would have gone through Greenwich Village and what is now SoHo. This plan and the Mid-Manhattan Expressway both failed politically. One of his most vocal critics during this time was the urban activist Jane Jacobs, whose book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" was instrumental in turning opinion against Moses's plans; the city government rejected the expressway in 1964.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses's power was further eroded by his association with the 1964 New York World's Fair. His projections for attendance of 70 million people for this event proved wildly optimistic, and generous contracts for fair executives and contractors made matters worse economically. Moses's repeated and forceful public denials of the fair's considerable financial difficulties in the face of evidence to the contrary eventually provoked press and governmental investigations, which found accounting irregularities. In his organization of the fair, Moses's reputation was now undermined by the same personal character traits that had worked in his favor in the past: disdain for the opinions of others and high-handed attempts to get his way in moments of conflict by turning to the press. The fact that the fair was not sanctioned by the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE), the worldwide body supervising such events, would be devastating to the success of the event. Moses refused to accept BIE requirements, including a restriction against charging ground rents to exhibitors, and the BIE in turn instructed its member nations not to participate. The United States had already staged the sanctioned Century 21 Exposition in Seattle in 1962. According to the rules of the organization, no one nation could host more than one fair in a decade. The major European democracies, as well as Canada, Australia, and the Soviet Union, were all BIE members and they declined to participate, instead reserving their efforts for Expo 67 in Montreal.


title: Robert Moses

text: After the World's Fair debacle, New York City mayor John Lindsay, along with Governor Nelson Rockefeller, sought to direct toll revenues from the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority's (TBTA) bridges and tunnels to cover deficits in the city's then financially ailing agencies, including the subway system. Moses opposed this idea and fought to prevent it. Lindsay then removed Moses from his post as the city's chief advocate for federal highway money in Washington.


title: Robert Moses

text: The legislature's vote to fold the TBTA into the newly created Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) could have led to a lawsuit by the TBTA bondholders. Since the bond contracts were written into state law, it was unconstitutional to impair existing contractual obligations, as the bondholders had the right of approval over such actions. However, the largest holder of TBTA bonds, and thus agent for all the others, was the Chase Manhattan Bank, headed then by David Rockefeller, the governor's brother. No suit was filed. Moses could have directed TBTA to go to court against the action, but having been promised a role in the merged authority, Moses declined to challenge the merger. On March 1, 1968, the TBTA was folded into the MTA and Moses gave up his post as chairman of the TBTA. He eventually became a consultant to the MTA, but its new chairman and the governor froze him out—the promised role did not materialize, and for all practical purposes Moses was out of power.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses had thought he had convinced Nelson Rockefeller of the need for one last great bridge project, a span crossing Long Island Sound from Rye to Oyster Bay. Rockefeller did not press for the project in the late 1960s through 1970, fearing public backlash among suburban Republicans would hinder his re-election prospects. A 1972 study found the bridge was fiscally prudent and could be environmentally manageable (according to the comparatively low environmental impact parameters of that period), but the anti-development sentiment was now insurmountable and in 1973 Rockefeller canceled plans for the bridge.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses's image suffered a further blow in 1974 with the publication of "The Power Broker", a Pulitzer Prize–winning biography by Robert A. Caro. Caro's 1,200-page opus (edited down from 2,000 or so pages) showed Moses generally in a negative light; essayist Phillip Lopate writes that "Moses's satanic reputation with the public can be traced, in the main, to ... Caro's magnificent biography". For example, Caro describes Moses's lack of sensitivity in the construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway, and how he disfavored public transit. Much of Moses's reputation is attributable to Caro, whose book won both the Pulitzer Prize in Biography in 1975 and the Francis Parkman Prize (which is awarded by the Society of American Historians), and was named one of the 100 greatest non-fiction books of the twentieth century by the Modern Library. Upon its publication, Moses denounced the biography in a 23-page statement, to which Caro replied to defend his work's integrity.


title: Robert Moses

text: Caro's depiction of Moses's life gives him full credit for his early achievements, showing, for example, how he conceived and created Jones Beach and the New York State Park system, but also shows how Moses's desire for power came to be more important to him than his earlier dreams. Moses is blamed for having destroyed more than a score of neighborhoods by building 13 expressways across New York City and by building large urban renewal projects with little regard for the urban fabric or for human scale. Yet the author is more neutral in his central premise: the city would have developed much differently without Moses. Other U.S. cities were doing the same thing as New York in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s; Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle, for instance, each built highways straight through their downtown areas. The New York City architectural intelligentsia of the 1940s and 1950s, who largely believed in such proponents of the automobile as Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, had supported Moses. Many other cities, like Newark, Chicago, and St. Louis, also built massive, unattractive public housing projects. However, Caro also points out that Moses demonstrated racist tendencies. These allegedly included opposing black World War II veterans to move into a residential complex specifically designed for these veterans, and purportedly trying to make swimming pool water cold in order to drive away potential African American residents in white neighborhoods.


title: Robert Moses

text: People had come to see Moses as a bully who disregarded public input, but until the publication of Caro's book, they had not known many details of his private life—for instance, that his brother Paul had spent much of his life in poverty. Paul, whom Caro interviewed shortly before the former's death, claimed Robert had exerted undue influence on their mother to change her will in Robert's favor shortly before her death. Caro notes that Paul was on bad terms with their mother over a long period and she may have changed the will of her own accord, and implies that Robert's subsequent treatment of Paul may have been legally justifiable but was morally questionable.


title: Robert Moses

text: During the last years of his life, Moses concentrated on his lifelong love of swimming and was an active member of the Colonie Hill Health Club.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses died of heart disease on July 29, 1981, at the age of 92 at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip, New York.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses was of Jewish origin and raised in a secularist manner inspired by the Ethical Culture movement of the late 19th century. He was a convert to Christianity and was interred in a crypt in an outdoor community mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City following services at St. Peter's by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Bay Shore, New York.


title: Robert Moses

text: Various locations and roadways in New York State bear Moses's name. These include two state parks, Robert Moses State Park – Thousand Islands in Massena, New York and Robert Moses State Park – Long Island, the Robert Moses Causeway on Long Island, and the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant in Lewiston, New York. The Niagara Scenic Parkway in Niagara Falls, New York was originally named the Robert Moses State Parkway in his honor; its name was changed in 2016. The Moses-Saunders Power Dam in Massena, New York also bears his name. Moses also has a school named after him in North Babylon, New York on Long Island; there is also a Robert Moses Playground in New York City. There are other signs of the surviving appreciation held for him by some circles of the public. A statue of Moses was erected next to the Village Hall in his long-time hometown, Babylon Village, New York.


title: Robert Moses

text: During his tenure as chief of the state park system, the state's inventory of parks grew to nearly . By the time he left office, he had built 658 playgrounds in New York City alone, plus of parkways and 13 bridges. However, the proportion of public benefit corporations is greater in New York than in any other U.S. state, making them the prime mode of infrastructure building and maintenance in New York and accounting for 90% of the state's debt.


title: Robert Moses

text: The book highlighted his practice of starting large projects well beyond any funding approved by the New York State legislature, with the knowledge that it would eventually have to pay for the rest to avoid looking as having failed to review the project properly (a tactic known as ). He was also characterized as using his political power to benefit cronies, including a case in which he secretly shifted the planned route of the Northern State Parkway large distances to avoid impinging on the estates of the rich, but told owners of the family farms who lost land and sometimes their livelihood that it was based on "engineering considerations." The book also charged that Moses libeled other officials who opposed him, attempting to have them removed from office by calling some of them communists during the Red Scare. The biography further notes that Moses fought against schools and other public needs in favor of his preference for parks.


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses's critics charge that he preferred automobiles over people. They point out that he displaced hundreds of thousands of residents in New York City and destroyed traditional neighborhoods by building multiple expressways through them. The projects contributed to the ruin of the South Bronx and the amusement parks of Coney Island, caused the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants Major League baseball teams to relocate to Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively, and precipitated the decline of public transport from disinvestment and neglect. His building of expressways also hindered the proposed expansion of the New York City Subway from the 1930s to well into the 1960s because the parkways and expressways that were built replaced, at least to some extent, the planned subway lines. The 1968 Program for Action (which was never completed) was hoped to counter that. Other critics charge that he precluded the use of public transit, which would have allowed non-car-owners to enjoy the elaborate recreation facilities he built.


title: Robert Moses

text: Caro's "The Power Broker" also accused Moses of building low bridges across his parkways in order to "restrict the use of state parks by poor and lower-middle-class families," who did not own cars and would arrive by bus, and of discouraging Black people in particular from visiting Jones Beach, the centerpiece of the Long Island state park system, by such measures as making it difficult for Black groups to get permits to park buses, even if they came anyway (by other roads), and assigning Black lifeguards to "distant, less developed beaches" instead. While the exclusion of commercial vehicles and the use of low bridges where appropriate were standard on earlier parkways, where they had been instituted for aesthetic reasons, Moses appears to have made greater use of low bridges, which his aide Sidney Shapiro said was done to make it more difficult for future legislators to allow commercial vehicles. Caro's claims have been questioned since buses in fact use the parkways. Woolgar and Cooper refer to the claim about bridges as an "urban legend." Joerges describes it as "counterfactual".


title: Robert Moses

text: Moses vocally opposed allowing Black war veterans to move into Stuyvesant Town, a Manhattan residential development complex created to house World War II veterans. In response to the biography, Moses defended his forced displacement of poor and minority communities as an inevitable part of urban revitalization: "I raise my stein to the builder who can remove ghettos without moving people as I hail the chef who can make omelets without breaking eggs."


title: Robert Moses

text: Additionally, there were allegations that Moses selectively chose locations for recreational facilities based on the racial compositions of neighborhood, such as when he selected sites for eleven pools that opened in 1936. According to one author, Moses purposely placed some pools in neighborhoods with mainly-white populations to deter African Americans from using them, and other pools intended for African Americans, such as the one in Colonial Park, now Jackie Robinson Park, were placed in inconvenient locations. Another author wrote that of 255 playgrounds built in the 1930s under Moses's tenure, two were in largely-Black neighborhoods. Caro wrote that close associates of Moses had claimed they could keep African Americans from using the Thomas Jefferson Pool, in then-predominantly-white East Harlem, by making the water too cold. However, no other source has corroborated the claim that heaters in any particular pool were deactivated or not included in the pool's design.


title: Robert Moses

text: Some scholars have attempted to rehabilitate Moses's reputation by contrasting the scale of works with the high cost and the slow speed of public works in the decades following his era. The peak of Moses's construction occurred during the economic duress of the Great Depression, and despite the era's woes, Moses's projects were completed in a timely fashion and have been reliable public works since then, which compares favorably to the delays that New York City officials have had in redeveloping the Ground Zero site of the former World Trade Center or to the delays and technical problems surrounding the Second Avenue Subway and Boston's Big Dig project.


title: Robert Moses

text: Three major exhibits in 2007 prompted a reconsideration of his image among some intellectuals, as they acknowledged the magnitude of his achievements. According to the Columbia University architectural historian Hilary Ballon and assorted colleagues, Moses deserves better than his reputation as a destroyer. They argue that his legacy is more relevant than ever and that people take the parks, playgrounds, and housing that Moses built, now generally binding forces in those areas, for granted even if the old-style New York neighborhood was of no interest to Moses himself. Moreover, were it not for Moses's public infrastructure and his resolve to carve out more space, New York might not have been able to recover from the blight and flight of the 1970s and the 1980s to become today's economic magnet.


title: Robert Moses

text: "Every generation writes its own history," said Kenneth T. Jackson, a historian of New York City. "It could be that "The Power Broker" was a reflection of its time: New York was in trouble and had been in decline for 15 years. Now, for a whole host of reasons, New York is entering a new time, a time of optimism, growth and revival that hasn't been seen in half a century. And that causes us to look at our infrastructure," said Jackson. "A lot of big projects are on the table again, and it kind of suggests a Moses era without Moses," he added. Politicians are also reconsidering the Moses legacy; in a 2006 speech to the Regional Plan Association on downstate transportation needs, New York Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer stated a biography of Moses written today might be called "At Least He Got It Built": "That's what we need today. A real commitment to get things done."


title: Roma (2018 film)

text: Roma is a 2018 drama film written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón, who also produced, shot, and co-edited it. Set in 1970 and 1971, "Roma" follows the life of a live-in "Mixteco" housekeeper of an upper middle-class family, as a semi-autobiographical take on Cuarón's upbringing in the Colonia Roma neighborhood of Mexico City. The film stars Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira in the leading roles. It is an international co-production between Mexico and the United States.


title: Roma (2018 film)

text: The film premiered at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on 30 August 2018, where it won the Golden Lion. It began a limited theatrical run in the United States on 21 November 2018, before streaming on Netflix in the US and other territories starting on 14 December 2018. The film received universal critical acclaim, with particular praise given to Cuarón's screenplay, direction and cinematography, as well as the performances of Aparicio and de Tavira. The film is considered to be one of the best films of 2018 and has been widely regarded by critics as one of the best films of the 2010s, and appeared on many critics' "top ten" lists of the year.


title: Roma (2018 film)

text: "Roma" received a number of accolades, with ten nominations at the 91st Academy Awards, among them Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress (Aparicio) and Best Supporting Actress (de Tavira). It became the first Mexican entry to win Best Foreign Language Film, and also won for Best Cinematography and Best Director, becoming the first foreign language film to win in the last category, as well as marking the first time a director won Best Cinematography for their own film. It was tied with "The Favourite" as the most-nominated film of the show, and with "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000) for the most Academy Award nominations ever received by a non-English language film. It also won Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film at the 76th Golden Globe Awards, Best Picture and Best Director at the 24th Critics' Choice Awards, and Best Film, Best Film Not in the English Language, Best Direction and Best Cinematography at the 72nd British Academy Film Awards.


title: Roma (2018 film)

text: In 1970, Cleodegaria "Cleo" Gutiérrez is an Indigenous live-in maid in an upper-middle class household in the Colonia Roma neighborhood of Mexico City. She and another maid, Adela, speak Mixtec when they are together, but Spanish in the presence of the family: the mother Sofía; the father, Antonio; grandma Teresa; and their four children. When Antonio, a doctor, remains in Quebec after a conference, the problems in his and Sofia's marriage become apparent.


title: Roma (2018 film)

text: When Cleo tells her boyfriend Fermín that she might be pregnant, he abandons her at a cinema. Sofía takes her to the hospital, where they confirm her pregnancy. She then takes Cleo and the children to a family friend's hacienda for New Year. Recent tensions over land in the area come to light, as a forest fire erupts. The fire is later extinguished. Back in the city, Cleo and Toño see Antonio and a young woman flirting while exiting a movie theatre. Sofía tries to conceal her husband's infidelity from the children, but her second son Paco later learns the truth by eavesdropping. Fermín refuses to acknowledge that the baby is his, threatening to beat Cleo and their child if she tries to find him again.


title: Roma (2018 film)

text: With the baby almost due, Teresa takes Cleo shopping for a crib. The store is overrun by a battle between student protestors and the paramilitary group Los Halcones (The Hawks). Fermín, a member of Los Halcones, points a gun at Cleo and Teresa before fleeing. Stressed, Cleo's water breaks. The ongoing conflict between students and Los Halcones slows traffic and her attempt to get to the hospital. When she does arrive, Dr. Antonio briefly appears to reassure Cleo, but makes an excuse to leave. Her baby girl is stillborn.


title: Roma (2018 film)

text: Sofia takes Cleo and the children on a family holiday to the beaches at Tuxpan. She tells the children that she and their father are separated, and that the holiday was so their father can collect his belongings from their home. At the beach, two of the children are almost carried off by a strong current. Cleo wades in to save them, even though she does not know how to swim. As Sofía and the children affirm their love for Cleo for such selfless devotion, she tearfully confesses that she had not wanted her baby to be born. They return home to Roma to find the house reorganized. Cleo prepares a load for washing, and Adela tells her they have much to talk about.


title: Roma (2018 film)

text: On 8 September 2016, it was announced that Alfonso Cuarón would write and direct a project focusing on a Mexican family living in Mexico City in the 1970s. Production was set to begin in fall 2016 by his own production company Esperanto Filmoj and Participant Media. The film was produced by Cuarón, Gabriela Rodríguez, and Nicolás Celis. Filming began from 27 November 2016 to 14 March 2017. Cuarón stated I "just wrote the script without looking back. I started page one, I finish it, I never read it again as a whole. I never share it with anyone."


title: Roma (2018 film)

text: "Roma" was shot in sequence, which Yalitza Aparicio, who plays Cleo, said helped her. She was most terrified by the scene on the beach, as she—like her character—could not swim. Before being cast, Aparicio, who had recently completed graduate training in pre-school education, had no acting experience or formal training in acting. She has joked that the only "acting" she has ever done was lying to her parents and teachers.


title: Roma (2018 film)

text: Filming took place on-location throughout Mexico City, as Cuarón felt shooting on soundstages would be difficult for first-time actors. The movie theatre serving as a recurring location was the Teatro Metropólitan, where Cuarón had premiered "Y tu mamá también" in 2001.


title: Roma (2018 film)

text: On 1 November 2016, the crew of "Roma" was the target of a robbery. According to the studio, "two women were hit, five crew members were hospitalized, and cellphones, wallets, and jewelry were stolen" during the attack. The crew reportedly arrived to set up filming for the day when a group of city workers approached the crew and tried to shut down filming. The crew stated they had permission to film, but the workers persisted and a brawl broke out between the groups.


title: Roma (2018 film)

text: In April 2018, it was announced Netflix had acquired distribution rights to the film. Netflix movie chief Scott Stuber acquired the rights based on 12 minutes of footage he was shown.


title: Roma (2018 film)

text: The film had its world premiere at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on 30 August 2018, and made its North American debut the next day at the Telluride Film Festival. The film also played at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was screened at the San Sebastián International Film Festival on 27 September 2018, the New York Film Festival on 5October 2018, and the 29th New Orleans Film Festival as the Centerpiece Film on 22 October 2018. The film was released at independent theatres in Mexico on 21 November; however, the Cinépolis and Cinemex chains refused, as they demanded a longer exclusivity window than what Netflix offered. Released digitally on 14 December, the film was watched by 3.2 million households between January and February 2019, with a peak of 418,000 viewers on 23 February, the day before the Academy Awards.