USS Vireo (AM-52)

USS "Vireo" (AM-52) was a U.S. Navy , No. 52, reclassified on 1 June 1942 as a fleet tug. The bulk of her combat career was served in this capacity.
She was laid down on 20 November 1918 by the Philadelphia Navy Yard; launched on 26 May 1919; sponsored by Mrs. E. S. Robert; and commissioned on 16 October 1919, Lt. Ernest R. Peircey in command.
Post World War I operations.
"Vireo" was assigned to the Train, Atlantic Fleet, and operated along the U.S. East Coast until departing Norfolk, Virginia, on 8 January 1920 to join the Fleet for its annual winter maneuvers in Cuban waters. She arrived back in Norfolk on 28 April and was reclassified AM-52 on 17 July 1920.
East Coast service.
In the following years, while some of her sisterships were decommissioned and laid up in reserve, "Vireo" continued in active service with the Fleet. From 1920 to 1932, she served off the U.S. East Coast engaged in towing targets; transporting men, mail, and materiel; repairing buoys and beacons; and operating with the Atlantic and Scouting Fleets.
In July 1921, she towed several former German warships to sea off the Virginia Capes, where they were sunk by aircraft in attempts to prove that capital ships were vulnerable to attack from the air. Between December 1930 and March 1931, "Vireo" served as plane guard for aircraft engaged in supporting the Nicaraguan-Puerto Rican aerial survey.
Transferred to the Pacific Fleet.
Late in 1931, "Vireo" received orders assigning her to the U.S. Pacific Fleet and duty with the Train, Base Force. Departing Norfolk on 2 January 1932, "Vireo" steamed—via Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the Panama Canal—to the U.S. West Coast, arriving at San Pedro, California, on 6 March. Attached to the Pacific Fleet's Train, the minesweeper continued her Fleet support duties and ranged the Pacific from the California coast to Panama and the Hawaiian Islands.
With the emergence of an intransigent Japan and a tense Far Eastern situation, the focus of American Fleet operations shifted westward to Hawaii; and "Vireo" departed San Francisco, California, on 10 November 1940, bound for Pearl Harbor. Soon after reaching Hawaiian waters, she commenced operations out of Pearl Harbor, towing target rafts, conducting minesweeping exercises, and performing towing service to some of the outlying islands of the Hawaiian group, including Palmyra Island and Johnston Island.
From 5 September to 7 October 1941, "Vireo" underwent a navy yard overhaul at the Mare Island Navy Yard before heading westward once again. On 7 December 1941, "Vireo" lay in a nest of her sisterships at the coal docks at Pearl Harbor, which included , , and . Shortly before 0800 that morning, Japanese aircraft roared overhead. The marauders swept over the Fleet's base and devastated not only Pearl Harbor, but outlying Army and Navy installations all over the island of Oahu.
In upkeep status, with her engines dismantled, "Vireo" nevertheless speedily entered the fight. While her gunners topside fought their mounts coolly and efficiently, the "black gang" below decks assembled the ship's engines and fired up the boilers to get underway. Her 3-inch guns expended some 22 rounds, and the men at her number 2 mount rejoiced when one of their shells exploded directly in the path of a Japanese bomber, causing the Japanese plane to crash in a ball of fire.
"Vireo" and some of her sister sweepers at Pearl Harbor received orders to assist the stricken , sinking into the oil-stained ooze at berth F-3, off Ford Island.
While engaged in salvage operations alongside "California", through January 1942, "Vireo" also served briefly as a tender to . The minesweeper carried ammunition to replenish "Big E's" depleted magazines and prepare that ship for future forays against the Japanese empire.
Hawaiian area operations.
After conducting minesweeping operations in the Pearl Harbor channel and other Hawaiian waters, "Vireo" underwent upkeep at Pearl Harbor between 10 and 13 February 1942. Following local operations near Honolulu and Pearl Harbor, she made brief runs to Johnston Island and the port of Hilo.
In April and May 1942, after another brief stretch around Pearl Harbor, "Vireo" conducted local patrols out of Hilo, sometimes in company with to conduct magnetic, acoustic, and mechanical minesweeping operations; and to patrol harbors with her echo-ranging and listening gear. From 23 to 24 April, "Vireo", in company with "Crossbill" and , conducted a search for survivors of a downed Army plane off Pepeekeo Point, near Hilo, and found one body before she abandoned the task.
Service as Fleet Tug.
On 28 May 1942, under secret orders, "Vireo" and gasoline tanker departed Honolulu and headed for Midway Island. During the voyage, "Vireo" was reclassified as an ocean-going tug and redesignated AT-144 on 1 June 1942. While "Vireo" and her charge crept toward Midway at nine knots, two battle fleets steamed toward each other on a collision course. The American and Japanese Navies were squaring off for the decisive Battle of Midway.
"Vireo" and "Kaloli" hove to in Midway harbor on 3 June, amidst preparations there for defense of the island. Soon after the two American ships arrived, they received orders to proceed to a point 30 miles off Pearl and Hermes Reef, where they were to await further orders. Underway by 1910, "Vireo" and the gasoline tanker soon arrived at their assigned stations and lay to.
The Battle of Midway.
Air action the following day, 4 June 1942, was intense. Japanese carriers Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu were all crippled and sunk by American planes. However, American carrier became the unfortunate victim of Japanese dive and torpedo bombers which heavily damaged the carrier, stopping her dead in the water, and forcing a severe list.
"Vireo" takes "Yorktown" in tow.
Lest the ship capsize before the crew could be removed, Capt. Elliot Buckmaster ordered "Yorktown" abandoned. When "Yorktown" stopped settling, Buckmaster concluded that the ship could possibly be saved. Accordingly, "Vireo" received a summons to take "Yorktown" in tow. The tug arrived on the scene by 1135 on 5 June and closed and maneuvered to pass "Yorktown" a towline, accomplishing this by 1308. "Vireo" and her unwieldy charge then labored painfully ahead, at a speed of under 3 knots, with a protective brood of destroyers standing by.
"Vireo", hampered by a small rudder and inadequate engines for such a large tow, found itself confronted with the Herculean task of keeping the big carrier pointed into the wind and on course. The next day, secured alongside "Yorktown" to assist the salvage parties on the larger ship working to correct her trim and to repair her battle damage.
Around 1400 on 6 June, Japanese submarine "I-168" fired torpedoes at the nearly helpless targets. "Hammann", mortally hit, broke in two and sank alongside the towering carrier, which also took two torpedoes. As the destroyer sank, her depth charges all went off at once, causing tremendous shock waves which convulsed swimmers in the water and violently wrenched the old tug. "Vireo" freed herself from the carrier by cutting the towing cable with an acetylene torch and then doubled back to commence rescue operations.
Up her sides clambered carriermen and destroyermen alike, while she maneuvered near the carrier's canting stern to take on board members of the salvage party who had chosen to abandon the carrier from there. She then proceeded to secure alongside the wounded flattop in the exact spot where "Hammann" had met her doom. "Yorktown" rolled heavily, her heavy steel hide pounding the lighter former minecraft's hull with a vengeance as the ships touched time and time again during the rescue operations. This mission completed, battered "Vireo" stood away from the sinking carrier, which sank shortly after dawn on the 7th.
"Vireo's" troubles, however, had only begun. Underwater explosions from "Hammann's" depth charges had severely jostled the tug's rudder. As a result, it jammed as "Vireo" was entering the shipping channel at Midway harbor on 8 June, and she ran aground on a coral head, carrying away her echo-ranging gear and flooding her sound room. Repeated attempts to free herself only resulted in another grounding, so "Vireo" lay-to and called for a tow.
After arriving at Midway Island at the end of a towline from "YMT-12", following another brush with a coral head which irreparably damaged the rudder, "Vireo" soon got underway for Pearl Harbor, this time behind . Reaching Hawaiian waters on 17 June, she entered the navy yard at Pearl Harbor for emergency repairs which lasted from 18 to 30 June. Following this, she remained at the Pearl Harbor yard for a complete overhaul and drydocking.
Converted into a tow ship and sent to Fiji.
Having concluded the refitting by 19 August, "Vireo" conducted post-repair trials before turning in all her mine gear on 25 August. Two days later, she got underway to escort "SS Gulf Queen" to the Fiji Islands, towing two barges. Upon her arrival at Suva on 11 September, the tug refueled, provisioned, and carried out minor repairs before heading for New Caledonia on 15 September. After arriving at Noumea five days later, on 20 September 1942, she commenced harbor operations under the control of Commander, Amphibious Forces, South Pacific (AmphibForSoPac). In accordance with verbal orders from ComAmphibForSoPac, "Vireo's" crew set about making camouflage nets and painting the ship green in preparation for her next assignment.
Guadalcanal operations.
Arriving at Espiritu Santo on 8 October, she awaited further orders, spending four days at this port in the New Hebrides before setting out for the Guadalcanal area on 12 October, to take part in resupply operations for the U.S. Marines at Henderson Field.
Since the initial landings on Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942, the campaign had been fought tooth and nail. Fierce land and sea battles had characterized the fighting since the early going. By this juncture, American aviation operations on Henderson Field had been so endangered by shellings, bad weather, and inadequate supplies, that the American situation was extreme.
With American aircraft using up gasoline at an alarming rate, that commodity ranked high on the list of priority supplies. Accordingly, a barge-towing operation was mounted in mid-October to ease the critical fuel situation on Guadalcanal.
The force to carry out this operation comprised , , , , , and "Vireo", each pulling a barge carrying barrels of gasoline and quarter-ton bombs. Setting out from Espiritu Santo, the highly volatile convoy was spotted by Japanese aircraft on 15 October. All but "Vireo" and "Meredith" beat a hasty retreat.
Cautiously proceeding, the pair beat off a two-plane Japanese attack before they received word that Japanese surface ships were in the area. Only then did they reverse course. At noon, "Meredith" ordered old, slow, and vulnerable "Vireo" abandoned and took off her crew. "Meredith" then stood off to torpedo the tug at 1215 so that she would not fall into enemy hands intact. Suddenly, a whirlwind of destruction swept down from the sky and descended upon the destroyer. Like hawks, 38 planes from the Japanese carrier Zuikaku pounced on "Meredith" and deluged her with bombs, torpedoes, and bullets, sinking her in about 15 minutes.
"Vireo" and the two gasoline barges, however, drifted to leeward, untouched. One life raft, crammed with some of "Meredith's" survivors, succeeded in intercepting the derelict tug and the men gratefully scrambled aboard. The barges and the tug were later found intact by a PBY naval scout plane which rescued six of the Meredith's crew. When a salvage party boarded "Vireo" on 21 October, the ship was dead in the water with no lights, no steam, and no power. After abortive attempts to light fires under the boilers, using wood, the tug had to be taken under tow by . In company with "Grayson" and , "Vireo" arrived safely at Espiritu Santo on 23 October.
With a new crew—the majority of her old complement lost in the ordeal with "Meredith"—she continued to operate in the Guadalcanal area with Task Force 62. She conducted resupply operations to Guadalcanal, towing barges loaded with precious gasoline and bombs and carrying out local escort for other, larger ships, engaged in the same vital duties.
On 3 December, in company with and towing PT boats, she departed Nouméa and proceeded to Australia. Arriving at Cairns on 9 December, she spent the remainder of the year there, enjoying Christmas and New Year's Day in Australian waters before heading back to the combat area, arriving at Espiritu Santo on 9 January.
Return to Guadalcanal operations.
Operating out of the New Hebrides in early January, she assisted cruisers and as they underwent repairs following damage received at Tassafaronga. Towing barges and firing target bursts for destroyers during gunnery practice off Guadalcanal, the tug continued her operations as before, between that island and Espiritu Santo and Nouméa. It was dull and monotonous duty but necessary and vital, nonetheless.
In April 1943, as American forces advanced on the "island-hopping", "leap-frogging" campaigns against the Japanese in the South Pacific, Japanese Admiral Yamamoto initiated operation "I." Yamamoto aimed this stroke at Papua, in the hope of compensating for the loss of Guadalcanal, by destroying the American advance base there and thus slowing or stopping the Allied advance. The new Japanese thrust began on 7 April when large formations of Japanese planes swept down from Rabaul to attack American shipping in Lunga Roads between Guadalcanal and Tulagi.
Among these ships, there lay "Vireo", engaged in her usual harbor activities. "Pathfinder" was engaged in taking soundings; also near were and "SC-521". Shortly before the attack came, passed by, escorting "LST-U9". Three Japanese dive bombers swooped down out of the sun and severely damaged the destroyer with their lethal loads. "Ortolan" and "Vireo" took the crippled "Aaron Ward" under tow, but the destroyer sank three miles short of Tulagi.
The Battle of Kula Gulf.
As the New Georgia campaign got underway and American forces advanced further up the chain of islands in the southwest Pacific, "Vireo" continued her operations out of Tulagi, Espiritu Santo, or Nouméa. In the pre-dawn darkness of 13 July, the Battle of Kula Gulf was fought between Japanese and American surface forces, the latter augmented by New Zealand cruiser "Leander". In the action which followed, , , and "Leander" were damaged. Later that day, "Vireo", in company with set out to assist in getting the cripples home and towed "Honolulu" to haven at government wharf, Tulagi, where temporary repairs to the cruiser's bow were made.
Second reclassification.
For the remainder of 1943 and on into 1944, "Vireo" followed the Fleet as it inched closer to Japan. In the rearward island areas, she continued her duties as a harbor tug and local escort vessel. On 15 May 1944, "Vireo" was reclassified as an ocean-going tug, old, and redesignated ATO-144.
In late July, American forces struck in northwestern New Guinea at Cape Sansapor. "Vireo" took part in these operations from 30 July to 2 August, engaged in the vital support activities necessary to support the successful landings.
Supporting the Philippine invasion.
After service in the South Pacific Ocean, the old tug moved northward with the invasion armada to liberate the Philippine Islands from the Japanese. On 18 October 1944, American troops stormed ashore on Leyte, keeping General Mac Arthur's promise to return to Philippine soil. "Vireo" operated in support of these landings into December. She departed Morotai on the 10th, bound for Biak. From there, she proceeded to Leyte, engaged in towing duties.
Supporting Okinawa invasion.
Next—after touching at Hollandia, Manus, and Biak—she took part in the Okinawa operations in April and May 1945. Returning to Morotai, she engaged in towing operations again, this time to Tacloban on the island of Leyte, departing there on 25 May for Subic Bay. For the remainder of the war, she operated between the Philippine Islands and New Guinea, as American forces continued to sweep northward towards the Japanese home islands.
End-of-war operations.
On 20 December 1945, after immediate postwar towing operations at Manila, Luzon, and Samar, she departed Philippine waters on 20 December 1945, in company with and , and headed for the Marshalls.
Following a brief stay at Eniwetok, "Vireo" got underway on 4 January 1946 and proceeded via Pearl Harbor to the west coast. She arrived at San Francisco, California, on 5 February and reported to the Commandant, 12th Naval District, for disposition.
Decommissioned.
As newer and more powerful fleet tugs supplanted the old converted minesweepers, the need for the old vessels decreased. Thus, on 18 April 1946, "Vireo" was decommissioned, declared surplus to Navy needs, and made available for disposal. Struck from the Navy list on 8 May 1946, "Vireo" was transferred from the Maritime Commission for disposal on 4 February 1947; but no records of her subsequent fate have survived. However, the "Sasaulito News" on February 13, 1947 reported that the "Vireo" had arrived at the Arques Shipyard in Sausalito to be painted in preparation for impending service as Panamanian-flagged lumber boat carrying hardwoods between Long Beach and Panama.
Military awards and honors.
"Vireo" received seven battle stars for her World War II service.


Les Johnson (diplomat)

National Heritage Life Insurance Company

National Heritage Life Insurance Company (NHLC) was an insurance company based in Orlando, Florida. It collapsed as a result of a fraud scheme, and was liquidated in 1995. It is believed to have been the largest insurance company failure caused by criminal acts in U.S. history, resulting in $450 million of losses.
Background.
National Heritage, then owned by Lifeco Investment Group, sold mostly universal life and other life insurance and annuity products, principally in Florida. In the late 1980s, the company was struggling financially, and in 1989 suffered a 34% decline in revenues, and reported a sizable operating loss. In 1990, the Delaware Insurance Department threatened to shut down the company if it did not raise additional capital. An investment group called Tri-Athlantic Holdings, operated by David Davies, Lambert Aloisi and Patrick Smythe, offered $4 million in return for a controlling interest in Lifeco and National Heritage. This was accepted.
Fraud scheme.
Lifeco did not know that Tri-Atlantic Holdings did not have $4 million. Instead, they issued a check and covered it with a series of transactions similar to a check-kiting scheme. These series of transactions reduced National Life's assets by $3 million. A lawyer named Michael Blutrich then became involved in the scheme. Blutrich was an owner of the strip club Scores in Manhattan, which was then controlled by the Gambino Mafia family. Blutrich was outside counsel for National Heritage, and later became a government witness who admitted to his role in the fraud.
Sholam Weiss became acquainted with Blutrich and his partner Lyle K. Pfeffer, and became involved in the fraud in 1992. After taking control in 1993, Weiss and others bought worthless stocks and mortgages in a series of deals that drained the insurer of hundreds of millions of dollars. Much of the money vanished., and millions went into accounts controlled by Weiss. The heavy involvement of attorneys, who comprised one-quarter of the persons eventually convicted, helped the conspirators keep the fraud secret.
National Life had about 35,000 customers, of whom about 10,500 lived in Florida. Many lost their life savings as a result of the fraud, though various guaranty funds repaid policy and annuity holders about $420 million. Nearly all the policies were acquired by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Though the policyholders were largely able to recoup their funds, the delay caused hardship for some as a result of the delay involved.
Aftermath.
In 1994, the Delaware Insurance Department placed the company in receivership. It was liquidated in 1995.
Weiss was tried on multiple felony counts and fled the country while the jury was deliberating. In November 1999, he was found guilty in absentia and was sentenced to 845 years in prison. In addition to Weiss, 15 other defendants pleaded guilty or were convicted in the fraud case by the time he was sentenced, and several were serving long prison terms.
While on the run, Weiss travelled to Israel, Europe and South America, living extravagantly and spending money on fine dining, gambling and prostitution. He was apprehended in Vienna and extradited to the United States in 2002. At the time, Weiss was believed by the FBI to have control of $225 million to $250 million stolen from National Life.
The National Heritage financial collapse is believed to have been the largest insurance failure caused by crime in history, The sentence imposed on Weiss for his role in the scheme, 845 years, was the longest for a white-collar crime in the United States. Weiss's sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump on January 19, 2019.


Jacob Barrow Montefiore

Jacob Barrow Montefiore (1801–1895) was a member of the South Australian Colonization Commission in London from 1835 to 1839, a body appointed by the British Government under King William IV to oversee implementation of the "South Australia Act 1834", which established the Colony of South Australia.
Montefiore Hill in North Adelaide, the location of Light's Vision (a statue of founding father Colonel Light), is named after Montefiore.
Early life.
Montefiore was eldest son of Eliezer Montefiore, owner of a sugar plantation in Barbados with a home in London, and Judith (née Barrow). They were a wealthy family of Sephardi Jews, and his youngest brother Joseph Barrow Montefiore (1803–1893) was educated in London and lived in the city.
Colonial interests.
Jacob got involved with trading produce in the colonies, and developed an interest in the Australian colonies, investing in the Swan River Colony (now Perth and Western Australia) in 1829, and also shared real estate interests in the Colony of New South Wales with his brother Joseph.
The two brothers were partners in J. Barrow Montefiore & Co, and helped to found the Bank of Australasia, later the ANZ Bank; Jacob was a founding director, while Joseph was the Sydney representative. Both brothers suffered London bankruptcy proceedings in 1844.
He became a member of the South Australian Association, formed in 1833 by a group consisting of men of varied backgrounds, from philanthropists to merchants, and including Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Robert Gouger, Robert Torrens Sr and George Fife Angas, who wished to create a new British province in southern Australia.
In May 1835 he was appointed to the board of South Australian Colonization Commissioners in London, who were responsible for establishing the new British Province of South Australia. He remained a Commissioner until 1839. Montefiore and fellow Commissioner Lieutenant-Colonel George Palmer were responsible for fulfilling all of the agents' and other requirements for the "First Fleet of South Australia" in 1836, under the command of Colonel Light. As part of the process, the pair trialled a new code for emigrant ships, requiring that a ship's surgeon had to travel on any ship with over 100 passengers. It also specified a minimum deck height. This reform, leading to reduced deaths at sea, was adopted for all British emigrant ships in 1839. As the Commission's first two ships, and , were readying for the voyage to Australia in August 1836 (the South Australian Company having sent the first three ships in July), Montefiore and Palmer helped Colonel Light to prepare the ships.
Later life.
The Governor of South Australia, Sir George Grey, received Montefiore when he travelled to South Australia in 1843. By the time he visited again in 1854, his brother Joseph was in Adelaide and once again successful in business, as proprietor of JB Montefiore & Co. Jacob Montefiore was a keen advocate for South Australia for the rest of his life, and full of praise for Light.
Four friends of Light – Palmer, Montefiore, Raikes Currie and Alexander Lang Elder, sent a silver bowl to the Mayor and Corporation of the City of Adelaide in 1859 as a gift. The bowl was to be used for toasting the memory of Light, a tradition which continues today.
Montefiore gifted a painted portrait of himself by Barnett Samuel Marks to the National Gallery of South Australia in 1885. He was appointed honorary commissioner of South Australia at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London in 1886.
He died in London in 1895.
Other family relationships.
Barbados Barrows.
From will transcripts, all of which mention slaves:


Incredible Universe

Incredible Universe was the name of a chain of American consumer electronics stores in the early to mid-1990s. A typical Incredible Universe was of sales floor and warehouse, stocking around 85,000 items.
The operation was conceived by former Tandy CEO John Roach. Many internal corporate philosophies of Disney theme parks were borrowed; in an Incredible Universe store, retail departments were "scenes", employees were "castmembers", customers were "guests", uniforms were "costumes", and so forth. The company was a joint venture between Tandy Corporation and Trans World Entertainment.
Layout.
The stores featured a large rotunda area with an actual stage where sales presentations, product demonstrations, autograph signings, or even occasional musical acts were performed, and various retail departments (software, music and video, and accessories) were accessible from this rotunda. Moving through the rotunda area would lead one to the main storefront where larger consumer electronics and computers were sold.
A store would also generally contain from four to eight sound rooms where particular combinations of audio/video equipment could be demonstrated, and some stores contained McDonald's restaurants (the Wilsonville, Oregon store contained a Pizza Hut) and temporary day care facilities where parents could leave their small children while they shopped.
Many stores also had a second floor which housed a cafeteria for the staff as well as training and demo rooms. The training rooms were used for demonstrating new product from vendors to the staff as well as public training on computers, software, and audio/video gear for purchase. Rounding out the computer department was a computer upgrade center which could add new memory, a sound card, or a modem in just a few minutes.
History.
Initially, two stores were opened in Arlington, Texas, and Wilsonville, Oregon. When these proved profitable, parent company Tandy, an electronics company, decided to expand quickly, opening an additional 15 stores. In the mid-1990s, Incredible Universe was a sponsor of the Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Sidekicks, Dallas Stars, Sacramento Kings, and Texas Rangers professional sports franchises. During this time, however, with the growth of other retail outlets such as Best Buy, the market became more competitive, and the expense of operating such large facilities resulted in an overall lack of profitability for the entire enterprise.
Ultimately, the company was forced to close or sell all 17 of its locations between 1996 and 1997. Only six were ever consistently profitable; these six stores (Arlington, Dallas, Phoenix, Wilsonville, Sacramento, and San Diego) were sold to California company Fry's Electronics in 1996, which itself ceased operations in 2021.
The closed buildings were so large that they could not be readily adapted to other business purposes, and buyers were so scarce that Tandy sold the empty buildings for mere pennies on the dollar. In 1996, the Incredible Universe stores lost $90 million, and in 1997, Tandy announced the store closures. Tandy officials say "the stores were profitable but not 'viable.'" One of the former Incredible Universe sites located in Houston was acquired and redeveloped by Houston Community College which became the HCC Southwest campus. Another, in Woodbridge, Virginia, became a manufacturing plant for General Dynamics' line of amphibious war fighting vehicles, from 2002 to 2012; it was later adapted to Gander Mtn. and Floor & Decor stores. The Westbury, Long Island store was converted into a Target and no longer has the 'signature' look (bowed front) of an Incredible Universe. The Sandy, Utah store was converted to a Costco warehouse. The Auburn, Washington location, situated on the north side of the Supermall of the Great Northwest, was converted to a Sam's Club in 1999, retaining the original Incredible Universe façade. The location closed without warning in early 2018; the site is currently unused. The Lone Tree, Colorado store became a Great Indoors, until that chain closed in 2012, at which point it converted to a Sears Outlet, though that eventually closed as well, leaving the property vacant. The Hollywood, Florida location remained empty for some time, but was eventually converted to a Home Depot which it remains to this day. The Columbus, Ohio location was converted into a Garden Ridge (now At Home) while the northern half of the parking lot was used to build a Dave & Buster's. The Pineville, NC store closed abruptly in 1997 after being open for only six months. It was converted to a Sam's Club location, but the front entrance area retained the original two-level overhang. The Fishers, Indiana store became a car dealership, but was taken over by Fry's in 2005. The Doral, Florida location was converted into another store named "AAAA Universe", which later closed down. The store has since been demolished and a hospital is being built on the site. The Atlanta, Georgia location became a Dave & Buster's location in 1998. After that Dave & Buster's location closed the building housed a succession of other business, currently the building is being rebuilt into an Amazon warehouse.


Festival of Mountain and Plain

The Festival of Mountain and Plain was an annual celebration of pioneer days in the Old West held in early October in Denver from 1895 to 1899, and in 1901 with a final attempt at revival in 1912. Organized by The Mountain and Plain Festival Association, the event featured a parade and rodeo. It continued until at least 1902. It was a regional celebration and drew pioneers from throughout the West, many of whom had participated in the events celebrated.
William Byers, founder of the "Rocky Mountain News", Colorado's first newspaper, was one of its promoters and directors. He originated many of its features: the bal champedre (outdoor ball), a great public masquerade ball held on Broadway; and the four great parades: first, a pageant of western history; second, a masked parade; and, on the third day "a military and social parade, ending with a sham battle at City Park, and in the evening the parade of the slaves of the silver serpent."


AGC Glass Europe

AGC Glass Europe is an international glass manufacturing group based in Louvain-la-Neuve, and the European branch of the AGC group (Asahi Glass Co., Ltd).
AGC Glass Europe currently employs some 14,500 people. Its industrial facilities comprise 18 float glass lines, 10 automotive glass processing centres and more than 100 distribution-processing units in Europe, stretching from Spain to Russia.
History.
"Glaverbel" was founded in 1961 in Belgium out of the merger of "Glaver S.A." (Glaces et Verres) and "Univerbel S.A." (Union des Verreries Mécaniques Belges). In 1972 the French "BSN" (Boussois-Souchon-Neuvesel) group (now Danone) gained control over Glaverbel. Glaverbel started with a restructuring program and diversified into glass processing in 1974.
In 1981 BSN shed its flat glass activities and the "Asahi Glass Co. Ltd." of Japan acquired Glaverbel. In 1987 Glaverbel was registered at the Brussels stock exchange and in 1991 expanded into Central Europe with the acquisition of "Glavunion" in Czechoslovakia. Glaverbel was the first western industrial company to invest in Czechoslovakia, and in 1997 the first western glass producer to invest in Russia. In 1998, Glaverbel acquired the European glass activities of "PPG Glass Industries", mainly located in France and Italy.
In 2002, AGC acquired the whole of Glaverbel, and was deregistered from the Brussels stock exchange. In 2007, Glaverbel was renamed as "AGC Flat Glass Europe" and in 2010 "AGC Glass Europe".
Jean-François Heris is AGC Glass Europe President and CEO to date. AGC Glass Europe employs around 14,500 people.
Splintex was being a brand of automotive glasses which was being owned by Glaverbel Group until 2007.
In 2015 AGC acquired Polish automotive glass manufacturer NordGlass.
Price-fixing scandal.
AGC Flat Glass Europe (Glaverbel) is one of the four glass manufacturers who were fined a total of 486.9 million euros ($717.5 million; £348.2m) by the European Commission on 28 November 2007 for illegally co-coordinating price rises. The European Commission said the firm had raised or stabilised prices in 2004 and 2005 through illicit contacts with the other principal glass manufacturers: Guardian Industries of the US, Pilkington (the UK unit of Nippon Sheet Glass), and Saint-Gobain of France; all four of which together controlled 80% of Europe's market for flat glass.
Neelie Kroes, the EU's competition commissioner, said that the EU would "not tolerate companies cheating consumers and business customers by fixing prices and depriving them of the benefits of the single market".


GameCrazy

GameCrazy was a video game retailer based in Wilsonville, Oregon. It was a subsidiary of Movie Gallery. The stores were often, but not always, located adjacent to Hollywood Video rental stores.
GameCrazy and its parent company, Movie Gallery, filed for bankruptcy in May 2010.
History.
In 1999, to compete in a growing video game market, Hollywood Entertainment launched a store-within-a-store concept called GameCrazy. It featured the ability to buy, sell, and trade video games, systems, and accessories inside of Hollywood Video stores. Each respective location offered video games for all "next generation" platforms in both new and used conditions. Select locations offered products for older systems such as the NES and Sega Genesis. GameCrazy enabled customers to play a particular title, new or used, prior to purchase. This "try before you buy" option was a staple GameCrazy policy.
Movie Gallery launched a similar store-within-a-store initiative called Game Zone. These stores were developed and implemented for use within Movie Gallery locations while GameCrazy was generally used within Hollywood Video stores. While many locations operated these areas as completely separate brands (i.e. Both Game Zone / GameCrazy operated with segregated staff and management), others operated using a single unified staff. While the majority of GameCrazy stores were located within their respective rental partner, the company did expand their chain to include standalone GameCrazy stores.
As of December 31, 2006, there were 634 GameCrazy locations which were generally located within the same building as Hollywood Video. The construction of standalone "concept stores" were ongoing at the time of the chain's closure, the most recent being opened in Las Vegas, Nevada. GameCrazy contributed 13% to Movie Gallery's revenue for 2006, with 70% of its revenue coming from new and used software and 30% from new and used hardware products. GameCrazy competed with both other specialty retail video game stores, such as GameStop and the fast-growing video game franchise, Play N Trade, as well as big box retailers such as Target, Walmart, and Best Buy.
Downfall.
The company began having financial difficulties despite its major efforts to respond to business challenges. In October 2007, Movie Gallery filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy code. Because of these troubles, the stock price fell below $1 per share and was no longer listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange in November 2007.
On September 28, 2009, Wilsonville, Oregon based Movie Gallery, which owned GameCrazy, announced it would close 200 of its 680 stores by the end of October 2009 due to financial problems brought on from the failing video stores.
Movie Gallery's stock price fell from $1.25 at close in October 2009 to $.05 at close on December 2009, and many locations fell behind on rent. As a result, the company hired restructuring firm Moelis & Company, giving it a 60-day grace period to negotiate with lenders and landlords. But it was forced into bankruptcy a second time in February 2010.
During a company-wide conference call on April 30, 2010, it was announced that all U.S. Hollywood Video, Movie Gallery, and GameCrazy stores would file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in May 2010 and wind down business. Analysts generally believe that Movie Gallery & Hollywood Video's unprofitability, caused by competition from Blockbuster Inc. and online retailers such as Netflix and Redbox, was one of the major factors in the company's decision to close the retail chain.
As of December 15, 2011, the GameCrazy.com site has been relaunched as a gaming blog, but has ceased to update since late October 2014.
Store information.
As a video game specialty store, GameCrazy dealt primarily in new and used video game related products such as consoles, accessories, and games. Remuneration for video game and accessory trade-ins was provided in the form of cash or store credit. Consoles were provided with a credit value as cash was not given for previously used video game systems. Noteworthy was the GameCrazy price matching policy whereby the retailer would generally exceed the trade-in value offered by a physical retailer and/or competitor by 5%.
Midnight launches for highly anticipated titles were common but not compulsory.
GameCrazy instituted a "Wishlist" and "Special Order" feature which allowed the gamer the ability to procure elusive video game related product. The wish list notified the staff once a desired product had been traded in by flagging that particular item in the Point of Sale (POS) System. For immediate action, a special order could be placed where the desired item was shipped from the nearest GameCrazy to the consumer's local store.
The Most Valuable Player (MVP) was a service offered by GameCrazy which provided customers with a 10% discount on used games and accessories as well as a 10% increase in video game trade-in value. Most recently, GameCrazy launched an upgraded discount card called MVP Plus. This not only provided the 10% discount on used games and accessories, but also could be used at other businesses. It also provided a 5% cash back incentive to a member, through the MVP Plus login website, where a form was printed out, and relevant purchase receipts were mailed off. The card member then received a check in the mail for the 5% cash back. There was a yearly fee to carry this card.
Competitors with a similar business model include GameStop and their subsidiary EB Games, which also specialize in new and used video games. In addition to customer trade-ins, the store sold used games once offered for rental in Hollywood Video stores.


Simon de Wit

Simon de Wit was a large family-owned chain of supermarkets in the Netherlands.
The company was founded by Simon de Wit (1852–1934), who after his father's death in 1867 started a grocery store from his parental house in Wormerveer. In 1888 he opened the first branch in Amsterdam and by 1900 he ran stores at 30 different locations and owned a central warehouse in Zaandam.
In 1954 the opening of the 150th store was celebrated. In 1970, when Simon de Wit's grandson Simon was in charge, a fire destroyed the central warehouse in Zaandam. Soon after Albert Heijn, which also originated in the Zaanstreek, showed interest in a takeover and in 1973 Simon de Wit merged with Albert Heijn, with all employees retaining their jobs. All remaining shops took on the name of the latter.


Intracoastal Waterway

The Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) is a inland waterway along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the United States, running from Boston, Massachusetts, southward along the Atlantic Seaboard and around the southern tip of Florida, then following the Gulf Coast to Brownsville, Texas. Some sections of the waterway consist of natural inlets, saltwater rivers, bays, and sounds, while others are artificial canals. It provides a navigable route along its length without many of the hazards of travel on the open sea.
Context and early history.
Since the coastline represented the national border and commerce of the time was chiefly by water, the fledgling U.S. government established a degree of national control over it. Inland transportation to supply the coasting trade at the time was less known and virtually undeveloped, but when new lands and their favorable river systems were added in 1787, a radically new and free national policy was established for their development and transportation use.
Over time, internal improvements of natural coastal and inland waterways would develop into the Great Loop, which allows for waterborne circumnavigation of the eastern continental United States, using minimal ocean travel, with the Intracoastal Waterway providing its eastern end.
In 1808, the first federal government report on existing, possible, and likely avenues of transportation improvement was presented; it included much of the distance where the ICW now traverses the Atlantic coast. At the request of the Senate, Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin presented an overall plan for future transportation developments of national importance and scope.
Along with inland east–west improvements, Gallatin's north–south improvements included the following:
While Gallatin discussed the details of engineering, construction, and costs, including the national benefits to accrue from lowered transportation costs between domestic and international markets, his full $20 million, 10-year plan was never approved. That is not to say his plan was never implemented, however, for with experience in the War of 1812 shortly thereafter and the attendant British blockade, the continued need for such facility was soon highlighted.
Since Gallatin had based his proposals on the known advantageous natural geographic features of the country, many of his proposals became the locations of navigation improvements that were surveyed, authorized, and constructed starting with the 1824 General Survey Act and the first of many pieces of rivers and harbors legislation, as well by individual state-built improvements.
Since these 1824 acts, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has responsibility for navigation waterway improvements and maintenance. All four proposed sections of Gallatin's intracoastal plan were eventually built; the Delaware and Raritan Canal was later abandoned for a better alternative, but the Cape Cod Canal remains in operation, and the Delaware and the Dismal Swamp portions still form part of the larger present-day Intracoastal Waterway.
19th-century growth.
In 1826, Congress authorized the first survey for an inland canal between the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. After the Civil War, government funding shifted from waterways to railroads; still, coastal improvements authorized for development included the Houston Ship Channel and the Delaware River in 1872. The following year, the Senate's Select Committee on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard looked at the need for more haulage capacity to move freight to the coasts. But their "Report of Windom Select Committee" their plans and recommendations "received less attention than was anticipated, of course by reason of the rapid growth of interest in railways".
In the River and Harbors Appropriations Acts of 1882 and 1884, Congress signaled its intent to improve waterways to benefit the nation by promoting competition among transportation modes. The 1882 act was the first act of Congress to combine appropriations for development of the nation's waterways with a reaffirmation of the policy of freedom from tolls and other user charges, first stated in 1787; it was passed over President Chester Arthur's veto, who considered it a waste of the federal government's growing budget surplus. In 1887, the Interstate Commerce Act established federal regulation of railroads; Congress continued to promote freedom from tolls or special taxes on waterways. In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, the first federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies, but the federal government used it minimally until Theodore Roosevelt's presidency more than 10 years later.
Continued insufficient capacity of railroad transportation became apparent following the harvest of 1906.
20th-century developments.
The invention of the diesel engine in 1892 eventually led to the conversion of fuels for transportation from coal and steam to diesel and the internal combustion engine. The Rivers and Harbors Act of 1909 set national policy for an intracoastal waterway from Boston to the Rio Grande, and the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1910 authorized a channel on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway between the Apalachicola River and St. Andrews Bay, Florida, as well as a study of the most efficient means to move cargo. Between 1910 and 1914, navigation channels were deepened, and the screw propeller proved efficient for improved steering and flanking qualities. Also during this period the Panama Canal Act was passed, in 1911; it proved key to the revival of waterway transportation in the United States, because the opening of Panama Canal in 1914 allowed coastal shipping to extend to the U.S. West Coast for the first time. The law also prohibited railroads from owning, controlling, or operating a water carrier through the canal and led to succeeding legislation that eliminated monopoly of transportation modes by railroads. The country's World War I experience demonstrated the need for bulk cargo transportation, with Congress establishing the Federal Barge Lines and spurring development of cheaper ways to transport farm commodities, including the first use of standardized freight barges.
In 1924, Congress incorporated the Inland Waterways Corporation, generally regarded as the beginning of modern water carrier operations, and in 1925 it authorized construction of the Louisiana and Texas Intracoastal Waterway, as well as surveys east of New Orleans to Apalachicola Bay; this was the first legislation to treat the ICW as a continuous whole. The River and Harbor Act of January 21, 1927, passed by Congress, authorized the portion of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, using the route planned out by the Jacksonville District of the Corps of Engineers. In 1936 the continuous channel was completed between the Apalachicola River and New Orleans. During World War II, the need for efficient transportation of bulk materials within the continental United States was well demonstrated after German submarines sank numerous merchant ships off the East Coast. By 1942, the ICW channel was completed between New Orleans and Corpus Christi.
Today, federal law provides for the waterway to be maintained at a minimum depth of for most of its length, but inadequate funding has prevented that. Consequently, for larger ships, shoaling or shallow waters are encountered along several sections of the waterway, with these having or minimum depths from earlier improvements. While no tolls are charged for waterway usage, commercial users have been charged a fuel tax since 1978, which is used to maintain and improve facilities. That year, the Inland Waterways Revenue Act imposed a barge fuel tax; originally set at 4 cents per gallon in 1980, it was gradually raised to 10 cents per gallon by 1986. To hold these funds, the act also created the Inland Waterways Trust Fund under the US Treasury, which are used to cover half the cost of new construction and major rehabilitation of the inland waterways infrastructure (33 U.S.C. ch.32). The Water Resources Development Act of 1986 was a wide-ranging bill regarding all water resources utilization nationally. Concerning transportation on waterways, this law established the Inland Waterways Users Board to make recommendations regarding construction and rehabilitation priorities and spending levels for the inland waterways, and also gradually increased the incremental fuel tax to 20 cents per gallon by 1995.
Current route.
The Intracoastal Waterway runs for most of the length of the Eastern Seaboard. The waterway consists of three non-contiguous segments. The first segment runs from Brownsville, Texas east to Carrabelle, Florida. Then there's a gap in northwest Florida until it starts again at Tarpon Springs, Florida and runs south to Fort Myers, Florida. Then there's another gap in southwest Florida until it starts again at Key West, Florida and runs north to Portsmouth, Virginia (milepost 0.0). The first and second sections are collectively referred to as the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, and the third is referred to as the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (AIWW).
The first and second sections were intended to be connected via a dredged waterway from Tarpon Springs to St. Marks, Florida (which is near Carrabelle), and the second and third sections were intended to be connected via the Cross Florida Barge Canal across northern Florida. But these projects were never completed due to environmental concerns.
Additional canals and bays extend a navigable waterway north of Portsmouth. Its unofficial northern terminus is the Manasquan River in New Jersey, where it connects with the Atlantic Ocean at the Manasquan Inlet. North of that is its official terminus point, the Annisquam River, a U.S. Army Corps maintained channel 26 miles (42 km) northeast of Boston, Massachusetts, connecting Annisquam and Gloucester, Massachusetts.
The Intracoastal Waterway has a good deal of commercial activity; barges haul petroleum, petroleum products, foodstuffs, building materials, and manufactured goods. It is also used extensively by recreational boaters. On the east coast, some of the traffic in fall and spring is by snowbirds who regularly move south in winter and north in summer. The waterway is also used when the ocean is too rough for travel. Numerous inlets connect the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico with the Intracoastal Waterway.
The Intracoastal Waterway connects to several navigable rivers where shipping traffic can travel to inland ports, including the Mississippi, Alabama, Savannah, James, Delaware, Hudson, and Connecticut rivers.
Natural bodies of water.
The following natural bodies of water are included in the Intracoastal Waterway system: Albemarle Sound, Apalachicola Bay, St. Andrews Bay, Aransas Bay, Barnegat Bay, Biscayne Bay, Boca Ciega Bay, Bogue Sound, Bon Secour Bay, Buzzards Bay, Cape Cod Bay, Cape Fear River, Casco Bay, Charleston Harbor, Charlotte Harbor, Chesapeake Bay, Choctawhatchee Bay, Connecticut River, Corpus Christi Bay, Delaware Bay, East River, Elizabeth River, Galveston Bay, Halifax River, Hampton Roads, Indian River Lagoon, Laguna Madre, Lake Worth Lagoon, Little River, Long Island Sound, Mobile Bay, Pensacola Bay, Perdido Bay, Waccamaw River, Winyah Bay.


Colombo Town Guard

Colombo Town Guard was a regiment attached to the Ceylon Defence Force which was the predecessor to the Sri Lanka Army prior to 1949 when the Ceylon Army was formed. It was a volunteer (reserve) regiment was based in Colombo.
History.
The Town Guard regiment was mobilized only on two occasions, these were during World War I and World War II. Primarily operating as a defensive force for Ceylon's then capital Colombo the regiment was made up of residents of Colombo with both British and Ceylonese Officers. Members of the regiment included many personalities who became important figures in Sri Lankan history.
When formed in both 1914 and 1939 the primary task of the regiment was the defence of Colombo from enemy invasion and had the secondary task of protecting the British control over the colony. In 1915 during the Sinhalese-Moor Riots the Town Guard was called to restore public order with authorization to fire. As a result, many people including rioters were killed under the Martial Law proclamations lasting 100 days.
Town Guard Artillery.
This was the artillery element form to support the Colombo town guard formed at the outset of World War I. This absorbed in to the Ceylon Garrison Artillery when it was formed in 1918.
Recent years.
In 2006 due to the Sri Lankan Civil War the Sri Lankan Government announced a formation of a Home Guard unit made up of residents of Colombo for deployments within the city. This was not a reforming of the town guard as the new unit came under the authority of the Department of Civil Defence (Sri Lanka) unlike the town guard that came under the command of the army. This was the first time a home guard unit was formed within Colombo.


Melech Epstein

Melech Epstein (1889–1979) was an American journalist and historian. His two most famous books, "Jewish labor in U.S.A." and "The Jew and communism" are considered standard works.
Early life.
Epstein was born in Ruzhany, Grodno Guberniya, Imperial Russia (now in Belarus). His family was unsure of his exact birth date, but assigned him March 15, 1889, the second day of Purim. During his teenage years he became active in the Jewish territorialist movement. Beginning shortly before the 1905 revolution he was a cadre in the Zionist Socialist Workers Party in Białystok, Łódź, Warsaw, Kiev and Odessa. His activities included writing for party journals, organizing unions and Jewish cultural societies and, in Białystok manning an armed guard of the Jewish neighborhood during a pogrom. He served three intermittent periods in the Czarist prisons. Becoming dissatisfied with the ultimate aims of the territorialists he emigrated to America in 1913. He arrived at Ellis island on December 24, 1913.
In New York, Epstein settled in Brownsville, Brooklyn and became involved in the local Jewish radical scene. In 1915 he became labor reporter for a new Yiddish daily, "The Day". Soon he became labor editor, which was an ideal place to observe the burgeoning Jewish labor and radical movements. After "The Day" came out in favor of foreign intervention against the Bolsheviks Epstein left the paper and joined the staff of "Zeit", a Labor Zionist paper edited by David Pinsky. While working for "Zeit" he exposed financial improprieties involving Lucy Lang, the "Forward" and the United Hebrew Trades. As a result, the UHT forced his expulsion from its affiliate, the Yiddish Writers Union, which Epstein had helped to found in 1917. Despairing of mainstream union bureaucracy, he left the Socialist party in 1921, as part of the Workers Council of the United States. When this group merged with the communists to form the Workers Party of America Epstein was offered a place as labor editor on the communists' new Yiddish daily, "Morgen Freiheit".
In the Communist Party.
After a factional skirmish Epstein was made acting editor in 1923 and official editor in 1925. As editor he tried to steer the "Freiheit" into a more broad left direction and resisted pressures to make its content dogmatically communist. A member of the Lovestone faction within the party he resigned the editorship in spring 1929 during intense factional warfare within the party. In August 1929 both Epstein and Moissaye Joseph Olgin, the new "Freiheit" editor were censured by the party for taking a pro-Yishuv stand in reporting on the out break of violence in Palestine. Under party pressure the paper changed its analysis reporting the revolt as a national liberation movement against the British and their Zionist collaborators. That fall Epstein was relieved of all other party offices and was sent to the Soviet Union to "improve his communist morale".
He returned in 1931. No longer on the staff of "Freiheit", he became educational director of the TUUL Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union and editor of its weekly "Needle Worker". He was allowed to return to the "Freiheit" during the transition to the popular front period in the mid-1930s. In 1936 he was sent to Palestine, officially as a "Freiheit" correspondent, but actually as an emissary to the Palestine Communist Party. The out break of yet another revolt strained relations between the CPUSA and American Jewry. The Comintern was silent on what stance to take, so they decided to send a personal envoy to the sister party to co-ordinate strategy. Epstein learned that the party was being rapidly "Arabized" and was taking a more and militant stand against the Zionists and the Yishuv in general. While in Palestine Epstein learned of the out break of the Spanish Civil War. Without waiting for word from the party or "Freiheit" he sailed to Barcelona and became one of the first American journalists on the scene. He stayed in Spain for three months sending dispatches back to "Freiheit"from the front lines.
Post-communist years.
Melech Epstein broke with the party in August, 1939 after the Nazi-Soviet pact. This was the final event which sealed his disillusionment with the party, though he had been having misgivings for a decade since the beginning of the Third Period and then the show trials in the late 1930s. He went off to Mexico where he visited Leon Trotsky and Diego Riviera. When he came back to America he briefly joined the staff of "The Forward", but was fired soon after because he wouldn't go before the Dies committee or write sensationalistic material about the Communist Party. In 1943 he was hired by the Jewish Labor Committee to go on fund raising tours for the underground Jewish resistance movement in Poland. Finally, in 1945 he became public relations director of the Cloakmakers Joint Board of ILGWU.
In the fall of 1947 he settled in Florida. There he wrote his two major books "Jewish labor in U.S.A." and "The Jew and communism", independently published through a "Trade Union Sponsoring Committee" which was partly funded by ILGWU.


July 2020 United Kingdom summer statement

The July 2020 United Kingdom summer statement (also known as the coronavirus mini-budget) was a statement from the British Government, or mini-budget statement, delivered on 8 July 2020 by Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It followed the budget delivered earlier in the year, and preceded the Winter Economy Plan. The purpose of the statement was to announce measures aimed at helping to promote economic recovery following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The statement was delivered to the House of Commons, where Sunak unveiled a spending package worth £30bn. Concerns were subsequently raised by organisations including HM Revenue and Customs and the Institute of Fiscal Studies about the statement's impact, as well as its cost-effectiveness, while at least one major retailer declined to take advantage of a financial bonus scheme intended for rehiring employees placed on furlough during the pandemic.
Background.
Sunak delivered his first budget as Chancellor in March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic was in its early stages in the UK. Shortly afterwards, the country went into "lockdown", requiring all but essential services to close. The government announced a series of measures to protect companies, and the jobs of employees whose firms were required to close as part of lockdown, including a scheme that would see the government pay 80% of the wages of workers who were furloughed. The scheme was initially to run until the end of June, but later extended to October. By June, 9.3 million people were being financially supported by the scheme.
There were concerns about unemployment, which by the end of June was nearing 3 million and threatening to exceed the previous highest unemployment figures last seen in 1986, and fears of a deep recession. In May 2020 it was announced that Sunak would deliver a summer statement in July aimed at helping to reduce the potential impact of a recession. Sunak delivered the statement to the House of Commons on 8 July.
Key points.
The statement included the following provisions:
Reaction.
Responding to the statement, Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor, accused Sunak of putting off the "big decisions" by choosing to present a statement rather than a full budget. Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, said the bonus scheme "should be targeted in the areas which most need it, not across the piece", while Bridget Phillipson, Labour's Shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, wrote to HM Revenue and Customs to ask them to publish their modelling for the job bonus scheme.
The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) warned that taxes would have to rise to pay for the support measures put in place by the government. The IFS also suggested that raising the stamp duty threshold would adversely affect first-time buyers, who are largely exempt from paying it, while benefiting sellers who could take advantage of the situation with higher property prices. Helen Miller, deputy director of the IFS described first-time buyers as "a group that might actually be made worse off by the policy". The warning of tax rises was echoed by David Gauke, a former Conservative Party minister with HM Treasury, who said that either tax increases or spending cuts would be needed to pay off a £40bn public deficit built up during the pandemic.
In a series of letters sent to the Chancellor before the statement was delivered, Jim Harra, the director of HM Revenue and Customs, questioned whether two of the schemes announced were value for money. He raised concerns about paying companies a £1,000 bonus to retain furloughed workers, a scheme estimated to cost the Treasury £9.4bn, and whether the 50% meal discount, estimated to cost £0.5bn, was cost effective, describing both as "sound policy rationale" but the effectiveness of which would be difficult to measure. In response, the Chancellor said that action was needed to protect jobs, but admitted there would be a "dead weight" cost of the job retention bonus from firms who would have retained their staff anyway. In a BBC interview the day after delivering the statement, Sunak said that he would not be able to protect "every single job" and that the UK was entering a "severe recession".
Aftermath.
On 12 July, the High Street clothes retailer Primark became the first major company to say it would not take advantage of the jobs retention bonus, which would allow it to claim up to £30m from the government. Primark had placed 30,000 of its employees on furlough during the pandemic, but had since brought them all back to work. The company's announcement put pressure on other large employers to make similar announcements. On 19 July, property website Rightmove and catering firm Compass announced they would also not claim money from the scheme.
The temporary cut in value-added tax for the hospitality industry, worth £4bn, came into force on 15 July and was to last until 12 January 2021. Nando's, Pret a Manger, KFC and McDonald's were among the firms to announce price reductions as a result.


Jamestown Mall

Jamestown Mall was an enclosed shopping mall in Florissant, Missouri. Opened in 1973, the mall formerly included Dillard's, JCPenney, Macy's, and Sears as its anchor stores. The mall had become increasingly vacant since the beginning of the 2000s. It closed in July 2014 and has been slated for redevelopment as an open-air center.
History.
Construction began on the mall in 1972. Its anchor stores at the time were Sears and Stix Baer & Fuller, a local chain based in nearby St. Louis. The Stix store was converted to Dillard's in 1984 after Dillard's acquired the chain. Famous-Barr (now Macy's) was added as a third anchor in 1994, and two years later, JCPenney relocated to the mall from an existing store in Florissant. A movie theater was also added in the 1990s.
Jacobs Group sold the mall to Carlyle Development Group in 2003. At the time, the complex was approximately 30 percent vacant. In April 2006, Dillard's Inc. announced the closure of the Jamestown Mall store, and Sears closed two years later.
Carlyle announced redevelopment plans in 2008. Under these plans, the former Dillard's would be converted to offices, and its wing would be closed to retail. A year later, St. Louis County hired researchers from the Urban Land Institute to analyze the mall's viability as a retail center. The study found that the center was no longer viable as a shopping mall because it overlapped with existing retailers in the area. These plans were canceled in 2009 when the mall developers lost financial support from the county following an attempt to auction the former Dillard's store. Further plans in 2010 called for the demolition of everything except the JCPenney and Macy's stores, with the rest of the complex to be re-developed as a mixed-use center. In June 2011, a furniture store called Central States Liquidation opened in the former Dillard's. The JCPenney Outlet store, which was renamed JC's 5 Star Outlet, closed in late 2013.
In late 2012, gas service to the mall was shut off but later restored. The mall's closure was announced in November 2013 due to the heat being shut off. The closure of the Macy's store was announced in January 2014, leaving the mall with no anchors. Jamestown Mall finally closed it doors on July 1, 2014.


Morgan Squire

Morgan Squire was a British department store based in several locations in the City of Leicester. The business was formed in 1846 as a drapery, before going onto be owned by House of Fraser and eventually being rebranded as Rackhams as per House of Fraser's grouping of business in the 1970s.
History.
In 1813, Henry Morgan, a draper based in Syston, on the outskirts of Leicester, recruited a young apprentice called William Squire from Heckington in Lincolnshire. By 1846 Morgan and Squire went into partnership and Morgan Squire & Co was created.
The main store was located at the corner of Hotel Street and Millstone Lane, and sold a mixture of clothing and furniture with an upperclass feel like city rivals Adderlys and Joseph Johnson. The business remained in the Squire family, with Williams son Samuel taking over. His son Alfred Morgan Squire eventually took over the business before retiring early and selling it in 1928 to Standard Industrial Trust, an industrial conglomerate who had also purchased Cavendish House, Cheltenham's oldest department store in the same year.
In 1961, a controlling interest in both Cavendish House Co Ltd and Morgan Squire Ltd was acquired by Swears & Wells Ltd (1926), a London-based company specialising in the development and sale of retail space, however a year later Bournemouth based retail chain J J Allen took control adding it to their other three department stores. In 1970 J J Allen were themselves purchased by House of Fraser, and in 1971 J J Allen's store group was split, with Dingles gaining the West Country department stores, while Morgan Squire was transferred to the Harrods grouping, and rebranded under the grouping name brand name of Rackhams.
Family History.
Samuel Squire, son of founder William, built his family home at 1 Salisbury Road in Leicester where he had 17 children with his wife, Anne Marie Starkey Gimson, daughter of renown industrial designer Ernest Gimson and part of the family that ran Gimson & Son, a Leicester-based engineering firm. 1 Salisbury Road has been part of the University of Leicester since 1948 when the building was purchased after the death of Anne Marie Squire, one of Samuels children.
Samuel's brother Charles was a prominent lawyer and a member of the Leicester establishment, becoming a city councillor in 1908 and becoming the chairman of the Leicester Libraries and Museum committee, where he helped develop the UK's first Museum school service and saved historical buildings and made them into new museums.
Alfred Squire, who had sold the business in 1928, was the father of the British intelligence officer and Cambridge Don Peter Squire.


William Smith (surveyor)

William Smith was a surveyor employed by the Royal African Company in 1726 to survey their forts in West Africa. His account of the trip, "A new voyage to Guinea" was published posthumously in 1744, with a second edition in 1745.
The full title of his book was "A new voyage to Guinea: describing the customs, manners, soil, manual arts, agriculture, trade, employments, languages, ranks of distinction climate, habits, buildings, education, habitations, diversions, marriages, and whatever else is memorable among the inhabitants".
In this book he gave an account if many places in West Africa including:
Upon his return to London in September 1727, his report indicated that the Royal African Company could not afford the maintenance costs of the Forts, amounting to about £13,500 in 1731. The British parliament voted for annual subsidy of £10,000, in order for them to be properly maintained. Robert W. Harms argues that this subsidy was in recognition of the importance of maintaining a British presence on the Gold Coast, as the supply of slaves produced significant profits not so much from the slave trade as from the exploitation of slave labour in the Americas. In many ways this made up for the loss of 10% of the profits of independent slave traders which the company had received from 1698 to 1712.


Papyrus (company)

Papyrus (stylized as PAPYRUS) was an American stationery and greeting card retailer that at one time operated over 450 stores throughout the United States and Canada. It was headquartered in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, and was the flagship brand of the Schurman Retail Group. The company sold a variety of products, including greeting cards, stationery, gift wrap, specialty gifts, jewelry, customized invitations, and other paper products. It was one of the largest greeting card retailers in the United States. The Papyrus products rights are owned by American Greetings.
History.
The first Papyrus retail shop was opened in 1973 by Margrit Schurman in Berkeley, California. It began as the retail wing of Schurman Fine Papers (now, the Schurman Retail Group). The original store was opened for less than $1,000 and featured a variety of fine art-inspired greeting cards, postcards, and other paper products. Over the next five years, more Papyrus stores opened around the United States, and the company soon began selling franchises. In the 1980s, the company began domestic production of Papyrus products.
In 1991, Dominique Schurman became the CEO of Schurman Fine Papers and Papyrus. At that time, there were around 37 Papyrus stores nationwide, and the company was bringing in $10 million per year. By 2005, the company operated around 146 Papyrus retail shops. In 2009, Papyrus's parent company, Schurman Retail Group, purchased all 346 American Greetings retail shops. A number of these stores were eventually rebranded as Papyrus stores.
On January 16, 2020, it was announced that all 260 remaining Papyrus and other Schurman retail stores would be closing. On January 17, 2020, liquidation sales began in all stores under the management of Gordon Brothers. 30 of their closed stores were picked up by Paper Source by early March 2020.
Products.
Papyrus sold a variety of luxury paper products including a selection of stationery and greeting cards. The chain is perhaps best known for its high-end greeting cards that often incorporated items like buttons, fabric, leather, zippers, glitter, and other embellishments. The stores also offered products like journals, note cards, gift wrap, and customized invitations. Through the NIQUEA.D brand, Papyrus sold a selection of gifts, jewelry, and other fashion accessories. Other brands sold in Papyrus stores included American Greetings and Carlton Cards. The Papyrus logo is a distinct pink hummingbird and can be found on a variety of Papyrus products.


Midtown Plaza (Rochester, New York)

Midtown Plaza (1962–2008) was an indoor shopping mall in downtown Rochester, New York, the first urban indoor mall in the United States. The site is a city district that is being redeveloped for a variety of uses.
History.
The Midtown Plaza venture was announced to great fanfare in January 1958. Early tenants, in addition to B. Forman Co. and McCurdy's, included Wegmans, Lincoln Rochester Bank (now Chase Bank), the United States Postal Service and Trailways, as well as several national and local chain stores. The mall opened April 10, 1962.
Designed by Victor Gruen, Midtown Plaza was dedicated on April 10, 1962 as the first downtown indoor mall in the United States. The first enclosed shopping center had been Southdale Center in suburban Minneapolis in 1956, also designed by Gruen. The idea for this mall started with discussions between Gilbert J.C. McCurdy, owner of the McCurdy's department stores and Maurice F. Forman, owner of the B. Forman Co. department stores. At that time strip plazas were growing in popularity. Though both owners had opened branch stores they were concerned about Downtown Rochester's viability and came up with the idea of an indoor shopping center.
Gruen was at the height of his influence when Midtown was completed and the project attracted international attention, including a nationally televised feature report on NBC-TV's Huntley-Brinkley Report the night of its opening in April 1962. City officials and planners from around the globe came to see Gruen's solution to the mid-century urban crisis. Midtown won several design awards.
Gruen described the aerial view of Rochester as a giant parking lot with a few buildings to inconvenience traffic flow. His intention was to create a pedestrian-friendly town square for Rochester, NY, a medium-sized city near the mouth of the Genesee River. He incorporated art, benches, fountains, a four hundred seat auditorium and a sidewalk cafe into his plans hoping to encourage the sort of social intermingling that he saw as the enriching essence of urban life.
Later in life, Gruen dismissed the strictly commercial suburban malls as "those bastard developments" but continued to hold Midtown in high regard. It is probably the project that most closely followed his plan and shared his civic vision. In addition to the shopping center, the Plaza also included a skyscraper office building, which at one time held an upscale hotel and restaurant — the Top Of The Plaza — on its top four floors. Count Basie, Buddy Rich, Gap Mangione and many other nationally known jazz artists played at the Top Of The Plaza several times, and the restaurant was a popular site for receptions, business parties and special-occasion dinners.
Midtown Plaza was economically vibrant, and a center of retail activity for its region, during its first 20 years of operation. It began to struggle in the 1980s as a number of suburban shopping malls opened outside of the city, while the region's population increasingly spread outward from the city center into suburban and even rural areas. Surrounded by pockets of poverty, Midtown struggled to keep tenants. Midtown's struggles increased in the mid-1990s when the mall's two anchors, McCurdy's and Forman's, closed in 1994. Their closing was quickly followed by the closing of the Midtown branch of Wegmans Food Markets, a regional grocery chain. Once considered the sign of a New Urbanism, the Plaza was placed on the list of 2002 Empire Zones, and grew to be considered a symbolic victim of suburban sprawl.
During its last years, the mall's tenants included Peebles department store, Radio Shack, Payless Shoes, Foot Locker, some downscale clothing stores, a dollar store, two jewelry stores, a gift shop, a Record Theatre store which became the last original tenant in the mall and a US post office. The food court remained full during its final years, with tenants including Arby's, Burger King, Pizza Stop, Bruegger's, and Bill Gray's serving workers from the nearby Xerox Tower and Frontier Communications Building, whose offices were connected to the mall. Located directly underneath Midtown Plaza is a three level, 1,843 space parking garage that still exists and serves the buildings now on the site.
Mall's closing.
It was announced on October 16, 2007 that Midtown Plaza would be demolished via eminent domain to make way for the new PAETEC Headquarters. The PAETEC tower, originally planned to be a 40-story tower and of space was later downsized to be about of office space in an 8–12 story building. Ground was to be broken in the fall of 2010.
The final Christmas season at Midtown Plaza took place in 2007. A Douglas Fir was donated to the mall by Dave Manioci, Midtown's Chief Engineer. A tribute to Midtown took place on December 1, 2007, which attracted thousands of people from Rochester and the surrounding areas to what was called "a magical event." The Monorail, which was operated every Christmas season, had its last run on December 24, 2007. All retail and office space at Midtown except for the adjoining Euclid Building wing was to conclude business activity on or before July 29, 2008, while some demolition work on unoccupied portions of the building complex began before that date. The Euclid building, which housed some offices and the studios of Clear Channel Communications' six Rochester area radio stations, closed at midnight on December 31, 2008. Clear Channel moved to new quarters in the HSBC Bank downtown Rochester office tower, in a studio complex formerly occupied by CBS Radio.
On July 29, 2008 Midtown Plaza closed its doors to the public for the last time, as scheduled.
Many retail and service businesses which had been operating at Midtown Plaza during its final months relocated and re-opened in other locations in or near downtown Rochester, some of them taking advantage of relocation help offered by the City of Rochester.
On Tuesday, November 3, 2009 the last occupant of Midtown Plaza, the Adirondack Transit Lines intercity bus station, closed. The bus station relocated five blocks away, near the railroad station.
Clock of Nations.
Midtown Plaza was well known for its Clock of Nations designed by Geri Kavanaugh. The clock, which represents 12 nations, has 12 cylinders each with a scene with puppets for each nation. Considered a significant piece of art when it was unveiled, the original puppetry was not well maintained and was replaced in the mid-1970s with the work of a local housewife. The clock was moved to the Greater Rochester International Airport terminal, but it is now dismantled, removed from the airport, and in storage due to airport renovation. Its next home cannot be confirmed.
Demolition.
On September 27, 2010, demolition began on Midtown Plaza. Mayor Robert Duffy announced that within a few months the site would be ready for the construction of the new PAETEC Headquarters. PAETEC later further scaled back plans for an ambitious new building and instead opted for a smaller office complex based on a reconstruction and expansion of the nearby Seneca Building.
Reconstruction.
Midtown Tower.
In 2011 the high rise tower section of Midtown Plaza was stripped to a skeletal state in preparation for its conversion to a mixed-use residential and commercial building, expected to be completed and opened around 2015. The Tower was sold by the city to the local construction and re-development company Buckingham Properties who renamed the tower "Tower 280 At Midtown". In 2014 Midtown Tower began its redeveloped into a mix of residential and commercial space, a partnership between Buckingham Properties and Morgan Management. With about thirty leases signed, its first occupants began moving in on January 15, 2016. Branca, an Italian restaurant with a location in Bushnell's Basin, opened its second location within the new Tower 280.
Seneca Building.
The building known as the Seneca Building (the only other remaining building from the former mall) was remodeled as a standalone unit and opened as an office building for Windstream who bought PAETEC in 2011. The building opened in 2013. As part of the demolition, upper floors of the building were removed, leaving only Floors 1-4.
Democrat and Chronicle Building.
In 2013 it was announced that Gannett was moving its headquarters for the Democrat and Chronicle as part of the paper's downsizing from its location in the Gannett Building on Exchange Street to a building in front of the Seneca Building as an addition at the corner of Main Street and Clinton Ave. The building has three floors and is . The Democrat and Chronicle Media Group occupy the first two floors. The new building also contains a television studio and a restaurant space. The third floors of both buildings connect and are accessible through the Seneca Building Windstream elevator lobby. The building began construction in 2015. It opened on May 2, 2016 with the first day of Democrat and Chronicle operation out of the building.
Parcel 5.
Original plans for the site called for a new performing arts center to be built along Main Street next to the Seneca Building. In 2012 then mayor Thomas Richards refused to help the Rochester Broadway Theatre League find funding for the project among other issues between the organization and city hall. This led the RBTL to change plans and have the theatre built in the future development of what is now the Medley Centre in Irondequoit.
In 2014, new mayor Lovely Warren began talks with the RBTL about plans for a performing arts center on the midtown site once again after promised developments with the Irondequoit site failed to materialize. Warren has issued a request of $200 million from New York State to fund the project. The funds are currently pending.
In 2016 the city put out a request for proposals for a new performing arts center. Two proposals were presented one by the Seneca Nation of Indians which included a combined performing arts center and Casino gaming center, this project would have been completely funded by the Senecas. The second proposal came from Wilmorite, Delaware North and Batavia OTB all casino/gaming operators in other areas for a stand-alone performing arts center that would require some funding from the state. The second proposal was a response to the proposal by the Senecas as the three partners are opposed to downtown Rochester gaming. However, when proposals were in due September 2016 there were five submitted. None were from Wimorite or the Senecas, there was however a Performing Arts Center proposal submitted by the Rochester Broadway Theatre League. Other proposed developments include a park like proposal with retail stands on the outside and a proposal from the owner of Harts Local Grocers to break the property up into smaller lots and build three or four story retail and living spaces.
On April 7, 2017, the City of Rochester chose a modified Rochester Broadway Theatre League proposal which in partnership with Morgan Development included a Performing Arts Center to be called the Golisano Center for the Performing Arts in honor of a major donation made to the project funding by Tom Golisano and a residential tower including approximately 150 rental units with retail and restaurant space at street level. Following the decision, there was widespread skepticism of the viability of the project, which became a major point of debate during the 2017 mayoral elections.
On March 6, 2018, further plans were announced for a rooftop stage as well as an IMAX theater in the performing arts center in off peak hours as well as a new name Golisano Arts and Entertainment Complex at Midtown Commons. After issues raising the funds needed to make the project a reality, they moved the proposed project to the site of the Riverside Hotel on Main Street by the Genesee River. In 2021, it was decided to make the site a smaller entertainment and gathering place inspired by the Kansas City Power & Light District and Canalside in Buffalo.
Parcel 2.
Morgan development and Buckingham Properties are building a (later reduced to five-story) building on the former Wegmans site at the corner of Broad Street and Clinton Avenue. The building includes first-floor retail, Class A office space on the second and third floors and a mix of housing with potential studio and one- or two-bedroom units on the remaining floors. Outdoor space is also planned. Media services company Butler/Till will move its headquarters from Henrietta to occupy the first three floors in addition to co-owing the building. Construction began in 2020.
Other features.
With the redevelopment came a full modernization and repair of the three level, 1,843 space parking garage under the site. The garage is used for employees of Windstream in the Seneca Building as well as the "Tower 280 At Midtown" residents and employees, Democrat and Chronicle employees and eventually for what is built on parcel 5.
A new streetscape has also been constructed on the site complete with new sidewalks, traffic signals and a common area between the Seneca building and Midtown Tower now called "Midtown Commons" complete with benches and soon to be placed public art. Labella Associates, DPC and Trowbridge Wolf Michaels Landscape Architects LLP were responsible for the new design.


Gwinnett Place Mall

Gwinnett Place Mall was a shopping mall located in the Pleasant Hill Road corridor of Duluth, Georgia. The mall is almost identical to Town Center at Cobb. For the first 16 years, Gwinnett Place was the leading mall in the region, drawing shoppers from as far away as South Carolina and centering what was then one of the fastest-growing counties in the nation until the openings of Mall of Georgia in Buford and Sugarloaf Mills in Lawrenceville. It was also used as the StarCourt Mall filming location in the third season of Netflix's "Stranger Things".
History.
When it first opened in early 1984, its original anchors were Rich's, Davison's and Sears. In 1986, Mervyn's joined the mall (which was likewise done at Town Center at Cobb) and Davison's was changed over to Macy's. Further anchor shuffling occurred in 1993 when the third Atlanta area Parisian joined the mall anchoring a northwest wing (the first two were at Town Center at Cobb and Phipps Plaza, both of which opened in 1992, followed by a fourth at Northlake Mall in 1994). J. C. Penney took over the Mervyn's spot in 1997 and closed in 2015, with Beauty Master taking over in 2016. Macy's and Rich's merged in 2003 to form Rich's-Macy's until 2005 when the name was changed to just Macy's. With two Macy's in the mall, the former Davison's closed and in 2010 reopened as the first MegaMart in the U.S. In 2007, Parisian was renamed Belk, which closed in 2013 and remains vacant to this day, waiting for redevelopment. In some of these aspects, the mall developed on a very similar fashion as Town Center at Cobb on the northwest side of Atlanta. Both were in many ways sister malls, including their similar layouts. However, one of the distinct features about Gwinnett Place Mall is the Macy's (former Rich's), which features an exterior almost entirely covered in mirrored glass.
Today.
The mall was seriously challenged and hurt by the openings of The Mall of Georgia in 1999 and Sugarloaf Mills in 2001 (also owned by Simon). Not only did the mall take a large part of its customer base and all of its out-of-state shoppers to these new malls, but the mall was also unable to attract any new anchors for several years although the Macy's moved its location to the defunct Rich's on the west side of the mall and Parisian became Belk. In 2008, Gwinnett Technical College opened an International Education Center there, where students enrolled at Gwinnett Technical College to take foreign language classes such as Korean. Mega Mart opened a location in the former Macy's. Currently, a number of the mall's store fronts and spots in the food court are empty and for lease. The recent downturn of the mall in 2013 has led to the closure of Belk as well as owner and manager Simon Property Group to lose the mall to foreclosure where it was acquired by retail rehab specialist, Moonbeam Capital Investments LLC. JCPenney would close on April 4, 2015 and Beauty Master, a regional beauty department store, purchased the former JCPenney building in March 2016. Beauty Master would open on August 6, 2020. The former Belk is expected to have some redevelopment but may close by 2020.
In December 2017 the body of a 19-year-old woman was found in the back room of the food court, where it had gone unnoticed for weeks. The mall has also had ongoing issues with homelessness, gangs, and prostitution in and around the mall and surrounding areas. In January 2018, two mall employees were robbed and assaulted in the Macy's parking lot; in March 2018, a 32-year-old female was arrested for indecent exposure, solicitation of prostitution, and possession of heroin and cocaine in the Sears parking lot. On May 31, 2018, Sears announced that their location there would be closing in September 2018 as part of a plan to close 63 stores across the United States.
In late February 2019, "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" and "Gwinnett Daily Post" reported that sports developer CricRealty intends to redevelop the Gwinnett Place Mall site to build a mixed-use development anchored by a 20,000-seat cricket stadium.
On December 15, 2020, officials from Gwinnett County's Urban Redevelopment Agency agreed to purchase the 39-acre Gwinnett Place Mall site from Moonbeam Capital Investments LLC for $23 million. Several tenants, including Macy’s, Mega Mart and Beauty Master, own their own property. The sale closed in April 2021 but plans for the site have not yet been disclosed.
In popular culture.
On July 16, 2018, streaming service Netflix released a teaser for the third season of its hit series "Stranger Things". The ad was made in the style of a 1985 mall advertisement for the fictional "Starcourt Mall". In reality, the crew of "Stranger Things" did a cosmetic restoration of a portion of the Gwinnett Place Mall, returning authentic signage and storefronts to the mall to represent many businesses that have since ceased to exist. The transformation took place during May 2018, with production of the series taking place in the mall during the subsequent summer months. After filming concluded, the Starcourt Mall set was dismantled in the summer of 2019 to prevent fans from vandalizing the set to steal souvenirs.


Eatons / John Maryon Tower


Neil De Marchi

Neil De Marchi (born 1938), is an Australian economist and historian of economic thought and is a Professor at Duke University. De Marchi specializes in both teaching and research that pertains to the history of economic ideas and the history of markets, and also the functioning of markets with a specific focus on art markets. His works have appeared in such journals as the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, the Journal of Econometrics, the European Journal for the History of Economic Thought, and the Art Bulletin. He has also contributed to pieces within various books, having written introductions to such works as “Idealization in Economics, Poznan Studies 38,” and a biographical entry of John Stuart Mill for The Handbook of Economic Methodology. De Marchi received his Ph.D. from Australian National University in 1970, after completing his B.Phil in economics at the University of Oxford. He also obtained his B.Ec with first-class honors in 1960 from the University of Western Australia. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the History of Economics Society.


Nelson Lichtenstein

Nelson Lichtenstein (born November 15, 1944) is a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy. He is labor historian who has written also about 20th-century American political economy, including the automotive industry and Wal-Mart.
Life and education.
Lichtenstein received his bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College in 1966 and his Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1974. He is MacArthur Foundation Chair in History at UCSB.
Awards.
Lichtenstein was named a junior fellow by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in 1982 and senior NEH fellow in 1993. He received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to undertake research at Wayne State University in 1990. He held a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1997-98. He was elected to membership in the Society of American Historians in 2007 and became MacArthur Foundation Professor of History at UC Santa Barbara in 2010.
Lichtenstein's book "State of the Union: A Century of American Labor" won the Philip Taft Labor History Book Award in 2003. The Sidney Hillman Foundation awarded him the Sol Stetin Prize in 2012


Anthony Joseph Drexel III

Anthony Joseph Drexel III (October 19, 1887 – February 23, 1946) was an American banker and aviator.
Early life.
He was the eldest son of Margarita "Rita" Armstrong (1867-1948), Anthony Joseph Drexel Jr. Among his siblings were Margaretta (the wife of Guy Finch-Hatton, 14th Earl of Winchilsea); aviation pioneer John Armstrong Drexel; and Louis Clapier Norris Drexel. His parents divorced in 1917, and his mother married Brinsley FitzGerald (the son of Peter FitzGerald, 1st Baronet of Valencia) in 1918.
His paternal grandparents were Anthony Joseph Drexel (son of Austrian-born American banker Francis Martin Drexel) and Ellen (née Rozet) Drexel. Through his sister Margaretta, he was uncle to Christopher Finch-Hatton, 15th Earl of Winchilsea. His maternal grandfather John Armstrong of the Baltimore Armstrongs.
At the age of nine, his parents took him to England where he was educated at Farnborough and Eton College, which he attended for three and a half years. His father was a close friend of both King Edward VII and Kaiser Wilhelm II. At age 16, he began a world tour that lasted a year and a half.
Career.
After his world tour, Drexel returned to worked Philadelphia and began working as a clerk for Drexel & Co., the family firm founded by his great-grandfather Francis in 1838. His grandfather expanded the family fortunes by partnering with J. Pierpont Morgan to form Drexel, Morgan & Co. of New York in 1871 and Drexel, Harjes & Co. of Paris.
In 1910, he was operating a flying school at Beaulieu, a quaint little village on the verge of the New Forest in England. After his marriage, he returned again to the U.S. and became a "widely publicized messenger boy for a New York brokerage firm, E. and C. Randolph." He later became a clerk of the firm before becoming a partner in the firm J. R. Williston & Co. for two years. He bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and founded his own brokerage firm, Liggett, Drexel & Co. with fellow New York clubman John E. Liggett (of the Liggett tobacco family), at 61 Broadway in Manhattan. In 1917, his brother-in-law George Jay Gould Jr. joined the firm. In 1918, he sold his seat to his partner for $55,000. In 1919, the Intermountain Railway, Light & Power Co. sued Liggett & Drexell's successor, Liggett, Hichborn & Co., for $286,000 seeking damages related to a failed bond issue. In 1921, the Merchants Trust Company of Waterbury, Connecticut sued Liggett for endorsing bankrupt notes. Liggett's wife later sued him as well, claiming she helped keep the Liggett & Drexel firm afloat by contributing her own cash, securities and jewelry.
During World War I, a member of Squadron A, Drexel served as a Lieutenant of the U.S. Army. After the War, he served as vice president of the Standard Film Industries Corporation in New York. In 1935, he was present at a New York State Legislative committee's hearing as an advocate of lotteries for charity.
Later life.
After he retired from banking, he moved away from Philadelphia, splitting his time between his home in Boca Grande, Florida and his home in Shelter Island, an island at the eastern end of Long Island. In 1937, Drexel and his wife hosted a dinner in honor of Sir Bede Clifford, Governor of the Bahamas, and Lady Clifford (the former Alice Devin Gundry), at their home, Caprice. He was a member of the Philadelphia Club, Racquet Club and Corinthian Club in Philadelphia and the Knickerbocker Club, New York Yacht Club, and the Racquet and Tennis Clubs of New York.
In 1938, he sold his 238-ton steel yacht, "Queen of Scots", to the British registry to be used as a hospital ship for the British Red Cross.
When World War II broke out, Drexel and his wife were at their home in suburban Paris, and were forced to flee to their villa in Biarritz, and then to Portugal, where the boarded a ship to America. Upon his return to the United States, he "devoted much of his time to sports, particularly yachting."
Personal life.
In 1910, Drexel was married to Marjorie Gwynne Gould (1891–1955), the eldest daughter of former actress Edith Kingdon and financier George Jay Gould. While in New York City, they resided at 1015 Fifth Avenue. They also owned a home in Lakewood, New Jersey and Caprice, a home in the Cable Beach community near Nassau, Bahamas. Together, they were the parents of:
In 1911, his sister-in-law, Vivien Gould, married John Beresford, 5th Baron Decies. Drexel's boxing match with the bridegroom's brother, Seton Beresford, "aroused considerable comment." Following Viven's death in 1931, Lord Decies married Drexel's elder cousin, Elizabeth Wharton Drexel, the daughter of Joseph William Drexel, and widow of both John Vinton Dahlgren and New York society leader Harry Lehr.
Drexel died of a heart attack at his home in Boca Grande on February 25, 1946. His widow died on November 29, 1955 in Manhattan.
Descendants.
Through his daughter Edith, he was a grandfather of John Sergeant Cram III (1932–2007), who married Lady Jeanne Campbell, the only daughter from the Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll. She had previously been married to American writer Norman Mailer. Lady Jeanne and John had a daughter, Cusi Cram (b. 1967), an actress, a Herrick-prize-winning playwright, and an Emmy-nominated writer for the children's animated television program, "Arthur".