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12-month study shows the benefits of walking while working extend beyond burning extra calories
Walking while you work may not only improve an employee's health, it may also boost productivity, according to new research from the University of Minnesota just published in PLOS ONE.
Professor of Work and Organizations Avner Ben-Ner and his coauthors studied employees using treadmills instead of office chairs as they work. The subjects were 40 employees of a Twin Cities financial services company. Their offices were refitted to have a computer, phone, and writing space on a desk in front of a treadmill to be operated by the employee at up to two mph. The walkers were studied for one year and data on performance and work-related activities and events were collected through surveys of the walkers and their supervisors. Additionally, each walker was given an energy expenditure monitoring device a month before their treadmills were installed. These devices were to be worn continuously during waking hours.
The results of the study were encouraging - the treadmills had a significantly favorable impact on both physical activity and work performance. As would be expected, walkers were burning more calories than before the study began - by about 7 to 8 percent a day. "It's not a lot, but if you take a sedentary office worker and you spread it around the day, that's a good outcome," Ben-Ner says.
'Substantial Increase' in Productivity Observed
More interesting is the marked increase in worker productivity. After an initial decline as employees learned how to adjust to walking while working on their tasks, productivity went up. Production measures were derived from employee and supervisor surveys of quantity of performance, quality of performance, and quality of interaction with co-workers. An overall performance measure was on a 10-point scale. "For the duration of the study, productivity increased by close to a point," Ben-Ner says. "That's a substantial increase."
Ben-Ner calls the outcome of the study a win-win situation. "It's a health-improving option that costs very little. I think there will be an increasing number of employers who will invest $1,000 or $2,000 in outfitting a persons' workstation," he says. "The employer benefits from the employee being active and healthy and more smart because more blood is flowing to the brain."
Ben-Ner suggests that future research could examine various circumstances that could affect employee performance. It may be that less physically fit employees or those who have more cognitively complex tasks may gain relatively more from the use treadmill workstations. Generational difference among employees also may play a role.
"I'm willing to bet my hat and my boots too that millennials will be more open to something like this because they grew up and came of age in a time concerning these types of things," he says. "It will be easier than trying to break in someone who is 50 years old and a lifelong sedentary person and get them to start walking."
"Treadmill Workstations: The Effects of Walking while Working on Physical Activity and Work Performance" by Avner Ben-Ner, Darla J. Hamann, Gabriel Koepp, Chimnay U. Manohar, and James Levine was published February 20, 2014 by PLOS ONE, an international, peer-reviewed, open-access, online publication.
New research could have important implications for marketers, consumers and researchers.
For approximately one week every month, millions of women change their economic behavior and become more focused on their social standing relative to other women. According to new research from The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, the ovulatory cycle alters women's behavior by subconsciously motivating them to outdo other women. This research could have important implications for marketers, consumers and researchers.
The researchers conducted three studies, one of which had ovulating and nonovulating women play the "dictator game." In this popular economic experiment, a person is given a fixed amount of money that she can choose to share with another person.
"We found that ovulating women were much less willing to share when the other person was another woman. They became meaner to other women," said Kristina Durante, assistant professor of marketing at the UTSA College of Business and lead author of the study.
Whereas nonovulating women shared about 50% of the money with another woman, ovulating women shared only half as much, keeping the rest of the cash for themselves.
In another study, women made product choices that could either maximize their individual gains or maximize their relative gains compared to other women. For example, women indicated if they preferred to have a $25,000 car while other women got $40,000 cars (Option A) or have a $20,000 car while other women got $12,000 cars (Option B). The study found that ovulating women preferred Option B, choosing products that would give them higher standing compared to other women.
"What's interesting about this finding is that ovulating women are so concerned about their relative position that they are willing to take less for themselves just so that they could outdo other women," said study coauthor Vladas Griskevicius, associate professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.
But the studies find that ovulation doesn't always make women want more status. When women played against a man rather than a woman in the dictator game, the researchers found an even more surprising result. Whereas ovulating women became meaner to women, they became nicer to men. While nonovulating women shared about 45% of the money with a man, ovulating women gave 60% of the money to the man.
"These findings are unlike anything we have ever seen in the dictator game. You just don't see people giving away more than half of their money," noted Durante. "One possibility is that we're seeing ovulating women share more money as a way to flirt with the men."
"Money, Status, and the Ovulatory Cycle" was published in the February issue of Journal of Marketing Research and builds on Durante and Griskevicius' previous work that has shown how the ovulatory cycle alters preferences for romantic partners, clothing, food and even politics. Based on studies rooted in theory and research in evolutionary biology and evolutionary consumer behavior, their findings that ovulating women jockey for position over other women is consistent with the literature on animals. For example, studies have shown that female monkeys become more aggressive toward other females when fertile.
Ultimately, Durante and Griskevicius' findings on women's monthly hormonal fluctuations could have important implications for consumers, marketers and researchers. Marketers especially might be able to use this information strategically by emphasizing the superiority of a given product in advertising, promotions and messages to female consumers.
The full text article is available here.
Study shows women's pricy purchases can keep rivals away from their mate
Purchasing designer handbags and shoes is a means for women to express their style, boost self-esteem, or even signal status. New University of Minnesota research suggests some women also seek these luxury items to prevent other women from stealing their man.
Through a series of five experiments featuring 649 women of varying ages and relationship statuses, Carlson School of Management Associate Professor Vladas Griskevicius and PhD student Yajin Wang discovered how women's luxury products often function as a signaling system directed at other women who pose a threat to their romantic relationships.
"It might seem irrational that each year Americans spend over $250 billion on women's luxury products with an average woman acquiring three new handbags a year, but conspicuous consumption is actually smart for women who want to protect their relationship," says Griskevicius, coauthor of The Rational Animal: How Evolution Made Us Smarter Than We Think. "When a woman is flaunting designer products, it says to other women 'back off my man.'"
Griskevicius and Wang first investigated what other women infer about a woman's relationship partner based on the luxuriousness of her possessions. "We found that a woman who is wearing luxury items and designer brands is perceived to have a more devoted partner and as a result other women are less likely to flirt with him," says Wang. "Regardless of who actually purchased the items, other women inferred that the man had something to do with it and is thus more devoted to her."
In another study, Griskevicius and Wang made participants feel jealous by having them imagine that another woman was flirting with their man. Shortly afterward, the women completed a seemingly unrelated task in which they drew a luxury brand logo on a handbag. The result? When women felt jealous, they drew designer logos that were twice the size of those in the other conditions.
"The feeling that a relationship is being threatened by another woman automatically triggers women to want to flash Gucci, Chanel, and Fendi to other women," explains Wang. "A designer handbag or a pair of expensive shoes seems to work like a shield, where wielding a Fendi handbag successfully fends off romantic rivals."
Another of Griskevicius and Wang's studies revealed that when romantic relationships were threatened, women not only desired more expensive handbags, cars, cell phones, and shoes, they also spent 32 percent more of their own money for a chance to win an actual luxury spending spree.
This research highlights that luxury products serve an important function in relationships, but that men and women use conspicuous consumption for a different purpose. Past research by Griskevicius has found that men often seek expensive products to show off to the opposite sex in order to attract them as mates. The current studies reveal that women often seek expensive products to show off to the same sex in order to protect their turf.
"The fact that most women's luxury products are aimed to impress other women helps explain why men have a hard time figuring out if a woman's handbag costs $50 or $5,000," adds Griskevicius. "Women's designer products are geared to show off to other women not men."
A surprising finding in the paper was that feelings of jealousy triggered a desire for luxury products not just for women in committed relationships but also for single women. "Many single women obviously want designer products, but instead of these products saying back off my current man, the single woman is saying back off my future man," adds Wang. "Conspicuous consumption for women has a lot to do with subtle status within the female group."
"Conspicuous Consumption, Relationships, and Rivals: Women's Luxury Products as Signals to Other Women" is currently in press at the Journal of Consumer Research.
Research from Associate Professor of Marketing Vlad Griskevicius suggests childhood environments may hold the key
In the face of hard times, which strategy gives us the best shot at survival: saving for the future or spending resources on immediate gains? The answer may depend on the economic conditions we faced in childhood, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Drawing on life history theory, Associate Professor Vladas Griskevicius of the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management and colleagues hypothesized that the strategy a person takes when times are tight may be determined, at least in part, by features of their childhood environment.
The researchers hypothesized that people who grew up unpredictable, harsh conditions (e.g., poverty), would take a "fast" strategy, focusing on immediate gains and ignoring long-term consequences. People who grew up in more predictable, comfortable conditions, however, would take a "slow" strategy, delaying immediate gratification in an effort to increase future payoffs.
In two experiments, the researchers primed half of the participants to think about economic recession. All of the participants then completed tasks related to risk-taking and impulsive decision-making.
Participants who grew up in poorer homes responded to recession cues with riskier, more impulsive responses than participants in the control group, consistent with a "fast" strategy. They were also faster to approach luxury good temptations. Participants who grew up in wealthier homes, on the other hand, responded to recession cues by showing less risky, less impulsive responses than participants in the control group, consistent with a "slow" strategy. They were also slower to approach the luxury goods.
In a third experiment, Griskevicius and colleagues found evidence that these different life history strategies may manifest as oxidative stress as detected in urine, a physiological indicator of cellular damage that can be accelerated by environmental stressors (such as those associated with poverty).
"These experiments show that our early childhood environment can program our life history strategy for the rest of our lives," says Griskevicius. "During good times, the tendencies associated with fast versus slow strategies can be dormant, but they emerge under duress."
Importantly, these tendencies can influence our responses in automatic and non-deliberative ways -- showing up even at the physiological level.
The trade-offs we make in times of scarcity have important consequences, but the researchers emphasize that neither strategy is inherently good or bad.
"Lots of research assumes that delay of gratification is always a good thing, but the current research suggests that it's sometimes smart to be impulsive," Griskevicius explains. "For people who expect to live in a harsh and unpredictable environment, it's more adaptive to be impulsive and maximize present resources and opportunities."
The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "When the Economy Falters, Do People Spend or Save? Responses to Resource Scarcity Depend on Childhood Environments" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Study helps employed and unemployed job seekers prepare for and cope with challenges
New research on the challenges and demands that job seekers face may help professionals better navigate their job-search experience. The study, conducted by the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management and TheLadders, and today published in Personnel Psychology, found five layers of context-related, job-search demands encountered by both employed and unemployed job seekers.
"There is a lot of information on specific job-searching techniques, but there is very little about the process itself," said the paper's lead author Connie Wanberg, the Industrial Relations Faculty Excellence Chair at the Carlson School. "This study provides a realistic preview of the job-search process, as well as lessons about coping with the challenges and surprises people faced."
The authors conducted a rigorous, qualitative investigation of the experiences of 40 unemployed, 23 employed and nine partially employed white-collar, managerial-level job seekers. Interviewing professionals seeking positions in finance, human resources, marketing, operations and sales allowed the researchers to focus on the difficulties of the job search, rather than economic challenges.
Analyzing the responses, researchers determined that five major types of context-related, job-search demands existed within employed and unemployed job seekers: omnibus, organizational, social, task and personal. These types, or layers, contained 13 common categories:
1. Economic conditions
2. Employment status
3. Insistence on a perfect match
4. Lake of professionalism, competence or efficiency
5. Vague/dated advertising
6. Demographic discrimination
7. Social network
8. Depersonalization
9. Uncertainty
10. Repeated rejection
11. Monotony
12. Impact on the family and finances
13. Job decisions
According to Wanberg, one of the most common obstacles job seekers faced was feeling that they were in a black hole, stuck in a situation from which they cannot escape.
"Frequently, individuals talked about how they would send their resumes into a black hole and rarely heard back from a company - sometimes even after getting an interview," says Wanberg. "Additionally, we heard that it was challenging to find the right fit between a person's skills and the jobs they were applying for."
Many job seekers started their search too broadly and learned to become more specific over time. Conversely, others began their search with a too-narrow approach and were later forced to become less specific to achieve success.
Interview subjects also noted the depersonalization of the search process. Job seekers repeatedly experienced a lack of professionalism by HR departments, citing examples of last-minute cancelations, excessive waiting time, out-of-date job postings, and interviewers who lacked knowledge and experience.
Coping with Job Search Demands
While the job-seeking experience was a source of frustration, those who kept a positive attitude with successful coping behaviors found the hunt to be energizing, and were better at developing strategies to manage their situations. Positive responses included maintaining individual self-confidence, exercising, volunteering, seeking job-search advice from a career coach, or making time for fun activities.
"Job seeker responses indicated several examples of learning, increased insight, and changes of strategy in the search process, said Archana Agrawal, vice president of strategy at TheLadders. "For at least some members of our sample, the enjoyment of job search seemed to stem directly from the challenge involved. Some individuals remarked that they saw the search as a game, or a hunt to be mastered."
The study also suggests focusing on learning goals that can help job seekers overcome the likely setbacks in the process.
"Navigating the Black Hole: Explicating Layers of Job Search Context and Adaptational Responses" appears in the current issue of Personnel Psychology. A white paper, commissioned by TheLadders, can be downloaded here.
Phone: 612-624-8770
Email: Carlson School News


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Rachel M. Myrick of Charlotte, a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has won a Rhodes Scholarship, the world's oldest and best known awards for graduate study.Myrick, 21, was one of 32 Americans selected Saturday for the prestigious award, which funds study at the University of Oxford in England.Since the U.S. Rhodes Scholar program began in 1904, 48 Carolina students have been selected.The daughter of Thomas Graham Myrick and Patricia Oliver Myrick of Charlotte, Myrick graduated from Myers Park High School in Charlotte in 2009.Myrick came to Carolina on a Morehead-Cain Scholarship, a full, four-year scholarship to UNC that also funds four summer enrichment experiences and additional educational opportunities. Myrick studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, with majors in political science and global studies and a minor in creative writing.
The Rhodes provides all expenses for two to three years of study; its value averages $50,000 per year, depending on a scholar's academic field. In the United States, 302 colleges and universities endorsed 838 candidates for the Rhodes this year. Of those, 212 from 88 institutions were invited for final interviews Friday and Saturday in 16 Rhodes districts across the country.The American students will join an international group of scholars selected from 14 other jurisdictions around the world. Overall, about 80 scholars are selected each year. Scholars enter Oxford the following fall.
Copyright 2012 WBTV. All rights reserved
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OXO Stainless-Steel Strainer
- Summary
This fine mesh strainer allows you to drain excess liquids from almost any food, including pasta, lentils or rice. Its stainless-steel construction includes a sturdy loop for resting the strainer on pots or bowls. Rubber fins keep the handles cool and comfortable.
- Sturdy, durable stainless-steel construction.
- Fine mesh filters out almost any type of food.
- Brushed stainless steel handles feature flexible fins for comfort and a secure grip.
- Dishwasher safe.
- Dimensions & More Info
- 8" diam., 15" long.
- Made in China.
- Use & Care
- Dishwasher safe.
- Shipping
Shipping Information
This item is shipped from our warehouse by UPS to arrive within five business days of our receiving your order.
Shipping Rates
The shipping rate varies depending on your order total and shipping destination. View Shipping Options and Charges.
Rush Delivery
For an additional charge of $15 per address, we can rush delivery to most destinations. This service is not available for some oversize items, items shipped directly from the supplier (including perishable and custom-manufactured items), out-of-stock items and items to be shipped outside the contiguous 48 states.
Return Policy
At Williams-Sonoma, we take great pride in the quality and craftsmanship of our products. Attention to design, materials, safety and construction are our priority. Upon receipt, please inspect your purchase and notify us of any damage; we will arrange for a prompt replacement.
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We cannot accept returns on monogrammed, personalized, special-order items, custom upholstery, items shipped direct from the vendor, or on items damaged through normal wear and tear. Final sale items ending in .97 or .99 cannot be returned.
For returns of items purchased from your Williams-Sonoma Gift Registry, we will gladly provide a refund or exchange for the merchandise within 90 days of your event or within 90 days of purchase, whichever date is later. View Full Return Policy.


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Once I saw a program where they handed this chimpanzee some paint and some brushes and turned him loose on a bare canvas, just to see what would happen.
A lot of things happened. He attacked it — wild streaks of color, chaotic spatterings, drips and splotches, even brilliant sections of something that looked like art emerged from it. That's what the quarterback play of NFL Week Two looked like — a giant chimp painting.
Trent Edwards threw for 102 yards. Chad Henne got 114. The Steelers and Titans totaled 109; that was until one of the old masters (kind of), Kerry Collins, was summoned from the crypt and brought some decent QB play to the stadium. Joe Flacco was 17-of-39 passing, plus four interceptions. Favre had three passes stolen, David Garrard had four. Jason Campbell was benched. Those were the smears and the splotches.
Over in DC, however, colors flashed brightly as Matt Schaub and Donovan McNabb spent the afternoon calling in air strikes with nearly 1,000 passing yards between them. This on a day when the Redskins' safeties spent more time knocking each other silly than they did cracking the Texans' pass catchers.
And in Detroit, second-stringer Shaun Hill gave a lecture on impressionism, 335 yards of Billy Kilmer, heaving wobblers and nearly pulling the Lions out of a thick 35-17 hole.
But the brush strokes that really caught the gallery's eye were the ones by the Jets' Mark Sanchez. Sanchez had had a rough week. There weren't many believers left in New York — not after his mopey opener against the Ravens, where he looked timid and rag-armed and overmatched, and an evening of dump-off passes and flitty short gainers resulted in nine points of Jets offense. Naturally, the media fried him; then it readied for another dose of Sanchez humiliation as the Patriots rolled into the New Meadowlands Stadium for Week Two.
The Patriots, a nobility team, armed with that dresser full of championship hardware from the prior decade. A presence that still causes tension. Last week's Sports Illustrated cover gave us "Tom Brady and the Pats Take Care of Business (As Usual),"and on a sparkling Brady-to-Randy Moss hookup made it 14-7 Pats over Jets just before the half. New England had ripped 80 yards in four plays and you could sense that the Pats' offense was really starting to cook, the ESP you get when they're about to go on one of their binges, two or three scores in a flash and cutting a defense to ribbons.
Meanwhile, Sanchez had continued to play it soft and safe. His longest completion to this point had been 13 yards, and now All-Pro CB Darrelle Revis, the man assigned to Moss, was clutching a hamstring. Prime binge conditions.
Then, as the New York offense came out to close the half, 53 seconds remaining, something snapped in Sanchez's brain. The seriousness of the moment hit him and his attack instincts suddenly broke loose. Instead of handoff-Greene, handoff-Tomlinson and regroup, he went right at the Pats, as if some higher power (Namath?) had pinned him to a wall and gritted, "All right, pal … this is why they brought you here."
Sanchez was moving with authority, biting down hard into this throws and putting some real sizzle on the gun. He added a fast field goal in the final seconds, and now the halftime deficit was only four and mentally the Jets were back on good ground.
And Sanchez operated the rest of the game in that mode, a sense of composed urgency. He nailed throws to guys who weren't always open, and the whole performance ended up as a 124.3 day on the passer-rating scale.
"I don't think we really got into a groove in the first game and today we did," he remarked afterward. "We hit a couple of [longer throws]. … Sustaining drives, that was huge for us. I think the coaches' point before the game was to focus one play at a time, no matter what — a big play, an incompletion, whatever it is. Get us into 3rd-and-manageable."
But 3rd-and-manageable is not a big-boy goal for a passer. The object is to come away with consistent points and give your high-rev defense a breather, even if it means getting risky and forcing a few in there. By the end of the day, the New Yorkers had 28 points on the board, enough to put away Brady and business-as-usual New England.
Is it wise to read into Sanchez's performance? Is he starting to poke out of that comfy 3rd-and-manageable eggshell? Is he finally feeling the art of pro quarterback play?
John Unitas — or maybe it was Y.A. Tittle — one of them said you don't really become a quarterback until you go your own way and tell your coach to go to hell. The Jets' QB isn't tempered to get mouthy with Rex Ryan/Brian Schottenheimer under live-fire conditions, but last weekend he stood up and told a Belichick defense to go to hell and kept his club out of an 0-2 start. That's progress in its own way.
On a Sunday full of splotches and QB eyesores, Mark Sanchez dumped the color-by-numbers and showed us a little artistic splash.
Tom Danyluk is an award-winning freelance writer based in Chicago. His book on pro football, "The Super '70s," is available at Amazon.com. You can contact Tom at email@example.com.


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reviews for: listing #54198 - San Antonio, Texas House rental
- bedrooms 4
- pool no
- type House
- baths 2
- hot tub no
- community Old Alamo Heights
- sleeps 16
- pets allowed yes
rates (USD)
$695 - $799 /wk
Mission Trip
Review submitted: June 19, 2014 Date of arrival: July 14, 2013
I am a youth pastor in Fort Worth and rented this house for my youth group mission trip. First of all the owner is right this is a middle class area so if you are expecting a mansion this is not your place to rent. Second crime happens everywhere, this world is filled with lost people. As for our stay beside the cable not working we had a great time. its very roomy and clean. its a good place to rent for the price.
Recommended for: adventure seekers, families with teenagers, sight seeing
Do you find this review helpful? Yes No
Helpful votes: 2 / 2
Enjoyed the space
Review submitted: April 15, 2012 Date of arrival: July 7, 2011
We enjoyed the space and so did our children. They had their own rooms with tvs so there was no fighting. It has a big kitchen/dinning area that all eight of were able to sit down and enjoy meals together. We look forward to hopefully renting the property again for our 2nd trip to San Antonio. The price was not bad and we had no problem with the air, water or and no bugs were found ( which is always a nice thing).
Recommended for: families with young children
Do you find this review helpful? Yes No
Helpful votes: 15 / 21
Do not RENT!!!!
Review submitted: June 21, 2011 Date of arrival: June 16, 2011
This property was worst property I have ever rented!!! The 1st day that we arrived it took almost 8 hours for the house to cool down to 70 degrees because was set up at 80!! in the summer, the "playroom" back wall was not attached to the house and the door of the same room had a whole at the bottom which I had to put a blanket because I was afraid of bugs or burglars coming thru that door. The master bedroom had a whole in the window, the whole was 1/4 of the window in which the maintance guy came to fixed it by placing a black plastic bag and tape!!!. The kitchen had the most dirties sponge to clean dishes, that I had to buy one because it was so discussting!. The beds were unconfortable, there was no internet, the TVs did not have a good signal as everything was blurry whenever the kids watched any programs. The ceiling in the dining/kitchen area shows to be cracked and may fall at any moment. The house smells bad. The neighborhood is a very bad, some of the houses around there were in worst conditions. We felt very insecure in that property, this is more of a $50K home. The only thing that was good in this house was that the hot water never run out. I will not rent this house, and this house is not in rentable conditions. Also the price is too high for the conditions of the property.
Owners response:
I tell all my renters this is a middle class home in a middle class San Antonio neighborhood! I tell people the homes in the neighborhood are valued in the $80K-$150K range. If you are use to $200K homes and up this rental is not for you!!! It's not crime ridden at all!!! I call it a "BASIC HOME" because that is what it is!!!
My maintenance guy checked the home before the renters checked in and the window was not broke when he was there earlier in the day. That leaves me to believe the renter that wrote this review had something to do with the window damage? My maintenance guy patched the window to keep the cool air in. He could not get a window right on the spot. The window has been fixed! The renter that wrote this review never called me once to express any problems!
The AC works fine it was just serviced the prior week!
The beds are brand new!
I do not advertise internet access!
The TV's are not HD TV's and the TV is through the local cable company. I have no control over the cable companies clarity.
I have several return renters each year that stay in my rental because of the location and price!!! I have a lady that rents the home by herself from December to April every year and has never expressed any problems what so ever!!!
Do you find this review helpful? Yes No
Helpful votes: 58 / 59
Don't Rent
Review submitted: July 15, 2010 Date of arrival: July 9, 2010
We felt like we were mislead. She said it was not in a crime ridden area-however as we approached the house-there were bars on all the windows around us and gang signs on the fence. One night we were there we woke up to either a)gunshots or b)fireworks. It was 4 am so we have no idea what it was. There were roach traps in every room. Holes in the wall. When I sat on the couch it sunk. The beds were very hard.
It was a cute house in need of alot of TLC and some new furniture. It did have plenty of room for all 13 of us. With that many people we never had a problem running out of hot water while showering. It was clean. It is conveniently located but I would have rather been further out and stayed in a hotel.
Owners response: I tell everyone this home is in a very middle class neighborhood. I also tell them if they are use to $200,000 homes and up this is not a house for them! I do not mislead people! I also can not control the surrounding neighborhood. This is not a luxury home (hint-hint "A BASIC HOME" is the name of rental) its a home near downtown and the riverwalk. I'm constantly having to upgrade my sleeper sofa's (the couch you sat on) due to kids jumping on them. I had to take the play room area and set it up as a 4th bedroom with (2) additional beds. The couches can no longer be used as sleeper sofas.
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Helpful votes: 63 / 66
not my cup of tea
Review submitted: July 13, 2010 Date of arrival: June 29, 2010
The location was good (we had a rental car) and easy access to the freeway. Property was close to public transportation. I received hundreds of bites on my body. I called the owner and she said, "I've never had a problem with that before, did you call the maintainence man?" I said no, so, she said she would.
my right eye was nearly swollen shut by Thursday and I was itching all over.
I went to the pharmacist and he said was deffinately the pattern of BED BUGS!
Praise God my husband or our roommates didn't get any. I was embaresed,sp, too say the least. My kids said "Wow, what happened to you".
I wrote an E-mail to the owner, explaining the situation and the expence I occured and have not heard from her, NOT GOOD. Needless to say $70 plus, the inconvience, uncomfort, and everything, I thought for sure I would receive a response from the owner before, I would have the opertunity of this review
I guess you know I won't be staying here again.
Owners response: I'm sorry but I did not receive an email from you? I have very limited access to email and I've always stated that in any previous communications from me! I did send my house keeper over right away to address the issue and bed bug spray was applied!! The house was also bombed!! I have been told by investigating this problem that people actually carry the bug with them? I'm not saying you brought the bed bugs but maybe a previous guest? I'm very sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused you! I do want you to know and anyone else that ever rents from me - I take care of my properties and resolve any problems immediately!!
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Helpful votes: 57 / 58
Giving 1 star is challenging me ethically.
Review submitted: June 2, 2010 Date of arrival: May 20, 2010
Cute neighborhood. Could be a cute house. Horrible experience. I have photos of holes in the wall patched with cereal boxes, broken electrical outlets (as in exposed metal plates), fallen down fence, etc. Unfortunately this website won't let me post a link to the photos. Perhaps if you can email me from this review, then i'll be happy to show you evidence why you should not rent this property.
Do you find this review helpful? Yes No
Helpful votes: 99 / 100
Reviews are the subjective opinions of VacationRentals.com travelers and not of VacationRentals.com, Inc.


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Go local & explore LA on your own time with this 2 night package. Hit Hollywood Boulevard, visit Universal Studios or shop Rodeo Drive as you live it up in the City of Angels. Get into the heart of downtown LA, when you stay at the chic DoubleTree by Hilton (formerly Kyoto Grand Hotel & Gardens). With delicious restaurants & a rooftop garden that overlooks the stunning city skyline, it's got easy access to Hollywood & Universal Studios & a short stroll from LA's iconic attractions & evening hot spots & the metro.
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Itinerary + Backstage Pass & ME Time Optionals
ME Time Optionals
ME Time optionals will take your trip to a whole new level with unforgettable experiences unique to the places you visit. See more, do more, live more & go home completely regret-free. Costs for these aren't included in your tour cost & are payable to your Tour Manager in local currency.
Backstage Pass
Your Backstage Pass gives you incredible exclusive experiences you'll only get with Contiki. From food to accommodation to exclusive access to the best sights, your Backstage Pass gives you unbeatable value & a completely unique travel experience.
Get into the city that mixes up glamour, grit and the American Dream: Los Angeles. It's packed with legends, full of energy and there are loads of things to do.
Head to mythical Hollywood and walk across the holy ground for stars. Check out the Dolby Theatre, where the Oscars are held every year and Mann's Chinese Theatre, where so many greats have pressed their hands into the cement.
Cruise down the hottest shopping street in LA, Melrose Avenue, and one of the best areas for nightlife, the Strip (Sunset Boulevard), with its billboards, clubs and eateries, before getting a glimpse at one of the world's wealthiest suburbs in Beverly Hills.
A little further west discover Santa Monica, LA's oldest beach resort. Known for its liberal vibes, art galleries and wide sand beaches, Santa Monica is all about the California coast lifestyle. See the famous pier, which serves as a permanent amusement park, complete with a solar powered Ferris wheel.
Maybe later travel out to LA's quirkiest suburb where anything goes: Venice Beach. A favourite hang out spot for locals, colourful Venice Beach attracts all sorts of people. Get a feel for street life when you hit the buzzing boadwalk, where performers, tattoo artists, hair braiders, musicians and roller bladders gather. Make sure you check out the markets and stalls, as well as the greased-up body builders pumping iron at the famous open air gym, Muscle Beach.
Later head out and hit the town's hottest bars and clubs.
- LA party hot spots
- LA Live Entertainment Complex
- Hop-on-hop-off LA city sightseeing tour featuring Downtown LA, Hollywood & Santa Monica
- Easy access to Universal Studios, Hollywood & amazing shopping
In your free time, explore more of this colourful metropolis. LA has it all when it comes to shopping. Hit the boutiques of Melrose Ave or window-shop the epic designer stores of Rodeo Drive. This is the place to spot celebs!
Visit the Fashion Museum for inspiration and see famous outfits from movies on display, then hunt down some funky threads and interesting materials in the Garment District, which is just a few steps from your hotel. Or visit the interactive Grammy Museum where you can record your own song or get up close to some award-show celebrity dresses.
This city has food as diverse as its residents – you can find anything from burgers or tacos at a pavement stand to sushi in Little Tokyo, so make sure you make the most of this cultural melting pot.
For some all-American sports, check to see if any basketball, baseball, soccer or football games are on while you're in town.
Hotel Breakfast
For your last day spend a fun day exploring the world-famous theme parks. Get inside Walt Disney's magical imagination at Disneyland, where you can experience different theme zones and rides like Indiana Jones or Pirates of the Caribbean. For a behind-the-scenes look at movie making, head to Universal Studios and enjoy the thrills of this park's film theme.
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Then and Now: the Capitol Theatre in Passaic
Memories of the Capitol Theatre in Passaic generally have iconic names attached: Chuck Berry, The Kinks and The Byrds, for starters. The Grateful Dead. Bruce Springsteen. And — it still seems incredible — The Rolling Stones.
Regulars like Lynn Paret, 51, of Ridgefield Park, saw "everyone there. Talking Heads, Van Morrison, Alice Cooper, Pretenders, Clash, The Tubes, Joan Jett, Elvis Costello, Ramones … so many more. I loved it. It was small. No matter where you sat, you had a great seat. And I always felt like I was part of the show — I guess because it was so small and I was so young."
So was John Scher, who, with a partner, Al Hayward, produced his first show there in 1971. "Humble Pie and the J. Geils Band," Scher recalled. "I was 20. I had left college the year before. At the time, [rock] concert promoting was a fairly new industry."
The Capitol's legend began, Scher said, after another legend ended. "Bill Graham's Fillmore East closed in June of '71, and that left this big door wide open. Graham had an exclusivity clause — his acts weren't allowed to play within 75 miles of New York City. So, when the Fillmore closed, we began looking for a theater and found the Capitol."
Scher, who was born in Newark and grew up in West Orange, thought the 3,500-seat theater was "perfect." Built in the 1920s, the Capitol, a onetime vaudeville house, had great acoustics and sightlines, Scher said, "and was the right size for concerts. It was just this great, funky old theater."
Scher and Hayward rented the theater from its owners, who screened X-rated films there during the day. In short order, Scher added, "we were doing 35 to 50 shows a year and wound up buying the theater."
Scher says he's always been partial to smaller venues. "I don't go to arena shows, unless they're my arena shows, because you're watching a circus, not a concert."
The Capitol's fans agreed. Among them: former Bergen County Executive William "Pat" Schuber, who said, "There was an intimacy to this place, which allowed you to be up close to some of the biggest acts in rock-and-roll."
Acts like Cream — a favorite of Schuber's — and therein lies a tale.
As Scher recalls, he and Schuber once met to discuss the possibility of doing a series of outdoor concerts in the county. Upon entering Schuber's office, Scher spotted a vintage poster from Palisades Amusement Park, which he immediately offered to buy. Schuber replied: "No way. There's not enough money." Scher then asked Schuber who his favorite act had been at the Capitol. Days later, Scher took possession of the Palisades Park poster and Schuber had one of the original posters from The Who's show at the Capitol.
Scher said many acts wound up at his theater because so many other bands had recommended it. "I had a great staff," he said. "Good backstage facilities, showers … we even served the performers gourmet food. Bands loved it."
The theater's glowing rep eventually reeled in rock's biggest fish, the Stones, for a 1978 concert that was such a coup, the New York-based newspapers and television stations covered it.
"It was special for many reasons," Scher recalled. "In the early years, we had enormous political problems. A couple of councilmen in Passaic felt we were the devil. And the night the Stones played — news cameras everywhere — these two councilmen came down the street in their suits and ties, and one of them put his arm around me and said, 'I want everyone to know how proud we are of the Capitol!' "
After a laugh, Scher admitted, "It was creepy."
Despite the theater's age, it had few plumbing or electrical problems. "Just the usual stuff," Scher said. Otherwise, he added, the theater was a dream, for him and his familial staff (they still have annual reunions) as well as his audiences.
Some fans came from outside New Jersey. Otherwise, Scher said, "we were serving an untapped audience of 6 million people who wanted and deserved their own music scene. The Capitol was part of that. People talk a lot now about Jersey pride, but it's always been here. It's real and unique."
Today, in addition to being one of the country's top promoters — for rock, rap, even Broadway acts like Liza Minnelli — Scher, who lives with his family in South Orange, is on the board of the New Jersey Hall of Fame. He is co-chief executive of Metropolitan Talent, which manages artists and operates a record label, in addition to promoting concerts.
His beloved Capitol closed in the late 1980s and faced the wrecking ball in April 1991. Scher drove to Passaic that day to watch the demolition, then had second thoughts.
"I turned around," he said. "I couldn't bring myself to see it being knocked down. But you know, life goes on."
Rock and roll.
Email: email@example.com


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Fujifilm X20
The camera body follows Fujifilm's retro design style. The optical viewfinder shows additional information like the shutter speed,aperture and active focus area. It is very helpful, especially in brightly lit situations, but certainly not as comfortable as the hybrid viewfinder of the company's X-Pro1 and some other X-cameras.
The X20 uses a sensor that switches to the optical viewfinder when the photographer raises the camera to his or her eye and toggles back to the LCD screen view when bringing the camera down again.
The Fujifilm X20 has a lens ring to change focal length settings that also functions as an ON/OFF switch. When it activates the camera it sets the lowest focal length setting (28 mm--35 mm film equivalent). It's a 4x zoom lens with a maximum focal length of 112 mm. The 35mm film equivalents are used for indicating focal length on the ring.
The camera has two setup dials on the top. The large dial near the accessory shoe is a standard mode dial that allows the user to choose automatic, semi-automatic or manual exposure modes (P, S, A and M). The second dial offers a fast and intuitive setting of the EV compensation (+/- 2 EV stops). A ring for manual focusing is missing. The photographer has to use the very thin ring which encircles the control field to the right of the LCD screen for this function.
The camera offers electronic viewfinder magnification when in manual focusing mode (activated with the AF-S, AF-C, MF switch on the front of the X20). A focus peaking function enhances the experience by showing bright contour lines when elements are in focus.
Comments on Image Quality
Color: The color reproduction suffers from the automatic white balance setting which causes clearly visible shifts into the greenish and yellowish color areas, especially under fluorescent light. While the color test chart shows only alittle shift of brighter gray patterns into the yellow and green direction, the portrait shot and the shot of the standard testbox shot display this visible tint.
In daylight situations this tendency is clearly reduced and the X20 shows very natural looking colors. Skin tones are reproduced with a slight "optimization" (enhanced yellow and magenta rate) but are still realistic. Red nuances are boosted by an intensified yellow rate. This causes an over-saturation and is the reason for the bad differentiation of red nuances.
Sharpness: The resolution test result of the X20 is very high. The camera reproduced the test chart with nearly its nominal sensor resolution (2900 of 3000 lines in picture height), but shows clearly visible over- and undershot effects, which is evidence of a very intense sharpness filtering and image optimization by the image processor. Nevertheless, results are still very good for a compact camera. The reproduction of fine details is visible in the standard test box shot but the differentiation of red colors should be better. The red spool of the standard test box shot shows nearly a plain red surface instead of single threads, and the red t-shirt of our model also shows areas with nearly no differentiation. The high sharpness filtering causes a slightly artifical and over-sharpenedlook in the hair structure of our model.
Noise: The camera showed a very good performance in the noise tests. The luminance noise level is comparable to SLR cameras with APS-C size sensor in test shots at ISO 1600. It increases with higher ISO settings--at ISO 12,800 we saw a very high noise level. At ISO 1600 images start to show anti-noise filtering effects with softer contrast lines. Noise is very high in images made from ISO 1600 to 12,800 but are obviously filtered in a very intelligent way and are "smoothed."
The dynamic range results are a little disappointing, a maximum of 10.3 f-stops. We have tested other Fujfilm X-cameras with better results.
+ compact body, high class finish
+ retro style design with handy lens ring for setting up focal length
+ optical viewfinder with additional information (shutter speed etc.)
+ easy and comfortable handling
- missing focus lens ring (manual focusing by using the setup dial on the back)
- small and low resolution LCD (compared to other compact cameras in this price range)
Contact: www.fujifilmusa.com
Price: $599.95 (Fujifilm web site)
Lab test and comments provided by Betternet, our TIPA-affiliated testing lab, edited by George Schaub.
Please click on the Image Tech tab in our navigation bar for more camera tests.


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What a profound speech.....it made me weep for what could have been.
Next thing we'll find out that YouTube suppresses sharing of decent videos! - Sorry about this, but there is not much I can do...
He sure did tell us the truth,and that is why they did away with him.They still treat us like cattle.
can't get the plugin to work
the share on this & from youtube can't do it ...wont allow me! wanted to share :)
love & light
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The City of Columbia raised the roof and the bar for New Year's celebrations as 2014 got underway.
Now city leaders get down to more serious business. Choosing a police chief for sure.
By the time that person is scheduled to begin work in mid-March, the city will have been without a permanent chief for almost a year.
Another huge challenge is finding long term answers to homelessness.
The city's arrangement to run its winter shelter is due to expire in a matter of months.
And there are new signs this week the draft plan for homelessness solutions is meeting with disapproval from Councilman Cameron Runyan who's been spearheading the effort to reform the city's approach to the problem.
The city and Richland County will likely make progress toward major improvements on transportation infrastructure roadways, trails, bike lanes and sidewalks.
That along with upgrades for the Midlands bus system all the result of last year's passage of a penny sales tax increase.
As public infrastructure is enhanced we will see other big changes in our surroundings, some sparked by private investment.
More new restaurants on Main Street for instance in the Brennen Building and at the Agape Senior center now under construction.
USC's new Darla Moore School of Business is nearing completion.
And the Midlands will have a fresh view of the heavens when the State Museum finishes work on its new planetarium.
The roughly $23 million museum project includes a 4D theater that will let you feel as well as see what's being shown. It's scheduled to be ready in late spring.
We will also begin to see improvement and expansion at Riverbanks Zoo.
And the start of big changes for the Palmetto Compress building and the transformation of Columbia's Bull Street property.
Copyright 2014 WIS. All rights reserved.
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(229) 446-1010
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"If you gain a competitive advantage by cheating, then you won't get a meritocracy, you'll get a system where cheaters prosper and bad ethics drive good ethics out of the market."
--Former S&L regulator Bill Black, in Salon, 3/16/14
"Be assured, we are not losing sight of our ultimate goal, to drive shareholder value."
--Forest City Enterprises Chief Financial Officer Bob O'Brien, 5/29/14
The forgetting has begun. New York Magazine critic Justin Davidson, in a 9/21/12 review headlined
Barclays Center Is Brooklyn's Ready-Made Monument, wrote:
The arena won't placate those who all along hated the idea of Atlantic Yards. It won't erase the years of controversy and bad blood, or guarantee the success of the remaining acres. But Brooklynites of more recent vintage and fewer bitter memories may see a building endowed with texture, color, and personality — rare qualities in recent New York construction.The Barclays Center opened Sept. 28, 2012. The parade of entertainment and Brooklyn's first arena has provoked huge media attention and much praise.
The looming, metal-clad arena, unmistakable at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, forming a new node just past long-accepted downtown boundaries, has been enough to convince some journalists, like a New York magazine sportswriter who willfully puts on blinders when it comes to the political implications of sports, that the "battle is over, and Bruce Ratner won it."
That, however, depends on amnesia, or ignorance: an unwillingness to analyze claims of Atlantic Yards benefits, and belief in Ratner's assertion that "Nobody will remember what we had to do to make it happen."
However much architecture critics and event-goers enjoy the arena, it cannot be seen in a vacuum, and the taint should not be ignored. The value of the Brooklyn Nets, thanks largely to the new location and new building, has more than doubled between 2012 and 2014.
But the public benefit is far fuzzier, and the damage to democracy is clear. Atlantic Yards, announced in December 2003, approved in December 2006 and again in September 2009, will be remembered, not just for its promises of 16 towers and arena, "Jobs, Housing, and Hoops," but also for "what we had to do."
Atlantic Yards (re-branded disingenuously in August 2014 as Pacific Park) and the Barclays Center have provoked neither indictments nor investigations. It's not a crime--despite the metaphorical use of the term by those who held protests on the opening weekend.
|After building on the arena block, the plan is to build on the southeast parking lot, bypassing the blighted railyard.
That taint was reaffirmed in September 2013 when a state judge affirmed that the attorneys bringing that lawsuit were entitled to legal fees.
Even the most common--and, by many, quite welcomed--view of the arena is a dodge. People like the plaza in front of the arena as a place to gather and as a transition between the street and a large but not hugely tall building.
It's essential to what Vishaan Chakrabarti, an academic planner/architect as well as a partner in SHoP, deems the "high-low city."
|Image via Curbed
And Atlantic Yards likely would not have been approved without that office tower. That tower is on permanent hold.
Bruce Ratner, now Forest City's Chairman, and MaryAnne Gilmartin, the company's CEO, in 2014 were awarded the Municipal Art Society's (MAS) highest honor, the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis medal. However impressive of their buildings, the award ignores the questionable process behind them and seems a clear departure from MAS goals like a commitment to historic preservation and to empowering local communities.
Legal, but right?
There's no legal corruption. But Atlantic Yards relies upon what I'd call a "culture of cheating," a term inspired by The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead, a book by business ethicist David Callahan.
"I want to get it done," Mayor Mike Bloomberg told Ratner on the June 2003 day the developer unveiled the plan to the mayor. "Get it done no matter what."
It's an ends-justify-the-means shamelessness and betrayal of promises that pervades the project, involving, at various times, project promoters, consultants, lawyers, and community partners. And that cheating has been too often ignored or papered over by the press.
(A 6/29/12 New York Times review of Dan Ariely's The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty notes that "Mr. Ariely says that cheating is contagious, and that a group's behavior will have a powerful effect on each individual.")
Interestingly, the New York Times, which has rarely scrutinized Atlantic Yards aggressively, in some ways endorsed this thesis, albeit buried in a long 9/27/12 profile of developer Bruce Ratner, describing "his reputation for promising anything to get a deal, only to renegotiate relentlessly for more favorable terms."
|Rendering by SHoP; not a photograph
"We've been robbed, and I've seen people go to jail for less," declared Umar Jordan, a community organizer, speaking in September 2012 about the unfulfilled promises for jobs and contracts. Jordan, six years earlier, was a prominent project supporter portrayed by the New York Times as exemplifying the racial divide over the project.
The arena, Ratner claimed in September 2011, is "largely about the children and youth of Brooklyn." The proliferation of corporate logos suggests otherwise. As Barclays Center/Brooklyn Nets CEO Brett Yormark has said, "[W]e are excited to continue to partner with brands of excellence."
Yormark, it should be noted, was eager to proceed with the long-anticipated, nationally-televised home debut of the Brooklyn Nets Nov. 1, 2012, against the New York Knicks, despite the devastation to the city and transit system wrought by Superstorm Sandy.
"We also feel today this can be in many respects a rallying cry for New York," Yormark claimed. "We have to move on." ESPN scribe Ian O'Connor deemed the plan to hold the game "heartless" and "clueless." Facing reality, Mayor Mike Bloomberg finally nixed the game.
Consider how the Atlantic Yards arena was promised as a "community arena," with accommodation for local sports teams, school sports, and community events--and the Barclays Center's first and second years didn't match up.
|The railyard waits for a deck
Architect Frank Gehry, whose grasp of development politics appears (in retrospect) enormously shaky, described Bruce Ratner as"politically like me" and a fellow "liberal, do-gooder".
According to an interview in the Jewish Voice, "Ratner is a staunch Democrat and liberal and cannot
For Ratner, however, business considerations have always trumped ideology. In November 2010, Ratner wrote a check for $7500 to the New York State Senate Republican Campaign Committee, ensuring smooth relations with the party that controls the legislature's second chamber.
In a September 2012 Q&A, Yormark talked about the naming rights deal with a questionable company: " For me, what I'm most proud of is the cultural fit for Barclays." Similarly, Bruce Ratner praise his partnership with Mikhail Prokhorov, who got rich through connections: "We have the same kind of values and culture."
In both cases, Yormark and Ratner were talking about doing business deals, but the issue of "cultural fit" has broader, more ominous resonance.
Other reading on this theme
My Reuters Opinion essay, Brooklyn's vaunted, tainted Barclays Center.
Also see my essay from The Brooklyn Rail, A Brand Called Brooklyn, on the use of "Brooklyn" to sell the arena and team. Regarding the New York Times's erratic, inadequate coverage, see my City Journal assessment, The Barclays Center's Media Enabler (and more here).
Deception from the start
This was a jaw-dropping fib from a 12/10/03 Forest City Ratner press release announcing the Atlantic Yards project: "The complex has been planned to look whole and complete during each phase of construction."
As I reported, buildings were to replace parking as the project proceeds. The construction schedule indicated much incompleteness, as did the map of buildings that would be finished year after year.
Even that schedule is in doubt by now, and the project by no means looks "whole and complete." There are empty spaces around the arena, to be filled by towers, and a surface parking lot waiting for towers.
A "civic developer"
"Our company is really what I call a civic development company," Ratner likes to say. "We do a lot of civic projects. And every project that we do has to have some civic component."
Except "civic" is a fuzzy term, and Ratner has made two self-sabotaging--if rather little-noticed--statements that back up charges of cheating:
- he repudiated the ten-year timeline to build the project previously endorsed by his company and the state
- he claimed that high-rise, union-built affordable housing isn't feasible, even though that's what he long planned and the state approved twice
Atlantic Yards was long promised to take ten years. Instead, after the project was re-approved in 2009, the state, via the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC, or simply Empire State Development), negotiated contracts giving the developer up to 25 years. That Development Agreement was withheld when project opponents challenged the timetable in court.
First, a state judge ruled against the challengers, the ESDC's "deplorable lack of transparency" and acknowledged that the ESDC's use of a ten-year timeframe for the project buildout in the Modified General Project Plan was supported "only minimally."
Only later, after the challengers reopened the case, did the judge revise her decision and order a new review of the environmental impacts of a potential 25-year construction period.
Not only did the judge order a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, which was ongoing in 2013, in September 2013 she awarded legal fees to the attorneys representing Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and BrooklynSpeaks, the two winning coalitions. That was a discretionary decision, indicating that the state's defense was not tenable. And Empire State Development, using Forest City Ratner's money, agreed to pay the fees rather than appeal.
claimed that Atlantic Yards would have "job creation the likes of which Brooklyn has never seen."
Well, Brooklyn hasn't seen it, not the once-promised 15,000 construction jobs and certainly not the 10,000 permanent jobs. And much-hyped Jay-Z, whom savvy sportswriter David Roth called the Nets' "resident Brooklyn-credibility totem," gets to blather about how "it's already created so many jobs," and the press doesn't check.
Today, Bloomberg and Borough President Markowitz call the arena a job magnet--though nearly all the jobs are part-time and low-paying--and the numbers seem inflated.
The failure to deliver promised jobs provoked Umar Jordan, who spoke passionately for the project in an August 2006 public hearing and became a purported representative of the racial divide over Atlantic Yards, to more recently register his disgust.
Despite happy talk from arena reps about those 1900 part-time jobs and how the hourly wage is above "living wage," these are not living-wage jobs, since the definition depends on a 40-hour work week.
EB-5 job program
federal program, EB-5, that gives immigrant investors visas in exchange for purportedly job-creating investments.
Markowitz, unable to join Forest City Ratner on a fundraising trip to China, nevertheless taped hyperbolic praise for the project. asserting that Brooklyn was "1000 percent" behind Atlantic Yards--a preposterous claim--and asserting that Forest City's reputation was "unbelievably reliable."
He later became more candid, acknowledging that Atlantic Yards is "among the most contentious developments" in the country's history.
Despite the numerous misrepresentations in the first round of EB-5 funding, in the fall of 2013, Forest City and its planned new partner, the Chinese-government owned Greenland Group, began a new round of fund-raising, aiming to raise $249 million.
Again there are blatant misrepresentations in the pitch. Beyond that, this effort approaches a new level of audacity. It sounds like something from The Onion, but it's real: the Chinese government would profit by selling U.S. green cards to Chinese immigrants.
And it was successful, apparently, with exactly zero mainstream press notice.
The inside track with the MTA
The key piece of public property is the 8.5-acre Vanderbilt Yard. Forest City Ratner not only had the inside track from the beginning, after it bid less cash than the one rival that emerged--$50 million vs. $150 million--the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 2005 agreed to negotiate exclusively with Forest City. The developer then raised the cash bid to $100 million.
Then, in 2009, Forest City successfully re-negotiated the deal, getting the MTA to accept only $20 million down for the portion of the railyard needed for the arena, with 22 years to pay off the rest, at a gentle interest rate. It could build a smaller, cheaper railyard.
The deal survived a legal challenge, but the question lingers: did Forest City really have the MTA over a barrel, as the state contended? Instead, evidence suggests that the agency had leverage: it was Forest City that had to move the money-losing Nets from New Jersey, and faced an end-of-2009 deadline to have tax-exempt bonds issued.
Since 2009, Forest City has twice gotten the MTA to revise the contract, pushing forward the official start of the permanent railyard. That leaves questions about the promised schedule for that railyard and for the subsequent platform and the towers built over that platform.
Eminent domain and blight
The state exercised eminent domain for Atlantic Yards based on some rather suspect logic:
- Forest City Ratner drew the map of the 22-acre project site, with the oddly missing gap in the south-central block
- the Blight Study conducted by the ESDC concerned only the footprint of the project
- the consultant conducting the Blight Study was hired to conduct a "Blight Study in support of the proposed project"
- the consultant, AKRF, had always found blight as directed
- the consultant, though initially charged to do so, did not compare market conditions on the project site with conditions nearby (Prospect Heights was already a hot neighborhood, and even pro-Atlantic Yards legislator Roger Green said the area was not blighted)
- the criteria for blight, such a properties built out to less than 60% of allowable development rights, were arbitrary and never promulgated to warn property owners
- blight was not raised as an official justification when Atlantic Yards was announced
|June 2003 map
The state Court of Appeals, with one exception, did not respond to plaintiffs' charges that Forest City drew the map. No wonder law professors from across the ideological spectrum now criticize that Court of Appeals decision.
"My personal view is the New York Court of Appeals basically abdicated any meaningful role for the judiciary in determining whether a blight designation even passed the laugh test," declared Rutgers Law Professor Ronald Chen at a February 2011 symposium.
From the majority opinion:
The land use improvement plan at issue is not directed at the wholesale eradication of slums, but rather at alleviating relatively mild conditions of urban blight principally attributable to a large and, of course, uninhabited subgrade rail cut.(Note that Gilmartin in October 2013 claimed that Atlantic Yards represented "massive blight.)
The railyard and blight
Only after the arena opened did Forest City Ratner reveal a plan to build four towers on the southeast block of the before constructing a platform for construction over the Vanderbilt Yard. That not only raised questions about whether the project would remove blight--the main justification for eminent domain--in a timely fashion, but also placed litigation over the railyard in a new light.
After all, one justification for a revised 2009 deal for the railyard, as detailed by the then-Chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Dale Hemmerdinger, was that the platform must be built before Forest City could start earning revenue.
In an affidavit, Hemmerdinger stated: "The board also took into consideration the tremendous up front investment by the buyer to actually build the platform' over the VD [Vanderbilt] Yard, which must be made before the developer can build the revenue generating portions of the proposal."
That left the impression that only after building the platform could Forest City realize value from its investment.
Yes, only the platform would produce revenue from the air rights directly above it. However, the MTA deal unlocked the revenue-generating potential for the entire project, including the arena; the towers around it on the arena block; and towers on the rest of the project site outside the Vanderbilt Yard.
Accommodating government agencies
Empire State Development, the state agency overseeing/shepherding the arena, was wiling to allow the setbacks for the B4 tower--the largest likely to be built--to be moved closer to narrow Sixth Avenue. See graphic at right.
Is that a major change? Maybe, maybe not. But the agency gave the public one day notice that it was considering some kind of change, and did not reveal the content of that change unless people attended the ESDC board meeting--and those attendees did not get a look at the graphics for another hour, only when the agenda item came up.
Also, the New York City Economic Development Corporation was happy to tell the Daily News that the arena, in its first year, was a net gain for the city, with no clear explanation.
Perhaps the least credible accommodation came in the 2006 Atlantic Yards environmental review, when Empire State Development Corporation claimed the project site would not "experience substantial change in the future without the proposed project... due to the existence of the open rail yard and the low-density industrial zoning regulations."
When the very reasonable possibility of a rezoning was raised, the state authority stonewalled, claiming, "While the City, if it desired, could rezone the project site, it has not."
Well, now. In a case resolved in May 2014 regarding the value of a condemned property within the Atlantic Yards site, Kings County Supreme Court Justice Wayne Saitta agreed with the property owner's argument that the site, without the project, could have become a 12-story hotel, concluding, "Most probably, the entire M1-1 [one-story manufacturing] district in the Atlantic Yards footprint would have been upzoned."
A telling episode in the Atlantic Yards saga came in a 4/2/08 earnings conference call that parent Forest City Enterprises (FCE) held with investment analysis. Then-CEO Chuck Ratner expressed satisfaction in the developer's relationship with local government, and said he expected more support.
At the time of the call, Forest City Ratner, FCE's New York subsidiary, had gained $105 million in city subsidies--quietly added after the project was approved--on top of the initially pledged $200 million from the city and state. (City officials now say total city subsidies are $179 million or $171.5 million, not $205 million.)
Since then, FCR gained (beyond other stated subsidies and tax breaks):
- a speed-up in delivery of pledged state and city subsidies
- an additional $31 million for land purchase (allegedly from infrastructure funds)
- a revised deal with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the Vanderbilt Yard, with only $20 million down (instead of $100 million), a smaller permanent yard, and a generous 6.5% interest rate to pay back the remaining $80 million
- a Development Agreement with gentle penalties and generous deadlines (12 years for Phase 1, 25 years for Phase 2)
"Forest City does not expect to ask for more subsidy," Gilmartin, then Executive VP, responded carefully. But of course it did, requesting $10 million more in housing subsidies.
Also, another representative of the developer unsuccessfully sought $9 million in state support to rebuild the Carlton Avenue Bridge.
The New York City Independent Budget Office called the arena a net loss to the city even without calculating the housing subsidies or the value of naming rights that the state gave away.
But even before the economy turned, the developer was lying, for example claiming (as in the screenshot at right) that 50% of all affordable apartments would be devoted to two- and three-bedroom units rather than, as promised in the Affordable Housing Memorandum of Understanding, 50% of the floor area.
Later, Forest City stopped mentioning that pledge and instead claimed that the goal was that 20% of the units would have two bedrooms.
It took a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request for me learn the full back story, in which the only reason the developer got to 20% was a push from the New York City Housing Development Corporation, and the agency acceded, mostly, to Forest City's counterproposal that the additional units be rented not to the families who loudly rallied for the project but households earning six figures.
That story is summarized in an 8/26/12 article for City Limits' Brooklyn Bureau, Agency, Developer Wrestle Over Atlantic Yards Affordability.
Now, as of June 2014, there's a plan to accelerate the housing to be finished in 2025, not 2035. That's significant progress. But there's a catch: the two new all-affordable buildings would differ significantly from the affordable housing promised.
The modular plan
Forest City and Empire State Development have stressed the innovation involved in the plan to build the first Atlantic Yards tower--and subsequent ones--via modular construction. It will mean fewer trucks, less noise, and less waste at the construction site, and the modular factory will be safer for workers.
All that may be so, but the key is that it will save Forest City money, since workers at the factory are paid less. And even if the building plan has fewer local impact, it was never studied--and the process wasn't disclosed. For example, Forest City initially said there would be one "mod" delivered overnight, then changed that to four.
In December 2012, Forest City and ESD prominently stated that modular deliveries would begin, and Forest City invited the media on 12/12/13 to watch the first lifting of "mods" and creation of an apartment. After that, there were no more deliveries for weeks, fueling the conclusion that the initial stacking was just a media event.
So, however innovative, it's questionable that Gilmartin, now CEO, declares modular "the modern redux of Jane Jacobs."
Despite claims that the modular construction would involve the same number of workers, that's not true. For the second phase of the project, there would be 10% fewer workers, 22% cut in costs/wages, and a 24% loss in tax revenues.
The arena liquor license
The arena operators made a joint presentation in April 2012 to Community Boards 2 and 6, claiming that alcohol sales would be cut off by the end of the third quarter for NBA games and before the end of concerts.
They failed to disclose a plan to serve 1,800 VIP patrons for one hour after events, up to 2 am. When the State Liquor Authority rolled that back to 1 am, a small victory for neighbors, the press missed arena operators' initial resistance to the change.
Late-night liquor service has not been an issue, but the episode remains telling.
Barclays, LIBOR, the roof logo and the green roof
If Atlantic Yards represents the "culture of cheating," then isn't naming rights partner Barclays a perfect fit? Barclays is an admitted cheater, paying $450 million to settle charges of interest rate manipulation.
The executive who negotiated the naming rights agreement, Bob Diamond, resigned in disgrace.
|The new green roof, SHoP rendering 2014
It's not a violation, but it sure looks like cheating.
Now Forest City plans a green roof--not open to anyone--on the arena, which was never disclosed in any environmental review. They claim it's for sustainability and esthetics, but it seems aimed to enhance the value of apartments and also to tamp down noise escaping from the arena.
Similarly, it should not be surprising that Forest City is willing to make a deal with Chinese government-owned Greenland Group to buy up to 70% of the project, and to obfuscate about Forest City's role as "managing member," even though Greenland will control the new joint venture.
Barclays Center developer Ratner, appearing 9/11/12 on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance," managed to smoothly rewrite the history of Forest City Ratner's (FCR) noncompliance with construction protocols (noise, dust, traffic) and the state's failure to stop such violations.
The failure goes back to the December 2009 Memorandum of Environmental Commitments (MEC) that FCR negotiated with Empire State Development, the state agency that has the dicey duty of both overseeing and promoting Atlantic Yards. The MEC was supposed to bind Forest City to construction practices that protected the neighborhood.
In fact, according to documents I viewed via a Freedom of Information Law request, the state at one point sought a $10,000 daily penalty for violations of the MEC. Forest City opposed the penalty. The developer prevailed. And, despite Ratner's claims, there have been numerous violations of protocols designed to tamp down dust, noise, and traffic.
|Dean Street between Flatbush and Sixth avenues, Sept. 12
Atlantic Yards Watch recently reported, with copious photos and video, on ever more violations of construction protocols, as trucks get jammed on residential Dean Street or make a wrong-way turn from Sixth Avenue to reach the tight setting of the loading dock.
Not only has ESD neglected oversight, documents suggest the agency and its environmental monitor have condoned a cover-up of a Forest City contractor's falsification.
Lingering problems
The Times on Jan. 1, 2013 reported how the arena opened despite more than 1700 defective bolts, a problem not fully disclosed to the Department of Buildings and--as I described--obfuscated in reports from the state agency overseeing the arena as well as the construction monitor for the bond trustee.
The impact of arena operations
There has not been the "Carmageddon" that people feared, thanks in part to the availability of and heavy promotion of public transit.
However, the arena does not function without significant use of public resources--and the willingness to overlook some localized but significant impacts. Traffic agents have overridden red lights on Flatbush Avenue to advance traffic and police have shut down Atlantic Avenue so crowds can cross in the middle of the street.
More importantly, and consonant with the construction violations, police have so far tolerated honking, idling limos and livery cabs on adjacent residential streets, including those in No Parking/No Standing zones.
And the loading dock has not operated, as a city official claims, "seamlessly," but instead has left many trucks waiting or idling on residential streets, as steadily documented on Atlantic Yards Watch.
An arena rep claimed the August 2013 MTV Video Music Awards event was a huge success, but some neighbors disagreed severely.
Arena noise
With the initial concerts by Jay-Z, and later concert EDM (electronic dance music) shows 10/26/12 and 10/27/12 called Sensation, pounding bass has penetrated the residences of neighbors on nearby blocks.
The response from the city was to send an inspector to measure noise--according to a neighbor--before the Jay-Z concert started. The community affairs representatives of Empire State Development (ESD) and the Barclays Center didn't respond to queries after the first Sensation show.
But Arana Hankin, then director, Atlantic Yards Project, ESD, did appear on a video for Sensation effusively suggesting, "I can only imagine people will love to have Sensation in their backyards."
They didn't--and while a proposed fine against the arena for Sensation was dismissed on a technicality, the city levied a $3200 fine--pocket change, really--against the arena for noise violations during a Swedish House Mafia show.
Those $15 Nets tickets
The arena and team promoters have made a bit deal out of the promised 2,000 affordable $15 tickets to Brooklyn Nets games. But those tickets were very elusive.
Some apparently were put up for sale for season tickets. Relatively few were available for before-game purchase--perhaps a few hundred. However, Nets ticket reps, in online chats, misleadingly told potential buyers that not only were there no $15 seats available as season tickets, they would not be available for individual sale.
For the second season, there will be no $15 tickets. The base price is $25. An arena spokesman, dubiously, blamed "scalping," though a more candid explanation came from the CEO. "We did raise our ticket prices in Year Two," Yormark said. "We did decide that, after giving everyone a sampling opportunity, we are a business."
The Community Benefits Agreement
Even the New York Times, which once saluted Forest City Ratner for developing a "modern blueprint" regarding how to harvest local support, acknowledged that the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) is inherently conflicted. But the picture is far more troubling.
Take, for example, the chair of the CBA coalition: Delia Hunley-Adossa. Her organization, the obliquely named Brooklyn Endeavor Experience, is ostensibly supposed to monitor local environmental impacts. It has mainly a Potemkin responsibility, and has done and said nothing regarding continued violations of construction protocols. Instead, she's more of a cheerleader.
A long article in Next City concluded, "Seven years after the Brooklyn document was signed, five of the groups have been mostly silent or reconstituted after without much fanfare." And even that article was way too gentle.
Indeed, Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development (BUILD), closed in 2012 after a complaint was filed to the state Attorney General, and a lawsuit lingers, filed by trainees who say they were duped. Meanwhile, Forest City rewrites BUILD's history and blames Caldwell and BUILD.
CBA partners are not merely cheerleaders for the project but active partners in distorting the history. Consider how the Downtown Brooklyn Neighborhood Alliance awarded free arena tours to students and then required them to write an essay, "What's the best thing about the Barclays Center."
The Independent Compliance Monitor
After signing the much-promoted CBA in June 2005, as shown in the film Battle for Brooklyn, Bruce Ratner claimed that, if there was any failure in compliance, there could be litigation. Mayor Mike Bloomberg intervened: "You have Bruce Ratner's word. That should be enough for you and everybody else in the community."
The CBA was supposed to require an Independent Compliance Monitor (ICM). In a March 2007 press release, Bruce Ratner stated:
"Atlantic Yards is setting a new standard for inclusion and community involvement for a development, and the ICM will be everyone's watchdog to ensure we reach all of the goals and benefits we have agreed to in the CBA."They've never hired an ICM, and thus saved the $100,000 a year once supposed to be set aside for that role.
New oversight
As part of the deal to accelerate housing announced in June 2014, there will be a new Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation assigned to monitor the project. This does represent progress, but with a limit: it will be controlled by the governor rather by local elected officials, as originally sought.
Jacobs vs. Moses
According to a 5/2/13 New York Observer article, Forest City's Gilmartin "also expressed her admiration for Jane Jacobs, praising her focus on mixed-use development and declaring that: 'It may surprise some given my developer DNA, that I identify more with Jane Jacobs than Robert Moses.'"
It may surprise some, indeed. As architecture critic Paul Goldberger has suggested, "So if there is any way to follow Jane Jacobs, it is to think of her as showing us not a physical model for city form but rather a perceptual model for skepticism."
There's ample reason to be skeptical of Gilmartin and of Forest City, and not just because of Atlantic Yards. The Culture of Cheating extends throughout other corporate behavior.
The Yonkers trial
Forest City Ratner's Ridge Hill retail/office development in Yonkers was the subject of a federal corruption trial that ended in March 2012 with the conviction of the City Council Member who flipped her vote to endorse the project and the fixer who had been providing corrupt payments to her all along--and just happened to ask Forest City Ratner for a job as the negotiations proceeded.
Federal prosecutors, in post-trial motions, make it clear that Forest City, though not criminally liable, benefited hugely from Sandy Annabi's vote--and her failure to disclose her conflict of interest with Zehy Jereis:
Had the public known that Jereis had been giving Annabi hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of several years, that Jereis and Annabi had a meeting with the Ridge Hill developers before the vote, and that Forest City Ratner promised Jereis a $60,000 no-show consulting contract if Annabi flipped her vote from no to yes, there would very likely have been a clamor for Annabi to be recused from the July 11, 2006 vote on the Ridge Hill Project... The largest development project in the history of New York's fourth largest city might never have been built. Or the developer might have had to make significant concessions.As the trial proceeded, Crain's New York Business columnist Greg David, generally a friend to developers, commented that Forest City Ratner must be relieved that its "See no evil, hear no evil" posture in Yonkers got so little attention. Yet the state agency overseeing Atlantic Yards nevertheless claimed that it was confident that Forest City remained a "good corporate citizen."


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A woman was hospitalized after she jumped out of a third floor window when a fire erupted inside a home in the Englewood neighborhood on Monday night.
The woman was taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County after out of the burning building in the 5900 block of South Peoria Street, according to Fire Media Affairs.
The woman's age and condition were not immediately known, but officials said she was conscious and alert before being transported.
The fire displaced five adults and eight children, Fire Media Affairs said, adding that firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze about 11:30 p.m.
Further details were immediately available.
Police are investigating the murder of a homeless man who was beaten to death in an alley in Logan Square.
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Hodgson in 'positive' talks with FA (From Bournemouth Echo)
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Hodgson in 'positive' talks with FA
7:31pm Monday 30th April 2012 in National Sport © Press Association 2014
Roy Hodgson left Wembley after a "positive" four-hour meeting with the Football Association, thrashing out the contract that is set to confirm him as England's new manager.
The West Brom boss arrived just before 3pm on Monday afternoon to meet the four-man Club England board - David Bernstein, Alex Horne, Sir Trevor Brooking and Adrian Bevington - to open negotiations after his club granted permission for him to become Fabio Capello's successor.
He left just after 7pm without making any comment and the FA confirmed there would be no further statements, although an update is expected at some point on Tuesday.
However, the mere fact nothing has happened can be viewed as a good sign, with the silence probably having as much to do with the other major footballing story of the day 200 miles north in Manchester as any breakdown in negotiations or unexpected stumbling blocks.
Certainly, FA insiders were at pains to stress Hodgson was attending a "meeting" rather than an interview, offering further proof that he remains the only man on their radar.
It is anticipated Hodgson will complete the Premier League season with West Brom before taking charge for England's two pre-Euro 2012 friendlies, against Norway in Oslo on May 26 and Belgium for his first game at Wembley, seven days later.


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Billy Joe Saunders and Chris Eubank Jr are set for separate bouts on Saturday's Fury-Chisora II undercard in Manchester.
Tyson Fury and Dereck Chisora meet in a rematch in the United Kingdom, while Gennady Golovkin headlines in New York against Daniel Geale.
Find out what you missed the past week. Countries highlighted in this review include the USA, UK, Argentina, Mexico, Thailand, Japan, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, and Belgium.
It's a busy week for boxing, with world titles on the line in the United States, Japan, and Germany, a big fight in Brooklyn, and Showtime and HBO going head-to-head.
Nonito Donaire, Amir Khan, and George Groves won their main event fights on Saturday, but whose stock really went up this weekend in boxing? BLH breaks this down with thorough and very serious...
Liam Smith captured the vacant Commonwealth junior middleweight title today in London with a hard-fought win over Steve O'Meara.
George Groves tops the bill in London against Glen Johnson, and Arthur Abraham defends his WBO super middleweight belt against Mehdi Bouadla in Germany on this afternoon's BoxNation card.
Today from the ExCel Arena in London, George Groves faces veteran Glen Johnson in the main event of Frank Warren's BoxNation bill.
Enzo Maccarinelli found himself on the bad end of a mistake by referee Ian John-Lewis, and Paul Butler won the British super flyweight title in Liverpool on Friday.
Preview of Friday's Commonwealth light-heavyweight title fight between champion Ovill McKenzie and challenger Enzo Maccarinelli.
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text: Sexy Halloween Costumes By Tony Wright October 9, 2013 3:27 PM | 1140 KSOO-AM Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Sexy Firehouse Hottie Pictures Provided by Party AmericaNext: Evil Queen Source: Sexy Halloween Costumes Filed Under: Halloween Category: Articles Share on Facebook Share on Twitter More Leave a comment Send to a friend! Print this page Pin it! Reddit This! Share on Tumblr! More Local News Police Say Sioux Falls Man Had 3.2 Pounds of Marijuana Sioux Falls Taxi Driver Foils Robbery Attempt Sioux Falls Teen Tells Police – 'Dealer Stole His Money Didn't Give Him Drugs' Beer Fans! Get Your Tickets Now To Your Idea of Heaven. Brewtopia at the Fairgrounds September 5th! Latest Entertainment News Kaley Cuoco Hacked / Nude Photos Leaked Lifelight: A Fun Fest, A Mud Fest! Donnie Wahlberg and Jenny McCarthy Are Married Celebrities Respond to Alleged Nude Photo Leaks: Jennifer Lawrence, Becca Tobin + More Best of the Web


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(FOX 11 / CNS) A man in custody on a parole violation was accused today as the alleged killer of a 39-year-old woman who was fatally shot during a robbery as she worked as a clerk at a 99-cent store in South Los Angeles, authorities said.
Eric Atkinson, 31, will be re-arrested on suspicion of murder, according to Los Angeles police Detective Lolita Deavila. According to Deavila, Atkinson lived within a quarter-mile from where Martha Sanchez -- a married mother of five children ranging in age from 3 to 19 -- was gunned down Sept. 17 in the 7400 block of Broadway. She was working alone when she was killed about 8:50 p.m. that day.
Police plan to re-arrest Atkinson later today at the jail facility where he is being held, Deavila said. The case will be presented to the district attorney's office for possible filing of a murder charge, she said.
Atkinson had been in custody on a parole violation, Deavila said.
Video footage released at a news conference last month at the 77th Street Station -- a couple of blocks away from the crime scene -- shows the suspect from the rear. Detective Eric Crosson of the 77th Criminal Gang Homicide Unit said at the time the suspect was seen by several people about 30 minutes before the shooting.
The suspect shot Sanchez several times, even though she did not resist, police said. A customer called police after walking into the store and discovering Sanchez suffering from multiple wounds.
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Fourteen-year-old Shane's 141 snooker break (From Daily Echo)
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Fourteen-year-old Shane's 141 snooker break
7:00am Saturday 13th October 2012 in Sport
WATERSIDE teenager Shane Castle has again raised his own bar with a massive new high break en route to winning a tournament in London.
The English under-14 and under-16 champion cleared every ball on the table in the quarter-finals of the first of five southern legs of the EASB Under-21 Series at Frames Sports Bar, Coulsdon.
Castle's 141 break, his 27th competitive century, came in the first frame of a 2-0 victory over Andrew Scott (London). It eclipsed the 137 he made against Ben Harrison on the EASB Premier Junior Tour in Romford five days before his 12th birthday.
The 14-year-old from Marchwood then accounted for Sam Harvey (Bedford) 2-1, against whom Castle had recorded his first century (101) at a tournament in Rushden at the age of nine.
And he saw off Adam Bobat (Fareham) 3-0 in the final when he opened with a run of 59 and produced a 46 clearance in the next frame.
Full story in Snooker Spotlight in today's Daily Echo
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Wheelchair User Walks Again With a 3D Printed Exoskeleton
In 1992, Amanda Boxtel suffered a vicious skiing accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down. Doctors said she would never walk again. This week, she proved them wrong, with the help of the world's first 3D printed exoskeleton that gives her the ability to climb out of her wheelchair and walk once again. »