My post below, with the great pictures of the Old Penn Station in NY, got me to thinking back to the days when I used to spend weeks at a time in Detroit, MI on depositions. While taking taxi rides to and from airport, I would pass the time looking out the window for snipers. And that's when I saw this building, Detroit's Abandoned Michigan Central Station. It sits all by itself with nothing around it. It is a magnificent looking structure. You should check out the pictures in the link. Here is an old postcard of the building. And here is another excellent site with two fascinating photo essays, one called either Joy Road or Easter and the other the Detroit Train Station. Detroit was a very scary place. We spent very little time outside in the city itself. We'd go from hotel to office and back and eat all of our meals at the hotel. A large part of the time there, we stayed at the Detroit Athletic Club, which was this magnificent palace, as you can see from the link.

There was one day, however, when I had nothing to do and so I took myself off to the Detroit Institute of Art. Remember, if you will, that Detroit had a lot of money at one point and citizens who wanted Detroit to be able to hold its head up high in comparison to Chicago, for instance. Result? The DIA. This was a nice collection, as I recall some almost 10 years later. The real treasure there is Rivera Court , a series of murals painted by Diego Rivera showing the industrial process of the creation of cars. I could not find a link to Rivera Court at the DIE site and have, instead, linked to the museum store. But I did find this cool photo archive of Rivera at the DIE with views of him creating and showing his murals.

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Today is the anniversary of the murder, in 1906, of architect Stanford White. White, the most prominent architect of his day, was shot in Madison Square Garden, which he designed, by Harry Thaw. Thaw was the playboy / jealous husband of Evelyn Nesbit, a dancer. Let's look back, shall we?

This website has a rather long and detailed account of the murder. White was a notorious womanizer. Thaw was the son of a mining and rail road baron from Pittsburgh and was the heir apparent to that fortune. Thaw was also considered to be mentally unstable for most of his life. The trial that followed the murder was dubbed the "trial of the century" and the court-room was packed. I suppose it was the OJ trial of its day. There were fantastic allegations of drugged champagne, girls swinging on velvet swings, illicit sex (and isn't that the best kind?), and other scandalous and shocking revelations about high society. Thaw got off on insanity grounds. The movie, Ragtime, was based on these events.

One site has eleven of the great Stanford White buildings online, if you are curious.

White's firm designed the old Pennsylvania Railroad Station in New York, pictures of which can be found here. As you can see from the photos, it was magnificent. It was torn down in 1963. The destruction of Penn Station led to the formation of the historical preservation movement in NY and was directly responsible for the creation of the Landmarks Commission.

P.S. While poking around, I came across this link to Lands End, a White house for sale on the Gold Coast of Long Island.

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This morning's reading was a veritable trove of good stuff today. Ok, two articles may not make a trove, but why quibble on such a beautiful morning?

The famous horde of Bactrian gold has been brought back out of hiding in Afghanistan. In the late 70's, a joint team of Russian and Afghani archaeologists discovered "20,600 pieces of gold jewelry, funeral ornaments and personal belongings from 2,000-year-old burial mounds". Everyone thought that this gold was lost under the Taliban, who had a habit of destroying the Afghani past and heritage. You can see a picture here of how beautiful the workmanship was.

As for architecture, we travel now to Ohio, to see an entire community of Frank Lloyd Wright inspired houses. I'd never heard of this community before, but you should follow the link and check out the pictures. I gather that the Ohio community was an offshoot of the one Utopian Community that FLW himself planned in Pleasantville, NY. Here and here are some other links to information about the Westchester community.

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