Join us at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, where we’re examining this painting of Thomas Edison as part of our Smithsonian Treasures project. Painted during Thomas Alva Edison’s visit to Paris for the Universal Exposition of 1889, Abraham A. Anderson’s portrait depicts the wealthy entrepreneur at the height of his career. World-renowned for his inventions-including […]
A classic NYC sound – the sirens of a fire truck trying to get through traffic, accompanied later by a police car. The sounds of sirens are reflected across the whole of Manhattan by the vast concrete and glass surfaces of the skyscrapers, so their already-impressive sounds resonate even further and louder than they would […]
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"As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. A description of [the city] as it is today should contain all [the city's] past. The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the bags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls."
- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Grand Prix winner and Coup de Coeur winner, Académie Charles Cros
