OSCAR WILDE’S TOMB PROTECTED FROM KISSES
Oscar Wilde died of cerebral meningitis in Paris on November 30, 1900. On the occasion of the 110th anniversary of his death, his tomb in Paris’ famous Père Lachaise Cemetery has been restored and a new glass barrier erected around the monument to stop visitors from making out with it.
The practice began in the late 1990s when a woman kissed Wilde’s tomb leaving a red lipstick print. Because people are easily influenced and deeply unhygienic, that one lip print started an unstoppable trend. The tomb was soon covered in red lips. The threat of a €9,000 ($12,000) fine for damaging a historical monument had no effect, because it’s hard to catch people in the act and because most of the kissers were tourists and thus were long gone before the judicial system could snag them. Appeals from Wilde’s grandson Merlin Holland to stop the practice fell on deaf ears. A plaque asking fans to respect the tomb instead of defacing it had no effect.
Meanwhile, those greasy red lipstick stains seeped into the stone making it harder and harder to clean. Every cleaning stripped another surface layer which made the stone even more porous, so the next cleaning had to go even deeper and wear away the stone even more.
(Source: Nerdcore)
Bikes are pretty cool, but if American cities really want to learn something from Copenhagen, it’s how to build a city for young families. Those young people pouring into your cities are going to leave just as fast if you don’t build the city for the families they’ll soon have.
Here’s a good rule: no more stadiums, TIF districts, or tax breaks until crime is under control and urban schools meet basic standards. City officials: Those shiny corporate headquarters won’t mean jack if no one wants to live in your city because your schools are worthless. And don’t you dare claim you don’t have money to focus on people like that, you’re blowing plenty more trying to attract Fortune 500’s.
-Kasey Klimes (via Twitter)
I’ll go ahead and reblog this, not out of vanity but because I mean what I said. It is so easy to make cities for people that considering how often we’ve failed to do so becomes a mind numbing exercise.
I should add: the most dangerous possibility is that we throw up our hands in frustration and resign ourselves from the problem. Get involved. Tell your politicians that policies that favor corporations, big box development, highway construction, or mega-projects over the safety and education of our children - over the quality of our daily well-being - will result in their dismissal.
This is a human rights issue. If the politicians won’t listen, vote them out or run for office yourself. Take the city back, if not for yourselves then for your children. We can’t run this course any longer.
(via secretrepublic)
(Source: captainplanit)
Kasey,
I definitely agree with you that the worst thing planners and policy
makers can do is to “throw up their hands in frustration” in regards
to making cities more desirable to people, like young families, that
may not want to move into or stay in a city. My question to you,
…
