Did you know that the Empire State Building was a built in a race between Chrysler and General Motors on who could build the taller building? Or that when the Sydney Opera House design was selected, the technology to build it hadn't existed yet? Here are the origins of 5 of the world's most iconic buildings:
Empire State Building
Building the Empire State Building, by Lewis Hine (1930): "Old-timer, -- keeping up with the boys. Many structural workers are above middle-age." The Chrysler building can be seen in the background.
As it turns out, New York City's most recognizable landmark was born out of a rivalry between two American car companies. At the height of the Great Depression, nobody dealing in large, expensive, luxury objects was doing very good business. So, rather than settle their differences in the marketplace, the CEOs of General Motors and Chrysler opted to see who could build a taller building in downtown Manhattan. (We're sure this made perfect sense at the time.)
Walter Chrysler, as you've probably guessed, had the Chrysler Building built as his avatar. John Jakob Raskob, the founder of General Motors, opted to join forces with the owners of DuPont Chemicals not just to build the world's tallest building, but also to build it as fast as humanly possible. They broke ground in March of 1930 and, using a force of 3,000 workers, were able to have the entire 102-story buildings finished and opened to the public just a year and two months later. Arguably, you could say that General Motors won that round.
The White House
Earliest known daguerrotype of the White House, taken by John Plumbe (1846)
George Washington got the shaft. Sure, he got to be our nation's first president, got to work with urban planner Pierre L'Enfant on the design for Washington, D.C., and got to be part of the committee that chose the winner of the 1792 "Design Your New Leader's House" contest (architect James Hoban, who won $500 for his troubles) - but, despite all that, the man never got to enjoy the fruits of his labor. The White House wasn't completed until 1800, just in time for Washington to step down and the newly elected President John Adams to move in. Unfair.
In all honesty, however, living in the White House hasn't always been an exercise in luxury. When the Adamses moved in there weren't any amenities like the swimming pool, bowling alley, and movie theater that grace the current mansion. In fact, there wasn't even running water. Servants had to carry the president's H2O in buckets from a spring five blocks away.
Worse, the building was still somewhat under construction, so the "yard" was essentially a pile of dirt and mud; the lamps hadn't been hung yet, forcing the Adamses to get by with randomly placed candles; and much of the interior finishings had yet to be installed - including the main staircases! For a while, the Adamses and their guests had to climb upstairs via temporary wooden steps and platforms.
Things got a little better over the years, but when your home repair and improvement budget has to be allocated by Congress, it's hardly a surprise that your house is bound to end up falling apart. By the time the Trumans had settled in, in the late 1940s, things had gotten so bad that some politicians had suggested tearing the building down and starting from scratch. In fact, according to legend, the president decided that the White House officially needed a major renovation when he found his bathtub was sinking into the floor. Between 1948 and 1952, the White House went through a major, "This Old House" style overhaul. As a result, President Truman and his family spent most of their term living across the street.
How's this for an audacious construction plan: when architect Jorn Utzon's won a contest to design a new opera house in Sydney, Australia, in 1957, there was no existing building technology capable of bringing his plan to life. Seriously. Out of the 300+ designs the government of New South Wales had to choose from, they picked the one that literally couldn't be built. Now, this might seem like a good reason to scrap the idea, but the plucky Australian government opted to move forward, charging Utzon with finding a way to get his series of soaring roofs off the drawing board and into Sydney.
That part alone took Utzon and a team of engineers more than four years to solve. But the building's troubles weren't over. Given that builders were performing what amounted to an engineering miracle, the costs associated with the construction quickly skyrocketed. After Utzon figured out how to make his sail roof work, a large portion of the building - already completed - had to be rebuilt to support the ceiling. In 1966, the government of New South Wales briefly discussed pulling the plug on the project altogether, rather than deal with a bill that was spiraling out of control. Luckily, someone came up with the bright idea of letting the People fund the construction. Not through a tax, mind you, but by lottery. The Opera House Lottery eventually collected the equivalent of more than $101 million U.S. dollars from a series of 496 individual lottery contests - coming extremely close to recouping the building's entire cost.
Unfortunately, relationships proved more difficult to repair than pocket books. The working partnership between Jorn Utzon and the New South Wales government became increasingly strained over the years. In 1966, when the politicians threatened to bail, Utzon called their bluff - quitting on his own building. The task of completing the job - which took another seven years - fell on the shoulder of different architects.
Believe it or not, the Eiffel Tower was originally supposed to be in Barcelona. But thinking the thing would end up looking like an eyesore, the city rejected Gustave Eiffel's plans, and he was forced to repitch the project elsewhere.
Luckily, Eiffel found a home for his idea in Paris, where the Tower could serve as the main archway for the 1889 International Exposition. Amazingly, the Tower didn't exactly go over well with the Parisians, either. The enormous iron structure was immediately belittled by critics, and one especially harsh reviewer referred to the thing as a "metal asparagus."
Truth be told, the Eiffel Tower wasn't supposed to stay up for very long. In fact, it was offered for sale as scrap and was spared only because it proved useful to the French army. (they found that its 984-foot height worked nicely as a communications tower.)
Thankfully, however, Gustave Eiffel's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad structure has managed to endure; the structure received its 200 millionth visitor in 2002, and has become one of the world's most recognizable man-made landmarks the world over.
Legend has it that once the construction of the Taj Mahal was complete (c. 1648), the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan had his architect blinded. Apparently, the Shah wanted to ensure that the designer could never again create a structure was beautiful as the tomb he'd built for his wife Mumtaz. Just to be on the safe side, though, Shah Jahan also cut off the architect's hands.
Artist Brendan Jamison creates awesome sculptures out of sugar cubes. If you think the picture above is awesome, wait till you see the whole sculpture: Link - via grow-a-brain
Elke Wisbey of Bearsted, Kent, England was born with brain damage. Now 6, she has never been able to walk, feed herself, or even communicate with her family -until now. A £17,000 MyTobii Smartbox machine tracks her eye movements with lasers and sends messages to a programmed voice that speaks for her. Elke took only a few days to learn how to use the machine, faster than her family members. Her parents noticed she was constantly looking at the “I love you” symbol.
Mrs. Wisbey, 43, who also has a son, Galahad, aged nine, said: ‘I thought it was stuck and then I realised what she was saying.
‘She was looking at the “I love you” icon and I couldn’t believe it, she kept doing it.
‘I said to Elke “are you telling Daddy you love him?” and she pointed at the icon “yes”.
‘It really choked me up, made me really emotional. I’m still emotional when I think about it.
‘It was quite emotional. It is mind-blowing really. We have gone from somebody not being able to communicate to this.
‘We didn’t think Elke would ever be able to tell us how she was feeling, and now she can. This will be amazing for us, absolutely phenomenal.’
Readers of a local newspaper raised money to buy the specially-adapted machine for the family from Bearsted, Kent.
Elke has learned a number of words and phrases and can also use the machine to play games. Link -via Digg
Halloween is here and so is our collaboration with the bestest video aggregation website there is, VideoSift. Here are five Halloween video clips you gotta see! (Links open in a new browser window/tab)
Stone Golem Costume The coolness factor is off the chart with this one! Check out the Stone Golem full suit costume, constructed with about 5 foam mattresses, over 50 sticks of hot melt glue and 8 cans of grey and black spray paint.
Trick-or-Treater Pwns Scarecrow Here's a good idea turned supremely bad: dress up as a scarecrow doll that comes alive when trick-or-treater approach the door.
Over-the-Top Scary Halloween First the light goes off, then the scary stuff happens. It's not Halloween until somebody cries and trick-or-treaters got to suffer for their candies in this house!
The Self-Carving Pumpkin Can't have a Halloween feature without pumpkins. Here's a truly marvelous (and a little bit sick if you think about it) stop-motion video clip of a pumpkin carving itself!
Seinfeld on Halloween All right, enough with costumes and pumpkins. Here's Jerry Seinfeld's take on Halloween, from his "I'm Telling You for the Last Time" show on Broadway.
That’s a knitted motorcycle "cozy" by Washington DC artist Theresa Honeywell. For her artwork series titled KNIT!, Theresa uses the traditionally feminine mediums of knitting to um, embellish "macho" subjects like a motorcycle and a jackhammer. Oh, don’t miss her embroidered lace tattoos artwork!
If you’re not tired of political ads, take a gander at Nerve.com’s neat post of the 20 greatest political campaign ads of all time (yes, the Wazzup 2008 ad made it to the list, but the neat stuff are all the past campaigns. Oh, and by “great” they mean “effective” - some of the best are very, very negative.)
I was delighted to see this one, "Mrs. JFK" 1960:
John Kennedy had commercials starring Henry Fonda and Harry Belafonte, but his best booster may have been his Missus, who in her public appearances was eager to show that she wasn’t just a pretty face: she was a pretty face who’d managed to retain some of her finishing-school Spanish. It may not be possible now to fully understand what a jolt it was for the country to see a future First Lady looking fairly hot while signing off with the announcement, "Viva Kennedy!" But Mamie Eisenhower must have had a funny feeling in her bones that her job description had just been rewritten.
Actually, it only looks like a Soviet death ray gun. The rusting structure is actually part of the Tien Shan Astronomical Observatory near the Great Almaty Lake, Kazakhstan. Environmental Graffiti blog has more: Link
The Duarte Pumpkins website has a nice collection of creatively carved Halloween pumpkins. They also have a feature that allows you to vote for your favorite creations.
It is with great sadness that I wrap up the horror movie trivia posts. But, there's always next year! And, as someone mentioned, Christmas. Christmas horror movies, you guys! Silent Night, Deadly Night; Black Christmas; Nightmare Before Christmas… suddenly I'm feeling better about this whole thing. Happy Halloween, everyone!!
Evil Dead
OK, Evil Deadites! Here you go. You already know this stuff, but for everyone else, here’s the rundown. Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi and his brother Ted Raimi all went to high school together in Beverly Hills… Beverly Hills, Michigan. Anyway, this is where they first started making short films together on the Super 8. Evil Dead was the result of all of their previous efforts.
• The movie, even up through the first screening of it, was called Book of the Dead. • The opening shot of the movie was constructed by Bruce Campbell pushing Sam Raimi on a raft through the swamp. • Some of the guts were made out of Alpo dog food. • The sound effects were recorded in a studio by Bruce and Sam Raimi - basically, any time something happened to flesh (ripping, skinning, hitting, etc.), they did the same thing to chicken. They used a turkey baster to make blood spurt noises, and walnuts and celery were perfect for breaking bones. The sound of rustling leaves was made by using quarter-inch recording tape. • It took about 18 months to film the first movie alone. • The idea for the book of the dead - the Necronomicon - originally came from H.P. Lovecraft, of course. When Sam heard his ancient history professor talking about Sumerian culture, he was sort of zoning out, as you tend to do in classes like that. But when she dropped the phrase, “Sumerian Book of the Dead”, Sam perked up. So his book of the dead was really a combination of the two. • The movie opened in 1983 during the same weekend as Flashdance. For some reason, that amuses me. • When we first watched Evil Dead and I saw Sam Raimi’s name, I was a little incredulous. “Spiderman Sam Raimi?” I said. My husband just looked at me like I was an idiot. Yes, Spiderman Sam Raimi. In fact, Bruce Campbell has had cameos in all of the Spiderman movies. In #1, he was the wrestling announcer who coined Spiderman’s name. In #2, he played the stuck-up usher who makes fun of how shabby Peter Parker looks and makes him late to Mary Jane’s performance. And in the third installment, he’s the maitre d’ who helps Peter propose to Mary Jane. • The cabin really was an abandoned cabin, located in Morristown, Tenn. But you won’t find it there today, because it burned down sometime after filming. Sam Raimi claims he did it himself, but Bruce Campbell is vaguer about what happened. Apparently, the movie crew buried a time capsule at the site of the cabin. It consisted of little trinkets from the movie and notes from the cast and crew, but it has never been found. It may have been destroyed when the cabin burned down. • Ash’s car in the movie, a 1973 Oldsmobile Delta, was actually Sam Raimi’s car. Raimi has managed to work that car into every movie he has ever made, with the exception of The Quick and the Dead. Bruce Campbell jokes (we think) that a wagon cover was made to go over the car just to get it in the movie, styled after an old Western. • When the possessed people ooze or squirt out that weird white substance, don’t be too grossed out: it’s just 2% milk.
I know there’s a lot more Evil Dead trivia, but I picked some of my favorites. Feel free to add your favorites, if I missed them, in the comments.
Psycho
I love Hitchcock, as you've probably noticed from a couple of other posts. Psycho was a novel before it was a movie. Alfred Hitchcock bought the rights to it for only $9,000. Same general plot, with a few tweaks here and there by the Master of Suspense.
• The book was followed by two sequels - Psycho II (not to be confused with the movie, which was totally different) and Psycho House. Psycho II involved Norman escaping the asylum and going to Hollywood, but is a little freaked out because it seems as if the whole world is crazier than he ever was. In Psycho House, the Bates Motel is opened up as a tourist attraction - of course, mayhem and murder ensue. I may have to look into these. • Like so many other works of horror, this one was partially based on serial killer Ed Gein. Author Robert Bloch lived only 35 miles away from where Gein was arrested, so it’s easy to see where the inspiration came from. Bloch later claimed that he knew the case but purposely didn’t read the details. When he did, years later, he was surprised at how much Gein and Norman Bates were alike. • Anthony Perkins came up with Norman Bates’ tic of constantly munching on candy corn. • Hitch liked to hide various incarnations of Mrs. Bates in Janet Leigh’s dressing room. There are several different reasons he would have done this. Janet Leigh speculates that it was done to keep her on edge and make her act anxious during her three weeks on the set. Hitchcock once said he was testing the different dolls - whichever one made Janet scream the loudest would end up being the winner. And the third reason is, well, Hitch just had a dark sense of humor (obviously). • The famous shower scene owes its realism to food - the blood was Bosco chocolate syrup, and the stabbing sound was made by plunging a knife into a Casaba melon. • Even though the movie was shot in black and white, people very vividly remembered seeing the vibrant red blood - a true testament to the powers of imagination. • The Bates house was based on the Edward Hopper painting “House by the Railroad”. I was briefly an art major in college and was quite familiar with Hopper's work, but never made that connection. • After the movie was shown to the public, a bunch of ophthalmologists wrote in and noted how the murder scene was not realistic because Janet Leigh’s pupils weren’t dilated, and a corpse’s pupils dilate after death. Hitch solved the problems in post-Psycho movies by using drops that had the desired effect. • It was the first movie in the U.S. to show a toilet flushing on the camera. • Hitchcock insisted that people could not be allowed into the movie late. He even wrote it into the contracts of the movie theater owners.
Child’s Play
I thought about going with Blair Witch for the last one, but after looking them both up, I thought this one seemed more interesting. I do remember sneaking out of yearbook camp in high school (yeah, I went to yearbook camp. Shut up.) to go see Blair Witch… ah, I digress. Back to the murderous doll.
• Charles Lee Ray, the murderer whose spirit takes over the adorable “Good Guy” doll is named after three infamous killers - Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald, and James Earl Ray. Why does it seem like so many killers are known by all three names? Mark David Chapman, John Wilkes Booth, John Wayne Gacy, the two above. Hmm. • Supposedly the Good Guys line of toys was based on My Buddy, which I can totally see. Those things were creepy. But writer and Chucky creator Don Mancini said Chucky’s look was inspired by Cabbage Patch Kids. However, because I can still remember the My Buddy theme song and will probably have it stuck in my head all day, I'm subjecting you to the same thing:
• Don Mancini was pushed to write the third Child's Play before the second one had even been released. To this date, it's his least favorite – he felt that the plot was lacking because he was out of ideas so soon after Child's Play 2. • That was the look, but the idea itself came from an episode of The Twilight Zone called “Living Doll”. As you might imagine, it featured a doll that came to life, although this one was a female named Talky Tina. The episode starred Telly Savalas, who said that the plot really creeped him out. • Brad Dourif, the voice of Chucky since the original movie, has had a long career in horror. His credits include The Hitchhiker, The Exorcist III, Graveyard Shift, Critters IV, Alien: Resurrection, Urban Legend and Rob Zombie’s Halloween. • The producer, David Kirschner, also produced a bunch of kids’ movies, which is kind of funny to me. Among them are An American Tail (my absolute favorite as a kid), Fievel Goes West, The Flintstones, Hocus Pocus, Curious George and Cats Don’t Dance. Yes, Cats Don’t Dance. • The first movie was filmed at The Brewster in Chicago. Charlie Chaplin used to live in the penthouse there. • Mancini and co. are working on a remake of the original right now, with Brad Dourif scheduled to voice Chucky again (with a brief part as the human version of Charles Lee Ray, as in the original). Even though a CGI Chucky could easily be made, Mancini says Chucky will remain animatronic.
We previously showed you video from the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, where they use fake animals to train for escapes. The latest drill features a rhinoceros! An escaped rhinoceros? They should have used a bulldozer instead of two guys in a rhino suit! -via Arbroath
It’s a story and picture made for the internet. The driver and his passenger escaped with only minor injuries when the £100,000 Ferrari met a utility pole in Adelaide, Australia. The front half of the car was split in two.
Pictures of the crashed vehicle resulted in one internet blogger commenting: ‘I wonder what action the police will take with an idiot driving a Ferrari.’
Another commentator said: ‘We’re making a few assumptions here, but when a young guy is driving a Ferrari worth a quarter of a million bucks, and then splits it almost in two, someone’s going to be grounded for life.’
See full-size pictures at the Mail Online. Link-Thanks, Moi!
For Halloween, Dark Roasted Blend has a roundup of weird wearable art and over-the-top costumes that you probably won’t see at your doorstep tonight -but wouldn’t it be cool if you did? Jason Hackenwerth designed this balloon outfit. Link
This guy recreated the effect of a theremin by manipulating the feedback of two walkie-talkies. Now if he could just learn a tune! Warning: You may want to turn the sound down a bit. -Thanks, Clyde Langer!
You’ve seen pictures of pelicans eating extraordinary things on the internet. But a pelican eating a dog? That’s what it looks like, but Petri the pelican was just angry that the dog stole her chicken snack. Roland Adam, owner of the exotic bird farm in Germany where Petri lives, explains.
“I was preparing foods for the birds in our outdoor kitchen, when I noticed Petri at my side looking for a snack,” explained the 38-year-old. “I decided to feed her one of the chicks I had been preparing when Katijina raced in, caught the frozen bird mid-air and gobbled up Petri’s dinner.”
Confused and slightly irritated by missing out on the proffered snack, Petri decided to scour every inch of the Rhodesian ridgeback - named Katijina - for the discarded chick.
Elke Wisbey of Bearsted, Kent, England was born with brain damage. Now 6, she has never been able to walk, feed herself, or even communicate with her family -until now. A £17,000 MyTobii Smartbox machine tracks her eye movements with lasers and sends messages to a programmed voice that speaks for her. Elke took only a few days to learn how to use the machine, faster than her family members. Her parents noticed she was constantly looking at the “I love you” symbol. 
If you’re not tired of political ads, take a gander at Nerve.com’s neat post of the 20 greatest political campaign ads of all time (yes, the 
• The Bates house was based on the Edward Hopper painting “House by the Railroad”. I was briefly an art major in college and was quite familiar with Hopper's work, but never made that connection.
It’s a story and picture made for the internet. The driver and his passenger escaped with only minor injuries when the £100,000 Ferrari met a utility pole in Adelaide, Australia. The front half of the car was split in two.
You’ve seen pictures of pelicans eating extraordinary things on the internet. But a pelican eating a dog? That’s what it looks like, but Petri the pelican was just angry that the dog stole her chicken snack. Roland Adam, owner of the exotic bird farm in Germany where Petri lives, explains.
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