Bata Shoes

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Bata

Type Private company

Industry Retail and Manufacturing

Founded Zlín, Czech Republic (1894)

Founder(s) Tomáš Baťa

Headquarter

s

Lausanne, Switzerland

Area served Worldwide

Products Footwear, Clothing and Fashi

on accessory

Owner(s) Bata Family

Website www.bata.com

Bata (also known as Bata Shoe Organization) is a family-owned

global footwear and fashion accessory manufacturer and retailer with acting

headquarters located in Lausanne, Switzerland. Organised into three business units:

Bata Europe, based in Italy; Bata Emerging Market (Asia, Pacific, Africa and Latin

America), based in Singapore, and Bata Protective (worldwide B2B operations),

based in the Netherlands, the organization has a retail presence in over 70 countries

and production facilities in 26 countries. In its history the Bata has sold more than

14 billion pairs of shoes and was awarded the Guinness World Record as the

"Largest Shoe Retailer and Manufacturer".

Contents

  [hide] 

1 Origins and history

o 1.1 Foundation

o 1.2 World War I

o 1.3 Shoemaker to the world

o 1.4 International growth

o 1.5 Jan Antonín Baťa

o 1.6 Bata-villes

o 1.7 World War II

o 1.8 After war

o 1.9 Czechoslovakia after 1989

o 1.10 Present

2 Bata brands

3 In popular culture

4 See also

5 References

6 External links

[edit]Origins and history

[edit]Foundation

The company was founded under the name A. Baťa in 1894 in Zlín (then Austro-

Hungarian Empire, today the Czech Republic) by Tomáš Baťa (Czech

pronunciation: [ˈtomaːʃ ˈbaca]), his brother Antonín and his sister Anna, whose

family had been cobblers for generations. The company employed 10 full-time

employees with a fixed work schedule and a regular weekly wage, a rare find in its

time.

In the summer of 1895, Tomáš found himself facing financial difficulties, and

debts abounded. To overcome these serious setbacks, Tomáš decided to sew shoes

from canvas instead of leather. This type of shoe became very popular and helped

the company grow to 50 employees. Four years later, Bata installed its first steam-

driven machines, beginning a period of rapid modernization. In 1904 Tomáš Baťa

introduced mechanized production techniques that allowed the Bata Shoe

Company to become one of the first mass producers of shoes in Europe. Its first

mass product, the “Batovky,” was a leather and textile shoe for working people

that was notable for its simplicity, style, light weight and affordable price. Its

success helped fuel the company’s growth and, by 1912, Bata was employing 600

full-time workers, plus another several hundred who worked out of their homes in

neighboring villages.

[edit]World War I

In 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, the company had a significant

development due to military orders. From 1914 to 1918 the number of Baťa’s

employees increased ten times. The company opened its own stores

in Zlín, Prague, Liberec, Vienna and Pilsen, among other towns.

In the global economic slump that followed World War I, the newly created

country of Czechoslovakia was particularly hard hit. With its currency devalued by

75%, demand for products dropped, production was cut back, and unemployment

was at an all-time high. Tomas Bata responded to the crisis by cutting the price of

Bata shoes in half. The company’s workers agreed to a temporary 40 percent

reduction in wages; in turn, Bata provided food, clothing, and other necessities at

half-price. He also introduced one of the firstprofit sharing initiative transforming

all employees into associates with a shared interest in the company's success

(today's equivalent of performance based incentives and stock options).

[edit]Shoemaker to the world

Consumer response to the price drop was dramatic. While most competitors were

forced to close due to the crisis in demand between 1923 and 1925, Bata was

expanding as demand for the inexpensive shoes grew rapidly. The Bata Shoe

Company increased production and hired more workers. Zlin became a veritable

factory town, a "Bataville" covering several acres. On the site were grouped

tanneries, a brickyard, a chemical factory, a mechanical equipment plant and repair

shop, workshops for the production of rubber, a paper pulp and cardboard factory

(for production of packaging), a fabric factory (for lining for shoes and socks), a

shoe-shine factory, a power plant and a farming actvities to cover both food and

energy needs... Horizontal and vertical integration. Workers, "Batamen", and their

families had at their disposal all the necessary everyday life services: housing,

shops, schools, hospital, etc.

[edit]International growth

Lockheed 10 Electra executive aircraft operated prewar by Bata in Europe

Bata also began to build towns and factories outside of Czechoslovakia (Poland,

Latvia, Romania, Switzerland, France) and to diversify into such industries as

tanning (1915), the energy industry (1917), agriculture (1917), forest farming

(1918), newspaper publishing (1918), brick manufacturing (1918), wood

processing (1919), the rubber industry (1923), the construction industry (1924),

railway and air transport (1924), book publishing (1926), the film industry (1927),

food processing (1927), chemical production (1928), tyre manufacturing (1930),

insurance (1930), textile production (1931), motor transport (1930), sea transport

(1932), and coal mining (1932). Airplane manufacturing (1934), synthetic fibre

production (1935), and river transport (1938). In 1923 the company boasted 112

branches.

In 1924 Tomáš Baťa displayed his business acumen by figuring out how much

turnover he needed to make with his annual plan, weekly plans and daily plans.

Baťa utilized four types of wages – fixed rate, individual order based rate,

collective task rate and profit contribution rate. He also set what became known as

Baťa prices – numbers ending with a nine rather than with a whole number. His

business skyrocketed. Soon Baťa found himself the fourth richest person in

Czechoslovakia. From 1926 to 1928 the business blossomed as productivity rose

75 percent and the number of employees increased by 35 percent.  In 1927

production lines were installed, and the company had its own hospital. By the end

of 1928, the company’s head factory was composed of 30 buildings. Then the

entrepreneur created educational organizations such as the Baťa School of Work

and introduced the five-day work week. In 1930 he established a stunning shoe

museum that maps shoe production from the earliest times to the contemporary age

throughout the world. By 1931 there were factories in Germany, England, the

Netherlands, Poland and in other countries.

In 1932, at the age of 56, Tomáš Baťa died in a plane crash during take off under

bad weather conditions at Zlín Airport. Control of the company was passed to his

half-brother, Jan, and his son, Thomas John Bata, who would go on to lead the

company for much of the twentieth century guided by their father’s moral

testament: the Bata Shoe company was to be treated not as a source of private

wealth, but as a public trust, a means of improving living standards within the

community and providing customers with good value for their money. Promise

was made to pursue the entrepreneurial, social and humanitarian ideals of their

father.

[edit]Jan Antonín Baťa

At the time of Tomáš's death, the Baťa company employed 16,560 people,

maintained 1,645 shops and 25 enterprises. Jan Baťa, following the plans laid

down by Tomas Bata before his death, expanded the company more than six times

its original size throughout Czechoslovakia and the world. Plants in Britain,

the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Brazil,Kenya, Canada and the United States,

followed in the decade. In India, Batanagar was settled near Calcutta and

accounted from the late 1930s nearly 7500 Batamen. The Bata model fitted

anywhere, creating, for example, canteens for vegetarians in India and respecting

the caste system. In exchange, the demands on workers were as strong as in

Europe: "Be courageous. The best in the world is not good enough for us. Loyalty

gives us prosperity & happiness. Work is a moral necessity!"

As of 1934, the firm owned 300 stores in North America, a thousand in Asia, more

than 4,000 in Europe. In 1938, the Group employed just over 65,000 people

worldwide, including 36% outside Czechoslovakia and had stakes in the tanning,

agriculture, newspaper publishing, railway and air transport, textile production,

coal mining and aviation realms.

[edit]Bata-villes

Company policy initiated under Tomas Baťa was to set up villages around the

factories for the workers and to supply schools and welfare. These villages

include Batadorp in theNetherlands, Baťovany (present-day Partizánske)

and Svit in Slovakia, Baťov (now Bahňák, part of Otrokovice) in the Czech

Republic, Borovo-Bata (now Borovo Naselje, part ofVukovar in Croatia then in the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia), Bataville in Lorraine, France, Batawa in Canada, East

Tilbury[1] in Essex, England, Batapur in Pakistan and Batanagar andBataganj in

India. There was also a factory in Belcamp, Maryland, USA, northeast

of Baltimore on U.S. Route 40 in Harford County.[2]

The British "Bata-ville" in East Tilbury inspired the documentary film Bata-ville:

We Are Not Afraid of the Future.[3]

[edit]World War II

Just before the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Bata helped re-post his

Jewish employees to branches of his firm all over the world. [4][5] Germany occupied

the remaining part of pre-war Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939; Jan Antonín

Baťa then spent a short time in jail but was then able to leave the country with his

family. Jan Antonín Baťa stayed in the Americas from 1939–1940, but when

America entered the war, he felt it would be safer for his co-workers and their

families back in occupied Czechoslovakia if he left the United States. He tried to

save as much as possible of the business, submitting to the plans of Germany as

well as financially supporting the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile led

byEdvard Beneš.

At occupied Europe a Bata shoe factory was connected to the concentration

camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.[6] The first slave labour efforts in Auschwitz involved

the Bata shoe factory.[7] In 1942 a small camp was established to support the Bata

shoe factory at Chełmek with Jewish slave labourers.[8]

After war

Bata International Centre 1965-2004

Tomas' son Thomas manager of the buying department of the English Bata

Company was unable to return until after the war. He was sent to Canada by his

Uncle Jan where he was the Vice President of the Bata Import and Export

Company of Canada, which developed into another model community

named Batawa that had been founded by Jan Antonin Bata in 1938. Foreign

subsidiaries were separated from the mother company, and ownership of plants in

Bohemia and Moravia was transferred to another member of the family.

After war governments in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland and Yugoslavia

confiscated and nationalized Bata factories in 1945, stripping Bata of its Eastern

European assets. From its new base in Canada, the company gradually rebuilt

itself, expanding into new markets throughout Asia, the Middle

East, Africa and Latin America. Rather than organizing these new operations in a

highly centralized structure, Bata established a confederation of autonomous units

that could be more responsive to new markets in developing countries.

In 1964, the Bata Shoe Organisation moved their headquarters to Toronto, Canada

—and in 1965 moved again, into an ultra-modern building, the Bata International

Centre. The Bata Shoes' former headquarters in North York, Ontario was designed

in the 1960s by architect John B. Parkin.

Czechoslovakia after 1989

After the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, Thomas J. Baťa arrived as soon as

December 1989. The Czechoslovak government offered him the opportunity to

invest in the ailing government-owned Svit shoe company. Since

companies nationalised before 1948 were not returned to their original owners, the

state continued to own Svit and privatised it duringvoucher privatisation in

Czechoslovakia. Svit's failure to compete in the free market led to decline, and in

2000 Svit went bankrupt.

]Present

After the global economic changes of the 1990s, the company closed a number of

its manufacturing factories in developed countries and focused on expanding retail

business. In 2004, the Bata headquarters were moved to Lausanne, Switzerland,

under the leadership of Thomas G. Bata, grandson of Tomáš Baťa.

In 2008, M. Thomas John Bata died aged 93 at Sunnybrook Health Sciences

Centre in Toronto at the age of 93 years old. M. Bata’s son, Thomas George Bata,

became chairman and chief executive of the company in 2001, but the elder Mr.

Bata remained active in its operations and carried business cards listing his title as

“chief shoe salesman.”

Today, the Bata Shoe Organization serves more than 1 million customers per day,

employs over 30,000 people,[9] operates more than 5,000 retail stores, manages 27

production facilities and a retail presence in over 90 countries.

The red indicates countries where Bata operates

[edit]Bata brands

Bata Store Wenceslas Square in Prague, the Czech Republic - 2005

Bata (Baťa in the Czech Republic)

Bata Comfit (Comfort Shoes)

Ambassador (Classic Men Shoes)

North Star (Urban Shoes)

Weinbrenner (Premium Outdoor Shoes)

Marie Claire (Women Shoes)

SunDrops (Women Shoes)

Bubblegummers (Children Shoes)

Baby Bubbles (Children Shoes)

Safari (Desert Shoes)

Power (Athletic Shoes)

Patapata (Flip Flops)

Toughees (School Shoes)

Verlon (School Shoes)

Teener (School Shoes)

Bata Industrials (Work & Safety Footwear)

[edit]In popular culture

The 1968 Czech film All My Compatriots by Vojtěch Jasný, in a scene set in

1948, refers to Baťa putting small shoemakers out of business.

In Susan Elderkin's 2000 novel Sunset Over Chocolate Mountains one of the

three narrative voices is Eva, a worker in a Bata factory in Partizánske,

Slovakia.[10]

Emil Zátopek worked in a Bata factory in Zlín.

[edit]See also

Baťa’s Skyscraper, Zlín

Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto

Bata shoe factory (East Tilbury)

[edit]References

1. ^ Bata Reminiscence and Resource Centre

2. ^ http://www.kilduffs.com/BATA.html

3. ^ Road film follows shoe empire" BBC News 28 August 2005

4. ^ Theresienstadt memorial archive 'Tom Stoppard Discloses his Past

5. ^ "And now the real thing" The Guardian, 22 June 2002. Retrieved 10

October 2010

6. ^ Dwork, Deborah; van Pelt, Robert Jan, Holocaust a History, W.W.Norton

& Company, Inc., 2002. ISBN 0-393-051888-9

7. ^ Engle Schafft, Gretchen, From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the

Third Reich, University of Illinois Press, 2004. ISBN 0-252-02930-5

8. ^ Dwork, Deborah; van Pelt, Robert Jan, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present,

New York: W.W. Norton and Company Inc. ISBN 0-393- 03933-1

9. ^ About Bata bata.com, March 5, 2013.

10.^ Review: A Slovak-Arizona journey

Talk:Bata Shoe Museum

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[edit]Untitled

Dear Wikipedia Editors:

I would like to make the following changes to the existing Bata Shoe Museum

article, but I am employed by the Museum as a consultant. I don't know who

originated the article - it's a good summary of the architecture, but it gives the

impression that the Museum is nothing but the building. My main goal is to have

the article describe a full picture of the Museum's activities. With the exception of

one exhibition which ends in early April 2008, I am only mentioning past

exhibitions and events so there is no promotion of specific current activities. Your

feedback as to whether the content below is acceptable would be greatly

appreciated.

Also, I would like to add "Bata Shoe Museum" to

<Template:Toronto_landmarks>.

Thank you in advance - Chopine

1) REASONS FOR PROPOSED CHANGES TO EXISTING TEXT

(1) In the Introduction: Change "The Bata Shoe Museum, in Toronto, Canada, is a

place dedicated to the history of footwear." to "The Bata Shoe Museum, in

Toronto, Canada, collects, researches, preserves, exhibits and interprets footwear

from around the world." (Reason: "a place" is unnecessary (if it's a museum, it's

clearly a place), the collection spans many cultures and geographic regions, and

this description is closer to the official definition of a museum, which we follow,

and says more about what the Museum actually does.)

(2) In "Building": Change "completed in 1991" to "completed in 1995". (Reason:

this building was completed in 1995. The Museum was housed elsewhere in the

early 90s. I propose to go into detail on this later on - please see below.)

(3) In "Building": Change "The building consists of three stories above ground,

and two below ground levels" to "The publicly-accessible part of the building

consists of four stories". (Reason: one of the Museum's five floors is not accessible

to the public, and people get confused if they read that there are five floors and

then they come to the Museum and can only find four.)

(4) In "Building": Change "throughout which are dispersed galleries, a resource

lab, restoration facilities, a gift shop, offices, and storage." to "which contain four

galleries, three lecture and multi-purpose rooms, conservation facilities, and a gift

shop." (Reason: there is a difference between 'restoration' and 'conservation', and

the Museum practices the latter. Also, the lecture and multi-purpose rooms are

much more used by the public than the resource lab, which is really a library and is

only open to researchers, and only by appointment. Finally, I suggest leaving out

"offices and storage" because I think that's obvious, and not too interesting for

most people.)

(5) In "Building": Change "its vast expanses of limestone are used as a backdrop

for banners advertising exhibitions within" to "its vast expanse of limestone glows

in the late afternoon sunlight". (Reason: less than 10% of the limestone is used as a

backdrop for banners, and the sunlight on the limestone was an important part of

the architect's vision.)

2) PROPOSED CHANGES TO ARTICLE

Bata Shoe Museum

Established May 6, 1995

Location Toronto, Canada

Coordinates 43.667278°N

79.400139°W

Curator Elizabeth Semmelhack

Public transit

access

St. George (TTC), Spadina

(TTC)

Website www.batashoemuseum.ca

The Bata Shoe Museum, in downtown Toronto, Canada, collects, researches,

preserves, exhibits and interprets footwear from around the world.

The Museum offers four exhibitions, three of which are time-limited, as well as

lectures, performances and family events.

Contents

  [hide] 

1 Untitled

2 History

3 Collections and research

4 Exhibitions

5 Public programs and events

6 Education, teachers' resources and online exhibitions

7 Building

8 Publicity

9 External links

10 Request for Comment

11 RfC: Requesting Editor Feedback on my Edit

12 A short summery about Bata Shoe Museum

13 Bata Shoe Museum

[edit]History

The collection which became the Bata Shoe Museum originated with Mrs. Sonja

Bata. As she travelled the world on business with her husband, Mr. Thomas J.

Bata of the Bata Shoe Company, she gradually built up a collection of traditional

footwear from the areas she was visiting. In 1979 the Bata family established the

Bata Shoe Museum Foundation to operate an international centre for footwear

research and house the collection. From 1979 to 1985 the collection was on display

at the offices of [Bata Limited] in the Don Millsarea of Toronto. From

June 1992 to November 1994 the Bata Shoe Museum welcomed visitors on the

second floor of the Colonnade, an office and retail complex in downtown Toronto,

and on May 6, 1995 the expanded Museum opened at its present location.

[edit]Collections and research

The Museum's collections, now numbering over 12,500 shoes and related objects,

span 4,500 years of history and many cultures and geographic regions. Over the

years, the Bata Shoe Museum Foundation has funded field trips to collect and

research footwear in Asia, Europe, and circumpolar regions and cultures where

traditions are changing rapidly (Siberia, Alaska, Greenland, the Canadian Inuit and

the Saami people). The Foundation has also produced a number of academic

publications.

[edit]Exhibitions

The Museum offers four exhibitions, one semi-permanent and three time-limited

and changing. The semi-permanent exhibition, "All About Shoes: Footwear

through the Ages", features shoes from many historical periods and geographic

areas, and looks at the significance of footwear in various cultural practices and

phases of life. The three changing exhibitions are usually on display for one to two

years, and may focus on a specific time period, cultural group, geographic area, or

an aspect of material culture. The footwear on display, often remarkable for its

construction and/or embellishment, also acts as a key to understanding its times,

and illustrates social and cultural developments. Exhibitions have included: "The

Perfect Pair: Wedding Shoe Stories" (2002–2004), "Paths Across the Plains: North

American Footwear of the Great Plains" (2004–2005), "Icons of Elegance:

Influential Shoe Designers of the 20th Century" (2005–2007), "Watched by

Heaven, Tied to Earth: Summoning Animal Protection for Chinese Children"

(2006–2007), and "The Charm of Rococo: Femininity and Footwear of the 18th

Century" (2006–2008).

[edit]Public programs and events

The Museum also organizes lectures, performances, and social evenings, often

with an ethnocultural focus or community partner. A representative activity would

be "Step Into Tango: Milonga at the Bata Shoe Museum" (2008), an Argentinian

tango evening featuring live music, dancers, a tango singer, Argentinian

refreshments and a display of elegant tango shoes. Events often illuminate a

personal connection or a cultural context in which footwear was created; for

example, "In the Shoes of an Elizabethan Lady: The Passions and Scandals

of Frances Walsingham" (2007) featured a curator's lecture and short concert of

period music followed by an exhibition viewing. Themed family activities have

included storytelling, music, arts and crafts, and trying on funky shoes.

[edit]Education, teachers' resources and online exhibitions

Approximately 10,000 students come to the Museum every year on a field trip.

Teachers, students and non-students alike also visit the Museum's online

exhibitions: "On Canadian Ground: Stories of Footwear in Early Canada" and "All

About Shoes", which latter features artifacts and information from some of the

Museum's most popular exhibitions. "All About Shoes" also provides teachers'

resources with classroom activities and projects. The best entries in the

International Shoe Design Competition (2007), co-organized by the Museum

and IFFTI (International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes), are also

viewable online.

[edit]Building

Designed by Raymond Moriyama and completed in 1995, the structure sits on the

southwest corner of Bloor and St. George Streets in downtown Toronto. Its form is

derived from the idea of the museum as a container. Taking this further and

associating it with footwear, Moriyama stated that the building is meant to evoke

an opening shoe box, realised in a somewhat deconstructivist form with its canted

walls and its copper-clad roof offset from the walls of the building below in an

interesting play of volume and void. The main facade (north) along Bloor Street

pinches inward to where the entrance, in the form of a glass shard, emerges,

creating a more generous forecourt. This glass protrusion is one end of a multi-

level 'cut' through the building which contains the main vertical circulation,

providing a clear view through the building to the three-story faceted glass wall,

designed by Lutz Haufschild, on the south facade. The entire stone volume appears

to float above a ribbon of glass display windows on street level, and its vast

expanse of limestone glows in the late afternoon sunlight.

The publicly-accessible part of the building consists of four stories, which contain

four galleries, three lecture and multi-purpose rooms, conservation facilities, and a

gift shop. Typical of most museums, the gallery spaces are neutral in design,

allowing focus on the creative displays, not the building itself. However,

traditional materials such as castbronze and leather (an important material in shoe

creation for centuries) are used in signage throughout the museum.

Raymond Moriyama said of the edifice: "Architecture is never the creation of the

architect alone. The museum's architecture should be seen as a celebration not only

of shoes but also of the wonderful vision that brought them into the public eye."

[edit]Publicity

The Bata Shoe Museum was featured in an episode of The Amazing Race: Family

Edition, for which the contestants were in Toronto. Teams had to choose a pair of

shoes, and find the woman who fit the selected pair amongst 100 candidates.

[edit]External links

Wikimedia Commons

has media related

to: Bata Shoe Museum

Bata Shoe Museum official website

Bata International

[show]

V

 

T

 

E

Landmarks in Toronto

--Chopine (talk) 02:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Study the history of footwear.... at Toronto's very own SHOES< SHOES<

SHOES...

You can't even get this many shoes at the Shoe Company!!!!!!!!!!!!

[edit]Request for Comment

[edit]RfC: Requesting Editor Feedback on my Edit

I am in a Conflict of Interest situation so I want to make sure my article is neutral -

please let me know if there's anything else I should do - thank you.

Chopine (talk) 17:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Please make your desired changes. I'll return later to see if any modifications

are needed due to the Conflict of interest policy. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk)

21:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Ed, Thank you. I'll make the changes within the next couple of weeks and let

you know when they are done. --Chopine (talk) 01:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the proposed changes are good, and in keeping with the neutral point

of view. - SimonP (talk)`

[edit]A short summery about Bata Shoe Museum

Requested by Sonya Bata who had been painstakingly gathering a special

collection of artifact since 1940s, Raymond Moriyama, a Japanese-

Canadian architect took the responsibility of designing and construction of

Bata Shoe Museum project after meeting Mrs. Bata and her collection. The

building is 3 stories above ground and 2 underground which is made out of

limestone covered by a clad lid plane as the roof to protect the historical

treasures. The idea came from the shoeboxes that were protecting the shoes

from the dust and light. The transparent entrance is also another interesting

point of the building looking like it is sticking out of the hinged walls facing

north. The reason of the hinged walls was to create more space for the

pedestrians. The building is blending in with the surrounding buildings

because of the colors of the limestone and is giving the last touches of class

to the neighborhood.

References: • MAYS, JOHN BENTLY. "Ontario Craft." Ed. ANNE

MCPHERSON. Toronto: Ontario Craft Council, Fall 1995.

Ghazal Masteri Farahani —Preceding unsigned comment added

by Ghazalmasteri (talk • contribs) 21:14, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

[edit]Bata Shoe Museum

The Bata shoe museum which is located at downtown Toronto,corner of St.

George and Bloor street. The museum was officially opened on May 6

1995, given the symbolic potency of shoes.The building which is designed

by architech Raymond Moriyama,is an integral element to the museum’s

overall presentation.Moniyama took up the idea of the building as container,

inspired by the boxes used to store and protect its holdings.The walls, which

frame exhibition areas, are canted inward to the street level by 83.1 degree.

The effects of this are: it creates a feeling of spaciousness and also provides

a place for street performers, musician, and other public activities. —

Preceding unsigned comment added by Elenakhani (talk •contribs) 10:48,

18 October 2010 (UTC)