London architect David Adjaye After the Borough Tower Hamlets Council voted to replace its entire public library system with seven Idea Stores, Adjaye was chosen in 2001 to design two of the buildings, the first of which opened in 2004. The widely praised $14.6 million Whitechapel project is serving as a model for the public library of the 21st century, complete with its day care center, chic café and multimedia services. Equally impressive is the library's dazzling craftsmanship, from the glittery exterior of glass panels to its colorfully spacious interior. "Libraries are supposed to play a vital role in the social fabric of a community," says Adjaye. The architect sees the new libraries, replacements for ones that were neglected and crumbling, as critical to generating local development while spreading knowledge.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4081/is_200601/ai_n17187809/

Adjaye has designed a town house in Manhattan concealed behind an 1897 carriage house. He created a floating library on the second floor that is tethered by a glass bridge leading to the living room. W magazine March 2011

Andrew Carnegie's life is the quintessential rags-to-riches story. Emigrating from Scotland in 1848, the self-taught Carnegie worked as a bobbin boy A bobbin boy was a boy who collected bobbins of thread for low pay in textile mills in the 19th and early 20th century. A bobbin boy could expect to make about $1.00 a week. Andrew Carnegie got his first job as a bobbin boy. In a Pittsburgh cotton factory before becoming the world's richest person, his steel empire a dominant force in a booming American economy. The jolly Carnegie was truly larger than life (at 4'11" he was more comfortable dominating a room while seated) and a man of contradictory impulses devoid, seemingly, of external pressures. Carnegie infamously exploited workers--in the 1892 Homestead incident, he hired Pinkertons to subdue discontented strikers--though he shared his wealth with those in need by educating the poor and championing public institutions. He also advocated for world peace until his death in 1919. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Andrew+Carnegie.-a0156720090
Carnegie was nicknamed "The Star-Spangled Scotchman" and was renowned for building libraries and funding construction of 7000 pipe organs.

Public art lost Working Classroom Inc. works with at-risk youth artists. They've been involved in many art projects around Albuquerque and created a giant fiberglass cactus. The cactus cost taxpayers $50,000. Originally handed out by the state legislature, the money was given to the Albuquerque Public Art Program. The city gave Working Classroom Inc. the money, which paid for an international artist to spend two months with about a half dozen handpicked kids to create the cactus sculpture. The money paid for the artist, a stipend for the kids and materials. Parks and Recreation Department employees admitted to their managers that the sculpture had been hauled off after being vandalized. "They did not realize that that was a public art project," city spokesman Chris Ramirez said. Instead of notifying the Public Art Department, the workers contacted the Solid Waste Department and had the artwork taken to the landfill where it was destroyed. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20033309-504083.html

Private art saved In 1961, two years before he made it big with Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak painted a mural on the bedroom wall of two very, very lucky children. Larry and Nina Chertoff were six and four years old respectively when “Uncle Moo Moo” painted a joyful parade of children and animals on their wall as a favor to their parents who were close friends of his. When their mother, Glynn Chertoff, died a few years ago, they had to relinquish the Upper West Side apartment. Larry and Nina realized they had to do something to preserve the mural or else it would just be painted over rental beige for the next tenants and the only surviving mural by Maurice Sendak would be lost forever. So they contacted the Rosenback Museum & Library in Philadelphia, the museum chosen by Sendak himself to host a massive archive of 10,000 pieces of his art and writings, and the owners of the apartment building to see what could be done. Most wonderfully, the property owners agreed to allow the museum to take out the entire wall. The museum was able to work out the challenging logistics so that the 4-by-13-foot mural could go from the 13th floor of a New York apartment building to Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square where it would become a star of the Rosenback’s Maurice Sendak Gallery. Restoration is scheduled to be completed in March. See picture of mural at: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/9683

Polysemantic words
Parity (PAR-i-tee) noun
Equality in amount, status, etc. Via French from Latin paritas, from par (equal). Earliest documented use: 1572.
noun
1. The condition of having given birth.
2. The number of children born by a woman. From Latin parere (to give birth). Earliest documented use: 1877.
fell (fel) adjective
1. Fierce; cruel; lethal.
2. In the idiom, in one fell swoop (all at once, as if by a blow). From Old French, variant of felon (wicked, a wicked person). Earliest documented use: Before 1300.
verb tr.
1. To knock down, strike, or cut down.
2. To sew a seam by folding one rough edge under the other, flat, on the wrong side, as in jeans.
noun
1. The amount of timber cut.
2. In sewing, a felled seam. From Old English fellan/fyllan (to fall). Earliest documented use: Around 1000.
noun
A stretch of open country in the highlands. From Old Norse fjall/fell (hill). Earliest documented use: Before 1300.
noun
The skin or hide of an animal. From Old English fel/fell (skin or hide). Ultimately from the Indo-European root pel- (skin or hide), which also gave us pelt, pillion, and film. Earliest documented use: Around 1000.
seadog (SEE-dog) noun
1. A veteran sailor.
2. A harbor seal.
3. A pirate or privateer.
4. A faint rainbow-like formation seen in foggy conditions. Also called mistbow, fogbow, and white rainbow. From sea + dog, from use of the word dog as a playful term to refer to someone, as in old dog. Earliest documented use: 1598. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg