Recognizing that many of you are New Yorkers,
I still can't resist calling attention to the crazy wrongness
of this offhand architectural comment from
an article in Slate by Christopher Beam:

http://www.slate.com/id/2204287/pagenum/all/#p2

>( ... ) if all goes well, images of futility and crime will be replaced by pictures of the motorcade cruising down the Kennedy Expressway, barbershops on the South Side, and the rustic brick of the University of Chicago. ( ... )

"Rustic brick" for those of you who don't know the U of C
would be more or less equally appropriate 
for the New York Public Library, or Rockefeller Center.
The heart of the U of C, the "quad," is in a sophisticated
neo-Gothic stone.

This kid obviously just likes the sound of certain words.
Remember this the next time you quote something from Slate.
(To be fair, he is only two years out of college.  In NYC --
at Columbia.  His father Alex Beam is a journalist in Boston.)





Martin C. Tangora
University of Illinois at Chicago
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