VIRGINIA TO NEBRASKA

 

It is possible to drive from Virginia to Nebraska and only travel through 2 states; Tennessee and Missouri. Travel distance from Bristol, Virginia to Brownville, Nebraska is 1,054 miles.

WILLIAM PENN STATUE

William Penn is a bronze statue by Alexander Milne Calder of William Penn, the founder and namesake for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located atop the Philadelphia City Hall. It was installed in 1894. It was cast in fourteen sections and took almost two years to finish. At thirty-seven feet in height, it is tallest statue atop any building in the world. FUN FACT: For almost 90 years, an unwritten gentlemen’s agreement forbade any building in the city from rising above the hat on the Penn statue. This agreement ended in 1985, when final approval was given to the Liberty Place complex. Its centerpieces are two skyscrapers, One Liberty Place and Two Liberty Place, which rose well above the height of Penn’s hat. SEE ALSO: Philadelphia City Hall

WILLIAM PENN STATUE ATOP PHILADELPHIA CITY HALL

1894 - WILLIAM PENN STATUE READY FOR LIFTUP

PHILADELPHIA CITY HALL

Philadelphia City Hall serves as the seat of the municipal government of the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  It houses the chambers of the Philadelphia City Council and the offices of the Mayor of Philadelphia. It is also a courthouse, serving as the seat of the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania, and houses the Civil Trial and Orphans' Court Divisions of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia. Built of brick, white marble, and limestone, Philadelphia City Hall is the world’s largest free-standing masonry building. The weight of the building is borne by granite and brick walls up to 22 feet thick. The building structure used over 88 million bricks and thousands of tons of marble and granite. The building was constructed from 1871 to 1901. Designed to be the world’s tallest building, it was surpassed during construction by the Washington Monument and the Eiffel Tower. Upon completion of its tower in 1894, it became the world’s tallest habitable building. It was also the first secular building to have this distinction, as all previous world’s tallest buildings were religious structures, including European cathedrals and – for the previous 3,800 years – the Great Pyramid of Giza. With almost 700 rooms, City Hall is the largest municipal building in the United States. FUN FACT: In the 1950s, the city council investigated tearing down City Hall for a new building elsewhere. They found that the demolition would have bankrupted the city due to the building’s masonry construction. SEE ALSO: William Penn Statue

NORTHSIDE OF PHILADELPHIA CITY HALL
By Toniklemm - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81012838

GULMARG GOLF CLUB

 

The Gulmarg Golf Club is a public golf course in a meadow at Gulmarg in Kashmir, India. The golf course, at an elevation of 8,690 feet above sea level, is the highest green golf course in the world. The golf course gets covered in by a thick layer of snow during the winter. It is open from April to November.  The 18-hole course features India’s longest hole, a 610-yard part 5. It is also the longest golf course in India.

Gulmarg Golf Course, Gulmarg, Kashmir
By Shibnath Samanta - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49458221

EUREKA (FERRYBOAT)

Eureka is a side-wheel paddle steamboat, built in 1890, which is now preserved at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Originally named Ukiah to commemorate the railway’s recent extension into the City of Ukiah, the boat was built by the San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad Company at their Tiburon yard.  The ship originally carried people between San Francisco and Tiburon during the day and hauled railroad freight cars at night. Ukiah had two sets of standard gauge tracks that ran the length of the main deck. Passenger accommodations were on the upper deck.  During the First World War, Ukiah was used to ferry heavy loads of railroad cars across the bay for the United States Railroad Administration. Due to stresses brought on by the heavy loads, Ukiah was rebuilt at the Southern Pacific Yards in Oakland between 1920-1922, and emerged as the auto/passenger ferry Eureka.  Between 1922 and 1941 Eureka was on the Sausalito commuter run, departing Sausalito at 7:30 and San Francisco at 5:15. As a passenger ferry, she could carry 2,300 passengers and 120 automobiles. At that time, she was the biggest and the fastest double-ended passenger ferry boat in the world – 299 feet 6 inches long, with an extreme width of 78 feet and gross tonnage of 2,420 tons.  Completion of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937 doomed ferry service between San Francisco and Marin and service was completely abandoned in 1941.  Although a number of large ferryboats survive in the U.S., Eureka is the only one with a wooden hull. Beneath her upper works, the round-bottomed hull is 42 feet wide and 277 feet long. Her walking beam engine was built in 1890 by the Fulton Iron Works in San Francisco. It is the only walking beam engine in the United States preserved in a floating vessel.  Eureka is the largest existing wooden ship in the world.

FERRYBOAT EUREKA

MOBILE CITY, TEXAS

 

Mobile City is a city in Rockwall County, Texas. The population was 188 at the 2010 census. It currently has the highest population density for any city in Texas, and is the only Texas city that is on the highest population densities of American cities list. It currently ranks 74th on the list, and has the lowest population for any city on that list. It is tied with Poplar Hills, Kentucky as the smallest city by total area on the list.  Mobile City consists of a mobile home park, liquor store, and convenience store.  Originally a mobile home park outside of city limits, it was incorporated on January 25, 1990, so that a beer/wine/liquor store could open.

Sigel's Liquor Store in Mobile City, TX
By Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44863423

DEVON ISLAND

Devon Island is located in Baffin Bay, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. With an area of 21,331 square miles (slightly smaller than Croatia), it the largest uninhabited island in the world. It the second-largest of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, Canada’s sixth-largest island, and the 27th-largest island in the world.

GREAT LAKES GEOGRAPHY

 

The Province of Ontario includes portions of 4 of the 5 Great Lakes, with the exception being Lake Michigan.  The State of Michigan includes portions of 4 of the 5 Great Lakes, with the exception being Lake Ontario.

KENNETH C. GRIFFIN – RESIDENTIAL PURCHASES – NYC AND CHICAGO

 

Kenneth Griffin, born October 15, 1968 is an American billionaire hedge fund manager, entrepreneur and investor. He is the founder, chief executive (CEO), Co-Chief Investment Officer (Co-CIO) and majority owner of the investment firm Citadel.  Griffin owns an expansive private luxury real estate portfolio valued at around $1 billion.  In 2019 Griffin set the record for the most expensive residential sale ever closed in the U.S., when he purchased roughly 24,000 square feet across three floors at 220 Central Park South for $238 million. The space was “raw space” meaning Griffin had to build it out.  In 2017 Griffin, who is a resident of Chicago, purchased a penthouse apartment atop the No. 9 Walton, a luxury condo tower, for $58.75 million. The purchase broke the record for the most expensive sale in Chicago’s history.

220 Central Park South is a residential skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, situated along Billionaires' Row on the south side of Central Park South between Broadway and Seventh Avenue. 220 Central Park South is composed of two sections: a 70-story, 950-foot tower on 58th Street that is the 17th-tallest building in New York City, and an 18-story section on Central Park South.

Looking east along 58th Street across 9th Avenue
By Jim.henderson - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82938492