clocktowertenants.com: 9/1/13

Saturday, September 7, 2013

reality bytes

David Pogue has an inspiring tech career.

He began arranging music on Broadway back in the 80’s, then gave MAC lessons to movie stars you know and now he’s the tech columnist for the New York Times.

He’s written a lot of Dummies and Missing Manual books, too. I met him at a Connecticut barbecue a few years ago. A friendly, regular guy.

Something he wrote for a computer magazine in the late 1990’s has stayed with me ever since.

I moved from 2 to #1 last Monday, Labor Day.

The hard drive in my 2009 24” iMac called in sick

and I was done.

But the APPLE store was terrific.

I never expected to have one trillion of anything in my life, but they found a new $199 terabyte drive that would fit just fine.

They put it in for 39 bucks labor and replaced my aging glass screen for free without me asking. Nice touch.

www.macrumors.com

Then they helped me transfer my back-up data to the new drive, also for free at their Genius Bar.

I’ve been using this new drive for about 6 hours and so far only one library needed updating and that was a free software update that took about a minute.

Everything else is as I left it and right where I put it.

You’d never even know.

Time Machine is amazing. It preserved over 20 years of work records and about 15 years of digital photography and without a single hiccup.

arstechnica.com

I cannot stress enough: Back up early. Back up often.

Hard drives die.

http://www.macmedics.com/hard-drives-die/

But ClockTowerTenants is back.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

clinical trial

President Ulysses S. Grant developed throat cancer in 1884, and died the following year.

curbed.com

In the year after that, 1886, our fancy-brick ClockTower was built.

1880’s medical science believed germs in room corners were breeding grounds for disease and so The New York Cancer Hospital was designed with circular wards.

curbed.com

The Hospital was completed the year after our ClockTower.

Architect Charles Haight was inspired by the French Renaissance château at Le Lude, Sarthe, and the rest is NYC architectural history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch âteau_du_Lude

googleearth

The hospital and clinic at 455 Central Park West between 105th and 106th Streets closed in 1974 and was landmarked in ‘76.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Cancer_Hospital

Then for decades, it sat as a derelict.

Ian Schrager of Studio 54 tried to develop apartments there, and failed.

It was expensive and amassing funding was proving a trial.

Then a Chicago developer bought the entire building for just $21 million dollars and began renovating in 2000, but was stopped short by 9/11. The trial continued.

It was restarted with a nudge from Bloomberg and by 2005 a 26 story tower stood behind it, with condo’s for sale in both buildings.

16 are in the 1887 landmarked building. Those apartments are spectacular with over 1000 sq feet in each circular room, some selling for as much as $7million dollars.