title: The Gambler (1974 film)

text: Toback completed it in 1972 and showed it to his friend Lucy Saroyan, who introduced Toback to Robert De Niro. Toback became enthused about the possibility of De Niro playing the lead. He showed the script to his literary agent who gave it to Mike Medavoy who attached director Karel Reisz. Reisz did not want to use De Niro and cast James Caan instead.


title: The Gambler (1974 film)

text: "Caan became a great Axel Freed, although obviously different from the character De Niro would have created", wrote Toback later. It was filmed at a time when leading actor James Caan was battling his own addiction to cocaine. Caan says the film is one of his favorites. "It's not easy to make people care about a guy who steals from his mother to pay gambling debts."


title: The Gambler (1974 film)

text: Roger Ebert awarded his top grade of four stars and wrote that the film "begins as a portrait of Axel Freed's personality, develops into the story of his world, and then pays off as a thriller. We become so absolutely contained by Axel's problems and dangers that they seem like our own." Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" was less impressed, writing, "The movie follows Axel's downward path with such care that you keep thinking there must be some illuminating purpose, but there isn't ... Mr. Reisz and Mr. Toback reportedly worked a couple of years putting the screenplay into this shape, which is lifeless." Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and said that director Karel Reisz "is most successful in presenting Axel as a true sickie and his adversaries as genuinely ruthless. The latter is no mean feat, inasmuch as ruthless movie mobsters are a dime-a-dozen in these post-'Godfather' days ... We know that the film is a success, because it doesn't really matter whether Axel is a winner or a loser as the film ends. 'The Gambler' is a personality study, and like 'California Split,' its story does not hang on its ending." Arthur D. Murphy of "Variety" called "The Gambler" "way ahead as the better of two current films about the gambling compulsion. Director Karel Reisz has one of his most compelling and effective films. Title star James Caan is excellent and the featured players are superb." Charles Champlin of the "Los Angeles Times" declared it "a cool, hard, perfectly cut gem of a movie, as brilliant and mysteriously deep as a fine diamond. At its center is an hypnotically absorbing performance, at once charming and dismaying, by James Caan, who must certainly have an Academy Award nomination for it." Pauline Kael of "The New Yorker" stated, "At 'The Gambler,' we're trapped at a maniacal lecture on gambling as existential expression. And, as almost always happens when a movie is predictable and everything is analyzed and labelled, the actions and the explanations aren't convincing. Gambling is too easy a metaphor for life; as metaphor, it belongs to the world of hardboiled fiction." Gary Arnold of "The Washington Post" agreed, calling it "a well-made movie invalidated at every turn by a script with big, literary pretensions but little if any dramatic credibility." Jonathan Rosenbaum of "The Monthly Film Bulletin" wrote that his problem with the film "is not so much a surfeit of psychological analysis—the script offers hints, not explicit causes explaining Axel's condition—as too little to account for his behaviour naturalistically, and too much to permit any sustained acceptance of the character on an allegorical or mythical level ... there is nothing in Axel that suggests hidden depths; indeed, despite Caan's consistent professionalism, the actor seems to be as disinterested in his character as Axel seems to be in himself."


title: The Gambler (1974 film)

text: In August 2011, Paramount Pictures announced a remake of the 1974 film "The Gambler" with the original producers, Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff. Intended as a new directorial project for Martin Scorsese, it was reported that Leonardo DiCaprio was attached as the star and William Monahan would write the screenplay.


title: The Gambler (1974 film)

text: In a 2011 interview, screenwriter James Toback gave the story of the original film's autobiographical background and development, and criticized the announcement of the remake.


title: The Gambler (1974 film)

text: In September 2013, Mark Wahlberg and director Rupert Wyatt expressed interest in remaking the film. The film was released on December 25, 2014.


title: BRZRKR

text: BRZRKR is a comic book series created and written by Keanu Reeves and Matt Kindt and drawn by Ron Garney. The comic follows an immortal warrior, known as Berzerker, as he fights his way through the ages. The first issue of the 12-issue limited series was published on March 3, 2021, by Boom! Studios. It raised more than $1.4 million USD in its funding campaign on Kickstarter.


title: BRZRKR

text: The series is also being released as collected graphic novel volumes. According to the Kickstarter page, the first volume (issue 1-4) was released in September 2021, with volume 2 (issue 5-8) in September 2022 (originally set to release in April 2022), and volume 3 (issue 9-12) due in 2023.


title: BRZRKR

text: On March 22, 2021, Netflix announced it was developing a live-action film adaptation and a follow-up anime series based on the comics with Reeves cast as the lead. In October 2021, Mattson Tomlin was writing the live-action film adaptation.


title: BRZRKR

text: In July 2022, during Keanu Reeves' panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, it was announced that the anime series adaptation will be produced by Production I.G and have two seasons.


title: Starcrash

text: Starcrash () is a 1978 space opera film directed and co-written by Luigi Cozzi, and starring Marjoe Gortner, Caroline Munro, Christopher Plummer, David Hasselhoff and Joe Spinell.


title: Starcrash

text: It is widely regarded as a "cash-in" on the unprecedented success of "Star Wars." Filmed at Cinecittà studios in Rome, the film was produced independently by brothers Nat and Patrick Wachsburger, and features a musical score composed by John Barry.


title: Starcrash

text: Released by New World Pictures on December 10, 1978, it received generally negative reviews from critics, but has developed a cult following.


title: Starcrash

text: In a distant galaxy, a starship searches for the evil Count Zarth Arn. Closing in on a planet, the ship is attacked by a mysterious weapon which drives the crew insane. Three escape pods launch during the attack, but the ship crashes into the atmosphere of the planet and is destroyed.


title: Starcrash

text: Meanwhile, smugglers Stella Star and Akton run into the Imperial Space Police, led by robot sheriff Elle and Police Chief Thor. Akton and Stella escape by jumping into hyperspace. When they emerge, they discover an escape pod from the attacked starship, and in it, a sole disoriented survivor. Before they can escape, they are apprehended by the police, who have tracked their hyperspace trail.


title: Starcrash

text: Tried and convicted of piracy, they are each sentenced to life in prison on separate prison planets. Stella manages to escape from her prison, but Elle and Thor recapture her, only to inform her the authorities have canceled her sentence; she is taken to an orbiting ship, where she is reunited with Akton. They are contacted holographically by the Emperor of the Galaxy, who thanks them for recovering the starship survivor.


title: Starcrash

text: He informs them that Count Zarth Arn has a secret weapon of immense power hidden away on a planet somewhere. The Emperor orders Stella and Akton to find the Count's weapon. They are offered clemency if they help find two more missing escape pods as well as the mothership, one of which may contain the Emperor's only son. With Thor and Elle accompanying them, Stella and Akton set off on their quest.


title: Starcrash

text: They quickly arrive at the location Akton computes for the first escape pod. Stella and Elle take a shuttle from the spaceship and land near the pod on a sandy, rocky beach. There are no living survivors. Stella meets an Amazonian warrior tribe and is escorted to their underground fortress. On arrival, Elle is ambushed, shot and left for dead, and Stella is taken captive. Stella is taken before Amazon Queen Corelia, who is in league with Zarth Arn. Elle, revealed not to have died, makes his way to the throne room, taking Corelia hostage to secure Stella's release. They escape, but the queen activates a giant female robot which chases them until they are rescued by Akton and Thor.


title: Starcrash

text: On an uninhabited, frozen planet, Stella and Elle investigate the mothership crash site. As with the first crash site, they find no survivors. Upon their return to the ship, Thor, who has ambushed and apparently knocked out Akton, reveals that he is an agent of Zarth Arn. Thor locks Stella and Elle outside on the planet's surface, where the temperature drops thousands of degrees at night, but Elle is able to preserve Stella's life by using his energy to keep her heart going while they freeze over in the snow. Meanwhile, Akton revives and battles Thor, killing him and subsequently rescuing Elle and Stella.


title: Starcrash

text: Approaching the planet of the third escape pod, their ship comes under attack from the same weapon seen at the beginning of the film, but Akton steers the ship through it, saving them. Stella and Elle, inspecting the pod wreckage, are attacked by cavemen who smash Elle to pieces and abduct Stella, but a man in a golden mask arrives, firing lasers through his eyes, and rescues her. He is revealed to be the Emperor's son, Prince Simon. They are again attacked and overpowered by the cavemen, but Akton appears and fights them off with his laser sword; he then reveals that they are standing on the Count's weaponized planet.


title: Starcrash

text: Arriving at an underground laboratory, the three are captured by the guards. The Count appears and reveals his plan to use them as bait to bring the Emperor to the planet and then have his weapon self-destruct, destroying the planet, the Emperor and all three of them. He leaves, ordering his two robot golems to keep the group there. Akton engages them in a laser sword duel and defeats the robots, but is mortally wounded and fades away. The Emperor arrives at the planet and fires a green ray from his flagship to "stop time" for three minutes, allowing them all to escape as the planet explodes behind them.


title: Starcrash

text: A huge battle commences between the Emperor's armada and the Count's, with the Emperor's soldiers storming the Count's space station; however, the attack fails and the victorious Count gets ready to destroy the Emperor's home planet. With no further options left, the Emperor decides to use a massive space station, the Floating City, to ram the Count's space station in a 4th dimensional attack, “Starcrash”. Elle has been rebuilt by the Emperor's men. Stella and Elle volunteer to smash the City into the Count's station. They fly the City towards the space station and manage to escape together just as their station crashes into the Count's, finally winning the war.


title: Starcrash

text: Stella and Elle are picked up by Simon and the two humans embrace. The movie ends with the Emperor delivering a short victory speech.


title: Starcrash

text: In an interview with "Variety", director Luigi Cozzi described "Starcrash" as "science fantasy" as opposed to science fiction. Cozzi also stated that although people assume "Starcrash" was an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of "Star Wars", the design of the picture and its script were developed prior to the release of "Star Wars". The film's producer and screenwriter, Nat Wachsberger, and his son, producer Patrick Wachsberger, who had just developed the American production company Film Enterprises Productions, signed on to the film in May 1977 during the Cannes Film Festival after viewing sample work created by Cozzi for investors.


title: Starcrash

text: Principal photography began on October 15, 1977 at the Cinecittà studios in Rome, Italy. "The Hollywood Reporter" stated that shooting also took place in Morocco, Tunisia and in Hollywood. Roberto Girometti and Giuseppe Lanci are credited with "additional photography". The film was scheduled to be completed by mid-December 1977. The budget was $4 million.


title: Starcrash

text: Plummer said of the filming, "Give me Rome any day. I'll do porno in Rome, as long as I can get to Rome. Getting to Rome was the greatest thing that happened in that for me. I think it was only about three days in Rome on that one. It was all shot at once". Discussing his role as the Emperor, he said, "How can you play the Emperor of The Universe? What a wonderful part to play. It puts God in a very dicey moment, doesn't it? He's very insecure, God, when the Emperor’s around."


title: Starcrash

text: Cozzi stated that the miniatures were completed by Italian artists, while American developers were recruited for the special effects, including snorkel photography, computer photography and mechanical effects. Shooting took over six months and was frequently brought to a halt due to financing problems. The film was originally made for American International Pictures, but after seeing the final cut, they declined to release it. New World Pictures stepped in instead.


title: Starcrash

text: The score for "Starcrash" was composed and conducted by veteran composer John Barry. The soundtrack was given a limited release of 1,500 copies by BSX Records in December 2008, and features 14 tracks of score.


title: Starcrash

text: The film premiered in Los Angeles on March 7, 1979. At the 7th Saturn Awards, it was nominated for the Best International Film.


title: Starcrash

text: In a contemporary review, "Variety" noted that the film had a "weak screenplay" and that Cozzi's direction "seemed to have no apparent plan". "Variety" commented that "what is surprising for a picture of this genre, however, is the lacklustre photography by Paul Beeson and Roberto D'Ettorre and special effects by Armando Valcauda and German Natali", and that the "photography almost never convinces that this is actually taking place anywhere but on the movie screen and special effects seem little more than poor imitations of what's been done before". The "Monthly Film Bulletin" noted the "mediocre special effects and a clumsily protracted finale", but stated that "Starcrash" "intermittently achieves a kind of lunatic appeal as it lurches pell-mell from one casually fabricated climax to the next".


title: Starcrash

text: A retrospective review by Kurt Dahlke of "DVD Talk" said, ""Starcrash" is a masterpiece of unintentionally bad filmmaking. Pounded out in about 18 months seemingly as an answer to "Star Wars", Luigi Cozzi's knock-off buzzes around with giddy brio, mixing ridiculous characters with questionably broad acting, an incredibly simple yet still nonsensical plot derivative to "Star Wars", and budget special effects that transcend into the realm of real art. It's a completely ridiculous movie, that's great to watch with a few friends and a beer or two. And it still manages to make my jaw drop". R. L. Shaffer of "IGN" gave the film a rating of 10/10, declaring it the "single greatest sci-fi camp fest ever put on celluloid" and put it in a league with cult classics like "Troll 2", "" and "The Room". On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an aggregate score of 29% based on 2 positive and 5 negative critic reviews.


title: Starcrash

text: In 2015, "Starcrash" was chosen by "Rolling Stone" as one of the "50 Best Sci-Fi Movies of the 1970s".


title: Starcrash

text: The film was the subject of an episode of the podcast "How Did This Get Made?" recorded at the Dominion Energy Center in Richmond, Virginia on July 20, 2019.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: Randalls Island (sometimes called Randall's Island) and Wards Island are conjoined islands, collectively called Randalls and Wards Islands, in New York County, New York City, separated from Manhattan Island by the Harlem River, from Queens by the East River and Hell Gate, and from the Bronx by the Bronx Kill. The two islands were formerly separated, with Randalls Island to the north of Wards Island. The channel between them, Little Hell Gate, was infilled by the early 1960s. A third, smaller island, Sunken Meadow Island, was located east of Randalls Island and was connected to it in 1955.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: The island had a population of 1,648 living on in 2010. Most of the island is parkland, spanning a total of , and managed by Randall's Island Park Alliance. The park offers 91 athletic fields, a driving range, greenways, playgrounds and picnic grounds. The island also has a history of being used for asylums, hospitals, and cemeteries, and is currently home to several public facilities, including a psychiatric hospital known as the Manhattan Psychiatric Center, Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center a Drug and Alcohol Treatment facility named Odyssey House, a daycare, 2 state police stations, FDNY fire academy, a DEP wastewater treatment plant, Icahn Stadium, HELP Clarke Thomas Mens Homeless Shelter, Keener Employment Homeless Mens Shelter, Schwartz Homeless Mens Shelter, HELP USA Supportive Employment Center, and an Urban Farm. Outside of these institutions and buildings, there is no residential housing for the general public on the island.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: The island is crossed by the Triborough and Hell Gate bridges. The island can be reached by the Triborough Bridge; the Wards Island Bridge, which serves pedestrians and bicyclists and links the island to East Harlem in Manhattan; or by the Randalls Island Connector, a pedestrian and cycling bridge crossing the Bronx Kill and connecting to the Port Morris neighborhood of the Bronx. Randalls Island is the home of three music festivals: Governors Ball Music Festival, Panorama Music Festival, and Electric Zoo Festival.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: Native Americans called Wards Island "Tenkenas" which translated to "Wild Lands" or "uninhabited place", whereas Randalls Island was called "Minnehanonck". The islands were acquired by Wouter Van Twiller, Director General of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, in July 1637. The island's first European names were Great Barent Island (Wards) and Little Barent Island (Randalls) after a Danish cowherd named Barent Jansen Blom. Both islands' names changed several times. At times Randalls was known as "Buchanan's Island" and "Great Barn Island", both of which were likely corruptions of Great Barent Island.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: Captain John Montresor, an engineer with the British army, purchased Randalls Island in 1772. He renamed it Montresor's Island and lived on it with his wife until the Revolutionary War forced him to deploy. During the Revolutionary War, both islands hosted military posts for the British. The British used his island to launch amphibious attacks on Manhattan, and Montresor's house there was burned in 1777. He resigned his commission and returned to England in 1778, but retained ownership of the island until the British evacuated the city in 1783 and it was confiscated.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: Both islands gained their current names from new owners after the war. In November 1784, Jonathan Randell (or Randel) bought Randalls Island, while Jaspar Ward and Bartholomew Ward, sons of judge Stephen Ward, bought Wards.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: Although a small population had lived on Wards since as early as the 17th century, the Ward brothers developed the island more heavily by building a cotton mill and in 1807 building the first bridge to cross the East River. The wooden drawbridge connected the island with Manhattan at 114th Street, and was paid for by Bartholomew Ward and Philip Milledolar. The bridge lasted until 1821, when it was destroyed in a storm. After the destruction of the bridge, Wards Island was largely abandoned until 1840. Jonathan Randel's heirs sold Randalls to the city in 1835 for $60,000.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: In the mid-19th century, both Randalls and Wards Islands, like nearby Blackwell's Island, became home to a variety of social facilities. Randalls housed an orphanage, poor house, burial ground for the poor, "idiot" asylum, homeopathic hospital and rest home for Civil War veterans, and was also site of the New York House of Refuge, a reform school completed in 1854 for juvenile delinquents or juveniles adjudicated as vagrants. Between 1840 and 1930, Wards Island was used for:


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: When the Triborough Bridge opened in 1936, it spurred the conversion of both islands to parkland. At the time, Little Hell Gate separated Randalls and Wards Islands. Around the late 1930s, Little Hell Gate began to be narrowed using infill to make room for an expansion of the parks. By the early 1960s, the islands were connected.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: There was also formerly another small island, Sunken Meadow Island, to the east of Randalls Island. It was infilled starting in 1955 when the city allowed construction companies to dump debris in between the islands for free. The former island is now part of Sunken Meadow. The Sunken Meadow section of the Randalls Island Park, which was essentially completed by 1965, comprises and contains ball fields. Sunken Meadow also contains the infilled portion of Little Hell Gate.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: In 1984, the point at the southeastern tip of the island was officially designated "Negro Point", based on the unofficial usage of riverboat workers. The United States Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration used that name. It still appears on charts of the area today. In 2001 the Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, upon learning of the name, thought it was offensive. He changed the name to "Scylla Point" and paired it with Charybdis Playground in Astoria Park; the two features are on opposite sides of Hell Gate, just as the mythological monsters of Scylla and Charybdis were on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina. Despite the name change Negro Point is still used by tug captains and mates as they sail past the area.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: Proposals to add parks to the islands were made as early as 1916, but park development was truly kicked off by the 1930 Metropolitan Conference of Parks, which recommended transforming them into recreational parks. Randalls Island Park is operated by the Randall's Island Park Alliance (RIPA), a public-private partnership founded in 1992 as the Island Sports Foundation.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: Randalls Island Park Alliance works with the City and local communities to provide sports venues, cultural events and environmental exploration. RIPA runs free youth programs at the Park, bringing thousands of children to the Park annually for a range of sports and environmental-education activities. Youth programs include public school field trips to the park's urban farm and saltmarsh, environmental and garden tours and workshops, and various outdoor arts and crafts programs. In addition, RIPA hosts Randalls Island Kids camp, a free six-week-long summer camp for children from community organizations in East Harlem and the South Bronx. Programming for the general public includes movies nights in the park, historical and environmental tours, outdoor yoga, and large festivals, including the Cherry Blossom and music festivals.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: Randalls Island Park contains over 8 miles of pedestrian and bike pathways, the majority of which run along the scenic waterfront perimeter of the island. With connections to all three boroughs, the island acts as a non-vehicular route for traveling between Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens. Connection to the South Bronx Greenway is planned, with additional waterfront pathway sections, a naturalized "living shoreline," and further environmental restoration. Greenway segments are part of the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000 mile long trail system connecting Maine to Florida.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: A renovated golf center opened in 2008. The new $500,000 renovation has a two-tier indoor/outdoor, 82-stall driving range, of landing area, a 36-hole mini-golf course, grass tees, a short game area with sand bunker, PGA instructors, and 9 batting cages. Then, a tennis center opened in Randalls Island Park in July 2009. It features 20 courts, 10 har-tru and 10 rubberized hard (5 indoor), along with a cafe, pro shop, fitness facilities and locker rooms. From May–October, 10 courts are reserved for NYC Parks Tennis Permit holders during the daylight hours. In the winter, all 15 outdoor courts are bubbled for use by club members.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: The center is also the home to the John McEnroe Tennis Academy and was home to the New York Sportimes of World TeamTennis until the team relocated to San Diego in 2014. Finally, in May 2010, RIPA and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation completed the construction of over 60 athletic fields to support a greater variety of sports, including football, lacrosse, field hockey, and rugby among the sports already played at the Park, soccer, baseball and softball. Randalls Island Park has the most athletic fields of any single New York City park.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: Three natural environments, two saltmarsh and a freshwater wetland, have been established on the island. Through the process of excavating over of debris, installing clean sand, and planting native marsh grasses, of saltmarsh has been created surrounding the Little Hell Gate Inlet on the western edge of the Island. Just across from the Little Hell Gate saltmarsh, of freshwater wetlands were also established. In addition, the park is home to hundreds of birds, making it a destination for bird and nature enthusiasts.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: After the removal of almost of debris and fill, the freshwater wetland site was planted with native herbaceous, shrub, and tree species, such as switchgrass, aster, dogwood, and oak. In addition, the restoration projects play a crucial role in a park-wide filtration system that collects storm water from the adjacent sports fields, pathways and paved areas and channels it through the Wetlands, where the new plants naturally filter pollutants before reaching the East River.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation approved a $1 million contract with Natural Currents Energy Services to generate renewable energy in the park. The project was expected to produce of solar, wind, and tidal energy to power the island's facilities. The project was planned to include a solar-powered marine research and information kiosk that would have been open to visitors of the island, and was hoped to have been completed in September 2012.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: In October 2022, following a large influx of migrants seeking asylum in the United States to New York City, the administration of mayor Eric Adams announced that the city government would open an shelter on Randalls Island. The shelter consisted of 500 beds for male migrants, but fewer than half of the beds were filled within two weeks of the shelter's opening. The Adams administration closed the migrant shelter in November 2022 due to a decrease in the number of new migrants.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: Little Hell Gate was originally a natural waterway separating Randalls Island and Wards Island. The east end of Little Hell Gate opened into the Hell Gate passage of the East River, opposite Astoria, Queens. The west end of Little Hell Gate met the Harlem River across from East 116th Street, Manhattan. At the Hell Gate Bridge, Little Hell Gate was over 1000 feet (300 m) wide. Currents were swift.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: After the Triborough Bridge opened in 1936, it spurred the conversion of both islands to parkland. Soon thereafter, the city began filling in most of the passage between the two islands, in order to expand and connect the two parks. The inlet was filled in by the 1960s. What is now called "Little Hell Gate Inlet" is the western end of what used to be Little Hell Gate, however, few traces of the eastern end of Little Hell Gate still remain: an indentation in the shoreline on the East River side indicates the former east entrance to that waterway. Today, parkland and part of the New York City Fire Department Academy (see below) occupy that area.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: The first stadium built on the island was the Downing Stadium, a WPA project. Upon its opening on July 11, 1936, 15,000 attendees witnessed Jesse Owens compete in the Men's Olympic Trials. Downing Stadium also hosted the Women's Olympic Trials in 1964. It was the site of an international soccer friendly in which England defeated the USA, 10–0, on May 27, 1964. In 1960, the owners of Ebbets Field donated 500 stadium lights to Downing Stadium. The lights came from the old stadium, which was being torn down. Downing Stadium was demolished in 2002, and replaced by the Icahn Stadium, which opened in April 2005. It was designed by architect Ricardo Zurita, who was also involved with the master planning of the park development. On May 31, 2008, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt broke the world record for the men's 100-meter dash at the Fourth Annual Reebok Grand Prix with a "lightning" speed time of 9.72 seconds.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: In 1917, the Hell Gate Bridge, a railroad bridge, was built across both islands, running from Astoria, Queens to the Bronx. The bridge was first thought of in the early 1900s, as a plan to link New York and the Pennsylvania Railroad with New England and the New Haven Railroad. The bridge is considered to be extremely sturdy; it would be the last New York City bridge to collapse if humans disappeared, taking at least a millennium to do so, according to the February 2005 issue of "Discover" magazine, while most other bridges would fall in about 300 years.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: In 1936, the islands were connected to the rest of the city by the Triborough Bridge, the hub of which crossed the islands. The American Society of Civil Engineers designated the Triborough Bridge Project as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1986. On November 19, 2008, the Triborough Bridge was officially renamed after Robert F. Kennedy at the request of the Kennedy family. To manage the bridge (and eventually all tolled New York City water crossings), the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority erected an art deco head building, the former base of Robert Moses; the building still stands on the island.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: In 1937, the islands were connected by a bridge over Little Hell Gate, obviating the need for a ferry to Wards Island. There were two bridges that appear to have been known as Little Hell Gate Bridge – an early 20th-century rail bridge on the approach to Hell Gate Bridge, and a later, lower steel arch road bridge across Little Hell Gate. The northern approach viaduct to the Hell Gate Bridge included an inverted bowstring truss bridge, with four long spans, across Little Hell Gate. Although the majority of Little Hell Gate has been filled in, this bridge still exists. Some time after the rail bridge was built, a long, 3 span, steel arch road bridge, designed by George Washington Bridge-engineer Othmar Ammann, was also built across Little Hell Gate, just a short distance to the northwest of the rail bridge.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: The Little Hell Gate bridge was rendered obsolete when the Little Hell Gate was filled, and a service road was built alongside the deteriorating bridge. Efforts were made in the mid-1990s to preserve the bridge in the face of plans by the New York City Department of Transportation to demolish it. They were unsuccessful, and the bridge was replaced with a simple service road.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: In 1937, plans were developed by Robert Moses to construct a pedestrian bridge across the Harlem River from East Harlem, providing Manhattan residents with easy access to the new Wards Island's Park. However, actual construction of this Wards Island Bridge, also known as the 103rd Street Footbridge, did not begin until 1949. Designed by Othmar Hermann Ammann and built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the footbridge was originally known as the Harlem River Pedestrian Bridge. This bridge opened to pedestrians on May 18, 1951 and was completed at a cost of $2.1 million. It gives access to Wards Island Park from East Harlem, which has few public green spaces.


title: Randalls and Wards Islands

text: In November 2015, a ground-level footbridge over the Bronx Kill, called the Randalls Island Connector, opened, forming the second link from Randalls Island to the Bronx. Construction of this bridge was proposed in 2006, but did not begin until 2013.


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a survival horror video game developed by The Chinese Room and published by Frictional Games. Originally meant to be a mod, the game is an indirect sequel to "", which was both developed and produced by Frictional Games. While set in the same universe as the previous game, it features a new cast of characters and time setting.


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: The game became available to pre-order on 16 August 2013, and was released on 10 September 2013 to mixed reviews from critics. "A Machine for Pigs" was released on 22 November 2016 for the PlayStation 4 as part of the "Amnesia Collection", including "Amnesia: The Dark Descent" and its "Amnesia: Justine" expansion.


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: The game features several interlocking storylines. Some take place in the past, some in the present, and some are overtly real while some may be imagined. Set in London on New Year's Eve, 1899, the game's protagonist is Oswald Mandus, a wealthy industrialist and butcher who is implied to be the great grand-nephew of Daniel, the protagonist of "". At the beginning of the game, he awakens from a fever that has lasted for several months, after returning from a disastrous expedition to explore Aztec ruins in Mexico. He hears the voices of his sons, Edwin and Enoch, calling for him as they lead him through the different areas.


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: Mandus receives a call from "the Engineer", who tells Mandus that Edwin and Enoch have been trapped far below them, in the "Machine" which Mandus created beneath his house. The Machine has been sabotaged, putting his sons in danger. The Engineer tasks Mandus with clearing the floodwaters and bringing the Machine back online, providing ongoing guidance through telephones throughout the facility. Mandus is opposed in his tasks by the Manpigs, deformed swine-like monstrosities that patrol the depths through which he descends.


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: After a series of puzzle-like tasks, Mandus eventually reactivates the Machine, but the Engineer betrays him, taking control of the Machine and unleashing Manpigs out into the streets of London to round up unsuspecting victims with which to feed itself. Mandus regains his memory, recalling the recent past: after returning from Mexico, Mandus was consumed with obsession over a vision of the future presented by a device discovered in an Aztec temple by him and his children, known as the "egg,” hinted to be an Orb. In this vision, Mandus witnesses the death of both of his sons at the Battle of the Somme. Driven mad by the vision, Mandus decided that he could not allow it to come to pass, and he built the Machine to create a godlike being via mass ritual human sacrifice to save humanity from its own carnage. He sacrificed Edwin and Enoch to the machine to spare them their fate at the Somme. From there, Mandus began a one-man vendetta against mankind, holding massive parties where he would capture and grind up rich socialites into sausage to sell, and killing hordes of child workers to feed the captive Manpigs. Mandus, however, soon came to realize the error of his ways and in a bid to stop the Machine, he attempted to sabotage it, before he was hindered by the onset of amnesia and sickness.


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: Now remembering everything, Mandus vows to finish what he started by destroying the Machine once and for all. Despite the pleas of the Engineer, who believes the world would be better off if the Machine is allowed to consume it, Mandus succeeds in recreating most of the sabotage. He reaches the inner chamber, where the Engineer himself dwells - a deranged fragment of Mandus's soul which has bonded with the machine and was given life by the sacrifices; it plans to wipe the world clean of life after witnessing even more future atrocities such as the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, and the massacres perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. Mandus manages to reach the core of the machine, a massive pyramidal structure referred to as "The Temple" by the Engineer, and forces the Engineer back into his soul. Mandus sacrifices himself to the Machine, putting an end to both it and the Engineer, and ending the horrors above as year 1900 begins.


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: The game is a survival horror game played from a first-person perspective. Players explore the environments using a lantern, with diary entries and notes providing information on the lost memory of the title character. While the core of the game remains the same between the two, some elements of "The Dark Descent" have been removed for "A Machine for Pigs", while new elements have been added, one reason being to provide a fresh gameplay experience to players of "The Dark Descent". The inventory has been removed, along with the oil and tinderboxes. Most of the puzzles are based on physically interacting with the environment because of this change. The sanity mechanic of the first game has been removed, meaning that the darkness and looking at the creatures no longer cause any drawbacks. Health lost when Mandus is injured, will regenerate after a certain period of time; thereby eliminating the need to find vials of laudanum to restore health as in "The Dark Descent".


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: The game's level design has been touted as "significantly different" from that of "The Dark Descent", with larger areas and outdoor environments included. AI was also adjusted to ensure players are unable to predict enemy behavior based on their experiences with the original game.


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: In 2010, after the release of "The Dark Descent", Frictional Games wanted to further the "Amnesia" franchise, but had no time for it. Later, they met Dan Pinchbeck of The Chinese Room at GDC Europe 2011, where the plan for the game began to form. It was originally intended by The Chinese Room to be a small mod, but it was expanded to a larger scale project when "the two companies realized what could be achieved with a larger game."


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: Development for the game began in December 2011 at The Chinese Room, while Frictional Games was producing and publishing the title. The game was originally set to release before Halloween 2012, but was later delayed to early 2013 due to overwhelming response and to meet the expectations. In February 2013 Frictional Games announced a status update about the game in which they announced they would release the game in Q2 2013.


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: In late May 2013, Jens Nilsson, the co-founder of Frictional Games, stated in a forum post that: "We know we will not make Q2 (2013), we also know when the game will be ready for launch. We have not set the exact day yet. You can however make good use of the weather outside this summer and look forward to gaming with the piggies as the summer comes to an end." Dan Pinchbeck stated, "Frictional's take is, release it when it's done." In August 2013, The Chinese Room confirmed on their Twitter feed that the final release date for the game was 10 September 2013. The game was available to pre-order since 16 August.


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: A PlayStation 4 version is included in the "Amnesia Collection", released on 22 November 2016 via PlayStation Network, containing "Amnesia: The Dark Descent" and its expansion "Amnesia: Justine".


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: Two days after its release on PS4 Frictional Games posted a tweet stating that the port managed to recoup all costs and "more".


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: Frictional Games announced on 23 September 2020 that they would make "Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs" and "Amnesia: The Dark Descent" open-source video games under the GNU GPL-3.0-or-later.


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: Initially code-named "gameB" by The Chinese Room, the announcement of "Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs" was preceded by a viral marketing and alternate reality game campaign that began when Frictional Games updated their website Next Frictional Game, which has prior been used to announce the first installment, in early 2012. The website featured a heavily blurred image, the "Amnesia" logo and a caption reading "Something is emerging...".


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: The blurred image was hyperlinked to Google Maps with the search field set as "China". The website was later updated with a slightly less blurred image, and hyperlinked to Google Maps with the search field set as "Boreray." It was updated for a second time, with a non-blurred image (a piece of concept art), redirecting to Google Maps with the search field set as 502 2nd Avenue in Seattle. The three hyperlinks were hints towards The Chinese Room's involvement in the game (a previous game by The Chinese Room, "Dear Esther", was set on a Hebridean island like Boreray, and the address in Seattle pointed towards a restaurant named 'The Chinese Room').


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: Examination of the site's source code led fans to a webpage that resembled a computer console with usable commands and a countdown. After the expiration of the countdown, a message on the page read "A machine for pigs coming fall two thousand twelve." The game was formally announced via video game blog Joystiq.


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: On 14 June 2012, the first teaser trailer was released on Frictional Games' YouTube channel. It showed various scenes from the game, from industrial settings to more studious rooms. In the final shot, the character wakes up to the sound of an enemy breaking down a door making piglike grunts and squeals. An unseen creature enters the room, its shadow is cast against the back wall as the player hides under a set of stairs. On 31 October 2012, to coincide with Halloween, a second trailer was posted on Frictional Games' YouTube channel. Many new features were shown, such as the updated lantern and the new voice for the main character. The trailer also shows the protagonist being confronted by one of the enemies in the game. On 3 September 2013, Eurogamer released a video of the first 30 minutes of the game.


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: "Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs" received "mixed or average" reviews for the PC version, according to review aggregator Metacritic, with an aggregate score of 72/100. The game was praised for its story and atmosphere, but was criticized for its infrequent enemy encounters and a reliance on sound design to evoke fear, as well as its linearity and minimal gameplay.


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: "Eurogamer" gave "A Machine for Pigs" a score of 7 out of 10, noting that it "will absolutely keep you fed". "GameSpot" gave the game a score of 8 out of 10, saying that while it's a "captivating adventure", it is also "a very dark and disturbing one that touches on depressing real-world themes and doles out psychological horror along with monsters and gore". "Edge" magazine wrote that ""A Machine For Pigs" will prove divisive among fans of Frictional Games' much-lauded original".


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: Jim Rossignol of "Rock, Paper, Shotgun" noted in his review of "A Machine for Pigs" that it "is a marvellous, revolting, disturbing sequel to "Dark Descent"". "PC Gamer"s T.J. Hafer expressed his opinion that "A Machine for Pigs" adds to the palette of "The Dark Descent"s "helplessness to explore the emotion of fear". Hafer also added that the game "will hold your head underwater until you’re about to drown and then bring you back up for air, again and again".


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: A writer for "Game Informer" said that The Chinese Room "proves once again that it has wonderful, affecting stories to tell and can create environments that ooze atmosphere", also adding that while having trouble "giving into the scares", it "will still rattle of the faint of heart". He criticized the game however, saying that it is "hard to remain frightened [...] when you feel like the game is pulling punches".


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: Jim Sterling of "Destructoid" said that "if you want to be told a vexingly bizarre story presented with a real sense of style, The Chinese Room may have exactly what you want". They also said that "if you're a massive survival horror fan who wants to be made to scream, however, you probably want to stick your snout in someone else's offal".


title: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

text: "The Escapist"s Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw in his "Zero Punctuation" review wrote that the game was "mainly a linear sightseeing tour occasionally spawning monsters to chase you to the next part", and felt that while tension was built through its level and sound design, he found that he was rarely ever in danger. He summarized by saying, "The atmosphere and writing are rock-solid, but with the simplified gameplay it's a bit too linear and over too quickly."


title: William D. Swenson

text: William D. Swenson (born November 2, 1978) is a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army who was awarded the Medal of Honor in a ceremony on October 15, 2013. He was the sixth living recipient in the War on Terror. Swenson, Thomas Payne, Matthew O. Williams and Earl Plumlee are the only Medal of Honor recipients still on active duty.


title: William D. Swenson

text: Swenson graduated from Seattle University, with a Bachelor of Science degree in political science, in 2001.


title: William D. Swenson

text: Swenson was commissioned from Officer Candidate School as a United States Army infantry officer in September 2002. His military education, mostly at Fort Benning, includes Basic and Advanced Infantry Officer Courses, Ranger School, and Airborne School. He has deployed three times in the War on Terror, once to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan. He has been awarded the Bronze Star Medal (with two oak leaf clusters), the Purple Heart (for having been wounded in action), and the Combat Infantryman Badge. At the time of the Battle of Ganjgal, Swenson was a captain in 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, detailed as an Embedded Trainer for the Afghan Border Police.


title: William D. Swenson

text: Swenson left the army in February 2011 and lived in Seattle, Washington. At the time, when Swenson received the Medal of Honor, he was unemployed, and had been since after he left the army. In October 2013, Swenson requested to return to active duty. On March 14, 2014, he was accepted back onto active duty and served as a plans officer at the I Corps headquarters. Later in 2014, Swenson was named "Alumnus of the Year" by Seattle University. In 2015, along with Representative Duncan D. Hunter and others, Swenson advocated on behalf of Major Mathew Golsteyn, who had his Silver Star revoked following an investigation that initially led to no charges; however in December 2018, Golsteyn was charged with murder, being recalled to active duty to face the charge. In March 2016, Swenson was assigned to United States Army South.


title: William D. Swenson

text: In December 2017, Swenson earned a Master of Arts in Security Studies Western Hemisphere from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. In August 2018, Swenson took the place of Major General James E. Livingston on the board of the National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation. Swenson was promoted to lieutenant colonel on October 31, 2019.


title: William D. Swenson

text: On September 8, 2009, Swenson was part of an operation to connect the Afghan government with native elders in the Ganjgal Valley in Eastern Kunar Province in Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border.


title: William D. Swenson

text: According to the United States Army's detailed Official Narrative, the coalition force's 106-man column entered the valley and was ambushed at about 6 a.m. by as many as 60 insurgent fighters who soon surrounded the column on three sides, situated on terraced high ground. Within an hour, communication to the front of the column, including four U.S. servicemen, was lost. Meanwhile, Captain Swenson, who initially was positioned toward the rear of the column, called for air support, and with two comrades crossed 50 meters of open space under direct enemy fire to administer life-extending first aid to his severely wounded sergeant. When the column was surrounded by enemy fighters that advanced within 50 meters, Swenson responded to Taliban demands for surrender by throwing a hand grenade, an act of defiance that rallied his comrades to repel the enemy advance.


title: William D. Swenson

text: Swenson and comrades moved his sergeant and other wounded to a helicopter for medical evacuation before returning to the enemy's "kill zone" for at least two more trips in an unarmored vehicle to evacuate additional wounded. Returning even more deeply through the kill zone toward the location of the head of column in search of the four U.S. servicemen, Swenson's party first rescued and recovered several Afghan National Security Force wounded and dead. Finally, Swenson and a small contingent recovered the four fallen U.S. servicemen who had been discovered by a search and rescue aircraft at noon. The 6-7 hour firefight caused 15 coalition deaths, including the four U.S. servicemen; also, Swenson's sergeant, Kenneth Westbrook, died of his wounds after returning from Afghanistan. Swenson's actions are believed to have directly contributed to saving more than a dozen Afghan lives.


title: William D. Swenson

text: Swenson received the Medal of Honor from President Barack Obama on October 15, 2013. Swenson was nominated for his actions as an Embedded Trainer in the Battle of Ganjgal near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border on September 8, 2009. He is reported to have repeatedly entered the "kill zone" in order to rescue wounded American and Afghan soldiers, much like his fellow serviceman Dakota Meyer who was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2011. Swenson became the first living officer to receive the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War.


title: William D. Swenson

text: Footage of Swenson from a camera on a helicopter was the first time that part of an event which led to the awarding of the Medal of Honor was filmed. Being recommended for the Medal of Honor in December 2009 by a battalion commander, the paperwork was lost, causing a significant delay in the nomination process. Prior to the paperwork being lost, General David Petraeus had recommended that the award be downgraded to a Distinguished Service Cross. There are accusations in both the military and the press that the lost paperwork was punishment for Swenson loudly criticizing his senior officers for not sending fire support in an after-action investigation into the battle. Swenson's case was reopened in 2011 at the urging of Marine Corps General John R. Allen. Dakota Meyer strongly advocated for Swenson's Medal of Honor in his book, "Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War", writing that if it were not for Swenson, he (Meyer) would not be alive today. In May 2014, the Department of Defense reported that based on an investigation, Swenson's Medal of Honor recommendation was lost in the Army's email system. In February 2015, it was revealed that in the period prior to Swenson receiving the Medal of Honor in 2013, the Criminal Investigation Command began an investigation of Swenson due to comments made on Amazon.com by Major Mathew Golsteyn in 2011.


title: William D. Swenson

text: Following the Medal of Honor presentation at the White House, on October 16, 2013, Swenson was inducted into the Pentagon Hall of Heroes. The ceremony was officiated by Chuck Hagel, the Secretary of Defense. Hagel was assisted by the Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh, Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno and the Sergeant Major of the Army, Raymond F. Chandler. During the ceremony, Hagel apologized to Swenson for the mishandling of his award nomination, which had been delayed for 19 months because of what officials called a bureaucratic oversight. McHugh later told the standing room only audience that the army would implement a new process providing greater oversight to "ensure that no future award packet is lost along the way or paperwork misplaced or somehow forgotten in the fog of war." The new directive, McHugh stated, required Medal of Honor nominations be sent immediately to Army Human Resources Command. "As soon as an honors packet is created at battalion level, we will have immediate visibility at Army headquarters," he told the audience.


title: William D. Swenson

text: Referencing allegations that Swenson's award had been intentionally lost as a result of his criticizing leadership actions after the battle, Odierno said that "Swenson's strength of character was undeniable. Even after the battle, Will was not afraid to point out deficiencies in the operation that caused difficulties in obtaining the appropriate and timely support necessary. He recognized the importance of assessing performance, and had the character to stick to his convictions."


title: William D. Swenson

text: Following the presentation of his framed citation and the personal Medal of Honor flag, Swenson spoke briefly.


title: Nyctereutes

text: Nyctereutes (Greek: "nyx, nykt-" "night" + "ereutēs" "wanderer") is a genus of canid which includes only two extant species both known as raccoon dogs; the common raccoon dog ("Nyctereutes procyonoides") and the Japanese raccoon dog ("Nyctereutes viverrinus"). "Nyctereutes" first entered the fossil record 5.5 million years ago (Mya) in northern China. It was one of the earliest canines to arrive in the Old World. All but two species became extinct before the Pleistocene.


title: Nyctereutes

text: They are typically recognized by their short snouts, round craniums, and of course the shaping of their molars specifically the ration between M1 and M2. "Nyctereutes" mainly is considered an opportunistic carnivore, meaning they mainly feed on small mammals, fish, birds, insects, alongside occasional plants specifically roots. Their diet is mostly influenced through environmental factors.


title: Mucherla Aruna

text: Mucherla Aruna is an Indian actress who worked in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada films, mainly during the 1980s.


title: Mucherla Aruna

text: Mucherla Aruna was born in Kothagudem of Telangana into a family that belongs to Arjunudupalem, near Tanuku West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. She was brought up in Chennai and Hyderabad.


title: Mucherla Aruna

text: Aruna made her debut in the Tamil film titled "Kallukkul Eeram" by Bharathiraja which was released in 1980. She has been frequently paired with actor Vijayakanth in "Sivappu Malli", "Needhi Pizhaithathu", "Sattam Sirikkiradhu", and "Kanalukku Karaiyethu" with Shankar . In some of the Tamil movies, she appeared as the second lead and supporting roles. She acted as Poornima Bhagyaraj's friend in "Darling, Darling, Darling" and as Sudhakar's sister in "Pennin Vazhkai". She acted with Karthik in suspense movie "Kelviyum Naane Pathilum Naane" which was released in 1982 where actress Srividya acted as an antagonist. Aruna Mucherla also acted in some good family-oriented movies like Kathula Poo, Sakalakala Sambanthi, and "Penmani Aval Kanmani".


title: Mucherla Aruna

text: In 1981, the Telugu film "Seethakoka Chiluka" received a Swarna (Gold) Nandi Award for Best Feature Film. She spread across acting more than 70 movies within 10 years majoring all 4 South Indian languages.


title: Mucherla Aruna

text: She is married to Mohan, a businessman based from Chandigarh in 1987 and the couple has four daughters. She lives in Chennai with her family.


title: Narinder Singh Kapany

text: Narinder Singh Kapany FREng (31 October 1926 – 4 December 2020) was an Indian-American physicist best known for his work on fiber optics. He is credited with inventing fiber optics, and is considered the 'Father of Fiber Optics'. "Fortune" named him one of seven 'Unsung Heroes of the 20th century' for his Nobel Prize-deserving invention. He was awarded India's second highest civilian award the Padma Vibhushan posthumously in 2021. He served as an Indian Ordnance Factories Service (IOFS) officer. He was also offered the post of Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister of India, by the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru.


title: Narinder Singh Kapany

text: Kapany was born on 31 October 1926, in a Khatri Sikh family in Moga, Punjab in India (then British India). He completed his schooling in Dehradun and went on to graduate from Agra University. He served as an Indian Ordnance Factories Service officer, before going to Imperial College London in 1952 to work on a Ph.D. degree in optics from the University of London, which he obtained in 1955.


title: Narinder Singh Kapany

text: At Imperial College, Kapany worked with Harold Hopkins on transmission through fibres, achieving good image transmission through a large bundle of optical fibres for the first time in 1953. Optical fibres had been tried for image transmission before, but Hopkins and Kapany's technique allowed much better image quality than could previously be achieved. This, combined with the almost-simultaneous development of optical cladding by Dutch scientist Bram van Heel, helped jump start the new field of fibre optics.


title: Narinder Singh Kapany

text: Kapany coined the term 'fiber optics' in an article in "Scientific American" in 1960, wrote the first book about the new field, and was the new field's most prominent researcher, writer, and spokesperson.


title: Narinder Singh Kapany

text: Kapany's research and work encompassed fiber-optics communications, lasers, biomedical instrumentation, solar energy and pollution monitoring. He had over 120 patents, and was a member of the National Inventors Council. He was an International Fellow of numerous scientific societies including the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Optical Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.


title: Narinder Singh Kapany

text: As an entrepreneur and business executive, Kapany specialized in the processes of innovation and the management of technology and technology transfer. In 1960, he founded Optics Technology Inc. and was chairman of the board, President, and Director of Research for twelve years. In 1967 the company went public with numerous corporate acquisitions and joint-ventures in the United States and abroad. In 1973, Kapany founded Kaptron Inc. and was president and CEO until 1990 when he sold the company to AMP Incorporated. For the next nine years, Kapany was an AMP Fellow, heading the Entrepreneur & Technical Expert Program and serving as Chief Technologist for Global Communications Business. He founded K2 Optronics. He also served on the boards of various companies. He was a member of the Young Presidents Organization and later a member of the World Presidents Organization.


title: Narinder Singh Kapany

text: As an academic, Kapany taught and supervised research activity of postgraduate students. He was a Regents Professor at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) and at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He founded the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development (CIED) at UCSC and served as director for seven years. At Stanford University, he was a visiting scholar in the Physics Department and consulting professor in the department of electrical engineering.


title: Narinder Singh Kapany

text: As an author and lecturer, Kapany published over 100 scientific papers and four books on opto-electronics and entrepreneurship. He lectured to various national and international scientific societies.


title: Narinder Singh Kapany

text: As a philanthropist, Kapany was active in education and the arts. He was the founding chairman of the Sikh Foundation and a major funder of its activities for over 50 years. In collaboration with international institutions and publishers, the Foundation runs programs in publishing, academia and the arts. In 1998, Kapany endowed a Chair of Sikh Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His gift in 1999 of $500,000 to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco established a gallery in its new building displaying the works he donated from his collection of Sikh art. In 1999, he endowed a Chair of Optoelectronics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Again in 2012, he established the Narinder Kapany Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship at UC Santa Cruz. He was a trustee of the University of California, Santa Cruz Foundation. He also served as a trustee of the Menlo School in Menlo Park, California.


title: Narinder Singh Kapany

text: As an art collector, Kapany specialised in Sikh art. He provided paintings and other objects on loan for the "Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms" exhibition, which was held at London's Victoria & Albert Museum beginning in March 1999. From there, the exhibition proceeded to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (with the Sikh Foundation as a sponsor) and opened in May 2000 at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. The exhibition follows "Splendors of the Punjab: Sikh Art and Literature in 1992" organised by Kapany in collaboration with the Asian Art Museum and UC Berkeley to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Sikh Foundation. As an artist, Kapany's dynoptic sculptures were displayed at the Exploratorium of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco in 1972 and at museums and art galleries in Chicago, Monterey, Palo Alto, and Stanford.


title: Narinder Singh Kapany

text: Kapany was posthumously included in the list of Padma Vibhushan awardees for 2021. The award is India's second highest civilian honor. He received the UC Santa Cruz Foundation Fiat Lux Award in 2008. He was also the recipient of the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman in 2004. "The Excellence 2000 Award" from the USA Pan-Asian American Chamber of Commerce in 1998. In November 1999, he was identified by "Fortune" as one of the seven "unsung heroes who greatly influenced life in the twentieth century" in the "Businessmen of the Century" issue. Dr. Kapany was also on Time Magazine's list of top ten scientists of the 20th century in Time's last issue of 1999.


title: Hinduism in Arab states

text: Hinduism can be found in the Arab world from the mid of 19th century, millions of members of the Indian diaspora, of different religions, reside and work in Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Many of them are Hindu. Many came due to the migration of Indians and Nepalese expatriates and employees to the around the Persian Gulf.


title: Hinduism in Arab states

text: The number of Hindus in other Arab countries, including the countries of the Levant and North Africa, is thought to be negligible. It is not known whether any Hindu temples exist in these countries.


title: Hinduism in Arab states

text: Indian settlers came to live in Oman, creating settlements and practicing Hinduism. Arab sailors were using the southwest monsoon winds to trade with western Indian ports before the first century CE. An Arab army conquered Sindh in 711 and Arab traders settled in Kerala in the 6th century. In the opposite direction, medieval Gujaratis, Kutchis, and other Indians traded extensively with Arab and Somali ports, including Hormuz, Salalah, Socotra, Mogadishu, Merca, Barawa, Hobyo, Muscat and Aden. Arab merchants were the dominant carriers of Indian Ocean trade until the Portuguese forcibly supplanted them at the end of the 15th century. Indo-Arabian links were renewed under the British Empire, when many Indians serving in the army or civil service were stationed in Arab lands such as Sudan. The current wave of Indian immigration to the Arab states of the Persian Gulf dates roughly to the 1960s. Hinduism is also one of the fastest growing religions in the Middle East, mainly due to immigration from the Indian Subcontinent.


title: Hinduism in Arab states

text: In 2001, Belgian speleologists found a large number of inscriptions, drawings and archaeological objects on the Socotra island in Yemen left by sailors who visited the island in the 1st century BC to 6th century AD and most of the texts found were written in the Indian Brahmi script.


title: Hinduism in Arab states

text: Oman has an immigrant Hindu minority. The number of Hindus has declined in the 20th century although it is now stable. Hinduism first came to Muscat in 1507 from Kutch. The original Hindus spoke Kutchi. By the early 19th century there were at least 4,000 Hindus in Oman, all of the intermediate merchant caste. By 1900, their numbers had plummeted to 300. In 1895, the Hindu colony in Muscat came under attack by the Ibadhis. By the time of independence, only a few dozen Hindus remained in Oman. The historical Hindu Quarters of al-Waljat and al-Banyan are no longer occupied by Hindus. The most prominent immigrant Hindus, are Visoomal Damodar Gandhi (Aulad Kara), Khimji Ramdas, Dhanji Morarji, Ratansi Purushottam and Purushottam Toprani. The only Hindu crematorium is located in Sohar, northwest of Muscat.


title: Hinduism in Arab states

text: Hindu temples once located in Ma'bad al Banyan and Bayt al Pir, no longer exist. The only active Hindu temples today are the Shiva temple complex in Muscat (locally known as Motishwar Mandir), and the Krishna temple located in Darsait.


title: Hinduism in Arab states

text: Hindus make up 15.1% of Qatar. There are an estimated 422,118 Hindus in the country. Many Hindus are from South and Southeast Asia.


title: Hinduism in Arab states

text: Saudi authorities interpret Hindu icons as idols, and idol worship is strongly condemned in Sunni Islam. This is likely the foundation for the stringent position of Saudi authorities when it comes to idol worshiper religious practice.


title: Hinduism in Arab states

text: South Asians in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) constitute the largest ethnic group in the country. Over 2 million Indian migrants (mostly from the southern Indian states of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Coastal Karnataka and Tamil Nadu) are estimated to be living in the UAE, constituting 28% of the total population of the Emirates as of 2017. A majority of Indians live in the three largest cities of the UAE — Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah. From the estimated 2 million migrants, 1 million are from Kerala and 450,000 from Tamil Nadu, thus constituting a majority of the Indian community in the UAE. The population of Indian migrants in the UAE had grown from 170,000 in 1975 to an estimated value of 750,000 in 1999. By 2009, this value had grown to an estimated value of 2 million. A majority of Indians in the UAE (approximately 50%—883,313 in 2011) are from the South Indian state of Kerala, followed by migrants from Tamil Nadu. The majority of Indian migrants to UAE are Muslim (50%), followed by Christian (25%) and Hindu (25%). Estimates suggest Hindu population in UAE to be anywhere from 6-10%.


title: Hinduism in Arab states

text: Despite a sizable of the population practicing the Hindu faith, there is currently just one Hindu temple in the two largest sheikhdoms. The Hindu Temple, Dubai (locally referred to as Shiva and Krishna Mandir) has been pointed out as just a small prayer hall operating on the upper floor of a rented commercial building, with two altars.


title: Hinduism in Arab states

text: Permitted to be built in 1958, the small temple had become a foreign policy issue during the visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the UAE in late 2016.


title: Hinduism in Arab states

text: Instead, Hindus living in Abu Dhabi and Dubai practice their religion within their homes. The first Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi is currently under construction. The new temple, BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Abu Dhabi, had its foundation stone laying ceremony in April, 2019.


title: Hinduism in Arab states

text: There are two operating cremation facilities for the Hindu community, one in Abu Dhabi and one in Dubai.


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: Jason Robert Brown (born June 20, 1970) is an American musical theatre composer, lyricist, and playwright. Brown's music sensibility fuses pop-rock stylings with theatrical lyrics. He is the recipient of three Tony Awards for his work on "Parade" and "The Bridges of Madison County".


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: Brown grew up in the suburbs of New York City, and attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York for 2 years, rooming with fellow student, and vocalist, Christopher Mooney. During summer, he attended French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts in Hancock, New York. He said "" and "Sunday in the Park with George" were two of his biggest influences, and had it not been for them, he would have joined a rock band and tried to be Billy Joel.


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: He began his career in New York City as an arranger, conductor, and pianist, working on shows such as William Finn's "A New Brain", and playing at several nightclubs and piano bars in the city. "Songs for a New World" marked the first major New York production of Brown's songs. An off-Broadway revue with a limited run, the show was directed by Daisy Prince, daughter of director/producer Hal Prince, and featured the 25-year-old Brown's pop-rock-influenced music. The song "Stars and the Moon" has since become a cabaret standard, and is probably Brown's best-known composition to date.


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: Brown was subsequently hired to write songs for the Broadway musical "Parade", based on the trial and lynching of Leo Frank, after meeting Hal Prince. "Parade," directed by Prince and with a book by Alfred Uhry, won Brown the 1999 Tony Award for Best Original Score. During this production, Livent, one of the producers of "Parade", pulled out after reviews were not as positive as they'd hoped. RCA Victor, the other major producer, decided it would pull out as well. Brown said of the event in 1999, "Livent dropped out shortly after the reviews came out. They announced they would not spend another dime on the show. RCA had an agreement to record all of Livent's shows. But when Livent pulled out of 'Parade,' the RCA higher-ups said they were pulling out, too. I had to go to Billy Rosenfield and ask him: 'What if we pay for this record and you just distribute it?' Billy said, 'Sure.'" Brown had to try to scrounge money from every corner, "In the end, RCA put in $25,000, Lincoln Center put in a big chunk, around $200,000, including the producer Scott Rudin's $25,000, and there was a contribution from the Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla foundation, which has helped support a lot of musical theatre composers over the years, of $40,000. Even Roy Furman, the new guy at Livent, gave us a little money. Somehow, we pulled it together." Livent also was struggling at the time because the company had mishandled funds while applying for bankruptcy protection.


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: Brown went back to working with Daisy Prince for his third major show "The Last Five Years", for which he wrote the book as well as songs. Inspired by his own failed first marriage, the show is a two-person musical that tells the history of a relationship from two different perspectives. The male's narrative begins at the beginning of the story and progresses through marriage, infidelity, and divorce, while the female narrative begins at the end of the relationship and ends with the couple's first date; the two actors' only direct interaction takes place midpoint, during the wedding sequence. The original Chicago cast consisted of Norbert Leo Butz and Lauren Kennedy, with Sherie Rene Scott over the New York run. "The Last Five Years" received mixed critical reviews and was not a commercial success, lasting only two months off-Broadway, although Brown garnered 2 Drama Desk Awards for music and lyrics. Additionally, due to the cast recording featuring Scott and Butz, the show has gained popularity among contemporary musical theatre aficionados and is an oft-performed piece in regional and community theatres. A film version of the show, featuring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan, was released in February 2015.


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: Brown contributed several songs to the Broadway flop "Urban Cowboy". He had worked as an orchestrator with director Phillip Oesterman on the Off-Broadway musical "New York Rock", and Oesterman called on him to help him out with "Urban Cowboy". "Urban Cowboy" had been denied the use of the Clint Black catalog, and Brown came in and wrote a few songs (with help from director Lonny Price, who replaced Oesterman after he died). The show was nominated, with 30 other composers, for the 2003 Tony Award for Best Musical Score, losing out to "Hairspray."


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: In December 2005, his "Chanukah Suite" received its world premiere with two performances by the Los Angeles Master Chorale at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: He also teaches courses in musical theatre performance and composition at the University of Southern California. Brown is an active performer of his own work, singing and playing the piano with or without his band, the Caucasian Rhythm Kings (Gary Sieger, guitar, and Randy Landau, bass).


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: Brown's tween-oriented musical "13" premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, CA on January 7, 2007. It opened on Broadway October 5, 2008, at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, and closed on January 4, 2009.


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: His "Bridges of Madison County", a musical adaption of the film with Marsha Norman premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival on August 1, 2013. Directed by Bartlett Sher, the cast featured Elena Shaddow as Francesca and Steven Pasquale. The musical opened on Broadway on February 27, 2014, at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, starring Kelli O'Hara as Francesca.


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: Brown wrote the music for the 2022 musical, Mr. Saturday Night (musical) with lyrics by Amanda Green and a book by Billy Crystal,


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: According to Brown, Bree Lowdermilk used to be an assistant to him. In 2010, Brown publicized his personal efforts to discourage the unauthorized online sharing of his copyrighted sheet music via an e-mail conversation with a teenager named Eleanor.


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: As of 2020, Brown was working on a screenplay for a film version of "13", a musical adaptation of Farewell My Concubine, and an original musical called The Connector.


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: Brown has many trademarks in his composing style, which is often rhythmically dynamic and harmonically unconventional, calling for a wide vocal range. His vocal lines often include internal rhymes, as well as melodic phrases which do not adhere to a predictable 4-measure length. He favors songs written in AABA' form, with some exceptions to this form in his show "Parade". Perhaps most characteristic are his love duets; all five ("I'd Give it All for You" from "Songs for a New World", "All the Wasted Time" from "Parade", "The Next Ten Minutes" from "The Last Five Years", "Tell Her" from "13", and "One Second And A Million Miles" from "The Bridges of Madison County") are written in a very distinct format: male-female-both, compound time in the duet section (two using hemiola), and four of the five end with the couple singing the same pitch.


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: In 2005, Brown was cited by Mark Shenton as one of the leading new theatrical composers (a list that includes Michael John LaChiusa, Adam Guettel, Andrew Lippa, and Jeanine Tesori, among others).


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: Brown was born in Ossining, New York. He is Jewish. He was previously married to Theresa O'Neill, and their failed marriage inspired his musical "The Last Five Years". Since 2003, Brown has been married to fellow composer Georgia Stitt. Together, they have two daughters.


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: Original cast recordings were made for "Songs for a New World", "Parade," "The Last Five Years," "13", "The Bridges of Madison County", and "Honeymoon in Vegas". "Stars and the Moon" has been recorded many times, including on Audra McDonald's "Way Back to Paradise" and Betty Buckley's "Stars and the Moon: Live at the Donmar."


title: Jason Robert Brown

text: Actress Lauren Kennedy, who originated the role of Cathy in the Chicago production of "The Last Five Years," released "Songs of Jason Robert Brown," featuring Brown's compositions from his previous shows, as well as several previously unreleased songs.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: Daniel Libeskind (born May 12, 1946) is a Polish–American architect, artist, professor and set designer. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: He is known for the design and completion of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany, that opened in 2001. On February 27, 2003, Libeskind received further international attention after he won the competition to be the master plan architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: Other buildings that he is known for include the extension to the Denver Art Museum in the United States, the Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin, the Imperial War Museum North in Greater Manchester, England, the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, the Felix Nussbaum Haus in Osnabrück, Germany, the Danish Jewish Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, Reflections in Singapore and the Wohl Centre at the Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. His portfolio also includes several residential projects. Libeskind's work has been exhibited in major museums and galleries around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Bauhaus Archives, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Centre Pompidou.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: Born in Łódź, Poland, Libeskind was the second child of Dora and Nachman Libeskind, both Polish Jews and Holocaust survivors. As a young child, Libeskind learned to play the accordion and quickly became a virtuoso, performing on Polish television in 1953. He won a prestigious America Israel Cultural Foundation scholarship in 1959 and played alongside a young Itzhak Perlman. Libeskind lived in Poland for 11 years and can still speak, read, and write Polish.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: In 1957, the Libeskinds moved to Kibbutz Gvat, Israel and then to Tel Aviv before moving to New York in 1959. In his autobiography, "Breaking Ground: An Immigrant's Journey from Poland to Ground Zero", Libeskind spoke of how the kibbutz experience influenced his concern for green architecture.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: In the summer of 1959, his family moved to New York City on one of the last immigrant boats to the United States. In New York, Libeskind lived in the Amalgamated Housing Cooperative in the northwest Bronx, a union-sponsored, middle-income cooperative development. He attended the Bronx High School of Science. The print shop where his father worked was on Stone Street in Lower Manhattan, and he watched the original World Trade Center being built in the 1960s. Libeskind became a United States citizen in 1965.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: Daniel Libeskind was accepted at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and began school there in 1965 where he was taught by John Hejduk and received his professional architectural degree in 1970. In 1968, Libeskind briefly worked as an apprentice to architect Richard Meier. He received a postgraduate degree in history and theory of architecture at the School of Comparative Studies at the University of Essex in 1972. The same year, he was hired to work at Peter Eisenman's New York Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, but he quit almost immediately.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: Libeskind began his career as an architectural theorist and professor, holding positions at various institutions around the world. From 1978 to 1985, Libeskind was the director of the Architecture Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. His practical architectural career began in Milan in the late 1980s, where he submitted to architectural competitions and also founded and directed Architecture Intermundium, Institute for Architecture & Urbanism.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: Libeskind completed his first building at the age of 52, with the opening of the Felix Nussbaum Haus in Osnabruck, Germany in 1998. Prior to this, critics had dismissed his designs as "unbuildable or unduly assertive". In 1987, Libeskind won his first design competition for housing in West Berlin, but the Berlin Wall fell shortly thereafter and the project was cancelled. Libeskind won the first four project competitions he entered including the Jewish Museum Berlin in 1989, which became the first museum dedicated to the Holocaust in WWII and opened to the public in 2001 with international acclaim. This was his first major international success and was one of the first building modifications designed after reunification. A glass courtyard was designed by Libeskind and added in 2007. The Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin also designed by Libeskind was completed in 2012.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: Libeskind was selected by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to oversee the rebuilding of the World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. The concept for the site, which he titled Memory Foundations, was well-received upon its presentation to the public in 2003, although it was ultimately changed significantly before its execution. He was the first architect to win the Hiroshima Art Prize, awarded to an artist whose work promotes international understanding and peace. Many of his projects look at the deep cultural connections between memory and architecture.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: Studio Daniel Libeskind is headquartered two blocks south of the World Trade Center site in New York. He has designed numerous cultural and commercial institutions, museums, concert halls, convention centers, universities, residences, hotels, and shopping centers. The studio's most recent completed projects include the MO Museum in Vilnius, Lithuania; Zlota 44, a high-rise residential tower in Warsaw, Poland; the Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics at Durham University in Durham, England; the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa, Canada; and Corals at Keppel Bay in Singapore, adjacent to the studio's previous completed project Reflections at Keppel Bay.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: In addition to his architectural projects, Libeskind has worked with a number of international design firms to develop objects, furniture, and industrial fixtures for interiors of buildings. He has been commissioned to work with design companies such as Fiam, Artemide, Jacuzzi, TreP-Tre-Piu, Oliviari, Sawaya & Moroni, Poltrona Frau, Swarovski, and others.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: Libeskind's design projects also include sculpture. Several sculptures built in the early 1990s were based on the explorations of his Micromegas and Chamberworks drawings series that he did in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Polderland Garden of Love and Fire in Almere, Netherlands is a permanent installation completed in 1997 and restored on October 4, 2017. Later in his career, Libeskind designed the Life Electric sculpture that was completed in 2015 on Lake Como, Italy. This sculpture is dedicated to the physicist Alessandro Volta.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: Libeskind has designed opera sets for productions such as the Norwegian National Theatre's "The Architect" in 1998 and Saarländisches Staatstheater's "Tristan und Isolde" in 2001. He also designed the sets and costumes for "Intolleranza" by Luigi Nono and for a production of Messiaen's "Saint Francis of Assisi" by Deutsche Oper Berlin. He has also written free verse prose, included in his book "Fishing from the Pavement".


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: Daniel Libeskind was the Head of Architecture at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan from 1978-1985. During his tenure at Cranbrook he explored various themes of space, influenced by theorists like Derrida and he was part of the leading avant-garde in architecture and academia. He produced several writings, artworks and large-scale explorations, including the Reading Machine, Writing Machine and Memory Machine. The machines called the "Three Lessons in Architecture" were displayed at the Venice Biennale in 1985 where Libeskind also won a Stone Lion award. Libeskind has taught at numerous universities across the world, including the University of Kentucky, Yale University, UCLA, Harvard, the University of London, the Leuphana University Lüneburg in Germany, and the University of Pennsylvania. He continues to teach students at various universities including the Catholic University of America.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: While much of Libeskind's work has been well-received, it has also been the subject of often severe criticism. Critics often describe Libeskind's work as deconstructivist. Critics charge that it reflects a limited architectural vocabulary of jagged edges, sharp angles and tortured geometries, that can fall into cliche, and that it ignores location and context. In 2008 "Los Angeles Times" critic Christopher Hawthorne wrote: "Anyone looking for signs that Daniel Libeskind's work might deepen profoundly over time, or shift in some surprising direction, has mostly been doing so in vain." Nicolai Ouroussoff stated in "The New York Times" in 2006: "His worst buildings, like a 2002 war museum in England suggesting the shards of a fractured globe, can seem like a caricature of his own aesthetic." In the UK magazine "Building Design", Owen Hatherley wrote of Libeskind's students' union for London Metropolitan University: "All of its vaulting, aggressive gestures were designed to 'put London Met on the map', and to give an image of fearless modernity with, however, little of consequence." William JR Curtis in "Architectural Review" called his Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre "a pile-up of Libeskindian clichés without sense, form or meaning" and wrote that his Hyundai Development Corporation Headquarters delivered "a trite and noisy corporate message".


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: In response, Libeskind says he ignores critics: "How can I read them? I have more important things to read."


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: The following projects are listed on the Studio Libeskind website. The first date is the competition, commission, or first presentation date. The second is the completion date or the estimated date of completion.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: Libeskind met Nina Lewis, his future wife and business partner, at the Bundist-run Camp Hemshekh in upstate New York in 1966. They married a few years later and, instead of a traditional honeymoon, traveled across the US visiting Frank Lloyd Wright buildings on a Cooper Union fellowship. Nina is co-founder for Studio Daniel Libeskind. She is the daughter of the late-Canadian political leader David Lewis and the sister of former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations, Stephen Lewis.


title: Daniel Libeskind

text: Libeskind has lived, among other places, in New York City, Toronto, Michigan, Italy, Germany, and Los Angeles. He is both a U.S. and Israeli citizen.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom is provided on five upgraded railway lines running at top speeds of and one purpose-built high-speed line reaching .


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: Trains currently travel at 125 mph (200 km/h) on the East Coast Main Line, Great Western Main Line, Midland Main Line, parts of the Cross Country Route, and the West Coast Main Line. On the latter line, only tilting trains can reach this maximum speed due to the difficult track geometry.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: The 67-mile long High Speed 1 (HS1) line connects London to the Channel Tunnel, with international Eurostar services running from London St Pancras International to cities in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands at 186 mph (300 km/h). That line is also used by high-speed commuter services from Kent to the capital, operating at top speeds of 140 mph (225 km/h).


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: Since 2019 construction has been ongoing on a major new purpose-built high-speed rail line, High Speed 2 (HS2) which will link London with major cities in the North and the Midlands at and reduce journey times to Scotland.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: Government-backed plans to provide east-west high-speed services between cities in the North of England are also in their early stages of development, as part of the Northern Powerhouse Rail project.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: There has been no single national rail operator in the UK since British Rail was privatised in the 1990s. High-speed services are provided by Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, Eurostar, Grand Central, Great Western Railway, Hull Trains, London North Eastern Railway, Lumo, Southeastern and TransPennine Express.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: During the age of steam locomotion, the British railway industry strove to develop reliable technology for powering high-speed rail services between major cities.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: The earliest attempt to build a railway line dedicated for operation at the higher speeds was the Great Central Main Line, opened by the Great Central Railway (GCR) in 1899. This line was an ambitious project led by railway entrepreneur Sir Edward Watkin who envisaged a Liverpool-Paris route crossing from Britain to France via a proposed channel tunnel. Although the tunnel scheme was not realised by this railway company, the route operated services between and via , with the dedicated express track beginning at in Nottinghamshire. The line was built to certain specifications so that it could take advantage of the higher speeds offered by the advances in steam locomotion. For most of the line the ruling gradient did not exceed 1 in 176 ((1000/176) round 1 ‰); outside urban areas wide curves were employed with a minimum radius of 1 mile; the route only had one level crossing; and, unlike other railway lines in Britain, the Great Central Main Line was built to an expanded continental loading gauge which meant it could accommodate larger-sized continental trains. The GCR's target market was higher-class 'business' travellers, and it promoted its long-distance express trains with the slogan "Rapid Travel in Luxury". Most of the Great Central Main Line closed in 1966 as part of the Beeching cuts, although parts of the route are still in use today by Chiltern Railways as the London to Aylesbury Line. According to plans announced in 2010, part of the proposed High Speed 2 (HS2) route will run along a re-opened section of the GCR route between and . An alternative proposal to re-open the GCR for freight has been put forward by the Central Railway company.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: Various claims exist for the first locomotive to break the barrier, notably the Great Western Railway's "City of Truro" (1904) and the LNER's "Flying Scotsman" (1934). Locomotive power capable of reaching has existed in Britain since 1938, when the LNER's "Mallard" broke the steam locomotive speed record.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: Despite advances in locomotive engineering, the railway infrastructure was unable to support safe running at such high speeds and, until the mid-1970s, the British railway speed limit remained at .


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: In the 1970s, British Rail began to explore new technologies for enabling high-speed passenger rail services in the UK. While the Japanese and French railway authorities had decided to build completely new tracks for their respective Shinkansen and TGV high-speed rail systems, British Rail opted instead to develop a train capable of running on existing rail infrastructure: the "Advanced Passenger Train (APT)", with a top speed of . An experimental version, the "APT-E" was tested between 1972 and 1976. It was equipped with a tilting mechanism which allowed the train to tilt into bends to reduce cornering forces on passengers, and was powered by gas turbines (the first to be used on British Rail since the Great Western Railway, and subsequent Western Region utilised Swiss built Brown-Boveri, and British built Metropolitan Vickers locomotives (18000 and 18100) in the early 1950s). The 1970s oil crisis prompted a rethink in the choice of motive power (as with the prototype TGV in France), and British Rail later opted for traditional electric overhead lines when the pre-production and production APTs were brought into service in 1980-86.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: Initial experience with the Advanced Passenger Trains was good. They had a high power-to-weight ratio to enable rapid acceleration; the prototype set record speeds on the Great Western Main Line and the Midland Main Line, and the production versions vastly reduced journey times on the WCML. The APT was, however, beset with technical problems; financial constraints and negative media coverage eventually caused the project to be cancelled.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: During the same period, British Rail also invested in a separate, parallel project to design a train based on conventional technology as a stopgap. The InterCity 125, otherwise known as the "High-Speed Train" (HST), was launched in 1976 with a service speed of and provided the first high-speed rail services in Britain. The HST was diesel-powered, and the Great Western Main Line (GWML) was the first to be modified for the new service. Because the GWML had been built mostly straight, often with four tracks and with a distance of 1 mile (ca. 1.6 km) between distant signal and main signal, it allowed trains to run at with relatively moderate infrastructure investments, compared to other countries in Europe. The Intercity 125 had proven the economic case for high-speed rail, and British Rail was keen to explore further advances.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: BR then proceeded to electrify the ECML and ordered a new fleet of InterCity 225 electric trains in the mid-1980s. These were capable of and although not initially equipped to tilt, were designed to be easily upgraded to tilt mode by having trailer profiles that tapered inwards at the top and suitable bogies. Speeds of were tested on the southern, straighter sections of the ECML by using a flashing green aspect on the signals. This indicated it was safe to proceed above , but HMRSI eventually ruled that this was dangerous and that speeds above 125 mph would require in-cab signalling. The 225s were therefore limited to and have been ever since.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: In the early 2000s, a number of train operating companies introduced diesel multiple units (DMUs) capable of 125 mph (201 km/h) speeds, including the Adelante, Voyager, Super-Voyager and Meridian/Pioneer units.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: In 2002, Virgin Trains West Coast introduced a new high-speed service on the West Coast Main Line with a fleet of 53 custom-designed Pendolino trains. The nine-car trains were constructed by Alstom and are equipped with a tilting mechanism developed by Fiat to enable them to run at high speeds on existing rail infrastructure, thus fulfilling the aims of the APT project some 30 years later.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: The Pendolinos were designed to run at , but require in-cab signalling for high-speed operation. The 2004 West Coast Main Line modernisation programme, which was an upgrade to the infrastructure to allow faster line speeds,


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: ran over budget, and plans were consequently scaled back. As with the introduction of the InterCity 225 in the 1980s, the lack of signalling upgrades resulted in the maximum line speed being restricted to . Some members of the fleet were later lengthened to 11 carriages.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: The following table lists the speeds of the fastest trains operating in Great Britain in 2020 which are capable of a top speed of 125 mph or greater:


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: The Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), now known as "High Speed 1" (HS1), was the first new mainline railway to be built in the UK for a century and was constructed by London and Continental Railways. After a lengthy process of route selection and public enquiries in the second half of the 1990s, work got under way on Section 1 from the Channel Tunnel to west of the Medway in 1998 and the line opened in 2003. Section 2, continuing the line to London St Pancras, started soon after Section 1 and was opened to the public on 14 November 2007.


title: High-speed rail in the United Kingdom

text: The HS1 line was finished on time and under budget. The reduction in journey times and increase in reliability achieved through the opening of Section 1 enabled Eurostar to capture 71% of the total London–Paris market and over 80% of the leisure market and Section 2 has increased these figures further. Additionally, the connections provided to the WCML, MML and ECML by Section 2 may see growth of hitherto marginal markets, by finally allowing Regional Eurostars to operate, at least on the electrified ECML and WCML.