America’s Hardest-Working Town

Parade.com has published the list of America’s Hardest-Working Town. The list is based on criteria like average hours worked per capita, willingness to work during personal time, number of dual income homes and local employment rate. The top 3 towns are:

1. Columbia, Missouri - More than 80 percent of households are dual-income, and the city ranked second on likelihood to work weekends.

2. Hartford, Connecticut – Hartford ranked second on our list of willingness to give up personal time for work and fourth on our list of admitting to working most weekends.

3. Norfolk, Virginia – he people of Norfolk scored nine points above the rest of the nation in working most weekends and three points above the national average in willingness to sacrifice personal time for work.

Churchill has short-term corporate housing available throughout Washington D.C. and  Nationwide. Please contact us at 866-255-0593 for more information.

Courtesy of parade.com

The 2011 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree

The 2011 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree will be lit for the first time on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 from 7-9pm. The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is a world-wide symbol of the holidays in New York City. The tree, traditionally a Norway Spruce, is illuminated by 30,000 environmentally friendly LED lights on five miles of wire, and crowned by a Swarovski crystal star.

History of the Rockefeller Center Tree:

1931 - Workmen put up a Christmas tree on a muddy Rockefeller Center construction site.

1933 - First formal Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting Ceremony. The 50 foot tree was decked with 700 lights in front of the eight-month-old RCA Building and the lighting ceremony was broadcast over NBC radio.

1936 - Two trees, each 70 feet tall, were erected. For the first time the Lighting Ceremony included a skating pageant on the newly opened Rockefeller Plaza Outdoor Ice Skating Pond.

1942 - Three trees were placed on Rockefeller Plaza, one decorated in red, one in white and the other in blue to show support for our troops serving during World War II.

1949 - The tree was painted silver, to look like snow.

1951 ­ – The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree was lit for the first time on national television on the Kate Smith Show.
1963 - After the 1963 Christmas Tree had spent three weeks on holiday display, its 60 feet of Norway wood was donated to a Boy Scout troop.

1966 - The first tree from outside the United States was erected. It was given by Canada, in honor of the Centennial of its Confederation. This is the farthest distance a tree has traveled to Rockefeller Center.

1980 - A 70 foot-tall Norway Spruce came from the grounds of the Immaculate Conception Seminary of Mahwah, N.J. Bob Hope participated in the Lighting.
1999 -­ The largest tree in Rockefeller Center history – a 100 foot high, 100 year old, 10 ton Norway Spruce – was chosen from Killingworth, CT.

2004 ­ – The Swarovski-designed star is created. It is the largest star to ever grace the tree, measures 9 1/2 feet in diameter and 1 1/2 feet deep, and is adorned with 25,000 crystals and one million facets.

2007 - The 75th tree marked the start of a new eco-friendly tradition in 2007. It was cut down with a two-person handsaw, and illuminated by 30,000 LEDs that used a fraction of the energy of normal bulbs. When the time came to take the tree down, Rockefeller Center partnered with Habitat for Humanity, which milled and treated it for future use as “green” lumber.

Churchill has short-term corporate housing available in New York City and other cities Nationwide. Please contact us at 866-255-0593 or NewYork@FurnishedHousing.com for more information.

Five Best RSS Newsreaders

Lifehacker.com has highlighted the five best RSS newsreaders in the current market. For the non tech savvy, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. RSS allows users to avoid manually inspecting all of the websites they are interested in, and instead subscribe to websites such that all new content is pushed onto their browsers when it becomes available.

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Homes With The Most Outrageous Amenities

Forbes.com compiles a list of Homes With The Most Outrageous Amenities. Some of our favorites are:

• An old English phone booth converted into an outdoor shower near the pool of a mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut.

• A $10 million dollar estate in Laguna Beach, California, featuring a secret subterranean garage, accessible via a hidden entrance.

• A $35 million dollar home in New York City with a two-story cascading waterfall and a stone terrace with real grass.

Churchill has short-term corporate housing available in New York City and Nationwide. Please contact us at 866-255-0593 or NewYork@FurnishedHousing.com for more information

Courtesy of forbes.com

The 10 Most Unusual Museums in America

GQ’s “Break Out of the Museum!” highlights the 10 most unorthodox places to experience art in America.

Some of our favorites include:

The Philip Johnson Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut – essentially one crystal cube surrounded by forty-seven acres of wilderness.

The Rubell Family Collection in Miami, Florida – features one of the best Basquiat, Warhol, Murakami, Paul McCarthy, Robert Longo collections in the world.

Churchill has short-term corporate housing available Nationwide. Please contact us at 866-255-0593 or National@FurnishedHousing.com for more information.

Courtesy of bc.edu

Best Burgers in the U.S.

Foodandwine.com has released their Best Burgers in the U.S. list. The list includes burgers from the common 24-hour-roadside joints to the high end restaurants crafting burgers from Kobe beef imported from Japan. Here are some of our favorites from the list.

Minetta Tavern in New York City, NY
Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, VA
Craigie on Main in Boston, MA
Louis’ Lunch in New Haven, CT

Churchill has short-term corporate housing available Nationwide. Please contact us at 866-255-0593 or National@FurnishedHousing.com for more information.

Courtesy of Craigie on Main

10 Healthiest and Safest Metro Areas

Livescience.com reveals the 10 Healthiest and Safest Metro Areas. The survey included 187 metro areas, and was based on responses from 353,000 American adults interviewed by telephone in 2009. The survey included questions about safe places to exercise, easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables, money for food and shelter, access to clean water and to health care. The top 10 cities are:

1. Holland-Grand Haven, Mich. – 89.3
2. Madison, Wis. – 88.0
3. Des Moines-West Des Moines, Iowa – 87.7
4. Cedar Rapids, Iowa – 87.3
5. Portland-South Portland-Biddeford, Maine – 87.0
6. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, Minn.-Wis. – 86.7
7. Lancaster, Pa. – 86.7
8. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, Mass.-N.H.
9. Honolulu, Hawaii – 86.4
10. Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, Conn. – 86.4

Churchill has short-term, corporate housing nationwide. Please contact us at 866-255-0593 or email National@FurnishedHousing.com for more information.

How Much Time You Waste In Traffic?

Infrastructurist.com has reported on a study done by the Texas Transportation Institute which compares wasted hours due to traffic in 14 major cities from 1997 to 2007. Out of the 14 cities in this study, only Seattle has reduced commuting times by approximately 10 minutes. The Texas Transportation Institute has congestion data available on most major US cities.

Churchill has short-term, corporate housing on the east coast and nationwide. Please contact us at 866-255-0593 or email National@FurnishedHousing.com for more information.

6-Year-Old Pianist To Play at Carnegie Hall

Huffingtonpost.com reports that Clara Tu, a six-year-old piano prodigy from Connecticut will be playing three dates at the world-famous Carnegie Hall. The first-grader started playing the piano at four and has only been playing for just two years. She will be performing on April 18th, May 1st and May 16th.

Churchill has short-term apartments in New York City. Please contact us at 866-255-0593 or NewYork@FurnishedHousing.com for more information.

Prudential CT Realty Trade Show

Prudential Connecticut Realty had their 2010 Awards Celebration and Trade Show on April 1st. The show was held at the Aqua Turf Club in Plantsville, CT, featured the top Realtors from Prudential CT, along with top industry vendors. Churchill was invited to be a Premiere Vendor at the event. Below is a photo of Erin Sergeant, an Account Manager from Churchill Furniture Rental in front of the Churchill information booth. You can also view more photos from GeoMetric Moving & Storage, another Premiere Vendor at the trade show.