Would You Trade Madison Square Garden for Penn Station?
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Penn Station might get a radical overhaul. Or at least, it's been proposed. A nonprofit advocacy group, Grand Penn Community Alliance, helmed by Alexandros Washburn, wants to restore the once-actually-nice-to-visit station. It'll just require tearing down—moving, and then rebuilding—Madison Square Garden.
Once upon a time, Pennsylvania Station was considered a Beaux-Arts masterpiece. Opened in 1910, the original Penn Station was the 'magnum opus' of design firm McKim, Mead, & White, whose 'monumental architecture echoed the great spaces of Ancient Rome,' as the New York Historical puts it. Covering four whole city blocks, the colonnaded station was truly a marvel. (And did you know: Before it was built, getting between New Jersey and Manhattan meant a 20-minute ferry ride—when the weather was good.)
In the ensuing years, the city transformed, and with it the way people traveled. By 1962, it seemed like a good idea to put an entertainment arena where the above-ground station had been for just over 50 years. Enter Madison Square Garden, above, and Penn Station, as we know it now, underground.
The demolition of Penn Station was wildly controversial. In fact, states the New York Historical, the 'demolition spurred the passage of the watershed 1965 New York Landmarks Law,' which helped save Penn's 'sister' terminal, the beloved Grand Central, 'along with 30,000 other historic buildings around the city.'
So while most of us have likely forgotten that Penn Station preceded Madison Square Garden, the proposed reboot of the above-ground Penn is actually not so radical. Also, the station, like everything to do with trains and subways in New York, is overburdened. 'We urgently need to create both new capacity and amenity in the next version of Penn Station,' Robert Yaro, the former president of the Regional Plan Association, told AMNewYork. 'The Grand Penn Community Alliance plan does these things and also gets us a new MSG for the same cost as simply patching up the existing station and Garden.'
Washburn and the Grand Penn Community Alliance are making a case for cost efficiency. With the addition of a park, and a station that recaptures the stately stature of its predecessor, the price tag is about $6.3 billion, which, according to the alliance, would be '$1 billion less' than previous proposals by the state and Amtrak.
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3 days ago
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The Hidden Problem with Father's Day Cards
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Every June, I find myself in the same situation — standing in the stationary aisle with my kids, staring at dozens of Father's Day cards that don't quite meet our needs. We gaze into a sea of navy blue and tan, and are given a limited choice of themes: golf clubs, hamburgers on the grill, fishing gear or a necktie. The kids and I look at each other and shrug; none of these cards helps them articulate what they want to say, which is: Thank you for cooking dinner every night, thank you for the days when you leave work early because we need you at home, thank you for being our chauffeur on the weekend and thank you for making us feel loved. But there are no cards that capture those thoughts. So, we just choose the most innocuous of the bunch and move on. Another Father's Day card … check. I find this annual routine deeply unsatisfying. It's not just due to the lack of aesthetic choices — it is because these cards do not adequately match the current reality of today's fatherhood. The implicit message in these cards is that the essence of fatherhood lies not in a man's involvement with his family, but in his profession or his hobbies. Ironically, rather than celebrating Dad as part of the family, we focus on his activities from his family. This message is not new; this perception has existed as long as any of us have been alive. For generations, we have defined the venerable father as a man who financially provides for his family. He might also do other things for the family, but those are tangential, additional. According to tradition — and to the limited selection of Father's Day cards — a good dad is a man who brings home a paycheck and then is allowed to sneak away to his favorite fishing hole or play a round of golf. Of course, there are many ways that any parent can provide for their family. There are household tasks, such as laundry, cooking, dishes, grocery shopping, cleaning. There are caregiving tasks: giving kids a bath, helping with homework, taking time off work when kids are sick — not to mention scheduling and managing all the appointments, from dental check-ups to haircuts. And perhaps, the toughest of all, there is emotional work with kids: helping them through a challenge at school, or being there after their first heartbreak. Society has long coded these activities as a female responsibility, and data tells us that women still do the majority of this work. But little by little, our perception of a 'successful father' is evolving, and more dads are embracing household work as a way to provide for their family. According to the Survey of Contemporary Fatherhood, more than 90% of today's dads believe that fathers should play an active role in their children's lives, that a dad's involvement is essential for children's well-being. We are seeing a rise in stay-at-home dads. And more dads are looking for a flexible work schedule; not because they want to golf or go fishing, but because they want to be present at home, support their partner's career, and spend more time with their kids. This redefinition of fatherhood is not just the result of natural progression. Social change requires intentional behavior. Equimundo: Center for Masculinities and Social Justice does research, advocacy and programming to change the way we think about fathers and fatherhood. One core component of Equimundo's work is specifically aimed at increasing men's role in caregiving, and they've found that more dads doing more hands-on care work in the home does not just benefit their partners and kids — it also benefits dads. 'Men themselves benefit as they embrace the daily joys that come along with doing the hands-on work that care requires,' says Gary Barker, founder and CEO of Equimundo. 'Our research from around the world finds that men who report being more involved in the daily care of their children and emotionally closer to their children are happier, they are more motivated at work and they tend to take greater care of themselves. Whether they live with their children, or live apart, involved fathers are happier and healthier. And for those of us who have the experience, it is a self-evident truth that the relationships with our children are among the most powerful and meaningful parts of our lives." Maybe you're thinking sure, this all makes sense. But why make such a fuss about a greeting card we send once a year? Father's Day is an important cultural touchpoint. According to Hallmark, Father's Day is the 4th largest card-giving holiday in the United States, and roughly 72 million cards are exchanged every June. Imagine the subconscious, reinforcing impact of those 72 million messages on our culture year after year. This year, let's move past the old stereotypes and use card-giving as a way to embrace an expanded definition of a 'good dad.' We can use Father's Day to highlight that fatherhood is so much more than a 9-to-5 at the office or a weekend BBQ. We can celebrate those dads who are providing for their families in many different ways, and honor fathers for the care work they do. We can also challenge outdated cultural norms, and set clear expectations of what we expect fatherhood to look like in the future. 'Many of us have in our heads that mothers are the main caregivers," Barker agrees, "the ones who really know what they are doing and that dads are really kind of deficient when it comes to care. That's why it's so important that we send daily messages that [dads] can and should be just as much the caregivers as moms.' This may be especially important for the new dads in our lives. A new generation of men are entering parenthood, perhaps celebrating their first Father's Day this year. They have the luxury of a blank slate, and a lifetime of opportunities ahead of them. Do we want to limit these new dads to the traditional role of "provider?" Or do we want to help them fully embrace a wider range of fathering possibilities — to be the dad they want to be. As a researcher and writer of gender norms, I will be the first person to admit we still have a lot of work to do before achieving household gender equality. And, still, I believe it is important to celebrate our successes — and think about the ways we are each embracing change. In that spirit, Good Housekeeping has created four Father's Day cards for you to download, print (double-sided works best) and give to the dads in your life. These cards, we hope, come closer to illustrating our evolving expectations of fatherhood: a dad giving a bath, a dad reading books, a dad and grandpa preparing a meal, and a dad doing a TikTok dance with his teenager — all of which aim to capture those sweet, every day moments that dads share with their family. We made two versions of each card: a color version, and one that also works as a coloring page that kids can fill in themselves. I showed these four illustrations to my kids and asked, which one is best for your dad? They knew immediately — their favorite was the dad reading books. When I asked why they chose that one, they replied, 'Because it is so real. It's so cozy. That's something that we have done with dad ever since we were little … something we still do with dad all the time.' My kids were drawn to the illustration because it made them feel something. Unlike a photo of golf clubs or a necktie, this illustration captured a snapshot of fatherhood; a routine that made them feel warm, content, important, and loved. Hopefully, when my husband opens this card on June 15th, he'll feel the Message: "Best Dad. Better Dancer. Happy Father's Day!" Shop Now Shop NowInside Message: "Dad, you've taught me so much! Happy Father's Day!" Shop Now Shop NowInside Message: "Thanks for all that you do! Happy Father's Day!" Shop Now Shop NowInside Message: "I couldn't ask for a better role model. Happy Father's Day!" Shop Now Shop Now You Might Also Like 67 Best Gifts for Women That'll Make Her Smile The Best Pillows for Every Type of Sleeper
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5 days ago
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A Tomb Once Said to Hold ‘Jesus's Midwife' Might Instead Hold Ancient Royalty
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: For centuries, a cave near Jerusalem was believed by Christian pilgrims to be the tomb of an attendant to the birth of Christ. Salome is depicted in the apocryphal Gospel of James as doubting the 'virgin birth' only to repent and be visited by angels. A new study suggests that the Salome buried in this tomb was, in fact, not the apocryphal Biblical figure, but rather the younger sister of Judean king Herod the Great. This story is a collaboration with For centuries, a subset of Christian pilgrims have journeyed to a cave southwest of Jerusalem in Israel referred to as the 'Cave of Salome,' due to its asserted connection to a figure associated with Jesus of Nazareth. Now, a new study in the Israel Antiquities Authority's journal 'Atiqot posits that this cave does serve as a tomb to someone named Salome, but not the one it's long been purported to have been. Rather than the Biblical figure sometimes described as 'Jesus' midwife,' the tomb might have held a figure of Judean royalty. But if you've only read the four canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you might find yourself wondering just who this Salome was supposed to be in the first place (while there is a Salome briefly alluded to in Mark 15:40 said to be present at the crucifixion, this is not the Salome in question). For that, we need to dip into a subset of Christian texts known as 'the apocrypha.' Given the underground origins of Christianity amidst the Roman Empire, it's no surprise that there was not one single written text relied upon to spread the word of the new faith. Even the four Gospels widely considered part of the Biblical Canon are traditionally believed to have been originally composed with different audiences in mind (Matthew wrote for those with a familiarity with Jewish tradition while Mark for a Roman audience, for example). This means that there are an array of texts, both extant and lost, that offer different, divergent, and at times even contradictory tellings of the story of Jesus than those that were ultimately determined by church bodies to be the 'canonical' works. One particular and prominent subset of these are what is called the 'infancy gospels,' stories of Jesus during his childhood. Little is said of Jesus' youth in the four canonical gospels, with only Matthew and Luke mentioning the story of his birth, and Luke alone including a single anecdote of a child Jesus visiting a Temple (Luke 2:41-52). But the apocryphal infancy gospels contain a wide array of events allegedly involving a child Jesus, including a confrontation with a literal dragon (the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew). One of these texts, the apocryphal Gospel of James, introduces the character of Salome. While Salome is present for the birth of Jesus in this text, she was not actually 'Jesus' midwife.' Rather, this gospel depicts the actual midwife during Jesus' birth, referred to only by her title of 'Emea,' crying out to Salome about the virgin birth she had witnessed, only for Salome to dismiss it: 'And the midwife went forth of the cave and Salome met her. And she said to her: Salome, Salome, a new sight have I to tell thee. A virgin hath brought forth, which her nature alloweth not. And Salome said: As the Lord my God liveth, if I make not trial and prove her nature I will not believe that a virgin hath brought forth.' Salome then goes to witness the newborn child herself and decries her earlier doubts, seeking atonement, and is visited by an angel, healed, and told not to speak of what she had witnessed 'until the child enter into Jerusalem.' Some scholars point to this story of Salome as a predecessor and/or parallel to the more famous story, post-Resurrection, of Doubting Thomas. As Live Science reports, the aforementioned Cave of Salome gained its religious reputation when an ossuary, a casket filled with bones, was discovered in that cave bearing the name Salome. Adherents to the Gospel of James took to attributing these bones, and therefor the tomb that held them, as belonging to the Salome of the birth story, and began making pilgrimages there. As Live Science notes, those pilgrimages were a common enough occurrence that they continued for two hundred years after the area had been conquered by the Islamic Caliphate in the 7th century. The cave was excavated in 1984, where they found 'hundreds of clay oil lamps from the eighth and ninth centuries, which archaeologists think were sold to Christian pilgrims so they would have light while exploring the dark cave.' But to determine who might really have been interred in this tomb, the 2025 IAA study, co-authored by Vladik Lifshits and Nir-Shimshon Paran, they looked not at what had been left within the tomb, but rather how the tomb itself had been constructed: 'Lifshits noted the monumental architecture — including a large courtyard at the entrance — indicated that a member of the royal family may have been buried there. The authors also discovered the remains of several luxurious villas nearby, which indicates the site once belonged to a very wealthy family.' Their study suggests the possibility that the Salome in question may not have been connected to Jesus' birth, but rather to a different figure who factors into the story of the young Jesus: Herod I, also known as Herod the Great. Biblical tradition holds that Herod I, who ruled from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C., ordered the death of all male babies in Bethlehem, but no objective historical evidence has yet emerged that supports that particular tale. Instead, what is known about Herod I, as Live Science recounts, are his contributions to the kingdom he oversaw: 'For example, he was a prolific builder who restored the decrepit Second Temple on the Temple Mount, and the massive rock walls he had built are still standing today as the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.' The study asserts that the Salome buried within the cave was Herod I's younger sister, who died in approximately 10AD. This Salome is not to be confused with Herod I's granddaughter who also bore that name. That Salome, recorded in the Bible as ordering the beheading of John the Baptist, would later be immortalized in an array of fictional works like Oscar Wilde's 1893 play and the subsequent 1905 opera by Richard Strauss. When Live Science spoke to Boaz Zissu of Israel's Bar-Ilan University, a scholar unaffiliated with the study, they conceded that 'The authors correctly identify the original phase as a monumental tomb belonging to local elites of the Herodian period' but suggested 'more rigorous evidential support' was required before it could be firmly established to be the tomb of Salome. For their part, study co-author Vladik Lifshits conceded as much. 'It's not that I think it must be the tomb of Salome the sister of Herod,' Lifshits told Live Science. 'I'm suggesting that this is one of the possibilities.' You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
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7 days ago
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Experts Found 6,000-Year-Old Human Remains With No Relatives
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: An analysis of bones from ancient people who once lived in Colombia has discovered DNA that does not directly connect them to any other ancient or modern population in South America. It is thought that these people might somehow be related to speakers of Chibchan languages, which are spoken in the area where they once lived. More genomic research will be needed to demystify who these unknown people were and whose ancestors they might be. Around 6,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers who migrated south settled in the Bogotá Altiplano of what is now Colombia, transitioning to an agricultural society over the next 4,000 years. Then they vanished. Whoever these people were, they disappeared from the genetic record. The team of researchers who discovered them through fragmented DNA in their skeletal remains have not been able to find any ancient relatives or modern descendants. They are strangely not related to Indigenous Columbians, having more of a connection to people who now live on the Isthmus of Panama and speak Chibchan languages. It could be possible that they spread through the region, mixing with local populations for so long that their genes were diluted, but no one can be sure. Genetics tell the story of how the Americas were populated by the ancestors of modern Indigenous people. Their origins lie in Siberian and East Asian groups who are thought to have first mixed 20,000 years ago, during the Late Paleolithic, later crossing a bridge of ice to North America some 16,000 years ago. It was then that this lineage split into northern Native American and southern Native American lines. While the northern Native American ancestry is mostly made up of populations that stayed in North America, three more lineages branched into southern Native American ancestry, which would reach further south. 'The Isthmo-Colombian area, stretching from the coast of Honduras to the northern Colombian Andes, is critical to understanding the peopling of the Americas,' the researchers said in a study recently published in Science Advances. 'Besides being the land bridge between North and South America, it is at the center of the three major cultural regions of Mesoamerica, Amazonia, and the Andes.' Each southern Native American lineage can be traced back to its earliest ancestors. There is one line descending from the Anzick-1 individual discovered in 1968, when construction workers unearthed the 12,700-year-old skull of a child belonging to the Clovis people, one of the earliest known peoples in the Americas. This young boy is related to modern Indigenous people from North, Central and South America. Another lineage that is found in the Central Andes comes from ancient people living in California's Channel Islands. Yet another lineage, also descended from the Clovis population, is associated with the oldest Central and South Americans from Belize, Brazil and Chile. When exactly these populations appeared in Central and South America is still mostly unknown, but they must have arrived by traveling over the land bridge that connects the southernmost part of Central America to the South American subcontinent. There is also a linguistic connection. Speakers of Chibchan languages share some genetic and cultural aspects with the mysterious people who cannot be traced directly to any population. When and where the ancestral Proto-Chibchan language originated is unclear, but distinct languages are thought to have started evolving from it several thousand years ago, possibly in southern Central America. Chibchan speakers in this region have kept the largest number of these languages alive. While genetic analysis of local Indigenous people has shown that they are related to more ancient speakers of Chibchan languages, some findings suggest that they are not directly descended from the first people to settle in that part of Colombia. By studying both mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and genome-wide data from 21 ancient individuals who lived in this region from 6,000 to 500 years ago, the researchers were able to find out some information about who they were, but not all the answers. More ancient Panamanians were found to be related to modern Chibchan speakers than ancient Colombians. However, Indigenous Chibchan speakers from Central America are the modern population genetically closest to ancient Colombians who lived after 2,000 years ago. Many groups who were around at the same time and spoke similar languages to the unknown people still need further investigation. 'Ancient genomic data from neighboring areas along the Northern Andes that have not yet been analyzed through ancient genomics,' the researchers said, 'such as western Colombia, western Venezuela, and Ecuador, will be pivotal to better define the timing and ancestry sources of human migrations into South America.' You Might Also Like Can Apple Cider Vinegar Lead to Weight Loss? Bobbi Brown Shares Her Top Face-Transforming Makeup Tips for Women Over 50
