Friday Photos: Chrysler Building

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I know, I know. The Empire State Building has long claimed the honour of New York City’s most iconic building, but for my money, the Chrysler Building leaves the ESB for dead. For me, there is something incredibly attractive about the Chrysler Building as it rises high over the streets of Manhattan. I think it has to do with the shape and colour of the building’s top floors as they catch and reflect the rays of the sun in a way the Empire State Building doesn’t.

The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper, located on the east side of Manhattan at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. For 11 months it could lay claim to being the world’s tallest building (at 319 metres/1,047 feet), before it was surpassed by the Empire State Building in 1931.

In 2007, the Chrysler Building was ranked ninth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects. It was the headquarters of the Chrysler Corporation from 1930 until the mid-1950s, but the corporation did not pay for the construction of it and never owned it. Walter P. Chrysler decided to pay for it himself, so that his children could inherit it.

The building (declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976), is recognized for its terraced crown, which is composed of seven radiating terraced arches. The stainless-steel cladding is ribbed and riveted in a radiating sunburst pattern featuring triangular vaulted windows, which give the building its iconic crown.

Four of the decorative eagles overlooking lower Manhattan

The distinctive ornamentation of the building is based on features that were then being used on Chrysler automobiles. The corners of the 61st floor are graced with eagles, replicas of the 1929 Chrysler hood ornaments; on the 31st floor, the corner ornamentations are replicas of the 1929 Chrysler radiator caps.

The Chrysler Building was the first man-made structure to stand taller than 1,000 feet (305 m). Less than a year after it opened to the public on May 27, 1931, the Chrysler Building was surpassed in height by the Empire State Building, but the Chrysler Building is still the world's tallest steel-supported brick building.

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It Doesn’t Take Much to Make A Difference

Phnom Penh street seller

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for a long time. Somewhere during my month long stay in Cambodia this past February, faced with the overwhelming poverty of that country and its long-suffering citizens, the thought occurred to me that, It doesn’t take much to make a difference. Let me explain with three examples.

1. Street Seller Beaten To Death
A few days into my trip, I read a story in the Phnom Penh Post reporting the murder of a female street seller. The woman had been beaten to death by a Cambodian couple who had lent her some money. Apparently, the woman was having trouble repaying the debt, and in their anger, these people had beaten her so severely, she had died as a result of her injuries. What really struck me about this story though, was the amount of the debt.

The street seller had been lent around 40,000 riel (the Cambodian currency). This sounds like a lot of money – and clearly it was for the woman who was having trouble paying back her loan – but here’s the thing, in dollar terms, 40,000R was less than ten dollars! Yes, you read that right. The hapless street seller was beaten to death for less than the price of a cup of coffee and a panini at my local café.

2. Villagers Struggle to Buy Their Own Homes
Another item in a subsequent issue of the Phnom Penh Post related the story of a group of villagers who were being forced to move into new housing for which they would have to pay rent for a period of five years. At the end of five years they would own the homes they were living in. However, some of the villagers (whose flimsy timber and thatch homes were about to be destroyed), were concerned they would not be able to meet their monthly payments, and as a result be evicted from the new housing.

Again, in western terms, the amount of money involved was trifling. The families needed to come up with just $23 each month to meet their obligations. At the end of five years they would have paid just under $1400 and own new homes.

Twenty-three dollars. A month. Again, even if I only bought one coffee a day I would be spending more than $23 a week on cappuccinos, let alone each month.

3. Language Learning
I’ve written several times on this blog about learning new languages, so I was very interested to learn from one of my tuk-tuk drivers that he was attending night classes to improve his English. Not only that, but he was learning Chinese as well, due to the massive numbers of Chinese tourists now visiting Cambodia. His ultimate goal was to become a tour guide, since there seemed to be more money in that line of work.

Unfortunately, this young driver was not always able to pay for his lessons and often missed them. When I asked him how much the language classes cost, I was shocked by his reply: each time he attended class, he had to pay a fee of five dollars.

I should point out here that I did not clarify with the driver whether he paid five dollars for each lesson, of five dollars for both, but I suspect he probably had to pay for each language class separately.

Making a Difference
There are many other examples I could have added to this post, but the three mentioned above will do.

Dear reader: in a world were a woman is beaten to death for owing less than ten dollars, and villagers labour to find $23 each month so they can ultimately own their own homes, and a young man struggles to find five dollars to pay for language classes – it doesn’t take much to make a difference.

I came back from Cambodia determined to make a difference in the lives of some of that country’s poorest citizens. I’m also looking for other ways to give back, and support causes and projects that excite my imagination and I will write about these from time to time on this blog – not because I want to big-note myself, but because I want to promote the idea that: it doesn’t take much to make a difference.

I urge readers to think about ways they too may be able to make a difference in the lives of fellow citizens wherever they may be. You don’t have to look as far afield as Cambodia, however. I’m sure there are great projects and causes in your own neighbourhood that would appreciate your support and assistance, whether financially or by your physical presence. And if you are able to contribute financially to help some charitable cause, you don’t always have to give hundreds of dollars. Sometimes, only a few dollars given on a regular basis can help make profound changes in the lives of the world’s poorest people, and I would urge you to find ways you can contribute to a more equitable, just and peaceful world.

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Things You Discover Walking: Suburban Koalas

One of the fascinating things about nature, and the creatures that inhabit what is left of our wild places and natural landscapes, is how these creatures have learned to adapt to our suburban environments.

Whether we are talking about the bears and wolves in America, that weave their way through suburban front yards looking for sources of food discarded in compost and trash bins, or whether referring to the foxes that creep through Australian backyards searching for the occasional stray chicken – wild nature is closer than you think.

In Adelaide, where I live, native animals like the koala (please don’t call it a koala bear), are slowly finding their way out of the surrounding Adelaide hills into suburban back yards and parks.

Look carefully at the photo illustrating this blog post. Can you see it? There it is, perched on the fork of a branch calmly surveying man and machine as they come and go in the car park of the Mitcham Shopping Centre on Belair Road.

This is one of at least two koalas that I have noticed in a line of large eucalyptus trees that follow the path of Brownhill Creek as it winds out of the nearby hills on its way to the ocean. I assume the koalas have been following the river as well via the trees that line its banks.

Koalas are quite solitary creatures. They never gather together in family groups, nor do the males watch over a bevy of female koalas, fighting off the amorous approaches of other males of the species. They don’t mate for life with one partner, like some other wild animals do, and all in all, seem to be quite happy with own company.

Like kangaroos, koalas are marsupial animals, meaning that the female gives birth to relatively undeveloped young. A baby koala is referred to as a ‘joey’ (as is a baby kangaroo), and is hairless, blind, and earless at birth. The joey, which is only a quarter of an inch long at birth, crawls into a downward-facing pouch on the mother's belly and attaches itself to one of two teats, and there it remains for about six months, only feeding on milk.

It was interesting to watch people walking beneath this tree and its occupant – completely oblivious to its presence. I knew there was a koala in the tree somewhere, after noticing droppings on the asphalt below the tree. However, I must admit that even I was surprised by just how close to the ground this koala was.

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