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 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 Journal for a reason. (Unfortunately, the online version doesn’t have all the great photographs of the Plaza that are in the print edition.)
Also, here’s a little (unexpected) appreciation of Times Square in Metropolis by Marshall Berman:
Don’t you think that the scale of the newer buildings is a bit insane?
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.