Friday, August 29, 2008

Reunion Tower

Reunion Tower, Dallas
300 Reunion Blvd E, Dallas, TX 75207

Reunion Tower is a 560 foot (171 m) observation tower and one of the most recognizable landmarks in Dallas, Texas. Located at 300 Reunion Blvd. in the Reunion district of downtown Dallas, the tower is part of the Hyatt Regency Hotel complex, and is the 15th tallest building in Dallas. A free standing structure until the construction of an addition to the Hyatt Regency Dallas in 2000, the tower was designed by the architectural firm Welton Becket & Associates.

Reunion Tower was completed in 1978. When it first opened, the tower included an FM broadcast radio station owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting: KOAX (105.3 MHz). It broadcasted live twenty-four hours a day from five-hundred feet above the city. The tower consists of three floors with circular floor plans on top of four shafts of poured in place concrete.The first level houses the observation deck, the second a revolving restaurant called Antares, and in the third level a club called The Dome. The top three floors are encased in an open air sphere.

Statue of Liberty

Statue of Liberty
Liberty Island, New York, USA

Liberty Enlightening the World, commonly known as the Statue of Liberty, was presented to the United States by the people of France in 1886. Standing on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, it welcomes visitors, immigrants, and returning Americans. The copper-clad statue, dedicated on October 28, 1886, commemorates the centennial of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence and is a gesture of friendship from France to the United States.

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi sculpted the statue and obtained a U.S. patent for its structure. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (designer of the Eiffel Tower) engineered the internal structure. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was responsible for the choice of copper in the statue's construction and adoption of the repoussé technique, where a malleable metal is hammered on the reverse side. The statue is of a robed woman holding a torch, and is made of a sheeting of pure copper, hung on a framework of steel (originally puddled iron) with the exception of the flame of the torch, which is coated in gold leaf (originally made of copper and later altered to hold glass panes.) It stands atop a rectangular stonework pedestal with a foundation in the shape of an irregular eleven-pointed star.

The statue is 151 ft (46 m) tall, but with the pedestal and foundation, it is 305 ft (93 m) tall. Worldwide, the Statue of Liberty is one of the most recognizable icons of the United States,and, more generally, represents liberty and escape from oppression.

Texas Stadium

Texas Stadium
2401 East Airport Freeway Irving, Texas 75062

Texas Stadium is a football stadium in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. It is the home field of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys, and has a seating capacity of 65,675. The stadium opened on October 24, 1971, at a cost of $35 million. The playing surface installed in 1971 officially was labeled Texas Turf, and was a form of AstroTurf.

The original surface was replaced in 1981 and that generation of Texas Turf was replaced in 1996 with a much darker turf. The 1981-96 version was notable for having a large patch between the 35 and 40 yard line from the sideline to the middle of the field on one side of the field. The 1996 turf was replaced by a somewhat softer surface called RealGrass, similar to FieldTurf, in the middle of the 2002 season. It is now tufted nylon 6.

New Stadium

Dallas Cowboys New Stadium is the working title of a new stadium being built in Arlington, Texas for the NFL's Dallas Cowboys. It will replace Texas Stadium, which opened in 1971, as the Cowboys’ home. It is scheduled to open before the 2009 NFL season and will accommodate 80,000, with the possibility for expansion to accommodate 100,000.New Cowboys Stadium was designed by the Dallas-based architectural firm HKS.

Originally estimated to cost $650 million, the stadium's current construction cost is in excess of $1 billion, which would make it one of the most expensive sports venues ever built. Although the stadium has yet to sell naming rights, many fans have taken to referring to the project as "Jerry World" in reference to Jerry Jones.Two nearly 300 ft (91 m)-tall arches will span the length of the stadium dome, anchored to the ground at each end. The new stadium will also include a retractable roof, glass doors allowing each end zone to be opened, and a center-hung video display board.