|| 3/21/2010 || 2:08 pm || + Render A Comment || ||
Advertisement for the Buffalo Bill’s Wild West at Athletic Park in Washington, DC – National Republican, June 20th, 1885
Following up on the previous two advertisements for events at Athletic Park, is this advertisement for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. I first learned of William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody when I was a child as we drove through the town he founded, Cody, Wyoming, while en route to Yellowstone National Park. I bet this show would be have been a lot of fun to watch.
|| 3/20/2010 || 11:19 am || 1 Comment Rendered || ||
Advertisement for Adam Forepaugh’s Circus in Athletic Park, Washington, DC – The National Republican, April 11, 1885
Following up on yesterday’s advertisement for the Barnum and London Circus, is this advertisement for Adam Forepaugh’s circus appeared in the same newspaper about one year later.
According to Wikipedia:
Forepaugh was different from most of his fellow circus operators at the time. Already independently wealthy when he entered the circus business, he was much less a showman and much more a businessman — a stark contrast to P. T. Barnum and the Ringling Brothers. He was intimately involved in all aspects of the circus business. He would regularly seat himself at the main entrance into the circus, making sure his face was seen by all. Through the 1870′s and into the 1880′s, Forepaugh and P. T. Barnum had the two largest circuses in the nation. Forepaugh actually had more animals than Barnum and generally paid higher salaries to the much-favored European talent. The two men constantly fought each other over rights to perform in the most-favored venues.
They signed truces in 1882, 1884, and 1887, dividing the country into exclusive territories to avoid disputes. But at least twice, they decided to pool their resources and perform together. In 1880, Forepaugh and Barnum combined their shows for a Philadelphia engagement. In 1887, Forepaugh obtained permission to perform in Madison Square Garden, a venue that Barnum considered to be exclusively his. A compromise was negotiated, and once again the two circuses presented a combined performance.
In 1889, Forepaugh sold his circus acts to James A. Bailey and James E. Cooper and he sold his railroad cars to the Ringling Brothers. The Ringlings used the equipment to transform their circus from a small animal-powered production to a huge rail-powered behemoth, which later purchased the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Thus, in liquidating his circus assets, he indirectly contributed to the demise of his arch-rival.
Its probably safe to assume that they also competed to secure the use of Athletic Park in Washington, DC as well.
|| 3/19/2010 || 10:55 am || 2 Comments Rendered || ||
Advertisement for the Barnum and London Circus in Athletic Park, Washington, DC – The National Republican, May 3rd, 1884
Over the years I’ve attempted to document bits and pieces of my neighborhood’s 100+ year history on this digital scrapbook. From a bird’s eye view of my neighborhood in 1885 to a map of my neighborhood in 1921, I’ve tried to learn as much about where I’ve been living as possible. Its hard not to when you realize that long after we are gone, the houses in this neighborhood will probably still remain.
The educational starting point was this article about my neighborhood history, which I pretty much copied in my first entry, and now that I have access to the thousands upon thousands of newspaper articles that were published around the time of the neighborhood’s development, I’m able to find some rather new and unique facets of my neighborhood’s history.
In time, I hope more old newspapers come on-line that show what happened on the land prior to 1884, but in the meantime, I’ll post more unique items that I find.
+ Read more about White Elephants
+ Read more about Jumbo the Elephant
|| 3/15/2010 || 11:23 pm || + Render A Comment || ||
A T-Rex Google Map On My Neighborhood Via Twitter
|| 12/16/2009 || 9:20 pm || + Render A Comment || ||
[Found Map] The 3rd District Police Station in Washington, DC
Over the holidays I’ve had friend’s come and visit me. When they drive to Washington, DC, I always go to the police station to get my guests temporary parking permits. Two weeks ago I noticed this display on the opposite side of the station and decided to snap a couple photos. I don’t know who designed the display, but think the juxtaposition of the photographs on the map was interesting. What this map does lack, interestingly, is a little red dot that says you are here. The photograph and the map has no geovisual correlation because the map makes no reference to the location of the Third District Police Station. Is it possible that the layout was generic and the detail photograph was inserted for each of the different police departments? I have not been to any other stations, so I don’t know if the police in 2D are as lucky as 3D. I like the display, I just wish there was a better geographic connection embodied within it. I could add one. Maybe I should. A bonus would be the map of where Zone 1 and Zone 2 parking permits are allowed. I’ve asked officers present if they had one they could show me and they’ve never had one. This important boundary map helps ensure all citizens are given the appropriate Zone to park in. Thankfully I live in a permeable boundary that allows both Zones, but what if you live in an area that is one Zone only and you happen to get the wrong one and your guest gets a $100 ticket? Not fun.
|| 10/18/2009 || 10:48 am || + Render A Comment || ||
[POSTPONED] Westminster Playground Art Exhibition
Due to unfortunate weather conditions we’ve decided to postpone today’s art exhibition until next Spring. Thank you for your interest & we look forward to seeing you at our next exhibition!
Sincerely,
Chuck, George, and Nikolas
|| 10/15/2009 || 2:21 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||
This Weekend: Westminster Playground Art Exhibition
Sunday, October 18th, 2009, Noon until Sundown
913 Westminster Street NW, Washington, DC
You are invited to a special outdoor art exhibition at the Westminster Street playground. Neighborhood artists Chuck Baxter, George Smith-Shomari, and Nikolas Schiller, who all live on Westminster Street, will have their artwork display throughout the afternoon.
Crowned by the vibrantly-colored, 3 story mural titled “Community” by local artist Anne Marchand, the Westminster Playground is urban oasis that brings neighbors together and helps foster the mural’s namesake, community. The playground exhibition is free and open to everyone, is wheelchair accessible, and only two blocks from the U Street Metro station (10 Street exit). Since this exhibition is weather sensitive, please check Nikolas’s website, http://www.nikolasschiller.com/blog/ before noon o n October 18th if the weather looks bad. We hope to see you!
The Westminster Playground is located on the Northeast side of Westminster Street, a one block street between 9th & 10th and S & T Streets, NW, Washington, DC, 20001.
Chuck Baxter creates found object art from materials tossed in DC’ s gutters and alleys. For the past decade Chuck has built a reputation, in his own mind, as the D.C. area’s foremost collector of gutter gifts. He’s a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs bureaucrat, a DC artist, and minimal director of his own life. Few of Chuck’s pieces hang in DC business and government offices, and in the homes of art collectors and friends around the world. “I have always felt the pull of throw-aways, and sought to invoke the world of junk as the natural medium for the urban artist.” His fascination with the flotsam of city life and the details of trash, such as broken glass, smashed plastic, crumpled paper, and lost toys, is the starting point for most of his pieces. The underlying compositional theme of his work draw from the common shapes and forms found in the gutter. Chuck currently resides in the Shaw where he simmers in his own private studio.
Member of MidCity Artists visit: http://www.MidCityArtists.com
For more information visit: http://www.shomariarts.com
Nikolas Schiller is a digital artist who maps the territory between art & science. After studying geography & computer science at the George Washington University, in 2004 he began developing abstract geographic designs based on kaleidoscopic aerial photography and satellite imagery. In the years since, he has mapped nearly every major city in the United States, including each ward of Washington, DC. His unique maps have been featured on book covers, album covers, and are in the permanent map collections of the Library of Congress, British Library, New York Public Library, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the two-time recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Young Artist Program Grant (2006 & 2008) and most recently had his artwork on display at Artomatic 2009 in Washington, DC and “Photocartopgrahies: the Tattered Fragments of the Map” in Los Angeles.
For more information visit: http://www.NikolasSchiller.com
(…and the weather is nice!)
|| 9/27/2009 || 4:46 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||
Map of Westminster Street NW in Washington, DC from 1921
Last year I published Then & Now Birds-Eye Views of the Westminster Neighborhood in Washington, DC [1884 & 2005] and earlier today I came across some new maps of the street I’ve lived on for the last 5 years. This map comes from the 1921 edition of Baist’s real estate atlas of surveys of Washington, District of Columbia. It shows the neighborhood pretty much as it is today except for the neighborhood playground that currently sits where houses 193-196 used to be and some of the stables & garages people had constructed in their backyards have been removed.
Below is the citation from the Library of Congress entry:
+ MORE
|| 8/31/2009 || 5:33 pm || + Render A Comment || ||
YouTube Video of an Arrest Last Night Outside of the 7-11 at 12th & U Street, NW, DC
Last night I had just finished playing movies at Restaurant Marvin and was heading home on my bicycle. I decided to get a snack before I arrived home and the only place open at that time was the nearby 7-11. As I arrived at the corner of 12th & U street, I saw the two men struggling on the ground, with one man in a headlock, and the 7-11 employee had just rushed back into the store. Right after I dismounted my bicycle, I could hear the police sirens approaching, so I pulled out my camera and began filming the moment they arrived. While I was recording, I was also trying to lock my bicycle to the pole, so there are a few times when I accidentally placed my finger over the microphone and/or the camera hits the pole itself. After I lock my bike up, and it looked as though the police had the area under control, I made my way inside and stopped recording. When I left the store I started recording again and made my way back over to where my bicycle was locked. This time I placed the camera on the ground below the pole while I unlocked my bicycle, and a few moments later I picked up the camera and rode home.
Being that I arrived at the scene after the two men had already begun struggling, I cannot remark on the nature of what happened before I got there. I’m am happy that no one was shot or killed and the police did not appear to use excessive force when detaining the man. I will update this entry if & when I find the police report.
|| 1/21/2009 || 4:30 pm || Comments Off || ||
Google FINALLY updates the imagery of Washington, DC and now you can kinda see the message on my rooftop
Back in July of 2007 I found that Google was censoring the imagery of downtown Washington, DC. This discovery lead to an article that was featured on the front page of the Metro section of the Washington Post. In the time since, Google has not updated the imagery, even after the release of Street View for Washington, DC.
The other day they finally decided to update the imagery of Washington, DC. I believe they did this because there were millions of people coming to Washington for the inauguration and they would have been showing them outdated imagery on their maps. Now that the imagery has been updated, you can almost see the message on my rooftop that I installed in the summer of 2006. Since the imagery has a somewhat low spatial resolution, its slightly difficult to make out the words “No War,” and it kinda looks like “No W@R.” Below is the photograph that appeared on the front page of the Style Section of the Washington Post in March of 2007 which shows me standing next to the now-visible rooftop sign.
|| 1/1/2009 || 6:40 pm || Comments Off || ||
Time-lapse photograph of Mercury, Jupiter, and an airplane taking off
6 second time-lapse photograph of Mercury (left), Jupiter (right), and an airplane taking off (top)
This evening marks the first time I’ve seen the planet Mercury in night sky. What makes this extra beautiful is Mercury, the smallest planet in the solar system, was next to Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. I have now have seen all of wandering stars known to the ancients.
Below I decided to digitally zoom in as far as I could and see what the time-lapse photograph would look like:
+ MORE
|| 8/5/2008 || 2:28 pm || 2 Comments Rendered || ||
You Street on YouTube || East Meets West || A Game of Locational Awareness
The other day after I watched the interview conducted on a bicycle the idea that had been swimming in the back of my head resurfaced. Originally it was going to be something simple, as in, one YouTube video for U Street (sometimes written out as You Street) in Washington, DC that featured me riding down the street at night and another video that would be filmed on the exact same stretch of road, but filmed during the day. By using the YouTube Doubler, the on-line mashup helper, the viewer would be able to simultaneously see the same stretch of road at two different times of the day.
After thinking about the concept more thoroughly, I literally went in a different direction (actually two) and came up with a game of sorts. Last Saturday I filmed myself riding on the same stretch of U Street going to one end of the street and then filmed myself going back to the same point where I started. I then edited the videos so they start where the other on ends and then I placed the two videos side-by-side using YouTube Doubler.
The object of the game is to find the exact location where the videos cross paths. As in, the video on the right features me riding my bike on U Street going due East and the video on the left features me riding my bike due West and somewhere in the videos there is a specific point where the two videos cross paths.
Since they were filmed at different times you won’t actually see me riding down the street, but there is an exact point on the street where the two videos intersect and its up to the viewer to figure out where East meets West or West meets East.
Since I had more traffic going West than I did going East, the West video is slightly longer, but the spot where the two videos cross paths does not change. It might take a couple tries, but eventually you’ll be able to figure out the spot in question. If you need help with a map or two, I created a special Google Map that shows the starting locations of the two videos.
I’ve already found the location, but do you think you can find it? If you do, leave the estimated time in the comment section!! The answer is quite easy.
Click the screen grab below to try it out:
One disappointment with this game is that YouTube’s compression still stinks. I uploaded the videos at 640×480 in size with minimal compression with the hopes that they’d show up less pixilated, but alas the option to view the videos in high-quality was not there when I checked last. I still don’t know why either. The unfortunate result is that you are unable to see as much detail in the videos, which means the game is slightly harder to “win.” Currently Vimeo does not have an autoplay option which makes this mashup impossible on their platform, so there really isn’t much I can do to fix the compression issue.
One idea is to remove the YouTube Doubler component and redesign the videos in Final Cut Pro. By adjusting the size of the final video, I can place both East & West into one video and release the game without compression. This will take me longer to complete, but I think it might be a worthy effort. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy this game.
+ MORE
|| 4/14/2008 || 12:42 pm || Comments Off || ||
Then & Now Birds-Eye Views of the Westminster Neighborhood in Washington, DC [1884 & 2005]
Detail the bicycle track before Westminster Street was created
from Adolph Sachse’s birds-eye view of the nation’s capital, 1884
Due to file format issues, only recently have I been able to open most of the maps available in the Library of Congress’ American Memory Collection. Last night I found an interesting birds-eye view map of Washington, DC by Adolph Sachse that was published in 1884. Its a massive map that appears to be composed of six separate sheets and contains a listing of many of the businesses in Washington City as well as locations of various public & government buildings. In many ways the map acts like a geovisual address book (the phone had not been invented yet) because, at a glance, one can easily find services offered by local merchants. Judging by the branding in the upper right hand corner of the original map, it appears that the map was sponsored by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, a major railroad company of the day.
According to my neighborhood’s official history, Westminster Street did not exist in 1884 and the birds-eye view above supports this claim. While not labeled in the image above, Parcel 362, as it was known on the original DC maps, was called also called “the old circus ground” and Athletic Park. It had a 150-foot long grand stand along T Street, which was built in 1883 (building permit number 1047) in preparation for the fifth national convention of the League of American Wheelmen, a national organization of bicyclists. The first American bicyclist to ever ride 100 miles on an outdoor track did it on that track in 1884. As someone who uses a bicycle as their primary means of urban transportation, I can only smile knowing that 121 years ago my residence was an outdoor bicycle race track. However, I laugh because I traveled with an exgirlfriend’s family circus when I was younger!
Below is a birds-eye view of the Westminster Neighborhood published by Microsoft, with imagery of Pictometry International. It features imagery that was taken in 2005 and when compared, you can see how much the area has changed in the last 121 years. The Athetic Park is gone and in it’s place are dozens of rowhouses that were built shortly after the map above was published. A unique and historically aware addition to the neighborhood is something you can see below in the playground on Westminster Street. No, it’s not because that is where I had my exhibit “North, South, East, Westminster“. Rather, if you look closely, you can see a small race track! A scaled reminder of what once was.
Detail of the Westminster Neighborhood by Microsoft, with imagery of Pictometry International
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|| 6/18/2007 || 8:09 pm || Comments Off || ||
America as a Cloverleaf
View the original, interactive version, and legend:
This historic map mashup is courtesy of Heinrich Bunting (1545-1606) by way of the Yale University Map Library.
Originally the three cloverleaves were of Africa (South/Middle) , Europe (West/Left), and Asia (East/Right) and at the center was Jerusalem. You can read more about this map at the website Strange Maps.
My rendition is San Francisco’s Financial District (West/Left), the Saint Louis Arch (South), and Lower Manhattan (East/Right) and at the center is the rowhouse in Washington, DC where I reside at. + MORE
|| 5/12/2007 || 4:22 pm || Comments Off || ||
Society is Enriched by Labor :: Socio Ditata Labore
Today I finally got around to looking through the David Ramsey Historical Map Collection. Like Archive.org, there was a lot to discover…
The above image is an assembled detail of a beautiful engraving on the title page of Atlas Nouveau, which was published in 1742 in Amsterdam (original cover after the flap). The detail contains the Latin phrase, “Socio ditata labore” and shows a scene of exploration. There is a slain dragon on the right side and on the left are soldiers bringing a woman to the new land. I couldn’t pass up this engraving! I do need a Latin translation, anyone know it? (A friend of mine was able to get a translation for me – below)
Behind the engraving is a tessellated detail from Home Quilt #5, which features the row house I’ve been living in for the last 3 years. The house was built around 1889, a 147 years after the Atlas was published. The source aerial photograph was taken in March of 2005, published in February of 2007, and revisted on March 29th, 2007, and finally today, a 265 year enrichment.
I also made a pop-art style tile that features the engraving in different colors.
From an e-mail:
Here is the report from my classicist friend in LA:
as for the latin, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as it stands – ‘socius’ is a friend, companion, (father in law in some contexts) – so it could be some sort of dedication, as in: ‘for my father in law, with enriched labor” – which, as I say, makes no sense. if, however, ‘societas’ has been mistaken for ‘socio,’ then it can read, as you say, ‘society is enriched by labor.’
Title Page & Notes: + MORE
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