Hurricane Irene is now a tropical storm, but the surge caused by its huge vortex of winds has reinforced the incoming tide and caused flooding of the southern tip of Manhattan Island, including Battery Park, the ferry terminal, and the edge of the Financial District. At this time we do not know if Con Edison intends to cut off the area’s electrical power or if the Stuyvesant High School swim team is doing laps outside, on Chambers Street.
Archive for the ‘Stuyvesant High School’ Category
Storm Surge in New York
August 28, 2011Manufactured Meat Marketing
April 25, 2008PETA has turned up the heat on laboratory-grown meat by offering a million dollar prize to the first folks to produce in-vitro veal and bring it to market. The scientific research has been going on for some time, and a million bucks isn’t what it used to be, but PETA is better at getting press than guys in white labcoats.
Sayonara Cyclotron
December 26, 2007Physics teacher Alfred Bender with Stuyvesant High School cyclotron.
Today’s New York Times notes that Columbia University is junking its 70-year-old cyclotron particle accelerator or “atom smasher,” a device to speed up charged sub-atomic particles and slam them into stuff to see what happens. It is now merely 30 tons of graffiti-covered junk in the basement of Pupin Hall.
I can’t recall if I actually saw the cyclotron in the basement of New York’s Stuyvesant High School but I took comfort in the fact that it was there. My classmates could tinker with it and their rubber-banded stacks of computer punchcards and somehow keep our nation safe from the Sputnik-spinning space invaders of the Soviet Union.
The Poet, the Yanks, and the Geeks
September 15, 2007
Washington Post reporter Alec Klein has a new book. He spent a year observing and interviewing students at his old high school, New York City’s Stuyvesant (more about the book at a later date).
Alec graduated in 1985; I’m a 1967 grad. Our experiences differed somewhat: old and new buildings; his classmates included (zowie!) girls and more Asian American kids. In some ways it was the same: an entrance exam; no leveling peer pressure to act dumb-average, a significant part of U.S. teen culture elsewhere. Sports, except for the chess club and perhaps fencing, were not that important. Today’s Stuyvesant is proud of its Robotics Team.