||||Thomas H. Caldwell

While I’ve seen a transit of Mercury, I’ve never seen a transit of Venus. The only chances for someone in my generation to witness a Venus transit were on 06-08-2004 and 06-05-2012 (yesterday). I don’t know what happen in 2004 (I guess I had a job), but I was ready this year. Unfortunately, “clouds got in my way”. I was not pleased!

So that I didn’t come away with absolutely nothing, I photographed sunspots the next day when the skies were clear.

1930 Ford Pickup.

 

1933 Ford

Yuengling’s ice cream plant (closed in 1981). The  Schuylkill County Courthouse (built in 1892) is in the distance and towers over downtown Pottsville. Few people need to ask for directions.

 

Yuengling Brewery, Mahantongo Street, Pottsville, PA. President Obama has said that Yuengling is his favorite beer. I’m sure that somehow Fox News will have a problem with that endorsement. 

 

Market Street turret.

 

Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Garfield Square, Pottsville, PA.

 

First Methodist Church, Market Street, Pottsville, PA. This building is an example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture.

Philadelphia skyline from Archbishop Prendergast High School.

 

Archbishop Prendergast and (in the distance) Monsignor Bonner High Schools. The two schools will merge and not be closed as was previously announced.

Prendergast is the high school in the movie Silver Linings Playbook where Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) looses his teaching job.

 

Upper Darby High School. Some notable alumni: Lloyd Alexander, Jim Croce, Heather Donahue, Tina Fey, Jack Ramsey, and Marty Stern. Todd Rundgren also attended UDHS, but did not graduate.

 

Drexel Hill Middle School (formerly Drexel Hill Junior High School) althletic fields. Some good memories and a couple life lessons were made and learned here. If you overlook the rusty and crooked fences, the fields still look pretty good, however the school itself  looks bad. I remember when it was brand new, but that was long ago. 

 

1960 DHJHS Track Team (R.I.P. coach Cain, d. 1997)

 

1960 DHJHS Football Team (R.I.P. coach Medzarentz, d. 2010)

 

Drexelbrook Catering (formerly Drexelbrook Swimming and Tennis Club). What happened to that giant pool? Did I do all those watermelons and can openers for nothing? 

Dick Clark, Ed McMahon, and Lee Iacocca all at some point lived in the surrounding Drexelbrook Apartments. This complex of townhouses was built on the former site of the Aronimink Golf Club.

 

Saint Bernadette’s Church and School, Drexel Hill, PA. John Facenda (the voice of NFL Films) attended Mass here.

 

Aronimink Elementary School, Drexel Hill, PA.

 

View from the family plot, Arlington Cemetery, Drexel Hill, PA.

 

The Drexel Hill home where Jim Croce lived at the time of his graduation from Upper Darby High School in 1960.

 

Drexel Hill home on Argyle Avenue where Helen Conway burned to death on November 8, 1964.  It’s a world famous alleged case of SHC (spontaneous human combustion).

Spring ?  In my mind I’m already there!

Crocuses in the woods behind my house.

 

Daffodils.

The following  photos were taken on a 4-day trip to visit two of my three children, Sarah in Manhattan and Steve in the Boston area. Unfortunately Mike could not be included since he lives in Beijing, China.

 

A rising One World Trade Center as seen from the New Jersey Turnpike. The Pulaski Skyway is in the middle distance.

 

 The Lipstick Building (left) stands at the intersection of 3rd Avenue and 53rd Street.

 

Same intersection at night.

 

Citibank Building rests on supercolumns. A student’s question lead  William LeMessurier, the building’s designer, to realize that there were some serious design and construction flaws in the the new building (strong quartering winds could blow the building over).  As a result, workers were hired to secretly repaired the structure and a future disaster was made less likely. It was many years before the public became aware of this cautionary tale. In other words, I wouldn’t plan on being in NYC during a catagory 5 hurricane.

 

Citibank Geometry.

 

Citibank Building does some skyscraping.

 

In the center is the Sony Building ( formerly AT&T Building) which is also known as the Chippendale Building. Philip Johnson and John Burgee were the architects of this 1984 structure.

 

599 Lexington Avenue, The Benjamin Hotel, Marriott East Side Hotel (formerly Shelton Towers Hotel), and Chrysler Building.

 

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel turret with General Electric Building in foreground.

 

Temple Ahawath Chesed SH (second from left).

 

100 United Nations Plaza Tower with Trump (where have I heard that name before?) World Tower in the background.

 

Off to Boston.

Boston downtown skyline. The tall buildings (from left to right): First National Bank Boston, The Landmark at Federal (Art Deco style with gold roof), 100 High Street, Keystone Building (white with rounded corners), and 125 High Street.

 

Closer view.

 

Boston architecture. The glass-walled Exchange Place stands behind the post-modern 75 State Street.

 

The Custom House Tower stands behind the Grange Exchange.

 

Boston harbor. Marriott’s Custom House Hotel (formerly Custom House Tower) is in the distance and the Marriot Long Wharf is on the right.

 

Boats at Long Wharf, Boston, Massachusetts.

 

Frank Gehry’s Stata Center at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I had no idea the earthquake was that bad!

 

Dunster House tower, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The fictional character Skylar lived here in the movie Good Will Hunting.

 

 

Northern end of  Weeks Footbridge.

 

Leverett Towers and Dunster House from Weeks Footbridge, Harvard University.

 

Rower on the Charles River from Weeks Footbridge.

 

Weld Boathouse, Harvard University (and yes there is a Tuesday Weld connection).

 

Weld Boathouse and Eliot House.

 

This view from Anderson Bridge includes Weeks Bridge, Dunster House, and Mather House. At 199 feet Mather House is the tallest building on campus.

 

One of two lanterns atop Weld Hall, Harvard University. Weld was JFK’s freshman dorm.

 

Harvard Hall (1766).

 

Looking across the Old Yard toward Hollis and Stoughton Halls, Harvard University.

 

Memorial Church, Harvard University.

 

Widener Memorial Library, Harvard Yard. The woman in a yellow scarf is smiling at my grandson, John Alexander Caldwell. This was Jack’s first visit to his father’s alma mater (2000). Class of 2033?

Video of the 2012 graduation ceremonies in Tercentenary Theater (42:30 to 44:12 shows how it begins): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c0EsQjnJ-4.

Student Orations at 2012 Harvard Graduation (all good, but the Latin Oration by Michael Velchik is special): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB2tFosxHX4.

Kennedy School of Government: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHZ2DpIaxt4

 

Tappan Zee Bridge on the way home.

View from the top of the Chestnut Street Parking Garage.

 

Is the roof of the Chestnut Street Parking Garage being used to search for extraterrestrial life?

The International Space Station exits the Earth’s shadow.

The three bright stars arcing across the top half of the photo from left to right are Polaris (Alpha Ursae Minoris), Er Rai (Gamma Cephei), and Caph (Beta Cassiopeiae).

Deneb (near top of photo about half way from the left edge to the center), Vega (brightest star in the upper right quadrant), and Altair (near lower edge left of center) together form the Summer Triangle. The Northern Cross runs diagonally from Deneb to Alberio (near center) and is embedded in the Milky Way.