About InmanSquare.com
What...
Why...
- To promote a benevolent and joyful sense of community in Inman Square. InmanSquare.com is a gentle reminder that we are indeed all in this together; when each of us befriends our neighbors and expresses interest in their well-being, we all enjoy our lives here more.
- To foster the robusticity of owner-run businesses. Much of America and the world is overrun by what has been termed "generica." When we spend our dollars in the stores of our neighbors, we patronize people who actually care about our general prosperity; when we shop at generica, we send money to stockholders in West Palm Beach and Tokyo. More to the point, dollars spent at locally owned businesses are likely to come back to the coffers of our own businesses, and dollars spent on generica are more or less gone.
- To promote thesourceofcourse.com as a local source of webdesign services.
How...
- InmanSquare.com essays, through photographs, to convey and to cultivate a sense of community and, through hyperlinks, to give local businesses with websites greater exposure on the web.
- InmanSquare.com created and maintains the Inman Square Business Association's homepage.
Where...
- For the purposes of InmanSquare.com, Inman Square extends from the intersection of Cambridge and Hampshire Streets outward until it (the area of Inman Square) runs into the competing claims of Harvard, Central, Kendall, Union, and Porter Squares --with occasional extensions when beneficial to the neighborhood, to the Inman Square Business Association, or to InmanSquare.com.
Who...
When...
- Sometime during the years just before Queen Victoria acceded to the British throne, Edna Sputnik, a Russian immigrant, met Thucydides Stepponapuppi, a Greek immigrant, outside a now defunct Greek Orthodox church somewhere in London. Soon after, they were married and began making lots of little Stepponapuppis and, wanting to share photos of the kids with relations in their respective old countries, created a website for the purpose.
Shortly thereafter, having enjoyed webdesign so much, they decided upon the novel idea of creating a website about their neighborhood, Leicester Square, in London. Records of that time are sketchy, and information about why they named their website "InmanSquare.com" instead of "LeicesterSquare.com" is lost to history.
InmanSquare.com flourished, and at the Great London Exposition of 1851 it was awarded by Prince Albert the Gold Medal for Best Neighborhood Website. It was uncovered later that, in point of fact, Albert may have been motivated to grant them the Gold Medal because InmanSquare.com was the venue through which most people of the day found out about the Exposition, the website having run a banner for several months prior to the grand opening.
By the 1880's, the website was a world-famous, highly regarded, and revered resource, much as it is to this very day. Leicester Square's tinkers, coal draymen, and, in particular, coopers often changed the names of their businesses to get better placement on InmanSquare.com. When one of Queen Victoria's intimates wisecracked, "My oh my, your Highness, this InmanSquare.com is becoming more popular than Yourselves," she retorted with her now famous, "We are not amused."
However, dark days lay ahead. In the spring of 1912, it was decided to send the website's server (the actual computer on which InmanSquare.com existed) to the United States on tour. At the time, computers were, of course, still monstrously large machines, and it was determined that it should be shipped on the Titanic's maiden voyage, what with the Titanic being really flaming big and all. It was nailed to the deck and painted to look like part of the permanent superstructure (which fact accounts for why Kate Winslet never mentioned it. Fooled her good, didn't they?)
According to surviving witnesses, as the mighty ship sank, the huge wooden computer broke loose from the deck and floated, but it was not again spotted until weeks later. During this time, InmanSquare.com was offline, and the resultant confusion eventually led to the catastrophe now called World War I.
It was spotted intact and in May drifting off Bar Harbor, Maine. After some dispute between the Cunard Line and Lloyd's of London, the latter of which had insured the server, it was towed to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which had the only available crane big enough to raise it out of the water. Unfortunately, the borough of Brooklyn was at the same time hosting a beer convention. In the competition (for best beer) associated with said convention, Narragansett Ale and Pabst Blue Ribbon were the frontrunners engaged in a fierce and violent battle for votes. Somehow during the melee the InmanSquare.com computer was entered as a contestant and won the prize for "Best Beer of 1912." Foul play is suspected to this very day.
Parties interested in historical artifacts may see, on reruns of the television comedy series "Cheers," one of the original plaques awarded in that competition. In some episodes, Carla talks to Sammy from the end of the bar. When the camera focuses on Carla, the viewer can see in the background an old brass plaque that states: Brooklyn's "Best Beer" of 1912: InmanSquare.com.
The InmanSquare.com server (that is, the computer itself, you will remember) languished in a Brooklyn warehouse for years and years while Cunard, Lloyd's, the salvage company that had towed it, and the descendants, in Greece and Russia, of Thucydides Stepponapuppi and Edna Sputnik fought a great legal battle over possession of the server and the website. Fortunately, the Great Depression happened along. No longer did anyone involved care to pour any more money into the courts to try to gain title. Finally, it was decided that InmanSquare.com should be handed over to one member of the Sputnik family and one of the Stepponapuppi, to wit, one Edna Stolichnaya, a Russian-American, and one Ming Lapointe, a Greco-Sino-Franco-Americo,
Ming Lapointe left Brooklyn and left the business (that is, InmanSquare.com, the subject of this article, you remember) to his heirs when he was diverted into another business as Ming, Emperor of the Universe, who, of course, will be known to the reader through all those Flash Gordon movies of the 1930's. Ming's claim has passed down to his grandson, one of the current half-owners.
Unlike Ming, Edna Stolichnaya stayed in Brooklyn. One summer day in the late 1990's, Edna, very old and very dotty, was walking along the Brooklyn Promenade when she spotted the other current half-owner and shouted, "Hey, lady, you got a bagel in that handbag?" She had only half of a bagel, but she forked it over. Edna took it, saying, "Good. I got only half a website. Take it," handing over the title.
In the summer of 2000, the two current owners of InmanSquare.com, previously unknown to each other, met serendipitously at Harvard University's Buddhist Center for Wicked Sublime Inspiration and decided on the spot to revitalize the website by evicting Leicester Square and featuring information about Inman Square.
The whereabouts of the server (computer) on which InmanSquare.com is hosted is unknown. Allegations have been made that it is currently deep underwater, buttressing one of the caissons that hold up the Brooklyn Bridge.
For more information, please visit your local library.
Plus, how about those Red Sox, huh?
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