Lessons+19+-+20

=Lesson 19 - The Light Princess= toc The poor princess nearly went out of the little mind she had. It was awful to her to see the lake, which she loved more than any living thing, lie dying before her eyes. It sank away, slowly vanishing. The tops of rocks that had never been seen till now, began to appear far down in the clear water. Before long they were dry in the sun. It was fearful to think of the mud that would soon lie there baking and festering, full of lovely creatures dying, and ugly creatures coming to life, like the unmaking of a world. And how hot the sun would be without any lake! She could not bear to swim in it any more, and began to pine away. Her life seemed bound up with it; and ever as the lake sank, she pined. People said she would not live an hour after the lake was gone.

But she never cried.

Proclamation was made to all the kingdom, that whosoever should discover the cause of the lake's decrease, would be rewarded after a princely fashion. Hum-Drum and Kopy-Keck applied themselves to their physics and metaphysics; but in vain. Not even they could suggest a cause.

Now the fact was that the old princess was at the root of the mischief. When she heard that her niece found more pleasure in the water than anyone else out of it, she went into a rage, and cursed herself for her want of foresight. "But," said she, "I will soon set all right. The king and the people shall die of thirst; their brains shall boil and frizzle in their skulls before I will lose my revenge." And she laughed a ferocious laugh, that made the hairs on the back of her black cat stand erect with terror.

Then she went to an old chest in the room, and opening it, took out what looked like a piece of dried seaweed. This she threw into a tub of water. Then she threw some powder into the water, and stirred it with her bare arm, muttering over it words of hideous sound, and yet more hideous import. Then she set the tub aside, and took from the chest a huge bunch of a hundred rusty keys, that clattered in her shaking hands. Then she sat down and proceeded to oil them all. Before she had finished, out from the tub, the water of which had kept on a slow motion ever since she had ceased stirring it, came the head and half the body of a huge gray snake. But the witch did not look round. It grew out of the tub, waving itself backwards and forwards with a slow horizontal motion, till it reached the princess, when it laid its head upon her shoulder, and gave a low hiss in her ear.

cease ferocious festering foresight hideous import pine proceed proclamation want
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=Lesson 20 - The Building of Manhattan= Rockefeller Center is a wonderful place for people-watching. Its Fifth Avenue promenade - the Channel Gardens- and its sunken plaza invite visitor and New Yorker alike to enter, slow down, rest awhile, breathe a bit more easily, and enjoy the visual variety.People from all over the world stop by, carrying cameras. They take pictures of golden Prometheus and his backdrop of cascading water, they take pictures of each other.

They are in a horticultural oasis - unique in the city - where imported exotic greenery changes as the season change. Where else would palm trees flourish just off Fifth Avenue. . .or a Christmas tree weighting several tones suddenly appear to signal the beginning of the city's holiday season?

Planned as an integrated complex of buildings for business and entertainment. Rockefeller Center has been expanded since its inception in 1931. Today it has eighteen skyscrapers built about its central skyscraper - the 70 story RCA Building - and it covers almost 22 acres of land in the heart of Manhattan.

Its planners envisioned the site with each skyscraper a unit in relation to each of the other skyscrapers, and to the Center itself. They planned for landscaped areas of open "city space" for light and air, with interconnected patterns of traffic flow, both pedestrian and vehicular, for ease of movement. This design concept was, in 1931, unique for its time and Rockefeller Center has become a model for similar projects around the world.

The land on which a large part of the Center is built had already been leased in 1928, to be built upon b private builders. Then cam the world wide depression that began with the 1929 stock-market crash, and any idea of building was abandoned. Millions of people were out of work, and most large-scale construction in New York city - with the exception of the Empire State Building - had stopped. It was a time of despair and of caution. Yet, faced with a costly yearly lease. John D. Rockefeller Jr., decided to develop the site personally, as a private enterprise.

In human terms it was an enormous project. Two hundred twenty eight dilapidated tenements, shops, and other buildings had to be demolished and carted away. Four thousand tenants had to be relocated in new living and working quarters.

As a time of vast unemployment, at least 75,000 people were employed at the site, and 150,000 others worked else where, preparing the materials used in the construction.

Rockefeller Center was a civic enterprise on a major scale, as well as a construction project of enormous size.

Its open spaces -- nearly one-fourth of the land space has been left unbuilt -- with promenades, plazas, trees, flowers, and sculpture, and the lower plaza with its ice-skating rink in winter and outdoor dining in summer, make the Center a focal point in midtown Manhattan. Nearly a quarter of a million people use, or visit, Rockefeller Center daily. The city would be difficult to imagine without Rockefeller Center.

abandon complex concept despair expand integrated major pedestrian signal unique
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= = =Unit Test Lessons 19 - 20=