Michael Kimmelman's best writing in ages on the civic importance and humiliation of Penn Station. He's wrong about Calatrava's PATH station though, it's the only architecture at the WTC site that actually lives up to the challenge of the site and it costs 4 billion because of the complications of building there and the fact that Calatrava is NEVER on budget... it will be fantastic though, everything he wishes Penn Station could be, just without the immense foot traffic. It may set the bar higher for Penn Station? Is the Columbia River Crossing going to be a civic/design failure similar to the destruction of and burial of Penn Station? If this humiliation in concrete is constructed it will be.

To prepare for the Rothko retrospective/homecoming at the end of the week at the Portland Art Museum. Re-read Arcy's crucial post from 2009 on the artist's history in Portland and perhaps this letter to the NY Times from Rothko and Gottlieb. Overall, I hope people take this seriously and don't go overboard on the distasteful marketing of Rothko, which he would have hated. No Rothko face painting, no Rothko snuggies and NO Rothko toast art please! I shouldn't have to say this (but I think I have to say this esp with the Red marketing). Simmer down, with greatness comes the responsibility to respect his legacy and Rothko was one of the least commercially oriented artists of all time.

Check out these early photographs that a young Stanley Kubrick did for Life Magazine.