The Ponce de Leon Hotel, also known as The Ponce, St. Augustine, Florida, luxury hotel, Spanish Renaissance style, firm Carrère & Hastings, New York architecture, world renown, DC generators, Thomas Edison,

The Ponce de Leon Hotel, also known as The Ponce, was an exclusive luxury hotel in St. Augustine, Florida, built by millionaire developer and Standard Oil co-founder Henry M. Flagler and completed in 1888. The hotel was designed in the Spanish Renaissance style as the first major project of the New York architecture firm Carrère & Hastings, which would go on to gain world renown.

The hotel was the first of its kind constructed entirely of poured concrete, using the local coquina stone as aggregate. The hotel was also one of the first buildings in the country wired for electricity from the onset, with the power being supplied by DC generators installed by Flagler's friend, Thomas Edison.

Upon entering the the dining hall, one might assume Flagler first years come here to be assigned a house by the sorting hat a la Harry Potter. The first and most obvious feature of the room are the windows, which comprise the single largest private, currently in-use collection of Tiffany stained glass works in the world. More subtle, but no less fascinating, are the chairs hand carved with disapproving cherubic faces.

The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City National Historic Landmark, Worlds Beauty, New York Beauty,

The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City

The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge in New York City and is one of the oldest bridges of either type in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River. It has a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m), and was the first steel-wire suspension bridge constructed. It was originally referred to as the New York and Brooklyn Bridge and as the East River Bridge, but it was later dubbed the Brooklyn Bridge, a name coming from an earlier January 25, 1867, letter to the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and formally so named by the city government in 1915. Since its opening, it has become an icon of New York City, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1972.