- Constance Towers Pays Tribute to Her ‘General Hospital’ Grandson, Tyler Christopher Michael Fairman TV
- Days of Our Lives’ Stephen Nichols Shares His Memories of Tyler Christopher… and His Regrets Soaps.com
- Scott Clifton And Stephen Nichols Pay Tribute To Tyler Christopher Soap Hub
- Genie Francis Mourns the Loss of ‘General Hospital’ Son, Tyler Christopher: “Sweet Tyler .. ‘This World Was Never Meant For One as Beautiful as You”’ Michael Fairman TV
- ‘General Hospital’ Spoilers: Kimberly McCullough Takes Us On a Walk With the Late Tyler Christopher Daily Soap Dish
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: towers
Astronomers Worldwide Troubled by New ‘Cell Phone Towers in Space’
A sprawling new satellite built to connect directly with mobile phones on the surface is brighter than most of the stars in the night sky, according to astronomers who are calling it a threat to their work and humanity’s view of the universe.
The offending orbital object is AST SpaceMobile’s Bluewalker 3, which was launched on Sept. 10, but its 64-square-meter (693-square-foot) array of solar panels and antennas was just fully unfurled earlier this month.
The International Astronomical Union coordinated observations from around the planet, which found that the satellite is almost as bright as stars such as Antares and Spica, the 15th and 16th brightest in the night sky, respectively. Another study found it to be a little less reflective, on par with the 22nd brightest star or so.
It isn’t just Bluewalker 3 that concerns astronomers, but rather the fact it serves as a test model for a constellation of over 100 so-called Bluebirds the company aims to launch as part of its plan to build a network of satellites to provide 5G connectivity from orbit to Earth — “cell phone towers in space,” as the IAU describes them.
“BlueWalker 3 is a big shift in the constellation satellite issue and should give us all reason to pause,” Piero Benvenuti, director of the IAU Center for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference, said in a statement.
Astronomers have been more concerned about the potential impacts from mega-constellations of thousands of satellites like SpaceX’s Starlink, but the IAU says AST SpaceMobile’s plans raise new issues because of the strong radio waves they will transmit that could interfere with astronomical observations.
Philip Diamond, who directs the the Square Kilometer Array Observatory in South Africa and Australia, worries that orbiting cell towers aren’t subject to the same “quiet zone” restrictions that protect radio astronomers from interference by terrestrial cellular networks.
“Astronomers build radio telescopes as far away as possible from human activity, looking for places on the planet where there is limited or no cell phone coverage,” Diamond said in a statement. “New satellites such as BlueWalker 3 have the potential to worsen this situation and compromise our ability to do science if not properly mitigated.”
The IAU notes that it has already begun conversations with AST SpaceMobile about potential mitigation measures.
“We are actively working with industry experts on the latest innovations, including next-generation anti-reflective materials,” the company said through a spokesperson.
The company adds it “is committed to avoiding broadcasts inside or adjacent to the National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) in the US and additional radioastronomy locations that are not officially recognized, as required or needed. We also plan to place gateway antennas far away from the NRQZ and other radio-quiet zones that are important to astronomy.”
AST SpaceMobile CEO Abel Avellan said in a statement earlier this month the goal is to build a constellation that will eliminate mobile dead zones on Earth.
“Every person should have the right to access cellular broadband, regardless of where they live or work. Our goal is to close the connectivity gaps that negatively impact billions of lives around the world.”
Centrifugal moon towers could be key to life off-planet • The Register
Vid Japanese scientists are putting a new spin on human life in outer space with a proposal for centrifugal skyscrapers on the Moon and Mars.
Kyoto University academics and folks at Kajima Construction, one of the largest building firms in Japan, have partnered on the concept, which they call “Luna Glass” and “Mars Glass.”
If constructed, the glass towers would stand 400 meters tall (roughly the height of the Empire State Building in New York City) and 100 meters wide. To provide the gravity we’re used to on our home world, the tower would spin on its central axis at a rate of one rotation every 20 seconds. The researchers said the towers would produce about 1G at their widest point, the same gravitational force as on Earth.
People would live on the inner walls of the tower, much like the Dyson Sphere featured in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Halo rings of the eponymous game series, a ring-like habitat considered by NASA, or any other number of science-fiction and proposed non-fiction contraptions relying on centrifugal force to generate artificial gravity.
Life on the inside of Luna Glass
“As space life becomes more realistic, low gravity on places like the lunar surface begin to be regarded as a problem,” the researchers said in an article announcing the concept (which was automatically translated). The team said low-gravity research on humans has been limited to adults, and that research has made it clear how much of a problem zero- or reduced-gravity has on human health.
According to NASA, astronauts in space lose muscle mass more quickly, are at increased risk for kidney stones and calcium deficiency, can experience vision problems, develop enlarged brains, and lose 1 to 1.5 percent of the mineral density in weight-bearing bones per month. The Japanese team takes those concerns one step further: if people are going to be living in space, what is low gravity going to do to childhood development, and how will it complicate birth?
“We consider an artificial gravity living facility that can generate [1G to be] … the core technology for human beings to advance into space,” the Japanese team said.
Here’s a video of what the Mars tower might look like, according to the Kyoto eggheads:
Youtube Video
In addition to developing the glass towers, the Kyoto/Kajima team said its conceptual view of space living also includes two other components: a “core biome” that consists of the minimal natural materials needed to supply a colony with food, clothing and shelter; and the “hexatrack,” a train-like artificial gravity transport system designed to keep Moon- and Mars-bound colonists grounded during a long journey.
Yosuke Yamashiki, director at the Kyoto University division working on the project, said that while countries like the US and the United Arab Emirates are working toward Moon and Mars colonization, they have yet to touch on the three concepts his team has developed.
“These three pillars that we propose are core technologies that are not in the development plans of other countries and are indispensable for ensuring the realization of human space colonization in the future,” Yamashiki said. ®
Surfside families mark one year since Champlain Towers South collapse
The second is simpler: They wanted to be at the place where it happened. To stand on the site that for months was a rubble-strewn disaster area and then, once the final remains were recovered and the piles of debris hauled away, a flooded sandpit. A plot of land surrounded by a chain-link fence with a locked gate and put up for sale.
Early Friday, the parents, children and siblings of those killed got the opportunity to set foot on the vacant lot on the beach. They gathered at the same place, and at the same time a year earlier when — just after 1 a.m. — the building began to buckle and heave and within 10 minutes cave in on itself. First lady Jill Biden will speak at a public memorial event later in the morning.
“It’s a way to be in a place we weren’t allowed to be in for a year,” said Chana Ainsworth Wasserman, who lost her parents, Tzvi and Ingrid Ainsworth, in the collapse. “The idea behind it is to give a moment of silence and respect, and to reflect on the brutality of how the people we loved died there, how it happened at that site.”
On the first anniversary of one of the worst building failures in United States history, many families of those killed say they are still in a state of limbo. The remains of their loved ones have been identified, but not an explanation for their deaths. Florida has passed some condo safety reforms, but there are doubts about how effectively they can be implemented. A judge on Thursday gave final approval for a $1.2 billion settlement to families who lost loved ones, but it offers no answers as to what happened and assigns no blame.
“It’s been a year, and the only thing I hear is, ‘It’s under investigation,’ ” said Pablo Langesfeld, whose daughter Nicole and her newlywed husband, Luis Sadovnic, perished in the disaster. “It’s a nightmare. Still a nightmare.”
Families helped to plan this weekend’s events — much of which involves the site of the collapse. Surfside town officials lit 98 torches around the nearly two-acre lot where the building once stood. One large eight-foot torch will stay lit at the site for nearly a month, marking the time it took rescue workers to find the final remains buried in the rubble.
Meanwhile, lawsuits filed against more than 25 entities, including the Champlain Towers South condo association, as well as engineers and developers of a building next door, have been settled. Disbursements from the settlement to families are expected to begin in the fall, but another painful process comes first.
Relatives have to fill out claims forms that ask them to “describe how the loss of the Decedent has impacted this Survivor’s life.” The document requests they note “any mental anguish, grief or sorrow” suffered as well as the loss of “care, guidance, advice, counsel, training, protection, society, comfort, or companionship.”
“A lot of my clients, they haven’t been able to grieve, really, to focus on the loss, because so much else has been happening with the lawsuit and the insurance,” said Edith Shiro, a clinical psychologist in Miami who is treating more than a dozen family members. “They get re-traumatized with every meeting or hearing or event. And now they have to fill out a form so someone can put a value on each person’s life to decide how much they’ll get.”
Survivors of the collapse face a different set of challenges, including finding a permanent place to live in an area where home prices have risen steeply in the past 12 months. The judge awarded them $96 million, with some of the proceeds coming from the $120 million sale of the property to Dubai-based developer Damac.
Oren Cytrynbaum lived at Champlain Towers South, and his parents also owned a unit in the building. None of them were there at the time of the collapse, which puts them in the “economic loss only” class of victims.
“You’ll never be able to compare the two. You can’t compare the loss of life to property or economic loss,” Cytrynbaum said. “But that doesn’t take away from the fact that some people are completely devastated by the loss of their home and all their possessions. It doesn’t compare, but that doesn’t take away that hurt.”
Looming over it all is the unanswered question of what happened, and why.
“This is a horrible situation for the families. I know they want to know why that building came down. We all want to know,” said Charles Burkett, who was mayor of Surfside at the time of the collapse. “But a lot of people want to basically close the book and have everybody move on, to get on with life. But we need answers.”
After cataloguing the rubble, investigators with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are preparing to conduct more invasive tests on the debris in hopes of shedding light on the state of the building’s concrete and reinforcing steel at the time of the collapse.
“We have ruled out nothing at this time,” a NIST update from this month stated.
Early theories were that the condominium’s pool deck failed because it was poorly maintained. That part of the property appeared to collapse first, followed by half the building that pancaked to the ground. The rest of the condominium was unstable and demolished as a hurricane approached Surfside.
Working with a $22 million budget, the NIST investigation is expected to take up to five years.
“There are enormous implications for the life safety of buildings across the United States and elsewhere in the world,” the NIST update states.
Despite the slow pace of a complex investigation, Emily Guglielmo, past president of the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations, said the failure of Champlain Towers South in time will probably lead to new building codes nationwide.
“It has caused us to question everything,” Guglielmo said. “Do we have the right codes? Do we have the right construction? Is there a climate change issue? Is there a sea-level issue? Across the board, from design through construction through how you maintain a building, there are conversations that are happening directly as a result of Surfside that were not happening prior to that.”
Lawmakers in Florida, after being criticized for taking no action in the state’s regular legislative session, met in a special session last month and passed condominium safety reforms. They include more frequent building inspections — Champlain Towers South was undergoing its 40-year inspection when it collapsed — and a requirement for condo boards to collect and save money in reserve for maintenance. Some question whether the state has enough structural engineers to make those new standards a reality.
A Miami-Dade County grand jury recommended dozens of changes to building inspection requirements, including reducing the 40-year time frame for recertification — though their suggestions were not binding. At the federal level, South Florida congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D) on Thursday announced she would introduce a bill next week to provide low-interest financing for condo associations to pay for structural maintenance.
Debate and disagreements among condo board members of Champlain Towers South about the cost of needed maintenance delayed preparations for repairs for three years. Concrete restoration work was set to begin when half the building collapsed.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said families are given updates every other week in an effort to be transparent and “do everything that we can to show that we are with them, that we are working with them to come to answers.”
The rescue teams worked around-the-clock, from June 24 until July 20, when the final remains were found. But only three people were rescued alive, including Jonah Handler and his mother, Stacie Fang. First responders pulled them from the rubble after a man walking his dog nearby heard Handler’s calls for help.
Fang died at the hospital later that day. Handler, who is now 16, was severely injured but has recovered enough to start playing baseball again. He and his father, Neil Handler, have organized a gala charity event Saturday night to raise money for first responders, victims of trauma, veterans, their families and communities. The Handlers named the charity The Phoenix Life Project, with a goal of “bringing serenity to calamity.”
Jonah Handler now lives with his father in Champlain Towers North, about two blocks away from the collapse site. Neil Handler said his son wanted to do something permanent to honor his mother and to thank the first responders who saved his life.
“I’m trying to teach Jonah that, no matter how bad something gets, to try to turn it into something positive,” Neil Handler said. “One of the things I’ve realized is that some people are stuck in this morbid reflection of what happened, and it’s defining who they are. I told Jonah, ‘You can’t let this thing define you. It’s either going to cripple you or make you stronger.’ ”
He said the charity is a way for his son to move forward, as are the more somber moments, such as the candlelight vigil on the site.
“We’re all bonded by this catastrophe, and we’re all going to heal in different ways,” he said. “It’s important to celebrate those we lost, and also to come together in a spirit of love and forgiveness.”
Dollar towers over peers as markets bet on large Fed rate hike
In this photo illustration, US 100 dollar bills seen on an American flag.
Igor Golovniov | SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images
The dollar held near its overnight 20-year peak on Wednesday ahead of the outcome of the Federal Reserve policy meeting at which markets are pricing in an outsized 75 basis point interest rate hike as policymakers try to rein in rampant inflation.
A key U.S. currency index, which tracks its performance against six peers, was at 105.3 having hit 105.65 on Tuesday, its strongest since December 2002.
Sterling was at $1.20135 after slumping to a 15-month low versus the dollar at $1.1934 the previous day, not helped by the possibility of a new referendum on Scottish independence, while the euro was at $1.0428 just above its overnight one-month low.
Market pricing indicates a 99.7% chance of a 75 basis point rate hike at the Fed’s meeting which concludes later on Wednesday, according to the CME’s Fedwatch tool, up from only 3.9% a week ago.
The sharp pick up in expectations followed media reports, first by the Wall Street Journal that a bigger rate increase was on the cards after data released last week showed the U.S. consumer price index surged 8.6% in the 12 months to May, the largest year-on-year increase in four decades.
The U.S. dollar had already been gaining ground in the past few months thanks to the Fed raising rates ahead of most other major central banks, and has been given another leg up in recent weeks as investors seek safe havens fearing the economic impact of rapidly tightening financial conditions.
At least in the near term, analysts feel that the dollar has not much further to go.
“Given current aggressive market pricing, there is a risk the (Fed)is deemed ‘not hawkish enough’, pulling down U.S. interest rates and the USD modestly after the meeting,” said CBA analysts in a morning note.
“In our view, it will take more than a 75bp hike tomorrow, or a nod to a 100bp hike for the FOMC’s July meeting, to push the USD up significantly after the FOMC meeting.”
Higher U.S. rates versus rock bottom Japanese yields have been weighing on the yen , which hit a fresh 24-year low of 135.58 per dollar in early trade, before recovering to 135.05.
Expectations for higher rates have also hurt risk friendly assets such as tech stocks, while in currency markets, the Australian dollar , often seen as a proxy for risk appetite, is at $0.68950 near a one-month low.
The Aussie is down 7.9% so far this quarter, which would be its worst quarter since the first three months of 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
The New Zealand dollar was at $0.62185 just off its two-year low of $0.6197 hit overnight.
Bitcoin, another risk friendly asset class, was down slightly, trading just under $22,000. It hit an 18-month low of $21,800 on Tuesday, also hurt by major crypto lender Celsius Network’s freezing withdrawals earlier this week.
Curiosity Has Found Some Truly Weird-Looking, Twisty Rock Towers on Mars
The Curiosity rover has found an outstanding rock formation piercing the alien landscape of Mars. Amongst the shallow sands and boulders of the Gale Crater rise several twisting towers of rock – the spikes of sediment look almost like frozen streams of water poured from an invisible jug in the sky.
In reality, experts say the columns were probably created from cement-like substances that once filled ancient cracks of bedrock. As the softer rock gradually eroded away, the snaking streams of compact material remained standing.
Rock formations found on Mars. (NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS)
The rock formations were snapped by a camera on board the Curiosity rover on May 17, but the image was only shared last week by NASA and experts at the SETI institute (which stands for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), as part of SETI’s planetary picture of the day initiative.
#PPOD: Here is another cool rock at Gale crater on Mars! The spikes are most likely the cemented fillings of ancient fractures in a sedimentary rock. The rest of the rock was made of softer material and was eroded away. 📷: @NASA @NASAJPL @Caltech #MSSS fredk, acquired on May 17. pic.twitter.com/RGfjmRBfI7
— The SETI Institute (@SETIInstitute) May 26, 2022
As alien as the structures might look, they aren’t without precedent.
In Earthly geology, a ‘hoodoo’ is a tall and thin spire of rock formed by erosion. It can also be called a tent rock, fairy chimney, or earth pyramid.
Hoodoos are usually found in dry environments, like the canyons of Utah or southern Serbia, and the columns can sometimes tower as high as ten-story buildings.
The natural structures are formed by hard rock layers that build up within softer sedimentary rock. As the rest of the rock erodes away from rain, wind or frost, you’re left with a magnificent mould of an ancient fracture in the bedrock.
The two towers of rock on Mars look like they are about to topple over compared to the ones we see on Earth, but clearly they are solid enough to withstand the lighter surface gravity experienced on the red planet.
Another strange rock formation found by Curiosity earlier this year might have been created in a similar way, albeit with very different results.
This other, smaller rock looks sort of like a piece of coral or a flower with numerous little petals stretching up towards the sun.
“One theory that has emerged is that the rock is a type of concretion created by minerals deposited by water in cracks or divisions in existing rock,” a press release from NASA explained at the time.
“These concretions can be compacted together, can be harder and denser than surrounding rock, and can remain even after the surrounding rock erodes away.”
The Gale crater isn’t wholly flat, but the alien spires discovered by Curiosity stand out from the rest of their environment, although no height measurements accompany the image.
The towering tombstones of rock might look lifeless now, but their formation speaks volumes about ancient conditions on Mars and whether life could have once thrived there billions of years ago.
The Gale crater itself is thought to be a dried-up lake bed, though possibly shallower and more transitory than experts once assumed.
Rock formations in and around the ancient lake are helping to reveal the region’s true history.
Explosions damage two radio towers in Moldova’s breakaway region Transnistria
The self-proclaimed republic of Transnistria — which has its own constitution, military, currency and flag but has never been recognized by the international community — could be pulled into Russia’s war in Ukraine.
A top Russian general said last week that the military is aiming for “full control” over the eastern Donbas region and southern Ukraine — and to gain access to Transnistria, the breakaway territory in the neighboring country of Moldova.
TASS quoted the acting commander of Russia’s Central Military District Maj. Gen. Rustam Minnekaev as saying the goal was to create a land corridor between Donbas and Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
On Monday, there were explosions in Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria, which Ukraine’s Defense Ministry called a “planned provocation” by the Russian secret services.
Here’s what you need to know about Transnistria, and why it’s important to Russia.
A separatist statelet: Transnistria is a narrow sliver of land about 1,350 square miles in size, sandwiched between Ukraine and the rest of Moldova — only a little larger than Rhode Island, the smallest state in the US.
It is home to about half a million people, most of whom are Russian-speaking.
Some history: Transnistria declared independence from the former Soviet republic of Moldova following a two-year war (1990-1992) that erupted during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Russians stepped in to back Transnistria but never recognized it as an independent state. The conflict between the Moldovan government and the separatists ended in a ceasefire in 1992 — but about 1,500 Russian troops have remained in Transnistria since then.
Russia eyeing Transnistria: The statement by Maj. Gen. Minnekaev, laying out Russia’s strategy for the “second phase” of the war, prompted immediate alarm from Moldovan authorities, who summoned the Russian ambassador.
The statements about Transnistria are “unfounded and contradict the position of the Russian Federation supporting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Moldova, within its internationally recognized borders,” said the Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration.
It added that during the meeting with the Russian ambassador, Moldovan officials reiterated that the country was a “neutral state and this principle must be respected by all international actors, including the Russian Federation.”
Role in the war: Some military analysts suspect Russia plans to lean on Transnistria for logistical support — and to take advantage of its strategic position, to establish a land corridor along the Black Sea to capture the port city of Odesa.
Watch more here:
Surfside collapse: Florida judge approves $83 million settlement for victims’ families and owners in Champlain Towers South collapse
The compromise settlement was originally agreed upon in February, the Miami Herald reported. Nearly $50 million of the settlement would come from a payout from the condo association’s insurance carrier while the remaining $33 million would come from the sale of the property where the building once stood, the Herald reported. The opening bid for the property stands at $120 million, the newspaper said.
The settlement comes less than a year after a portion of the condo building collapsed in the middle of the night on June 24 as many residents slept, killing 98 people. The victims ranged from 1 to 92 years old.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman approved the multimillion-dollar settlement after listening to emotional testimony that brought him to tears multiple times.
“Everybody in this case is a victim, there is no question about that,” Hanzman said before giving his final approval. “Please know that this court is not diminishing in any respect your pain and suffering and trauma you have suffered … we have 98 people who lost their lives, and this case has to be kept in perspective.”
The heirs of the 98 victims were classified as the wrongful death class during the hearing and the surviving condominium owners were referred to as the economic class. Attorneys for the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association were also involved in the settlement.
The court based its decision on the basis that the settlement was “fair, reasonable, and adequate,” but due to some concerns, the judge announced two conditions he was adding to the agreement.
“Number one, this settlement is going to be contingent upon the real estate closing for at least $120 million dollars,” Hanzman said. “And until and unless that happens there will not be one penny distributed to the condominium owners.”
“Number two, I am not going to deduct insurance,” he said, adding that he would instead deduct $750,000 off the top “which the court will use to partially compensate counsel … and for the past expenses to maintain this property up to today.”
In his statement following the testimony, Hanzman acknowledged the law and the judicial system would not be able to “alleviate the pain and suffering that these people are enduring.”
Hanzman also praised the settlement and the attorneys, whom he said worked hard to establish it, saying the court did not wish “to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
Tragedy touched communities in multiple countries
Victims of the Champlain Towers South collapse were from all over the world and the grief touched members of a tight-knit Jewish community and families from as far away as Argentina, Paraguay and Colombia.
At the time, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava called the collapse “the largest non-hurricane related emergency response in the history of our state.”
Crews carried out recovery efforts for weeks, combing through rubble and debris while the families and loved ones of victims waited for information.
The concrete in the pool and underground garage area has been a focus as engineers and government officials investigate the cause of the collapse, CNN has reported.
Towers Rise Over London’s Brick Lane, Clouding Its Future
LONDON — Ornate English and Bengali typography adorns the signs of Taj Stores, one of the oldest Bangladeshi-run supermarkets in the Brick Lane neighborhood of East London. The signs evoke a part of the area’s past, when it became known as “Banglatown,” and eventually home to the largest Bangladeshi community in Britain.
But Brick Lane’s future is looking very uncertain, said Jamal Khalique, standing inside a supermarket opened in 1936 by his great-uncle and now run by Mr. Khalique and his two brothers.
Modern office buildings of glass and steel and a cluster of apartments and cranes tower above the skyline. New coffee shops, restaurants, food markets and hotels appear in the neighborhood each year. According to one study, the borough of Tower Hamlets, which contains Brick Lane, had the most gentrification in London from 2010 to 2016.
In September, a borough committee approved plans — under discussion for five years — to build a five-story shopping mall in and around a disused parking lot beside a former brewery complex that houses independent shops, galleries, markets, bars and restaurants.
The project would include brand-name chain stores, office spaces and a public square.
Like many Brick Lane residents, Mr. Khalique is ambivalent about the development. Initially, he was not opposed. “I’ve seen a hell of a change from a deprived, dirty area, to a trendy, diversified, multicultural area,” said Mr. Khalique, 50.
But now he worries that the new shopping center will undermine the area’s architectural character by adding glass features amid the weathered brick, and will siphon customers from long-established stores. “It will really kill small, independent businesses,” he said.
In a statement, Zeloof Partnership, which owns the brewery site and a handful of other nearby properties, said the new center would create several hundred jobs, mostly for local people. Its design was consistent with the look of the area and did not involve demolishing buildings, the statement said.
It added that a fixed discount for rent would be offered to a select number of independent businesses currently operating from the brewery.
The company said there was no firm date yet for when construction would start or when the new center would open.
The plans have met fierce resistance from some local residents and campaigners.
The district’s member of Parliament, Rushanara Ali of the opposition Labour Party, said residents had expressed concerns about the “limited concessions” made by the developers, adding that the Conservative government had reduced “local powers and accountability to local communities” over development.
Opponents of the development also argue that it could cause rents and housing prices to rise in what has long been a working-class area.
In December 2020, a “Save Brick Lane” campaign gained widespread attention online, in part through the participation of Nijjor Manush, a British Bangladeshi activist group. The borough council received more than 7,000 letters of objection, though only several hundred were from local residents, a sign of what a point of contention the proposed development had become beyond just Brick Lane.
In September last year, soon after Zeloof’s plans were approved, campaigners and residents marched in protest, unfurling “Save Brick Lane” banners behind pallbearers carrying an empty coffin to represent what they describe as the corrosive effects of gentrification.
Still, not everyone is opposed to the plans.
“Brick Lane was dying a long time ago,” said Shams Uddin, 62, who arrived in the area from Bangladesh in 1976 and has been the proprietor of Monsoon, one of the many Bangladeshi-run curry restaurants that once flourished in the neighborhood, since 1999.
Indeed, in the past 15 years, 62 percent of Brick Lane’s curry restaurants have closed because of rising rent, difficulties obtaining visas for new chefs and a lack of government support, according to a study by Runnymede Trust, a research institute focusing on racial equality.
Mr. Uddin said that international travel restrictions imposed by the pandemic, the chilling effect of Brexit and the opening of franchises in a historic market area nearby had deterred customers from visiting. In this environment, he said, the new shopping center could lift up the waning businesses around it.
“When customers finish their business with the shopping center, they may come to my restaurant,” he said. “This is a good thing for our business.”
The changing face of Brick Lane is startling to many longtime residents who remember the many empty properties in London’s East End five decades ago.
“This area had been abandoned,” said Dan Cruickshank, a historian and member of the Spitalfields Trust, a local heritage and conservation group.
When he bought his home in Spitalfields in the 1970s — a property that had stood empty for more than 10 years — Mr. Cruickshank said he struggled to secure a mortgage. East London, he said, was “deemed dark, dangerous, remote and to be avoided” by mortgage lenders and property developers.
Now, in what Mr. Cruickshank derides as a “peculiar case of gentrification,” homes in Brick Lane have acquired a Midas touch. Average property prices in the neighborhood have tripled in little over a decade, according to real estate agents’ collations of government data, with some soaring over millions of dollars.
With the average home in London costing nearly 12 times the average salary in Britain, affordable housing options are scarce.
For centuries, Brick Lane has been a sanctuary for minority communities: Huguenot silk weavers who fled religious persecution in 17th-century France, Ashkenazi Jews escaping antisemitism and pogroms in Eastern Europe, and then Bangladeshi Muslims in the 1970s, during Bangladesh’s fight for independence from Pakistan and the ensuing violence. Since the 1990s, it has become a symbol of multicultural London, celebrated in novels, memoirs, movies and museum exhibits.
In the 1970s, Bangladeshis were drawn to Brick Lane by cheap places to live and abundant work opportunities in the textile industry.
But the arrivals were greeted by discriminatory housing policies and occasional racist violence from followers of the National Front — a far-right British political party with headquarters nearby. Racists smeared swastikas and “KKK” on some buildings. Mr. Khalique, the grocery store owner, said he was permanently scarred on his right leg when he was attacked in his youth by a dog belonging to a National Front supporter.
Hundreds of Bangladeshi families squatted in empty properties in defiance of the attacks — squatting was not then a criminal offense in England — while demanding better housing options.
Among those families was Halima Begum’s. For years, as a child, she lived in a derelict building marked for demolition until her father, a factory worker, broke into an abandoned flat close to Brick Lane. Ms. Begum lived there until she left for college.
Now the director of Runnymede Trust, Ms. Begum has witnessed Brick Lane’s transformation into what she described as a “tale of two cities,” where wealthy workers from the neighboring financial district live in an area with what the charity Trust for London says are the capital’s highest child poverty rates.
Overcrowding is rampant in Tower Hamlets, where more than 20,000 applicants await low-income housing. Opponents of the shopping center point out that the plans do not include any social housing.
“How on earth would British Bangladeshi communities who are experiencing significant poverty be able to maintain a lifestyle where this area develops into Manhattan?” she said, citing the gentrification of the East Village in New York City in the 1980s. “The way in which we regenerate has to be more inclusive.”
Occasionally, the pushback has gone beyond petitions and local laments. A cafe specializing in hard-to-find varieties of breakfast cereal, which some held up as the ultimate example of “hipsterfication,” was vandalized in 2015 by anti-gentrification protesters. (The business closed its doors in Brick Lane in July 2020, but it continues to run a store online.)
Aaron Mo, 39, who in July last year opened a pop-up Chinese bakery, Ong Ong Buns, near the planned development, is cautious about predicting the shopping center’s effect on small independent businesses like his.
But he said he learned something instructive when, a nearby branch of the sandwich chain Pret A Manger unexpectedly closed for two weeks last year. The effect was palpable, he said: “We got more customers.”
For Mr. Khalique, the concerns about gentrification go beyond business — they are also deeply personal.
Outside his store, Brick Lane’s history is visible in the lamp posts painted in green and red, the colors of the Bangladeshi flag, and in street signs that are in both English and Bengali.
“Our elders have fought really hard for this area,” he said of his father’s generation. “It’s in my blood.’’
9/11 parade float with smoking towers slammed as ‘tasteless’
The internet rightfully rained on these bozos’ parade.
Event organizers for the 40th annual Popcorn Festival in Valparaiso, Indiana, are being torched online over a “tasteless” 9/11 parade float unveiled Saturday.
“We worked so hard to show our love, respect, our sorrow … to all the 9/11 victims, the soldiers who died in Afghanistan and our first responders,” reads the caption to a video of the grotesque display, which was posted by the Valparaiso Republicans, the group that commissioned the float. Although the food-and-craft fair traditionally has nothing to do with 9/11, organizers decided to feature a tribute as the festival fell on the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, the Chicago Tribune reported.
And boy, did it backfire.
The clip shows the controversial float’s rectangular gray replicas of the World Trade Center that billow smoke — simulated by a fog machine — right before they tumble to the ground. The towers even bore painted holes adorned with red plastic streamers to symbolize the blaze that began after American Airlines flights 11 and 175 crashed into the buildings.
Slung between the two smoky towers was a harrowing plaque displaying the names of the 2,977 people killed in the attacks on the towers and the Pentagon. The front, meanwhile, featured portraits of 13 local service members killed in the ensuing war on terror and a banner emblazoned with the words “Never Forget.”
The crown jewel of obtuseness was a recording of farewell messages that victims’ families received as their loved ones realized their fate was sealed.
Suffice it to say, the tone-deaf tribute created such a fierce backlash ahead of the event that the Facebook group hid critical reactions and limited which people can comment on their page.
One Chicago-based critic described the float as “beyond tasteless even without the fog machine going.”
“Did you really play the goodbye phone message recordings of the survivors??” they fumed. “Who thought that was a good idea??”
“What in the hell were the Porter County republicans thinking?” spluttered another incredulous commenter. “This video made me nauseous.”
Another wrote, “How that was allowed as a memorial to the 9/11 victims is complete insanity.”
In another video of the float posted to YouTube, a parade onlooker can be heard saying, “That’s a little f–ked up.”
Despite the outrage, it appears that the Valparaiso Republicans are sticking to their guns.
“An email we just received ‘Great job with the float, I know how much work was put into that,’” the group wrote in a pinned comment under their clip, quoting an alleged supporter. “‘I know people think it’s a disgrace but that was not your intention .you also put the names of the victims in the middle as the memorial.’”
“‘Everyone has to be sensitive about everything nowadays. I’m proud to live in Valparaiso and wish I was there to see this,’” they added.
This isn’t the first time someone has taken heat for an insensitive Sept. 11 commemoration. A couple is currently facing the music online for hosting an “obscene and revolting” 9/11-themed wedding after an image was shared online of the wedding party’s personalized beer koozie featuring the Twin Towers.