Crown Heights' 73-99 Empire Boulevard Erased for Luxury Housing

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Photo courtesy of NYC Municipal Services/1940s.nyc From Mack Trucks to Apartments: A Century on Empire Boulevard For most of the twentieth century, the block at 73-99 Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights handled the heavy work of the city. Trucks came in for service. Tires were swapped out. Parts were stocked and sold. The buildings on this stretch of Brooklyn were built for vehicles, and for about sixty years, that's exactly what they served. The site directly neighbors the much taller Ebbets Field Apartment complex, which is the housing that replaced the ballpark. By 2025, both were rubble. By September 2026, the foundation of a 13-story apartment building was going in. A hundred years of industrial and automotive history on a single block, cleared in a matter of months. The main building at 73-99 Empire Boulevard went up in 1925 and opened as a Mack Truck auto service facility. At 29,000 square feet, it was built for the scale of commercial vehicle work: bay doors, floor drains, th...
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Making Fujifilm Film-Inspired Looks Using ChatGPT

Neponsit Hospital in Rockaway, Queens.



Walled-off cellphone users graffiti by an unknown artist.


I recently tried my hand at AI tech by using ChatGPT to create film simulation recipes for my Sony A7R IV Picture Profile. After reading about Fujifilm Film Simulation Recipes on PetaPixel, I decided to give it a shot and was impressed with the results. Although I typically don't shoot in black and white, I recognize the power it can bring to a photo.

Black and white photography can be incredibly impactful, as evidenced by Devin Allen's historical and poignant 2015 Time Magazine cover that captured a pivotal moment in the Black Lives Matter movement and protests.













Now, thanks to AI tech startup innovator and disruptor ChatGPT, photographers can prompt the platform to create film simulation recipes based on past great film stock without the cost of film cartridges. The results are astonishing and intuitive, offering valuable insights into color temperature matching, clarity, contrast, and highlights. I used the "make a new A7R IV picture profile based on Kodak 400 film simulation" prompt and received an elaborate response, but the prompt can be simplified for more succinct values. It can even create Kodak color film stock as well. In addition, I also prompted the AI to create one-of-a-kind presets as well based on one of my all-time favorite creators; trashhand. Overall, ChatGPT and its other iterations continue to produce new and interesting innovations every week.


Try your hand at creating interesting film stock simulation recipes using ChatGPT.

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