Pregled posta

Marketing

Midtown Manhattan

Nearly 300 men began excavation of the RCA Building in July 1931..Steelwork commenced early the next year and the building was completed thirteen months later.Its architectural design was the result of several conditioning factors. On the most rudimentary level was the accommodation of varied tenant requirements and the maximum utilization of available land. "he solution was the combination of three different buildings into a single structure (more than 1,000 feet long) which spans the full block between Rockefeller Plaza and Sixth Avenue. On the east, taking full advantage of light and air, are the 70-story corporate offices of RCA. Additional office space was provided along Sixth Avenue in the sixteen story slab of the RCA Building West. The midblock section, much less desirable for office space, was allotted to NBC's broadcasting studios which needed no windows but only large amounts of layered horizontal space. The technical specifications of this unit were particularly exacting. In order to insure soundproofing all the studios were designed with "floating" wails, floors and ceilings, suspended and insulated from the building's structural frame.

Among the other factors that conditioned RCA's design were the New York building Code and the introduction of new elevators whose high speed reduced the number required for building service. Equally important were the developer's demand for profitable return and the unwavering functionalism of the Associated Architects, tempered by a touch of romance from Raymond Hood. because of the size of the site and the Associated Architects' plan to build low-rise Fifth Avenue units backed by an open plaza, they had considerable freedom in determining the mass of their tower.

They were encouraged by John B. Todd 'who was concerned that the air rights (which were not transferable to the north or south blocks) be utilized to their full potential. At length the architects designed a 70-story tower whose facade rises sheer for 33 stories before expressing the elimination of three elevator banks with gentle setbacks. The tower stood in marked contrast to most contemporaneous skyscrapers where zoning setbacks created a wedding cake effect. The RCA Building thus stands as an early example of the emerging architectural slab. The form would be more completely —although not totally — realized at Rockefeller Center with construction of the One Rockefeller Plaza (formerly Time-Life) Building in 10 37 and the Ten Rockefeller Plaza (formerly Eastern Airlines Building in 1938-39, both of which sat on plinths related to pedestrian scale.

Slabs had been periodically proposed since 1912, but rarely executed.[5] They were approached recently, and most significantly, by Raymond Hood for the Daily News 1930 and and McGraw-Hill (1931) buildings, both of which are designated New York City Landmarks. Ironically, it was Hood who lobbied most forcefully for stylistically regressive setbacks on the RCA.

In keeping with his intention to build prime quality business space, developer John R. Todd insisted that no office be more than 27 1/2 feet from a window (the maximum at which virtural light and air can be adequately provided). By contrast, many contemporaneous office structures were built to maximum girth leaving dark and unventilated spaces at their cores.

The Associated Architects responded to Todd's requirement by grouping high speed elevators into central banks and surrounding them on each floor with a corridor and ring of offices of the requires 27-1/2 foot depth. It totally outmoded the wedding cake arrangement where elevators were grouped on either side of a long central corridor, forced deep into the building by the zoning regulations which required towers (and therefore the elevators which serviced those towers) to be set back from the street. The arrangement at RCA provided more than two million square feet, of prime office space, distinguishing it for years as the world's largest office building in floor area.

The pure geometry of RCA's functional slab was paradoxically disturbed by Hood's desire to give it full rational expression. After heated controversy among the Associated Architects, he finally succeeded in introducing setbacks at each point of elevator elimination, or, as Hood said, "cut[ting] out all the bad space and let[ting] the building stand on its own.

The progressive narrowing of building mass maintained the 27-1/2 foot relationship of office to building core and clearly expressed the reduced number of elevator shafts required for the upper floors (42 at ground level narrowing to ten on the 53rd floor). Honest functionalist expressions on both the north and south sides of the RCA Building, the setbacks are pure romance on its east facade where their primary function is to dramatize the soaring 850 foot tapered shaft. This quality is exaggerated when the building is viewed, as it invariably is, through the sunken Plaza and l

This bird was a lot of fun. While in pursuit of a Common Yellowthroat on a cliff-like region of the Ramble, I spotted this little bird walking around some rocks below. I could tell that it was a thrush of some sort, but couldn't identify the species at the time. It seemed to notice that it had grabbed my attention, and it sauntered over to a nearby bush, disappearing inside of it. The Yellowthroat appeared shortly afterward in the vicinity where this bird had disappeared, so I made my way down there.

The Yellowthroat disappeared once I reached the area. Glancing around, I spotted this thrush reappear, walking at a fairly slow pace across the rocks. It was fairly close to me, and as there were no branches or bushes between us to ruin the shot, I excitedly directed my lens in its direction and looked through the viewfinder.

I fired off one shot, and suddenly found it very difficult to keep the bird centered in the frame, but it wasn't initially obvious why. Most birds are very obvious when they're running: some will hop; others will frantically flap their wings as their little legs scamper; and still others will duck their heads down and charge forward. Not this bird! Still watching me and keeping its head level, the bird had suddenly picked up acceleration. "Zooming" is how I would describe this bird as it ran - it was just moving moving faster. Upon realizing this strange quality, I couldn't help but smile as the bird zoomed toward the nearest bush.

It later re-emerged and, still cautiously watching me, walked at an even pace across the forest floor between me and the Common Yellowthroat.

Photographed with an Olympus E-3 and Sigma "Bigma" 50-500mm at 500mm (1000mm equivalent in 35mm film terms), using a monopod and in-body image stabilization for support. Distance to subject (according to EXIF information, which may be inaccurate) was approximately 4.3 meters, or 14 feet. This photo has only been cropped to alter the aspect ratio (pixels on the bottom were removed) - no "digital zooming" was performed.

This is a Louisiana Waterthrush (possibly a Northern Waterthrush?), as seen between "the oven" and "the peak" in the Ramble region of Central Park, New York City. (According to Cornell's birding guide, the Louisiana Waterthrush differs from the Northern Waterthrush in the following manner: "Northern usually has stripes on throat, a slightly smaller bill, a thinner and off-white or cream eyestripe that does not extend as far onto the nape, less pink legs, and a more yellowish wash on the underparts.")