title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown holds historical significance as the location where the Liberty Bell (then known as the State House Bell) was successfully hidden by American patriots to avoid its capture by the British Army during the American Revolutionary War. After Washington's defeat at the Battle of Brandywine in Chadds Ford Township, Pennsylvania on September 11, 1777, the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia was left defenseless and American patriots began preparing for what they saw as an imminent British attack on the city. Pennsylvania's Supreme Executive Council ordered that eleven bells, including the State House Bell and the bells from Philadelphia's Christ Church and St. Peter's Church, be taken down and moved out of Philadelphia to protect them from the British, who would melt the bells down to cast into munitions. The bells were transported north to Northampton Towne (present day Allentown) by two farmers and wagon masters, John Snyder and Henry Bartholomew, and then hidden under floorboards in the basement of Zion Reformed Church in what is now Center City Allentown.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Today, a shrine and museum in the church's basement at 622 West Hamilton Street in Allentown, known as the Liberty Bell Museum, marks and celebrates the precise Allentown location where the Liberty Bell was successfully hidden for nine months from September 1777 until its June 18, 1778 return to Philadelphia following the British departure from Philadelphia.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Following the Revolutionary War, Northampton Towne began to slowly grow. Prior to American Revolution, there were 54 homes in Northampton Towne with around 330 residents. In 1782, there were 59 houses, and over a hundred cows were stabled in the town. The town was described by a visitor in 1783: "One gets a glimpse of many good stone houses, many of them very neat, and everything about the premises shows good order and attention. The people are mainly German who speak bad English and distressing German." In 1795, the "U.S. Gazetteer" described Allentown as: A handsome and flourishing town of Northampton County, pleasantly situated on the point of land formed by the junction of the Jordan Creek and Little Lehigh. It is regularly laid out and contains about ninety dwellings, a German Lutheran and a Calvinist (Zion) Church, an Academy and three merchant mills.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: In 1792, land north of Allentown was purchased by the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company for mining. However, it proved difficult to transport coal over the primitive trail system that then existed so very little was mined until 1818 when the company began constructing the Lehigh Canal to transport coal from Mauch Chunk (today's Jim Thorpe) to Easton down the Lehigh River to the river's merger with the Delaware River in Easton. In 1829, the Lehigh Canal, a long canal on the Lehigh River's east side, was completed for both ascending and descending navigation. Its construction was the single most important factor in making anthracite coal one of America's most important domestic and industrial fuels. However, the operational life of the canal was short. In 1855, the first railroad was built on the west side of the Lehigh River and rail transport led to a steady decline in canal traffic.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Until 1803, residents of Northampton Towne received their mail in Bethlehem. That year, however, a post office was established inside the Compass and Square Hotel at what today is the Penn National Bank building on Hamilton Street. After reaching a population of over 700 residents in the 1810 U.S. census, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania gave Northampton Towne legal standing on March 18, 1811, incorporating it as the Borough of Northampton in what then was Northampton County. The first business of the new borough government was ordering that cows be moved from public streets and into pastures, which proved unpopular. In 1812, Lehigh County was established by partitioning a section of Northampton County. Northampton was designated as the city's first county seat.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: In the early 1800s, Allen's town, or Allentown, as the borough began to be called since it was no longer a part of Northampton County, continued to grow primarily as a court and market town. The name became so common that, in 1838, the city's name was officially changed to Allentown. The first bank, the Northampton Bank, was chartered in July 1814 at the northeast corner of Center Square. Also during this period the first Hamilton Street Bridge, a -long chain structure, was constructed over the Lehigh River. The bridge featured two suspended lanes, one for east and one for westbound traffic, and a toll house at the bridge's western end.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: The 1840s were challenging to Allentown. In 1841, a flood swept away Hamilton Street Bridge and inflicted substantial damage on the areas of the city located by the river. Two years later, in 1843, Northampton Bank failed due to excessive speculation by the bank, resulting in financial ruin for many families. Then, on June 1, 1848, a large fire burned down most of Allentown's Central Business District between Seventh and Eighth Streets on Hamilton Street. During the 1850s, however, the city began recovering economically. A new bridge was built across the Lehigh River, and brick buildings were constructed to replace the wooden ones that were burned in the 1848 fire. In 1852, the first Allentown Fair was held.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: On April 13, 1861, as tensions between America's North and South began increasing and several southern states voted to secede, residents of Lehigh and Northampton counties called a public meeting in Easton to consider the posture of affairs and to take steps to support of the national government. At the meeting, citizens voted to establish and equip a new military unit, the 1st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, and placed Tilghman H. Good of South Whitehall Township, the commander of Pennsylvania National Guard's 4th Regimenet at the time, in charge of the unit, assigning him the rank of lieutenant colonel. Good previously served as captain of the Allen Rifles, a Lehigh County militia established in 1849, and later went on to be a three term mayor of Allentown. Captain Samuel Yohe of Easton was appointed colonel of the 1st Pennsylvania Volunteers and Thomas W. Lynn was awarded the rank of major. William H. Gausler, the leader of another Allentown-based militia, the Jordan Artillerists, was later placed in charge of Allen Rifles.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Following the Union Army's defeat at the Battle of Fort Sumter and the fort's April 14, 1861 surrender to Confederate forces, Allentown deployed the Allen Infantry, also known as the "Allen Guards", to defend the national capital of Washington, D.C. in response to Lincoln's April 15, 1861 proclamation. During three months of service, which lasted until July 23, 1861, these Allentonians constituted the first of five Pennsylvania units that guarded the nation's capital from Confederate attack. In recognition of this early service, the soldiers from this Allentown infantry unit became known as Pennsylvania First Defenders.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: On August 5, 1861, Andrew Curtin, then Pennsylvania's governor, granted authority to Good to raise a new regiment, and Good developed the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment. Good secured help from William H. Gausler of Allentown, who was commissioned as a major with the regiment's central command staff, and John Peter Shindel Gobin, an officer with the Sunbury Guards in Northumberland County, who had been given the authority to form his own unit and later became a Pennsylvania state senator and the state's lieutenant governor.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: The 47th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment included several units with Companies B, G, I, and K recruited from Allentown, Company F recruited from Catasaqua, Companies A and E being recruited from Easton, Company C recruited from Sunbury, and Companies D and H recruited from Perry County. The only Pennsylvania regiment to fight in the Union Army's 1864 Red River campaign Deep South's Trans-Mississippi theater, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers proved immediately effective, helping turn the Civil War in the Union's favor with victories in the Battle of St. Johns Bluff in Florida (October 1–3, 1862), the Battle of Pocotaligo in South Carolina (October 21–23, 1862), and General Sheridan's 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaign, including the Battles of Berryville, Opequan, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek in Virginia, and in again contributing to the defense of the nation's capital following Lincoln's assassination in April 1865. Other known Union Army units from Allentown included the 5th, 41st, 128th, and 176th Pennsylvania Infantries.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: On October 19, 1899, Allentown erected and dedicated the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, which still stands in the city's center square at Seventh and Hamilton Streets, in honor of Union soldiers from Allentown and local Lehigh Valley towns and boroughs who were killed in defense of the Union in the Civil War.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: The opening of the Lehigh Canal quickly transformed Allentown and the surrounding Lehigh Valley from a rural agricultural area dominated by German-speaking people into one America's first urbanized industrialized areas and expanded the city's commercial and industrial capacity. With this, Allentown underwent significant industrialization, ultimately becoming a major center for heavy industry and manufacturing.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown's industrial development accelerated in the late 18th century. David Deshler, Allentown's first shopkeeper, opened a sawmill in the city in 1782. By 1814, industrial plants in the city included flour mills, sawmills, two saddle makers, a tannery and tan yard, a woolen mill, a card weaving plant, two gunsmiths, two tobacconists, two clock-makers, and two printers. In 1855, the first railroads to reach Allentown were opened, representing direct competition for the Lehigh Canal's coal transport. The Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad ordered four locomotives and stations to be built in Allentown, Easton, and Mauch Chunk. The railroad became operational in September 1855 with connections to New York City made through the Central Railroad of New Jersey and connections with Philadelphia made through Perkiomen Railroad, which operated between Norristown and Freemansburg.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: In the 1840s, iron ore beds were discovered in the hills around Allentown, and a furnace was constructed in 1846 by Allentown Iron Core Company for production of pig iron. The furnace opened in 1847 under the supervision of Samuel Lewis, an expert in iron production, leading to the opening of other Allentown plants for production of a wide variety of metal products. Allentown Rolling Mill Company was created in 1860 from a merger of several smaller companies and became the most significant iron company in the city. Although not as large as the iron and steel industry in neighboring Bethlehem in the latter half of the 19th century, Allentown became a major national hub for the nation's iron production.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: In 1850, Henry Leh contributed significantly to Allentown's industrialization with the opening of a shoe and ready-to-wear clothing store called Leh's. By 1861, Leh's provided the Union Army with much-needed military boots. During the Civil War, in addition to Leh's, eight brick yards, a saw mill, the Allentown Paint factory, two additional shoe factories, a piano factory, flour mills, breweries, and distilleries opened in Allentown.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown Boiler Works was founded in Allentown in 1883 by Charles Collum. He and his partner John D. Knouse built a large facility at Third and Gordon Streets in Allentown's First Ward near the Lehigh Valley Railroad yard by Jeter's Island (later named Kline's Island). The company manufactured iron products, some of which were used in constructing the White House and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The company's boilers and kilns were used nationally and abroad in Canada, Cuba, and the Philippines.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: In addition to its iron and railroad industries, Allentown developed a strong beer brewing industry, which included several notable breweries, the Horlacher Brewery (founded 1897, closed 1978), Neuweiler Brewery (founded 1875, closed 1968), and Schaefer Beer, whose brewery was later acquired by Pabst and Guinness and is now owned by the Boston Beer Company (brewer of Samuel Adams beer).


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Brickworks flourished in Allentown until the end of World War I. The clay unearthed in various sections of the Allentown area proved highly suitable in manufacturing building brick and fire brick. Bricks were the first Allentown products shipped by rail and sold nationally. Food processing started in Allentown following the arrival of bakers, who were among Allentown's first settlers. In 1887, Wilson Arbogast and Morris C. Bastian formed Arbogast and Bastian, where commercial slaughtering was done on a large scale.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: With industrialization, Allentown also became a major banking and finance center. In 1860, William H. Ainey founded Allentown Savings and was chosen its first president. In 1863–64, the Second National Bank of Allentown was formed, and Ainey was elected its first president, a position he held until the time of his death. Ainey contributed to Allentown's industrial and retail growth, helping finance The Iowa Barb Wire Company, which was later absorbed by American Steel & Wire, Pioneer Silk Factory, Palace Silk Mill, and Allentown Spinning Company.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: In the late 1870s, Allentown's iron industry collapsed, leaving the city economically depressed. To prevent this from recurring, efforts were made to diversify the city's industrial base, which included convincing Phoenix Manufacturing Company to open a silk mill in Allentown. Adelaide Mill at Race and Court Streets prompted the opening of Pioneer Silk Mill in 1886, and the city emerged as one of the nation's leading silk manufacturing centers. The silk industry emerged as Allentown's largest industry and remained so until the late 20th century. By 1914, there were 26 silk mills in Allentown. By 1928, when rayon was introduced, the number grew to 85. Over 10,000 people were employed in the Allentown silk industry at the industry's height during the 1940s.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: In 1905, Jack and Gus Mack moved their motor car plant, Mack Trucks, from Brooklyn to Allentown, taking over foundries of Weaver-Hirsh company on South 10th Street. By 1914, Mack Trucks developed a global reputation for manufacturing sturdy and reliable trucks and vehicles. Many were sent to Western Front battlefields in France before the U.S. formally entered World War I in 1917. The British gave Mack AC's five and seven-ton trucks the nickname "Bulldog". Mack eventually grew to have eight manufacturing plants in Allentown and adopted the bulldog as it corporate brand.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Max Hess, a retailer, visited Allentown in 1896 on a business trip and set about developing Allentown's first department store. He moved his family from Perth Amboy, New Jersey to Allentown in 1897, and he and his brother Charles opened Hess Brothers on Ninth and Hamilton Streets. Hess Brothers developed a reputation for its flamboyance, offering the latest European fashion apparel. Zollinger-Harned Company, housed in the Zollinger-Harned Company Building on Hamilton Street, became Allentown's third major department store.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: In the post-World War II era, on October 11, 1945, Western Electric opened a plant on Allentown's Union Boulevard and, on October 1, 1951, the world's first transistor production began at the plant. Western Electric's Allentown plant quickly emerged as a national leader in the post-war electronics revolution.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: The Pennsylvania guide, compiled by the Writers' Program of the Works Progress Administration, described the impact that Allentown's historical patterns of immigration and the Pennsylvania Dutch community had on Allentown's linguistic landscape in the first half of the 20th century, noting in 1940 that:


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: By the mid-20th century, Allentown was a major retailing and entertainment center separate from Philadelphia and New York City. The establishment of Hess's, Leh's, and Zollinger department stores led to the growth of the retail sector in the city and dozens of smaller retail stores, restaurants, hotels, banks, and professional offices in the city emerged in what was then was called "downtown Allentown" and today is Center City Allentown). At least seven cinemas and stage theaters were developed along Hamilton Street between Fifth and Tenth Streets.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: By the mid-1960s, Allentown's economy had been booming for decades, but rising taxes in the city and the inability to expand the city's geographic limits led to migration of much of the city's baby boom generation to Allentown's suburbs. Salisbury, South Whitehall and Whitehall townships each had large areas of farmland that were prime locations for residential real estate development. Allentown began being drained of its working class, who began migrating to the newer, less-expensive housing in Allentown's suburbs, which offered lower taxes, green space, less crime, and newer schools.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: These demographic developments continued throughout the 1960s and for the latter part of the 20th century, challenging Allentown's city government and the Allentown School District with greatly diminished resources. Financial challenges to the Allentown School District, in turn, further increased the number of working class families who fled the city for its suburbs, creating a sea change in the city's demographics. With the departure of many working-class families from older center city neighborhoods, many homes were sold to landlords who converted them into inexpensive multi-family apartments, many of which became government-subsidized housing permitted under the city's lax zoning enforcement and permissive city codes.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: With Allentown's neighborhoods and school system declining, the city focused on attempting to develop its Hamilton Street retail district, largely ignoring neighborhoods around Center City. This exacerbated the move of Allentown families to the city's suburbs, and shopping centers and services began being developed outside the city to accommodate these growing communities. In 1966, Whitehall Mall, the first closed shopping mall north of Philadelphia, opened. Ten years later, in 1976, the even larger Lehigh Valley Mall opened north of U.S. Route 22. Stores in Allentown's downtown shopping district began closing, replaced with stores whose customers were less affluent. Large areas of Allentown's downtown were subsequently torn down for parking lots, and the downtown business district was rebuilt in an attempt to compete with the newer suburban shopping locations. A multi-block row of stores known as the Hamilton Mall was developed, including covered sidewalks and reduced traffic. But the effort was unsuccessful, and two of the city's major department stores, Leh's and Zollingers, closed by 1990. The third, Hess's, was sold to The Bon-Ton in 1994, which subsequently closed in 1996. In 1993, the Corporate Center, the city's new flagship business center on North Seventh Street, fell victim to a large sinkhole, which led to its condemnation and ultimate demolition.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Combined with the challenges confronting Center City Allentown, the manufacturing economy of the Northeastern United States began suffering from deindustrialization associated with foreign competition, trade policies, and manufacturing costs, and many Allentown factories and corporations began closing or relocating. Mack Trucks relocated to Greensboro, North Carolina; Agere Systems (formerly Western Electric) moved to San Jose, California; and other Allentown-based factories downsized considerably or ceased operations. With the city's manufacturing base eroded, once high-paying industrial jobs were replaced with lower-paying service sector jobs, and Allentown being cited globally as one of the most prominent examples of the late 20th century Rust Belt.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: In the 2000s and 2010s, Allentown's economy has continued reforming, largely led by service industries combined with health care, transportation, warehousing, and some continued manufacturing. The Allentown Economic Development Corporation (AEDC) operates a business incubator, Bridgeworks, which seeks to attract and support young commercial and manufacturing businesses in Allentown. The Neighborhood Improvement Zone (NIZ) was created by the Pennsylvania State Legislature in 2009 to encourage development and revitalization in Allentown. The NIZ includes approximately in Center City Allentown and the city's new Riverfront district on the western side of the Lehigh River.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Center City Allentown underwent a major restructuring in 2014, including constructing and opening PPL Center, a 10,500-capacity indoor arena that now hosts the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, a professional American Hockey League ice hockey team, and other sports, entertainment, and concert events. Center City Allentown's redevelopment also included the opening of a full-service Renaissance Hotel and redeveloped office buildings.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of with of it being land and being water. Bodies of water include Jordan Creek and its tributary, Little Lehigh Creek, which join within the city limits and empty into the Lehigh River. Other bodies of water within the city limits include Lake Muhlenberg in Cedar Creek Parkway and a pond in Trexler Park.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown is located in the Lehigh Valley, a geographic valley located between two Appalachian mountain ridges, Blue Mountain, which varies from 1,000 to in height about north of the city, and South Mountain, a ridge of 500 to in height that borders Allentown's southern edge. Adjacent counties include Carbon County to the north, Northampton County to the northeast and east, Bucks County to the southeast, Montgomery County to the south, and Berks County and Schuylkill County to the west.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Center City, which includes the downtown area and the 7th Street retail and residential corridor, is the city's central business district and the site of various city, county, and federal government buildings. To the east of Center City are The Wards, residential areas that developed during the city's industrial boom of the late 19th century and early 20th century. Just east of the Lehigh River are the city's East Side residential neighborhoods, most of which border the various routes to nearby Bethlehem. South of Center City and across the Little Lehigh Creek are the city's South Side neighborhoods, which border Emmaus. Allentown's West End, with a mix of commercial corridors, cultural centers, and larger single-family residences, begins approximately west of 15th Street.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Center City Allentown's tallest building is the PPL Building at . Other Center City landmarks include Allentown Art Museum, Miller Symphony Hall, Baum School of Art, Lehigh County Historical Society and Heritage Museum, and Liberty Bell Museum. The city's central business district has several office buildings, One City Center, the Dime Savings and Trust Company building, Two City Center, and several others. An 8,641-seat indoor arena, the PPL Center, which hosts the Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the American Hockey League, opened in August 2014. In January 2015, Americus Hotel and a Marriott Hotel opened.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown is characterized by a large stock of historic homes, commercial structures, and century-old industrial buildings reflecting its standing as one of the nation's earliest urban centers. Allentown's center city neighborhoods include Victorian and terraced rowhomes. West Park includes mostly Victorian and American Craftsman-style architecture. The houses on the city's tree-lined streets in the West End were mostly built between the 1920s and 1940s. Houses in the city's East Side and South Side are a mixture of architectural styles and are generally single and twin family homes built between the 1940s and 1960s; both areas also include some older Victorian homes. Allentown has many loft apartments in converted mills and historic brick manufacturing buildings and modern and historic high-rise apartment buildings in Center City.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: The PPL Building, at 2 North 9th Street, is Allentown's tallest high rise building at . The building was designed by the New York City architectural firm Helme, Corbett, and Harrison. Wallace Harrison came to Allentown to design the building, which later served as a prototype for the Art Deco architecture of Rockefeller Center in New York City. The decorative friezes on the exterior of the building were designed by Alexander Archipenko. It was built between 1926 and 1928 and opened on July 16, 1928. The building has been illuminated at night since its 1928 opening and, in clear weather, can be seen from as far north as the Blue Mountain Ski Area. The building is featured in the 1954 movie "Executive Suite". Exterior shots of the PPL Building appear in the 1954 motion picture "Executive Suite".


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: One of the city's older surviving structures, Miller Symphony Hall, at 23 North 6th Street, opened in 1896, originally housing the city's public market. It is the premier performing arts facility in Allentown with 1,100 seats and home of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra. The structure was converted to a theater in 1899 by the architectural firm J. B. McElfatrick and later renamed the Lyric Theater. It is one of roughly a dozen famous McElfatrick designs still standing in the nation and has been used for burlesque shows, vaudeville, silent films, symphony orchestras, and other entertainment for over a century. Other performing arts facilities and programs include the Pennsylvania Sinfonia, Community Concerts of Allentown, Allentown Band, and Community Music School of the Lehigh Valley.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown has three primary historic districts: Old Allentown, the Old Fairgrounds, and West Park. Old Allentown and Old Fairgrounds are Center City neighborhoods that hold a joint house tour organized by the Old Allentown Preservation Association (OAPA) annually each September. West Park also offers a tour of its Victorian and Craftsman-style homes.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Under the Köppen climate classification, Allentown falls within either a hot-summer humid continental climate ("Dfa") if the isotherm is used or a humid subtropical climate ("Cfa") if the isotherm is used. Summers are typically warm and muggy, fall and spring are generally mild, and winter is cool to cold. Precipitation is almost uniformly distributed throughout the year.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: The average temperature in January is and the lowest officially-recorded temperature was on January 21, 1994. July averages and the highest temperature on record was on July 3, 1966. February is generally the driest month with only of average precipitation. January temperatures average below freezing, seven months average above 50 °F (10 °C,), and two months average above 22 °C (71.6 °F.)


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Snowfall is variable with some winters bringing light snow and others bringing multiple and significant snowstorms. Average snowfall is seasonally with February receiving the highest snowfall at just below . Rainfall is generally spread throughout the year with eight to twelve wet days per month at an average annual rate of .


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown falls under the USDA 6b Plant Hardiness zone, now 7a under the 1991 to 2020 climate normals mean minimum.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: For 2010, crime in Allentown diminished for a fourth consecutive year. The decline was led by a 31 percent drop in homicides (from 13 to 9). Motor vehicle theft fell 11 percent. Burglary was down 6 percent. Reported robberies, rapes, and property crimes also fell offset by increases in cases of aggravated assault and arson. The number of violent crimes fell more than 30 percent between 2006 and 2010. Allentown does have organized violent gangs, and the city has experienced sporadic gang-related crime and violence. On June 20, 2019, two rival gangs, the Bloods and Latin Kings, ten people were shot when the two gangs exchanged gun fire outside the Deja Vu nightclub on Hamilton Street.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: As of the 2020 U.S. census, there were 125,845 people residing in Allentown. Of these, 54.2% were Hispanic/Latino, 30.2% non-hispanic White, 10.4% non-hispanic Black, 1.9% Asian, 0.1% Native American or Pacific Islander, and 3.2% mixed or other. As of 2010, the city had 42,032 households, including 28.8% with children under age 18, 39.4% who were married couples living together, 15.1% who had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.2% who were non-families. 33.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The city's average household size is 2.42 and the average family size is 3.09. As of 2000, the population density was 6,011.5 inhabitants per square mile (2,320.8/km); there were 45,960 housing units at an average density of 2,591.1 per square mile (1,000.3/km).


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: As of 2010, Allentown's population broken down by age ranges is: 24.8% under 18, 11.2% from 18 to 24, 29.8% from 25 to 44, 19.1% from 45 to 64, and 15.1% 65 years or older. The median age is 34 years. For every 100 females, there are 91.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 87.7 males. The median income for a household in the city was $32,016, and the median income for a family was $37,356. Males had a median income of $30,426 versus $23,882 for females. Per capita income in Allentown, as of 2010, was $16,282 with 18.5% of the population and 14.6% of families below the poverty line. 29.4% of those under age 18 and 10.3% of those 65 and older live below the poverty line. The unemployment rate for the entire Lehigh Valley area is 9.8% as of February 2010 with Allentown's unemployment rate slightly higher at over 10%.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown historically was a hub for the nation's earliest industrialization and heavily manufacturing-based. Beginning in the late 20th century, the city's economy evolved into a more service-oriented one due to the city's Rust Belt decline in heavy industry that commenced around 1980 and accelerated through the last two decades of the 20th century. The city is corporate headquarters for several large companies, including Air Products, Talen Energy, PPL Corporation, and others. The largest employer in Allentown, as of 2007, is Lehigh Valley Health Network with over 7,800 employees. Lehigh Valley Health Network's flagship hospital, Lehigh Valley Hospital–Cedar Crest, is the third largest in Pennsylvania with 877 licensed beds and 46 operating rooms.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Center City Allentown along Hamilton Street between 5th and 10th Streets was the primary shopping district in Allentown for most of the 20th century. During the 1960s and 1970s, however, several shopping malls, including South Mall, Lehigh Valley Mall, and Whitehall Mall were built in Allentown's suburbs and today represent the most popular shopping destinations. In October 2006, The Promenade Shops at Saucon Valley opened south of Allentown in Upper Saucon Township.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown is home to Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom, one of the nation's largest amusement and water parks. Dorney Park's Steel Force rollercoaster is the world's eighth longest steel rollercoaster.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: The Allentown Symphony Orchestra performs at Miller Symphony Hall, located on North 6th Street in Center City. The city has a musical heritage of civilian concert bands and is home to the Allentown Band, the oldest civilian concert band in the nation. The Allentown Band, Marine Band of Allentown, Municipal Band of Allentown, and the Pioneer Band of Allentown all regularly perform at the bandshell in the city's West Park. Youth Education in the Arts, the sponsoring organization of The Cadets Drum and Bugle Corps, is headquartered in Allentown. Allentown's J. Birney Crum Stadium, the second largest high school football field in the state, hosts the annual Drum Corps International Eastern Classic, which brings together the world's top junior drum and bugle corps for a two-day event.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown houses a collection of public sculptures, including the DaVinci Horse, located on 5th Street, which is one of only three daVinci sculptures in the world. Allentown Art Museum, located on North 5th Street in center city, is home to a collection of over 13,000 pieces of art and an associated library. Baum School of Art, located at 5th and Linden Streets, offers credit and non-credit classes in painting, drawing, ceramics, fashion design, jewelry making, and other arts-related curriculum.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Nineteenth Street Theater has an 80-plus year history of producing theater in the Lehigh Valley. Started by two "Morning Call" reporters in 1927 as Civic Little Theater, Nineteenth Street Theater today has paid professional staff, a volunteer board of directors from the community, and volunteers from Allentown and its suburbs. The theater operates the Lehigh Valley's only full-time cinema, showing art, independent and foreign films, and offering a theater school that has served the Valley's youth for over 50 years. The theatre is professionally directed and managed and utilizes community actors in its live theater productions.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Vestiges of Allentown's Pennsylvania German heritage are prominent in the city's cuisine. Foodstuffs such as scrapple, chow-chow, Lebanon bologna, cole slaw, and apple butter are often found in local diners and the Allentown Farmer's Market. Shoofly pie, birch beer, and funnel cakes are regularly found at local fairs. Several local churches make and sell fastnachts in fundraisers for Fastnacht Day, the day before Lent's commencement.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: As Allentown's population has increased over the decades, many national restaurant and fast food chains have established a presence in the city. Growth of the city's ethnic populations has led to the opening of many family-run restaurants specializing in ethnic cuisine, including Chinese, Colombian, Dominican, Italian, Japanese, Mexican, Lebanese, Portuguese, Puerto Rican, Thai, and West Indian restaurants.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Due in part to Allentown's proximity to Philadelphia, cheesesteaks are immensely popular. Yocco's Hot Dogs, a regionally well-known hot dog and cheesesteak establishment with four area locations (two of which are in Allentown), was founded in 1922 by Theodore Iacocca, uncle of former Chrysler chairman and president Lee Iacocca. A-Treat Bottling Company, a regionally-popular soft drink beverage company, has been based in Allentown since its 1918 founding.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: The Great Allentown Fair runs annually the end of August and early September on the grounds of the Allentown Fairgrounds on North 17th Street, where it has been held continuously since 1889. The first Allentown Fair was held in 1852. Prior to moving to the Allentown Fairgrounds in 1889, it was held at the Old Allentown Fairgrounds, located north of Liberty Street between 5th and 6th Streets.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Blues, Brews, and Barbeque, a blues festival launched in 2014, is held annually in June on Hamilton Street in Center City. Annually each May, Mayfair festival, a three-day arts festival, is held on the campus of Cedar Crest College in the city. Since 1995, Allentown's J. Birney Crum Stadium, the second largest high school football stadium in the state, has hosted the annual Collegiate Marching Band Festival.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: The Soldiers and Sailors monument at Allentown's Center Square at Seventh and Hamilton Streets honors Allentown and Lehigh Valley volunteer soldiers in the Union Army who were killed in defense of the Union during the American Civil War. The monument is topped by a statue representing the Goddess of Liberty. The monument was unveiled October 19, 1899. In 1957, the statue atop the monument was removed due to its state of disrepair and was replaced with a new one in 1964. The city's motto, in Latin, is "Sic semper tyrannis", meaning "thus always to tyrants", suggesting that bad but justified outcomes will ultimately befall all tyrants.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Much of Allentown's park system is attributable to the efforts of industrialist Harry Clay Trexler. Inspired by the City Beautiful movement in the early 20th century, Trexler helped create West Park, a park in what was then a community trash pit and sandlot baseball field in an upscale area of the city. The park, which opened in 1909, features a bandshell designed by Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer. It has long been home to the Allentown Band and other community bands. Trexler also facilitated the development of Trexler Park, Cedar Parkway, Allentown Municipal Golf Course, and the Trout Nursery in Lehigh Parkway and was responsible for the development of the Trexler Trust, which provides still ongoing private funding for maintenance and development of Allentown's park system.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown's parks include Bicentennial Park (a 4,600 seat mini-stadium built for sporting events), Cedar Creek Parkway (127 acres, including Lake Muhlenberg, Cedar Beach, and the Malcolm W. Gross Memorial Rose Garden), East Side Reservoir (15 acres), Irving Street Park, Kimmets Lock Park (5 acres), Lehigh Canal Park (55 acres), Lehigh Parkway (999 acres), Old Allentown Cemetery (4 acres), Jordan Park, South Mountain Reservoir (157 acres), Trexler Park (134 acres), Trout Creek Parkway (100 acres), Joe Daddona Park (19 acres), Keck Park, Percy Ruhe Park (also known as Alton Park), and West Park (6.59 acres).


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown and its surrounding Lehigh Valley region are known for the high quality of its high school-level athletics, and the region has been the starting ground for a considerable number of professional and Olympic-level athletes. Allentown-based professional and amateur teams include:


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Both Cedar Crest College and Muhlenberg College, each in Allentown, have collegiate athletic programs in most sports. The Muhlenberg Mules play their home football games at Scotty Wood Stadium on the Muhlenberg campus in Allentown.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown's three large high schools, Allen, Dieruff, and Central Catholic, each compete in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, one of the premier high school athletic divisions in the nation. All three Allentown high schools play their home football games at the 15,000 capacity J. Birney Crum Stadium at 2027 Linden Street, the second largest high school stadium in the state.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Professional baseball has a rich history in Allentown, dating back to 1884. The city is home to the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, the Triple-A Minor League affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies, who play at Coca-Cola Park, a $50.25 million, 8,200-seat stadium on Allentown's east-side.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown is home to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, the primary development team of the Philadelphia Flyers, who compete in the American Hockey League and play at PPL Center, an 8,500-seat indoor arena opened in 2014 in Center City.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown is home to the Parkettes National Gymnastics Training Center, which has been the training ground for numerous Olympians and U.S. national gymnastics champions. The program was the subject of an immensely critical 2003 CNN documentary, "Achieving the Perfect 10", which depicted the program as a hugely demanding and competitive gymnastics training center.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Historically, Allentown hosted the Allentown Jets, a Continental Basketball Association team, which played in Rockne Hall at Allentown Central Catholic High School from 1958 to 1981. The Jets were one of the most dominant franchises in the league's history, winning eight playoff championships and twelve division titles. Allentown also has been home to two professional soccer teams, the Pennsylvania Stoners (2007-2009) and Northampton Laurels (2005-2008) of the now defunct Women's Premier Soccer League. The Pennsylvania ValleyDawgs of the now defunct United States Basketball League played their home games at William Allen High School for the totality of the league's existence from 1999 to 2006.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown is legally classified as a Pennsylvania third-class city and has operated with the "strong-mayor" version of the mayor-council form of government since 1970. The mayor serves as chief executive and administrative officer for the municipality, and the city council serves as the legislative and oversight body. Elected "at-large," the mayor serves a four-year term under the city's home rule charter. The current city mayor is Democrat Matthew Tuerk. The legislative branch, the Allentown City Council, consists of seven council members elected at large for four-year staggered terms. City Council holds regular public meetings in order to enact city legislation, including ordinances and resolutions. The current president of the City Council is Julio Guridy. The City Controller, who is responsible for the oversight of the city's finances, is elected and serves a four-year term.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Federally, Allentown is part of Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district, represented currently by Democrat Susan Wild. U.S. Senators representing the city currently are Democrat Bob Casey, Jr. and Republican Pat Toomey. Pennsylvania's governor is Democrat Tom Wolf.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown School District, the fourth largest school district in Pennsylvania, manages the city's entire public school system with the exception of a small portion of the city near Trexler Park, which lies within Parkland School District. Allentown has two large public high schools for grades 9–12, William Allen High School, which serves students from Allentown's southern and western sections, and Louis E. Dieruff High School, which serves students from the eastern and northern parts. Each of these Allentown area high schools competes athletically in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, an elite high school athletic conference comprising the 18 largest high schools in the Lehigh Valley and Pocono Mountain regions. Both schools and Allentown Central Catholic High School, the city's sole parochial school, play their home football games at J. Birney Crum Stadium, the second largest high school stadium in Pennsylvania. Students may also attend Newcomer Academy at Midway Manor or the Allentown School District Virtual Academy for grades 8 through 12.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown School District's four middle schools, for grades 6–8, include: Francis D. Raub Middle School, Harrison-Morton Middle School, South Mountain Middle School, and Trexler Middle School. The city is served by 16 elementary schools for kindergarten through fifth grade, including: Central, Cleveland, Hiram W. Dodd, Jefferson, Lehigh Parkway, Lincoln, Luis A. Ramos, McKinley, Midway Manor, Mosser, Muhlenberg, Ritter, Roosevelt, Sheridan, Union Terrace, and Washington.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown also has two public charter schools. Roberto Clemente Charter School, located at 4th and Walnut Streets in Allentown, is a Title I charter school that provides educational services to mainly Hispanic students in grades 6 through 12. Lincoln Leadership Academy Charter School, located at 1414 E. Cedar Street, is open to K to 12 students.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Other Allentown-based parochial schools serving K to 8 include Saint John Vianney Regional School, Holy Spirit School, Lehigh Christian Academy, Mercy Special Learning Center, Our Lady Help of Christians School, Sacred Heart School, and Saint Thomas More School. The Roman Catholic-affiliated parochial schools in Allentown are operated by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Allentown. The Grace Montessori School is a pre-school and early elementary Montessori school run as an outreach of Grace Episcopal Church. The city also has a private Jewish school, the Jewish Day School, and two independent day schools, CAI Learning Academy, an independent day school, and The Swain School, which is associated with Moravian Academy.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Two four-year colleges, Cedar Crest College and Muhlenberg College, are based in Allentown. Allentown is also home to a satellite campus of Lehigh Carbon Community College (LCCC), a comprehensive community college that offers two-year and four-year degree programs, continuing education, and industry training.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown is part of the Philadelphia media market, the fourth largest television market in the nation. Major Philadelphia-based network stations serving Allentown include KYW-TV Channel 3 (CBS), WCAU Channel 10 (NBC), WPVI Channel 6 (ABC), and WTXF Channel 29 (Fox). Two television stations are located in Allentown. WFMZ-TV Channel 69, based in Allentown with studios and a transmitting site atop South Mountain, is an independent station. WLVT-TV Channel 39, the regional PBS affiliate, is licensed to Allentown with studios in neighboring Bethlehem.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Nielsen Audio ranks Allentown the nation's 74th largest radio market as of 2022. Stations licensed to Allentown include WAEB-AM (talk, news and sports), WAEB-FM (contemporary hits), WDIY (NPR public radio), WHOL (rhythmic contemporary), WLEV (adult contemporary), WMUH (Muhlenberg College freeform campus radio), WSAN (oldies and Philadelphia Phillies broadcasts), WZZO (classic rock), and others. In addition, many stations from New York City, the nation's largest radio market, and Philadelphia, the nation's fourth largest radio market, are received in Allentown.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown has two daily newspapers, "The Morning Call" and "The Express-Times". "The Times News", based in Lehighton, also covers the city. Several weekly and monthly print publications are based in Allentown or cover the city's news and people.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: The city's primary commercial airport, Lehigh Valley International Airport, is located (5 km) northeast of Allentown in Hanover Township and is operated by the Lehigh–Northampton Airport Authority. The airport has direct flights to Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago–O'Hare, Detroit, Philadelphia, and multiple cities in Florida. The region is also served by Allentown Queen City Municipal Airport, a two-runway facility located on Lehigh Street in South Allentown used predominantly by private aircraft.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Four expressways run through the Allentown area with associated exits to the city: Interstate 78 runs from Lebanon County in the west to the Holland Tunnel and Lower Manhattan in the east; I-476, the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, runs from Plymouth Meeting outside Philadelphia in the south to Interstate 81 at Clarks Summit in the north; Pennsylvania Route 309 runs from Philadelphia in the south to Wyoming Valley in the north; and U.S. Route 22 runs from Cincinnati, Ohio in the west to Newark, New Jersey in the east. There are nine major inbound roads to Allentown: Airport Road, Cedar Crest Boulevard, Fullerton Avenue, Hamilton Boulevard, Lehigh Street, Mauch Chunk Road, MacArthur Road, Tilghman Street, and Union Boulevard.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Public buses within Allentown are provided by LANTA, a bus system serving Lehigh and Northampton counties. Allentown Transportation Center, located on North 7th Street, serves as a major hub for LANTA buses. Multiple private bus lines serve Allentown at the intercity terminal at 325 Hamilton Street, including Trans-Bridge Lines and Greyhound Lines, offering direct bus service throughout the day to New York City's Port Authority Bus Terminal and intermediate points, and Fullington Trailways, which offers direct service to Williamsport, Hazleton, Philadelphia, and intermediate points. Martz Trailways stops in Allentown as part of its route between Scranton-Wilkes-Barre and Philadelphia and as part of its commuter routes to New York City, which are part of the Amtrak Thruway route that connects Amtrak trains at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. Allentown's public parking is managed by the Allentown Parking Authority.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown currently has no passenger rail service. The last Allentown rail service was provided by SEPTA; it ceased operating in 1979 though one of SEPTA's two main train stations in Allentown remains standing. In September 2020, Amtrak, in its Amtrak 2035 expansion plan, proposed restoring this rail service between Allentown and New York City by 2035. Use of this mostly single-track route by Amtrak has consistently been opposed by Norfolk Southern Railway, which acquired ownership of the Lehigh Line when it purchased the federally-founded Conrail Corporation in 1999. Previously, in November 2008, the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (LVEDC), along with both Lehigh and Northampton County governments, commissioned a study to explore restoring part of the Black Diamond service, which ran until 1961, by extending New Jersey Transit's Raritan Valley Line to Allentown.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown was once a passenger rail hub served by the Central Railroad of New Jersey, using the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad, Lehigh and New England Railroad, Lehigh Valley Railroad, the Reading Railroad, the Lehigh Valley Transit Company, and Conrail. Routes served Wilkes-Barre and Scranton to the north, Buffalo and Williamsport to the northwest, Reading and Harrisburg to the west, Jersey City and New York City to the east, and Philadelphia to the south.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown is a regional center for commercial freight rail traffic. Norfolk Southern's primary Northeast hump classification yards are located in Allentown, and the city is served by the R.J. Corman Railroad Group, a commercial railroad company. The city has major commercial rail traffic, including from the Norfolk Southern Lehigh Line, which runs through the city heading east across the Delaware River, and Norfolk Southern Railway's Reading Line, which runs through Allentown heading west to Reading.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Electricity in Allentown is provided by PPL Corporation, which is also headquartered in Allentown. UGI Corporation (headquartered in King of Prussia) supplies natural gas. Two cable companies, RCN Corporation (based in Princeton, New Jersey) and Service Electric (based in Bethlehem), have provided cable service to Allentown since the 1960s. The area's only landfill, Waste Connections of Canada, is locally headquartered in Bethlehem. Water and sewage, prior to 2013, were controlled by the city and are now managed by Lehigh County following the end of a 50-year lease agreement. Waste, recycling, and yard waste are each administered by the city.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Lehigh Valley Hospital–Cedar Crest, located on Cedar Crest Boulevard and part of Lehigh Valley Health Network, is the largest hospital in both Allentown and the Lehigh Valley and the third largest hospital in Pennsylvania with 877 beds and 46 operating rooms. It is also a Level 1 trauma center. St. Luke's University Health Network, Sacred Heart Hospital, and Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network also provide hospital and rehabilitation services. Allentown State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Allentown, was closed in 2010 as part of the statewide closing of psychiatric hospitals by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Since its 1762 founding, Allentown has been the birthplace or home to several notable Americans, including:


title: Allentown, Pennsylvania

text: Allentown has a reputation as a rugged blue-collar city and is referenced broadly in popular culture. Examples include:


title: My Left Foot

text: My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown, also known simply as My Left Foot, is a 1989 biographical comedy-drama film directed by Jim Sheridan adapted by Sheridan and Shane Connaughton from the 1954 memoir of the same name by Christy Brown. A co-production of Ireland and the United Kingdom, it stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Brown, an Irish man born with cerebral palsy, who could control only his left foot. Brown grew up in a poor working-class family, and became a writer and artist. Brenda Fricker, Ray McAnally, Hugh O'Conor, Fiona Shaw, and Cyril Cusack are featured in supporting roles.


title: My Left Foot

text: The film was theatrically released on 24 February 1989 to critical and commercial success. Reviewers praised the film's screenplay and direction, its message, and especially the performances of Day-Lewis and Fricker, while the film grossed $14.7 million on a £600,000 budget. At the 62nd Academy Awards, the film received five nominations, including for the Best Picture, with Day-Lewis and Fricker winning Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively. In 2018, the British Film Institute ranked it as the 53rd greatest British film of the 20th century.


title: My Left Foot

text: In 1932, Christy Brown is born into a family of 15. Doctors discover he has severe cerebral palsy. Christy is unable to walk or talk. He is loved and supported by his family, especially his mother. One day, Christy's mother trips down the stairs while in labour and Christy was the only person home to see it. He was able to alert some neighbours and summon them over to help. Christy's father, who never believed Christy would amount to anything, starts to become proud after witnessing him use his left foot, the only body part he can fully control, to write the word "mother" on the floor with a piece of chalk.


title: My Left Foot

text: Consequently, Christy seeks a hobby in painting. The neighbourhood youngsters include him in their activities, like street football, but when he paints a picture and gives it to a girl he likes, she returns it. Later, his father loses his job and the family faces exceptionally difficult hardships, so Christy devises a plan to help his brothers steal coal to their mother's dismay. Christy's mother, who had been gradually gathering some savings in a tin in the fireplace, finally saves enough to buy him a wheelchair.


title: My Left Foot

text: Christy is then introduced to Eileen Cole, who takes him to her school for cerebral palsy patients and persuades a friend of hers to hold an exhibition of his work. Christy falls in love with Cole, but when he learns during the dinner that she is engaged to be married, he considers suicide. His mother helps him build a private studio for himself, but soon afterward his father dies of a stroke, and during the wake Christy instigates a brawl. At this point, Christy starts writing his autobiography, "My Left Foot". Cole returns and they resume their friendship. Later on, Christy attends a charity event where he meets his handler, a nurse named Mary Carr. She begins reading his autobiography. He asks Mary to go out with him and they then happily leave the fete together.


title: My Left Foot

text: Day-Lewis became interested in the project when he read the opening scene, which features him, as Brown, using his left foot to place a record on a player and then placing a needle onto it so that it will play. He said of the scene: "I knew it couldn't be done... and that intrigued me." Many scenes were filmed through a mirror, as Day-Lewis could only manipulate his right foot to perform the actions seen in the film. Day-Lewis spent some time preparing for the film at Brown's alma mater in Dublin. He later returned there for a visit, with his Academy Award.


title: My Left Foot

text: Day-Lewis, known for his extreme method acting, insisted on staying in character during the production of the film, refusing to do anything that Brown couldn't do. This meant that members of the film crew had to move the actor around in a wheelchair, lift him over obstacles, and even feed him.


title: My Left Foot

text: "My Left Foot" received widespread critical acclaim. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 98%, based on 42 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "No doubt most will come to "My Left Foot" for Daniel Day-Lewis' performance, but the movie's refusal to go downbeat will keep it in viewer minds afterwards." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 97 out of 100, based on 17 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: My Left Foot

text: Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars, writing: ""My Left Foot" is a great film for many reasons, but the most important is that it gives us such a complete picture of this man's life. It is not an inspirational movie, although it inspires. It is not a sympathetic movie, although it inspires sympathy. It is the story of a stubborn, difficult, blessed and gifted man who was dealt a bad hand, who played it brilliantly, and who left us some good books, some good paintings and the example of his courage. It must not have been easy."


title: My Left Foot

text: In 2015, "The Hollywood Reporter" polled hundreds of academy members, asking them to re-vote on past controversial decisions. Academy members indicated that, given a second chance, they would award the 1990 Academy Award for Best Picture to "My Left Foot" instead of "Driving Miss Daisy".


title: Unsplash

text: Unsplash is a website dedicated to proprietary stock photography. Since 2021, it has been owned by Getty Images. The website claims over 265,000 contributing photographers and generates more than 16 billion photo impressions per month on their growing library of over 3.48 million photos. Unsplash has been cited as one of the world's leading photography websites by "Forbes", Design Hub, CNET, Medium and The Next Web.


title: Unsplash

text: Initially a pioneer of the copyright-free photography model, Unsplash was created in 2013 by Montreal-based entrepreneur Mikael Cho. While creating a new homepage for his company Crew, Cho was unable to find a suitable stock photo and hired a photographer instead. Afterwards, Cho posted the outtakes from his company photoshoot on Tumblr, inviting people to use them as they saw fit. Unsplash received more than 50,000 visits on its first day.


title: Unsplash

text: Cho supplied the first batch of photos to Unsplash, which then received contributions from amateur and professional photographers. Due to the volume of photo submissions, the site employed an editorial team and "curators" picked from the Unsplash community, including Guy Kawasaki, Nas, Khoi Vinh, Amanda Hesser and Om Malik.


title: Unsplash

text: In March 2021, Unsplash was acquired by Getty Images for an undisclosed sum. Unsplash will continue to operate as a standalone brand and division of Getty Images with Cho in charge.


title: Unsplash

text: Unsplash photos are covered by the Unsplash license. The Unsplash license prevents users from using photos from Unsplash in a similar or competing service. While it gives downloaders the right to "copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without asking permission from or providing attribution to the photographer or Unsplash", the Unsplash terms of service prohibit selling unaltered copies, including selling the photos as prints or printed on physical goods.


title: Unsplash

text: Initially, the permissive copyright terms on its photos led to Unsplash becoming one of the largest photography suppliers on the internet, with its members' photos frequently appearing on articles.


title: Unsplash

text: Before June 2017, photos uploaded to Unsplash were made available under the Creative Commons zero license, which is a public domain equivalent license and a waiver, which allowed individuals to freely reuse, repurpose and remix photos for their own projects. This was changed in June 2017, and photos are now made available under the Unsplash copyright license, which imposes some additional restrictions.


title: Unsplash

text: Around 200,000 images were lost to the public domain. It was not possible to segregate or find which images had been available as CC0 prior to the license change due to restrictions on the use of Unsplash's API. At the time of the license change, Creative Commons Director Ryan Merkley asked that "[i]n order to ensure that the commons is maintained, we hope that Unsplash will either a) properly mark all the works shared using CC0 and/or b) make available a full archive of the CC0 works so they can be shared on a platform that supports open licensing". To date, Unsplash have declined to make these works reavailable or easily identifiable by machines.


title: Unsplash

text: In February 2018, Unsplash changed their license terms to restrict the sale of photos without first updating, modifying, or otherwise incorporating new creative elements into the photos, prohibiting selling unaltered copies, including selling the photos as prints or printed on physical goods.


title: Unsplash

text: In December 2019, Unsplash for Brands was launched, where advertisers can share branded images on Unsplash.


title: Unsplash

text: The Unsplash license is incompatible with Creative Commons licenses, meaning that content from Unsplash cannot be published under a Creative Commons license without additional permissions from the original authors. Unsplash actively prevents authors from offering their content under Creative Commons licenses, for instance by deleting references to such licenses from comments.


title: Unsplash

text: The lack of attribution for Unsplash photos has been the subject of controversy in photography circles, due to some companies using free Unsplash photography for profit without compensating the photographers. Unsplash itself has stated that it does not support the practice.


title: Unsplash

text: In 2016, while still a CC0 business, Unsplash released the Unsplash Book, the world's "first ever fully crowd-sourced" book. The book's photos, essays, and funding were all contributed by Unsplash's community. The book raised $106,000 on Kickstarter and included contributions from Harvard law professor and CC0 inventor Lawrence Lessig, and designer Tobias van Schneider.


title: Unsplash

text: In addition to its website, Unsplash provides a public application programming interface (API) that answers more than 3.8 billion photo requests per month. Some of the products using the Unsplash API include Medium, Trello, Squarespace, CodePen, Square as well as Unsplash own series of products such as Unsplash for iOS, Unsplash Instant, an extension for Google Chrome that loads Unsplash photos in new tabs and Unsplash for Apple TV.


title: Unsplash

text: Beyond its website and API, Unsplash has hosted photo walks in cities around the world including Tokyo, Montreal, Toronto and Boston. The photo walks are hosted by guides from the Unsplash community who show participants the best places to take photos in their city, how to use their cameras, and how to compose better photos.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, inventor, and futurist. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements and gives public talks to share his optimistic outlook on life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil received the 1999 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the United States' highest honor in technology, from then President Bill Clinton in a White House ceremony. He was the recipient of the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for 2001. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2001 for the application of technology to improve human-machine communication. In 2002 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, established by the U.S. Patent Office. He has received 21 honorary doctorates, and honors from three U.S. presidents. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) included Kurzweil as one of 16 "revolutionaries who made America" along with other inventors of the past two centuries. "Inc." magazine ranked him No. 8 among the "most fascinating" entrepreneurs in the United States and called him "Edison's rightful heir".


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil grew up in Queens, New York City. He attended NYC Public Education Kingsbury Elementary School PS188. He was born to secular Jewish parents who had emigrated from Austria just before the onset of World War II. He was exposed via Unitarian Universalism to a diversity of religious faiths during his upbringing. His Unitarian church had the philosophy of many paths to the truth – his religious education consisted of studying a single religion for six months before moving on to the next. His father, Fredric, was a concert pianist, a noted conductor, and a music educator. His mother, Hannah was a visual artist. He has one sibling, his sister Enid.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil decided he wanted to be an inventor at the age of five. As a young boy, Kurzweil had an inventory of parts from various construction toys he had been given and old electronic gadgets he'd collected from neighbors. In his youth, Kurzweil was an avid reader of science fiction literature. At the age of eight, nine, and ten, he read the entire Tom Swift Jr. series. At the age of seven or eight, he built a robotic puppet theater and robotic game. He was involved with computers by the age of 12 (in 1960), when only a dozen computers existed in all of New York City, and built computing devices and statistical programs for the predecessor of Head Start. At the age of fourteen, Kurzweil wrote a paper detailing his theory of the neocortex. His parents were involved with the arts, and he is quoted in the documentary "Transcendent Man" as saying that the household always produced discussions about the future and technology.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil attended Martin Van Buren High School. During class, he often held onto his class textbooks to seemingly participate, but instead, focused on his own projects which were hidden behind the book. His uncle, an engineer at Bell Labs, taught young Kurzweil the basics of computer science. In 1963, at age 15, he wrote his first computer program. He created pattern-recognition software that analyzed the works of classical composers, and then synthesized its own songs in similar styles. In 1965, he was invited to appear on the CBS television program "I've Got a Secret", where he performed a piano piece that was composed by a computer he also had built. Later that year, he won first prize in the International Science Fair for the invention; Kurzweil's submission to Westinghouse Talent Search of his first computer program alongside several other projects resulted in him being one of its national winners, which allowed him to be personally congratulated by President Lyndon B. Johnson during a White House ceremony. These activities collectively impressed upon Kurzweil the belief that nearly any problem could be overcome.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: While in high school, Kurzweil had corresponded with Marvin Minsky and was invited to visit him at MIT, which he did. Kurzweil also visited Frank Rosenblatt at Cornell.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: He obtained a B.S. in computer science and literature in 1970 at MIT. He went to MIT to study with Marvin Minsky. He took all of the computer programming courses (eight or nine) offered at MIT in the first year and a half.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In 1968, during his second year at MIT, Kurzweil started a company that used a computer program to match high school students with colleges. The program, called the Select College Consulting Program, was designed by him and compared thousands of different criteria about each college with questionnaire answers submitted by each student applicant. Around this time, he sold the company to Harcourt, Brace & World for $100,000 (roughly $748,000 in 2020 dollars) plus royalties.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In 1974, Kurzweil founded Kurzweil Computer Products, Inc. and led development of the first omni-font optical character recognition system, a computer program capable of recognizing text written in any normal font. Before that time, scanners had only been able to read text written in a few fonts. He decided that the best application of this technology would be to create a reading machine, which would allow blind people to understand written text by having a computer read it to them aloud. However, this device required the invention of two enabling technologies—the CCD flatbed scanner and the text-to-speech synthesizer. Development of these technologies was completed at other institutions such as Bell Labs, and on January 13, 1976, the finished product was unveiled during a news conference headed by him and the leaders of the National Federation of the Blind. Called the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the device covered an entire tabletop.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil's next major business venture began in 1978, when Kurzweil Computer Products began selling a commercial version of the optical character recognition computer program. LexisNexis was one of the first customers, and bought the program to upload paper legal and news documents onto its nascent online databases.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil sold his Kurzweil Computer Products to Xerox, where it was known as Xerox Imaging Systems, later known as Scansoft, and he functioned as a consultant for Xerox until 1995. In 1999, Visioneer, Inc. acquired ScanSoft from Xerox to form a new public company with ScanSoft as the new company-wide name. Scansoft merged with Nuance Communications in 2005.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil's next business venture was in the realm of electronic music technology. After a 1982 meeting with Stevie Wonder, in which the latter lamented the divide in capabilities and qualities between electronic synthesizers and traditional musical instruments, Kurzweil was inspired to create a new generation of music synthesizers capable of accurately duplicating the sounds of real instruments. Kurzweil Music Systems was founded in the same year, and in 1984, the Kurzweil K250 was unveiled. The machine was capable of imitating a number of instruments, and in tests musicians were unable to discern the difference between the Kurzweil K250 on piano mode from a normal grand piano. The recording and mixing abilities of the machine, coupled with its abilities to imitate different instruments, made it possible for a single user to compose and play an entire orchestral piece.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil Music Systems was sold to South Korean musical instrument manufacturer Young Chang in 1990. As with Xerox, Kurzweil remained as a consultant for several years. Hyundai acquired Young Chang in 2006 and in January 2007 appointed Raymond Kurzweil as Chief Strategy Officer of Kurzweil Music Systems.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Concurrent with Kurzweil Music Systems, Kurzweil created the company Kurzweil Applied Intelligence (KAI) to develop computer speech recognition systems for commercial use. The first product, which debuted in 1987, was an early speech recognition program. KAI was sold to Lernout & Hauspie in 1997.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil started Kurzweil Educational Systems (KESI) in 1996 to develop new pattern-recognition-based computer technologies to help people with disabilities such as blindness, dyslexia and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in school. Products include the Kurzweil 1000 text-to-speech converter software program, which enables a computer to read electronic and scanned text aloud to blind or visually impaired users, and the Kurzweil 3000 program, which is a multifaceted electronic learning system that helps with reading, writing, and study skills.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil sold KESI to Lernout & Hauspie. Following the legal and bankruptcy problems of the latter, he and other KESI employees purchased the company back. KESI was eventually sold to Cambium Learning Group, Inc.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In 1999, Kurzweil created a hedge fund called "FatKat" (Financial Accelerating Transactions from Kurzweil Adaptive Technologies), which began trading in 2006. He has stated that the ultimate aim is to improve the performance of FatKat's A.I. investment software program, enhancing its ability to recognize patterns in "currency fluctuations and stock-ownership trends." He predicted in his 1999 book, "The Age of Spiritual Machines," that computers will one day prove superior to the best human financial minds at making profitable investment decisions.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In June 2005, Kurzweil introduced the "Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader" (K-NFB Reader)—a pocket-sized device consisting of a digital camera and computer unit. Like the Kurzweil Reading Machine of almost 30 years before, the K-NFB Reader is designed to aid blind people by reading written text aloud. The newer machine is portable and scans text through digital camera images, while the older machine is large and scans text through flatbed scanning.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In December 2012, Kurzweil was hired by Google in a full-time position to "work on new projects involving machine learning and language processing". He was personally hired by Google co-founder Larry Page. Larry Page and Kurzweil agreed on a one-sentence job description: "to bring natural language understanding to Google".


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: He received a Technical Grammy on February 8, 2015, specifically for his invention of the Kurzweil K250.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil has joined the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a cryonics company. In the event of his declared death, Kurzweil plans to be perfused with cryoprotectants, vitrified in liquid nitrogen, and stored at an Alcor facility in the hope that future medical technology will be able to repair his tissues and revive him.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil is agnostic about the existence of a soul. On the possibility of divine intelligence, Kurzweil has said, "Does God exist? I would say, 'Not yet.'"


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil married Sonya Rosenwald Kurzweil in 1975 and has two children. Sonya Kurzweil is a psychologist in private practice in Newton, Massachusetts, working with women, children, parents and families. She holds faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School and William James College for Graduate Education in Psychology. Her research interests and publications are in the area of psychotherapy practice. Kurzweil also serves as an active Overseer at Boston Children's Museum.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: He has a son, Ethan Kurzweil, who is a venture capitalist, and a daughter, Amy Kurzweil, a cartoonist.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil said "I realize that most inventions fail not because the R&D department can't get them to work, but because the timing is wrongnot all of the enabling factors are at play where they are needed. Inventing is a lot like surfing: you have to anticipate and catch the wave at just the right moment."


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: For the past several decades, Kurzweil's most effective and common approach to doing creative work has been conducted during his lucid dreamlike state which immediately precedes his awakening state. He claims to have constructed inventions, solved difficult problems, such as algorithmic, business strategy, organizational, and interpersonal problems, and written speeches in this state.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil's first book, "The Age of Intelligent Machines", was published in 1990. The nonfiction work discusses the history of computer artificial intelligence (AI) and forecasts future developments. Other experts in the field of AI contribute heavily to the work in the form of essays. The Association of American Publishers awarded it the status of "Most Outstanding Computer Science Book" of 1990.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In 1993, Kurzweil published a book on nutrition called "The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life". The book's main idea is that high levels of fat intake are the cause of many health disorders common in the U.S., and thus that cutting fat consumption down to 10% of the total calories consumed would be optimal for most people.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In 1999, Kurzweil published "The Age of Spiritual Machines", which further elucidates his theories regarding the future of technology, which themselves stem from his analysis of long-term trends in biological and technological evolution. Much emphasis is on the likely course of AI development, along with the future of computer architecture.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil's next book, published in 2004, returned to human health and nutrition. "" was co-authored by Terry Grossman, a medical doctor and specialist in alternative medicine.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: "The Singularity Is Near", published in 2005, was made into a movie starring Pauley Perrette from NCIS. In February 2007, Ptolemaic Productions acquired the rights to "The Singularity Is Near", "The Age of Spiritual Machines", and "Fantastic Voyage", including the rights to film Kurzweil's life and ideas for the documentary film "Transcendent Man", which was directed by Barry Ptolemy.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: "Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever", a follow-up to "Fantastic Voyage", was released on April 28, 2009.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil's book "How to Create a Mind" was released on November 13, 2012. In it Kurzweil describes his Pattern Recognition Theory of Mind, the theory that the neocortex is a hierarchical system of pattern recognizers, and argues that emulating this architecture in machines could lead to an artificial superintelligence.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil's latest book and first fiction novel, "Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine", follows a girl who uses her intelligence and the help of her friends to tackle real-world problems. It follows a structure akin to the scientific method. Chapters are organized as year-by-year episodes from Danielle's childhood and adolescence. The book comes with companion materials, "A Chronicle of Ideas", and "How You Can Be a Danielle" that provide real-world context. The book was released in April 2019.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In an article on his website kurzweilai.net, Ray Kurzweil announced his new book "The Singularity Is Nearer" for release in 2022.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In 2010, Kurzweil wrote and co-produced a movie directed by Anthony Waller called "The Singularity Is Near: A True Story About the Future", which was based in part on his 2005 book "The Singularity Is Near". Part fiction, part non-fiction, the film blends interviews with 20 big thinkers (such as Marvin Minsky) with a narrative story that illustrates some of his key ideas, including a computer avatar (Ramona) who saves the world from self-replicating microscopic robots. In addition to his movie, an independent, feature-length documentary was made about Kurzweil, his life, and his ideas, called "Transcendent Man".


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In 2010, an independent documentary film called "Plug & Pray" premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival, in which Kurzweil and one of his major critics, the late Joseph Weizenbaum, argue about the benefits of eternal life.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: The feature-length documentary film "The Singularity" by independent filmmaker Doug Wolens (released at the end of 2012), showcasing Kurzweil, has been acclaimed as "a large-scale achievement in its documentation of futurist and counter-futurist ideas" and "the best documentary on the Singularity to date."


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In his 1999 book "The Age of Spiritual Machines", Kurzweil proposed "The Law of Accelerating Returns", according to which the rate of change in a wide variety of evolutionary systems (including the growth of technologies) tends to increase exponentially. He gave further focus to this issue in a 2001 essay entitled "The Law of Accelerating Returns", which proposed an extension of Moore's law to a wide variety of technologies, and used this to argue in favor of John von Neumann's concept of a technological singularity.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil was working with the Army Science Board in 2006 to develop a rapid response system to deal with the possible abuse of biotechnology. He suggested that the same technologies that are empowering us to reprogram biology away from cancer and heart disease could be used by a bioterrorist to reprogram a biological virus to be more deadly, communicable, and stealthy. However, he suggests that we have the scientific tools to successfully defend against these attacks, similar to the way we defend against computer software viruses. He has testified before Congress on the subject of nanotechnology, advocating that nanotechnology has the potential to solve serious global problems such as poverty, disease, and climate change. "Nanotech Could Give Global Warming a Big Chill".


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In media appearances, Kurzweil has stressed the extreme potential dangers of nanotechnology but argues that in practice, progress cannot be stopped because that would require a totalitarian system, and any attempt to do so would drive dangerous technologies underground and deprive responsible scientists of the tools needed for defense. He suggests that the proper place of regulation is to ensure that technological progress proceeds safely and quickly, but does not deprive the world of profound benefits. He stated, "To avoid dangers such as unrestrained nanobot replication, we need relinquishment at the right level and to place our highest priority on the continuing advance of defensive technologies, staying ahead of destructive technologies. An overall strategy should include a streamlined regulatory process, a global program of monitoring for unknown or evolving biological pathogens, temporary moratoriums, raising public awareness, international cooperation, software reconnaissance, and fostering values of liberty, tolerance, and respect for knowledge and diversity."


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil admits that he cared little for his health until age 35, when he was found to suffer from a glucose intolerance, an early form of type II diabetes (a major risk factor for heart disease). Kurzweil then found a doctor, Terry Grossman, who shared his unconventional beliefs and helped him to develop an extreme regimen involving hundreds of pills, chemical intravenous treatments, red wine, and various other methods to attempt to extend his lifespan. In 2007, Kurzweil was ingesting "250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea" every day and drinking several glasses of red wine a week in an effort to "reprogram" his biochemistry. By 2008, he had reduced the number of supplement pills to 150. By 2015. Kurzweil further reduced his daily pill regimen down to 100 pills.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil asserts that in the future, everyone will live forever. In a 2013 interview, he said that in 15 years, medical technology could add more than a year to one's remaining life expectancy for each year that passes, and we could then "outrun our own deaths". Among other things, he has supported the SENS Research Foundation's approach to finding a way to repair aging damage, and has encouraged the general public to hasten their research by donating.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil's standing as a futurist and transhumanist has led to his involvement in several singularity-themed organizations. In December 2004, Kurzweil joined the advisory board of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. In October 2005, Kurzweil joined the scientific advisory board of the Lifeboat Foundation. On May 13, 2006, Kurzweil was the first speaker at the Singularity Summit at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. In May 2013, Kurzweil was the keynote speaker at the 2013 proceeding of the Research, Innovation, Start-up and Employment (RISE) international conference in Seoul.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In February 2009, Kurzweil, in collaboration with Google and the NASA Ames Research Center, announced the creation of the Singularity University training center for corporate executives and government officials. The university's self-described mission is to "assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity's grand challenges". Using Vernor Vinge's Singularity concept as a foundation, the university offered its first nine-week graduate program to 40 students in 2009.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil views the human body as a system of thousands of "programs" and that understanding all of their functions could hold the key towards building a truly sentient AI.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil's first book, "The Age of Intelligent Machines", presents his ideas about the future. Written from 1986 to 1989, it was published in 1990. Building on Ithiel de Sola Pool's "Technologies of Freedom" (1983), Kurzweil claims to have forecast the dissolution of the Soviet Union due to new technologies such as cellular phones and fax machines disempowering authoritarian governments by removing state control over the flow of information. In the book, Kurzweil also extrapolates trends in improving computer chess software performance, predicting that computers would beat the best human players "by the year 2000". In May 1997, IBM's Deep Blue computer defeated chess World Champion Garry Kasparov in a well-publicized chess match.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil foresaw the explosive growth in worldwide Internet use that began in the 1990s. At the time when "The Age of Intelligent Machines" was published, there were only 2.6 million Internet users in the world, and the medium was unreliable, difficult to use, and deficient in content. He also stated that the Internet would explode not only in the number of users but in content as well, eventually granting users access "to international networks of libraries, data bases, and information services". Additionally, Kurzweil claims to have correctly foreseen that the preferred mode of Internet access would inevitably be through wireless systems, and estimated that this development would become practical for widespread use in the early 21st century.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In October 2010, Kurzweil released his report, "How My Predictions Are Faring" in PDF format, analyzing the predictions he made in his book "The Age of Intelligent Machines" (1990), "The Age of Spiritual Machines" (1999) and "The Singularity is Near" (2005). Of the 147 predictions, Kurzweil claimed that 115 were "entirely correct", 12 were "essentially correct", 17 were "partially correct", and only 3 were "wrong". Combining the "entirely" and "essentially" correct, Kurzweil's claimed accuracy rate comes to 86%.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Daniel Lyons, writing in "Newsweek" magazine, criticized Kurzweil for some of his predictions that turned out to be wrong, such as the economy continuing to boom from the 1998 dot-com through 2009, a US company having a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion by 2009, a supercomputer achieving 20 petaflops, speech recognition being in widespread use and cars that would drive themselves using sensors installed in highways; all by 2009. To the charge that a 20 petaflop supercomputer was not produced in the time he predicted, Kurzweil responded that he considers Google a giant supercomputer, and that it is indeed capable of 20 petaflops.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: "Forbes" magazine claimed that Kurzweil's predictions for 2009 were mostly inaccurate, with 7 failed predictions, 4 partially true predictions, and one correct one. For example, Kurzweil predicted, "The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition", which was not the case.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: On a Lex Fridman September 17, 2022, YouTube Podcast Kurzweil explained his worries about technology being used for violence. When asked about nuclear armaggedon and the Russo-Ukrainian War, Kurzweil stated: "I don't think (nuclear war) is going to happen despite the terrors of that war. It is a possibility but it's unlikely. Even with the tensions we've had with (the Zaporizhzhia) nuclear power plant that's been taken over. It's very tense but I don't actually see a lot of people worrying that's going to happen. I think we'll avoid that. We had two nuclear bombs go off in (1945) so now we're 77 years later... we've never had another one go off through anger... there are other dangers besides nuclear weapons."


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In 1999, Kurzweil published a second book titled "The Age of Spiritual Machines", which goes into more depth explaining his futurist ideas. In it, he states that with radical life extension will come radical life enhancement. He says he is confident that within 10 years we will have the option to spend some of our time in 3D virtual environments that appear just as real as real reality, but these will not yet be made possible via direct interaction with our nervous system. He expounded on his prediction regarding nanorobotics, making the claim of within 20 years having millions of blood-cell sized devices, known as nanobots, inside our bodies fighting diseases, and improving our memory and cognitive abilities. Kurzweil also claims that a machine will pass the Turing test by 2029. Kurzweil states that humans will be a hybrid of biological and non-biological intelligence that becomes increasingly dominated by its non-biological component. In "Transcendent Man" Kurzweil states "We humans are going to start linking with each other and become a metaconnection; we will all be connected and omnipresent, plugged into a global network that is connected to billions of people and filled with data."


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In 2008, Kurzweil said in an expert panel in the National Academy of Engineering that solar power will scale up to produce all the energy needs of Earth's people in 20 years. According to Kurzweil, we only need to capture 1 part in 10,000 of the energy from the Sun that hits Earth's surface to meet all of humanity's energy needs.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Kurzweil was called "the ultimate thinking machine" by "Forbes" and a "restless genius" by "The Wall Street Journal". PBS included Kurzweil as one of 16 "revolutionaries who made America" along with other inventors of the past two centuries. "Inc." magazine ranked him Number 8 among the "most fascinating" entrepreneurs in the US and called him "Edison's rightful heir". Bill Gates called him "the best at predicting the future of artificial intelligence".


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Although technological singularity is a popular concept in science fiction, some authors such as Neal Stephenson and Bruce Sterling have voiced skepticism about its real-world plausibility. Sterling expressed his views on the singularity scenario in a talk at the Long Now Foundation entitled "The Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole". Other prominent AI thinkers and computer scientists such as Daniel Dennett, Rodney Brooks, David Gelernter and Paul Allen have also criticized Kurzweil's projections.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In the cover article of the December 2010 issue of "IEEE Spectrum", John Rennie criticizes Kurzweil for several predictions that failed to become manifest by the originally predicted date. "Therein lie the frustrations of Kurzweil's brand of tech punditry. On close examination, his clearest and most successful predictions often lack originality or profundity. And most of his predictions come with so many loopholes that they border on the unfalsifiable."


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Bill Joy, cofounder of Sun Microsystems, agrees with Kurzweil's timeline of future progress, but thinks that technologies such as AI, nanotechnology and advanced biotechnology will create a dystopian world. Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corporation, has called the notion of a technological singularity "intelligent design for the IQ 140 people...This proposition that we're heading to this point at which everything is going to be just unimaginably different—it's fundamentally, in my view, driven by a religious impulse. And all of the frantic arm-waving can't obscure that fact for me."


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter has said of Kurzweil's and Hans Moravec's books: "It's an intimate mixture of rubbish and good ideas, and it's very hard to disentangle the two, because these are smart people; they're not stupid."


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Biologist P.Z. Myers has criticized Kurzweil's predictions as being based on "New Age spiritualism" rather than science and says that Kurzweil does not understand basic biology. VR pioneer Jaron Lanier has described Kurzweil's ideas as "cybernetic totalism" and has outlined his views on the culture surrounding Kurzweil's predictions in an essay for Edge Foundation entitled "One Half of a Manifesto". Physicist and futurist Theodore Modis claims that Kurzweil's thesis of a "technological singularity" lacks scientific rigor.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: British philosopher John Gray argued that contemporary science is what magic was for ancient civilizations. It gives a sense of hope for those who are willing to do almost anything to achieve eternal life. He quotes Kurzweil's Singularity as another example of a trend which has almost always been present in the history of mankind.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: HP Newquist wrote in "The Brain Makers" "Born with the same gift for self-promotion that was a character trait of people like P.T. Barnum and Ed Feigenbaum, Kurzweil had no problems talking up his technical prowess...Ray Kurzweil was not noted for his understatement."


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: In a 2015 paper, William D. Nordhaus of Yale University used a variety of econometric methods to run six supply-side tests and one demand-side test to track the macroeconomic viability of the required steep rises in information technology. Only two indicated that a Singularity was economically possible and both predicted at least 100 years before it would occur.


title: Ray Kurzweil

text: Ted Kaczynski criticized the idea of technological immortality proposed by Ray Kurzweil in his 2016 book "".


title: Zhejiang

text: Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiangsu and Shanghai to the north, Anhui to the northwest, Jiangxi to the west and Fujian to the south. To the east is the East China Sea, beyond which lies the Ryukyu Islands. The population of Zhejiang stands at 64.6 million, the 8th highest among China. It has been called 'the backbone of China' due to being a major driving force in the Chinese economy and being the birthplace of several notable persons, including the Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and entrepreneur Jack Ma. Zhejiang consists of 90 counties (incl. county-level cities and districts).


title: Zhejiang

text: The area of Zhejiang was controlled by the Kingdom of Yue during the Spring and Autumn period. The Qin Empire later annexed it in 222 BC. Under the late Ming dynasty and the Qing dynasty that followed it, Zhejiang's ports became important centers of international trade. It was occupied by the Empire of Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese war and placed under the control of the Japanese puppet state known as the Reorganized National Government of China. After Japan's defeat, Zhejiang's economy became stagnant under Mao Zedong's policies.


title: Zhejiang

text: Nevertheless, after China's economic reform, Zhejiang has grown to be considered one of China's wealthiest provinces, ranking fourth in GDP nationally and fifth by GDP per capita, with a nominal GDP of US$1.01 trillion as of 2020, ranking between the Netherlands and Indonesia with a GDP of US$ 913 billion and US$ 1.06 trillion respectively, the 16th and 17th largest in the world respectively. Zhejiang's economy is based on electromechanical industries, textiles, chemical industries, food and construction materials.