No one knows the artist who scrawled white-paint outlines of sprawled bodies on the streets and sidewalks beneath Nusle Bridge.
The artist is a nobody -- just like most of the nearly 400 people who have died by leaping from the deck of the huge concrete span, Prague's strangely inglorious suicide bridge.
Unlike scenic suicide bridges in other cities, such as the Golden Gate in San Francisco or the Butte Chaumont in a Paris park, the Nusle Bridge is a skeleton-grey hulk that looms over a depressed neighbourhood of dirty sidewalks and crumbling flats.
Almost everyone who jumps from the bridge dies on pavement from the impact of a 40m fall, and is suddenly transformed into a grotesque spectacle for those who are living in the bridge's shadow.
"Sometimes when I go home from school, I see blood on the street," said Petr Paukert, 15, who lives with his family in a building under the bridge.
As he spoke Paukert glanced down at one of the painted body outlines. He flashed a nervous smile and added, "One time my neighbor took home a part of someone's brain in a cup."
Nusle's square concrete legs and wide deck were designed in communist times and tested for strength with Soviet tanks.
It opened in 1973 with six traffic lanes on the top deck. On the second level is an enclosed, two-track passageway for subway trains.
As long as anyone can remember, the bridge has been a favorite for the suicidal. It's easy to reach, and a fall is almost certain to kill. The anti-suicide fences installed some years ago will slow but seldom stop the jumpers.
Prague's unfenced river bridges, by contrast, do not attract people with a death wish because their decks are only half as high as Nusle's.
Almost every week, and more often in winter, police and firefighters respond to calls from motorists who see a distraught person preparing to jump off Nusle. Or they're called by someone below who found a body.
Hundreds have died, but hundreds have been saved as well.
On a Friday night this August, for example, firefighters used persuasion and guts to rescue a man with a young woman standing on the bridge's edge. They had apparently planned to leap together.
Among those who've witnessed many less fortunate victims is Victor Maticka, whose newspaper and tobacco shop is under the bridge's center.
He said every year at least 20 bodies fall on the street, sidewalk or onto parked cars near his shop. "The worst is around Christmas," he said.
Maticka talks about the experiences with a matter-of-fact grin, staring out his shop door toward the bridge. "It's just like Niagara Falls," he said.
Occasionally a Nusle suicide makes headlines. That was the case last year when the 21-year-old son of popular Czech singer Dalibor Janda jumped to his death.
Paukert remembers that suicide. "My father and I saw him lying on the ground," he said with a hint of pride.
"But this," the boy said, pointing to a body outline on the sidewalk, "is just art. It's nobody."
May 26 to June 1 When the Qing Dynasty first took control over many parts of Taiwan in 1684, it roughly continued the Kingdom of Tungning’s administrative borders (see below), setting up one prefecture and three counties. The actual area of control covered today’s Chiayi, Tainan and Kaohsiung. The administrative center was in Taiwan Prefecture, in today’s Tainan. But as Han settlement expanded and due to rebellions and other international incidents, the administrative units became more complex. By the time Taiwan became a province of the Qing in 1887, there were three prefectures, eleven counties, three subprefectures and one directly-administered prefecture, with
It’s an enormous dome of colorful glass, something between the Sistine Chapel and a Marc Chagall fresco. And yet, it’s just a subway station. Formosa Boulevard is the heart of Kaohsiung’s mass transit system. In metro terms, it’s modest: the only transfer station in a network with just two lines. But it’s a landmark nonetheless: a civic space that serves as much more than a point of transit. On a hot Sunday, the corridors and vast halls are filled with a market selling everything from second-hand clothes to toys and house decorations. It’s just one of the many events the station hosts,
Through art and storytelling, La Benida Hui empowers children to become environmental heroes, using everything from SpongeBob to microorganisms to reimagine their relationship with nature. “I tell the students that they have superpowers. It needs to be emphasized that their choices can make a difference,” says Hui, an environmental artist and education specialist. For her second year as Badou Elementary’s artist in residence, Hui leads creative lessons on environmental protection, where students reflect on their relationship with nature and transform beach waste into artworks. Standing in lush green hills overlooking the ocean with land extending into the intertidal zone, the school in Keelung
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) and the New Taipei City Government in May last year agreed to allow the activation of a spent fuel storage facility for the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Shihmen District (石門). The deal ended eleven years of legal wrangling. According to the Taipower announcement, the city government engaged in repeated delays, failing to approve water and soil conservation plans. Taipower said at the time that plans for another dry storage facility for the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) remained stuck in legal limbo. Later that year an agreement was reached