Hi there, welcome back to another fun round of Where & When, the game that’s all over the map and you have to invest a certain amount of time trying to decide where and when the heck you are (kind of like Doctor Who I imagine…), then reach for that drafty bottle as opposed to a brass ring. Sounds easy enough, but looks aren’t everything, so use whatever tools are available to find out the truth, if you can handle it.
Speaking of looks, let’s look at our latest challenge:
A nice, hi-res photo to ponder. Also ponder this: The pic was taken at a moment where there was a proposal to bring the good folks of Brooklyn and Manhattan together and create some more space for people to eventually pay exorbitant rent for. This idea was eventually made a reality to a much smaller scale; bonus if you know how this was accomplished.
A quaich full of Chautauqua for the first person with the correct answers, and a cold can of Zevia for those who follow suit. As always, explain how you found the answers, and don’t click on the photo credit link for answers, though if you arrive to a similar place via another route, it is fair game (but you must show your math). Send your answers to cixposse at gmail dot com and we’ll discuss the answers and winners after 4pm today, as I’m still trying to figure out when’s a good deadline. Tell your friends and family, your co-workers, your next door neighbors and total strangers to come visit the site and play. And all you lurkers, well as one of you did prove, anything’s possible; even winning! Enjoy yourselves and see you at the final bell!
[Photo credit: NYC Past]
Sent mine in, but I think I've got the year wrong.
Sent mine as well.
Forgot the photo credit, fixed!
I know where it is. But I haven't figured out your clue about the year. I'm certain I could discover the year by a trick, but I'll try to work it out legit. (At the moment I have about a decade I can narrow it down to, just by the obvious cues in the picture.)
I know where and what it is, but the year is going to be a guesstimate. Sending my email.
Actually figured out the year before I sent my guess. :)
Here's a small hint for the year. Will's clue eventually inspired to send him a note about (among other things) Fenway Park.
sent an email. thanks
Answer: Broad Street, facing Wall Street c. 1916.
If you are in the Financial District a lot, this is a very familiar view from Pearl Street looking north. The iconic facade of the Federal Hall National Memorial (often mistaken for the NYSE) faces Broad Street at the intersection of Wall Street, while the original stock exchange building (11 Wall Street) is on the south side of the street facing north, and the main building of the complex faces Broad Street on the west.
Today, the area north of Beaver Street and south of Pine Street between Broadway and William Street is off limits to regular vehicular traffic; barricades were fortified and armed patrols were placed after the Sept 11 attacks, so only limited commercial traffic is allowed in this region. But back in 1916, I'm told by The Green Man, the Broad Street Curb Market used to conduct business outside on Broad Street, so traffic was unlikely to get anywhere during business hours. That was good info, actually, so you'll get a bonus for that >;)
The restaurant some chose to look for as a clue was the Exchange Buffet, part of a chain of buffet-style restaurants around the city that relied on the honor system for people to pay for their meals, which was definitely handy in this particular area and later during World War I for furloughed and returning servicemen.
But the real clue was this, a proposal to connect Manhattan and Brooklyn by filling in the East River with land, and also using landfill to create new islands in the New York harbor. Today that sounds like a hair-brained scheme, but RIYank assures me that Boston had some similar work in creating the Back Bay region in the mid 1800's, which really was a bay before the huge excavation that created several rich neighborhoods. So, there likely was reason for Dr. Thomson to believe this could be done for a city as grand as New York. Thanks for that, you get a bonus as well.
So that leaves us with determining the winner: JDM was the first to provide both the location and the date of the photo, using my clue to find the article I linked to above. He also guessed right on the bonus, the most obvious example and the one I was looking for in particular being Battery Park City, which is built on landfill from the WTC site when building when the Twin Towers were being constructed. I used this as a primary example of real estate being created as a result of the technique that was likely inspired in some form by Dr. Thomson's plan for New Manhattan, a humongous undertaking that we would likely still be paying off to this day with the perspective of history in our sights.
Other winners include RIYank who gets two Zevias, rbj, first time player Thomas DeAngelo from Staten Island, kenboyer made me cry and TheGreenMan, who also gets two Zevias. Thanks for playing, guys, and thanks for making this game fun to put together. The next one on Thursday will be a treat, and I will allow for answers and discussion on the comments. Happy drinking, be responsible and tuck your pets in at night and don't eat the green cheese, eat the blue one. The comments are open for discussion!
Ach, I went down in years not up. I did try searching for a land bridge over the East River, didn't come up with anything. Searching for the restaurants didn't help me either.
Yeah, the Back Bay neighborhood was a real bay. You might remember from American History class that to get to Boston by land the British had to squeeze through Boston Neck, because the city was in effect a promontory. On the east side was the ocean and the sea port, and on the west side was the Back Bay. The Charles connected them. Starting the in 1850s the bay was gradually filled.
But even before that a lot of the city was landfill. Much of the North End, and the southern waterfront where U Mass now stands, and a lot of Dorchester. And, Fenway Park stands on what used to be water.
So, it probably didn't sound quite as crazy as you might think to fill in the East River and join up three counties into a SuperBorough.
Cool pic. Each time I'm impressed by how high the photo quality is near the beginning of the 20th century.