A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from October 08, 2006
Texas Tower (a radar tower)

A “Texas tower” is another name for a radar tower. The name derives from a resemblance to the Texas oil rig towers in the Gulf of Mexico.
 
 
(Oxford English Dictionary)
Texas Tower [so called from its resemblance to a Texas oil rig], one of a chain of radar towers built along the eastern coast of the U.S.
1954 Tuscaloosa (Alabama) News 13 Aug. 3 (caption) Here is a closeup of a section of one of the ‘*Texas Towers’..being built offshore along the Atlantic coast. Towers, named for oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, will be built along the continental shelf.
 
2 August 1954, Washington Post, “Chain of Radar Warning Stations To Be Built on Towers Off East Coast,” pg. 1:
A chain of offshore radar warning stations, called “Texas towers” after the Gulf of Mexico oil well rigs, will be built along the East coast for $35 million, the Air Force disclosed yesterday.

Posted by Barry Popik
Texas (Lone Star State Dictionary) • Sunday, October 08, 2006 • Permalink


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