Local questions

Madison Square Garden is the home arena of the New York Rangers NHL ice hockey team and the New York Knicks NBA basketball team. St John’s Red Storm men’s NCAA basketball team also plays some home games at The Garden.

The Los Angeles Kings ice hockey team plays its home games at Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.

The Toronto Maple Leafs ice hockey team plays its home games at Scotiabank Arena (formerly Air Canada Centre) in Toronto, Ontario.

The Montreal Canadiens ice hockey team plays its home games at Centre Bell (formerly called Molson Centre) in Montreal, Quebec.

Yes, you can walk over the Granville Street Bridge in Vancouver. The walk, including bridge approaches is approximately 1 kilometer and offers views of downtown Vancouver, False Creek, and English Bay. Sidewalks on both sides are narrow, and may be shared with cyclists. To reach Granville Island on foot, the best approach is to use the bridge’s east sidewalk, but use the crosswalk at the end to stay on Granville Street. Further along there will be steps on the left leading down to Granville Loop Park and from there walk back under the bridge towards Granville Island.

Debbi Fields opened her first cookie store as Mrs Fields’ Chocolate Chippery in Palo Alto on August 18th, 1977 in the Liddicoats Market food mall at 340 University Avenue. Where the Apple stands today. The popularity of the store’s freshly baked cookies grew, and in 1979 a second location was opened at Pier 39 in San Francisco. The business expanded to a chain of over 700 US and international corporate and franchise stores by the late 1990s.

Snoqualmie Casino does not have a hotel. There is a Hampton Inn five minutes away in Snoqualmie, and motels in nearby North Bend.

The city of Lexington, Nebraska is approximately halfway between San Francisco and New York City on the I-80 at Exit 237. There are chain restaurants, hotels, gas stations and a Wal-Mart just off the highway.

The accuracy of the Ingleside sundial in San Francisco varies throughout the year. Its longitudinal location means it runs anything up to 24 minutes behind Pacific Standard Time for most of the year, being slowest around February 11th. Ignoring the hour difference caused by daylight saving time, the Ingleside sundial is within a minute or so of clock time from around September 26th to October 1st and again around December 1st to December 5th. During October and November it is a few minutes ahead. The Equation of Time explains these fluctuations, caused by the Earth’s axial tilt and its elliptical orbit around the sun. Because the orbital path is not perfectly circular, the Earth is closer to the sun at some points, causing it to speed up, lengthening the solar day between two solar noons.

On the evening of September 29th, 2003, Atlanta Thrashers hockey player Dany Heatley lost control of his Ferrari on Lenox Road in the residential district of Buckhead, Atlanta. The car collided with a brick pillar and wrought iron fence outside the Plantation apartment complex, splitting the vehicle in two. Heatley and his passenger, Thrashers teammate Dan Snyder, suffered serious injuries. Both were taken to Grady Hospital, where Dan Snyder died six days later. Dany Heatley recovered from his injuries and resumed his ice hockey career in 2004.

George Herman “Babe” Ruth is buried in Section 25 of the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York. The former professional baseball player for the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees died aged 53 in August 1948. He was interred at the cemetery following a funeral mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan. An epitaph by Cardinal Spellman engraved on his headstone reads: May the divine spirit that animated Babe Ruth to win the crucial game of life inspire the youth of America.

A bronze statue of Nikola Tesla stands on Birch Avenue in Palo Alto at the intersection with Sheridan Avenue. The statue of the Serbian-American engineer and inventor was sculpted by Terry Guyer following a crowdfunding campaign and was unveiled December 7th, 2013. The statue serves as a free public wi-fi hotspot and also contains a contains a time capsule to be opened on January 7th, 2043.

Manchester United was originally established in 1878 as Newton Heath LYR Football Club by the Carriage and Wagon department of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (LYR) depot at Newton Heath, Manchester. It became Manchester United F.C. in 1902. The team played at the North Road ground in Newton Heath until 1893, when it moved to a new ground at Bank Street, Clayton. Moston Brook High School subsequently stood on the site until its demolition in 2000 and it is now a Fujitsu office complex where a wall plaque reads: NORTH ROAD FOOTBALL GROUND THE ORIGINAL HOME OF NEWTON HEATH LYR F.C ONCE STOOD HERE (1878 – 1893)

The Burning Man festival started as a gathering held on San Francisco’s Baker Beach to mark the 1986 summer solstice. On June 22nd, 1986, Larry Harvey and Jerry James burned a 9-foot wooden human effigy they built at the northern end of Baker Beach, in the presence of a small group of friends. While the beach was already a place for summer solstice bonfires, this event attracted increasing public interest and was held annually until 1989, when some 350 people attended. By 1990, its growth and a lack of permits led to the event moving to Nevada where it continues to be held annually, albeit on a larger scale.

Google does not own Moffett Field. The site, between Mountain View and Sunnyvale, is on federal property controlled by NASA. In 2014, Google subsidiary Planetary Ventures LLC entered into a 60-year lease on a 1,000 acre portion of the NASA Ames Research Center site that includes Moffett Federal Air Base, the three large aircraft hangars, and golf course. The corporation assumed responsibility for operating and maintaining the site and agreed to renovate and improve the site’s distinctive hangar buildings. Google is using the facilities to support its research and development and technology innovation activities.

The Brooklyn Bridge can be crossed on foot in approximately 30 minutes, depending on factors such as numbers of other pedestrians and the weather. The walkway is segregated for pedestrians and cyclists, and sightseers stopping to take photographs and not keeping to the designated lanes can slow the flow of other pedestrians and bike traffic across the bridge considerably.

Rob Hill Campground, the only campsite within the city of San Francisco, is situated in a forested area of the Presidio above Baker Beach. This group campsite is open seasonally between April 1 and October 31, and has restrooms but no showers, no RV camping and no hookups. Advance credit card reservations are required and the maximum stay is three nights.

The Filbert Steps up Telegraph Hill start near Filbert and Sansome Streets, east of Levi’s Plaza, where you’ll see signs for “Stairs to Coit Tower”. The stairway continues after crossing Montgomery Street, eventually emerging on Telegraph Hill Boulevard near Coit Tower.

George Formby is buried in the Roman Catholic section of Warrington Cemetery

Oakland, California was named after the oak groves growing in the area, particularly until the mid 19th century. Spanish settlers referred to the area spanning present-day Emeryville, Piedmont, and parts of Oakland, as Encinal de Temescal, derived from encina, the Spanish word for the evergreen oak. Oakland was incorporated as a town in 1852 and as a city in 1854.