Manhattan Zoo (#atozchallenge)

A peacock escaped from the Central Park Zoo and wandered around the city. Either that or I just saw a pigeon on his way to a gay pride parade.

JIMMY FALLON, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Aug. 3, 2011

Polar Bear catching z's at the Central Park Zoo,
 Manhattan, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Manhattan Zoo

        The Sunset Zoo in Manhattan, Kansas is not bad for a smaller sized town.  The 26 acre park has over 300 animals representing over 100 different species as well as themed gardens and a number of events scheduled throughout the year.  Over 100,000 visitors come to the zoo each year.   The zoological park has been a popular attraction in Manhattan since the 1930's.  A low admission price encourages visitors to frequent the park.

         But the real zoological attraction for this post is the much more well known menagerie that can be found in Central Park in middle-upper Manhattan.  The Central Park Zoo which is contained in an area of a mere 6.5 acres is far smaller than the Sunset Zoo in Manhattan, Kansas.  Yet though less than a quarter the size of the Midwestern zoo, the East Coast Manhattan zoo receives ten times the yearly visitors.   The zoo in Central Park also costs over three times as much to gain entrance.  Though the collection of animals is diverse, many of the larger animals found in zoos with more space won't be found at this zoo. Still you can expect to find some bears, wildcats, monkeys, and an array of smaller mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects.

         Manhattan's Central Park zoo was the first official zoo in New York City having been founded in the early 1860's.   After the Philadelphia zoo, it was the second publicly owned zoo in the United States.   Now the Central Park Zoo is part of a system of four New York City area zoos.

           Personally, I have never been to any of the New York City Zoos, but I have been to a number of zoos throughout the United States.  To read more about the zoos I have visited please visit my "Z" post at Wrote By Rote.

           And so we come to the end of my A to Z Manhattan Project series.  I hope you've enjoyed reading these posts.  Don't forget to come back to this blog tomorrow, May 1st, for a special surprise version of Battle of the Bands.  Remember--Manhattan covers a lot of ground though not necessarily in land area.

          My A to Z Reflections Post will be on Monday May 9th.

           Have you been to the Central Park Zoo or any of the New York City Zoos?   Have you been to the Sunset Zoo in Manhattan, Kansas?    What are some of your thoughts on zoos?

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X-10 Nuclear Reactor (#atozchallenge)

I have always fancied that the end of the world will be when some enormous boiler, heated to three thousand millions of atmospheric pressure, shall explode and blow up the globe. ... They [the Americans] are great boilermakers.

— Jules Verne

Five Weeks in a Balloon 

Official seal of Oak Ridge, Tennessee (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

X-10 Nuclear Reactor

       In my post for the letter N I referred in passing to Oak Ridge, Tennessee which played a big role in the developing of the first atomic bombs during World War 2.   This project, known as The Manhattan Project because it was planned out in an office in Manhattan, expanded to a number of research and development centers throughout the United States.  This effort, which was one of America's most intensive projects ever, resulted in developing and producing atomic bombs within a time frame of less than three years.  

       In order to accommodate the R & D facilities and its employees and their families, the city of Oak Ridge was rapidly planned and built.  By the end of the war in 1945, the city had grown to become the fifth largest city in Tennessee.  After the war the city continued to serve as an important scientific center for the study and manufacture of nuclear materials.

       A key facility at the Oak Ridge Laboratories was referred to as the X-10 Pile, the first nuclear reactor designed for continuous production.  The X-10 Graphite Reactor produced the plutonium necessary for the atomic bomb.  This reactor is no longer in operation after being shut down in 1963 and designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966.

        The three key nuclear facilities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Hanford,  Washington are now the three sites of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.  Visitors to the park can visit museums and see the original reactors and other components of the laboratories.  For security reasons the X-10 reactor and other buildings at the Tennessee site can only be visited as part of a bus tour provided by Oak Ridge National Laboratories.

         Visiting all three sites would be an epic history vacation for anyone with a strong interest in atomic bomb development, but if you are near any one of these areas a visit to the one to which you are closest is highly recommended.  Oak Ridge is the most accessible to the greatest population area as it sits just a short drive from the most visited National Park in the United States--The Great Smokey Mountains.  The Laboratories are also a two hour drive from Nashville.

            A vacation to the Great Smokies with all of the tourist activities nearby will provide memorable adventure and entertainment for adults and as well as families with children.  There is literally something to please everyone.

        The history of the area ranges from the time when the indigenous peoples such as the Creeks and Cherokees inhabited the land, to the time of the early European settlers, to the Civil War Era and beyond.    The X-10 Reactor is just one more piece of the history that brought the United States into the Atomic Age.

         Have you visited any of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park sites?   Have you ever visited any nuclear power plant or other similar facility?    Do you see a positive future for nuclear energy?
     
   

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Nuclear Destruction (#atozchallenge)

Some of us love Manhattan for all that it is while other evil minds think about the destruction they could wreak upon this great city.

This image was selected as a picture of the week on the Malay Wikipedia for the 44th week, 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 Nuclear Destruction

           In January when I asked the question What Does Manhattan Say to You?,  Dezmond from Hollywood Spy commented: 

 "...the first thing that fell upon my mind is that new TV series MANHATTAN :) on building the first atomic bomb in USA :("

         Since my title for my 2016 A to Z theme is The Manhattan Project, the development of the atomic bomb probably came to many minds when they read it.   After all "The Manhattan Project" was the code name for the research and development of nuclear weapons from 1942 to 1946.   Spurred by the research efforts of Nazi Germany, the United States fervently worked to be the first to harness the power of the atom to be used as a weapon.   As we know from history, the U.S. succeeded in not only building the weapon, but being the first to actually use it in warfare with devastating results.

         The debate continues as to whether using the bomb was a necessity to end the war with Japan or that country merely became the laboratory for testing the frightening new bomb.  The Pandora's box of nuclear destruction had been opened and the world has been on the brink of annihilation ever since.  The stalemate continues as more countries strive for ownership of their own nuclear weapons. And to think the project got it's name from the office in Manhattan where the plans were drawn up to organize the strategy to build the bomb.  Later the actual research and construction of the bombs were done elsewhere in facilities throughout the United States.

1.      Sharon Himsl at Shells Tales and Sails related the following:

1. Interesting theme choice. I actually live near the site of the Manhattan Project. But of course it means more too!

1.       I'm guessing that Sharon's near the Hanford, Washington area where part of the work was done.  This location was chosen due to its distance from major population areas.  The government realized that what they were dealing with was a dangerously destructive power--far too risky to be developed near large population centers.  Where I used to live in East Tennessee is where the project of building the bomb first started.  Oak Ridge still has a large nuclear research facility along with a very fine museum on the subject.  
2.         The bombs were built and not long after the first testing was done in Alamogordo, New Mexico, the bombs were put to actual use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.   Never again say some, but will this be the case?   And when (I think "when" not "if" is a probable outlook) the next bomb is detonated, where will that be?   Manhattan?  We can only hope not, but the city is likely in the mind's eye of more than one evil force in the world.   After all, we have already seen the attacks on the city by terrorists in recent decades.   
3. Manhattan:  Target of Destruction

        Alex J. Cavanaugh ruminated on all of the destruction that Manhattan has faced in movies and so many other genres of fiction.  He pointed out,   "It does seem a ton of films have been set there. New York has been destroyed by flooding, Godzilla, aliens..."  It's so true and yet the reasons are so obvious.  That inner apocalyptic mindset within each of us--that darker side where dystopia is the order of the future--our imagination driven by fears as the shadow mind glimpsing the horror of absolute destruction takes us to the visions of apocalypse that few of us would ever want to actually experience.

        Realistically we can't help but acknowledge that there are evil forces that would like to see a massive city like Manhattan decimated into dust, concrete chunks, and the residue of vaporized human beings.  Fear mixed with a morbid fascination stirs nightmarish visions of total unequivocal destruction from which no life could rise for centuries or even millennia. 

        As creative artists and thinkers, our imaginations conceive the worst along with the best and most beautiful.   It's completely unlikely that Manhattan will ever be directly hit by a giant meteorite or leveled by a tsunami.   It's also improbable that a nuclear warhead will ever target the city.  However we can't discount the possibility that a dirty bomb might be one day exploded in the city causing a mass evacuation that could leave Manhattan abandoned for perhaps decades or even centuries.

        Likewise the idea of the city falling under the attack of prehistoric creatures or a giant gorilla makes for entertaining fantasy, but we can't dismiss the concept of a plague that could infect millions.  Or what about economic collapse or failure of the power grid or other aspects of the infrastructure that could send the city into turmoil and panic in the streets.

         Let's hope none of these horrors ever visit Manhattan or any great city for that matter, but the ideas will fuel fictional scenarios for writers of science fiction and speculative literature for years to come.   We don't want anything bad to happen to America's great city, but we can't help but imagine the worst sometimes.

         Have you visited any of the sites related to the Manhattan Project?    What do you think is the most feasible scenario of disaster in Manhattan?   What is your favorite disaster film that takes place in Manhattan?

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