title: Zipcar

text: On 23 January 2008, the merged Zipcar/Flexcar canceled service for the Southern California cities of Los Angeles and San Diego without providing advance notice to customers in those areas, although Southern California college operations were left intact. On July 11, 2008, Zipcar announced it doubled membership in past year, including the Flexcar members it acquired, and now had 225,000 members. On August 28, 2008, Rice University announced its introduction into the program in their goal of achieving the lowest possible carbon footprint while providing additional transportation options for employees that carpool. In June 2009, the company announced an iPhone application at the Apple World Wide Developer Conference; the application is capable of honking the horn and unlocking some Zipcars.


title: Zipcar

text: Following impressive third-quarter results, previous CEO Scott Griffith announced that 2012 would mark Zipcar's "first full year of profitability on a US GAAP basis". Scott Griffith stepped down on March 15, 2013, following Avis Budget Group's acquisition of Zipcar. Mark Norman remained as president until February 2014, when Avis Budget Group announced that Kaye Ceille was appointed president of Zipcar, and "Mark Norman would step down in order to pursue another career opportunity." In July 2016, Kay Ceille stepped down as president of Zipcar to become the managing director of Avis Budget Group International, Australia. On January 5, 2017, Zipcar announced that after a 6-month search they appointed Tracey Zhen as its new president. Zhen came over from TripAdvisor where she had been a vice president and general manager. On September 27, 2020, Zipcar announced Angelo Adams as its new head of Zipcar. Prior to joining Zipcar, Adams spent a successful career at OTIS Elevator in numerous market leadership roles. His experience managing operations, dispersed and diverse teams, supply chain, customer service, engineering, and contact centers will aid in steering Zipcar into the future. We also salute Adams service as an Officer in the United States Army for five years after graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point.


title: Zipcar

text: Zipcar saw a significant swing in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a falloff in demand in March 2020 and a surge in May. Having taken cars off the road, the company had trouble keeping up with demand, causing a backlog at the customer service center. Some customers arrived at the time of their reservation to find no car in the parking spot. Some customers reported being stranded without transportation and unable to reach customer service to complain or cancel their membership. President Tracey Zhen apologized in June, saying the company was adding cars and customer service employees. By that month, she reported membership applications in New York City 70% above June 2019. An anonymous employee told CNN that the problems were exacerbated by laying off more than 20% of its employees, and changing call centers.


title: Zipcar

text: Members are able to view vehicle availability and reserve a self-service car via the internet, Android, and iPhone apps, or by telephone, in increments as short as 30 minutes. Members pay only for time they reserve. Zipcar vehicles report their positions to a control center using in-car technology. In the U.S., each reservation entitles members up to for a 24-hour period and then $0.45 per mile beyond 180 miles ($0.55 per mile for premium vehicles and cargo van rentals) will be charged within the 24 hour period. If the rental is longer than 24 hours, then the member is entitled to per 24 hours; then per additional hour of the reservation period until is reached. If the 180 mile limit based on hours is exceeded then $0.45 per mile will be charged ($0.55 per mile for premium vehicles and cargo van rentals). Canadian members receive up to with each reservation for the first 24 hours with $0.30 per kilometre (up to $0.45 per kilometre for premium vehicles and cargo van rentals) being charged if the 200 km limit is exceeded. If the rental reservation is longer than 24 hours, then is included per 24 hours period along with per each additional hour up to . If the 200 km limit based on hours is exceeded, then $0.30 per kilometre (up to $0.45 per kilometre for premium vehicles and cargo van rentals) will be charged. Individual members can sign up for one of two different plans, the "Occasional Driving Plan" and the "Extra Value Plan".


title: Zipcar

text: Members are given an access card containing a wireless chip that will open the vehicle they have reserved only at the time they have reserved it. The reservation includes vehicle insurance, a gas card for the car. A member can reserve and use a Zipcar in any Zipcar city.


title: Zipcar

text: Zipcar was sued in 2009 and again in 2011 by customers alleging that they charged excessive or hidden fees. The suit cited several hidden charges, including a charge to talk to a customer service representative even when customers call to report a problem that cannot be handled through the website or automated phone system, additional fees on top of the cost of a parking ticket even if the ticket was overturned in court, late fees starting at $50, a fee to retrieve items left in cars, and an inactivity fee. According to the complaint, many customers may not even be aware of the charges because Zipcar does not send monthly statements. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2010, after U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton found that every penalty except an inactive-user charge is legal. In August 2016, Zipcar agreed to settle a case involving allegations of charging New York consumers illegal damage fees for rental vehicles. According to New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, New York State law mandates if rental car companies mean to pursue charges for damages to their vehicles, they must give consumers the opportunity to dispute the complaint. Schneiderman's office alleges Zipcar failed to follow this requirement. The company sometimes purportedly charged consumers damage fees before notifying them of the charges. As a settlement, Zipcar will refund any damage charges assessed against consumers who disputed their responsibility for the damage. Additionally, the company will pay the Attorney General's Office $35,000 for fees and costs. In addition, Zipcar is barred from charging customers for damage unless those customers agree they are liable or the company obtains a legal determination—for example, from a court—that the driver is responsible. As of September 25, 2018, the business is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau and averages a one-star review from the BBB from numerous complaints alleging deceptive business practices.


title: Zipcar

text: Zipcar launched its Zipcar for Business program in early 2004 to provide companies with discounts on Monday-Friday driving. Since the launch of the program, Zipcar has signed 10,000 small, medium, and large sized businesses, as companies are increasingly adopting Zipcar's on demand car rental model as a cost-saving alternative for employee travel. Zipcar has partnered with over 600 colleges and universities across North America.


title: Zipcar

text: Zipcar offers more than 50 makes and models of vehicles. Each vehicle has a home location: a reserved parking space located on a street, driveway, or neighborhood parking lot in the member's area, to which it must be returned at the end of the reservation. The locations of all Zipcars and models available at those locations are available at the Zipcar website. Zipcar currently (2019) has a fleet of 12,000+ vehicles. The makes and models of Zipcar vehicles available vary by location (for example, on college campuses, most Zipcar vehicles are economy, hybrid, and full-size cars), though members are able to choose the exact make and model of vehicle they wish from the list of available vehicles online or in the Zipcar smartphone application.


title: Zipcar

text: Most Zipcar vehicles will feature decals with the Zipcar logo. Each vehicle has a "name" that help the renter to identify their specific vehicle. Zipcar offers vehicles in different categories, such as economy cars, electric vehicles (EV's), hybrid vehicles, full-size cars, luxury vehicles (such as those from Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and other luxury manufacturers), SUV's, pickup trucks, and cargo vans. A Zipcar vehicle will not unlock for the renter until their exact reservation time. Renters unlock their vehicle (both at the beginning of the reservation and throughout the rental) by either holding their Zipcar membership Radio Frequency Identification RFID card or smartphone against the upper corner of the vehicle's windshield. The vehicle's keys are always tied to the steering column of the vehicle, and stay inside the vehicle at all times. A Zipcar "Copilot" guide is located in the driver's side sun visor, and includes a complimentary refueling card (gasoline card), insurance information, the vehicle registration card, and information about both the vehicle, as well as rental policies and procedures.


title: Zipcar

text: Zipcars have RFID readers located on the windshield that communicates with the card to lock and unlock the doors of the vehicle. Each vehicle records hours of usage and mileage, which is uploaded to a central computer via a wireless data link. The location of the vehicles is not tracked during a reservation for privacy reasons but is trackable, and all cars are equipped with a "kill" function that allows the company to prevent the car from starting in the event of theft. Zipcar also offers the embedded Information Technologies it has installed in its fleet as a fleet optimization service through its FastFleet service.


title: Zipcar

text: During a rental, a Zipcar member can interface with their rented vehicle using the Zipcar smartphone app, which includes the ability to locate the vehicle in a parking lot (including GPS location and the ability to sound the vehicle's horn and flash the lights) and unlock or lock the vehicle.


title: Zipcar

text: Among its fleet of fuel-efficient vehicles, and through an agreement between Honda and Zipcar, the program offers clean fuel and low-emission vehicles that include the Insight hybrid, Civic Hybrid, and Honda Fit EV all-electric car. Vehicles such as the Chevrolet Volt and Toyota Prius are also available.


title: Zipcar

text: In the United Kingdom, some vehicles are branded "Zipcar Flex" which means that they can be left anywhere within a designated zone, rather than in a specific parking space. The remaining vehicles are branded "Zipcar Roundtrip".


title: Zipcar

text: On October 31, 2007, Zipcar and Flexcar announced their intentions to merge. The merged company retained the name "Zipcar" and was headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Zipcar's chief executive, former Seattle-based Boeing engineer Scott Griffith, became Chairman and CO, while Flexcar CEO Mark Norman became president and Chief Operating Officer. The merger combined Zipcar's fleet of 3,500 vehicles in 35 markets with Flexcar's 1,500 cars in 15 markets.


title: Zipcar

text: In December 2009, Zipcar announced their participation in a round of financing with Avancar, the largest on-demand car rental company in Spain, based in Barcelona. Under the terms of the agreement, Zipcar acquired a minority interest in Avancar, a Zipcar executive joined Avancar's board and Zipcar was given a year option to increase the company's ownership stake. Later on in April 2010, Zipcar announced that it had acquired London-based car-sharing club Streetcar. In December 2010, Zipcar extended their option for another year through the end of 2011, and provided a monetary loan to Avancar, which is convertible into equity if Zipcar chooses to exercise the option. On October 17, 2012, Zipcar announced the completion of its Avancar integration. On January 22, 2019 Zipcar (Avancar) members received notification that the service would no longer be available as of midnight, February 28, 2019. On Facebook and Instagram, the company cited a decision made by Avis to discontinue the service in the Spanish city.


title: Zipcar

text: Zipcar provides liability coverage of $100,000 bodily injury per person, $300,000 bodily injury maximum, and $25,000 property damage per accident for members over 21 years of age who joined after March 1, 2015. Members at fault are responsible for the first $1,000 of costs related to the repair, recovery, and loss of use of any Zipcar vehicle. However, members can purchase no-liability insurance for an additional $79 a year. Members involved in accidents where fault is not determined (such as in a hit and run) must pay the first $1000 of these costs. For members under 21, Zipcar provides insurance coverage at state-mandated levels.


title: Zipcar

text: Insurance coverage may vary depending on the region of use. For example, Canadian members in Toronto, Ontario, are provided with $1 million in liability coverage. Vancouver, BC members are provided with $2 million in liability coverage. Both regions in Canada also include comprehensive and collision coverage in addition to liability insurance. Previously, Zipcars traveling into Canada from the U.S. required members to obtain a special insurance card from Zipcar. As of February 2018, however, it appears that this is no longer the policy. Canadian Zipcars traveling into the U.S. do not need the extra insurance card.


title: Zipcar

text: Similar to members of Zipcar U.S., members of Zipcar London, UK, require a special 'vehicle on-hire' certificate when traveling abroad, which can be obtained from Zipcar.


title: The San Remo

text: The San Remo is a cooperative apartment building at 145 and 146 Central Park West, between 74th and 75th Streets, adjacent to Central Park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was constructed from 1929 to 1930 and was designed by architect Emery Roth in the Renaissance Revival style. The San Remo is 27 stories tall, with twin towers rising from a 17-story base. The building is a contributing property to the Central Park West Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is a New York City designated landmark.


title: The San Remo

text: The 17-story base surrounds an internal courtyard to the west, while the 10-story towers rise from the eastern portion of the base. There are numerous setbacks between the 14th and 17th stories, which double as terraces. The first three stories are clad in rusticated blocks of limestone, with two main entrances at ground level. The remainder of the facade is made of light brick with terracotta ornamentation, as well as movable windows to improve air circulation. The tops of the towers contain "temples" with round colonnades and lanterns. The building has twin terrazzo and marble lobbies with molded plaster ceilings. On the upper stories, many apartments contain living and dining rooms arranged around a central gallery, as well as bedrooms in the rear. There were originally 122 apartments, each with six to sixteen rooms, but several apartments have been split or combined over the years.


title: The San Remo

text: The San Remo replaced an 11-story apartment building with the same name, built in 1891. The current apartment complex was the first building on Central Park West to incorporate large twin towers. The building opened in September 1930, attracting large amounts of commentary from the media. It soon went into receivership following the collapse of the Bank of United States, which held the mortgage. The San Remo experienced financial difficulties throughout much of the 1930s before being acquired in 1940 by an investment syndicate. The building was converted to a housing cooperative in 1972 following a failed conversion attempt in 1970. Over the years, the San Remo has been renovated several times. Its residents have included directors, actors, and musicians.


title: The San Remo

text: The San Remo is at 145 and 146 Central Park West in the Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The building occupies the western sidewalk of Central Park West (formerly Eighth Avenue) between 74th Street to the south and 75th Street to the north. The San Remo occupies a nearly rectangular land lot with an area of . The land lot has a frontage of along Central Park West, on 74th Street, and on 75th Street. Nearby places include the Kenilworth apartment building immediately to the north, the Langham apartment building to the south, and the Ramble and Lake of Central Park to the east. In addition, the Dakota is two blocks south and the New-York Historical Society library and museum is two blocks north.


title: The San Remo

text: The San Remo is one of several apartment buildings on Central Park West that are primarily identified by an official name. Even though a street address was sufficient to identify these apartment buildings, this trend followed a British practice of giving names to buildings without addresses. By contrast, buildings on Fifth Avenue, along the eastern side of Central Park, are mainly known by their addresses. Christopher Gray of "The New York Times" described the San Remo as one of several apartment buildings in Manhattan that were named after 1920; according to Gray, such structures usually "were either truly grand or had hotel-like features". The San Remo's name is derived directly from a previous building on the site.


title: The San Remo

text: The construction of Central Park in the 1860s spurred construction in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but similar development in the Upper West Side was slower to come. Major developments on the West Side were erected after the Ninth Avenue elevated line opened in 1879, providing direct access to Lower Manhattan. The first large apartment building in the area was the Dakota, which opened in 1884. The city installed power lines on Central Park West at the end of the 19th century, thus allowing the construction of multi-story apartment hotels with elevators.


title: The San Remo

text: Among the early apartment hotels was the original San Remo at 74th Street. The structure was built in 1891 by contractor Michael Brennan and designed by Edward L. Angell. The old San Remo was 11 stories tall with 90 apartments. It was decorated in the Gothic and Romanesque Revival styles and had peaked towers at its corners. The old San Remo was operated by Brennan following a dispute in 1892 with Wilson C. Morris, a hotel operator.


title: The San Remo

text: The present San Remo was designed by Emery Roth. It is variously described as being in the neo-Renaissance or late Italian Renaissance style. Theodore Hofstatter decorated the building's lobby, while Lou R. Strauss Jr. designed the internal garden and exterior landscaping. Unlike other large buildings on Central Park West, which were typically attributed to a single developer, no one took credit for developing the San Remo specifically. The syndicate that developed the San Remo had also erected the Beresford, seven blocks north, shortly before the San Remo was completed.


title: The San Remo

text: The San Remo's base is 17 stories high and surrounds a "T"-shaped interior courtyard to the west, giving the lower stories a "U"-shaped plan. The presence of the courtyard allowed each apartment to receive natural light from several elevations.


title: The San Remo

text: There are setbacks at the 14th, 16th, and 17th stories. The setbacks are covered in slate and double as terraces for some units. Two towers rise an additional ten stories from the eastern portion of the base and are arranged symmetrically. The San Remo is one of four buildings on Central Park West with a twin-towered form; the others are the Century, the Majestic, and the El Dorado. By splitting the upper stories into twin towers, as opposed to a single bulky tower, the developers could increase the amount of space that was near a window. To increase natural-light exposure to the upper-story apartments, the towers were designed in an "L" shape (wrapping around the courtyard), rather than as square masses. Roth designed spires that were high; according to general contractor HRH Construction; this made the building one of New York City's tallest residential structures.


title: The San Remo

text: The massing of the San Remo, and those of similar buildings, was shaped primarily by the Multiple Dwelling Act of 1929. Under this legislation, the "street walls" of apartment buildings could rise one and a half times the width of the adjacent street before they had to set back. On lots of more than , the street walls could rise three times the width of the adjacent street. Apartment buildings could rise up to 19 stories; additional stories were allowed on large plots, but the floor areas of these stories were limited to 20 percent of the lot area. These upper stories were allowed on plots of at least and were required to be set back on all sides. The San Remo was the earliest apartment building on Central Park West to be built with twin towers following the passage of the Multiple Dwelling Act of 1929.


title: The San Remo

text: The facade contains metal, stone, and terracotta decorations. These details include pilasters, engaged columns, rounded and triangular broken pediments, and balustrades, as well as smaller motifs such as roundels, scrolls, urns, cartouches, garlands, and consoles. The lowest three stories of the facade are made of rusticated blocks of limestone, while the rest of the building is clad with beige brick. The limestone blocks on the first and second stories are vermiculated. Above the base, there is a small amount of terracotta ornament, which is used to emphasize the otherwise plain brick facade. The ornament on the upper stories is oversized, allowing it to be seen from the ground.


title: The San Remo

text: All elevations of the facade are divided vertically into several bays. On the lower stories, the Central Park West elevation is divided into 26 bays from north to south, while the 75th Street elevation contains 16 bays and the 74th Street elevation contains 19 bays. There are two groupings of six bays near the north and south ends of the Central Park West elevation, as well as a three-bay-wide "pavilion" on either end. Additionally, the center bays on Central Park West are divided into three pairs, flanked by two single bays. Hence, the Central Park West elevation is divided in a 3-6-1-2-2-2-1-3 configuration. The six center bays and three outermost bays are treated as "pavilions", which rise above the setbacks. The towers are five bays wide on all elevations. A band course runs around the facade above the 13th story.


title: The San Remo

text: The windows on the primary elevations were divided horizontally into three tiers: a set of large movable casements, with movable transoms above and below. The casements and upper transoms swung outward, while the lower transoms swung inward. This design feature was intended to improve air circulation and temperature regulation, as air conditioning was uncommon when the building was completed. Roth anticipated that the upper and lower transoms would provide suitable air circulation most of the time and that the casements would only need to be opened on especially hot days. The windows on the rear elevations were arranged into multiple layouts, some of which have been altered.


title: The San Remo

text: On the ground story, the Central Park West elevation has two main entrances, each two bays wide and placed in the middle of the six-bay-wide sections (bays 6–7 and 20–21 from south). Both entrances contain a set of bronze-and-glass double doors topped by a paneled bronze transom. Each door is divided into three glass panels with acanthus-leaf borders, as well as bronze medallions that resemble sunburst motifs. The sidewalk in front of each doorway is covered by a canopy. There are Art Deco metal-and-glass lanterns on either side of the doors. Above each set of doors is a triangular broken pediment and a single window on the second story. These entrances are surrounded by a limestone frame with pilasters on either side, which are topped by composite capitals. These pilasters support a curved broken pediment with corbels, as well as a central scrolled cartouche with garlands.


title: The San Remo

text: There are two secondary entrances: one in the 14th bay from east on 74th Street and the 13th bay from east on 75th Street. Each secondary entrance consists of a set of pilasters topped by a console table. A single bronze-and-glass door, similar in design to those on Central Park West, is recessed deeply within either entrance. There are metal-and-glass lanterns on either side of the doors. Above each doorway is a scrolled cartouche.


title: The San Remo

text: There are also nine entrances to individual offices on the ground floor: four on Central Park West, three on 74th Street, and two on 75th Street. Each doorway contains a single door, recessed within the rusticated limestone facade. The bronze-and-glass office doors are simple in design and are topped by a bronze-and-glass transom panel. On the far western end of the 74th and 75th Street frontages, there is a short standalone wall of rusticated blocks, which contains an archway topped by a rusticated keystone. There is a metal service gate below each archway, topped by a panel with the word "service". The westernmost end of the 74th Street frontage, next to the service gate, contains a metal fence atop a brick parapet, which encloses an unused courtyard.


title: The San Remo

text: The second-easternmost bays on 74th and 75th Streets (bays 2–3) and the second-outermost bays on Central Park West (bays 2–3 and 24–25) have ornately decorated windows on the third and fourth stories. The third-story windows in these bays are flanked by limestone frames with rosettes and consoles; these support small balustrades at the fourth story. On either side of the second-outermost windows on all three elevations, a set of pilasters supports an entablature and a triangular broken pediment, both with dentils. There is a central keystone inside the pediment. Above the 13th story, there are console brackets flanking each of the second-outermost windows, above which is a balcony with a balustrade. These bays are flanked by brick pilasters at the 14th and 15th stories, which support large curved broken pediments and a scrolled escutcheon above the 15th story. There are rosettes at the tops of each pilaster. There are smaller curved broken pediments above the 14th-story windows, with escutcheons at the center as well as floral decorations and garlands below.


title: The San Remo

text: On Central Park West, bays 5–8 and 19–22 contain balconies at the fourth story. The balconies project from the facade and are supported by four console brackets. Behind each balcony, the two middle openings (bays 6–7 and 20–21) are surrounded by a limestone frame and separated from each other by a limestone wall panel. Above this frame is a triangular broken pediment with an escutcheon, garland, and tablet at its center. In bays 5–8 and 19–22 on the 11th story, there are two more balconies supported by four console brackets. Behind each balcony, bays 6–7 and 20–21 are recessed at the 11th and 12th stories and are flanked by brick pilasters; the recessed walls are decorated with embossed rosettes. Above the 12th story, and between bays 6–7 and 20–21, are cartouches with rosettes, similar to those above the main entrances on Central Park West.


title: The San Remo

text: There is another cartouche above the center of the fourth story on Central Park West, corresponding to bays 13–14. The numbers "19" and "30" flank the cartouche, signifying the year of the building's completion. Above the 13th story, there are console brackets flanking bays 13–14, above which is a balcony with a balustrade. At the 14th and 15th stories, bays 13–14 merge into a single bay, which is flanked by brick pilasters and designed much like the second-outermost bays. The cartouche above the 15th story is flanked by a curved broken pediment instead of a triangular one. Additionally, the brick pilasters extend to the 16th and 17th stories; there are rosettes at the tops of each pilaster. The window on the 16th story is topped by a tablet with garlands and a broken triangular pediment, while that on the 17th story is capped by a cartouche.


title: The San Remo

text: The towers above the 17th story are five bays wide and contain protruding piers at each corner. The north tower's northern and eastern elevations, as well as the south tower's southern and eastern elevations, contain ornamentation on the upper halves of each tower. On the 23rd story, the central windows on each of these four elevations contain ornate frames and are topped by curved broken pediments with keystones. On the 26th and 27th stories, the three center bays of these elevations are ornately decorated. The center bay of each grouping is flanked by a pair of double-height engaged columns; these are supported by projecting brackets at the 26th story and are topped by foliate capitals above the 27th story. The outer bays of each grouping are flanked by flat pilasters, which are also topped by foliate capitals. Above the 27th story, there is a curved broken pediment with a cartouche in the center bay, as well as a triangular broken pediment in either of the outer bays.


title: The San Remo

text: Both towers contain a triple-level penthouse section above the 27th story. On the 29th story of both towers, corresponding to the second level of the penthouse, the northern, southern, and eastern elevations each contain a window within a limestone frame. This window is flanked by pilasters with rosettes on their capitals. On the 30th story, there are three protruding dormers on either tower, each with a single window and a rounded roof. The top and bottom edges of the dormer windows are rounded. There are console brackets flanking each dormer window, above which is a curved pediment.


title: The San Remo

text: Each tower is topped by a "temple" designed in the Corinthian order. According to Steven Ruttenbaum, the temples were patterned after the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. The base of the temple is quadrilateral and contains eight large pedestals (two on each side). The pedestals contain console brackets, and the tops of the pedestals are decorated with urns and garlands; the finials of the urns measure tall. Between the pedestals on each side, there are cartouches with balustrades above them. The temples themselves rest on brick podiums and contain circular colonnades of smooth columns. Each column in the colonnade measures tall. Above the colonnades are friezes with dentils, as well as a terrace enclosed by a balustrade. Above the terrace level, a circular podium supports a set of console brackets, atop which is an electric copper lantern with windows on four sides. The lantern is tall.


title: The San Remo

text: Each of the entrances on Central Park West leads to its own lobby. The floors of each lobby are composed of large square tiles of beige terrazzo, each of which contains a smaller inlaid gray-marble tile. The beige terrazzo tiles are surrounded by a multicolored band of mosaic tiles and a dark-green marble border. The lower sections of the lobbies' walls are wainscoted in oxblood red and beige, while the remainder of the lobby walls are a salmon-beige color with inlaid dark-brown panels. The walls are flat and contain red-and-brown marble doorways leading to various rooms, as well as lighting sconces made of glass and metal. There are "art glass" windows on the walls, overlooking the courtyard. The ceilings have elaborate bas-reliefs and contain flat, vaulted, and sloped surfaces. The ceiling originally had a polychrome color scheme, which was painted white in subsequent years. Hanging from the ceilings are metal-and-glass chandeliers shaped like inverted pyramids.


title: The San Remo

text: There are ten elevators in the San Remo, grouped into four banks. There are square-headed archways leading from each lobby to each set of elevators; the lintels are decorated with multicolored marble panels. Each of the elevator doors in the lobbies is made of bronze with geometric motifs.


title: The San Remo

text: , the New York City Department of City Planning cites the San Remo as having 138 residential apartments and 8 non-residential units. Initially, there were 122 apartments in the building. Each apartment was designed with six to sixteen rooms, including single-story and double-story apartments. Each of the 17 lowest stories generally contained seven apartments per floor. Three of these units faced Central Park West and had eight, ten, or eleven rooms, while two units each faced 74th and 75th Streets, with six to eight rooms. This contrasted with other buildings on Central Park West, where four units on each floor shared a frontage on Central Park. A 1940 news article described the building as containing 132 apartments with five to fourteen rooms, with a total of 1,000 rooms. In the basement, each resident had their own laundry room, which was covered in tiles.


title: The San Remo

text: In larger apartments, common rooms such as the living room were arranged around a central gallery. A short hallway led to bedrooms in the rear, providing privacy for residents. The developers advertised the building as having atypically large rooms. There were several closets in each apartment, and the master bedroom of each unit also adjoined a dressing room. There were butlers' pantries and maids' rooms leading off each kitchen. Some of the westernmost units also contained "sun rooms", which measured up to . Over the years, apartment layouts have been modified to accommodate the needs of individual tenants, and obliquely shaped spaces such as semicircular dining rooms were also created.


title: The San Remo

text: In the tower stories, each apartment originally occupied an entire floor. The original plans had called for five duplex units in the south tower, each with thirteen rooms across two stories, and ten simplex units in the north tower, each with six rooms on a single story. The lower level of each south-tower unit contained a library, dining room, kitchen, pantry, and two maids' rooms. A spiral staircase led up to four bedrooms and three maids' rooms on the upper level, thus providing a clear separation of "public" and "private" rooms. With the exception of the topmost unit, the south-tower duplexes were all split into two single-story units during the 1930s, each containing seven rooms. Some of the tower apartments have been combined and expanded over the years. For instance, musician Bono combined the 27th floor of the north tower with a portion of the former mechanical space above it, creating a duplex with of terraces. The duplex atop the south tower was also combined with the mechanical space above it in the 2010s, forming a triplex unit.


title: The San Remo

text: All of the ceilings are suspended from the structural beams and finished in plaster. Some ceilings have molded plaster reliefs, although even the simplest ceilings had molded plaster cornices. Ceiling heights varied in different rooms: larger rooms had ceilings of up to , while smaller rooms had shorter ceilings. Some apartments were subdivided in the 1930s and decorated with similar details. There are wood-burning fireplaces in the living rooms, with ornate fireplace mantels. The fireplaces were inefficient and outdated at the time of their construction, but they were nonetheless included for symbolic reasons. Roth designed steel-and-glass cabinets for the kitchens, which also had cork floors, tiled walls, and chromium-plated plumbing pipes. Underneath one window in each kitchen, there were compartments where fresh food could be stored; these compartments had vents facing outdoors. Each bathroom was tiled in a polychrome color scheme.


title: The San Remo

text: By the late 1920s, high-rise apartment buildings were being developed on Central Park West in anticipation of the completion of the New York City Subway's Eighth Avenue Line, which opened in 1932. Central Park West was concurrently widened from . Under the Multiple Dwelling Act of 1929, this allowed the construction of proportionally taller buildings on the avenue. Just before the passage of the act, Emery Roth had designed the Beresford, seven blocks north of the old San Remo Hotel. In contrast to the San Remo, the Beresford had three towers, which were octagonal and relatively short.


title: The San Remo

text: The "New York Herald Tribune" reported in mid-November 1928 that the original San Remo Hotel might be replaced with a 30-story apartment hotel. Two weeks later, a syndicate led by Henry M. Pollock bought the old San Remo from the Brennan estate, as well as several adjacent four-story houses to the west. The Pollock group planned to spend $7 million on a new building on the site. In April 1929, the Times Holding Corporation (which owned the San Remo Hotel) acquired a house at 4 West 75th Street. The firm planned to raze the house, which occupied part of the footprint of the new building's courtyard. The San Remo Hotel closed the same month, and the Ravitch Brothers filed plans for a new apartment hotel on the same site. That July, San Remo Towers Inc. transferred a $5 million mortgage loan on the new building to the Bank of United States. Within a month, leasing agents Pease & Elliman were renting out apartments at the new San Remo.


title: The San Remo

text: The San Remo Hotel had been demolished by September 1929, and the site of the new building was being excavated. The next month, Emery Roth filed plans for a 16-story apartment building on the site of the San Remo Hotel to cost $2.5 million. The plans were subsequently revised to a 26-story building, and the HRH Construction Corporation was hired that December as the general contractor.


title: The San Remo

text: The Bank of United States provided a $5 million loan in January 1930 to City Financial Corporation, one of its subsidiaries, which owned the building. The bank acquired 100 shares of San Remo Towers Inc. for about $1 million as part of a larger, $8 million transaction. By then, L. J. Phillips & Co. had taken over as the building's leasing agent. The San Remo ultimately cost $5.5 million to construct. HRH was paid $125,000 for its role as general contractor at the San Remo. HRH also agreed to manage the San Remo (as well as the Beresford, which it also built) in exchange for two percent of the buildings' gross profits. In a "New York Herald Tribune" article on September 14, 1930, the HRH Construction Company indicated that the San Remo would open that October.


title: The San Remo

text: The building was completed on September 21, 1930. The developers advertised the San Remo as "The Aristocrat of Central Park West". Almost immediately, the San Remo experienced financial issues, despite critical acclaim in the architectural media. The surrounding area had suffered after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and shantytowns were built directly across the street from the San Remo during the Great Depression. After the Bank of United States experienced a bank run in December 1930, it shut down and its top officials were charged with recklessly using depositors' funds for speculation. The New York State Banking Department took over the bank's holdings, including the San Remo's mortgage. Early the next month, contractors placed $423,000 worth of liens against San Remo Inc., and the Bank of United States moved to foreclose on the building's $5 million mortgage loan. Joseph Ravitch, head of HRH Construction, testified that the bank and its affiliates owed him $40,000 for the San Remo's construction. In April 1931, a court-appointed receiver for the San Remo received permission to borrow $60,000 to pay the building's property taxes.


title: The San Remo

text: In spite of all these issues, a broker claimed in mid-1931 that large apartments at the San Remo were being steadily rented. Following further negotiations, the Banking Department liquidated all claims against the San Remo except for its own lien. The Banking Department announced in October 1931 that it would foreclose on the building. At the time, 88 of the 128 apartments had been rented, representing 70 percent of the units. These tenants paid an estimated $513,000 annually, more than sufficient to cover the operating costs. In early 1932, a court-appointed referee recommended that the building and land be sold together. The San Remo was placed for sale at a foreclosure auction that February, and the Bank of United States (still part of the Banking Department) acquired the building, bidding $1,021,000. In December 1932, the bank gave a new first-mortgage loan of $1.5 million to the San Remo Realty Company, a subsidiary of the bank that had taken over the building.


title: The San Remo

text: Throughout the Depression, the building went bankrupt several times and passed to numerous owners. The owners reduced rents and created 20 additional apartments by subdividing four of the duplexes in the south tower and some vacant units at the base. The Banking Department announced in July 1935 that it would refinance the building with a $3.1 million loan from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and would use the funds to distribute dividends to the Bank of United States' depositors. Some creditors expressed opposition to the mortgage, but a representative of the Banking Department said the state government wished to sell the building and that a mortgage would facilitate such a sale. A state judge approved the mortgage that September. By 1938, there were 117 families in the building. As the state was trying to find a buyer for the building, its staff went on strike in March 1938 and again in November 1938. The journalist Peter Osnos wrote that the San Remo and other Central Park West apartment houses contained many Jewish residents during the 1930s and 1940s, since these buildings were not "restricted", unlike others on the East Side.


title: The San Remo

text: In July 1940, a group of anonymous investors acquired the San Remo and Beresford, assuming a combined $7.4 million in mortgages on the two structures. The buildings themselves cost only $25,000, although they had cost a combined $10 million to build. One observer likened the sale to "buying the "Queen Mary" and the "Queen Elizabeth" for pocket change". The investment group was known as the Sanbere Corporation, a portmanteau of the two buildings' names. The San Remo's staff occasionally went on strike, such as in 1942 and in 1950. The San Remo also had twenty rooms for maids, many of which had been converted to tenant storage spaces or offices by the early 1960s.


title: The San Remo

text: By the mid-1960s, a dozen apartment buildings on Central Park West had been converted into housing cooperatives. At the end of the decade, Harry B. Helmsley and his partner Lawrence Wien proposed converting the San Remo into a cooperative. Helmsley had an option to acquire the San Remo for $12 million and planned to sell it to tenants for $15 million. Most residents supported the idea of a co-op conversion, but 86 percent of residents objected that the prices for each apartment, at over $100,000 each, were far too high. A group of tenants organized to express opposition to the proposal. Helmsley and Wien withdrew their plan in June 1970 because not enough residents had purchased shares in the cooperative, despite having lowered the prices for each apartment. For the offering to go into effect, at least 35 percent of the residents had to buy shares. Helmsley lost $1.25 million in the process, amid a weakening market for co-op apartments, and the San Remo reverted to its previous owners.


title: The San Remo

text: An investment syndicate, the Nominee Realty Corporation, bought the building for $9 million in July 1971. Nominee Realty did not originally intend to convert the building into a co-op, but it agreed to sell the building to its tenants to reduce costs. The tenants released a $10.8 million co-op offering plan in May 1972, including a $1 million contingency fund. About 85 percent of tenants bought shares in the cooperative within four months, and the co-op offering went into effect in September 1972. The co-op board initially did not seek official city-landmark status for the building, as that would have raised the cost of maintenance. The building retained most of its original windows, except for two upper-story apartments, where the windows were replaced with single panes in the early 1970s. Afterward, the San Remo's co-op board banned window replacements in anticipation of a potential city-landmark designation. Paul Goldberger, president of the co-op board, said the board members had a "self-imposed tradition of treating the building as if it were a landmark".


title: The San Remo

text: The San Remo's co-op board began restoring the facade in the early 1980s. The terracotta details atop the building's temples were replicated in lightweight concrete. All other terracotta was preserved or replaced in the same material. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the San Remo as a city landmark in March 1987. As a result, the LPC was obliged to review all proposed changes to the exterior. The board planned to replace the multi-paned windows with three-pane windows that resembled the original design. Due to the high cost of renovating the windows, the San Remo's co-op board decided to replace the windows only when apartments had been vacated. The exterior restoration ultimately lasted about one decade.


title: The San Remo

text: By 1996, units in buildings on Central Park West were in high demand. For instance, one unit in the San Remo was purchased after being listed for just three days, while another unit received an unusually high number of inquiries from Upper East Side residents. Another renovation of the exterior began in the late 1990s. The south tower had been restored by the end of 1999, and work on the north tower was scheduled to be conducted.


title: The San Remo

text: The San Remo's board voted in 2000 to impose a six-month time limit for apartment renovations, imposing heavy fines on residents who violated the rule. Many residents had complained that director Steven Spielberg and entrepreneur Steve Jobs were conducting multi-year renovations of their respective apartments. In 2006, the San Remo's co-op board banned residents from using fireplaces. By the end of the decade, prices exceeded $3 million even for comparatively small apartments with two bedrooms. Some residents owned their apartments for long periods. When an apartment in the south tower was placed for sale in 2010, only one south-tower apartment had been sold in the preceding 16 years. In another case in 2011, the previous owner had resided in the apartment since the 1950s.


title: The San Remo

text: The San Remo attracted many residents in the entertainment industry, especially as compared to other Central Park West buildings, where wealthy people lived in relative obscurity. By the 2010s, many of the celebrities who had lived in the San Remo had moved out, and a growing proportion of residents worked in the finance industry. Among the remaining celebrities in the San Remo in 2017 were musician Bono and actor Steve Martin.


title: The San Remo

text: According to a 1996 article in "New York" magazine, many brokers classified the San Remo as one of five top-tier apartment buildings on Central Park West, largely because of its high concentration of celebrities and its views of the Lake in Central Park. The others were 88 Central Park West, 101 Central Park West, the Dakota, and the Beresford. "The Real Deal" wrote in 2017: "The building’s individuality, its willingness to boast, is [...] reflected in its high-profile residents." Notable residents have included:


title: The San Remo

text: The San Remo's co-op board has a reputation for "lenient admissions standards" compared to the conservative, old-money boards on the other side of the park. Nonetheless, in 1985, the co-op board voted against allowing performer Madonna to buy an apartment in the building. Tenants cited concerns that Madonna's presence would attract paparazzi, although, at the time, nude pictures of her had recently circulated in "Playboy" and "Penthouse" magazines. Madonna ultimately bought another apartment on Central Park West; the San Remo's board eventually approved her application more than two decades later, in 2008. The co-op board also voted against allowing fashion designer Calvin Klein to move into the San Remo. Steve Jobs bought and renovated a penthouse apartment but never lived in it, ultimately selling it to Bono in 2003.


title: The San Remo

text: In the early 21st century, residents of the San Remo were among the biggest donors to the U.S. Democratic Party, and resident Andrew Tobias was treasurer of the Democratic National Committee. The San Remo's residents donated more to the John Kerry 2004 presidential campaign than residents of any other building in the United States, giving Kerry $192,000 by April 2004. During that election, "The New York Observer" described the San Remo as "the financial anchor for New York's left coast", because contributions from the San Remo overwhelmingly went to Democratic candidates. In September 2012, "New York Times" columnists wrote "for the past few elections, the San Remo has been an ATM for Democratic presidential campaigns", though contributions through July 2012 favored Romney over Obama, $331,625 to $101,367.


title: The San Remo

text: Because the San Remo was the earliest twin-towered apartment building on Central Park West, its completion attracted large amounts of commentary from the press. "The New York Times" characterized it as "an imposing addition to the tall structures overlooking Central Park". In March 1931, the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects presented a model of the San Remo Towers, describing it as "an interesting development of the new dwellings law where large plottage permits the erection of towers". George S. Chappell, writing under the pseudonym "T-Square", praised the design of the casement windows in "The New Yorker".


title: The San Remo

text: Several observers also commented specifically on the San Remo's towers. Chappell wrote that the towers "are fine in silhouette". In the 1970s, Paul Goldberger described the San Remo as "the best of the four twin‐towered buildings that bring such splendid life to the Central Park West skyline", at a time when Roth's firm mostly designed buildings with glass facades. Carter B. Horsley of "The New York Times" described the spires in 1972 as having been included "almost as an excuse to imitate the architecture of the past". Horsley subsequently listed the San Remo as having one of the ten best water-tower enclosures in New York City. The writer Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis said in 2021: "The San Remo's Choragic towers served as outward markers of architectural elegance that could be used to lend distinction to broad, tall apartment buildings that might otherwise run the risk of being drably similar to one another."


title: The San Remo

text: The building's architectural style and materials were also the subject of commentary. Goldberger favorably compared the San Remo's classical design with that of the Majestic, which was designed at exactly the same time in a modern Art Deco style. John Freeman Gill of the "Times" wrote in 2005 that the San Remo was one of several buildings on Central Park West whose bases exhibited "the comfortable old solidity of limestone". Eric Nash, in his 2005 book "Manhattan Skyscrapers", wrote that "the towers play powerfully against the background element of the sky, etching the setback image in negative space", similarly to the Petronas Towers.


title: The San Remo

text: In the late 20th and early 21st century, the San Remo generally had a reputation for being luxurious. In 1996, a writer for "Interior Design" magazine said the San Remo was "among the Upper West Side's top-drawer co-ops, the buildings that evoke the basic emotions of lust and envy when one thinks-or dreams-of the apartments within". During the 2000s, "The New York Times" said the presence of Central Park West's "architectural gems", such as the San Remo, contributed to increased housing prices on the eastern side of Central Park, along Fifth Avenue. "The Wall Street Journal" referred to the Beresford, the Dakota, and the San Remo as the "three grand dames of the West Side". Additionally, the artist Max Ferguson created an oil painting of the San Remo in 2004. Several books have used the painting on their covers, including a 2011 edition of the Jack Finney novel "Time and Again".


title: The San Remo

text: The building is a contributing property to the Central Park West Historic District, which was recognized by the U.S. National Register of Historic Places when its nomination was accepted on November 9, 1982. In 1984, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) hosted hearings to determine whether the Century, Majestic, San Remo, Beresford, and El Dorado should be designated as city landmarks. Manhattan Community Board 7 supported all five designations, but the San Remo's co-op board was concerned about whether a landmark designation would hinder the replacement of windows on the building. The LPC designated the San Remo as a city landmark on March 31, 1987. The San Remo is also part of the Upper West Side Historic District, which became a New York City historic district in 1990.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: Jevon Kearse (born September 3, 1976), nicknamed "the Freak", is a former American football player who was a defensive end in the National Football League (NFL) for eleven seasons during the late 1990s and 2000s. Kearse played college football for the University of Florida, where he received All-American honors and was named the SEC Defensive Player of the Year in 1998.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: Kearse was selected by the Tennessee Titans in the first round pick of the 1999 NFL Draft. He also played for the Philadelphia Eagles for four seasons between his two stints with the Titans. During his first five years with the Titans, he was a three-time Pro Bowl selection and NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year in 1999. His speed (4.43-second 40-yard dash) and wingspan, coupled with a vertical leap, greatly impressed coaches and earned him the nickname "The Freak".


title: Jevon Kearse

text: Kearse was born on September 3, 1976, in Fort Myers, Florida. He attended North Fort Myers High School in North Fort Myers, and played high school football for the North Fort Myers Red Knights. He was over tall and extremely agile, and added muscle without a loss of speed and agility. Kearse began attracting college recruiters under his coach Wade Hummel. He played strong safety and tight end, and in his first season in high school, he returned four kicks for touchdowns.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: Following Kearse's senior season in 1994, he was honored as a prep All-American by "USA Today". In addition to his demonstrated athletic ability on the playing field, he carried a 3.6 grade point average and was a member of the National Honor Society.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: Starting college at 6 feet, 4 inches tall, and 215 pounds, Kearse was projected as either a linebacker or defensive back. He accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he played for coach Steve Spurrier's Florida Gators football team from 1995 to 1998. He began his college career at safety before shifting to outside linebacker in 1996. Later in his college career, he would occasionally line up at defensive end during obvious passing situations to intensify the Gators' pass rush.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: The Gators coaches red-shirted Kearse for the 1995 season, and he watched the Gators' run for the 1995 national championship game from the sidelines. The Gators lost to the Nebraska Cornhuskers 62–24 in the national championship game, marking Florida's only loss of the season. He was nicknamed "the Freak" by Southeastern Conference (SEC) opponents during the Gators' 1996 season. In his debut game against Southwest Louisiana, he accounted for six solo tackles and a sack. The Florida Gators would go on to win the national title, defeating Florida State Seminoles 52–20 in the 1997 Sugar Bowl. For his on-field accomplishments, Kearse was named to the All-SEC Freshman team. In a tragic counterpoint, his younger brother Jermaine was killed in a drive-by-shooting following the season.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: Kearse made the All-SEC team in 1997 for the first time by registering a team high 6.5 sacks during the regular season as well as 38 tackles and two forced fumbles. In his 1998 campaign, he once again led the team with 7.5 sacks and also improved his tackles tally to 54. He was named All-SEC again and earned the AP SEC Defensive Player of the Year that season, as well as making the list of several different All-American teams, and was a finalist for the Butkus Award, Lombardi Award, and Chuck Bednarik college defensive player of the year award.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: He opted to forgo his final season of eligibility, stating, "I think I've accomplished the four goals I wanted to when I attended the University of Florida: To become a better person, to win a national championship, to get an education and finally to have a chance to play in the NFL."


title: Jevon Kearse

text: During his college career, Kearse made 34.5 tackles for a loss, finishing eleventh on the Gators' all-time list. He also compiled 145 total tackles, 16.5 quarterback sacks, six forced fumbles, one interception, one recovered fumble, and 19 pass deflections. In an article series written for "The Gainesville Sun" in 2006, the "Sun" sportswriters ranked him as #16 among the top 100 greatest Gators from the first 100 years of Florida football.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: Kearse, at 262 pounds, ran a 4.58 second 40-yard dash, 4.24 second 20-yard shuttle, and had a vertical jump of 37 inches at the 1999 NFL Combine. Kearse lowered his 40-yard time to 4.43 at the University of Florida Pro Day in the spring of 1999.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: Kearse was drafted by the Tennessee Titans as the 16th pick of the first round. On July 28, 1999, he signed a five-year, $6.1 million contract; however, according to NFLPA records he earned incentives that increased Kearse's compensation in his first five years to nearly $9 million. He was the first player drafted by the Tennessee Titans; who had previously been the Houston Oilers.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: In Kearse's debut game with the Titans, he helped them achieve a 36–35 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. Steve McNair had been injured, and with backup quarterback Neil O'Donnell in his place, Kearse helped lead the Titans to win the next four out of five games. In the first month of his NFL career, he was named NFL Defensive Rookie of the Month.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: For all but one month of the season, he was named NFL Defensive Rookie of the Month, and ended up becoming NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year with the help of his rookie record-breaking performance with 14.5 sacks (which led the AFC) that year and forced eight fumbles, which also led the NFL. He also recorded 57 tackles and he batted away nine passes while also making seven of his tackles for losses. He accounted for two sacks (quarterback Rob Johnson) and two forced fumbles in the AFC wild card game vs. the Buffalo Bills. He was also credited with a safety in that game known as the "Music City Miracle." Kearse was also second in the balloting for the AP Defensive Player of the Year, losing out to Warren Sapp. He was a consensus All-Pro and was the first rookie defensive end in AFC history and the first rookie DE in the NFL since Detroit's Al "Bubba" Baker in 1978 to be named a Pro Bowl starter. That year, the Titans made it to Super Bowl XXXIV in which he started; however, they lost to the Kurt Warner-led St. Louis Rams.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: The next season, Kearse accounted for fewer sacks (11.5) but stated that he was playing better than his rookie season. The Titans lost their Divisional playoff games to the Baltimore Ravens who ended up winning the Super Bowl that season. Kearse also lost the NFL Defensive Player of the Year award to Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens. In addition, he totaled 53 tackles (six for losses), forced four fumbles, had six pass deflections, and was again voted to the Pro Bowl.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: In 2001, Kearse moved from left defensive end to right defensive end as the Titans traded for Kevin Carter. Kearse responded well and recorded 10 sacks, forced three fumbles, batted two passes while recording 36 tackles. Kearse was voted to his third consecutive Pro Bowl with the Titans in 2001. In 2002, Kearse fractured the fifth metatarsal in his left foot on the second play from scrimmage against the Eagles in the season opener and was inactive for the next 12 games. Due to the injury Kearse recorded only two sacks, playing in only four games (starting one), as the Titans returned to the AFC championship game but lost to Oakland.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: In 2003, Kearse recorded 9.5 sacks through the first nine games but was shut out the final seven games (he missed two due to a sprained ankle injury). He also played a key role on the 2003 Titans who made the playoffs and won their first-round game against Baltimore before losing a hard-fought divisional match against the eventual world champion New England Patriots.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: After his 2003 campaign, Kearse was unable to reach an agreement with the Titans after his contract expired, and thus became an unrestricted free agent. The Philadelphia Eagles signed Kearse to a record-breaking deal for a defensive lineman at the time; in all, the eight-year contract would pay Kearse $65 million, with a $16 million signing bonus.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: Kearse played well with the Eagles in 2004, but his tackle and sack totals were not as high as he had previously achieved in his career with the Titans. He was, however, still a defensive force, and figured into the game plans of opposing offenses. During 2004, Philadelphia finished the season with a 13–3 record and earned home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. After eliminating the Minnesota Vikings and the Atlanta Falcons, the Eagles lost Super Bowl XXXIX 24–21 to the New England Patriots.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: In 2005, Kearse had a solid year similar to the year before, yet his team fell to a 6–10 record. During the season, starters like Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook, Hank Fraley, Tra Thomas, Lito Sheppard, and others were out with injuries, and star wide receiver Terrell Owens was suspended from the team nine games into the season. He recorded 7.5 sacks for the second season in a row (also leading the Eagles in sacks for the second straight season), but in 2005 he batted down 8 passes and forced 3 fumbles.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: 2006 would be a short season for Kearse who recorded 3.5 sacks in the first two games of the season before a severe knee injury. It was feared that he tore several ligaments in his knee, as well as dislocating his kneecap, tearing his knee capsule, straining his quadriceps tendon, and injuring his hamstring, during an overtime game against the New York Giants in week 2 of the NFL season. When he went into surgery, however, doctors were surprised to see that almost everything in his knee was intact, except for a tear to the lateral meniscus cartilage and a fracture to his tibia. The injury was downgraded from possibly career-ending to just a 12-week recovery.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: However, Kearse did not appear to have regained his burst on the line and, in light of substandard production, he lost his starting job to longtime teammate Juqua Thomas in Week 11 of the 2007 NFL season. Due to this lack of production, along with the expensive contract Kearse carried, many predicted that he would be cut by the start of the 2008 season. This speculation turned out to be well-founded; he was released by the team on February 28, 2008, voiding the final three years of his contract. In his four years with Philadelphia, Kearse earned nearly $29.2 million of his record-setting 2004 contract.


title: Jevon Kearse

text: On March 6, 2008, Kearse returned to the Titans by signing with the team as a free agent. Kearse signed a two-year, $6 million deal, with a $1.3 million signing bonus. He earned a total of $3 million in the first year. Kearse started all 16 games in 2008, finishing with 3.5 sacks. During the 2009 season, Jeff Fisher decided to bench Kearse for William Hayes.


title: Kathy Sledge

text: Kathy Sledge (born January 6, 1959) is an American singer–songwriter and producer. Sledge is best known as the youngest and founding member of Sister Sledge, an American vocal group which is made up of her sisters that formed in 1971.


title: Kathy Sledge

text: After achieving success beginning the late–1970s thru the mid–1980s with Sister Sledge, Sledge embarked on her solo career in 1989. Sledge has had several hits on the International Pop and Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart, including "Take Me Back to Love Again", which hit #1 in 1992.


title: Kathy Sledge

text: Born in Philadelphia, Sledge was the youngest child born to Edwin (1922–1996), a former Broadway star of dance-tap duo 'Fred and Sledge' and Florez (née Williams; 1928–2007). Her siblings are Norma Carol Blackmon, Debra, Joan and Kim Sledge. Sledges' grandmother Viola Williams was a opera singer. For high school, Sledge attended Olney High School; graduating in 1977. After completing high school, Sledge continued her education at Temple University; majoring in Recreational Opportunities for the disabled.


title: Kathy Sledge

text: Sledge along with her sisters formed Sister Sledge in 1971. Sledge performed the lead vocals on the two Top 10 US hits the group had on the Hot 100, "He's the Greatest Dancer" and "We Are Family" which were released in 1979. Sledge left the group and embarked on a solo career in 1989. In 1992, Sledge released a solo album, "Heart", which peaked at #86 on the R&B charts. The album produced two singles, "Take Me Back to Love Again" (US R&B #24) and "All of My Love" (US R&B #57). Sledge collaborated with dance producer Robert Miles on the dance/pop single "Freedom" 1997. She returned to the dance chart in 2001 as a featured vocalist for King Britt's musical project Sylk 130 on the track "Rising".


title: Kathy Sledge

text: In 2011, Sledge released a track called "Give Yourself Up" on Universal Records, featuring Adam Barta, and produced by Mike Rizzo and Mr. Mig, which hit Top 20 on the Billboard Hot Club Play Chart. In September 2013, Sledge was the first signing of the new Pacific Electronic Music record label formed by Jerry L. Greenberg (former President of Atlantic Records), Max Martire & Lenny Ibizarre. On September 25, 2013, Sledge received an "Outstanding Contribution to Music" award at the 16th DJ Awards at Pacha, Ibiza. and performed the new Aristofreeks remix of "We Are Family". The first release of the five remixes of "We Are Family" that she re-recorded with the Aristofreeks were released on November 11, 2013. Sledge also has a single together with the same group, "Keep It Moving" (2014), which went up to the No. 2 spot on the US Dance chart.


title: Kathy Sledge

text: Sledge has been married once and has two children. Sledge has been married to musician Philip Lightfoot since 1981 and together they have two children, Kristen (b. 1983) and Phillip Jr. (b. 1985). Kathy's life with her sisters, after their initial fame, was somewhat tumultuous. There is still a genuine love between the sisters. As she describes, "all families butt heads and while we fight, we still love each other."


title: Egypt Station

text: Egypt Station is the 17th solo studio album by English singer-songwriter Paul McCartney, released on 7 September 2018 through Capitol Records.


title: Egypt Station

text: "Egypt Station" was produced by Greg Kurstin and co-produced by McCartney, with the exception of one track produced by Ryan Tedder. The album is McCartney's first studio release since 2013's "New". The album's first (double A-side) single, consisting of the two songs "I Don't Know" and "Come On to Me", was released on 20 June 2018.


title: Egypt Station

text: The name "Egypt Station" is shared by one of McCartney's paintings from 1988, from which the cover art is derived. It became his first number one album in the United States since 1982's "Tug of War" and his first to debut atop the "Billboard" 200.


title: Egypt Station

text: "Egypt Station" was recorded in studios in Los Angeles, London, São Paulo, and Sussex. McCartney began working with producer Greg Kurstin some time after the release of his 2013 album "New" and mentioned their working together several times leading up to the 20 June 2018 announcement of "Egypt Station"s release.


title: Egypt Station

text: McCartney also wrote and recorded three songs with Ryan Tedder. Two of the songs, "Fuh You" and "Nothing for Free", were released on the album. The song "Get Enough" was also recorded with Tedder for the album, but was instead released New Year's Day 2019 as a non-album single.


title: Egypt Station

text: "Egypt Station" contains 16 tracks, including opening and penultimate ambient pieces entitled "Opening Station" and "Station II", respectively. Tracks include the singles "I Don't Know" and "Come On to Me". "Happy with You" is described as "acoustic meditation on present day contentedness," "People Want Peace" is called a "timeless anthem that would fit on virtually any album of any McCartney era", and "Despite Repeated Warnings" is called "an epic multi-movement closer".


title: Egypt Station

text: "I liked the words 'Egypt Station.' It reminded me of the 'album' albums we used to make. ... 'Egypt Station' starts off at the station on the first song, and then each song is like a different station. So it gave us some idea to base all the songs around that. I think of it as a dream location that the music emanates from."


title: Egypt Station

text: In the promotional event "Casual Conversation," McCartney further clarified his creative process behind recording "Egypt Station" and described it as a loose concept album.


title: Egypt Station

text: On 10 June 2018, all content was removed from McCartney's Instagram page. That day, all of McCartney's social media pages began posting cryptic photos of symbols and McCartney playing various instruments, fueling speculation of an impending announcement. The title "Egypt Station" was first announced on 18 June 2018, McCartney's 76th birthday. One day later, McCartney officially announced the release of the album's first (double A-side) single, consisting of the two songs "I Don't Know" and "Come On to Me". The two songs were released on 20 June 2018. The same day, McCartney's website officially announced the title and release date of "Egypt Station", also providing information on the album's recording and creative process.


title: Egypt Station

text: McCartney agreed to film a "Carpool Karaoke" segment for "The Late Late Show with James Corden" in Liverpool on 9 June 2018. As part of the segment, McCartney played a small gig at Liverpool's Philharmonic Dining Rooms, where he performed "Come On to Me" live for the first time. The segment was broadcast the week of 17 June 2018 in conjunction with the release of the album's first single. An extended version of the segment, titled "When Corden Met McCartney (Live from Liverpool)", was broadcast by CBS on 20 August 2018.


title: Egypt Station

text: On 3 July 2018, the Freshen Up tour was announced through the official McCartney website. The tour started on 17 September 2018 in Quebec City, Canada.


title: Egypt Station

text: On 19 July 2018, McCartney posted an image on his Instagram asking fans, "Why do you think you should attend a secret event in London with Paul next week"? Fans were asked to "post a short video using the hashtag #UnderTheStaircase". The winners of the contest were treated to a secret concert at Abbey Road Studios with a number of other celebrity guests in attendance. The set list included four songs from the upcoming album, including "Come On to Me" and the live debuts of "Confidante", "Fuh You", and a song that had been previously unmentioned, called "Who Cares". Later the same week, McCartney played a surprise concert at The Cavern Club in Liverpool.


title: Egypt Station

text: On 25 July 2018, McCartney held a talk titled "Casual Conversation" at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA). Moderated by Jarvis Cocker, the event was live-streamed on Facebook, and he answered questions from LIPA students as well as viewers online.


title: Egypt Station

text: On 15 August 2018, McCartney released "Fuh You" as the second single from the album. On 3 September 2018, McCartney's YouTube channel released a series of videos titled ""Egypt Station" – Words Between the Tracks". The videos feature McCartney briefly describing the composition and inspiration of each track from the standard edition album.


title: Egypt Station

text: On 7 September 2018, to celebrate the launch of the album, McCartney performed a "secret" concert at Grand Central Terminal that was live-streamed on YouTube. Music only videos of each performance were later uploaded to his YouTube channel.


title: Egypt Station

text: During the lead-up promotion to the album's release date, lyric videos were released on YouTube for the first singles "Come On To Me", "I Don't Know", and "Fuh You". Since "Egypt Station"'s release, official music videos were released for "Fuh You", "Back In Brazil" and "Come On To Me". The music videos are a creative departure from many of McCartney's previous music videos in that they each focus on the lives of ordinary people with McCartney only appearing briefly (on stage) in the conclusion of "Back In Brazil".


title: Egypt Station

text: "Egypt Station" has been well received by music critics. On Metacritic, the album has an overall score of 74 out of 100 compiled from the scores of 25 music critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".


title: Egypt Station

text: In the review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine opined that "all the slower songs are peppered with haunting images of darkness creeping at the edges, while McCartney revives the carnality that marked 'Press' – not just on the straightforward 'Fuh You,' but 'Come on to Me,' a considerably better song than the Tedder exercise. Such twists are welcome, but what's satisfying about "Egypt Station" is what's always satisfying about a McCartney record: the hooks and imagination that are so rampant they seem effortless." Dan Stubbs from "NME" gave the album 4 out of 5 stars, saying, "McCartney’s always been about inclusivity and openness, but this latest glimpse into his life feels like a particularly enlightening one." Reviewing the album for "The Observer", Kitty Empire also gave the album 4 out of 5 stars. In the review she states that "the finest songs here land immediately and hum with urgency."


title: Egypt Station

text: Writing a four-star review in "Rolling Stone", Rob Sheffield claimed, "Make a list of all the songwriters who were composing great tunes in 1958. Now make an overlapping list of the ones who are still writing brilliant songs in 2018. Your list reads: Paul McCartney." Chris Willman at "Variety" stated, "If it doesn't make for McCartney's most coherent collection, it's endearing how enthusiastically he strives, at 76, to avoid doing just one thing when he can do a dozen. Bitch, he's Macca."


title: Egypt Station

text: In 2019, "Egypt Station" was nominated for the Fryderyk Music Award (in Poland) for the best foreign album of 2018, but did not win, losing the award to "Anthem of the Peaceful Army" by Greta Van Fleet.


title: Egypt Station

text: "Egypt Station" debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200 in the issue dated 22 September 2018, earning 153,000 album equivalent units (of which 147,000 were pure album sales). It is McCartney's first US number one album since "Tug of War" in 1982, as well as his eighth number one album overall and his first to debut atop the chart. The album dropped to number eight in its second week, earning an additional 37,000 album-equivalent units in the United States.


title: Egypt Station

text: All tracks produced by Greg Kurstin and McCartney, except "Fuh You" by Ryan Tedder and McCartney, "Nothing for Free" and "Get Enough" by Ryan Tedder, Zach Skelton and McCartney.


title: Kim Burgess

text: Kimberly "Kim" Burgess is a fictional character from the American police procedural "Chicago P.D.", played by Marina Squerciati. She made her first appearance in the pilot episode "Stepping Stone", which was broadcast on NBC on January 8, 2014. Burgess is a patrol officer of the Chicago Police Department's 21st District. She also appears in a recurring role in "Chicago Fire". As of season 4, she is an officer with the Intelligence Unit.


title: Kim Burgess

text: On August 28, 2013, Nellie Andreeva from "Deadline Hollywood" reported that actress Marina Squerciati had been cast in the regular role of Kim Burgess in "Chicago Fire" spin-off series "Chicago P.D." Burgess was initially billed as "a feisty, sassy former flight attendant-turned-cop whose beauty belies a formidable inner strength." Following the conclusion of the first season, Squerciati was prepared to go back to her paralegal job, until NBC renewed "Chicago P.D." for a second season.


title: Kim Burgess

text: Squerciati took maternity leave from the show in March 2017, and Kim made her temporary departure in the season four episode "Last Minute Resistance".


title: Kim Burgess

text: Squerciati liked her character's "energy and happiness" and said, "I'm hoping that she maintains some of that joy. I think part of it is because she's green, but another part of it is because she's a driven, joyful person. She knows what she wants." Squerciati liked that Burgess was not the perfect officer and made mistakes, as she found it very relatable.


title: Kim Burgess

text: Burgess wanted to be promoted to the Intelligence Unit, but her partner Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins) was promoted over her instead. Squerciati was "taken aback" by the development and explained "when I read it, I went to executive producer Derek Haas and writer Michael Brandt and said, 'Are you kidding me? I didn't make Intelligence?' I kind of mixed up that I wasn't really Kim Burgess." The incident made Squerciati realize that she had become protective of her character and was upset for her. She also thought Burgess and Atwater's friendship would be tested by his promotion. Sgt. Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) later offered Burgess a promotion to Intelligence, but she turned it down. Squerciati commented that Burgess would question whether she had made a mistake and Squerciati hoped it was not a one-time offer.


title: Kim Burgess

text: In her fictional backstory, Burgess was a flight attendant for three years before joining the CPD Academy. A native of St. Charles, she was born sometime in 1988. Burgess starts the series as a patrol officer and a potential candidate for Intelligence. She has a good partnership with her partner, Kevin Atwater. Both are constant targets of Desk Sergeant Trudy Platt's attitude. However, they are generally able to laugh it off after shift. When a woman is caught shoplifting bread to feed her son, Burgess pays for it and threatens the unyielding shopkeeper with fines for expired licenses. In a separate incident with a hoarder, Burgess discovers a kidnapped child hidden in the woman's basement. Kim and Officer Adam Ruzek have a close working friendship, frequently spending time bantering at work. Adam even helps her get revenge on Platt, who treats Burgess and Atwater horribly. After a particularly stressful call, Adam and Kim share a kiss. Kim regrets this almost instantly as Adam is engaged. However, after he breaks off his engagement, Kim and Adam begin a romantic relationship. In season 2, after Atwater is transferred to Intelligence, she is partnered with Officer Sean Roman.


title: Kim Burgess

text: At the end of "Called in Dead", while Roman and his former partner are arguing outside, Burgess is shot in the shoulder by a shotgun shell connected to a trip wire, which was set as a trap and connected to the doorbell. Upon investigation, in "Shouldn't Have Been Alone", it is learned that the house itself was booby trapped, and it was intended for police officers, by a murderer, Spencer York. She spends two weeks on administrative duty while nursing back to health. On her first shift back, she serves as the district's desk sergeant while Platt rides with Roman. After her shooting, Sgt. Voight offers her a promotion to Intelligence, but she declines in order to remain a patrol officer.


title: Kim Burgess

text: In "What Do You Do", Burgess and Roman (while on a meal break) respond to a suspicious activity in a warehouse, which was to be a drug deal, without calling for backup. She manages to kill a suspect with a shard of glass from a window on the floor. They manage to get out of there when Ruzek calls her and she never answers, causing the Intelligence unit to go into the warehouse to catch the suspect about to drive away. Her partner is seriously wounded during the ordeal. Kim makes it back to the precinct, complimented by Platt, and garnering a slow clap from a crowd of cops for saving her partner's life and taking down the suspects.


title: Kim Burgess

text: In "There's My Girl", Burgess is promoted to Intelligence after Atwater is demoted following a suspect's suicide while in custody. In "Born Into Bad News", she accepts Ruzek's offer of marriage when she discovers he has placed an engagement ring in her locker.


title: Kim Burgess

text: At the end of "Looking Out for Stateville" Kim calls off the wedding to Ruzek, in the very same place he proposed. In doing so, Burgess then applies for a transfer to a new district in "Hit Me" which Platt is very shocked and upset to hear, surprisingly. Both Burgess and Ruzek feel devastated but try to hide it. During "Hit Me", Kim is involved in a car crash, which results Ruzek rushing to her side. She feels uncomfortable and finds an excuse to leave.


title: Kim Burgess

text: After Kim breaks up with Ruzek she starts to have feelings for her partner, Roman. This creates some tension between Roman and Ruzek.


title: Kim Burgess

text: In "Justice" Burgess is investigated for shooting a hooded man who opens fire on their patrol car whilst Burgess and Roman were kissing, when the man has no gun in his hand. The gun is however later found in the water. Roman asks Burgess to go with him to San Diego; however, after realizing that this is what she wants to do, she decides to stay in Chicago.


title: Kim Burgess

text: In season 4 "The Silos" Burgess meets her new partner, Julie Tay. In "A War Zone", Officer Tay is reassigned to her old job after her Commander Fogel goes over Platt's head in revenge of what Platt did against Fogel. Then, in "Some Friend", Sorensen becomes Burgess's partner before resigning in "A Shot Heard Around the World" due to the stress of a targeted shooting of two police officers. Burgess is offered a job in the Intelligence Unit, which she takes.


title: Kim Burgess

text: At the beginning of her time in Intelligence, she clashes with her partner Alvin Olinsky, but she eventually earns his respect in "Sanctuary" when she saves his life by taking down a suspect who holds him at gunpoint, breaking the suspect's arm in the process.


title: Kim Burgess

text: In "Little Bit of Light", Burgess' sister Nicole is in town and immediately clashes with Ruzek, before revealing to a stunned Burgess that she is getting a divorce. In "Last Minute Resistance", when her sister is found in the subway and also a victim of a brutal sexual assault, and her friend missing (later found dead from hypothermia in an abandoned parking lot); she takes the case very personally and stops at nothing to solve the case. It is revealed to be two men who had put Ketamine in women's drinks and taken advantage of them. When one of the men tries to sexually assault Burgess; she stabs him on a shoulder with a lipstick that had a knife in it, and then beats him. She takes some time off to take care of her sister and her niece.


title: Kim Burgess

text: In "The Thing About Heroes", she mentors an officer named Frank Toma. When a terrorist attack happens at a street festival that claims many lives, he goes missing with many people convinced that he had something to do with it. While clearing his name, she disobeys orders to get evidence. When she is called to the lake by Toma (knowing that there is nothing to be done) he commits suicide in front of her, leaving her distraught. It is soon discovered that a fellow officer and partner had contributed to his problems even further prior to the investigation, when he found out that he was gay and Muslim. She vows to bring him down.


title: Kim Burgess

text: Also in season-5, she starts a relationship with federal prosecutor Matt Miller. Things get rocky in "Politics", when he becomes a subject of the investigation into a Ukrainian girl's death in the Senator's hotel. She has to choose between Voight's loyalty and her boyfriend. In "Monster", she reveals to Ruzek that he is still not talking to her, leaving their relationship uncertain.


title: Kim Burgess

text: In "Confidential", she gets her first confidential informant. The informant reveals a possible murder which Burgess discounts but Upton pursues, revealing a corpse which ultimately leads to a prostitution ring. But when Burgess's informant ends up dead, Upton and Burgess butt heads on how to handle confidential informants. At the end of the episode, Burgess turns to her former lover Ruzek ending up in a one-night stand.


title: Kim Burgess

text: In "Sisterhood", she reveals that her sister's attackers only received three years, with them only serving one year for good behavior. In "Homecoming", upon hearing that her former partner, Olinsky has died from injuries sustained from the stabbing, she is distraught about the events that play out. And she is tasked by Voight to clear Olinsky's desk. She slaps the wife of a drug runner when she refuses to cooperate.


title: Kim Burgess

text: In "Ride Along", she is requested by Deputy Superintendent Brennan to do a ride-along with Kendra, the daughter of a VIP, who wants to be a police officer. Things go sideways when she is involved in a shootout while on a call by Halstead to look for a car involved in a crime. Burgess leaves Kendra in the car while she goes to help a wounded victim; when she gets back, the girl is gone. Burgess later finds the girl at her mom's apartment. Voight sits Burgess down and urges her to tell the review board the truth in her hearing the next day. While looking for the shooter, she is summoned by Brennan into her office. In her office, Brennan tells Burgess not to follow Voight's advice; she is a “female hero” and that is good PR, so she should lie and claim Kendra was not there. Conflicted, Burgess decides to take Brennan's side, and tells the review board that she was alone in her patrol car during the shooting. It gets complicated when Burgess takes testimony from a witness who claims Kendra saw the shooter, which would then destroy her lie to the review board. She runs directly to Brennan, who then acts like she never said anything about omitting Kendra, and is “confident” Burgess can find a way out of the situation. With evidence assuring that Kendra saw the shooter, she appeals to Kendra's “make a difference” desire, and gets her to come down to the district for a photo lineup. She identifies Trent as the shooter. After finding and saving Trent's life, Burgess decides that she is going to return to the review board and tell the truth. Later on, Voight snaps at her for not taking his advice, after, she punches her locker in frustration. Platt drops by and tells her to not switch sides.


title: Kim Burgess

text: In "Ties that Bind", she, along with Upton, is kidnapped by gun buyers pretending to buy the cop killer bullets from them. They are eventually rescued by her team with Upton almost killing one of the captors. In "The Forgotten", she gets into an relationship with Superintendent Kelton's mayoral election aide, Blair Williams. Their relationship later ends in "What Could Have Been", when Blair is murdered. The killer is Ray Price's wife, Alicia Price, who confesses to killing him to protect her daughter as Blair was attempting to blackmail Ray to drop out of the race. Ray ends up taking the fall for her.


title: Kim Burgess

text: In "No Regrets", after being mildly injured on the job, Burgess learns that she is pregnant. She decides to keep the baby and Ruzek stands beside her. Squerciati told the Meet Us At Molly's podcast on November 15, 2019 that the baby was originally intended to be Williams'. While temporarily working as a 911 dispatcher in "I Was Here", Burgess takes a call about a possible domestic violence incident. She follows the location of the call and finds a person has been murdered. She is physically assaulted by a sexual predator while saving the victim who made the 911 call, and she has a miscarriage.


title: Kim Burgess

text: Burgess becomes the guardian of Makayla Ward in season 8, a girl that she and Ruzek discovered walking in the streets after most of her family was murdered and her remaining relative is unable to handle the pressure of being a parent.


title: Kim Burgess

text: While searching for two people behind a major criminal operation, Burgess is kidnapped by one of them and shot by the other and left for dead in an attempt to tie up loose ends. She manages to make her way to a car before passing out due to blood loss, and is found by Halstead and Atwater after she manages to turn on the car's turn signal before passing out.


title: Kim Burgess

text: Kate Stanhope from "TV Guide" observed, "You gotta hand it to Officer Kim Burgess of Chicago P.D. She has a real knack for sniffing out trouble. It's good for the residents of the Windy City, but bad for Burgess (Marina Squerciati) and, oftentimes, her partner Officer Sean Roman (Brian Geraghty)." During her review of season 2 episode "What Do You Do", Lisa Casas for ScreenSpy praised Squerciati's performance, saying she "holds her own in an episode that was good enough, but didn't quite deliver the grit that we expect from PD." The pairing of Burgess and Ruzek has become popular with viewers, who refer to the couple with the portmanteau "Burzek".


title: Arctic Council

text: The Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum that addresses issues faced by the Arctic governments and the indigenous people of the Arctic. At present, eight countries exercise sovereignty over the lands within the Arctic Circle, and these constitute the member states of the council: Canada; Denmark; Finland; Iceland; Norway; Russia; Sweden; and the United States. Other countries or national groups can be admitted as observer states, while organizations representing the concerns of indigenous peoples can be admitted as indigenous permanent participants.


title: Arctic Council

text: The first step towards the formation of the Council occurred in 1991 when the eight Arctic countries signed the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS). The 1996 Ottawa Declaration established the Arctic Council as a forum for promoting cooperation, coordination, and interaction among the Arctic states, with the involvement of the Arctic Indigenous communities and other Arctic inhabitants on issues such as sustainable development and environmental protection. The Arctic Council has conducted studies on climate change, oil and gas, and Arctic shipping.


title: Arctic Council

text: In 2011, the Council member states concluded the Arctic Search and Rescue Agreement, the first binding treaty concluded under the council's auspices.


title: Arctic Council

text: On March 3, 2022, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the United States declared that they will not attend meetings of the Arctic Council under Russian chairmanship because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The same countries issued a second statement on June 8, 2022 that declared their intent to resume cooperation on a limited number of previously approved Arctic Council projects that do not involve Russian leadership or participation.


title: Arctic Council

text: The council is made up of member and observer states, Indigenous "permanent participants", and observer organizations.


title: Arctic Council

text: Only states with territory in the Arctic can be members of the council. The member states consist of the following:


title: Arctic Council

text: Observer status is open to non-Arctic states approved by the Council at the Ministerial Meetings that occur once every two years. Observers have no voting rights in the council. As of September 2021, thirteen non-Arctic states have observer status. Observer states receive invitations for most Council meetings. Their participation in projects and task forces within the working groups is not always possible, but this poses few problems as few observer states want to participate at such a detailed level.


title: Arctic Council

text: In 2011, the Council clarified its criteria for admission of observers, most notably including a requirement of applicants to "recognize Arctic States' sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the Arctic" and "recognize that an extensive legal framework applies to the Arctic Ocean including, notably, the Law of the Sea, and that this framework provides a solid foundation for responsible management of this ocean".


title: Arctic Council

text: Pending observer states need to request permission for their presence at each individual meeting; such requests are routine and most of them are granted. At the 2013 Ministerial Meeting in Kiruna, Sweden, the European Union (EU) requested full observer status. It was not granted, mostly because the members do not agree with the EU ban on hunting seals.


title: Arctic Council

text: The role of observers was re-evaluated, as were the criteria for admission. As a result, the distinction between permanent and ad hoc observers were dropped.


title: Arctic Council

text: Seven of the eight-member states have sizeable indigenous communities living in their Arctic areas (only Iceland does not have an indigenous community). Organizations of Arctic Indigenous Peoples can obtain the status of Permanent Participant to the Arctic Council, but only if they represent either one indigenous group residing in more than one Arctic State, or two or more Arctic indigenous peoples groups in a single Arctic state. The number of Permanent Participants should at any time be less than the number of members. The category of Permanent Participants has been created to provide for active participation and full consultation with the Arctic indigenous representatives within the Arctic Council. This principle applies to all meetings and activities of the Arctic Council.


title: Arctic Council

text: Permanent Participants may address the meetings. They may raise points of order that require an immediate decision by the chairman. Agendas of Ministerial Meetings need to be consulted beforehand with them; they may propose supplementary agenda items. When calling the biannual meetings of Senior Arctic Officials, the Permanent Participants must have been consulted beforehand. Finally, Permanent Participants may propose cooperative activities, such as projects. All this makes the position of Arctic indigenous peoples within the Arctic Council quite unique compared to the (often marginal) role of such peoples in other international governmental fora. However, decision-making in the Arctic Council remains in the hands of the eight-member states, on the basis of consensus.


title: Arctic Council

text: As of 2021, six Arctic indigenous communities have Permanent Participant status. These groups are represented by


title: Arctic Council

text: However prominent the role of indigenous peoples, the Permanent Participant status does not confer any legal recognition as peoples. The Ottawa Declaration, the Arctic Council's founding document, explicitly states (in a footnote): "The use of the term 'peoples' in this declaration shall not be construed as having any implications as regard the rights which may attach to the term under international law."


title: Arctic Council

text: The Indigenous Permanent Participants are assisted by the Arctic Council Indigenous Peoples Secretariat.


title: Arctic Council

text: Approved intergovernmental organizations and Inter-parliamentary institutions (both global and regional), as well as non-governmental organizations can also obtain Observer Status.


title: Arctic Council

text: Organizations with observer status currently include the Arctic Parliamentarians, International Union for Conservation of Nature, the International Red Cross Federation, the Nordic Council, the Northern Forum, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme; the Association of World Reindeer Herders, Oceana, the University of the Arctic, and the World Wide Fund for Nature-Arctic Programme.


title: Arctic Council

text: The Arctic Council convenes every six months somewhere in the Chair's country for a Senior Arctic Officials (SAO) meeting. SAOs are high-level representatives from the eight-member nations. Sometimes they are ambassadors, but often they are senior foreign ministry officials entrusted with staff-level coordination. Representatives of the six Permanent Participants and the official Observers also are in attendance.


title: Arctic Council

text: At the end of the two-year cycle, the Chair hosts a Ministerial-level meeting, which is the culmination of the council's work for that period. Most of the eight-member nations are represented by a Minister from their Foreign Affairs, Northern Affairs, or Environment Ministry.


title: Arctic Council

text: A formal, although non-binding, "Declaration", named for the town in which the meeting is held, sums up the past accomplishments and the future work of the council. These Declarations cover climate change, sustainable development, Arctic monitoring and assessment, persistent organic pollutants and other contaminants, and the work of the council's five Working Groups.


title: Arctic Council

text: Arctic Council members agreed to action points on protecting the Arctic but most have never materialized.


title: Arctic Council

text: Chairmanship of the Council rotates every two years. The current chair is Russia, which serves until the Ministerial meeting in 2023.