Fresh from the NY Times...

[lsanderson]

Shanghai, a Far East Feast
By R. W. APPLE Jr.

MADE for trade, the modern city of Shanghai came into being in the second half of the 19th century as a commercial link with the West. British, French, German and American traders settled there, eventually followed by White Russian refugees. They built a metropolis with Asia's first telephones, running water and electric power, a city of drugs, warlords, brothels and legendary riches. And like all expatriates everywhere, they brought their tastes in food with them. To this day, the Shanghainese have an appetite for croissants and French pastry and for Russian borscht (luo song tang, or Russian soup, on menus) although many may well not know their precise origins.

How the City Sank
By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
NEW ORLEANS

AMID the abandoned streets, uprooted trees and overturned cars of the Mid-City district, the sturdy brick form of Pump Station No. 1 seems a welcome haven. Part of a chain of stations extending across the city's bowl, it houses the vast pumps that have kept the lowlands drained of water since the early 20th century.

Now, with the city mostly silent, you can hear their rhythmic churning from blocks away as you approach the station. Inside the control room one recent afternoon, Kevin Martin was leaning back in his chair playing a computer video game of pool. A massive man with thick arms and small wire-rimmed glasses, he is one of several pump operators who kept the station running when Hurricane Katrina hit.

His experience during that nightmarish storm - when only some of the old pumps, including two more than 90 years old, held up as the waters rose - testifies to the legacy of the great public works projects of the first half of the 20th century. It is also a melancholic reminder of how American cities are dying as our commitment to that urban infrastructure unravels.

The pumps at Station No. 1 are arranged in a neat row, their suction pipes reaching down under the building to connect to the city's vast network of drainage canals. The 12-foot 1913 pumps, designed by the engineer Albert Baldwin Wood, are still here, as are four more he designed in 1928. The last two, the biggest and most powerful, were built in the mid-90's.

The night of the storm, Mr. Martin said, "the two new pumps went out right away. They're the most powerful. They sound like freight trains. Four of the old ones kept going all night. The original two pumps, those are the most reliable. I'd use those two before I'd use any of the others."