Long Island (and related) Material (formerly on the History page) moved to Long Island page, et seq., q.v.

This page presents odd items in the history of technology not germane to other pages on this site and link the other pages as applicable.

Ordnance buffs should see the news about a WWI British tank being uncovered in France!

See the Long Island Motor Parkway page, et seq.

The Long Island Motor Parkway had twelve little toll lodges and several other rather more significant structures (some still standing) designed by noted architect John Russell Pope; Pope also did other work on Long Island.  A little more on him is given at John Russell Pope on LIMP page 12.

A Motor Parkway Panel had been convened to keep the LIMP alive in situ, in minds, and in museums (it has now been superseded by the Long Island Motor Parkway Preervation Society.   (28 Jul 2011)

A pair of Long Island Motor Parkway afficionadoes, Sue and Rob Friedman, turned up with a great site about the Bronx's old Freedomland.

Interested in deep sea diving and palaeontology?  Take a look at "Deep Sixed Dinosaurs" on Naval and Marine continuation page 1.

Mike Natale has a fascinating "THE TOLL ROAD MAP MASTER LIST" and also has a page on the abandoned highway and tunnels of the old South Penn RR/Pennsylvania Turnpike route, with great color photos.

While not about history, per se, there is a book about the Fairchild Aerial Survey photos, "Cities from the Sky: An Aerial Portrait of America", by Thomas J. Campanella, which shows an enormous amount of detail of Boston, New York, and many other cities in the '20s. '30s, and '40s; it is simply staggering and well worth the trouble to borrow or buy.

The Bell Telephone Laboratories (Manhattan, NY) and Mercury (Hg)

[I have no provenance for this story although I am almost certain my father told me about it; he was a Funeral Director in Manhattan (see Universal Funeral Chapel), used large amounts of mercury* in manometers, and was exceedingly knowledgeable about NYC history.]

The Bell Telephone Laboratories (more popularly known as "Bell Labs") were (was?) located at 463 West Street from 1898 to 1966.  Per Wikipedia, it was a 13-building complex located on the block between West Street, Washington Street, Bank Street, and Bethune Street and was, for a time, the largest industrial research center in the United States.  The west side of the building straddled the West Side Freight Line of the New York Central (& Harlem River) Railroad; here's an old photo (perhaps ca. 1930):   (27 Mar 2012)

(photo courtesy of T. Fletcher - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnailed image - click on the picture for larger image]

The story is that vibration from the heavy trains would have disturbed sensitive measuring equipment in the buildings so thjey were isolated by having their supporting columns mounted on big pads floating in huge pools of mercury.  If so, the mercury would have had to have some heavy oil floating on any exposed surfaces to prevent fumes of evaporated and oxidized mercury, deadly and accumulative poisons, from escaping into the ambient atmosphere.

The question, then, is what happened to the mercury when the buildings were renovated by Richard Meier, reopening in 1970 as Westbeth Artists Community for low to middle income artists?

© Copyright S. Berliner, III - 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2011, 2012  - all rights reserved.