Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

The new republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

“They not like us!” (that’s for sure!)

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

In after Baud. Damn.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

You are here: Home / Humorous / Saturday Night Open Thread: Another Excellent Relocation

Saturday Night Open Thread: Another Excellent Relocation

by | 149 Comments

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The usual suspects, of course, are outraged. Especially the ones who only knew about the American Museum of Natural History — and, possibly, Teddy Roosevelt — because of those terrible ‘Night at the Museum’ movies. But the AMNH was one of the lodestones of my childhood, and I can assure you: That statue was considered an embarrassment even fifty years ago. It will *not* be missed in NYC. And it’s found a much more culturally appropriate home elsewhere:

… The towering bronze statue depicts Roosevelt riding a horse, as two nameless African and Native American men flank him on foot.

It has provoked strong debate in the city, as many criticized the apparent subservience of the pair to the White man in the center — calling the scene a symbol of racism and colonialism.

“The statue was meant to celebrate Theodore Roosevelt … as a devoted naturalist and author of works on natural history,” the museum website has said about the removal. “At the same time, the statue itself communicates a racial hierarchy that the Museum and members of the public have long found disturbing.”…

The Roosevelt statue will be on long-term loan to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library due to open in 2026, in North Dakota, where Roosevelt spent time in the Badlands. The presidential library was termed “a fitting new home” by New York City officials when the decision was made last year, noting it could be “appropriately contextualized” there.

Library trustees agreed the statue was “problematic in its composition” and said in a statement they would be establishing an advisory council comprising representatives from Indigenous and Black communities, historians, scholars, and artists to determine next steps…

For the moment, white supremacist ‘history enthusiasts’ can combine a trip to check up on ol’ Teedy with their pilgrimage to Kristi Noem’s Mount Rushmore. And once the country has recovered from the current political extinction burst, the TR Library can quietly relocate the statue, possibly as a marker to the restrooms.

Reader Interactions

149Comments

  2. 2.

    Scout211

    Good for the museum to (finally) remove the statue. But the very mention of Mt. Rushmore gives me a flashback to TFG standing in front of it smirking, ready for his face to be added. Ugh. What was that, a 4th of July celebration? ::shudder::

    ETA:  I guess japa21 had the same flashback.

  4. 4.

    Yarrow

    Pretty sure I have some Teddy Roosevelt campaign swag in a box somewhere. I wonder if it’s worth anything.

  5. 5.

    The Dangerman

    @japa21: Mount Rushmore? Not a chance. Bandini Mountain*?  Much more appropriate.

    *This might be a regional/California thing.

  8. 8.

    kindness

    As a kid we went to the AMNH & the Hayden Planetarium (same block) almost every year.  Kudos for the museum for recognizing the statue of Teddy wasn’t his best.

  9. 9.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    posted this in an earlier thread that spluttered out:

    DougJ flagged this, and I honestly thought he had made it up, but the details were too specific.

    On a chilly Tuesday afternoon this month, James Marsh stopped by a Chipotle near his suburban Chicago home to grab something to eat.
    It had been a while since Mr. Marsh had been to Chipotle — he estimated he goes five times a year — and he stopped cold when he saw the prices.
    “I had been getting my usual, a steak burrito, which had been maybe in the mid-$8 range,” said Mr. Marsh, who trades stock options at his home in Hinsdale, Ill. “Now it was more than $9.”
    He walked out.
    “I figured I’d find something at home,” he said.

    An options trader from his home in Hinsdale, where the median home price, google tells me, is $1.1million, walked out of Chipotle over ~75 cents.

    I googled James Marsh Hinsdale to see if this story was real– it is, it’s The New York Times, which I have to finally stop even half-ass defending here– and durn me if the first thing that came up, even before the NTY story, wasn’t the details of Mr Marsh’s PPP loan of $9,600. And if Mr Marsh’s income is $46K/yr, I’ll eat both our hats and buy him a thousand dollar Chipotle gift certificate.

    How can anyone like this– presumably a college-educated guy who knows about the internet– not see that giving their real name to the NYT, over 75 cents, isn’t inviting the wrath of the on-line hordes? How did no editor, even one unfamiliar with the leafier Chicago suburbs, ask “Your big lede on inflation is an options trader who works from home bitching about a 75 cent increase in the cost of his burrito?”

  11. 11.

    Suzanne

    Is this an open thread?

    In the FTFNYT, on Andre Leon Talley:

    As André said about his advice, “I AM NEVER WRONG!” He advised all women to moisturize their skin as well as Melania Trump, although, increasingly appalled with the racism he saw in the Trump White House, he instructed me: “We are never to talk about her again. She is nouveau riche trash.”

  18. 18.

    Ohio Mom

    @Scout211:

    I stopped by Mt. Rushmore once, while driving to Seattle, and I have a photo like Trump’s, a shot of my head lined up next to Lincoln’s. I’m smiling though, not smirking.

    Its like those photos of people holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Even as you are posing, there are people around you doing the same thing.

  19. 19.

    persistentillusion

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Former Hinsdale resident; Merc trader assholes are thick upon the ground in the western suburbs served by the Burlington Northern

    ETA: douchebaggery runs amuck with those nitwits.

  20. 20.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Suzanne: does she “moisturize” like she was in the hospital for a week for a “kidney ailment”, and as I recall the Presidential motorcade never came near the hospital?

     

    @MagdaInBlack: Heh, when I read the first part of your comment, my first thought was “Range Rover”

    the PPP detective link gives his home address, not usually something I approve of, but he works from home and applied for public funds so….

    I’m sure his wife and the neighbors are thrilled

  22. 22.

    Brachiator

    This article contains a brief video about the statue and how people have viewed it. I guess it was inevitable that it would be seen as racist no matter what the intention of the artist might have been. Many people see the elevation of Roosevelt on horseback as by definition making the two standing figures subservient to him.

  26. 26.

    Brachiator

    @Suzanne:

    he instructed me: “We are never to talk about her again. She is nouveau riche trash.”

    This reminds me, I think HBOs “The Gilded Age” begins on Monday, which features old rich trash.

  27. 27.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    because of those terrible ‘Night at the Museum’ movies.

    I thought they were pretty funny ?

    And now I just remembered Robin Williams played Teddy Roosevelt in those movie

    But yeah, that statue is pretty yikes tbh. Glad it’s being removed

  28. 28.

    James E Powell

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Online research found one of Mr. Marsh’s posts praising the burritos at a place where they are $16 & 17.

    He is an asshole with money and an ax to grind against Democrats. Therefore, according to the editorial policies of the FTFNYT, he qualifies as a RealAmerican® who bullshit can be taken as the consensus views of the whole nation.

  29. 29.

    lowtechcyclist

    I’m so glad it’s been years since I let my FTFNYT subscription lapse.  Just seems they get more atrocious all the time.

  30. 30.

    Ella in New Mexico

    TR actually did a lot of good things for America. We have so much public land preserved because of him.

    Is there a way to recongize that without the horrible racist statue?

  31. 31.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud: Why did he recommend that women moisturize Melania?

    Maybe Melania could be moisturized by dropping her into the middle of the Pacific.

  32. 32.

    delk

    Just “Zillow-ed “ Hinsdale and yeah, I ‘m staying in the city.  And bonus: no chitpole nearby. Plenty of taco and burrito places though.

  34. 34.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ella in New Mexico: We have so much pubic land preserved because of him.

    That national park down near the Delta of Venus gets lots of visitors each year, I’m told.

    ETA: Damn, you fixed the typo!

  36. 36.

    RaflW

    This is somewhat apropos the thread. I’d seen in passing the other day that ol’ Newtie is rearing up again, as the GOP gathers together their flowing white robery. And then I was reminded that I’d shared this TNC quote ten years ago this week on a social media platform.

    Ta-Nehisi Coates tells it about Gingrich and his supporters:
    “When a professor of history calls Barack Obama a ‘Food Stamp President,’ it isn’t a mistake to be remedied through clarification; it is a statement of aggression. And when a crowd of his admirers cheer him on, they are neither deluded, nor in need of forgiveness, nor absolution, nor acting against their interest. Racism is their interest. They are not your misguided friends. They are your fully intelligent adversaries, sporting the broad range of virtue and vice we see in humankind.”

  37. 37.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @James E Powell: I won’t ask how you did it but your words = my exact thoughts.

    He is an asshole with money and an ax to grind against Democrats. Therefore, according to the editorial policies of the FTFNYT, he qualifies as a RealAmerican® who bullshit can be taken as the consensus views of the whole nation.

    I just got an mailer from the NYT in addition to almost daily emails with some cheap offer to come back. I renewed WAPO for $10 for the year and I’m inches from canceling that too. The new editor there is awful.

  38. 38.

    Anne Laurie

    @Ella in New Mexico: Teddy’s been a favorite of mine since I was old enough to understand the concept of ‘President’ — a man of large virtues and embarrassing philosophies.  Quite literally; my parents took me to the TR Homestead in NYC and bought me a tiny Steiff teddy bear souvenir when I was about five.

    Learning to sort the good he did, like establishing the National Park system & the Pure Foods Act, from his many flaws as a politician & a parent, was one of my first lessons in ‘grown up’ politics.  And here I are, today!

  40. 40.

    M31

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    yeah I did the 10$/year at WaPo, and got sick of it within a week

    LOL if you go to cancel they offer you another year for $10 (instead of going up to the normal $150)

    But every time I go to the homepage I get so mad. It’s not NYT level but that’s a pretty low bar lol

  41. 41.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @RaflW: Yup. There was a sub-thread of birtherism that demanded Obama and/or Harvard release Obama’s grades, the barely concealed subtext being that a black guy couldn’t have gotten into Harvard College and later law school on merit. One of the cheerleaders for this was Matt “Bootstraps” Romney, son of Governor of Massachusetts and mega-millionaire  Willard “Mitt” Romney, himself the son of auotomotive CEO, Michigan governor, cabinet secretary and President manqué George, who actually did come from poverty.

    I think the trump spawn actually tried to push it too, for a while

  43. 43.

    divF

    @Baud:

    Obligatory, from Horse Feathers

    Wagstaff’s receptionist: The Dean is furious! He’s waxing wroth!

    Wagstaff: Is Roth out there, too? Tell Roth to wax the Dean for awhile.

  44. 44.

    hells littlest angel

    … the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library due to open in 2026 …

     

    Man, he was really not good at fundraising.

  45. 45.

    NotMax

    Been to that museum dozens of times over the years and have absolutely no memory of seeing that statue. Probably a result of using the museum entry in the subway station below.

    Had the Clifford Berryman’s cartoon not captured the public’s fancy, might little ones even today be clutching a Teddy moose? Teddy rhinos?

    ;)

    Pictures of some of TR’s post-White House wild game hunting.

  46. 46.

    raven

    @Anne Laurie: And his son was the real deal.

    Roosevelt is known for his World War IIservice, including the directing of troops at Utah Beach during the Normandy landings, for which he received the Medal of Honor.

  47. 47.

    Ohio Mom

    @Brachiator: That is a great video. It raises questions and then shows there are multiple, educated ways to look at possible answers.

    It’s interesting to compare the experts in history, art and museums wrestling with what should be done with the Roosevelt monument, with the knee jerk explosions we saw about the removal of Confederate monuments. Some of the same issues but discussed on completely different level. One discussion leaves you with a deeper understanding, the other shuts down all further discourse.

    I visited the Museum of Natural History quite often growing up but I always used the entrance that connects the Museum’s basement floor with the subway. It always seemed magical to leave the B train and enter all the places represented in the exhibitions: to go back to the age of dinosaurs, visit Africa and the South Pacific, go under the ocean and stand beneath the whale, and so on.

    So that Roosevelt Monument was not part of my consciousness, really.

    I wonder how it will fare in North Dakota. You’d like to think the people there will eventually evolve to the place New Yorkers have already arrived at — I think we can assume the area Native American community won’t be thrilled by its arrival

    ETA: I see NotMax took the same route.

  50. 50.

    HumboldtBlue

    @trollhattan:

    It was 65 degrees here today, we’ve had a week of extraordinary warm weather, and it’s gonna go on for a few more days due to a weird high pressure system.

    We may have set a record high today, I haven’t checked.

  53. 53.

    HumboldtBlue

    @raven: ​ 

    He was removed from command of the Big Red 1 because they were so rowdy and he refused to be a disciplinarian, and then ended up walking the beach on D-Day as the first general officer on the beach.

    He would soon die of a heart attack, and his letters to his wife are filled with some absolutely wonderful prose. He was an interesting man.

  58. 58.

    Librarian

    I just wanted to say that TR is one of my favorite presidents, because of the conservation and other progressive domestic policies. He established the principle that the federal government is responsible for the well being of the people. He was a precursor to his cousin in his policies. As for the statue, I visited the museum once in a school field trip and have no memory of seeing it and did not know it existed until recently.

  60. 60.

    NotMax

    Had McKinley not been killed, T.R. might well have been relegated to the political obscurity the poobahs of the party intended for him by nominating him for the vice presidency.

    When history grows blasé with zigging, it’s more than jubilant to zag. And vice versa.

  61. 61.

    HumboldtBlue

    @raven:

    Norm Cota landed as well, on Omaha with the second wave of the 29th.

    Roosevelt was removed from 1ID while still in North Africa, I believe, and sent back to England before being given 4ID ahead of Normandy.

    Also, if you haven’t read Ian Toll’s Pacific War trilogy, I highly recommend it. I am getting close to the end of book three, and I will most assuredly read it again. So much detail, so well written

  62. 62.

    raven

    @HumboldtBlue: That and Atkinson’s Trilogy are great. My old man was in MacArthur’s Jungle Navy (he hated Dougout Doug) so my focus was on the Pacific for years  until I read

    A Measureless Peril: America in the Fight for the Atlantic, the Longest Battle of World War II by Richard Snow.

  63. 63.

    mrmoshpotato

    They are quitting a 70+ year-old, invitation-only, swanky Republican club because it is following the law in DC. Owning the libs by quitting their own club. pic.twitter.com/V3RUVB9CgO— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 21, 2022

    Oh Rand… You fake eye doctor, plague rat, pile of shit! Cry harder!

  65. 65.

    Ohio Mom

    @Librarian: Because you probably went in the school bus entrance in the back.

    @raven: The times I have been to the Vietnam War Memorial, there were other people, but not that many. It was quiet. The 10th Anniversary looks like a completely different experience.

  66. 66.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Anne Laurie: My interest in him came from camping at Theodore Roosevelt National Parks, both north and south unit, in ND.

    Beautiful country with an interesting history.

  73. 73.

    NotMax

    Anyone ever watch any of NOS4A2? The few descriptions have perused simultaneously give off vibes of it being intriguing and/or downright awful.

  74. 74.

    HumboldtBlue

    @raven:

    I will definitely get to Snow and I’ve read Atkinson twice.

    If you’re looking for interesting documentaries, two or three years ago I found Army University Press on YouTube and they do interesting videos on campaigns from WW2 and Korea.

    I thoroughly enjoyed Liberation of Manila and Chipyong-ni in Korea.

  78. 78.

    frosty

    @raven: Yep. When he realized they’d landed four miles from where they were supposed to be, Roosevelt’s response was “We’ll start the war from right here.”

  79. 79.

    Suzanne

    @Ohio Mom: There’s a great documentary about Maya Lin. She’s been on the selection committee for a number of other really prominent projects, including the 9/11 memorial in New York. All of them are pale imitations of her work.

    The brilliance of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is that it stitches the names together into one big aesthetic move meant to convey scale and time. There’s been a lot of imitators ever since that inscribe names, but they fail, in my view, because the names don’t come together as a singular thing. It’s meaningful if you knew a person and you find their name, but it’s not meaningful without that personal connection. That confuses the purposes of a gravesite and a memorial, IMO. I went to the Pentagon Memorial a few years ago and I thought it sucked.

  81. 81.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @raven:

    I’ve said it before, but I still can’t believe that was somebody’s take on the Vietnam War Memorial. The design’s lack of ornamentation is perfect imo. It conveys a sense of solemnity given the amount of American troops that lost their lives in a largely senseless war

  90. 90.

    RaflW

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yep. But all this “Oh, Trump made it worse” nonsense. He made it more obvious. But they weren’t trying to hide it 10 years ago. The media was just less willing to ruffle feathers by noticing.

  93. 93.

    Suzanne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Maya Lin described the project as creating “a scar that would heal over”, and that is perfect, IMO.

    I like the WWI memorial, too, even though the frieze isn’t done yet. I took SuzMom a couple of months back, and we had a nice conversation with one of the park rangers. She said that the frieze is being altered to represent the flu pandemic happening simultaneous with the war.

    I don’t like the WWII memorial. Way too MURICA FUCK YEAH for me.

  96. 96.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @raven:

    Wonder what made them change their minds?

    @Suzanne:

    Apparently, it was even sooner than that. I remember an episode of Magnum, PI where Magnum visits the Wall.

  97. 97.

    Suzanne

    @raven: I know.

    I remember when Trump made that bullshit statement about wanting federal buildings to be in Neoclassical styles. UGHHHHH. Barf.

  100. 100.

    Anotherlurker

    @Anne Laurie: I grew up in Oyster Bay, N.Y., location of T.R’s Summer Whitehouse on Sagamore Hill.  His presence is felt everywhere in the village.  Often times you will run across an actor in full T.R. regalia.

    That being said, I always felt a major cringe coming on whenever I was at The Museum of Natural History and saw that statue.  It may not have been the artist’s intention, but the sculpture screamed white man in charge.

    I have a solution that T.R. might have enjoyed.  If the statue was dumped overboard on an artificial reef, it would become a home for fish, lobsters and other members of the ocean community.  I believe the prospect of catching a 10lb. Fluke at the site of his statue would bring a smile to his face.

  101. 101.

    Brachiator

    @raven:

    Lotsa people didn’t like the Wall when it went up.

    I’ve read that there were people who thought the memorial was incomplete, or even an insult, because it did not include statues.

    I always thought that it was magnificent.

    But the reaction to the memorial, and the reaction to the Roosevelt statue, underscores that it is not just the artist’s intention but the personal context that we bring to a monument, that determines how we view it.

  102. 102.

    Suzanne

    @raven: That one is being expanded right now. Honestly, I don’t love it. I feel like the design of it would have worked better somewhere off the Mall. The memorials that are less monumental and more spatial need the right setting. It needs a grove of trees around it. That pie wedge form of it is awkward. My opinion might change when they complete the work on it.

  107. 107.

    Suzanne

    @Brachiator: After the anti-military sentiment during that era, a lot of the Vietnam vets wanted to command some respect. And not having a statue felt to some like disrespect. I mean, even our common language, “put someone on a pedestal” or “look up to” someone, conveys a spatial relationship.

    Public opinion has changed, though. People love it.

  111. 111.

    Kayla Rudbek

    Okay, open thread, all knowledge is found on Balloon Juice, and I’m looking for embroidery book recommendations. So I started learning some embroidery this month, and now I realize why my favorite beach yarn store https://www.saltyyarns.com/ carries embroidery and cross-stitch kits too. I want a small reference book of embroidery stitches to fit into my beach bag so I can save my phone battery for pictures and videos. Something about the size of a standard paperback would be great, and not so expensive that I would freak out if I get sunscreen and sand on it.  Used/out of print books are great if I can get my hands on them.

    Any suggestions?

  114. 114.

    NotMax

    Trivia: Next year (2023) will mark 75 years of ongoing construction of the Crazy Horse Memorial statue. Decades worth of work still to take place.

  118. 118.

    karen marie

    @Sure Lurkalot:   I get slapped back from renewing my Wapo subscription at any low, low price by the truly awful stuff the publish.  Not as bad as NY Times but they’re working on it, apparently.

  119. 119.

    Suzanne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s not about not liking it. It’s fine. It’s about saying that everything done by the Feds needs to be done that way. That’s bullshit. Much of what makes architecture successful or not successful is context: spatial, climatic, functional, temporal. Relationship to its surroundings. Neoclassical might make sense in some locations, but it doesn’t make sense in much of the country. And most levels of government in this country have accepted that it is a responsibility, when spending taxpayer money, to create buildings that create a positive sense of place and promote cultural excellence.

  121. 121.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @debbie:

    Doesn’t seem like it. A lot of America’s current political problems can be traced back to that era imo

  126. 126.

    Brachiator

    @Suzanne: 

    After the anti-military sentiment during that era, a lot of the Vietnam vets wanted to command some respect. And not having a statue felt to some like disrespect.

    Yes. Political and personal attitudes, and a conventional view of memorial tradition, resulted in people seeing an insult where none was intended.

    I am glad that people have come to accept the memorial. And I am okay with the addition of the statues, even though I don’t think that it really adds anything.

    I mean, even our common language, “put someone on a pedestal” or “look up to” someone, conveys a spatial relationship.

    Yep. And in the case of the Roosevelt statue, the fact that he was higher than the two standing figures was seen to emphasize colonialism and racism. There is looking up, and there is looking down.

  127. 127.

    Grumpy Old Railroader

    @karen marie: @Sure Lurkalot:

    I get slapped back from renewing my Wapo subscription at any low, low price by the truly awful stuff the publish.  Not as bad as NY Times but they’re working on it, apparently.

    Hard to resist when the price is so low. Got my notice for renewal today for the low low price of $99.99 per year for digital subscription. So I logged in and went through the dance to cancel and ended up being offered and accepting a renewal for $9.99 per year. Been playing that game for a few years now. Same with my internet provider. Every year I threaten to pull the plug and all of a sudden I’m getting the new subscriber deal.  I guess what keeps me stick’n with it is the Carolyn Hax advice column (WAPO Only). If I am being honest I’m sort of a junkie for that kind of stuff and she is my favorite

  128. 128.

    Ohio Mom

    I found the Korean War Memorial moving. I wasn’t expecting to like it, it sounded like it was going to be corny and too literal. But it felt real and raw to me.

    I also liked the FDR Memorial, and feel bad it is so off the beaten track. It deserves more visitors.

    Haven’t seen tne MLK Memorial yet. Based on the photos, I’m not expecting to like it, maybe I’ll be surprised.

    What I did do the last time we were in DC (July 2017) was insist we ate at Comet Pizza. It was a very lively place, lots of families, kids playing ping pong in the back, letters of support in crayon from local school kids on the wall (this was after the shooting). Good average pizza, nice staff.

  129. 129.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Suzanne:

    Ah, I see, that’s a good point. I forgot that Trump thought all federal buildings should be designed in that style

  133. 133.

    Suzanne

    @Brachiator:

    and a conventional view of memorial tradition 

    It’s also about the difference between a memorial and a monument. For the most part, monuments are things we’re proud of or that we really want to remember. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial had to honor the sacrifice and memorialize the dead without conveying pride in the war itself. That was tough to do spatially.

    I think it also was hard because it was built relatively soon after the end of the war and it still shaped so much of our politics. Contrast that with the WWI Memorial, which still isn’t done.

  134. 134.

    NotMax

    @Suzanne

    Interesting combination of styles utilized for the main post office where Mom resides. Hard to discern from the picture how well it blends in with the surroundings, placed as it is on a triangular plot at a forked intersection (with a traffic circle immediately to its frontage) , both two-lane streets running along its sides lined with mature trees. Interior is original Art Deco. That’s a circular enclosed vestibule where the front doors are, which acts as would a mud room when weather is inclement (and much as an airlock* would when it is deep winter).

    *Sure there’s a proper architectural term for a feature which doesn’t directly let in freezing air to the lobby proper but its name escapes me at the moment.

  136. 136.

    Brachiator

    @Suzanne:

    It’s also about the difference between a memorial and a monument. For the most part, monuments are things we’re proud of or that we really want to remember. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial had to honor the sacrifice and memorialize the dead without conveying pride in the war itself. That was tough to do spatially.

    I had not thought of it in terms of memorial vs monument, but it makes sense.

    It is hard to erect a monument to what was at best a stalemate, at worst a pointless and costly misadventure.

    But it is easier and appropriate to recognize those who sacrificed their lives.

  139. 139.

    Suzanne

    I will note that most architects suck at designing vestibules. They’re required by code in many jurisdictions to reduce loss of conditioned air and maintain positive pressure. Developers hate them because they’re expensive and take up space. So they make them far too small, not of the time. Code requires them to be there but other than ADA directives on accessible clearance, there’s no requirement on size. It’s a big bugaboo of mine.

  141. 141.

    Suzanne

    @NotMax: I never have to design them, the closest thing I do are ambulance and entrance canopies. They are fine at resort hotels, they look stupid on houses. Size matters, they need to be large enough to fit all the cars the valets are parking, but not so large that they look dumb next to whatever building they’re on.

  142. 142.

    Dan B

    @Suzanne: The big “cow palace” in Chicago had a large vestibule which was essential for the climate at the time.  It was large enough for every available attorney of the ACLU to be there in case of mass arrests by the Vice Squad at the first gay dance outside the UC campus.  It was black sport coats and crisp white shirts, like passing a colony of Penguins.

  143. 143.

    Dan B

    @Suzanne: We lived in a huge home in Arkansawith a modest Porte Cochere.  The eleven foot ceilings and huge columns at the front door minimized the impact of the Porte Cochere.  That and the three car garage and two story smokehouse.  23 rooms in that house.  Two large sleeping porches, huge central hall and staircase, eight bedrooms. The family members didn’t want to live there.  Second generation that grew up in the house- owned much of the town.

  145. 145.

    raven

    @Dan B: That was the “International Amphitheatre”

     

    Strangely enough, on December 30, 1962 and January 5, 1964, the Chicago Amphitheatre hosted The Southside WinterNationals INDOOR Drag Races. With the smooth concrete floors, Drivers reported it was like racing on ICE. It was also reported that after the first races, cases of Coca Cola syrup were brought in, poured on the floor and allowed to dry overnight. Drivers like Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick, and Mr. Norm from Grand Spaulding Dodge later admitted the syrup did little to help traction. Staging was outside in the Chicago – January cold. Drivers did as many as 5 “burnouts” just to heat the rear tires. The shutdown area involved a sharp turn and wall that claimed more than a few of the entries.

  146. 146.

    J_A

    @Anne Laurie: 

    Teddy Roosevelt was extremely progressive for his time, and moved the country forward.

    We have to remember you can only progress from where you are standing. The goal can’t be to inmannentize the perfect, but to make your world better, even if only a little bit better.

    Theodore Roosevelt exceeded most of his contemporaries in making his world better. Other people took it from where he left it, and they pass it on to us, and we will pass it to the next generations. Without Roosevelt, we would all be behind where we are now.

    Having said that, the statue is problematic. I would have suggested carefully removing the other two figures, and leaving him alone, on horseback, where he was in front of the museum. He was placed there in remembrance of the things he did for nature, and future generations should be reminded of that. The other two figures were conceived as decoration, and, depending on their artistic value, could be moved to relevant art or history museums, removed from the original symbolism (*), and used to celebrate Native or Black contributions.

    (*) I suspect that originally those figures were placed next to Roosevelt not to show them as subjugated, conquered races, but to praise them as active collaborators in the creation of our country.

  147. 147.

    bcw

    I always thought the Natural History Museum statue would be better it they separated it into three statues with the two guides elevated on pedestals at each side of the museum entrance and Roosevelt at the middle at the same head height.

  148. 148.

    J R in WV

    Many years ago I went to a DBA class at an office building in Tyson’s Corner outside DC, with a friend/coworker, S. S pretty much dragged to the Vietnam War Memorial, I resisted but gave in eventually. It was mid-December, and we went after a day doing DBA stuff, so in gathering darkness with snow flurries.

    Parking was easy, downtown Mall was deserted, very few people were at the Memorial.

    Once you walked down the ramp, the sounds of the city went away — it was as silent as the woods on a snowy night.

    I cried lots — tears streaming down my face — which I expected, which was why I resisted going. There’s a list of names, cross-referenced to the location on the Wall. After we had been there for a while I looked thru the book, found my last name in the book, almost certainly a relative, though I had not ever heard of him. My last name is somewhat unusual.

    Anyways, will always be glad S dragged me there, was a cathartic experience. I’ll have to look him up after the ‘Rona plague is over and thank him again for taking me there. He lives 4 or 5 hollows east of us.

    I think this Memorial is the best of them all. I don’t know what it would be like with a big crowd there, on a sunny day full of people on vacation.

  149. 149.

    ETtheLibrarian

    I just wish they could change the Lincoln statue (called Emancipation) in Lincoln Park I DC. it is not great. By a long shot.

    Its history makes it trickier but honestly it needs a rethink.

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