Month: January 2016


  • Bridge Engineering Nerds

    I’m not a bridge engineering nerd (yet), but I have been following the new Tappan Zee Bridge construction for one reason: the “I Lift NY” derrick-crane, which is officially the Left Coast Lifter. Here’s what it looked like yesterday from the Nyack public viewing area: The Left Coast Lifter is one of the largest, if…

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  • More on Maud Lee

    Additional digitization and indexing of old newspapers has elicited a few new items on Maud Lee, the tragic Wild West show sharpshooter I wrote about in 2010’s A Pair of Shootists. One reason I find Maud (stage name: Lillian Cody) so compelling is that she saw such wonderful things during her career–and then spent her…

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  • SCUBA, circa 1855

    While preparing book talks for my forthcoming title, The Heroic Age of Diving, I came across a long forgotten, failed attempt at self-contained underwater breathing apparatus–in 1855! So far, no other experts I’ve checked with recognize Levy’s name. However, Levy was not the only one working on the concept in the late 1840s and early…

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