York

New York has discovered that its highest paid employee is not the mayor, it’s a plumber. It seemed impossible until they checked their schedule.

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In 1927, Al Capone’s accountants were not the ones who ended up putting him in court. They did it own financial records. When investigators began to review income, schedules and money movements, they discovered that the accounts told a very different story than the official one. Because many of the most striking investigations did not begin with a complaint, but with something simpler: carefully looking at a time sheet. The highest paid employee. The story begins last yeara time when, to everyone’s surprise, the highest-paid municipal employee in New York was not the mayor, nor the police chief, nor the head of the firefighters. No, it was Jakub Markowskia plumbing supervisor for the municipal public housing authority who entered $465,000. The figure immediately attracted attention because it practically placed him at the top of a workforce of some 350,000 public employees. A possible explanation and something more. The first investigations confirmed that a good part of that salary came from the crazy figure of almost 2,560 overtime hours accumulated during a single fiscal year. Translated into practice, it represents an average close to seven extra hours a day for an entire year, an extraordinary workload even for a service used to dealing with urgent breakdowns. However, when reviewing the municipal documentation an unexpected detail appeared: during that same period there was also at the head of two private companies plumbing workers who worked on dozens of jobs spread across some of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the city. It’s not the salary, it’s the time. That discovery completely changed the focus of the case. The New York Department of Buildings is now investigating whether the compatibility between both activities respected the regulations municipal and whether Markowski had the necessary authorization after being promoted in 2024 to a supervisory position related to fire safety. Not only that. Investigators are also analyzing whether he could exercise the direct supervision required by law in especially sensitive jobs, such as gas installations, while accumulating such a volume of activity. More and more doubts in the hours worked. The investigation also tries to clarify how their companies really worked. counted the new york times that, although Markowski was listed as a licensed plumber, several contractors recalled dealing primarily with another businessman, Robert Tarnawa, whose exact relationship to the work remains under scrutiny. Precisely this point is especially relevant because New York legislation requires that certain works be supervised directly and continuously by a licensed plumber. A case at the worst moment. The context doesn’t help either. The New York Housing Authority manages more than 240 residential complexes where nearly 300,000 people live and has a huge investment deficit for repair badly damaged buildings. In recent years, furthermore, the organization has been involved several scandals related to bribery, extortion and fraud overtime, which has increased scrutiny over any possible irregularities in the management of its resources. More questions than answers. To date, Markowski has not been formally accused of any wrongdoing and authorities insist that the investigation remains open. Nor has the details of the specific tasks that justified his thousands of overtime hours been made public, information requested by the own The New York Times through transparency legislation. What has become clear is that the story of New York’s highest-paid public employee has ceased to be that of an exceptional salary and has become that of an agenda that the authorities are examining minute by minute. As shared in the Times Attorney April McIver: “Allowing a single person to run a private plumbing company while serving as a city supervisor and logging more overtime than any other city employee is not only wasteful, it raises serious questions about the integrity, safety and oversight of the New York Housing Authority’s operations.” Image | sam valadi In Xataka | New York has launched its new and revolutionary garbage containers. Spain has been using them for years In Xataka | For decades we climbed this New York skyscraper without knowing that the screws that held it in place could not hold.

We believed that cities were a desert for bees, but 5.5 million live under this cemetery in New York

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Although cities have their own fauna, the reality is that one could reasonably think that for animals of all kinds the urban environment is far behind the countryside in diversity and quality of life: there is a lot of asphalt, noise, pollutants… well yes, but no, because there is a place where bees have found a true residential paradise: a cemetery in IthacaNew York. Where you see a cemetery, the bees see paradise. It turns out that a laboratory technique called Rachel Fordyce had a trick to get to your work at Cornell University without paying for parking: park on the other side and take a walk through the East Lawn Cemetery. In spring 2022 he arrived at his post with a jar full of bees that he had found along the way: that was the beginning of it all. The bees inside were Andrena regularis, known as the “common mining bee,” a wild, solitary species that nests underground. That is, it does not have a queen and it does not build hives either. Each female digs her own tunnel, lays her eggs, supplies them with food, and seals them. And under the ground of the Ithaca cemetery there are millions, more specifically 5.56 million in just over 6,000 square meterswhich come out every spring to pollinate the surrounding apple trees. Why is it important. Because it is the largest population of wild bees with a nest in the ground ever documented and very far of the secondof 1.6 million individuals of a different species in Arizona. And their work is essential: pollinators in general are responsible for the production of approximately 75% of the world’s food crops. according to the FAO. As explains Bryan Danforthprofessor of entomology at Cornell University, they must be protected: “If we don’t preserve nesting sites and someone paves them, we could instantly lose 5.5 million bees that are important pollinators.” The most striking thing of all is that this enormous population was there, in the midst of civilization and next to one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Context. Contrary to popular belief, the most common way of life for bees is solitary and with a nest on the ground: approximately 75% of the bees on the planet live like this. Those bees that produce honey and live in hives may be the most famous, but they are an absolute minority. Solitary wild bees are not as well known, but their pollination work is key in nature and in food. Thus, this enormous population lives independently but concentrated in that place because the substrate conditions are optimal. The bad news is that pollinators are in decline: according to the report of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Servicesmore than 40% of pollinating insect species are threatened. In this scenario, finding such a large population in a city shows that there are more refuges for biodiversity than we thought and we must find them before they disappear (and if possible, avoid it). In detail. We knew about the presence of Andrena regularis in that cemetery since 1935, but it was not until 2021 when the scientific community began to intuit what was underground. To estimate the population, the team installed mesh traps at 10 points in the cemetery between March 30 and May 16, 2023. The result was extraordinary: as explains the press release from the New York university, is the equivalent of 200 honey bee hives on just 0.6 hectares of land and more than triple the population of Manhattan. Yes, but. The study has important limitations, such as that the population data is from a single spring (2023) and that the figure is a statistical estimate and not a real inventory, so we do not know if the population is rising, falling, remaining stable or how climate change affects it, which is advancing the flowering of apple trees and therefore altering the life calendar of the bees. And although it is the largest aggregation of wild nesting bees documented to date, its presence in a cemetery suggests that there may be others whose existence we are unaware of. In Xataka | We have a serious problem with the extinction of bees. The United Kingdom wants to solve it with bricks In Xataka | If the question is how to protect bees and other insects, in Peru they are clear: recognizing their legal rights Cover | Marisol Benitez, Chad Madden and Damien TUPINIER

For decades we climbed this New York skyscraper without knowing that the screws that held it in place could not hold.

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The situation was more or less like this. For two decades, hundreds of thousands of people entered and left the doors of one of the largest skyscraper in New York City. These people, many of them workers, went up and down in the elevator completely unaware of the critical failure that the building had, terrifying in architectural terms, and that no one took into account. Rarely in the history of urban planning in large cities has there been a similar situation. The story dates back to the beginning of the 20th centurywhen the Lutheran church of Saint Peter was located on land of 53rd Streetbetween Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue, in Midtown Manhattan. By 1960, the church community was experiencing serious financial problems, which led the city council to sell the land. The negotiations were not easy and lasted years. Mainly, because the church demanded the creation of a new building separate from the apartment block in which it could continue its activities. In the end the project was given the green light. The developer accepted the conditions, and Citi Bank commissioned Hugh Stubbins & Associates to design the skyscraper. William LeMessurier was in charge of engineering. The final project consisted of a skyscraper, a church, a public space below street level and landscaping. The most important element was, of course, the skyscraper. The plan marked 46 floors that were to be distinguished from the rest of the city by the polished and anodized aluminum of the façade. In addition, between the panels there were rows of windows. It didn’t really look complicated, at least not like the roof and base of the building. The happy roof Thus, in 1977 the skyscraper was completed. By then it had grown larger, with 59 floors and a total height of 279 meters. An architectural work that dazzled at first glance on the city skyline, a colossal tower where its 45-degree inclined top stood out. The top of the roof resembles an isosceles triangle. The original plan was to build terraces and apartments, but over time the architects decided to install huge solar panels. LeMessurier, a professor and graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, carried out a series of tests to verify their efficiency. It turned out that the energy converted by the installation was insufficient. Eventually, the idea of ​​a small solar plant was abandoned. However, nothing like the base on which the building stood. Some “stilts,” as LeMessurier himself described, among which the then seventh largest skyscraper on the planet seemed to float. We are referring, of course, to those four gigantic pillars (34 meters each) that are located in the center of each side (rather than in the corners) of the base. It also had a single column in the center, in this case narrower, which housed the building’s elevator banks and provided additional strength to the frames. This design made room for the church under the northwest corner of the building, and gave the giant structure a brutal effectalmost as if he were levitating. In fact, it was exceptionally “light”, of only 25,000 tons (for reference, the Empire State Building was 60,000). The famous pillars The base became an architectural icon, as it made the space in the corners empty. LeMessurier had the weight of the skyscraper distributed to the exterior skeleton. Specifically, in a grid of triangular-shaped frames hidden under the façade. Interestingly, this structure was visible from the inside. The elements were not completely welded, but only fixed with bolted joints. Apparently, the steel frame designed in this way was intended to withstand perpendicular winds. According to the engineers, other types of wind should not pose a threat. Furthermore, municipal regulations did not require other air gusts to be taken into account in the design. The truth is that the architecture hid an important mechanism on the upper floors. The Citigroup Center had one of the first tuned mass dampers (TDM). It is a 360-ton concrete sphere embedded in oil. When vibrations from the ground or wind moved the building, the mechanism would oscillate in the opposite direction to the tilt of the building. The problems begin This swing was in turn balanced by hydraulic arms that support the sphere. With this solution, the skyscraper was able to “maintain balance.” As LeMessurier explained at the time, this piece was key, since its function was to cut the sway of the building in half by converting the kinetic energy of sway into friction. Once completed, the building was praised, but also the first doubts arrived. New York is not a major hurricane state, but it does have them from time to time. What would happen if, once every 50 years, the winds blew over 100 km/h? These winds can blow from different directions. The Citigroup Center opened in 1977 under the name Citicorp Center (which changed to Citigroup Center in 1998 following the merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group). But only a year after its inauguration it became clear that it could have a very serious defect structural. A year later, LeMessurier receives the call that no architect expects in life. It was Diane Hartleyan architecture student at the prestigious Princeton University who had studied the construction of the skyscraper for her thesis. The first of the calls was to ask him several technical questions about the design. Hartley’s professor had expressed doubts to him regarding the strength of a tilted skyscraper where the supporting columns were not at the corners. Hartley did some calculations of the building’s wind load. He then compared them with LeMessurier’s calculations and discovered that the construction engineers’ figures were incorrect. The student asked to be sent exact load calculations for different types of wind. Only received data related to perpendicular winds and guarantees on the solidity of the structure. What’s more, LeMessurier told him that the professor had no idea and that everything was in order. The geometry of the building’s frame worked perfectly with the pillars in such positions, … Read more

His name is John, he studied at Wharton and manages olive trees from New York

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100 billion euros in farmland. That is what, according to an exhaustive report by Greenpeace and Datadistamanages venture capital in the Iberian Peninsula through some 900 investment funds. It is not a Spanish rarity: it is an international boom. In 2015, there were only 45 funds specialized in ‘agribusiness’ in the world; today there are more than a thousand. Back in Spain, since 2019 the purchase and sale of properties has grown by 20%. In 2023 alone, some 148,000 properties were sold. Nine out of ten; at least in Andalusia, They were bought without a mortgage. But this is not what is worrying. After all, we have spent years talking about the financialization of the field. What we didn’t know was the profound impact that this was going to have. How the Spanish farmer is changing. According to the report, there are three types of buyers: specialized investment funds, large industrial corporations and family fortunes. That is, the ownership of land is separating very quickly of it: what were previously businessmen or traditional owners with a certain connection to the territory, are now simply investors. And that has generated a new type of company: specialized intermediaries. Those that allow investors without any experience operate farms as if they were “franchises”. Companies like Balam or Todolivo offer comprehensive management of plantations (from genetic improvement and planting to harvesting). The problem, according to experts who are studying these transformations, is that changes in ownership and changes in management are leading to a change in productive structure of rural Spain. To put it bluntly: this approach does not generate meaningful local employment. Andalusia, to go with the most visual example, has lost 178,957 agricultural jobs between 2017 and 2014. Billions are entering the Spanish countryside, but that money does not reach the base. Why is it important? Because the rural world is being transformed at a forced pace: the generational change crisisthe lurches in the water regime and the problems with the CAP are the icing on the cake: sources of uncertainty that make it impossible to know where we are going. And that has direct consequences in our daily lives. For example, in the case of oil, we are not only going to see how EVOO price volatility increases even in good harvests. As if that were not enough, we are going to move towards varietal standardization (to focus on super-intensive varieties), a loss of rural population and an even deeper disarticulation (industrial, social and cultural) of emptied Spain. Image | Vasilis Caravitis In Xataka | In California, the funds discovered that there is no investment more profitable than farmland. Now it’s Spain’s turn

In a New York coffee shop, the concept of a blind date has taken an unexpected turn: the meeting is with an AI

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Going to a coffee shop to have a blind date is already a somewhat peculiar situation. If the person waiting for you is also an AI, the matter borders on surrealism. A lukewarm experience. He tells it Ben Sherry at INCwho a few days ago went to the EVA Café in New York. There was a table with a single chair and a stand with a cell phone waiting for him, where he could choose between different AI avatars for his appointment. During his time at the EVA Café, he spoke with two avatars, a woman and then a man. The two agreed to praise her hair and the decoration of the place, but they were reluctant to answer deeper questions such as her political ideology. In Xataka "I can’t stop": the addiction to talking to AI is already here and there are even support groups to stop it EVA AI. It is the name of the app that organized the event and, indeed, it is a “friends” AIin the style of Replika either Character.ai. Its last commercial action has been a ‘pop-up coffee’ to “bring virtual romance to the real world.” The app’s sales manager told INC that her goal is to fight the stigma that exists towards relationships with AIs. The app, which has accumulated more than 5 million downloads in the Play Store, offers the possibility of starting a relationship with one of its different AI avatars, all with a clear inclination towards romance. You can start for free, but if you want to continue talking to your AI, you have to check out; This is the only way to unlock special functions such as sending images or the ability to make video calls. What he anticipated Her. EVA AI is not an isolated case. Thevirtual girlfriends They have been around for a long time, but with generative AI there has been a boom in this type of apps.More and more people are turning to this relational modelto the point that there are those cheats on his real partner with an AI. In case we had any doubt that the trend is real, Grok launched his virtual girlfriend Ani andChatGPT announced that it would launch ‘adult mode’ coming soon, functions that of course can only be used by users with a subscription. {“videoId”:”x9hhg44″,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”The TRUTH of AI – This is how ChatGPT 4, DALL-E or MIDJOURNEY works 🤖 🧠 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE”, “tag”:”webedia-prod”, “duration”:”1173″} The goal is obvious. Regardless of psychosocial reasons that lead us to seek an intimate connection with a machine, the reason why companies like OpenAI or xAI are turning towards adult content is obvious: to generate money. The emotional connection is a way to increase users’ commitment to your service and by using a subscription as a gateway, they not only get them to spend more time in your app, but they also get them to pay for it. AI has a monetization problem and this is one of the ways to generate income. Emotional connection. It may seem like something recent to us, but the reality of humans has been connecting with machines since 1966, when the first chatbot was created. In this sense, AI has not changed anything, although it is normalizing it. Recently we have seen other examples of emotional connection with machines, such as when OpenAI crashed ChatGPT 4o and users were angry because they liked his warm and friendly tone. We have also seen it with the celebration of a symbolic funeral for Claude 3 Sonnetanother model that enjoyed great affection among the community. Image | Alexander Sinn in Unsplash In Xataka | Flirting on Tinder is exhausting. The solution of these apps is to skip the eternal chats and organize the appointment directly (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news In a New York coffee shop, the concept of a blind date has taken an unexpected turn: the meeting is with an AI was originally published in Xataka by Amparo Babiloni .

The new mayor of New York is a rare bird in the US, but he has an even more unexpected facet: a shareholder of Real Oviedo

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Among the many congratulations that Zohran Mamdani has received over the last few days, after conquering the seat of mayor of New York, there is one that stands out as unexpected: that of Real Oviedo. Yesterday the club carbayón conveyed his congratulations via It may sound strange, but it is better understood when you know a key fact: Mamdani has been a shareholder of Real Oviedo for years. To understand it you have to go back to 2012. Who is Zohran Mamdani? That question might have made sense a few years ago, when Mamdani was one of a long list of members of the Albany Assembly. Today his name is one of the most popular in the United States, even outside the political sphere. The reason: on Tuesday he beat Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa in the race for New York City Council, becoming the elected successor of Eric L. Adams and crowning a dazzling rise. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Why is it so popular? Taking into account that New York is the main city in the United States (and one of the most media-rich on the planet), becoming its mayor should be enough to gain global projection, but Mamdani stands out for something else: an unorthodox profile. So much so, in fact, that it is a rare bird in the long history of the municipality. To start with his age: he has just turned 34, making him the youngest politician to hold office in the last century. As if that weren’t enough, Mamdani is an immigrant (born in Kampala, Uganda), Muslim, made his debut in the world of rap under the name Mr. Cardamomo and defines himself as a “democratic socialist.” He is also a skilled communicator, handles himself with ease in networks and has not hesitated to run as one of the strongest voices in the opposition to Donald Trump, whom he sent a public message after proclaiming himself the winner of the municipal elections: “I know you’re watching. I only have three words for you: turn up the volume! New York will continue to be a city of immigrants, built by immigrants and driven by immigrants. And starting tonight led by an immigrant.” Click on the image to go to the tweet. And what does it have to do with Oviedo? To answer that question we have to go back to 2012, when Real Oviedo passed through low hours. In Spain the winds of recession were blowing and the club carbayón He was seen with battered accounts and confined to the Second Division Bfrom which it would still take time to come out. The club itself refers to that period, which began in 2001, as a “fight for survival”. With that backdrop, the Asturian team decided to desperately search for a capital increase to save it from the hole, an effort in which the city devoted itself and which had the support of well-known figures, such as the popular British journalist Sid Lowewho gave visibility to the campaign on social networks. The call from Lowe, a native of Archway (London), but a fan of Real Oviedo since his student years in the Asturian capital, came among others to a young man from Kampala, a football fan and with musical whims: Zohran Mamdani. At the time he was only 21 years old, but he decided to join the wave of support. On November 9, 2012, at 5:47 p.m., he responded to Sid Lowe’s request with a message posted on Twitter: “I just bought a share, am I possibly the first shareholder of the eral Oviedo based in Maine? #SOSRealOviedo.” His tweet passed without pain or glory. The message from one more fan. One more among hundreds. Things changed on Tuesday, when Mamdani became mayor of NY. Is it your only relationship with football? Mamdani is more than just a politician, former rapper and (now) elected mayor of the largest city in the United States. He is also a self-confessed soccer fan. He himself has said that he made his first steps during his student years and his Arsenal fandom. “My uncle is a fan. I had magnets of the Invincibles (the team that won the 2003-2004 First League without losing a game) on my fridge. I loved David Seaman, Sylvain Wiltord, all of them… I have gone to many Arsenal games, many with my uncle. It has been a very important part of my life,” explained recently to The New York Times. Beyond the stands or the fields, Mamdani has known how to combine his football hobby with his political side, which has led him to launch a campaign to demand that FIFA not marginalize New Yorkers in the World that will host North America in 2026 and that includes the MetLife Stadium between its stages. Their proposal is that the organizers reserve part of the tickets for residents and also offer them a discount. The objective: that enjoying the championship is not an unattainable luxury for New York families. Images | Real Oviedo and Wikipedia In Xataka | In 2017 Liverpool signed a star footballer. Without knowing it, he had found the solution to racism in sports

In 2023 New York closed the tap to Airbnb to protect his home. Two years later, only hotels are happy

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To desperate problems, imaginative solutions. A few years ago New York decided to stop the housing crisis which has long dragged with a measure that put the focus directly on Airbnb. The baptized as Local Law 18 made renting floors to tourists, for short stays, of less than 30 days, results Much more complicated and thus achieve a double objective: enforce the sector regulations and protect the low housing offer in the city. The norm premiered just two years ago. And the balance is far from being the ideal. A name: Local Law 18. New York is not the only city that has proposed to limit the supply of holiday rental. Something have done in Florence, London, Barcelona either Madridto name just a handful of examples. The attempt of the Big Apple resulted in particularly media, both because of the repercussion that the city has and its content. The known as Local Law 18approved in September 2023, imposed limitations to those who were dedicated to lease their houses for periods of less than 30 days. From entry NY demanded that the Caseros register and prohibited AirbnB (and similar platforms) to manage reservations if the accommodations did not meet that requirement, a measure similar to that incorporated with Spain with their “Single record“Not only that. In addition to registering, the law established that the landlords must comply with certain guidelines That in practice it limits who (and especially how) can be put in the market: nothing to rent whole houses, only rooms, the hosts must be present and the number of guests is also very restricted. A double objective. With the new standard the New York authorities pursued two goals. The first, to facilitate the coexistence in the apartments blocks in which residential and holiday floors lived. The second (and most important) Palliar The housing crisis that dragged the city. Two years later the communities of neighbors of the Big Apple may have fewer problems with groups of noisy tourists, but there are serious doubts that the second purpose, the really ambitious, has been achieved. The best test was left a few days ago by the newspaper The Wall Street Journal in A broad analysis With a title that is at the same time a sentence and demonstrates that (at least) the debate remains open: “The campaign against Airbnb in New York has not improved the housing offer.” Although since September 2023 New Yorkers have more complicated to offer their floors in Airbnb or Booking does not seem that this has translated into a distension of the residential market. On the contrary, The newspaper affirms Conservative: “It is more difficult than ever finding an apartment to rent in the city.” And that is something that can be checked by consulting both prices and housing stock available in NY. What do the data say? That New York floors have not stopped becoming more expensive in the last two years. Zillow shows for example that the average long -stay rental price is now in $ 3,750150 more than a year ago. “The law does not seem to have a significant impact on getting leases more affordable,” confirms a TWSJ Jonathan Miller, manager of a real estate appraisal company. According to its calculations, the market has even reached a historical maximum of $ 4,700 per month in Manhattan, although it acknowledges that factors such as lack of new work influence that figure. Airbnb also handles data that show that NY tenants do not have it easier today than before the local law 18. The platform is an interested party and that must be taken into account when driving Your figuresbut they are eloquent: the New York City rental index rose 8.1%, that of Manhattan 8.6%, Brooklyn 7.7%and Queens 6.5%. The portal also warns of the “load” involved in rental for the pockets of the periphery families. “Almost three million New Yorkers pay more than 30% of their income for rent,” prevents. A percentage: 2.45%. It is not just about the cost of rent. The housing stock available in NY still is not what is said Boyante, which a priori would facilitate prices to soften. Miller assures That last July the vacancies for residential rental in Manhattan marked a meager 2.45%, near the historical minimum. In that same idea affects Airbnb, which a few days ago launched A statement regretting that, despite the fact that short -term rentals in New York have fallen more than 90%, “rental vacancies have dropped 0.5%” with respect to 2023. And everything, insists the platform“without signs of a significant improvement in housing availability.” But … how is it possible? The million dollar question. And it has no easy answer. To start there is something obvious and that is that the NY market It takes time facing challenges such as the rise of rentals or the shortage of the stock, which do not respond to a single factor. In addition the Big Apple is not the only US region that has dealt with The increase of housing, aggravated by the lack of new work. In your analysis TWSJ It provides data Interesting that helps to understand why local law 18 has failed to reverse the trend and its effect has barely appreciated: although two years ago there were thousands of floors available to tourists on Airbnb, they actually suppose only a small part of NY’s huge real estate cake. In early 2023 in the city there were around 38,500 Airbnb units, As needed The economic newspaper, a very low fact if one takes into account that in the free market there were more than one million residential units. Right now the special compliance office has registered only 3,000 rentals in the short term that the strict requirements of the law meet and can be announced legally. That does not mean that the remaining thousands of floors are leased by New York families that use them as stable and permanent homes. Another fact: 35,000 homes. There are owners who, not being … Read more

For decades we rose to this skyscraper in New York without knowing that the screws that held it did not endure

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The situation was more or less like that. For two decades, hundreds of thousands of people entered and went through the doors of one of the larger skyscrapers in New York City. These people, many of them workers, went up and down in the elevator of others totally to the critical failure that the building had, terrifying in an architectural key, and that No one took into account. Rarely in the history of urbanism of the great cities occurred A similar situation. The story dates back to the early twentieth centurywhen the Lutheran Church of San Pedro was in a field of 53 streetbetween Lexington Avenue and the third avenue, in Midtown Manhattan. By 1960, the Church community went through serious economic problems, which led the City Council to sell the land. The negotiations were not easy and lasted years. Mainly, because the Church demanded the creation of a new separate building from the block of floors in which it could continue with its activities. In the end Green light was given to the project. The promoter accepted the conditions, and Citi Bank commissioned Hugh Stubbins & Associates the design of the skyscraper. The engineering will be in charge of William Lemessurier. The final project consisted of a skyscraper, a church, a public space under the level of the street and landscaping. The most important element was, of course, skyscrapers. The plane marked 46 plants that were going to distinguish from the rest of the city by the polished and anodized aluminum of the facade. In addition, among the panels there were window rows. It did not seem really complicated, at least not like the roof and the base of the building. The happy roof Thus, in 1977 the skyscraper ends up lifting. By then it had become bigger, with 59 plants and A total height of 279 meters. An architectural work that dazzled the city’s Skyline, a colossal tower where its inclined top of 45 degrees highlighted. The top of the roof It resembles an isosceles triangle. The original plan was to build terraces and apartments, but over time the architects decided to install huge solar panels. Lemessurier, a professor and graduate of the Massachusetts Institute, conducted a series of tests to check their efficiency. It turned out that the energy converted by the installation was insufficient. Finally, the idea of a small solar plant was abandoned. However, nothing like the base on which the building was supported. Some “stunches”, as Lemessurier himself described, among which he seemed to float for then seventh larger skyscraper on the planet. We refer, of course, those four gigantic pillars (34 meters each) that are located in the center of each side (instead of the corners) of the base. It also had a single column in the center, in this narrower case, which housed the building’s elevator banks and that provided additional force to the racks. With this design it was made room for the church under the corner of the northwest of the building, and gave the giant structure A brutal effectalmost as if he were levitating. In fact, it was exceptionally “light”, of only 25,000 tons (As a reference, Empire State Building was 60,000). The famous pillars The base became an icon of architecture, since it caused the space in the corners to be empty. Lemessurier caused the scratch weight to be distributed to the outer skeleton. Specifically, in a grid of Marcos in a triangular way hidden under the facade. Interestingly, this structure was visible from the inside. The elements were not completely welded, but only set with screwed joints. Apparently, the steel frame designed in this way was destined to support perpendicular winds. According to engineers, Other types of wind should not suppose a threat. In addition, municipal standards did not force other air bursts in design. The truth is that architecture hid an important mechanism in the upper floors. Citigroup Center had One of the first tuned mass shock absorbers (TDM). It is a 360 -ton concrete sphere embedded in oil. When the vibrations of the soil or the wind moved the building, the mechanism oscillated in the opposite direction to the inclination of the building. The problems begin Said balancing was in turn balanced by hydraulic arms that support the sphere. With this solution, the skyscraper was able to “maintain balance.” As Lemessurier explained in his day, this piece was key, since its function was to cut the balancing of the building by half by converting the kinetic energy of friction balancing. Once finished, the building was praised, but also The first doubts arrived. New York is not a state of great hurricanes, but it occasionally has them, what would happen if, once every 50 years, the winds will blow more than 100 km/h? These winds can blow from different directions. The Citigroup Center was inaugurated in 1977, and only one year later it became evident that it could have A very serious defect structural. A year later, Lemessurier receives the call that no architect expects in life. It was Diane Hartleyan engineering student from the prestigious Princeton University who had studied the construction of the skyscraper for his thesis. The first call was to ask several technical questions about the design. Hartley’s professor had expressed his doubts regarding the strength of an inclined skyscraper where the support columns were not in the corners. Hartley made some calculations of the building’s wind load. He then compared them to Lemessurier’s calculations and discovered that the figures of construction engineers were incorrect. The student asked to be sent the exact load calculations for different types of wind. Only received data related to perpendicular winds and guarantees On the solidity of the structure. Moreover, Lemessurier told him that the teacher had not even the most remote idea and that everything was in order. The geometry of the building frame worked perfectly with the pillars in such positions, allowing him to resist very strong winds, even from a diagonal angle. … Read more

New York has released its new and revolutionaries garbage containers. They have been in Spain for decades

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They call it “The garbage revolution”although it really has little revolutionary. At least for any European accustomed to doing something as simple as throwing their waste into the garbage can. On Monday the New York authorities They took chest announcing its new and brand new strategy to manage the waste of the Big Apple, a pilot program that is now bounded to a neighborhood and,, according to their driversit will be a pioneer throughout the United States. So far not surprising beyond political rhetoric. The funny thing is what New York wants to boost that peculiar “revolution” of cleaning: with garbage cubes and trucks such as those seen in the streets of Spain for decades. Garbage. In New York, workers of the garbage collection service are forced to do something less and less frequent in Spain and most European cities: withdraw on the sidewalks plastic bags full of waste and throw them to the rear of a truck. For them it is a Latoso work. For the city, a problem: the bags are piled up in the streets, hinder the passage, generate bad odors, overthrow liquid and attract rats. In fact, the New York town hall has already had to see them with Rodents. That is why in countries like Spain a different strategy has been chosen for a long time. Collectors are installed in the streets so that citizens can throw their garbage bags inside, leaving them safe from rats and seagulls. Over the years the system has been purified with wild boar cubes, collectors endowed with Electronic locks that are unlocked with special cards and systems that facilitate the discharge of garbage inside the trucks. Revolution in New York. After half a century Of “accumulation of garbage in streets”, in New York they have decided to say enough and change their garbage collection model for a new one, very similar to that of Europe. The first step was taken in 2023, when the authorities demanded from the businesses of the food branch (from bars to supermarkets) that they deposit their waste in containers. A year ago that obligation extended to all companies and in recent months the same standard has been making its way between small residential buildings. The great change has now arrived with a pilot test in the streets of the Community Board 9 of Manhattan, where the use of containers will apply to all types of residential buildings, from small blocks of less than ten homes to the largest, with more than 30. The City Council claims that the neighborhood has thus become “the first neighborhood of North America to have 100% of its garbage in containers” and even speaks of a “garbage revolution.” An old flavor revolution. The most curious thing is that this revolution really has little revolutionary. At least from the perspective of Europeans, who have been (if not decades) accustomed to the tools with which New York now wants to improve the management of their garbage. The reason is simple: the change in the Harlem will basically be supported on three pieces, all integrated for a long time in the urban landscape of the Spanish cities: Empire garbage cubes with capacity for 3,000 L, collectors with wheels and side load trucks. Closed and card cubes. Over the last weeks the New York Health Department has dedicated itself to installing in West Harlem around 1,100 Empire containerswhich are the ones that present a small novelty. Unlike most garbage cubes that can be seen in Europe, these collectors will not be available to any neighbor who passes through the sidewalk. They will remain closed and their use will be assigned exclusively to a building, which can access the collector thanks to a special card. In fact, residents will not even pull the bags in the cube. The idea It is that they leave them in an area of ​​collection in the building itself and the cubes themselves handle them the staff of the buildings or the waste managers. It is not the model that is usually used in Spain, although here They also look card collectors. Measuring buildings. The largest blocks of West Harlem, those with more than 30 homes, have been assigned Great Empire Garbage Cubes. Those between 30 and 10 apartments are allowed to choose between that smaller model or containers with wheels and the buildings with less than a dozen families are asked to use 200 l cubes. To expedite the work of the operators, a year ago the City Council also presented a prototype of garbage collection truck with lateral load that can be handled by only two operators. In November the Consistory has already asked these smaller buildings for residential use to start using containers, which has a first idea of ​​what is their result. Your conclusions? “The first data show that the use of containers is working: since the demands entered into force, six months ago, the number of rats has decreased,” celebrate. A revolution with challenges. New York is discovering more than the use of containers. He has also encountered the challenges they represent. The New York Times public A chronicle This same Monday explaining how cleaning service employees have to deal with double -row cars that block the cubes and prevent trucks from accessing them. It also warns of the impact they will have on the parking spaces. The municipal authorities already calculate that expanding the program to the entire city would demand to eliminate 50,000 spaces to park vehicles. That without having the hundreds of millions of dollars that would require buying garbage cubes and collection trucks capable of attending the entire population of the Big Apple. Critics write down a “but” more: That the initiative to recycling does not expand. Image | City of New York In Xataka | The cities emptied during the pandemic. The rats took advantage of him to impose his reign

A marginal city in Italy established a direct flight with New York. Now they are not so clear if it was a good idea

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In front of massive cities Like Venice either Romein Italy there are other enclaves that look with some envy how the economies and investments produced by the paradoxical arrival of the arrival of Tourist hordes. One of those places was Bari, until recently a marginal port city with high crime rates. Then it was decided that it was time to fly and hug tourism. What happened later has left them serious doubts with the decision. The new jewel. I told this week The New York Times. After decades of being seen as a secondary scale on the way to more famous destinations in southern Italy or the Greek Islands, the port city from Bari He has begun to become an unexpected protagonist of European tourism. This metamorphosis has been largely driven by the effort of Antonio Maria Vasile, director of the airports of Pugliawho managed to establish the First direct flight Between Bari and New York, a symbolic bridge between the region and the millions of Italian Americans who share that origin. With this international connection, Bari seeks to claim its place not as a relegated south, but as a vibrant center of culture, history and gastronomy. Although for years his old town was Synonym of crime And abandonment, the city has experienced an urban rebirth that has given way to coastal walks, coffees, cultural routes and, very important, security, returning to its inhabitants a sense of pride so far scarce. First tourist line. He counted the medium that Puglia has silently conquered celebrities, investors and tourists, and has done so with its mix of crystalline sea, baroque architecture, rural hospitality and discreet luxury. While resorts like Burgi Egnazia They welcome G7 peaks And the Lamborghinis wait in the rental garages, Bari begins to benefit from the Halo effect which has elevated the region to the new epicenter of the Italian charm. The legacy of San Nicoláswhose grave is in the city, joins a Bari Vecchia completely renovated, where the medieval churches and the street sale of Orechiette They compete in attractive with The focaccia local. The walks through the historic center, before dominated By mafia clansnow they are full of visitors and residents who rediscovered the city with new eyes. In other words, the narrative of the impoverished and forgotten south begins to give in to a modernity, heritage and opportunity. Gentrification No doubt, this also entails others known evilsbecause the tourist boom does not come without tensions. The sudden popularity of Bari has Turned prices of the rent in the center, expelling pensioners and students, and putting in check To the young population which represents the demographic and creative future of the city. The massive reconversion of housing in tourist rentals has emptied traditional residential areas, repeating Dynamics seen In other saturated cities Like Venice, Madrid either Lisbon. Thus, more and more people fear that, after having rebuilt their identity, Bari loses it under the pressure of an economic model seasonal and fragile. Criticism also aims at the lack of investment in public transport, a basic lack that hinders both the daily mobility of residents and the full integration of tourist flows. As a local teacher synthesized to the Times: “In Puglia it is easy to rent a Ferrari, but finding a bus is another story.” Between the authentic and the fanfare. Explained at the NYT that Bari’s revitalization has been so deep that those who knew her in her most decadent stage barely recognize her. Ancient neighborhoods now shine with cultural routes, film festivals and a nightlife that, however, has begun to collide with the traditional social fabric, as was demonstrated recently when the neighbors They threw water cubes to disperse the hordes of tourists of the San Nicolás Festival. Enthusiasm coexists with the same concern of so many other enclaves: Can a city reinvent itself without selling itself completely, attract without blurring? The answer is not clear and, meanwhile, Vasile imagines a future where Bari does not depend on fleeting summers or celebrity names, but on a deep and sustainable consolidation. Under that prism, the new connection with New York should not be synonymous with tourism without more, but in his words“The inaugural symbol of a different era. We have realized new possibilities.” Now it remains to be seen if the city knows how to become a reality … without losing its essence along the way. Image | Jason Chung In Xataka | Italy has had an idea for mass tourism not to be attracted: higher and more places for travelers In Xataka | In full debate about tourist massification, Spain already has the first photo of how summer is going. And there are surprises

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