Stepjam

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Posts posted by Stepjam

  5. Posted

    This is encouraging!

    With the soda ash, is it carried in bags or in buckets?

    I'm guessing the Hurst tool & accessories are stored carried in the forward lower compartment behind the driver. Is that correct?

    The rear lower compartment looks like it has a vertical divider, but I'm not sure. What is carried back there?

    x635 likes this

  8. Posted

    One of the major factors in the spread of the fire that day was Low Water Pressure. It was an Extremely hot, humid day and most of the hydrants were open with the water running down the streets. I really don't think there was much of a wind that day. My guess is that several buildings just lite off by the radiant heat (as probadly seen in one of the pictures). If there was a wind it was created from the massive fire. I've seen that happen a few times before.

    That's what I meant to say. That fire was so big, it probably sucked in the surrounding air and created a noticeable breeze. I read about the firebombing of Hamburg during WWII, the winds generated by the man-made firestorm vortex reached 130 mph. It just pulled everything in.

  10. Posted

    I saw the color pictures here a long time ago, but I just realized now after looking at the B&W ones that the 3-story bookstore building on the opposite corner exposure is fully involved. Call me crazy, but I used to think it was only a reflection from the main fire. It's almost inconceivable that an exterior can get going like that, yet the rest of the structure looks fine.

    With that kind of volume, I would imagine there must have been a pretty stiff breeze in the direction of the fire. I'm looking at that probably-doomed tree in one shot, looks like its leaves are getting whipped up pretty good. Bet it was loud. Then there's that poor Ford LTD under the rubble, unburned but crushed flat. I read through the thread on Jamie's link, and saw that some folks lost everything. It's really a miracle that there were no serious injuries.

    What ever happened to the little peckerheads who started it? And what the Hell was inside that "abandoned" factory?

    x635 likes this

  11. Posted · Edited by Stepjam

    After many fruitless searches to find archives of this massive blaze, I finally found a great website that has a

    lot of the old Herald Statesman issues on PDF. Probably has a lot of other papers too.

    Fulton History

    As I mentioned in a previous thread, this was the biggest fire I ever personally witnessed in my life, and I saw it from the first alarm arrival, when there was nothing to see, right up to the full general alarm. I was on my way home from school, and what kid wouldn't stop and look when an Engine and Ladder stop on the street? This thing got going really fast, and just ran away from the firefighters. I attached the files with the full article from the Herald Statesman.

    Yonkers NY Herald Statesman 1976 Grayscale - 7044.pdf

    Yonkers NY Herald Statesman 1976 Grayscale - 7049.pdf

    gss131 and JFLYNN like this

  12. Posted

    I was only able to make it out for the first day of photos, but unable to make the show. I echo Joe's statement, it's the first time something like this has been done, be a little more understanding. My hat's off to Mike for setting this up. It took a lot of work on his part, and instead of bashing him, maybe you should say thanks for setting it up.

    Ditto. I could only stay for a few hours, but it was great to finally meet some other modellers and buffs in person. By itself, that made it worth my trip.

  13. Posted

    "The tree of Liberty needs to be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

    -Thomas Jefferson

    3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)

    This travesty shows how dysfunctional our political system has become. Both parties are dominated by either fascists or anarchists; the platforms are obsessed with the media-fueled "Liberal vs. Conservative" frenzy, and the majority of the American people, whom I believe to be moderate, are forgotten. I am sick that this man has to endure such an outrage and humiliation at the hands of a corrupt judiciary. If such outrages continue to happen in our United States, then surely Jefferson's missive will come to pass once again.

  14. Posted

    Excellent topic.

    I know that in the past, a lot of these buildings were manufactured and then assembled on site. Lately, I have seen some recent addtions that appear to be stick-built frame structures. I wouldn't bet my life on it, but I would think that a fire in a frame would not spread as quickly as it would in a manufactured modular, which would light up like a trailer once it's vented.

    Not to get too far OTS, but I was amused by 64FFMJK's post about the 5-Guys in Poughkeepsie. A couple of things came to mind about that place. Number one, if you are allergic to peanuts, don't even step inside the joint. Peanut oil seems to be everywhere as a light aerosol, and it coats everything in the place, giving it a distinct greasy feel. Actually, I think it's gross.

    x635 likes this

  19. Posted · Edited by Stepjam

    I can't help wondering if he wasn't playing with matches somewhere else, got burned, then ran home when he got burned. It just sounds very odd.

    I remember those kids who were playing with gasoline in a vacant lot, I think it was in Yonkers or maybe the Bronx. They got it on their clothes, and some spilled into an adjacent OMD basement and came in contact with an open flame. The kids got burned and ran for home, the building burned, and it took a while for the full story to come out.

  20. Posted

    First of all, I think it's idiotic to heap blame solely upon Walmart for this tragedy. After so many years, does anyone really expect anything more from this cut-throat, exploitive company? I sure don't. I occasionally shop there out of necessity, but I always feel like I have to take a shower when I come home. The most you can blame them for was inadequate planning and security. They didn't kill that man, the savages lining up outside did. Just look at the videos prior to the incident. I can name a couple of other local incidents over the ast twenty years or so that had a similar beginning and end.

    Secondly, let me say that I am familiar with both of the stores mentioned here; Valley Stream and "The Cortlandt Towne Centre" (aka Peekskill), and have witnessed some of the clientele that they attract on a regular basis from some of the surrounding areas.

    Go to either store on a Saturday night, and some of the goings-on would curl your hair. My local store, Fishkill, is the NUMBER ONE stop for

    Fishkill PD, usually because of shoplifiting offenses. Occasionally, there is an altercation of some sort, the Troopers are there fairly often as well. A number of years ago I physically intervened as a man started beating his preschool-aged son because the kid wanted some trinket. Yes, the Police did come and yes, I was interviewed and gave statement. It was very bad.

    Anyway, Let's see how long it takes before I get crucified for that preceding paragraph by the PC police. Sorry, but it is what it is. "Always Low Prices" will bring "Always Low Class" savages, along with regular human beings. Walmart just brings out the worst in people, particullarly at this time of year.

    Thank God for Dot.coms.

  21. Posted · Edited by Stepjam

    So much for being in a budget crunch? I'm sure some part of government is paying for it.

    Personally, I think it was money well spent if it gets people's attention and they learn something from it. How many people really knew that the British continued to garrison New York City and Savannah GA for two whole years AFTER Cornwallis's "decisive" defeat at Yorktown? Or that the British eventually defeated the French after they intervened on our behalf? It saddens me when I hear so many of my countrymen know so little about our own history. The spotlights were a great idea; they got people talking!

  22. Posted

    it's a nice truck, i'm not trying to start anything but what does Yonkers need that for?

    LOL.... I was thinking the same thing.

    This variety of "specialty" rigs showing up in YFD sort of reminds me of the FDNY "fantasy kitbashes" that were flooding ebay a couple of years

    back. I'm not trying to start anything either, YFD is always Number-One in my book. :)

  23. Posted · Edited by Stepjam

    Op-Ed = Opinion

    How's the old saying go, opinions are like... well you know how it ends.

    There is no shortage of either.

    That's absolutely correct, and I made note of that.

    In this case, the writer's opinion and mine are almost exactly the same. Since he and I are not Siamese twins, the rest of "old saying" doesn't apply. :rolleyes:

  24. Posted

    I'll admit, I'm less than thrilled at the results of this past election. However, Obama is the President-elect of the United States, and so I will be respectful of the office.

    That said, I came across this entertaining op-ed piece from the Daily Mail (UK), which is often unusually far-right, at least for a British newspaper. While a quarter of a million Germans may be thronging for a glimpse of the new Global President, not everyone in the European media is so enamored with him, apparently. I think this captures the feelings of many, and there is much in it that I couldn't have said better myself. True, this is only one man's opinion, but I found it to be very well written.

    The night we waved goodbye to America: How sad. Where now is our last best hope on Earth?

    Daily Mail Online (UK)-by Peter Hitchens

    November 10th 2008

    Anyone would think we had just elected a hip, skinny and youthful replacement for God, with a plan to modernise Heaven and Hell – or that at the very least John Lennon had come back from the dead.

    The swooning frenzy over the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States must be one of the most absurd waves of self-deception and swirling fantasy ever to sweep through an advanced civilisation. At least Mandela-worship – its nearest equivalent – is focused on a man who actually did something.

    I really don’t see how the Obama devotees can ever in future mock the Moonies, the Scientologists or people who claim to have been abducted in flying saucers. This is a cult like the one which grew up around Princess Diana, bereft of reason and hostile to facts

    It already has all the signs of such a thing. The newspapers which recorded Obama’s victory have become valuable relics. You may buy Obama picture books and Obama calendars and if there isn’t yet a children’s picture version of his story, there soon will be.

    Proper books, recording his sordid associates, his cowardly voting record, his astonishingly militant commitment to unrestricted abortion and his blundering trip to Africa, are little-read and hard to find.

    If you can believe that this undistinguished and conventionally Left-wing machine politician is a sort of secular saviour, then you can believe anything. He plainly doesn’t believe it himself. His cliche-stuffed, PC clunker of an acceptance speech suffered badly from nerves. It was what you would expect from someone who knew he’d promised too much and that from now on the easy bit was over.

    He needn’t worry too much. From now on, the rough boys and girls of America’s Democratic Party apparatus, many recycled from Bill Clinton’s stained and crumpled entourage, will crowd round him, to collect the rich spoils of his victory and also tell him what to do, which is what he is used to.

    Just look at his sermon by the shores of Lake Michigan. He really did talk about a ‘new dawn’, and a ‘timeless creed’ (which was ‘yes, we can’). He proclaimed that ‘change has come’. He revealed that, despite having edited the Harvard Law Review, he doesn’t know what ‘enormity’ means. He reached depths of oratorical drivel never even plumbed by our own Mr Blair, burbling about putting our hands on the arc of history (or was it the ark of history?) and bending it once more toward the hope of a better day (Don’t try this at home).

    I am not making this up. No wonder that awful old hack Jesse Jackson sobbed as he watched. How he must wish he, too, could get away with this sort of stuff.

    And it was interesting how the President-elect failed to lift his admiring audience by repeated – but rather hesitant – invocations of the brainless slogan he was forced by his minders to adopt against his will – ‘Yes, we can’. They were supposed to thunder ‘Yes, we can!’ back at him, but they just wouldn’t join in. No wonder. Yes we can what exactly? Go home and keep a close eye on the tax rate, is my advice. He’d have been better off bursting into ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony’ which contains roughly the same message and might have attracted some valuable commercial sponsorship.

    Perhaps, being a Chicago crowd, they knew some of the things that 52.5 per cent of America prefers not to know. They know Obama is the obedient servant of one of the most squalid and unshakeable political machines in America. They know that one of his alarmingly close associates, a state-subsidised slum landlord called Tony Rezko, has been convicted on fraud and corruption charges.

    They also know the US is just as segregated as it was before Martin Luther King – in schools, streets, neighbourhoods, holidays, even in its TV-watching habits and its choice of fast-food joint. The difference is that it is now done by unspoken agreement rather than by law.

    If Mr Obama’s election had threatened any of that, his feel-good white supporters would have scuttled off and voted for John McCain, or practically anyone. But it doesn’t. Mr Obama, thanks mainly to the now-departed grandmother he alternately praised as a saint and denounced as a racial bigot, has the huge advantages of an expensive private education. He did not have to grow up in the badlands of useless schools, shattered families and gangs which are the lot of so many young black men of his generation.

    If the nonsensical claims made for this election were true, then every positive discrimination programme aimed at helping black people into jobs they otherwise wouldn’t get should be abandoned forthwith. Nothing of the kind will happen. On the contrary, there will probably be more of them.

    And if those who voted for Obama were all proving their anti-racist nobility, that presumably means that those many millions who didn’t vote for him were proving themselves to be hopeless bigots. This is obviously untrue.

    I was in Washington DC the night of the election. America’s beautiful capital has a sad secret. It is perhaps the most racially divided city in the world, with 15th Street – which runs due north from the White House – the unofficial frontier between black and white. But, like so much of America, it also now has a new division, and one which is in many ways much more important. I had attended an election-night party in a smart and liberal white area, but was staying the night less than a mile away on the edge of a suburb where Spanish is spoken as much as English, plus a smattering of tongues from such places as Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan.

    As I walked, I crossed another of Washington’s secret frontiers. There had been a few white people blowing car horns and shouting, as the result became clear. But among the Mexicans, Salvadorans and the other Third World nationalities, there was something like ecstasy.

    They grasped the real significance of this moment. They knew it meant that America had finally switched sides in a global cultural war. Forget the Cold War, or even the Iraq War. The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world.

    Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving its own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part Muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.

    These strengths had been fading for some time, mainly due to poorly controlled mass immigration and to the march of political correctness. They had also been weakened by the failure of America’s conservative party – the Republicans – to fight on the cultural and moral fronts.

    They preferred to posture on the world stage. Scared of confronting Left-wing teachers and sexual revolutionaries at home, they could order soldiers to be brave on their behalf in far-off deserts. And now the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad. Where now is our last best hope on Earth?

  25. Posted · Edited by Stepjam

    Talk about "overreacting"!!! How is this different from the Civil Defense corps of the 50's and 60's?

    Are you all worried about domestic security, or going after those terrorists on foreign soil? What is "Homeland Security"??

    I really can't believe how ignorant some of the public can be when they watch these TV news talk shows. People really need to start doing their homework before making some of the comments I've seen here.

    Seth, I respect your opinions and give them their due because you are the primary owner and moderator of this site. Since you have revealed your political and social opinions in past threads, I won't debate philosophy with you here.

    What I will take exception to is any inference from ANYBODY that my concerns are based on ignorance. With that kind of attitude, can I expect to be called a racist because I voted for McCain? If you have the facts about Obama's intentions, by all means post them. I raised a question by starting this thread, and I am somewhat relieved that I'm not the only educated, informed, and involved citizen who is concerned. Don't imply that those of us who aren't Obamamites are ignorant, especially since a very well-reasoned argument can be made for the opposite disposition.

    AP article

    YouTube video of O-man's speech