Bradford Gilbert

Bradford Lee Gilbert (24 March 1853–1 September 1911) was a nationally-active architect based in New York City.

Gilbert is best known for designing the first steel-framed curtain wall building in New York, the Tower Building, which opened at 50 Broadway in 1889. The Tower Building is considered New York City's first skyscraper. There is some dispute as to whether the Tower Building had eleven or thirteen floors, depending on which floors were counted and which side of the building was considered. It had to have the steel-frame construction because on its narrow lot, masonry-supporting walls would have allowed almost no free space on the first floor. Gilbert's design used the same frame as a railroad bridge, but rotated vertically. The Tower Building was initially greeted with great skepticism, with members of the public predicting it would blow over. This prompted Gilbert to scale the building in the middle of an 1889 hurricane to demonstrate with a plumb line that the building was not vibrating. The building was razed in 1914.

Bradford Gilbert (politician)

Bradford Gilbert (ca 1746 – 1814) was a merchant and political figure in New Brunswick. He represented St. John in the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick from 1793 to 1809.

Originally from Freetown, Massachusetts, the son of Francis Gilbert, he was proscribed and banished in 1778 as a loyalist. Gilbert settled in New Brunswick. He served as an alderman in Saint John and was a member of the St. John Loyal Artillery. He died in Saint John at the age of 68.

References

Bradford

Coordinates: 53°48′00″N 1°45′07″W / 53.8000°N 1.75206°W / 53.8000; -1.75206

Bradford ⁱ/ˈbrædfərd/ is in the Metropolitan Borough of the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England, in the foothills of the Pennines 8.6 miles (14 km) west of Leeds, and 16 miles (26 km) northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897. Following local government reform in 1974, city status was bestowed upon the wider metropolitan borough.

Bradford forms part of the West Yorkshire Urban Area conurbation which in 2001 had a population of 1.5 million and is the fourth largest urban area in the United Kingdom with the Bradford subdivision of the aforementioned urban area having a population of 528,155.

Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Bradford rose to prominence during the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture, particularly wool. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and amongst the earliest industrialised settlements, rapidly becoming the "wool capital of the world". The area's access to a supply of coal, iron ore and soft water facilitated the growth of Bradford's manufacturing base, which, as textile manufacture grew, led to an explosion in population and was a stimulus to civic investment; Bradford has a large amount of listed Victorian architecture including the grand Italianate City Hall.

Martini (cocktail)

The Martini is a cocktail made with gin and vermouth, and garnished with an olive or a lemon twist. Over the years, the Martini has become one of the best-known mixed alcoholic beverages. H. L. Mencken called the Martini "the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet" and E. B. White called it "the elixir of quietude".

Preparation

By 1922 the Martini reached its most recognizable form in which London dry gin and dry vermouth are combined at a ratio of 2:1, stirred in a mixing glass with ice cubes, with the optional addition of orange or aromatic bitters, then strained into a chilled cocktail glass. Over time the generally expected garnish became the drinker's choice of a green olive or a twist of lemon peel.

A dry Martini is made with dry, white vermouth. By the Roaring Twenties, it became common to ask for them. Over the course of the century, the amount of vermouth steadily dropped. During the 1930s the ratio was 3:1, and during the 1940s the ratio was 4:1. During the latter part of the 20th century, 6:1, 8:1, 12:1, or even 50:1 or 100:1 Martinis became considered the norm.

Bradford, Pennsylvania

Bradford is a city in McKean County, Pennsylvania, United States, close to the border with New York State and approximately 78 miles (126 km) south of Buffalo, New York. Bradford is the principal city in the Bradford, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area.

History

Settled in 1823, Bradford was chartered as a city in 1879 and emerged as a wild oil boomtown in the Pennsylvania oil rush in the late 19th century. The area's Pennsylvania Grade crude oil has superior qualities and is free of asphaltic constituents, contains only trace amounts of sulfur and nitrogen, and has excellent characteristics for refining into lubricants. The Bradford & Foster Brook Railway was built in 1876 as one of, if not the first, monorails in America, when Bradford was a booming oil town. World-famous Kendall racing oils were produced in Bradford.

The population peaked at 19,306 in 1930, but at the 2010 census had dropped to 8,770. Two adjoining townships, home to approximately 9,000 people, make the population of Greater Bradford about 18,000. Famous Bradfordians include the opera singer Marilyn Horne, the Hall of Fame baseball player Rube Waddell and the five-time All-Star football player Stew Barber. A famous perpetual motion machine hoax was created in Bradford in 1897 by J.M. Aldrich; it was exposed in the July 1, 1899, issue of the Scientific American magazine, leading to a four-month prison sentence in the county jail.