It’s an understatement to say that Columbia University was transformative for my Dad. He was a poor kid from a Depression-beaten family in the Irish ghetto of Dobbs Ferry. In 1939 Columbia gave him a $600 scholarship and a part-time job and said “Make it if you can.” Four years later he was an honors History graduate, managing the campus laundry service, and voted Most Likely to Succeed by his classmates. He never forgot the doors that Columbia opened for him, nor the personal potential that Columbia...

I spent a couple of weeks in the Bay Area last month, mostly in Silicon Valley. For someone who’s lived in New England for many years, and particularly for someone who tries to notice the different ways that different people interact with their environment, it’s a different kind of place.

There are no people. A space alien looking in on Silicon Valley would say to himself (or herself, or itself, whatever a space alien is), “What are these strange metal creatures that live on this planet?”...

For over 100 years into the 1970s the H.W. Carter overall factory was a cornerstone of the community in Lebanon, NH. Sitting just off the town green, it was also a centerpiece of the landscape.
But as in thousands of other communities, times changed, the Carter factory closed, and the structure devolved into an eyesore. In the mid-90s part of the building was leased by the regional Alliance for the Visual Arts. AVA attracted a number of artists to the building’s low rent space, and the...

The article below was from Jonathan Gold of the Newark Group, and circulated by Recycling Today http://www.recyclingtodayglobal.com Mr. Gold is considered one of the leading experts in the recycled fibers industry and we thank him for allowing us to further circulate his comments.

For several months, fibre generation has continued to remain soft as a direct reflection of the current recession and softness in the U.S. manufacturing...

January 2005 was a bleak month for Boston University’s Brown Arena basketball floor. After 30 years hosting men’s and women’s hoops, after feeling the step of coaches like BU’s own Rick Pitino, Mike Krzyzewski, and Jim Calhoun, after playing under Reggie Lewis, Christian Laettner, and Grant Hill, after underpinning a tennis court for Billie Jean King, Virginia Wade and Chris Evert – it was shoved into a warehouse, pushed...