Jefferson North Assembly

Jefferson North Assembly Plant (JNAP) is a Chrysler automobile assembly factory in Detroit, Michigan. Located on East Jefferson Avenue 6 mi (9.6 km) from downtown, near Grosse Pointe Park, the factory opened in 1991 as a major commitment to the downtown Detroit area by Chrysler, and was expanded in 1999, bringing its area to and expanded again in 2011, bringing its total to . Its first product was the Jeep Grand Cherokee from the start, which it continues to produce to this day. It uses the original site of the former multi-story Chrysler Kercheval Body Plant, a noted Detroit landmark for a series of large advertising signs on the roof, plus the Hudson Motor Company location that was originally built during the 1940s as a storage lot for newly manufactured vehicles to the east of the facility. The Kercheval Plant was imploded, and video of the demolition was used in a Chrysler Corp. commercial with Lee Iacocca using the new plant as evidence of the company's investment in new product.
History.
Jefferson North is the only auto assembly plant that is entirely within the Detroit city limits, and the only surviving auto assembly plant to be based within Detroit proper. A second plant, Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly owned by General Motors, where Cadillacs are manufactured, is partly in Detroit and partly in the neighboring city of Hamtramck.
Chrysler announced in August 2008 a 1.8-billion-dollar investment in the plant that would expand it by and upgrade the facility for the production of a new product in 2010. Improvements in the plant occurred during a period of intense corporate turmoil for the parent company. Daimler-Benz had sold its majority stake to Cerberus Capital Management in 2007. Cerberus and the United Auto Workers agreed in 2007 to a plan whereby entry workers are paid $16/hour compared to $28 for long-term UAW employees. The Cerberus-owned company went into bankruptcy in 2009 with the company getting a multibillion-dollar bailout by the United States government before ultimately being acquired by Fiat in 2011.
In 2013, more than 300,000 cars a year were being produced at the plant and its work force was reported at 4,600 working, with the plant in operation 24 hours a day. The crews work an "alternative work schedule" (AWS) known as 3-2-120 that does not require Chrylser to pay overtime or weekend pay. The schedule was part of the bailout package. Each crew works 10 hours a day for 4 days ("A" 5 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday; "B" 4 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday through Saturday; "C" 10 hours on the night shift Monday and Tuesday and 10 hours on the day shift Friday and Saturday). The 3/2/120 comes from a practice of working for three days, taking off two (plus Sunday for everyone) so that everyone works 120 hours over every three weeks.
In August 2013, the Jefferson North Assembly Plant produced its 5,000,000th vehicle since it first made the 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee ZJ in 1992. The vehicle was a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee WK2 Overland. A decal was placed on the windshield of the vehicle to signify that it was the 5,000,000th vehicle produced at the Jefferson North Assembly Plant. The vehicle was donated to the USO, whom Jeep and Chrysler Group support. A 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo 4X4 is also on display at JNAP to celebrate this milestone.
President Barack Obama visited the plant in 2010 to speak to the workers at the plant. He said that the first new vehicle he ever owned was a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited.
On May 5, 2015, Fiat Chrysler announced that an employee had been killed at Jefferson North's wastewater treatment plant.
Jefferson Avenue Assembly.
Prior to the opening of Jefferson North Assembly in 1991, Chrysler operated the adjacent Jefferson Avenue Assembly plant from 1925 through 1990 at Jefferson Avenue and Clairpointe Avenue, between the streets of East Jefferson Avenue and Freud Street. The factory was originally built in 1907 to produce Chalmers automobiles, and later Maxwell automobiles. In 1925, the newly formed Chrysler Corporation took over the plant to build its flagship Imperial. In addition to Imperials, various other models from Chrysler, DeSoto, Dodge, and Plymouth would eventually be assembled here. The plant officially closed in February 1990 and was razed a year later. The Chrysler Kercheval Body Plant stood on the north side of East Jefferson, and was connected to Jefferson Assembly by a bridge crossing Jefferson in the 1950s. The Jefferson Avenue Assembly was in close proximity to the Dodge Main factory in nearby Hamtramck, and the Plymouth Lynch Road Assembly in Detroit.


Schaffer Stores Company

Schaffer Stores Company was a small grocery chain store based in Schenectady, New York. The business gained valuable experience by running a self-service
grocery store beginning in 1929. Schaffer's first supermarket, called Empire Market, opened in 1933.
Foundation, expansion.
The business was founded by Henry Schaffer (1890 " - " December 16, 1982). A native of Poland who came to Schenectady in his youth, he lived in Schenectady at the time of his death from leukemia.
Schaffer formed Schaffer Stores Company in 1907. He operated 31 stores by 1922. In 25 years the firm grew to include 185 stores in the
Hudson Valley, Mohawk Valley, and western Massachusetts.
Buy out.
The chain was acquired by Grand Union (supermarket) in June 1958 for approximately $8 million. Grand Union, based in East Paterson, New Jersey, operated 472 supermarkets. At the time Schaffer ran 41
grocery stores, the majority of which were supermarkets.


Sheffield Co-operative Society

The Sheffield Co-operative Society was a local consumer co-operative trading in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England.
The Society was founded as the Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative and opened its first shop in 1868, in the Carbrook suburb of Sheffield.
Castle House.
The Co-op opened shops around the city, and set up its first branch in Sheffield City Centre in 1929, on the corner of Exchange Street and Waingate, on part of the former site of Sheffield Castle. In 1962, this moved to a new site named "Castle House", in tribute to the site of the old store.
The Castle House department store was designed by G. S Hay of the Co-operative Wholesale Society and occupied a large site, with entrances on King Street, Angel Street and Castle Street. The store, which also housed the headquarters of the Brightside and Carbrook, featured a massive granite facade with a zigzag canopy. Inside, the focus was on a cantilevered spiral staircase connecting all the floors, under a partially glazed dome and a sculpture of a bird.
In 2009 the building was granted Grade II listed building status. In 2018 the National Videogame Museum opened on the ground floor.
Members.
Eleanor Barton, a prominent co-operative movement activist, was for many years the secretary of the Brightside and Carbrook's Hillsborough branch, and later became a director of the organisation. Other prominent members included Michael Palin, who joined the Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Players in the 1960s.
Mergers.
In the 1980s, the Brightside and Carbrook Co-op planned to merged with the Sheffield and Ecclesall Co-operative to form the Sheffield Co-operative Society. It never happened, but the name change went through.
By 2006, the Society had 35 grocery shops, six travel stores, four petrol stations, seven funeral parlours and three department stores. However, the group faced competition within Sheffield from both the United Co-operatives and the Co-operative Group.
In 2007, the Society voted to merge with the United Co-operatives, which itself merged with the Co-operative Group shortly afterwards. All three of the former Society's department stores, including Castle House, were closed in 2008.


Charles Tennant (politician)

Charles Tennant (1 July 1796, in Bloomsbury – 10 March 1873) was an English landowner and politician.
Life and politics.
Tennant was born in Bloomsbury, London. He was the second son of George Tennant (1765–1832), of 62, Russell Square, London, also of Rhydings and of Cadoxton Lodge, Glamorganshire, attorney (in practice at 2, Gray's Inn Square, in partnership with Thomas Green) and landowner, builder of the Neath and Tennant Canal in Glamorganshire, by his wife Margaret Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Beetson. He was educated at Harrow School; and then studied law. He was articled to his father in 1812, and admitted as a partner with him and Richard Harrison in 1821. His subsequent travels in Europe led to the writing of two volumes of memoirs of this trip, which were published in 1824.
From 1830 to 1831, he was Member of Parliament for St Albans, with James Grimston. He supported the Reform Act 1832. In 1830 he was one of the founders of the National Colonisation Society, advocating emigration to British colonies. On his father's death in 1832, he became head of the law firm, and lived at his father's house at Russell Square.
Tennant married aged 51; his wife, Gertrude Barbara Rich Collier (1819–1918), was a notable society hostess. They had a son, Charles Coombe Tennant (1852–1928)- whose wife, Winifred Coombe Tennant (née Pearce-Serocold), was a suffragist and Liberal politician- and five daughters, three surviving to adulthood: Alice (1848–1930), who remained unmarried; Dorothy (1855–1926), who married the explorer Henry Morton Stanley; and Eveleen (1856–1937), who married the spiritualist and classical scholar Frederic William Henry Myers (1843–1901).
Tennant's political publications include "The People's Blue Book" (1857) and "The Bank of England and the Organization of Credit in England" (1866), opposing the Bank Charter Act 1844. He wrote, in 1834, a poem, "The State of Man", in which he purposed to 'exhibit, in a concise form, a view of the Divine purpose in the creation of Man'; it was however not in the least concise, running to 4,026 lines. Between 1856 and 1869 he wrote and published numerous works, covering such disparate subjects as decimal coinage, Utilitarianism and railways.
He spent his final years living at 2, Richmond Terrace, London, having retired from his legal practice in 1866; on his death his only son, Charles, inherited Cadoxton.


Selena Etc.

Selena Etc. was a South Texas-based boutique, salon, and clothing store, which was built by the late Latin superstar, Selena. Selena Etc. was built and finished on January 27, 1994, in Corpus Christi, Texas, which was the headquarters building. Selena opened another boutique in San Antonio, Texas, around the same time the headquarters building was complete; both were equipped with in-house beauty salons. Selena began manufacturing clothing along with designer Martin Gomez with designs and styles of Latin American texture and exotic clothing styles which became her trademark on stage. Hispanic Business magazine reported that the singer earned over $5 million from these boutiques. Another boutique was due to open in Monterrey, Mexico, in 1995, but due to Selena's murder it was not opened. The San Antonio boutique was closed sometime after 1999. After Selena's death, Chris Pérez, Selena's widower, took over the business. After the 16th anniversary of the opening of the Corpus Christi boutique, the store was officially closed as of July 2009. A week after the store closed, Pérez placed a "for sale sign" in front of the building. The appraised price of the land and structure was USD$91,454 according to the Nueces County Appraisal District. Perez' asking price for the property was $165,000. The Selena Etc. store had a full-service salon, as well as Selena memorabilia, which was scooped up by admirers of the singer. They also sold jewelry, hats and other accessories. Soon after the foreclosure, due to the low economy, all merchandise and accessories began selling at the Selena Museum, located several miles from where the Selena Etc. building once was.


Johann Berenberg

Johann Berenberg (born 12 March 1718 in Hamburg, died 2 March 1772 in Hamburg) was a Hamburg merchant banker. He was a co-owner of Berenberg Bank from 1748, with his brother, senator Paul Berenberg, and after the latter's death in 1768 the sole owner. The bank still bears his name (Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co.). He was also noted as an art collector and held several public offices in the city-state of Hamburg.
He was a son of the Hamburg merchant banker and senator Rudolf Berenberg (1680–1746) and Anna Elisabeth Amsinck (1690–1748), and a grandson of Cornelius Berenberg and of the Lisbon and Hamburg merchant Paul Amsinck. He was also a great-grandson of the scholar Rudolf Capell, and was descended from the Welser family. Both his parents' families were from today's Belgium and the Netherlands, and his family retained its Dutch identity throughout his lifetime. An extensive list of his ancestors is included in the "Hamburgisches Geschlechterbuch". The Berenberg company had been founded by his 2nd great-grandfather Hans Berenberg and the latter's brother Paul in 1590; both were married to daughters of the prominent Antwerp merchant Andries Snellinck and Françoise de Rénialme.
At the age of 17 he was sent to Venice, where he learnt his trade as an apprentice in a Venice firm between 1735 and 1741; his father had started his career as an apprentice in the same firm. In 1748 he became owner of the Berenberg company together with his brother Paul. He also held numerous honorary offices in Hamburg.
He was married to Anna Maria Lastrop (1723–1761), who belonged to a wealthy merchant family from Hamburg and Bremen, and they had two children. His only son Rudolf Berenberg was possibly mentally ill and died in the Dutch colony of Suriname in 1768, aged 20; he had apparently been sent to manage his family's business interests there. In the same year, senator Paul Berenberg died without an heir, making Johann Berenberg's daughter Elisabeth the last surviving member of the Berenberg family. In 1768, she married an employee of the Berenberg company, Johann Hinrich Gossler, and in 1769, Johann Berenberg made his son-in-law a partner. Three years after Berenberg's death, Johann Hinrich Gossler succeeded him as the company's head and sole owner.


Barbouzes

The Barbouzes ("bearded ones", or "fake-beards") were a group of armed counterinsurgents established with the purpose of suppressing the Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS) in Algeria from 1961 to 1962, when they were defeated by OAS militants. Working clandestinely and outside the legal parameters of the French army and police, the Barbouzes used violent terrorist tactics in an attempt to defeat the OAS but were largely unsuccessful.
Origins.
In the Summer of 1961, when Algiers was under regular terrorist attack from the anti-independence paramilitary organisation, the OAS, three supporters of General Charles de Gaulle met in Paris to discuss their plans for response. Jacques Dauer, Louis Joxe, and Raymond Schmittlein, were the founders of the Mouvement Pour la Communauté established in 1959 (MPC, referred to as Mouvement pour la Coopération in Alger) to offer support to General de Gaulle's political ambitions in Algeria. It was agreed that the propaganda posters of the MPC were no longer sufficient and that more drastic action needed to be taken.
Lucien Bitterlin was chosen to be the director of the new agents. Bitterlin had been a member of the MPC since its foundation, and had been living in Alger since 1960. Members were recruited from a wide array of French society; existing MPC supporters, former soldiers, and labourers made up the group of several hundred. The ‘Barbouzes’ coordinated with the Police Judiciaire under Michel Hacq, whose team were named ‘Mission C’.
The Barbouzes in Algeria.
In 1961 the French recruits started to arrive in Algeria. Bitterlin was approached by a French military colonel who supplied him with weapons, gave him permission to breach curfew, and requested he “plastiquer several activist cafes in Algiers”. (to "plastiquer" was to use a form of plastic-based bomb to destroy local buildings, for which the Barbouzes became notorious). Soon, news of the Barbouzes had reached the press. Their membership and political activities, however, were strictly secret, since the French government could not admit knowledge of and involvement in an illegal terrorist group.
Since many OAS leaders had emerged from the French military, and therefore had connections with the military and French Secret Service the French army and police in Algeria were largely ill-equipped to tackle their attacks. Covert operations were seen as a necessary, drastic means for de Gaulle; the 'Barbouzes' were tasked with "infiltrating the OAS, disrupting its operations, and sometimes assassinating its leaders". Far from attempting to arrest OAS members and hand them over to the authorities, the agents were "mandated to kill".
The OAS claimed to have known about the presence of the 'Barbouzes', having become suspicious about the increasing numbers of MPC posters, the bombing of several OAS cafes, and the sudden arrival of large groups of foreign men into Algeria. As a result, the attacks were by no means one-sided; the OAS orchestrated various attacks on 'Barbouzes' hideouts, including on New Years’ eve of 1961.
By the end of 1961, fighting between the 'Barbouzes' and the FLN had escalated. French Prime Minister Michel Debré voiced disapproval of their tactics, claiming that Algeria had already seen enough bloodshed.
Fall of the Barbouzes.
In 1962, the 'Barbouzes' were no longer able to maintain their cover against the OAS. They were eventually wiped out as a result of two major attacks; one on their residence in early 1962, and the second on the Hotel Rajah in February, where the OAS had learned that the remaining 'Barbouzes' were in hiding.
Their defeat was not seen as a great symbolic victory for the OAS; after all, the 'Barbouzes' had succeeded in killing only around 100 OAS members, and public opinion largely saw them as no more than a gang of hit men hired and paid for by the French government.


Penn Traffic

The Penn Traffic Company was founded in 1854 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, as a food service company for stagecoaches. It eventually became a general-merchandise department store but by the early 1960s had also returned to the food business through the acquisition of Super Value Corporation, operator of the 10-store Riverside supermarket chain. In 1982, the company sold its department stores and concentrated solely on the food and supermarket business. A series of financial troubles led to Penn Traffic's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in November 2009 and sale of assets to Tops Markets in early 2010.
At the time of sale, Penn Traffic was the parent company for 79 retail supermarkets in the Northeastern United States, concentrating mostly in Central New York. Its headquarters were in Syracuse, New York. Penn Traffic formerly had operated supermarkets in Pennsylvania, Vermont and New Hampshire under the Insalaco's, Bi-Lo/Riverside/U-Save, P&C and Quality trade names. The company had also operated a wholesale food distribution business (purchased in 2008 by C&S Wholesale Grocers) serving approximately 121 independent operators.
Origins.
Penn Traffic traces its origins back to the 1850s, when it was a trading post in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Over the years, Penn Traffic evolved first into a general-merchandise department store and later a large retail and wholesale supermarket company. In 1922 it established Johnstown's first radio station, WTAC, which was licensed until early 1926. Riverside, founded in Brookville, Pennsylvania in 1928, became part of the Penn Traffic family in 1962, and began developing the Bi-Lo format in the 1980s (not related to the chain in the Mid-Atlantic). Penn Traffic operated 43 supermarkets under the Bi-Lo trade name across Pennsylvania, and also distributed food to 51 franchised and independent supermarkets from its DuBois, Pennsylvania distribution facility. Quality Markets, founded in Jamestown, New York in 1913, joined the Penn Traffic family in 1979. Penn Traffic operated a total of 34 supermarkets under the Quality trade name in southwestern New York and northwestern Pennsylvania.
Penn Traffic's flagship department store in Johnstown, challenged by economic decline, permanently closed after the 1977 flood. The company sold its six department stores and two women's specialty-store leases to Crown American Corporation, owner of the Hess's department store chain, in 1982 in order to concentrate on the supermarket business.
Acquisition.
Miller, Tabak, Hirsch & Company, a New York City investment group, began its takeover bid for Penn Traffic in 1986. Early takeover attempts were resisted by management but by 1987, Penn Traffic agreed to an offer by an affiliate of the investment firm and the company was briefly taken private for $131 million. In 1988, under then-chairman Gary Hirsch, Penn Traffic began an acquisition program. Hirsch first took Penn Traffic public, raising $25 million, and then added Syracuse-based P&C Food Markets for $219 million. In 1989, Penn Traffic acquired Ohio chain Big Bear Stores for $341 million.
P&C Foods.
P&C Foods began in 1944 as the Producers and Consumers food cooperative in Ithaca, New York as a way for farmers in Upstate New York to get their products to market efficiently. Until 2010, Penn Traffic operated 70 P&C supermarkets serving the Syracuse metropolitan area as well as many other communities in upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. P&C was also a major wholesaler in upstate New York; from its Syracuse warehouse, the company served 99 independent supermarkets in central New York, the majority of which still operate under the Big M franchise trade name. In 1997 a new ballpark for the Syracuse Chiefs opened. Penn Traffic owned the naming rights for nine baseball seasons of P & C Stadium. The last 'P&C Foods' branded grocery store closed on January 21, 2012 in Bath, NY when the building was sold to Moran Foods, Owner of Save-A-Lot by order of the FTC.
Big Bear.
When the first Big Bear store opened in 1933, it marked the beginning of self-service supermarketing in the Midwest. Big Bear was the first supermarket in the country to use cashier-operated motorized conveyor belts and the first to use an IBM mainframe computer. Its Big Bear Plus stores were among the first superstores combining a supermarket with a general merchandise store. Penn Traffic operated 70 Big Bear and Big Bear Plus stores in Ohio and West Virginia until early 2004. As a result of Penn Traffic's 2003 bankruptcy filing, these stores were either closed or sold to other companies, such as grocery retailer Giant Eagle, while other properties were left vacant and still remain vacant. The Columbus, Ohio warehouses operated by Big Bear were also left vacant and subsequently torn down for redevelopment.
Keeping Up.
In the early and middle 1990s Penn Traffic continued to grow as it acquired and built other supermarkets in and near its primary markets. During this time, Penn Traffic entered the Buffalo and Erie markets with the Quality trade name and made substantial investments to enhance its store base and distribution network, while maintaining steady growth in cash flow and profitability.
Phil Hawkins and PR problems.
In 1997, Hirsch hired Phil Hawkins, who was credited with saving the Vons supermarket chain in California. Hawkins, forced to cut costs, fired 325 employees, including all five division heads, some with 20 years or more with Penn Traffic.
As CEO, Hawkins replaced USDA Choice meat in its butcher shops with a cheaper grade meat. In an effort to reposition its stores as focused on "value", rather than time-tested formulas within specific markets that had worked for the chains, Hawkins slashed expenses by using generic grocery bags, postponing store maintenance and reducing benefits to employees as well. In the Columbus market, prices did not uniformly drop and competitors like Kroger and Meijer regularly beat Big Bear in third-party cost comparisons. Customers noticed the changes, and unhappy with what they saw and were experiencing, stopped shopping.
Meanwhile, better-capitalized competitors like Wegmans Food Markets and Kroger cut into market share. Same-store sales fell 8.2% in fiscal 1998, while operating income declined another 6%, to $165 million. In Columbus, where Kroger and Big Bear had once been neck and neck, Big Bear's market share dropped to 20% from 25%, while Kroger's rose to 54% from 44% in 1998, according to a survey by the Columbus Dispatch. Hawkins resigned before the first bankruptcy filing, March 1, 1999.
Financial Troubles & Bankruptcy court.
In the late 1990s, Penn Traffic experienced a significant reduction in its profitability because of several merchandising and operational changes that had a negative impact on its business. By late 1998, the company realized that while it had strong consumer franchises, it was working under an untenable debt burden. To address this challenge, in early 1999 Penn Traffic negotiated an agreement with bondholders to restructure more than $1.1 billion in bond debt.
In 1998, Penn Traffic sold its Dairy operation, Sani-Dairy in Johnstown Pennsylvania to Dean Foods. The dairy provided fluid milk, sour cream, ice cream, novelties, and cottage cheese to Penn Traffic stores and to private label customers.
Penn Traffic completed its financial restructuring in June 1999 with more than 75% of its debt retired. In 2003 the company filed for bankruptcy again, this time resulting in the loss of Big Bear, one of their largest grocery chains. The move did not come as a surprise to industry insiders as Big Bear was Penn Traffic's albatross ; the chain was often high volume low profit company and officials realized this too late to save the crown jewel P&C Foods. Joseph V. Fischer was credited for a positive turn in momentum and had moved the company in a positive direction. Joseph V. Fischer resigned one month into the second chapter 11 and was replaced by Steven G. Panagos, a well known corporate turnaround specialist. Steven Panagos successfully sold the Big Bear division, shuttered unprofitable stores, cut overhead and gave the underfunded pension plan back to the PBGC. Penn Traffic successfully emerged from bankruptcy a smaller, but healthier company. Post the chapter 11, Robert Chapman was named the new CEO of Penn Traffic. Penn Traffic was moved to the S&P 500 in March 2003 only to have a scandal later that year negatively effect all of Fischer diligence.
In 2007, two former Penn Traffic executives were indicted on fraud charges.
In early 2008, Penn Traffic closed its private bakery, Penny Curtiss. The bakery provided bread products for its own stores and other supermarket chains. Penn Traffic cited the loss of the local Aldi stores contract in August 2007 as the primary reason for the bakery's closing. The company said the bakery was contributing less than 4% of Penn Traffic's total annual revenue.
In December 2008 The Penn Traffic Company entered into a definitive agreement to sell its wholesale business segment to C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc.
On November 18, 2009, Penn Traffic filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after second-quarter losses of $7 million (the highest loss ever for the company), missed loan payments, and slower shipments from suppliers. Originally, the company intended to sell all of its assets by the end of 2009 and close on the deal or deals by the early January 2010.
As of January 9, 2010 Penn Traffic was entertaining 3 separate bids: $54 million from Price Chopper for 22 P&C Foods stores, a private bid of $36.5 million from a team of professional liquidators for all of P&C's assets and $85 million from Tops Markets for all of Penn Traffic's stores.
Sale to Tops Markets.
On January 25, 2010, Tops Markets' bid was signed off by a Federal Judge in US Bankruptcy Court and was awarded the sale of all 79 Penn Traffic stores. Closing occurred on Jan 29, 2010. The amount of the sale will be slightly more than the previously agreed upon price of $85 million cash and assumption of approximately $70 million of Penn Traffic's debt.

The BiLo name survives in Pennsylvania as those stores are franchises, though three former locations have since converted to Tops.

The P&C name (P&C Fresh) has been relaunched by three ex-PT executives in Cortland, NY; Ithaca, NY and Sayre, PA (this store has since sold to Tops).


Luigi Cossa

Luigi Cossa (May 27, 1831 – May 10, 1896), Italian economist, was born in Milan.
Life.
Educated at the universities of Pavia, Vienna and Leipzig, he was appointed professor of political economy at Pavia in 1858.
Apart from this Cossa was the author of several other works which established him a high reputation.


West Road River

The West Road River or Blackwater River or Tiyakoh is an important tributary of the Fraser River, flowing generally north-eastward from the northern slopes of the Ilgachuz Range and across the Fraser Plateau in the Chilcotin region of central British Columbia, Canada. With only one major tributary, the Nazko River ("river flowing from the south" in the Carrier language), its confluence with the Fraser is approximately 40 km northwest of Quesnel. It forms the division between the Chilcotin Plateau (S) and the Nechako Plateau (N), which are subdivisions of the Fraser Plateau.
The river is long, draining an area of approximately , and dropping over before joining with the Fraser.
The river is of significant historical importance to both First Nations and Canadian history. For centuries, the Dakelh (Carrier) and Tsilhqot'in peoples used a trail—the so-called "Grease Trail"—on the northern side of the river in their trade with coastal First Nations communities. The name Grease Trail refers to one of the main commodities transported along the route—eulachon grease, a highly prized staple, traces of which coated parts of the route after centuries of use. It was this trail that Sir Alexander Mackenzie used in his historic overland journey west to the Pacific Ocean in 1793, traversing the river itself on his return. He named the river in 1793.
The West Road (Blackwater) River has been designated as a heritage river by the government of British Columbia.
The two major settlements along the river are the Kluskus First Nation and Ulkatcho First Nation (Alexis Family). Near the river to its south, on the Nazko, is the settlement of Nazko, a ranching community, the focus of which is the reserve of the Nazko First Nation.


San Jose Assembly Plant

San Jose Assembly Plant was a Ford Motor Company manufacturing site in Northern California, outside of San Jose in what is now the town of Milpitas. It was the automaker's primary factory in that region from 1955 to 1983, replacing the Richmond Assembly facility. Numerous vehicles were produced at the plant including the Ford Falcon, Ford Maverick and Ford Mustang. It was also the West Coast manufacturing location of the Ford Fairlane, Ford Torino, Ford Pinto, Ford Escort and the short lived Edsel Ranger and Edsel Pacer. Mercury products such as the Mustang-based Cougar, Montego, Comet, Bobcat, Capri and the Lynx were also assembled there. Ford F-series trucks were produced there, from shortly after the inception of the plant until its closure in 1983.
History.
Personnel and equipment were transferred from Richmond to San Jose starting February 23, 1955. The last truckload of equipment was scheduled to depart Richmond on February 26, 1955, with most of the transfer work performed by Ford employees working overtime.
It was one of only three locations where Ford manufactured the Mustang; the other sites were Dearborn Assembly and Edison Assembly.
It was one of the first plants in the nation to which the term "automation" was applied because most of the assembly line was interlinked and did not depend on human control.
The plant closed in 1983, citing competition from Japanese imports and the building reopened as a mall in 1994, the Great Mall of the Bay Area. Three of the access roads to the mall are named after Ford vehicles built at the factory: Falcon Drive, Mustang Drive and Comet Drive.


Felpausch

Felpausch was a grocery store chain based in Hastings, Michigan, United States. The first store opened in Hastings in 1933, and the chain operated primarily in the southwestern quadrant of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Its 20 locations were sold to Spartan Stores (now SpartanNash), who largely converted them to Family Fare and D&W Fresh Market.
History.
Felpausch was founded in 1933 in Hastings, Michigan. A store in Albion was built in 1954. By 1962, the chain was also in Eaton Rapids, Marshall, and Mason.
In 1971, the Felpausch chain expanded by buying former Harding's Market locations in Delton and Bronson, Michigan. The Bronson store was sold in 1982.
Felpausch was run by the fifth generation of family members, and had been operating as an associate-owned company since 1995. A year later, it bought locations from South Haven-based Village Markets in Dowagiac, Paw Paw, and Benton Harbor. The Benton Harbor store, originally built as Jewel, was closed after only 10 months.
A branch in Battle Creek was converted to an upscale prototype called Zucca's in 2004. Jackson, Michigan and another in Battle Creek were both reconfigured in 2006 to have Ace Hardware franchises. These stores were also converted Jewel locations; the one in Battle Creek opened in 1994 to replace two other locations elsewhere in Battle Creek that had both previously been Kroger. The replacement closed in 2008.
In March 2007, it was announced that Felpausch was being purchased by Grand Rapids, Michigan distributor and retailer, Spartan Stores (now SpartanNash). Spartan re-branded most of the locations D&W Fresh Market or Family Fare. Charlotte was closed and converted to a health office by 2008. The original store in Hastings closed in 2008 and became an Ace Hardware, followed by the closure of Kalamazoo in 2009. Grand Ledge was shuttered in 2013 after a brief conversion to Family Fare. Mason became a Save-A-Lot which closed in January 2015.


Child labour in the Netherlands

Child labor existed in the Netherlands up to and through the Industrial Revolution. Laws governing child labor in factories were first passed in 1874, but child labor on farms continued to be the norm up until the 20th century.
History.
As everywhere, child labor in the Netherlands was driven by financial necessity. Children in rural areas have always been expected to help with chores around the home and farm, oftentimes (especially during harvests) foregoing schooling to work at home. This allowed poor rural families to extend their farming activities without having to hire on extra help.
As the Industrial Revolution came, families moved to the cities for factory work, and lacking childcare, brought their children with them, who were then also put to work. Children provided cheap, agile and fast-learning labor, often able to accomplish manual tasks impossible to adults due to the size of their hands. Factory owners preferred children for their greater docility and willingness to work for lower wages than adults. Because of their greater agility, children were often used for the most dangerous machine maintenance tasks, leading to high death rates among laboring children.
By 1860, more than 500,000 children (of a then population of three million people) between the ages of 6 and 11 were employed in Netherlands' factories. There appeared to be little opposition to this situation; the government actually encouraged the practice to keep the price of manufactured goods low. Children were employed in various industries, especially textiles, peat excavation, commercial bakeries, and tobacco products production. Typical wages in 1860 were 25 cents/day for girls and 35 cents/day for boys.
The beginnings of change.
Beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, sentiment began to rise against child labor. Realizing that child labor hampered children's education and was detrimental to their health, and that child labor was reducing the opportunities for adult laborers, the Dutch began to react. Newspaper articles and books were published speaking out against the practice, leading to the first child labor law in 1874. Samuel van Houten introduced the "Kinderwetje -- van Houten" (the Child Labor Act) that forbade children younger than 12 from working in factories. The law stipulated penalties for infractions, but did not authorize any agency to enforce the law. It also included many exceptions, such as farm work and home work. Because of its exceptions and lack of enforcement, the law had little effect on the overall child labor situation. It wasn't until 1882 that the government instituted as system of factory inspections to enforce the child labor laws. From 1882 until 1887, the penalties for illegal child labor were limited to fines levied against the factories, but in 1887, penalties became stricter, which led to an overall decline in child factory labor.
In 1900, the Netherlands passed a law requiring all children to attend school until age 12. Truancy officers were empowered to verify school attendance, and recalcitrant parents were handled with increasingly severe consequences. After age 12, children were free to remain home or enter the work force. There was also at this time the advent of post-compulsory education, providing technical or professional training.
Present day.
Currently, children in the Netherlands are required to attend school until the age of 18, or until they receive their secondary (high school) diploma.


Danners

Danners, Inc was a company based in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, that operated retail and restaurant outlets. Its largest, and oldest, division was the Danners 5 & 10 chain of five and dime stores, which it closed in 1985.
Danners also operated twelve Cambridge Inn Cafeterias and one Danner Bros. Restaurant and danners!, the company's frame, stationery and crafts store. The variety stores, restaurants and frame and craft stores were all closed down in 1985, in an effort to save the 3-D discount chain.
In 1986, 3D Discount had locations throughout Indiana, Illinois and Michigan.
In 1987, Indian L.P. offered to purchase all outstanding shares of Danners, Inc. that it did not already own. It was then merged into the Maxway Corp., which filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1988. When Maxway emerged from bankruptcy in 1989, the Danners, Inc division was listed as defunct. Maxway operated the Macks Stores chain of stores.


Outline of the United States Virgin Islands

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the United States Virgin Islands:
The Territory of the United States Virgin Islands is an unincorporated organized territory of the United States of America located in the western portion of the Virgin Islands Archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. The Virgin Islands are part of the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles. The British Virgin Islands comprises the eastern portion of the archipelago.
The U.S. Virgin Islands consist of the main islands of Saint Croix, Saint John and Saint Thomas, along with the much smaller but historically distinct Water Island, and many other surrounding minor islands. The total land area of the territory is 346.36 km2 (133.73 sq mi). As of the 2000 census the population was 108,612.
Three of the main islands have nicknames often used by locals: "Rock City" (St. Thomas), "Love City" (St. John), and "Twin City" (St. Croix).
Geography of the United States Virgin Islands.
Geography of the United States Virgin Islands
Regions of the United States Virgin Islands.
Regions of the United States Virgin Islands
Ecoregions of the United States Virgin Islands.
List of ecoregions in the United States Virgin Islands
Administrative divisions of the United States Virgin Islands.
Administrative divisions of the United States Virgin Islands
Provinces of the United States Virgin Islands.
Provinces of the United States Virgin Islands
Districts of the United States Virgin Islands.
Districts of the United States Virgin Islands
Municipalities of the United States Virgin Islands.
Municipalities of the United States Virgin Islands
Demography of the United States Virgin Islands.
Demographics of the United States Virgin Islands
Government and politics of the United States Virgin Islands.
Politics of the United States Virgin Islands
Branches of the government of the United States Virgin Islands.
Government of the United States Virgin Islands
Judicial branch of the government of the United States Virgin Islands.
Court system of the United States Virgin Islands
Foreign relations of the United States Virgin Islands.
Foreign relations of the United States Virgin Islands
International organization membership.
The Territory of the United States Virgin Islands is a member of:
Law and order in the United States Virgin Islands.
Law of the United States Virgin Islands
Military of the United States Virgin Islands.
Military of the United States Virgin Islands
Local government in the United States Virgin Islands.
Local government in the United States Virgin Islands
History of the United States Virgin Islands.
History of the United States Virgin Islands
Culture of the United States Virgin Islands.
Culture of the United States Virgin Islands
Sports in the United States Virgin Islands.
Sports in the United States Virgin Islands
Economy and infrastructure of the United States Virgin Islands.
Economy of the United States Virgin Islands
Education in the United States Virgin Islands.
Education in the United States Virgin Islands


Restaurant Revitalization Fund

The Restaurant Revitalization Fund is a $28.6 billion fund administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration that will provide relief to businesses hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic.


Gran Tavola

During the Middle Ages, the Gran Tavola (Italian for "Great Table") was the largest Sienese bank; it was one of the most powerful banks in Europe from 1255 to 1298. The "Gran Tavola" has been called "the greatest bank of the thirteenth century" as well as "one of the largest commercial and banking enterprises in Europe".
The main branches of the "Gran Tavola" during the mid-thirteenth century were in Pisa, Bologna, Genoa, Marseille, and Paris.
Rise.
The "Gran Tavola" has its roots in the "societas" of the Bonsignori, which began activity in the 1240s with the participation of the Malavolti.
The "Gran Tavola" was founded by Orlando Bonsignori in 1255 and in the 1260s became the exclusive depository-general of the incomes of the Papal States. Pope Innocent IV's (1243-1254) conflicts with Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor had demonstrated plainly to the Roman Curia the importance of reliable and robust financial services relationships. The first so-designated papal depository was the Piccolomini firm headed by Angeliero Solafico circa 1233 under Pope Gregory IX; the "Gran Tavola" filled this role between 1250 and 1270.
The slightly larger Ricciardi bank of Lucca was also intimately involved in church finances. During the reign of Pope Clement IV, the bank became responsible for the collection of all the ecclesiastical tithes for the Holy Land. Under Pope Urban IV (1265–68), all pontifical taxes were collected by the "Gran Tavola". After the 1260s, popes Nicholas III, Honorius IV, and Nicholas IV continued to use Sienese banks for a small amount of transactions.
The bank also supported Charles of Anjou in his conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily; through a network of "virtual banking syndicates" the bank secured a loan of 200,000 "livres tournois" for the Angevin monarch. The "Gran Tavola" benefited greatly from Charles's victory over the House of Hohenstaufen, having previously seen its commercial opportunities limited by Siena's political support of the Hohenstaufen. The "Gran Tavola" was "at the center of financial operations in both Genoa and Tuscany"; Guglielmo Leccacorvo served as the bank's representative in Genoa. Bonsignori made his institution one of the most influential in Western Europe by expanding its reach into Catalonia, France, and England.
Decline and failure.
The bank declined after the death of Bonsignori in 1273, and went bankrupt in 1298. The formality of bankruptcy may not have occurred until several years after 1298. The "coup de grâce" for the "Gran Tavola" was the crunch caused by the confiscation of Sienese assets by Philip IV of France (as a result of debts he claimed to have been owed by the Bonsignori) and the loss of papal business under Pope Boniface VIII (a trend under way since the early 1290s).
The failure of the "Gran Tavola" was followed by a period of acute and sustained economic ruin in Siena, systemically spreading to several other Sienese banks. By 1320, Siena's international position had contracted almost entirely, following the additional failure of the Tolomei bank in 1313 and the decline of the Champagne fairs, whose commercial activities were "umbilically linked" to Siena; for example, Sienese institutions were not present in the Avignon Exchange created during the Avignon Papacy.
Pope Nicholas IV lost 80,000 florins as a result of the collapse of the "Gran Tavola" but the loss was mitigated by the overall weakening of Siena, at the time known for its anti-papal, though nominally Ghibelline, allegiances. Many years later, this loss served as one of the pretexts for the papal interdict of Siena. Furthermore, the failure of the "Gran Tavola" lead to the rapid rise of Florentine banking institutions. Under the leadership of Pope Boniface VIII, the papal finances were transferred to Florentine banking institutions as well.


Roundsman System

The Roundsman System (sometimes termed the billet, or ticket, or item system), in the Elizabethan Poor Law (1601), was a form of organised labour exchange for the poorest labourers by which a parish vestry helped to pay local farmers, households and others to employ such applicants for relief at a rate of headline wages negotiated and set by the parish. It depended not on the services, but on the wants of the applicants: the employers being repaid out of the poor rate (local taxation) all they advanced in wages beyond a very low-wage amount. Variants of the Roundsman system operated and co-existed from parish-to-parish and sometimes depending on type of labour.
Details.
According to this plan the parish in general agreed with a farmer to sell to him the labour of one or more paupers at a certain price, paying to the pauper out of the parish funds the difference between that price and the subsistence rate (the difference being an "allowance" which the scale, according to the price of bread and the number of his family, awarded him). It received the local name of "billet" or "ticket system" from the ticket signed by the overseer which the pauper in general carried to the farmer as a warrant for his being employed, and afterwards took back to the overseer, signed by the farmer, as a proof that he had fulfilled the conditions of relief.
In other cases and parishes the parish contracted with a person to have some work performed for him by the paupers at a given price, the parish paying the paupers from that person and general funds.
Labour auctions.
In many parishes the roundsman system was conducted by means of an auction, all the unemployed men being put up to sale periodically, sometimes monthly or weekly, at prices varying according to the time of year, the old and infirm selling for less than the able-bodied. The roundsman system was discontinued by the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834.


Tower Records

Tower Records is an international retail music franchise and online music store that was formerly based in Sacramento, California, United States. From 1960 until 2006, Tower operated retail stores in the United States, which closed when Tower Records filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. Tower.com was purchased by a separate entity and was not affected by the retail store closings.
On November 13, 2020, Tower Records announced that it had returned as an online retailer.
History.
Inception, expansion, and description.
In 1960, Russell Solomon opened the first Tower Records store on Broadway, in Sacramento, California. He named it for his father's drugstore, which shared a building and name with the Tower Theatre, where Solomon first started selling records. The first stand-alone Tower Records store was located at 2514 Watt Ave in Arden Arcade, a suburb of Sacramento, California. By 1976, Solomon had opened Tower Books, Posters, and Plants at 1600 Broadway, next door to another Sacramento Tower Records location. In 1995, Tower.com opened, making the enterprise one of the first retailers to move online.
Seven years after its founding, Tower Records expanded to San Francisco, opening a store in what was originally a grocery store at Bay Street and Columbus Avenue. In 1979, Tower Records in Japan started its business as the Japan Branch of MTS Incorporated. The following year, Sapporo Store, the first in Japan opened. The chain eventually expanded internationally to include stores in Japan, United Kingdom, Canada, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Ireland, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, and Argentina. The Tower Records stores in Japan split off from the main chain and are now independent. Arguably the most famous Tower Records outlet was the purpose built building that company staff general-contracted, with many personally contributing their labor, which opened in 1971 on the north west corner of Sunset Boulevard and Horn Avenue in West Hollywood.
In New York City, Tower Records operated a suite of stores on and near lower Broadway in the East Village. The main store was located at the southeast corner of East 4th Street and Broadway. The Tower Records Annex was in the same building, located at the southwest corner of East 4th and Lafayette Street. The third store, Tower Video, was located on the southeast corner of East 4th and Lafayette Street, and specialized in video and the second floor of this location also sold books. Their location on the Upper West Side, near Lincoln Center on 66th Street and Broadway, was a magnet for those working in the field of musical theatre. There was also a location in the basement of Trump Tower, and a small clearance annex on 86th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
The Nashville location on West End Avenue (across from Vanderbilt University) was in a former Packard dealership. The old showroom floor in front was devoted to CDs, cassettes and vinyl. The area in the back housed videocassette sales and rentals, PC and console games and music paraphernalia. The strip mall next door contained a separate Tower Books. The location was famous for their late-night Monday events that culminated at midnight on Tuesday when staff started ringing up sales of new releases. Because of the store's proximity to Music Row, country music stars could occasionally be seen performing or shopping there.
As part of a 2002 settlement with 41 states over CD price fixing Tower Records, along with retailers Musicland and Trans World Entertainment, agreed to pay a $3 million fine. It is estimated that between 1995 and 2000 customers were overcharged by nearly $500 million and up to $5 per album.
In 2005, the company began using "scan and listen" stations in its stores. These stations allowed customers to listen to audio samples from CDs and to search for particular songs, albums and artists. This model of listening station is still used at the Arizona-based chain Zia Records.
In 2006, the company introduced the Tower Insider program. The program was free of charge and allowed a customer to receive a membership card which could be scanned with each purchase, allowing the customer to receive coupons and notification of special deals via e-mail.
In addition to compact discs and cassette tapes, the stores sold DVDs, electronic gadgets like mp3 players, video games, accessories, and toys, and a few Tower Records locations sold books as well, such as those in Brea, Mountain View, and Sacramento, California, as well as stores in Austin, Boston, Massachusetts, Nashville, New York City, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle.
Tower Pulse! magazine.
In 1983, the company began publishing a music magazine, "Pulse!", which contained record reviews, interviews, and advertising. Initially, it was given away free in their stores to promote their record sales. After nine years, in 1992, the magazine began national distribution with a cover price of $2.95, but it was cancelled when the company discontinued U.S. operations. From 1983 until December 2002 Tower Records published it monthly, 222 issues in all.
Bankruptcy.
Tower Records entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the first time in 2004. Factors cited were the heavy debt incurred during its aggressive expansion in the 1990s, growing competition from mass discounters and Internet piracy. Mismanagement, managerial incompetence, and crippling restrictions from the first bankruptcy deal also contributed to Tower's demise.
Some observers took a pragmatic view. As Robert Moog, inventor of the Moog synthesizer, has stated: "I'm sorry if Tower Records' and Blockbuster's sales plummet. On the other hand, it wasn't that long ago that those megastore chains drove a lot of neighborhood record stores out of business."
In February 2004, the debt was estimated to be between $80 million and $100 million, and assets totaled just over $100 million.
On August 20, 2006, Tower Records filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time, in order to facilitate a purchase of the company prior to the holiday shopping season.
Liquidation.
On October 6, 2006, Great American Group won an auction of the company's assets and commenced liquidation proceedings the following day. This included going-out-of-business sales at all U.S. Tower Records locations, the last of which closed on December 22, 2006. The Tower Records website was sold separately.
The managers of f.y.e., a music store chain based in shopping malls, had negotiated a deal to acquire the two historic Tower locations in the latter's home base of Sacramento. f.y.e. later backed out, stating that the "leases aren't what we thought they were". f.y.e. did acquire the lease of the West End Avenue store in Nashville, which eventually closed in 2011. f.y.e. also took over a Tower Records in Torrance, which continued to operate until early 2016.
Rasputin Music, a new and used music and video store based in the San Francisco Bay Area, expanded in the Central Valley of California by acquiring the leases for the former Tower Records stores in Fresno and Stockton.
Other stores.
The Landmark Plaza Tower Records Store in Alexandria, Virginia was permanently closed on December 18, 2006, and the Tysons Corner, Virginia, store permanently closed on December 21, 2006. The noted 24-year-old store in Washington, D.C. (Foggy Bottom) closed down the next day, as did the store in Atlanta, Georgia.
On Friday, December 22, 2006 – 40 years after Solomon had opened the first Tower Records store in Sacramento – the last Tower Records store in New York City, located at 1961 Broadway, one block north of Lincoln Center, on Manhattan's West Side, closed permanently along with all of the other remaining Tower Records stores in the United States. The final Tower Records store (in the Pacific Time Zone) to be closed was the one in Mountain View, which closed at 5:00 p.m.
One building in Sacramento had been a Tower Records store for 40 years, and the lot across the street had been the location where Solomon began selling records in 1941.
R5 Records closed on June 4, 2010, and was sold to rival Dimple Records, which reopened the store in mid-July 2010.
The Tower Records building in Boston, located at the intersection of Newbury Street and Massachusetts Avenue, was instrumental in the conversion of the former street's commercial value. The eight-story building, renovated by Frank Gehry in the late 80s, is prominently visible from the eastbound Massachusetts Turnpike. The store (which occupied the first five stories) featured gold stars of Boston artists (including Gang Starr, New Kids on the Block, and Yo-Yo Ma) embedded in the front landing. Virgin Megastore took over the store from 2002 to 2007. The space was later a Best Buy store and, after being vacant for some time, in 2016 was opened as a T.J. Maxx store.
Online return.
On-line merchant Caiman, Inc., reopened the website from Montreal, Quebec, on June 1, 2007. This company also announced plans to reopen the stores themselves—opening stores in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco within the next nine months, however this never came to fruition. They hired former Tower buyer Kevin Hawkins to assist with the re-opening (Hawkins, along with former Tower employee George Scarlett, then left Caiman). In 2009, Richard Flynn was hired as President. The website remained based in Montreal, but the relaunch of the brand never moved forward. As of November 2020, Tower Records re-opened their online store with a new website, once again selling vinyl records among other merchandise, which also features an online version of "Pulse" that is updated regularly.
International stores.
Canada.
Tower Records operated in Canada in the mid 1990s with a flagship store at the Toronto Eaton Centre at the corner of Queen and Yonge which opened in December 1995 and closed in 2001. Tower Records opened a second location in Toronto in the late nineties at Empress Walk in North York also on Yonge Street but was closed just prior to the flag ship store closing.
Hong Kong.
Tower Records opened stores in the Hong Kong in the 1990s. There were two stores, one located on the seventh floor of Times Square at Causeway Bay, the other at Diamond Hill.
Ireland.
Tower Records is operated in Ireland by Record & Discs Ltd. (owned by Press Up Entertainment) under a licensed franchise of MTS Incorporated (USA). , two stores still operate in Ireland both located in Dublin, one on Dawson Street and the other on O'Connell Street upstairs in Easons.
Israel.
Tower Records Israel opened in 1993; a joint venture between Tower Records USA (MTS INC of W. Sacramento, CA) and two local businessmen. The Founding Director was Joel Abramson, who had previously managed Tower's flagship Sunset Strip location in Los Angeles. The first three locations were in Tel Aviv (the Opera Tower), Haifa (Hutzot HaMifratz, opened in early 1995) and Jerusalem (1995). The Tel Aviv location, with its beachfront location, was a popular shopping spot for Israeli pop stars like David Broza, Meir Ariel, Aviv Gefen, Riki Gal and others. TRI closed its final location in Ra'anana in November 2015.
Japan.
In 1979, Tower Records in Japan started its business as the Japan Branch of MTS Incorporated. The following year, Sapporo Store, the first in Japan opened. In 1981, Japanese subsidiary Tower Records Japan Inc. (TRJ) was established.
In October 2002, TRJ went independent from the international chain by management buyout. The bankruptcy of Tower Records in the U.S. in 2006 did not affect TRJ as it had been completely independent (as of 2015, NTT DoCoMo and Seven & I Holdings are the main stakeholders). As of October 1, 2014, TRJ maintains 85 directly operated store locations throughout Japan, including 10 Tower Mini Stores, and the Shibuya Store in Tokyo (moved to the current location in March 1995) which is said to be one of the biggest music retail outlets in the world, occupying selling space of 5,000 m² (9 floors). TRJ also publishes free magazines "Tower", "bounce", and "intoxicate" directly and through its subsidiary NMNL.
In addition to being the leading CD retailer in Japan, TRJ was the majority stakeholder in Napster Japan, a joint venture between TRJ and Napster LLC. On March 1, 2010, Napster Japan and TRJ announced that Napster Japan would terminate all of its services on May 31, 2010 due to the difficulty in covering the costs for maintaining the required systems to continue the services.
Tower Records Japan has a subsidiary record label called T-Palette Records, which specializes in idol performers.
Malaysia.
Tower Records Malaysia now open at 27-1 JALAN 13/149L BANDAR BARU SERI PETALING 57000 KUALA LUMPUR MALAYSIA
Mexico.
The first Tower Records store in Mexico opened in the mid 1990s in the Zona Rosa area featuring 3 floors and a live DJ. After international bankruptcy, the stores were acquired by Promotora Musical, a retail company owned by Grupo Carso, the same owner of Mixup record stores. There were Tower Records stores in Mexico City (Gran Sur and Mundo E), Puebla (Las Animas) and Monterrey (Paseo San Pedro)., but eventually closed.
Philippines.
Tower Records opened three stores in the Philippines in the 1990s. The first branch was located in Glorietta 3 Ayala Center Makati City which opened in 1998. The second store was in Alabang Town Center Muntinlupa City which opened in 1999. The third store was in Robinson's Place Manila, all of which are in the National Capital Region. As of 2018, all these branches have closed.
In 2020, Tower Records Philippines has been re-launched and re-opened because of Filipino girl group Baby Blue a sub-unit of idol girl group MNL48
Singapore.
Tower Records opened stores in Singapore in the 1990s. Singapore had two Tower Records outlets, one at Pacific Plaza that opened in 1993 and the other at Suntec City. Tower Records Pacific Plaza moved out in 2001 and the latter closed its doors in 2006 when Tower Records filed for bankruptcy globally and eventually folded.
South Korea.
Tower Records opened stores in South Korea in the 1990s, with stores in Seoul and Busan. The Seoul branch became part of Synnara Record (now Media Synnara) and is now part of M2U Record, while the Busan branch has closed.
The Seoul branch was used as one of the main filming locations for Seoul Broadcasting System's 2001 drama "Beautiful Days", starring Lee Byung-hun, Choi Ji-woo, Ryu Si-won, Shin Min-a, Lee Jung-hyun and Lee Yoo-jin.
Taiwan.
Tower Records opened three mega stores in Taipei, Taiwan in the 1990s. All stores were located in popular areas of Taipei, and became centers of fashion and music during their existence. The stores closed in December 2003.
Thailand.
Tower Records opened stores in Thailand in the 1990s, introducing comprehensive music CD stocking into Thailand for the first time with revolutionary effects on the retail music business. There were several stores in Bangkok, including three megastores inside popular malls. One of the biggest megastores was located on the top floor of CentralWorld mall in central Bangkok. In the 2000s as business declined due to piracy and the downloading revolution, the stores were progressively closed and the remaining ones were eventually sold to another dealer.
United Kingdom.
Tower Records in the UK was originally a London-based concern, with a first store in Kensington High Street in 1984 being followed the next year by a flagship outlet at 1 Piccadilly Circus and later two more smaller outlets at Whiteleys in Bayswater, and Kingston. However, by the start of the 1990s the chain had grown to encompass a number of other stores, with large entertainment stores also selling movies, books, magazines and games in Birmingham and Glasgow, as well as a number of smaller stores that had been purchased from rival American retailer Sam Goody when it had left the UK marketplace (an example of this express format was in Weston-super-Mare).
However, with tough trading conditions in the UK market, as well as the company's trouble in the States, the firm followed Sam Goody in retreating from the UK market. The London stores in Piccadilly and Kensington were sold to Virgin Group in 2003, who for a while traded under the Tower brand at the former site until the store could be fully refurbished, while the other stores were closed. The store was subsequently renamed Zavvi in September 2007 after a management buyout of the Virgin Megastores. The Piccadilly store closed on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 by the administrators and is now occupied by a non-music retailer as of 2017.
Documentary.
"All Things Must Pass" (2015) is a documentary by filmmaker Colin Hanks chronicling the rise and fall of Tower Records, using archival footage and exclusive interviews with former staff, especially Russell Solomon and former COO Stan Goman, as well as celebrity customers Bruce Springsteen, Elton John and Dave Grohl. Another documentary called "Art Gods" (2013) is an oral history of the development of an influential in-store display design ethic at Tower, originating from the Berkeley location.


William McIlroy (department store)

William McIlroy was a group of department stores started in Swindon in 1875 and finally closed in 1998.
History.
William McIlroy was an Irish draper who came to England and in 1875 opened his first store on Regent Street, Swindon. The store was purpose built as a department store with a grand clock and plate glass frontage.
The business grew, with William's brother-in-law James Wheeler and son Ewart joining the business, and 22 branches were opened up across England and Wales amongst them Bristol, East Grinstead, Kirkby in Ashfield, Minehead, Stroud and most famously Oxford Road in Reading. The Oxford Road store was opened in 1903, and was known as the "Crystal Palace of Reading" because of its 2000 feet of plate glass windows, and employed over 1000 people.
The McIlroy family had strong connections with Reading, with William McIlroy being the Mayor as well as donating land to form McIlroy Park.
During the First World War, McIlroys were given an order by the War Office for 45,000 beds. During the 1930s the grand ball room was added to the Swindon store, with the chandeliers and panelling coming from the cruise liner Mauritania. Stars who performed there included Diana Dors and The Beatles (1962).
In the 1950s the business started to struggle and changed hands. Stores were closed including the Reading store in 1955.
The Swindon store however continued to operate. The famous clock tower was removed in the 1960s for safety reasons and replaced with a smaller less ornate clock front. In 1975 a grand sale took place to celebrate 100 years. The Caernarfon store was destroyed by a fire in 1992 wasn't rebuilt.The business owned by textile giant Courtaulds was sold to Mackays Stores in the early 1990s.
However, on 13 January 1998, the store was closed by its owners Mackays, citing that it could not compete with rivals Debenhams, House of Fraser and the Designer Outlet Centre. This confused many as in 1997 a report claimed McIlroys to be the UK's eighth most profitable department store. The store was demolished and rebuilt as a branch of H&M and is now home to the fashion chain Flannels.


RBG Resources

RBG Resources was a British public-limited firm based in London that was allegedly involved in a serious fraud worth close to £300 million (US$600 million). RBG Resources made $1.1 billion in sales in 2000. It was an affiliate of the United States based Allied Deals Inc., which was also involved in the fraud, and resulted in 14 people convicted or pleading guilty to related crimes.


Stewarts Supermarket Limited

Stewarts Supermarket Limited (traded as Stewarts and Crazy Prices) was a supermarket chain in Northern Ireland. The chain was purchased by Tesco in March 1997.
History.
Stewarts/Crazy Prices.
The company slogans were 'No one delivers value like Stewarts' and 'No one delivers freshness like Stewarts'. A television advertising campaign in the end of the 1980s included a cover version of the song Locomotion, with these slogans replacing 'Come on baby, do the Locomotion'. (The song was then popular because of Kylie Minogue's successful cover of 1988).
Crazy Prices' long time advertising theme was alternate lyrics set to the tune Tiger Feet by Mud.
Tesco.
On 21 March 1997, Tesco agreed the purchase of the food retailing and related businesses of Associated British Foods in the whole of Ireland for £643 million. The acquisition was completed in May, after regulatory approval was granted.
The Northern Ireland businesses were 19 Stewarts, nine Crazy Prices and six other (Westside Stores and Bloomfields along with Toy Crazy and Pet Crazy in the Derriaghy complex), 78 Stewarts Wine Barrel off licence stores, the sports goods retailer Lifestyle Sports, the meat processing and packing business Kingsway Fresh Foods and the fresh fruit and vegetable distributor "Daily Wrap Produce".
This was a major expansion of Tesco's presence in Northern Ireland, its only other presence in Northern Ireland being a Tesco Metro in the city centre of Belfast. Other Great Britain based retailers had entered the market in Ireland around the same time. Sainsbury's had opened two stores at Ballymena and Forestside by the time Tesco completed the Stewarts purchase, and opened seven more between then and 2003.
Safeway formed Safeway Stores Ireland along with Fitzwilton, taking over a number of former stores of Wellworths. The Republic of Ireland stores (Powers Supermarkets trading as Quinnsworth and Crazy Prices) became Tesco Ireland, while the Northern Ireland stores became part of the Tesco core business in the United Kingdom.


Scramble (slave auction)

A scramble was a particular form of slave auction that took place during the Atlantic slave trade in the European colonies of the West Indies and the United States. It was called a "scramble" because buyers would run around in an open space all at once to gather as many bondspeople as possible. Another name for a scramble auction is slave auctions. Slave ship captains would go to great lengths to prepare their captives and set prices for these auctions to make sure they would receive the highest amount of profits possible because it usually did not involve earlier negotiations or bidding.
History.
The Scramble was first done as a form of slave auctioning in the West Indies. During the late eighteenth century, the term "scramble" was coined from the practices of slave auctions in the West Indies and the Caribbean. The scramble would take place on a ship, in a pen, or an enclosed area. The reason captain's selling their captives in a form of an enclosed area was to prevent a revolt against the ship crew and/or to quickly sell off the enslaved. Once bondspeople were docked and brought onto land they would be herded into a pen, the ship, or an enclosed area, surrounded by eager buyers, often pushing and shoving to position themselves to the front of the pen's doors. The scramble was started by signal, either a gunshot or a drum beat, and once this was heard, the buyers swarmed into the pen to collect as many individuals as they could. During the scramble, fights often broke out among the buyers, which will be discussed more under the topic "First Hand Accounts of the Sramble". Olaudah Equiano, an African captive who was able to gain freedom, describes the scramble as starting from a signal, the beat of a drum, and then the buyers rushed into the yard, where Equiano and the other bondspeople were kept, to grab the enslaved peoples they liked best.
Anna Maria Falconbridge and Alexander Falconbridge were a married couple from London who lived during the 18th Century. Anna Maria was the first English woman to publish an eyewitness account of her experiences in West Africa with her husband, a previous surgeon on a slave ship turned abolitionist. Anna Maria’s writing of the two voyages were used in the campaign to abolish the Atlantic Slave Trade. Ironically, she defended the slave trade in her own narrative called the Two Voyages to the River Sierra Leone during the Years 1791–1792–1793. Specifically relating to the type of slave auction called the scramble, Christopher Fyfe, a historian who specializes in West Africa, gives a description of it from Anna Maria Falconbridge’s perspective. Do note that this perspective is from an English woman who defended the slave trade. The scrambles witnessed were in Jamaica, one in Kingston, and the other in Port Maria. For the scramble in Kingston, the slaves were all collected upon the main and quarter deck of the ship where it was darkened (in order to prevent potential buyers from clearly seeing the slaves). Once the signal was given for the scramble to commence, the buyers rushed in. Slaves were so terrified that almost thirty of them jumped ship. The scramble in Port Maria was conducted similarly to the one in Kingston. Only this time, the situation of the slaves was more described. Fyfe describes the women as being terrified, clinging to one another in protection, and in great agony. The buyers are described as savages because of the brutal way they rushed on the slaves to grab and eventually purchase them.
Preparation.
Commonalities of Prepping the Enslaved.
The enslaved were "prepared" for the auction by "experts", surgeons, or the common crewmen. Before the enslaved were examined as individuals, the crewmen would strip them down, and herd them together in a small open space so the surgeons could examine their health and youthfulness. The captains, surgeons, or crew members would wash the enslaved men, women, and children, usually with sea water, and shave the adults to get rid of grey hair in hopes they would look younger. The major problem crewmen had to tackle was to create the illusion that the enslaved peoples were healthy. One way crewmen were able to do this was to give bondspeople rum so their eyes would seem alive as well as slathering them in oil or animal fat to accentuate their muscles. There are even reports of the "experts" and crewmen fixing up the enslaved wounds with gunpowder and/or iron rust, and their anuses would be closed to stop leakage with a makeshift cork. Palm oil, aside from gunpowder or iron rust, was also rubbed on the captives to cover up their bruises, sores, and cuts. Branding the enslaved peoples of which European nation and/or their respective owner was also common, men would be burned on the arms, and women on the breasts. All of these techniques were used to ensure that the captains would make the highest profits possible. In the morning of a scramble slave auction, buyers were able to come early to inspect the captives themselves, but there were not any possibilities of private sales or negotiations; buyers would examine the bondspeople by opening their mouths to see their teeth, touching their arms and legs to feel how muscular they were, making them walk to see any "lameness", and making them bend in a variety of ways so buyers could see any wounds that were possibly masked by oil, animal fat, iron rust, etc.
"Seasoning".
Another way the preparation aspect is defined, is by "seasoning". The seasoning of slaves was a period of adjustment where merchants and traders conditioned enslaved peoples so they could get used to their new life on plantations. The process of seasoning is seen as a way to break the African captives by taking away their identity, so they would be less likely to revolt and get their work done on or off the plantation. In order for the bondspeople to be conditioned correctly traders and merchants would "Creolize" (the act of changing the attitudes of an African-born captive into an American-born bondsperson) by shaving off all of their hair, washing them, oil them down, and then feed them very little. The last part of "Creolizing" an African captive dealt with sending enslaved peoples to the West Indies before being sold in the American South so they knew what it was like to work on plantations. Other forms of seasoning included branding the enslaved with the mark of their new owner, renaming the enslaved in order to strip them from their African identity, and torturing them. During these processes women in particular were subjected to many harsh and unwanted sexual acts that were advanced by the white merchants, and sometimes captive African men.
Women's Experiences.
The accounts of enslaved peoples are already difficult to find within historical research and recordings. The stories of women are even more difficult to account for in terms of their point of view within a scramble sale. We must rely on the fact that slaves were selected upon the surface level set of appearance that buyers were presented and the accounts primarily of those buyers. As well as the accounts of others, such as John Josselyn, an English traveler that reported what he saw on his voyages. When Josselyn headed to New England he was provided lodging at Samuel Maverick’s home. Maverick was one of the first slave owners in Massachusetts and by 1638 he owned at least three slaves, two of them which were non-English speaking women. Both of these enslaved women are thought of being bought in a scramble, being sold for a lesser amount than the young men.
One young girl, sixteen to seventeen years of age, was forced to show off her limbs and teeth by smiling to prospective buyers. While smiling one interested buyer moved her lips around so he could look at every crevasse up close.
Female slaves were used as wet nurses for their white slave owners. They were also kept to produce more slaves resulting in cheap labor and generational servitude. In Stephanie Jones-Rogers' book They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South mentions many of these enslaved women's experiences, such as Mary Kincheon Edwards. Edward job was to nurse the white children was the only job Edwards had to perform while she was enslaved, which leads to believe that she and many other women who performed this task were constantly conceiving.
First Hand Accounts of Scramble Auctions.
In Olaudah Equiano's book The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, he mentions his experiences while being prepped for a scramble slave auction. While still on board, Equiano states that they were separated into different parcels, men and women, where they were "examined" by having to jump. Once on land they were rounded up like sheep in the merchant's yard where they stayed for a few days until the scramble auction started by a beat of a drum. During the scramble, Equiano illustrates how inhumane buyers acted during this process. He states that the buyers visually seemed eager to get their hands on as many bondspeople as possible.
Frederic Bancroft writes about a traveler's observation of a slave being examined in his book "Slave Trading in the Old South." The traveler recalls that the captive was forced to strip naked so buyers could see if there were any signs of damage from cuts, wounds, and/or bruising, and disease; he states that there was not any part of the captive's body that was untouched.
John Tailyour, a ship captain that mostly sailed to Guinea, Africa, writes how he prepared for scramble slave auctions. Tailyour conducted scramble auctions in the years of 1782-1784, 1789, and 1792-1793, and each time he employed the same factors to ensure he would receive the highest profits. Before going on land to the sale site Tailyour would separate his captives into two categories: "prime" and "refuse"; prime bondspeople were young men and women, ranging in the ages from the late teens to thirty, were in good health, and free of injuries, wounds, and sickness while "refuse" bondspeople were either very old or very young, sick, and/or covered with wounds. On the day of the scramble, or a day before, Tailyour would then create ten different categories for the enslaved: "privilege men", "cargo men", "privilege men-boys", "men-boys", and the women being the same; based on these categories prices were set at two Jamaican pounds, with the "better quality" captives being two pounds more than the next, and each female category was priced two pounds lower than their male equivalent. Tailyour created these separations because the "privilege slaves", weather male or female, were saved for his close friends and family, with the rest being put into the scramble. John Tailyour's "refuse slaves" were also put into scrambles, but were specifically for plantation owners who could not afford to pay for the other categories.
Thomas Hibbert, an English merchant and plantation owner in Jamaica, discussed the possible dangers of a scramble that he witnessed to Nathaniel Phillips, another plantation owner. Here, Hibbert stated, that he expected half of the buyers waiting at the gates to be trampled to death by the other half.
Alexandre Lindo, a ship captain for two slave ships, records selling an entire ship of captives in four hours, which was the most amount of bondspeople sold until 1805 when thirty plantation owners bought an entire human cargo worth in one hour, both being sold by the scramble method.
Alexander Falconbridge, husband of Anna Maria Falconbridge, who were both surgeons for four different voyages, recounts the scramble slave auction in his book, "An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa". He states that buyers would pay a fixed price for the captives that was negotiated among the ship's captains and the purchasers. Falconbridge describes that as soon as the agreed start hour came around the doors of the yard, where the captives were held, were thrown open, and the buyers instantly ran in to gather bondspeople. Some buyers came prepared by bringing handkerchiefs or ropes so they could tie the slaves together without losing them while grabbing others. Falconbridge calls the buyers "brutes" who had no form of sympathy for the captives; because of this, he recalls some of the enslaved to be so frightened that they would jump over the walls to escape. On the ship Golden Age, Falconbridge records the selling of 503 captives in two days in December 1784 at Port Maria, Jamaica.
Bibliography.
Bancroft, Frederic. "Slave Trading in the Old South." Ungar, 1959.
"Black Peoples of America - The Slave Auction". CUSD. accessed March 03, 2021. https://www.cusd80.com/cms/lib6/AZ01001175/Centricity/Domain/4844/Slavery%20Station%201.pdf.
Bosman, Williem. "A New and Accurate Description." in "The Atlantic Slave Trade" edited by David Northrup, 72-73. Lexington, Mass.: Heath, 1994.
Brennan, William. "Female Objects of Semantic Dehumanization and Violence." "Studies in Prolife Feminism" 1, no. 3 (Summer 1995). 203+. GALE|A95922384.
Chambers, Glenn. "The Transatlantic Slave Trade and Origins of African Diaspora in Texas." Prairie View A&M University. accessed April 08, 2021. https://www.pvamu.edu/tiphc/research-projects/the-diaspora-coming-to-texas/the-transatlantic-slave-trade-and-origins-of-the-african-diaspora-in-texas/.
Emmer, P.C., "The Dutch Slave Trade." Berghahn Books, 2006.
Equiano, Olaudah. "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano." London: 1789.
Falconbridge, Alexander. "Disposal of Sick Slaves." in "An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa," edited by Steven Mintz. London: 1788. http://www.vgskole.net/prosjekt/slavrute/9.htm.
Fyfe, Christopher. "Sale of Slaves" in "Anna Maria Falconbridge:" 2017.
"History of Slavery: The Americas." National Liverpool Museums. accessed 03/09/2021. https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/history-of-slavery/americas.
Jones-Rogers, Stephanie. "They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South." New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2019.
Kiple, Kenneth F. "The Caribbean Slave: A Biological History." New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Mustakeem, Sowande' M. "Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage." Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016.
Mutonhon, Shingirai. "'Weeping Time' as Auction Kicked Off . . . the Scramble". The Patriot. July 18, 2019. https://www.thepatriot.co.zw/old_posts/weeping-time-as-auction-kicked-off-the-scramble/.
Radburn, Nicholas. "Guinea Factors, Slave Sales, and the Profits of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in Late Eighteenth-Century Jamaica: The Case of John Tailyour." "The William and Mary Quarterly" 72, no. 2 (April 2015).
Warren, Wendy Anne. “The Cause of Her Grief: The Rape of a Slave in Early New England.” The Journal of American History 93, no. 4 (March 2007): 1031–49. https://doi.org/10.2307/25094595.
Watkins, Richard. "Slavery: Bondage Throughout History." Houghton Mifflin, 2001.


Fairgrounds Square Mall

Fairgrounds Square Mall was an enclosed shopping mall located just north of Reading, Pennsylvania in Muhlenberg Township. It was anchored by Boscov's, Burlington Coat Factory, and Limerick Furniture. Smaller stores included Super Shoes, Planet Fitness, an AMC Classic movie theater, and Golden Eagle Comics. The mall, which once had 75 stores, had 14 stores and many vacant storefronts before it closed in 2018. It was located on 5th Street Highway, U.S. 222 Business.
History.
The Fairgrounds Square Mall was developed by Interstate Properties, constructed by F&S Construction along with the Owner, Frank Saffiotti, and under the supervision of Gus, Job Site Superintendent and the Office Manager, Rebecca L. Simpson, CCA working with a labor union membership workforce representing various unions throughout the region. The mall officially opened in October 1980, with Boscov's and JCPenney serving as anchors. The mall was constructed at the former location of the Reading Fairgrounds Speedway; the Boscov's store opened as a freestanding store adjacent to the speedway in August 1965. A year later, it was purchased by First Union Real Estate Investments. A mall expansion in 1988 added several more stores as well as Phar-Mor. The mall was renovated in 1996, at which point a Montgomery Ward was built as a third anchor. The Montgomery Ward store closed in 1999. The same year, the mall was sold to Jager Management affiliate GP Properties Inc and JCPenney converted its store into an outlet format. In 2000, Jason's Furniture Outlet opened in the former Montgomery Ward anchor space. A National Wholesale Liquidators store opened in the location of Jason's Furniture Outlet in 2003, which had relocated to the former Phar-Mor.
In 2005, Burlington Coat Factory replaced National Wholesale Liquidators, and Jason's became Super Shoes and Planet Fitness. In 2011, it was announced that the JCPenney Outlet would be closing as part of JCPenney's plan to eliminate outlet stores. However, it was later announced that the JCPenney Outlet division was purchased by SB Capital Group, and rebranded as JC's 5 Star Outlet. Mall owner GP-Fairgrounds Square LP defaulted on its mortgage, which led to the mall being sold to BNY Mellon for $13.6 million in a U.S. Marshals auction on March 7, 2013. JC's Five Star Outlet closed November 30, 2013. In November 2014, Limerick Furniture opened in the former JC's Five Star Outlet space, moving from a former site in St. Lawrence. On April 13, 2016, Hull Property Group took over the Fairgrounds Square Mall, with plans to revitalize the mall. In early February 2018, Limerick Furniture announced it will be closing its Fairgrounds Square Mall location due to low foot traffic and the rise of online shopping, leaving Burlington Coat Factory and Boscov's as the mall's two remaining anchor stores.
As of March 2018, Fairgrounds Square Mall had 12 tenants remaining, down from a peak of 75 stores. On April 30, 2018, Hull Property Group closed the interior of the mall. Limerick Furniture closed their mall entrance a few days before the mall closed, then closed a day or two later after the mall closed. Boscov's, Burlington Coat Factory, AMC Classic, Super Shoes, Planet Fitness, Baja Beach Tanning Club, and Quest Diagnostics remained open after the mall closed.
Hull Property Group had plans to redevelop the Fairgrounds Square Mall site. The redevelopment plan would demolish 68.1 percent of the mall, leaving Boscov's, Burlington Coat Factory, AMC Classic, Super Shoes, and Planet Fitness. The former site of the mall would be converted into green space with some retail stores. Other developments planned included townhomes, a hotel, and a restaurant. Plans for the redevelopment had been put on hold by a tax incentive from Muhlenberg Township that makes it impossible to redevelop the site and attract new tenants without demolishing the existing mall first. In May 2019, the tax incentive from Muhlenberg Township was denied, as the township felt the redevelopment plans were vague. As a result of the denial, Hull Property Group withdrew their redevelopment plans and announced they will continue to maintain the closed mall.
However, on June 13, 2019, Hull Property Group announced it will apply for a permit to demolish 80 percent of the mall for redevelopment, leaving open tenants such as Boscov's, Burlington, Planet Fitness, Super Shoes and AMC Classic in place. Demolition of the Fairgrounds Square Mall began in March 2020.


Katarina Vilioni

Katarina Vilioni (died 1342) was one of the first Europeans known to have resided in China. She was apparently a member of a Genoese trading family that lived in Yangzhou during the mid-14th century.
Vilioni is known through her tombstone, which was rediscovered at Yangzhou in 1951. It suggests that Vilioni died in 1342 and was the daughter of a man named Domenico Vilioni.
Historical background.
The early presence of Europeans at Yangzhou may have been linked to the silk trade and a reported sojourn there, during the 1280s, by Marco Polo, who was said to have served the Chinese emperor in an official position at Yangzhou.
Members of the Franciscan order were apparently established at Yangzhou before 1322, when Odoric de Pordenone visited and resided among Franciscans there.
The existence of the tombstone suggests that, by the time Vilioni died, there was a well-established community originating from the Italian peninsula in the city.
Tombstone.
The tombstone, which is inscribed in an upper-case Lombardic Latin script, reads:
Vilioni's tombstone also carries a depiction of the martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. As such, it may represent the oldest surviving Roman Catholic artefact in China. (Older Christian monuments in China are the work of the Nestorian Church of the East. Odoric de Pordenone also mentions the existence, in 1322, of three Nestorian churches in Yangzhou.)
The tombstone was rediscovered in 1951 by members of the People's Liberation Army, among material that had been used to build ramparts at Yangzhou.
Later research.
The Vilioni family of Yangzhou has been linked to a named Pietro Vilioni, who in 1264 was involved in trade at Tabriz (in modern Iran).
Following the rediscovery of Katarina Vilioni's tombstone, a smaller plaque was discovered in Yangzhou, with an inscription mentioning the death in November 1344 of an Antonio Vilioni, who was also a son of Domenico Vilioni.
The surname Vilioni may have been a precursor or variant of the later surname Ilioni. The medieval scholar Robert Lopez has suggested that the Domenico Vilioni of Yangzhou was a man named "Domenico Ilioni", who in 1348 was mentioned in records kept by the city of Genoa. The Genoese records state that Domenico Ilioni mentioned in relation to a merchant named Jacopo de Oliverio, who was said to have lived in the "Kingdom of Cathay" (China), where he had multiplied his capital fivefold.


Grand Blanc Metal Center

The Grand Blanc Metal Center, also known as the Fisher Body Tank Plant, was a General Motors automotive body metal fabricating facility in Grand Blanc, Michigan. It was built to produce tanks, which it did in large numbers during World War II and the Cold War.
History.
The Factory opened in 1942 primarily as a facility for the manufacture of tanks. From April 1942 to May 1945 it produced 11,385 M4 Sherman tanks and roughly 1,190 M26 Pershing tanks from November 1944 to June 1945. With the end of World War II and the draw down in U.S. defense expenditures the plant ceased the manufacture of tanks and by 1947 Buick leased the plant as a storage facility. However, with the Cold War heating up in the early 1950s the plant again resumed the manufacture of tanks, producing 4,200 M48 Patton tanks by the time of its conversion to an automotive body metal fabricating facility in 1955. By the time of its closure in 2013 the plant was operating as a corporate-wide-weld-tooling center.
Much of the tooling and employees were relocated to a plant in Parma, Ohio.
It was alliteratively and popularly called the "Grand Blanc Tank Plant."


John Belissariotes

John Belissariotes () was a senior Byzantine official of the late 12th century.
John and his brother Michael were the childhood classmates and closest friends of the official and historian Niketas Choniates, and his brother, the future Metropolitan of Athens Michael Choniates. So close was the friendship between them that Niketas Choniates calls the Belissariotes brothers his brothers in soul and praises their goodness and nobleness. Eventually Choniates married their sister in , and records that his mother-in-law was like a second mother to him.
John Belissariotes is mentioned in a letter of Michael Choniates dating to 1194/95 as holding the offices of "megas logariastes" and "megas logothetes", or rather "logothetes ton sekreton". It appears therefore that he was the successor of Theodore Kastamonites in the latter office. Belissariotes is mentioned with both offices in an act concerning the Great Lavra monastery of 1196, but in November 1197 he is recorded only as "megas logariastes", indicating that in 1196/97, he had been replaced as "logothetes ton sekreton". His successor was none other than Niketas Choniates. Belissariotes was promoted further to "protasekretis" and "orphanotrophos", while his brother Michael became Eparch of Constantinople.
The Belissariotes brothers survived the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, and along with Niketas Choniates found refuge in Nicaea, where the exiled Byzantines soon set up the Empire of Nicaea.


Boris Kagarlitsky

Boris Yulyevich Kagarlitsky (; born 29 August 1958) is a Russian Marxist theoretician and sociologist who has been a political dissident in the Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia. He is coordinator of the Transnational Institute Global Crisis project and Director of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements (IGSO) in Moscow.
Political activities.
In the 1970s, he studied theatre criticism at the State Institute of Theatrical Art (GITIS), before being expelled for dissident activities in 1980. His editorship of the "samizdat" journal "Levy Povorot" ("Left Turn") from 1978 to 1982, and contributions to the "samizdat" journal "Varianty" ("Variants") during the same period, led to his arrest for 'anti-Soviet' activities in 1982. He was pardoned and released in 1983.
In 1988 he published his book, "The Thinking Reed: Intellectuals and the Soviet State From 1917 to the Present", which won the Deutscher Memorial Prize .
In 1988, after the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev and perestroika, he was permitted to resume his studies at the GITIS, graduating in the same year, and became coordinator of the Moscow People's Front. In 1990, he was elected to the Moscow City Soviet and to the Executive of the Socialist Party of Russia. He co-founded the Party of Labour in October 1992. In October 1993, the former Soviet dissident was arrested, with two other members of his party, for his opposition to President Boris Yeltsin during the September—October constitutional crisis, but was released the next day after international protests. Later that year, his job and the Moscow City Soviet were abolished under Yeltsin's new constitution. The events and his experiences during this momentous period are documented in his book, "Square Wheels: How Russian Democracy Got Derailed".
Kagarlitsky is the director of Institute of Globalisation Studies and Social Movements (IGSO) and editor in chief of "Levaya Politika" ("Left Politics") quarterly in Moscow.
Academic career.
From 1994 to 2002, he was a senior research fellow at the Institute for Comparative Political Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISPRAN). He was awarded his Doctorate degree for his thesis, "Collective Actions and Labour Policies in Russia in the 90s", in 1995, and has taught political science at Moscow State University, the Moscow School for Social and Economic Sciences, and the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.


The Entrepreneur

The Entrepreneur () is a 2011 Italian drama film directed by Giuliano Montaldo. The film premiered out of competition at the 2011 Rome Film Festival. It won three Italian Golden Globes for best film, cinematography and best music and the special jury prize to Pierfrancesco Favino. It was also nominated to four Nastro d'Argento Awards (for best script, best actress, best cinematography and best scenography).
External links.