Logo of Blue Note Records

The album covers of Blue Note Records, an American jazz record label, have been recognized for their distinctive designs, which often feature bold colors, experimental typography, and candid photographs of the album's musicians, and are described as belonging to the Bauhaus and Swiss Style movements. In the early 1950s, artists like Gil Mellé, Paul Bacon, and John Hermansader designed Blue Note's earliest album covers. In 1956, Reid Miles was hired as Blue Note's art director, creating 400 to 500 covers with a unique style incorporating diverse typefaces and design principles such as asymmetry and tinting. After Miles left in 1967, artists like Mati Klarwein and Bob Venosa took over. Designers such as Norman Seeff and Bob Cato contributed in the 1970s, while Japanese artists created new covers for reissues in the late 1970s and 1980s. From the mid-1980s onward, artists like Paula Scher and Adam Pendleton have designed covers, with Miles's work in particular remaining highly influential. (Full article...)

Costello's, c. 1940

Costello's (also known as Tim's) was a bar and restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, from 1929 to 1992. The bar operated at several locations near the intersection of East 44th Street and Third Avenue. Costello's was known as a drinking spot for journalists with the New York Daily News, writers with The New Yorker, novelists, and cartoonists, including the author Ernest Hemingway, the cartoonist James Thurber, the journalist John McNulty, the poet Brendan Behan, the short-story writer John O'Hara, and the writers Maeve Brennan and A. J. Liebling. The bar is also known for having been home to a wall where Thurber drew a cartoon depiction of the "Battle of the Sexes" at some point between 1934 and 1935; the cartoon was destroyed, illustrated again, and then lost in the 1990s. A wall illustrated in 1976 by several cartoonists, including Bill Gallo, Stan Lee, Mort Walker, Al Jaffee, Sergio Aragonés, and Dik Browne, is still on display at the bar's final location. (Full article...)

Section of the trail in Shawangunk, New York

The Walden–Wallkill Rail Trail, also known as the Jesse McHugh Rail Trail, is a 3.22-mile (5.18 km) rail trail between the village of Walden and the hamlet of Wallkill. The two communities are located in Orange County and Ulster County, respectively, in upstate New York. The trail is part of the former Wallkill Valley Railroad's rail corridor. The railway was the first to operate in Ulster County. Passenger service ended in 1937; the opening of the New York State Thruway and decreased freight traffic caused the line to close in 1957. The land was purchased by the towns of Montgomery and Shawangunk in 1985 and converted to a public trail. The portion of the trail in Shawangunk was formally opened in 1993 and named after former town supervisor Jesse McHugh. After seven years of discussion, the route was paved between 2008 and 2009. The trail includes an unofficial, unimproved section to the north of Wallkill, and is bounded by NY 52 and NY 208. (Full article...)