July 2002 | Eyesore

Commentary on architectural blunders in monthly serial.

American vainglory at work for you.

Need to persuade yourself that you live in a great country? Decorate a wrecked public realm with patriotic cartoons. (Highway infrastructure as cargo-cult television)

There, that's better. Now I enjoy being under the off-ramp in downtown Rensselaer, New York, across the Hudson River from Albany.

And here's our destination:

Few Americans realize that America had its own Soviet era, seen here in the Low Common Denominator Modernism so popular in the late 20th century. Your journey begins in a building designed to express apathy and lethergy. Where does it end?