Alan Strauber

Part of White House Is Reduced to Rubble. Trump’s Ballroom Will Rise in Its Place.

As a historic preservationist, historian and American human being I am disgusted and feel physically ill over this. Plus it's symbolic of what Donald Trump is doing to our country.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/u...

The Case for Mechanical Watches in a Digital Age La Quête du Temps, an elaborate Vacheron Constantin timepiece on display at the Louvre, represents everything there is to love about watchmaking.

Yes! www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Eiffel Tower being struck by lightning - Gabriel Loppe', photographer, 1902. He gifted the print to Gustav Eiffel whose family later presented it to the Musee D'Orsay, Paris.

Happy 99th birthday today to the iconic John Coltrane

I'm please to share that Oxford Univ Press published my Warren & Wetmore article this week (I just found out) in their Grove Art Online art & architecture encyclopedia. I have a contract for a second, on landscape theorist AJ Downing - to be published late this year/early next. Kind of exciting!

EU defends its digital rules as 'sovereign right' after Trump tariff threat Without explicitly naming the European Union, Trump on Monday threatened fresh tariffs on countries with regulations that sought to 'harm' American technology.

@realDonaldTrump just loves to pick fights to try to prove his measly manhood & he's got sycophants like Stephen Miller around him trying to do the same www.lemonde.fr/en/european-...

Why is it that I always feel like I'm about to jump off a diving board? How am I supposed to settle in and get old if I always feel that way?

Research this week at Harvard

A very large wooden framed roof space, stretching into the distance and flooded with light. For more information, visit: https://thedockyard.co.uk/attractions/3-slip-big-space/

Covered slip no. 3 ("3 Slip") at #Chatham Historic Dockyard, a cathedral of wood. Built in 1838, it was the largest wide span timber structure in Europe at the time. This is taken from the mezzanine, which was added in 1904.
📷 My own. #Woodensday #Kent #RoyalNay

Copley Plaza Hotel - Boston, MA - Lobby Hallway - H. J. Hardenbergh, architect, 1912. Also designed The Plaza Hotel, Dakota Apartments and more in NYC. Considered by many to be the most luxurious hotel in Boston and certainly one of the most historic.
photo (c) Alan Strauber

Sunday afternoon at Breezy Hill

A few years back and a few lbs heavier

30 Rockefeller Center (originally RCA Building), NYC - Lobby Flooring - Raymond Hood architect, building completed 1933.

photo (c) Alan Strauber

A small garlic harvest for pasta dinner

interesting - thanks, Mark

Eiffel Tower Etude 3
photo (c) Alan Strauber

I will no longer watch @cbsnews.com or anything whatsoever on CBS

Onion Soup at Beekman Arms in Rhinebeck was a good idea

HISTORIC PRESERVATION CERTIFICATE PROGRAM - Registration now open!! Based at Westchester Community College - Peekskill, NY Center for the Digital Arts. Remote courses start Sept 2025. Contact Alan Strauber as40@sunywcc.edu for more information - contact Carmen Marrinen 914 606 7300 for registration

Animal Architecture: In Conversation An animal studies scholar talks with an architect and an architecture writer about designing for, and with, nonhuman species.

Architects don’t just design for humans. They design, intentionally or not, for all of the nonhuman species affected by human-built structures. Western architecture has long been a driver of ecological destruction: How can we build to accommodate other species as cohabitants of a shared environment?

New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel Reopens After Almost 8 Years Waldorf Astoria New York, one of the city’s grandest hotels, closed for renovations in 2017. After almost eight years and billions of dollars, it returns, reborn for the 21st century.

Wow www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

David Gergen, Adviser to Presidents and Political Commentator, Dies at 83

sad - rip www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/u...

Netanyahu nominates Trump for Nobel peace prize at White House meeting US leader upbeat on Gaza ceasefire prospects but does not share any additional details on preparations

An embarrassment for Jews and Americans - I'm both. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Good Monday Morning from Breezy Hill

Congratulations!

Our embarrassment of a president is single-handedly destroying Ukraine and giving it to Putin on a silver platter - this is not what America is about.

2/2 My first article on the arch firm Warren & Wetmore (Grand Central Terminal) will be published in September with a book on that topic in progress (publisher TBD).

1/2 I'm excited to share that I signed my 2nd contract yesterday with Oxford Univ Press to write an article for their Grove Art Online art & architecture encyclopedia. This one will be on landscape architect & horticulturist AJ Downing.

ChatGPT use significantly reduces brain activity, an MIT study finds This preliminary, non-peer-reviewed study highlights that among students tasked with writing and memorizing a series of essays, those who relied solely on ChatGPT showed a decline in neural, linguisti...

www.lemonde.fr/en/science/a...

An MLB manager found value in long walks. Research suggests it’s a ‘brain-changing power’ There are many benefits to walking, as MLB's Bruce Bochy can attest, but one unique benefit is backed by research: It enhances creativity.

www.nytimes.com/athletic/645...