Museum « Quotulatiousness

October 29, 2011

Canadian Air and Space Museum to be evicted in favour of ice rinks

Filed under: Cancon, History, Space, Technology, WW2 — Tags: Aircraft, Museum, Toronto — Nicholas @ 12:20

A sad tale at the CBC website about the impending eviction of the museum and other tenants of the historic (but not historically designated) DeHavilland plant in Downsview:

A building that played a major role in the production of aircraft for the Allies in their fight against Hitler during the Second World War is facing the wrecking ball.

It’s located in Toronto’s Downsview Park and is described in federal heritage documents simply as “CFB Plant .1, Building .1.”

Just one month after the federal government celebrated Canada’s aviation history by reintroducing the name, “Royal Canadian Air Force,” it was sending an eviction notice to a building where RCAF planes were assembled.

Built in 1929, the plant housed the operations of the de Havilland Aircraft company which provided 17 per cent of Canada’s planes during the war years.

[. . .]

David Soknacki, the chairman of Parc Downsview Park, says the building at 65 Carl Hall Road is not currently classified as a heritage building.

Up until Oct. 26., the Canada’s Historic Places website listed the facility as “a recognized Federal Heritage Building because of its historical associations and its architectural and environmental value.”

Then the listing disappeared.

H/T to Michael O’Connor Clarke for the link.

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April 22, 2011

Houston loses space shuttle sweepstakes

Filed under: History, Space, USA — Tags: Houston, Museum, NASA — Nicholas @ 16:26

Houston has a problem with the allocation of the soon-to-be retired space shuttles:

Which city, in the whole of the United States, would the average person associate most clearly with America’s towering achievements, and no few sorrows, over the past half century of sending men and women into space? Why, Houston, of course — home of the Johnson Space Centre, where NASA’s mission control is located. We know this from all that has been said and done in the past. The first words Neil Armstrong uttered as Apollo 11 touched down on the Moon in 1969 were: “Houston, Tranquility base here — the Eagle has landed.”

The name of Houston will forever be associated with the manned exploration of space. No astronaut ever radioed laconically back from a crippled spaceship, “Manhattan, we have a problem”. Yet, in NASA’s recent selection of the final destinations for its four extant space shuttles, now that the last operational ones are about to be pensioned off, New York City will get Enterprise, the first of the shuttles that was rolled out in 1976, while Houston gets snubbed.

A score or more of museums and other institutions around the country competed for the honour of having a shuttle in their permanent collection. Apart from offering an appealing display, each had to be ready to stump up $28.8m to cover the cost of preparing and transporting the winged spacecraft to its new location. Of the three other remaining shuttles, Discovery is destined for the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum annexe outside Washington, DC. After the launch in late June of the 135th (and last) mission in the shuttle programme, Atlantis will remain in Florida to be exhibited at the Kennedy Space Centre’s visitor centre.

Meanwhile, after its own final mission later this month, Endeavour, the youngest of the shuttles, will be ferried to Los Angeles to end its days in the California Science Centre, alongside existing exhibits of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft, and close to the old Rockwell plant in Palmdale where the shuttle was developed. Meanwhile, just up the road, at Edwards Air Force Base, is the runway where nearly half of all shuttle flights touched down.

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November 24, 2009

Corruption and imaginary museum thefts

Filed under: Media, Middle East, Military — Tags: Army, Iraq, Museum, Propaganda, TV — Nicholas @ 07:13

Do you remember the reports from Iraq in the wake of the invasion about the mass looting of museums? If any of it happened, it was a small-scale effort, not the major haul that was so breathlessly reported:

Western archeologists are finding that many of the news stories coming out of Iraq about the theft or destruction of ancient artifacts were false. The national museum had preserved nearly all its treasures, and there was no widespread damage to archeological sites. Like much of the reports from Iraq over the last six years, the main intent was to get an exciting headline, not report what was actually going on. Some reporters, especially those embedded with U.S. troops, reported having their stories rewritten, or simply not published, because their editors felt what was actually happening over there contradicted the U.S. medias belief about what was actually going on. Some of this attitude persists.

A recent international corruption survey found Iraq at the bottom of the list (of over 160 nations) in the company of Somalia, Afghanistan, Burma and Sudan. Because of election laws, that force people to vote for “lists” rather than individuals, it’s difficult to hold anyone accountable for corruption. A new election law, that fixed many of these problems, was recently passed, but senior (and often corrupt) officials are still trying to block this reform. Many of the Shia politicians running the government would be happy to see a Shia dictatorship established, with them running things. Most Iraqis are not so sure about that idea.

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