Plaza

A plaza /ˈplɑːzə/ is an open urban public space, such as a city square.

Throughout Spanish America and the Spanish East Indies, the plaza mayor of each center of administration held three closely related institutions: the cathedral, the cabildo or administrative center, which might be incorporated in a wing of a governor's palace, and the audiencia or law court. The plaza might be large enough to serve as a military parade ground. At times of crisis or fiesta, it was the space where a large crowd might gather. Like the Italian piazza, the plaza remains a center of community life that is only equaled by the market-place.

Most colonial cities in Spanish America and the Philippines were planned around a square plaza de armas, where troops could be mustered, as the name implies, surrounded by the governor's palace and the main church. A plaza de toros is a bullring.

In modern usage, a plaza can be any gathering place on a street or between buildings, a street intersection with a statue, etc. Today's metropolitan landscapes often incorporate the "plaza" as a design element, or as an outcome of zoning regulations, building budgetary constraints, and the like. Sociologist William H. Whyte conducted an extensive study of plazas in New York City: his study humanized the way modern urban plazas are conceptualized, and helped usher in significant design changes in the making of plazas.

Plaza (surname)

Plaza is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

Plaza (disambiguation)

Plaza is a Spanish word for a city square; it may more specifically refer to:

People

Places

See also

Donuts (corporation)

Donuts or Donuts Inc. is a start-up company that was created to apply and run new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) as made possible by ICANN's gTLD expansion program; it was co-founded by Paul Stahura, Jonathon Nevett, Richard Tindal, and Daniel Schindler. In April 2011, the company was in stealth mode and raising capital; based on the company's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Donuts raised $1 million equity financing. Since then it has submitted 307 gTLD applications and secured an initial investment of $100 million in financing, and a subsequent round of an undisclosed amount though apparently it "almost doubles" its reserves. The second round of funding was earmarked specifically for gTLD auctions to resolve its 158 contention sets. The company's headquarters is located in Bellevue, Washington.

In September 2012, Donuts was ranked #14 in The Wall Street Journal's Top 50 Start-Ups for 2012. It was also the newest start-up on the list.

New gTLD applications

Apartment

An apartment (in American and Canadian English) or a flat (in British English) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies only part of a building, correctly, on a single level without a stair. Such a building may be called an apartment building, apartment complex (in American English), apartment house (in American English), block of flats, tower block, high-rise or, occasionally mansion block (in British English), especially if it consists of many apartments for rent. In Scotland it is called a block of flats or, if it's a traditional sandstone building, a tenement, which has a pejorative connotation elsewhere. Apartments may be owned by an owner/occupier, by leasehold tenure or rented by tenants (two types of housing tenure).

Terminology

The term apartment is favoured in North America (although flat is used in the case of a unit which is part of a house containing two or three units, typically one to a floor) and also is the preferred term in Ireland. In the UK, the term apartment is more usual in professional real estate and architectural circles where otherwise the term flat is commonly, but not exclusively, for an apartment without a stair (hence a 'flat' apartment). Technically multi-storey apartments are referred to as 'duplex' (or 'triplex') indicating the number of floors within the property. Usage generally follows the British in Singapore, Hong Kong and most Commonwealth nations.

The Apartments

The Apartments, an Australian indie band created in 1978 in Brisbane by Peter Milton Walsh. Based in Sydney, Australia, the band has continued to play, mostly in France, and has recorded eight albums, with the most recent release in 2015. With Peter Milton Walsh as singer-songwriter, The Apartments continue as a core group of players from the UK, Australia and France for recording and touring.

History

The band's name derives from Billy Wilder's 1960 film The Apartment. The Apartments have had a strong following in Europe since being based in London in the mid-1980s. Since returning to live in Australia in the late 1980s Walsh has continued to tour The Apartments in France and occasionally in Australia.

Early Apartments and Brisbane Connections (1978-1980)

The Apartments first came together in Brisbane in 1978 with Walsh (guitar, vocals), Michael O'Connell (guitar, vocals), Peter Whitby (bass, vocals) and Peter Martin (drums). The Apartments played regularly during a period of flourishing creative activity in Brisbane in the late 70s