{"id":937,"date":"2006-05-03T06:26:17","date_gmt":"2006-05-03T11:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/grand\/"},"modified":"2006-05-03T06:40:23","modified_gmt":"2006-05-03T11:40:23","slug":"grand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/grand","title":{"rendered":"Grand"},"content":{"rendered":"

I laughed yesterday when my new issue of City Journal<\/a> arrived in the mail next to a copy of the Hampshire College Reports<\/a>, but I’ve got a wacky sense of humor.<\/p>\n

I haven’t opened the piece from my alma mater, but the City Journal includes a history\/appreciation of the Plaza Hotel<\/a> in New York. You oughtta read it; the article is almost devoid of the political tilt of the rest of the magazine, and it’s a refreshing reminder that it’s called City<\/em> Journal for a reason. (Unfortunately, the online version doesn’t have all the great photographs of the Plaza that are in the print edition.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Also, here’s a little (unexpected) appreciation of Times Square<\/a> in Metropolis<\/em> by Marshall Berman:<\/p>\n

Don’t you think that the scale of the newer buildings is a bit insane?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. But the horrible buildings of the 1990s are much less horrible than the horrible buildings of the 1960s and the ’70s. Think of 1 Astor Plaza, which knocked out the Astor Hotel, or the Marriott Marquis, which erased the Helen Hayes Theater. Those buildings are really blots on the square. Compared with those monstrosities, the newer buildings–which are just blah–aren’t so bad. Buildings don’t have to be great architecture to be good urbanism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I laughed yesterday when my new issue of City Journal arrived in the mail next to a copy of the Hampshire College Reports, but I’ve got a wacky sense of humor. I haven’t opened the piece from my alma mater, but the City Journal includes a history\/appreciation of the Plaza Hotel in New York. You … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Grand”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-urban-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4C7K-grand","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4213,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/left-wing-nutjobbery","url_meta":{"origin":937,"position":0},"title":"Left-Wing Nutjobbery","author":"Gil","date":"July 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Another day, another pinko leftist newspaper railing about income inequality and how it demolishes the Social Security fund: Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the U.S., according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Social Security Administration data -- without counting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":276,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/weekend-update","url_meta":{"origin":937,"position":1},"title":"Weekend Update","author":"Gil","date":"June 1, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"It was a relatively quiet Memorial Day weekend, except for the part where the cop hinted that I might be a serial killer (or did he think I was a hitman?). My girlfriend and I were thinking of going to see David Byrne play on Saturday night, but I'd been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "suburbs"","block_context":{"text":"suburbs","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/suburbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1445,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/watch-this-space","url_meta":{"origin":937,"position":2},"title":"Watch this space","author":"Gil","date":"April 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in college, I remarked that the weirdly pointillized head-shots on the front page of the Wall Street Journal looked like they'd been put through the \"Drew Friedman-izer\". I'm not sure if it was funnier to make a joke about a cartoonist best known for The Incredible Shrinking Joe Franklin,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1570,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/once-more-unto-the-drew-friedman-izer","url_meta":{"origin":937,"position":3},"title":"Once more unto the Drew Friedman-izer","author":"Gil","date":"June 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"PleasepleasePLEASE never let me get written about in the Wall Street Journal:","rel":"","context":"In "The Drew Friedmanizer"","block_context":{"text":"The Drew Friedmanizer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/the-drew-friedmanizer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":795,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/vote-everybody-out","url_meta":{"origin":937,"position":4},"title":"Vote everybody out","author":"Gil","date":"January 9, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"From the Wall Street Journal today: Why is it that whenever Congress gets into an ethics scrape, its first reaction is to further restrict the Constitutional rights of other Americans to influence Members of Congress?","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3716,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wham-bam","url_meta":{"origin":937,"position":5},"title":"Wham! Bam","author":"Gil","date":"April 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In honor of April Fools Day, Popmatters decided it was time to goof on an album that sold a bazillion copies and launched the career of George Michael, whose first solo album sold a mind-blowing 20 million copies. (I'm partial to Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1, but my wife is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Andrew Ridgeley\"","block_context":{"text":"Andrew Ridgeley","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/andrew-ridgeley"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00136Q36K","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}