When Islamic terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center (WTC) on September 11, 2001, I was a reporter on Long Island. It struck me, while writing dozens of obituaries and other stories of the people killed there, that their tales captured the root of the conflict between America and Islam, between the life-oriented and the avowedly antilife.
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Barbara Corcoran of ABC’s Shark Tank speaks with Tim Healy, host of the Profit Express Show at Hofstra University on Long Island in 2013. / Photo © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com
Barbara Corcoran’s Excellent Advice for Women in Business
Barbara Corcoran of Shark Tank fame recently offered particularly sound advice to a female fan concerned about entering the male-dominated business world.
Read MoreThinking Critically about Climate Change
On a snowy day in the late 1970s, I walked home from middle school with my friend who relayed some alarming news: A new ice age was coming.
Scientists had concluded that our polluting automobiles, smokestacks, and industrial activity were damaging the planet.2 Somehow we were frosting Mother Earth, threatening her and the lives of her inhabitants. Who was I, a teenage student, to doubt these experts?
Read MoreWashington Crossing the Delaware: A Beacon of the American Spirit →
Unveiled in America at the Stuyvesant Institute in Manhattan in 1851, Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware attracted a level of interest and praise as noteworthy as the painting’s twelve foot by twenty-four foot dimensions.
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Thomas Halaczinsky wrote about his experiences exploring the waters and islands of New York City and Long Island Sound in Archipelago New York. image: thomas halaczinsky (Photo Courtesy: Thomas Halaczinsky
Sailor Navigates New York’s Archipelago
When Thomas Halaczinsky arrived in New York from his native and reunified Germany in 1991, he was dismayed by the rundown docks and aging warehouses lining the city’s waterfronts.
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A view of midtown and lower Manhattan from atop 432 Park Avenue. image: richard berenholtz
A New York Perspective on Photography
Photographer Richard Berenholtz has documented New York City’s ever-changing skylines for more than three decades. Originally an architect with I.M. Pei & Partners, Berenholtz was lured into using his camera fulltime in 1984, initially taking pictures for InterContinental Hotels nationwide.
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Dianne Durante on Monuments of Manhattan App
Dianne Durante, a freelance art writer who produces the web site Forgotten Delights, has released an Android app based on her book Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan. The app, produced by Guides Who Know, features more than three hours of video on the fifty-four sculptures that appear in the book, including Continents by Daniel Chester French, Sherman Monument by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and the Statue of Liberty.
Read MoreRichard Berenholtz on Photographing the Rise of 432 Park Avenue
Renowned photographer Richard Berenholtz has been commissioned to document the construction of 432 Park Avenue, a building that, at nearly 1,400 feet will be the tallest residential tower in New York and the Western Hemisphere.
Read MoreQ&A: A Narrative on the Reconstruction of the World Trade Center
Judith Dupré knows stately structures. The architectural historian has written books about bridges, churches, monuments and tall buildings. “Skyscrapers,” originally published in 1996 and updated twice, remains a bestseller in its genre. In April, Dupré published her most ambitious work, “One World Trade Center: Biography of the Building.”
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A Christmas window display at Bergdorf Goodman, a high-end department store on New York’s 5th Avenue. (Photo: Joseph Kellard)
Bergdorf Goodman’s Christmas Windows Celebrate Art and Capitalism
The extravagant window displays at Bergdorf Goodman department store on New York’s Fifth Avenue are a popular draw this time of year, and for good reason.
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Katarina Witt. (Credit: Wikicommons)
Olympic Skater Katarina Witt: “The Most Beautiful Face” of a Grotesque System →
The Diplomat, an ESPN documentary about two-time Olympic champion figure skater Katarina Witt of East Germany (the former German Democratic Republic, or GDR), is released to video February 18. The film serves as a reminder—or a revelation—of the crushing grip communist dictatorships held on the people who "lived" under them.
432 Park Avenue. (Photo: Joseph Kellard)
A New Era of Skyscrapers in New York City →
After barbarians destroyed the towering, 110-story World Trade Center towers on 9/11, some people wondered whether Americans would continue to regard outstandingly tall buildings as practical and worth the newly-realized risk. American developers are putting that wonder to rest, with a burgeoning new era of skyscrapers in New York City.
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Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank. (Credit: Wikicommons)
Shark Tank Celebrates Individualism and Capitalism →
ABC’s reality show Shark Tank offers a rare showcase of the character and abilities that entrepreneurs and investors cultivate to create and build businesses.ABC’s reality show Shark Tank offers a rare showcase of the character and abilities that entrepreneurs and investors cultivate to create and build businesses.
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9/11 Memorial in Merrick NY. (Photo: Joseph Kellard)
Contra Robert Reich, Some Firefighters Are Rationally Selfish →
In his Salon article "Ayn Rand Could Have Learned from the Arizona Firefighters, Robert Reich presumes that the nineteen firefighters who lost their lives June 30 while battling a wildfire in Arizona chose their dangerous profession based on “something other than rational self-interest”:
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Dwyane Wade, left, and LeBron James of the Miami Heat. (Credit: Wikicommons)
Dwyane Wade and Miami Heat Put the “I” in Win →
Did the Miami Heat win the NBA Finals championship against the San Antonio Spurs June 20 because the Heat’s players acted unselfishly, on the premise that “there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’”?
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Monument to communism. (Credit: Wikicommons.)
North Korea’s “National Script”: Yet Another Fair Warning →
In a recent interview with Book Page, novelist Adam Johnson offered observations of North Korea that capture the consequences of collectivist ideals taken seriously. Johnson travelled to the dictatorship while writing his latest book and was struck by the stark conformity and fear he found there:
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Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. (Credit: Wikicommons)
What's So Super About the Super Bowl? →
When more than 100 million Americans tune in to watch the game, advertisers pay up to $4 million for 30-second commercial spots, and a nation consumes food on a scale rivaling Thanksgiving, Super Bowl Sunday can safely be declared a de facto national holiday.
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