Jack Delano, a native Ukrainian trained as a photographer, graduated from college into the Great Depression.

He couldn’t have had better timing.

At a time when nearly one-in-five people were unemployed, Delano appealed to the Federal Art Project, a New Deal program that, in an ongoing effort to put people to work, sponsored public art throughout the country. Eventually, over 5,000 artists created 225,000 works of art for the program.

A picture may say a thousand words, but it’s much more difficult to index. Case in point: the New York Times archive. Doing a search for the address of Mediaite’s home office on Broadway turns up, disconcertingly, several turn-of-the-century fires* (one in 1879 and one in 1904 with a “peculiar quality of smoke”) and Broadway “ablaze” (with bunting, for the Centennial of the Constitution). But no photos.

Governor Paterson’s favorite person in New York these days is probably Hiram Monserrate, the former New York State Senator whose political path has gone…awry. A few weeks ago, the Times’ J. David Goodman looked at Monserrate’s 2008 campaign website, which was still allowing comments. (The comments he was receiving were not particularly flattering.) In the piece, Goodman asked an interesting question: How many orphaned campaign sites litter the Internet? That, of course, was a challenge.

I recently stumbled on a little antique market and, there, a 1977 issue of New York magazine. In this particular issue: Seattle Slew’s chances in the Triple Crown (good), the opening of Studio 54 (bananas), and a shocking review of Annie Hall. But check out the inspirational cover story for our friends in the media industry. For if you’re struggling every day to publish magazines and newspapers that, unfortunately, probably won’t be along much longer (or websites that, unfortunately, will) – at least you’re not making $23,200 a year.*

3D is old news. Yeah, it’s coming to TV in real-time, and James Cameron seems to have an affinity for it.* Great. But the technology has been around forever. As in, since the 1890s. The classic image of people wearing 3D glasses at the movies is from the 1950s, after all – half a century [...]

I was maybe 10 when my father handed me a bible, a tome that encapsulated the fundamental tenets of our religion. It was called The Yankee Hater’s Handbook. A masterpiece of framing, it armed me with any number of responses to claims of the greatness of the team, the excellence of Mssrs. DiMaggio and Maris, [...]

A week or two ago, I took a break from my day job to fulfill a request from a Wayback Machine reader: review the Sandra Bullock star vehicle The Net