The
long-polluted New York rivers are
getting cleaner, but can still be dangerous to swim in. There are
efforts underway to clean up the Bronx River, but that will take years, if not decades. Until then,
signs are posted, warning would-be swimmers, yet people still risk sickness to battle the heat. One current safe solution is
the Floating Pool Lady, a barge that was remade into an 82-foot-long city parks department swimming pool.
She first arrived in the Bronx in 2008, and
she'll return to the Bronx in a week. There's a new Big Idea to bring swimmers back into the rivers:
the +Pool, a floating swimming pool located within a river, designed with a series exterior walls to filter the river water and make it safe to swim in. While that's in the early design stages, you can take a chance and
jump in a swimming hole.
posted by filthy light thief
on Jun 24, 2011 -
26 comments
When "Proto-Pop" artist
Larry Rivers' died in
2002, he left behind extensive archives of his letters, paperwork, photographs and film documenting the New York artistic and literary scene from the 1940s through the 1980s. They chronicle his friendships and relationships with dozens of artists, musicians and writers, from Willem de Kooning and Andy Warhol to Frank O’Hara. Also included: films and videos of his two adolescent daughters, naked or topless, being interviewed by their father about their developing breasts. Now, one daughter, who says she was pressured to participate beginning when she was 11, is
demanding that material be removed from the archive and returned to her and her sister. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jul 8, 2010 -
74 comments
Dead Zones - Causes and Consequences Found by way of
this article series where I read:
"Ask scientists, government types, fishermen, almost anyone about the low-oxygen zone coming off the mouth of the Mississippi River and one question spills from their lips.
"Have you talked to Nancy Rabalais?" ... marine ecologist Rabalais has led the search for answers to the 8,500-square-mile zone and the charge to find a solution. "
-----
From the first linked page, you can view eight video clips -- each about 9.5 minutes long -- of a February 2005 slide lecture. She's awesome.
posted by hank
on Sep 6, 2005 -
10 comments
Joan Rivers on the subject of Boobs: "I think the stereotype that if you ah big breasts you can't be smart came from the fact that your breasts hid your schoolbooks. So it was a little harder to learn." A&E tackled the subject of
cleavage in a special that aired first in 2002 and again last night. SFW unless you work for the Archdiocese.
posted by kahboom
on Jul 7, 2005 -
54 comments
Swimming the Columbia River - lengthwise. What have you been up to for the past week? How about the next 6 months? If you're Christopher Swain, the answer is "swimming - and lots of it". Swain plans swim the 1,243 miles of the
Columbia River from headwaters to the Pacific over about 180 days. The further downriver he goes, the riskier it gets - aside from the rapids and ocean freighters that await him, he'll be in waters contaminated by atomic waste, PCBs and other toxins - which is the point of the swim, to raise awareness and support for river protection. "I learned that tasting every mile of a river is a great way to build the credibility to speak on its behalf"
posted by kokogiak
on Jun 11, 2002 -
15 comments
