The Panama Canal from Hofstra University at hofstra.edu.

The Panama Canal saved 7,872 miles in transit for cargo, and people, when it opened to applause from shippers around the world. No longer was it necessary to sail around South America. Difficult to build, the Panama Canal’s story is a drama involving changes in leadership, tragedies and victories in public health, and perhaps one of the greatest achievements in public relations. The Panama Canal caused a new era in shipbuilding. The new and improved version, technically known as the Third Set of Locks Project ,doubles capacity with new locks on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides, as well as raising Lake Gatun. The reason for the expansion? Accommodation of “Post-Panamax” megaships carrying ever-bigger loads of cargo and ever-more decks of tourists for transit of one of the world’s most famous cruise itineraries. Expansion of the Panama Canal caused ports to enlarge their capacity: Baltimore, Norfolk, and Miami are among United States ports accommodating post-panamax ships in a post-2015 world. Where will the world’s next cut-through be? Cuba? Or will Ernst Frankel’s design for the Bering Strait, delivered in the Annual Frank P. Davidson Lecture in Paris, 2012, be next short-cut to transform world transport?

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/BalticRailTerminal008.jpg

What is the destiny of train transport? The Trans-Siberian Railway set a model not only for rail, but also social, engineering. When the Russian line, completed in 1904, needed upgrading in 1917, Russia and the United States entered into a cooperative agreement. George Emerson, an executive in the American rail industry, was called to Washington with an urgent mission: recruit a corps of 300 Americans from leading U.S.  railway companies to join the Russian Railway Service Corps. Executives left Chicago and New York, moving to Russia for eight years to work side-by-side with their engineering colleagues. One might imagine there was toasting, as well as technology transfer. For more on the Russian Railway Service Corps, visit http://www.indianahistory.org/our-collections/collection-guides/warren-f-hockaday-collection-ca-1899-ca-1934.pdf. Should today’s transport engineers found an International Railway Corps to design regional and global systems? Will Mead Treadwell’s proposal for rail across the Bering Strait be built via Nafta/Alena/Tlcan? Might Svetlana Kuzmichenko’s report on extending the Trans-Siberian to Japan for a Tokyo-Moscow-London line or to South Korea via North Korea for a Seoul-Moscow-London line become reality, perhaps studied at a station/university like the venerable Baltic Rail Terminal?

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The driving of the final spike, from Golden Spike National Historic Site, at nationalparks.org.

Today is the anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. The last spike was driven into the ground on May 10, 1869, the news of which was telegraphed around the nation near simultaneously! It is a little known, but important, fact that telegraph lines were placed beneath the rail tracks, creating one of the first large communications networks. The United States previously held the world record in rail tracks, but now China is deemed the leader as that nation builds a rail network uniting major cities with high speed rail including maglev. When the United States Transcontinental Railroad opened for business, cross country travel formerly taking six months by covered wagon could now be accomplished in 10 days. Commerce increased rapidly; by 1880, $50 million in cargo traveled across the 1800 miles of rail. In the future, will the United States join Canada and Mexico in a vision of high speed rail, perhaps as a celebration of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)? Could the PanAmerican highway become the route of a new transportation corridor combining state-of-the-art rail, road, and bikeway?

To read the original New York Times report, please see:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0510.html#article

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Eiffel Tower, from Wikimedia Commons at wikimedia.org.

Iconic public art — what value does it bring to a city? Originally intended to be on display for just 20 years, Paris’ famed tower was built by civil engineer, Gustave Eiffel, after winning a competition for public art to celebrate the centennial of the French revolution for the International Exposition of 1889. The Eiffel Tower was an instant success; two million people paid admission in the first year, spending more than 5.9 million gold francs. An enterprising Eiffel convinced the government his sculpture should remain permanently because its height made it an ideal choice for new communications technology. Antennae were added, allowing the first European pubic radio broadcast to be beamed from the tower in 1921. Today, a webcam (http://www.abcparislive.com) is in place. How can today’s cities (or university campuses) celebrate their unique culture with art that is at once engaging, financially successful, and useful?

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

SFOT Red Train 4 by James Murray from Wikimedia Commons, at wikimedia.org.

Haunting whistle in the night, hypnotic rhythm of wheels on rail, panting acceleration of uphill runs breathed heavily by a 2860 engine, sigh of brakes — these were sounds quite new in the landscapes of the world until rather recently. The business of constructing rails was introduced in England in the seventeenth century. British mapmaker and engineer Captain John Montressor built the first American railway in Lewiston, New York in 1764. Nearly a century later, the Golden Spike was driven, completing the Transcontinental Railroad; it was now possible to traverse the country in 10 days instead of six months. The Transcontinental Railroad (1869), Canadian Pacific Railway (1885) and the Trans-Siberian Railway (1904) introduced soundscape to the landscape — the train whistle. Japan’s Shinkansen(1964) added a new note: each commuter station is announced by an electronic tune, composed to reflect the culture of the district. For a train soundscape, enjoy a listen (and look) via YouTube “Sound of Royal Hudson steam engine with O Canada horn ‘Good Times Express’” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQNQbuXjF2M). Finding music in the midst of urban sound, George Gershwin who included in “American in Paris” the blare of French taxi horns, might agree with Mozart: “Music is continuous, listening is intermittent.” As new trains, and cars, are developed, should musicians be on the team to create the ideal soundscape?

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Walking Brooklyn Bridge, public domain image for use in United States.

Brooklyn Bridge has inspired more poetry than any other bridge in history. Hart Crane, Jack Kerouac, Walt Whitman are among those who spake thus:

O Sleepless as the river under thee,

Vaulting the sea, the prairies’ dreaming sod,

Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend

And of the curveship lend a myth to God.

- To Brooklyn Bridge, by Hart Crane

Artists continue to be inspired by the Brooklyn Bridge. Joseph Stella painted Roebling’s cabled masterwork in deconstructed cubism. Actor Bill Murray quoted Wallace Stevens and Galway Kinnell intoned Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” at Poets House in New York City on June 13, 2012 for the 25th Annual Poetry Walk Across Brooklyn Bridge. “Poems give you what you need for life’s journey,” stated Lee Briccetti, Executive Director. Should Boston initiate an annual poetry marathon, honoring victims and heroes of the April 2013 Boston Marathon, on the Zakim Bridge or perhaps in Boston’s Copley Square?

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Suez Canal Bridge, from Wikimedia Commons, at wikimedia.org.

Opening a waterway for shipping transport from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean through a passage in the Red Sea, the Suez Canal was under one form of construction or another for 3,700 years. Winding 101 miles (163 kilometers) through desert, connecting lakes until reaching the Isthmus of Suez, the canal links Mediterranean Port Said with Suez on the Red Sea. Over 1.5 million people worked on the project, whose ceremonial opening on November 17, 1869, was celebrated by the commissioning of Verdi’s opera, Aida. It’s one of the world’s most important waterways; in just one month (May 2002), 1,135 vessels transited carrying total tonnage exceeding 27.6 million. Significantly, the firman of 1854, granting concession to Ferdinand de Lesseps by Pasha al-Said, mandates the canal be open on equal terms to ships of all nations: “tariffs of dues for passage shall always be equal for all nations, no particular advantage can ever be stipulated for the exclusive benefit of any one country.” Does the Suez Canal set a precedent for the cooperation of nations, especially through international and transnational infrastructure?

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

 Sultan Mosque, photo by Judhi Prasetyo, Creative Commons

Located on a strait running between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, Singapore connects China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The port holds the record for shipping tonnage among all global ports. A city of the world, Singapore has five official languages: Chinese, English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil. As early as 1800s, houses of worship included the Sultan Mosque, Hindu Sri Mariamman Temple, Taoist Wak Hai Cheng Temple, and Buddhist Kuan Yin Temple. Can Singapore inspire more empathy and multiculturalism in our world?

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Worker on the Erie Canal, From Library of Congress, at loc.gov.

Linking Lake Erie via the Hudson River to New York City, the Erie Canal changed the economy of the United States. Internal waterways have stimulated advances in culture and exchange dating back to China’s Grand Canal. Many jobs were created; workers flocked to construction sites along the route. They lived together in camps, developing team organizational skills that would characterize American business. Innovation flourished; Erie saw the first hydraulic cement used in the United States. Open for business in 1825, the waterway was an instant success. Before it cost $100 per ton to transport goods over land; now, $10 per ton. A museum dedicated to the Erie Canal is housed in the only existing weighlock building in the United States (http://eriecanalmuseum.org). The Erie Canal could be called the Internet of its day: both were connection routes financed by government but developed by the private sector. Entrepreneurial ventures sprang up, soon exceeding initial cost of building the route. How does connection stimulate innovation? What’s beyond the Internet?

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G. Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Cherry Blossoms at the Washington, D.C. Tidal Basin, from Library of Congress at loc.gov.

Springtime is official, in Japan and the United States, when cherry trees blossom. Long a tradition in Japan, flowering cherry trees, or Sakura, are celebrated as a national treasure symbolizing life’s evanescent beauty. In 1912, on Valentine’s Day, February 14, Japan bestowed upon the United States a gift of 3,020 cherry trees to be planted in the capital of Washington, D.C. During the next seven years, 1,800 Somei-Yoshino trees were set around the Tidal Basin, while the very special Gyo-i-ko variety were reserved for the gardens of the White House. Later, in 1952, the United States was able to return the favor when a particularly beloved Tokyo cherry grove needed restoration. The National Park Service sent cuttings from the original gifted Japanese trees so that Japan’s capital could reestablish the Arakawa River garden. Statuary soon joined the other monuments for which the United States capital is famous: on April 18, 1958, a Japanese Pagoda was presented as a gift by the Mayor of Yokohama to “symbolize the spirit of friendship between Japan and the United States of America as manifested in the Treaty of Peace, Amity and Commerce signed at Yokohama on March 31, 1854″ (www.nps.gov/cherry/cherry-blossom-history.htm). Each spring, in the United States and in Japan, diplomacy is renewed.

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.