ink_n_imp | Entries tagged with history!

This post comes to you in Handy, Dandy Bullet Points! Bullet Points: for when you haven't updated in forever, and you don't know where to begin!

* I LOVE MY APARTMENT.

* I want to host some serious hanging out in my apartment. Like, knitting, tea and movies/tv shows sort of things. Anyone interested? 3 blocks from a M/V stop, convenient bus-age for them un-subwayable! Let's talk!

* Talking about knitting, the urge has finally struck me down--I JUST FINISHED PURCHASING the yarn needed to knit...

THE BAKER!DOCTOR WHO SCARF.

I can't even say I find it a particularly ATTRACTIVE scarf, but I've been wanting to knit an obscenely long scarf for a while now, and it is THE Obscenely Long Scarf To End All Long Scarves.

Send help, please.

* Talking about sending help, my consciousness has been COMPLETELY TAKING HOSTAGE BY TOM HARDY. I mean, just just LOOK at this magnificent bastard.

Not fair, sir. Not. Fair.

* Talking about FAIRES, went to the NY Ren Faire. May have to go again closing weekend. I mean, there were attractive ladies swinging swords and preforming abridged Shakespeare. And Nuns. Funny ones. AND I also purchased a new outfit.

My credit card currently HATES. ME.

* Talking about hate, my workplace has been an unhappy place lately. Due to some really, really poor moves on Madame President's part (mainly, not giving credit where it was due, and being obsessed with 1) cutting the budget foolishly and 2) bringing in new part time hires who DON'T know the space like our people do to DO the jobs that OUR people are there to do) people have been quitting. A. Lot. First it was Token!Brit (who left to do producing work on a little Broadway Musical about a man who could be called spiderlike [if you know what I mean], so BULLY HIM!) and then it was one lady in Membership...and today it was ANOTHER lady, who quit EFFECTIVE. IMMEDIATELY.

SCANDALOUS.

Pretty much, my work place-what-looks-like-a-castle is declining a'la Camelot--the golden age was wondrous, but people are leaving because the higher up management is getting worse, and I feel an epic battle and fall is coming.

All I know is that Lady!Boss has been looking for a new position else where...and THAT terrifies me. I feel like I shall be the last knight standing, or Geneveire banished to her nunnery, the last tragic survivor of a glorious era...

Ah well. It still pays me at least.

* In happier news, my BROTHER STARTED CULINARY SCHOOL!!!!....Dear God, may he not drop out. Or get kicked out. *frets*. However, is DOES mean I am obligated to visit him in Providence now. Mwhaha. Mwhahahaha. MWHAHAHHAHAHHA!

* I'm going to go make myself a cup of tea. Tea will make me feel better. Yes. Glorious Tea.

Current Mood: melancholy

Nella has a new favorite webcomic: The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage

And if you don't recognize either of those names, GOOD GOD, MAN, GET THEE TO WIKIPEDIA!

Current Mood: enthralled

Sometimes, I don't know HOW humanity escaped the Cold War in one piece. Well, maybe not entirely one piece. Yes, I AM looking at you, CIA. But enough of a whole piece that now people look back on that time and think "Pfft, that was IT?"

But all seriousness aside, think of all the LULZ we'd be missing had we not had that without that Iron Curtain of Fear and Dread! (…anyone else get a mental image of Russia and America shopping for home décor? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?)

Take this palm-sized pamphlet my Lady Boss yoinked from the Archivist upstairs for example.

( So you're in the Army and shit's just gone down? DON'T PANIC SON! Just follow the instructions in this ONE PAGE BACK-TO-FRONT FOLDED pamphlet, and YOU TOO might survive--and even prevent!--the end of America! )

So remember kiddos! If Indiana Jones can survive thanks to a lead-lined refrigerator, SO CAN YOU!

5th movie: Indiana Jones and the Leukemia of Death?

Current Mood: mischievous

Well, the Bronx has been abandoned for the moment, as my fact finding for the Ebling brewery was rather successful, and we have more pressing projects to worry about. Just before Christmas, I started researching in the Richmond County clerk's office, just a quick (and free!) ferry ride from the southern tip of Manhattan to the St. George station in Staten Island. You see, there is a mall going up right under the Outerbridge Crossing, and before it can go up, the site's history must be accounted for!

So, first on the to-do list is looking up land deeds.

Of course, it's taking FOREVER, because why would anything be easy in this line of work, really?! The reasons? One, because I have to look up more than one block. Two, because after about the 1920's, there AREN'T any block listings in Staten Island, what with it all having been farmland (at least, in the area I'm searching). And Three, because after about the 1900's, pretty much the same 5 or 6 families are buying up/own ALL OF THE FRICKEN ISLAND. So, in a single ledger, Abraham Cole, for instance, may have bought 50-odd lots of land from all sorts of different people…and without any way of pinpointing those pieces of land, because they aren't assigned block numbers, just their coordinates and what other farms or roads they might adjoin. So, what's a girl archaeologist to do, except find some land coordinates, an old map or two, and read through all the deeds that MAY match up, to see if you're even in the right ballpark land-wise.

…There are a LOT of deeds that MAY match up.

Luckily, my boss dug up a colonial land grant map, so after I traced the deeds back to the 1900's and hit a wall known as the 19th century, I began to trace FORWARDS from the colonial land grants (circa 1685ish). I hope beyond hope that when all is said and done, the two sets of information I have will meet up in the middle.

The major problem I find beginning around the 1850's, however, is the matter of BOUNDARIES. Or more importantly, how they are described in the deeds.

( Cut for musings on large apple trees. You should read it, I manage to mention Peter Stuyvesant! Everyone loves Peter Stuyvesant!…and by love, I mean hate. But cut him some slack, the man had a peg leg for Pete's sake! )
And so, that is how my days lately have been spent. Reporting to the office at 8 am, catching the Staten Island Ferry at 8:30, researching deeds from 9-3, and back to Manhattan, to Penn Station, to catch the 4:19 train.

But before I leave you all, an open letter:

( A love letter, in fact. )

Current Mood: exhausted

And I've been looking high and low for a German brewery.

This week I started working in the office again; the digging season is officially over, and I'm done with the nomadic lifestyle until the spring, thank GOD. I was sent on a quest to the Bronx Historical Society, round about where Fordham University lies. Paula send me forth with the instructions to comb the archives for any and all information about Ebling's Brewery, a brewery that was located between St. Ann's Ave and Eagle Ave. in the Bronx, which was established in 1868 by the Ebling brothers, and was closed in 1951. Now it's just an empty block, and we've been hired to poke around the property to see how historically significant/sensetive the site is.

Over all, a good day today! I got to sleep in, because my appointment to fondle their research library wasn't until 1:30. Considering that my mornings begin at 5 am, which--TRUST ME ON THIS--is well before the ass crack of Dawn shows up, it was a WELCOME change of pace.

HOWEVER--twenty minutes before I reached the Historical Society, my phone rings. It's their librarian, calling to tell me that, oh so sorry, but the microfilm machine is broken.

Businesses are a trick and a half to research, because businesses have the nasty habit of throwing ALL their paperwork away. This place was one of the biggest, wealthiest breweries in the New York boroughs, even got majorly busted in 1922 for hiding beer in the caves under Eagle Ave (OMG CAVES OH PLEASE LET ME GO SPELUNKING PRETTY PRETTY PLEASE) and smuggling the goods out to Long Island (oh, and the keyword was "Brooklyn")--

And YET, no one knows ANYTHING about it, aside from the oral histories that have been collected from people who worked there before it closed in 1951. The only leads I've got is to comb through the microfilms of the Bronx Daily News and the Bronx City directories...which I couldn't. On account of broken microfilm machines and all.

True, I did find some good photos of the building, as well as a few articles about events that happened there, so my day wasn't a total waste...but it looks like I'll be heading to the New York Public Library this week to get my hands on their microfilm collection. To browse through the Bronx Daily News. From 1915 to 1951. *HEAD DESK*

*growls in frustration* I want to know more about this place, damnit!! I WILL uncover the truth! *heroic pose!!*

...Oh, and the official historian of the Bronx has given me an open invitation to call him whenever I have questions/I find something new and exciting. He sounded so excited when I told him about what we were researching, it was adorable. ^_^

Current Mood: quixotic

What can I say, I've been on a WW2 kick lately. *shrug*

Many of you have already heard me wax poetical about WW2 propaganda cartoons. Hell, in the one animation class I took, I made DAMN sure that I got to do my presentation on Disney WW2 cartoons.

I've got to say my two favorites are Der Fuehrer's Face and Education for Death, both Disney cartoons. The first because, well, this is the reason for the existence of Donald Duck, to play all the parts that Mickey can't--you can't see MICKEY having a nightmare about being a "nutzi". Mickey? In brownshirt and swastika? Oh noes, not America's sweetheart! Not good, wholesome Mickey! Donald, on the other hand, Donald can swear and be violent and get all the bum-wrap jobs, all those naughty, funny bits cause he's just "the duck"--or what Disney always referred to him as.

Nevermind that it's a funny cartoon and has a GREAT catchy tune. And I want Donald's pj's. Badly.

The other one though, the other cartoon is hardcore. It chronicles the life of a young German boy, raised to be a nazi. Not going to lie--even though what is probably the GREATEST ICON EVER came out of this cartoon (i.e.

singealiene's animated icon of Hitler winking) it's disconcerting. For better or worse, this one is going to make you think, be it about propaganda, brainwashing, or whatever else.

If you've never seen them before, I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. The first one's the best quality one on youtube, even though it includes the Disney apologetics that PLAGUE the "war year cartoons" DVD set I bought. The second on is poor quality, but still worth the watch.

Current Mood: thoughtful

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Nella the tree

December 2010

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Page Summary

It's life, Jim, but not as we know it...
BRILLIANT!
Oh, COLD WAR.
The Continuing Adventures of Nella the Archaeologist!
The Bronx is up and the Battery's down...
oh noes, not AGAIN Nella

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She Likes Coffee and I Like Tea

and that is why we don't agree.

Entries tagged with history!

It's life, Jim, but not as we know it...

BRILLIANT!

Oh, COLD WAR.

The Continuing Adventures of Nella the Archaeologist!

The Bronx is up and the Battery's down...

oh noes, not AGAIN Nella