|
Woodside Amusement Park
Woodside Amusement Park was an amusement park that existed inside West Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that was constructed in 1897 by the Fairmount Park Transportation Company (FPT), and that continued operations until 1955. One of the coasters was transferred to the Million Dollar Pier as "The Skooter" in Atlantic City, New Jersey at the park's demise. Other famous rides "... included the famous Hummer roller coaster, the Whip, and the Wild Cat." The FPT's trolley line ran for around 10 miles around the park that also included parts of West Philadelphia and Strawberry Mansion. Also in the park was a third-mile wooden cycling track, which was used by Major Taylor to break many world records in 1898. The introduction of the trolley also introduced "non-bourgeois elements", and the park lost its "middle class tone." As a result, many who visited the park never returned and started patronage towards its competitor Willow Grove Park, which by comparison was less ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lead Horse Carousel Philly
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, lead is a shiny gray with a hint of blue. It tarnishes to a dull gray color when exposed to air. Lead has the highest atomic number of any stable element and three of its isotopes are endpoints of major nuclear decay chains of heavier elements. Lead is toxic, even in small amounts, especially to children. Lead is a relatively unreactive post-transition metal. Its weak metallic character is illustrated by its amphoteric nature; lead and lead oxides react with acids and bases, and it tends to form covalent bonds. Compounds of lead are usually found in the +2 oxidation state rather than the +4 state common with lighter members of the carbon group. Exceptions are mostly limited to organolead compounds. Like the lighter members of the grou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publisher in the United States, publishing 2,000 titles annually under 35 different imprints. History Early years In 1924, Richard Simon's aunt, a crossword puzzle enthusiast, asked whether there was a book of '' New York World'' crossword puzzles, which were very popular at the time. After discovering that none had been published, Simon and Max Schuster decided to launch a company to exploit the opportunity.Frederick Lewis Allen, ''Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s'', p. 165. . At the time, Simon was a piano salesman and Schuster was editor of an automotive trade magazine. They pooled , equivalent to $ today, to start a company that published crossword puzzles. The new publishing house used "fad" publishing to publis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1897 Establishments In Pennsylvania
Events January–March * January 2 – The International Alpha Omicron Pi sorority is founded, in New York City. * January 4 – A British force is ambushed by Chief Ologbosere, son-in-law of the ruler. This leads to a punitive expedition against Benin City, Benin. * January 7 – A 1897 cyclone, cyclone destroys Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin, Australia. * January 8 – Lady Flora Shaw, future wife of Governor General Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard, Lord Lugard, officially proposes the name "Nigeria" in a newspaper contest, to be given to the British Niger Coast Protectorate. * January 22 – In this date's issue of the journal ''Engineering'', the word ''computer'' is first used to refer to a mechanical calculation device. * January 23 – Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only capital case in United States history, where spectral evidence help ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buildings And Structures In Philadelphia
A building, or edifice, is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently in one place, such as a house or factory (although there's also portable buildings). Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and functions, and have been adapted throughout history for a wide number of factors, from building materials available, to weather conditions, land prices, ground conditions, specific uses, prestige, and aesthetic reasons. To better understand the term ''building'' compare the list of nonbuilding structures. Buildings serve several societal needs – primarily as shelter from weather, security, living space, privacy, to store belongings, and to comfortably live and work. A building as a shelter represents a physical division of the human habitat (a place of comfort and safety) and the ''outside'' (a place that at times may be harsh and harmful). Ever since the first cave paintings, buildings have also become objects or canvasses of much artisti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dentzel Carousel Company
The G.A. Dentzel Company was an American builder of carousels in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. History Its founder, Gustav Dentzel, had immigrated to the United States in 1860, from Germany. Having carved carousels for his father before immigrating he opened a cabinet making shop on Germantown Ave. in Philadelphia. He soon tired of the cabinet making business and decided to try his hand at building a small portable carousel that he could travel with around the country. After finding that people had a great enthusiasm for his carousel he decided to go into the carousel building business full-time in 1867, hiring other woodworkers who had also emigrated from Europe. His son William took over the business after Gustav's death in 1909, and continued making carousels until 1928, with employees such as master-carvers Salvatore "Cherni" Cernigliaro and Daniel Muller. After William's death, Muller went on to form his own carousel c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Please Touch Museum
The Please Touch Museum is a children's museum located in the Centennial District of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The museum focuses on teaching children through interactive exhibits and special events, mostly aimed at children seven years old and younger. History The museum originally opened at the Academy of Natural Sciences on October 2, 1976, in a space, and moved to another location on nearby Cherry Street two years later. In 1983, the museum moved to 21st Street near the Franklin Institute. On February 14, 2005, the museum received an 80-year lease for Memorial Hall (in Fairmount Park), the last major building left from the 1876 Centennial Exposition. This came after plans to relocate the museum to a location at Penn's Landing fell through. Renovations at Memorial Hall began on December 15, 2005, and the museum closed its 21st Street location on September 1, 2008. On October 18, 2008, the museum opened at its current location with a larger facility and more exhibit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coney Island
Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, Manhattan Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the south and west, and Gravesend, Brooklyn, Gravesend to the north and includes the subsection of Sea Gate, Brooklyn, Sea Gate on its west. More broadly, Coney Island or sometimes for clarity the Coney Island peninsula consists of Coney Island proper, Brighton Beach, and Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, Manhattan Beach. This was formerly the westernmost of the Outer Barrier islands on the southern shore of Long Island, but in the early 20th century it became a peninsula, connected to the rest of Long Island by Land reclamation, land fill. The origin of Coney Island's name is disputed, but the area was originally part of the colonial town of Gravesend. By the mid-19th century it had become a seaside resort, and by the late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willow Grove Park
Willow Grove Park was an amusement park located in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania (the part which is in Abington Township), United States, that operated for eighty years from 1896 until the 1975 season. It was generally an alternative to the Woodside Amusement Park in Fairmount Park until its closure. The park operated under the name ''Six Gun Territory'' from 1972. After closure, announced in April 1976, the park sat vacant until the land was cleared for a large shopping mall known as Willow Grove Park Mall, which opened in August 1982. The mall pays homage to its predecessor by displaying banners and other objects which hark back to the land's days as an amusement park; a merry-go-round built and installed in 2001 operates within the mall. The park originally was conceived by one of the three Philadelphia area traction companies, the Peoples Traction Company, as a means to encourage weekend customers on the trolley line, a practice that led to the coining of the term ''troll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Major Taylor
Marshall Walter "Major" Taylor (November 26, 1878 – June 21, 1932) was an African-American professional cyclist. Even by modern cycling standards, Taylor could be considered the greatest American sprinter of all time. He was born and raised in Indianapolis, where he worked in bicycle shops and began racing multiple distances in the track and road disciplines of cycling. As a teenager, he moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, with his employer/coach/mentor and continued his successful amateur career, which included breaking track records. Taylor turned professional in 1896, at the age of 18, living in cities on the East Coast and participating in multiple track events including six-day races. He moved his focus to the sprint event in 1897, competing in a national racing circuit, winning many races and gaining popularity with the public. In 1898 and 1899, he set numerous world records in race distances ranging from the quarter-mile () to the two-mile (). Taylor won the 1-mile ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fairmount Park
Fairmount Park is the largest municipal park in Philadelphia and the historic name for a group of parks located throughout the city. Fairmount Park consists of two park sections named East Park and West Park, divided by the Schuylkill River, with the two sections together totalling . Management of Fairmount Park and the entire citywide park system is overseen by Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, a city department created in 2010 from the merger of the Fairmount Park Commission and the Department of Recreation. Many of the city’s other parks had historically also been included in the Fairmount Park system prior to 2010, including Wissahickon Valley Park in Northwest Philadelphia, Pennypack Park in Northeast Philadelphia, Cobbs Creek Park in West Philadelphia, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park in South Philadelphia, and 58 additional parks, parkways, plazas, squares, and public golf courses spread throughout the city. Since the 2010 merger, however, the term "Fairmount Park ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HathiTrust
HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally by libraries. History HathiTrust was founded in October 2008 by the twelve universities of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and the eleven libraries of the University of California. The partnership includes over 60 research libraries across the United States, Canada, and Europe, and is based on a shared governance structure. Costs are shared by the participating libraries and library consortia. The repository is administered by the University of Michigan. The executive director of HathiTrust is Mike Furlough. The HathiTrust Shared Print Program is a distributed collective collection whose participating libraries have committed to retaining almost 18 million monograph volumes for 25 years, representing three-quarters of HathiT ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Velodrome
A velodrome is an arena for track cycling. Modern velodromes feature steeply banked oval tracks, consisting of two 180-degree circular bends connected by two straights. The straights transition to the circular turn through a moderate easement curve. History The first velodromes were constructed during the late 1870s, the oldest of which is Preston Park Velodrome, Brighton, United Kingdom, built in 1877 by the British Army. Some were purpose-built just for cycling, and others were built as part of facilities for other sports; many were built around athletics tracks or other grounds and any banking was shallow. Reflecting the then-lack of international standards, sizes varied and not all were built as ovals: for example, Preston Park is long and features four straights linked by banked curves, while the Portsmouth velodrome, in Portsmouth, has a single straight linked by one long curve. Early surfaces included cinders or shale, though concrete, asphalt and tarmac later becam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
