We don't want your color in our neighborhood

The New York Daily News's Michael Daly reports that certain Brooklynites went ballistic last week when it appeared that a brownstone was being painted white:

The photo was sent in response to an urgent posting by Brownstoner.com late Friday morning, a message right out of a Brooklyn yuppie's nightmare.

"We just got a tip that someone just started painting one of the brownstones on Grand Avenue between Gates and Putnam white this morning. ... If any readers are nearby, we'd appreciate a photo asap."

The photo was posted minutes later, and sure enough the portal of the building was being painted white. As in not brown.

"ILLEGAL PAINT JOB ON LANDMARKED BLOCK OF CLINTON HILL," the headline read.

It was all a false alarm, as the white paint was only a primer for an acceptably dark color, but the hullabaloo made me wonder what's so bad about a white, or yellow, brownstone. I understand why historic neighborhoods have height restrictions, and why they prevent homeowners from altering windows, roofs, front stairs, etc. in ways that clash with the rest of a block. But paint is a temporary design element (easily reversed by a future owner), and it does nothing to change, say, sight lines or sunlight patterns on a street. I grew up near a Victorian house painted pink that was a scandal in my neighborhood, but I never knew what harm it did; indeed, it seemed to offend all the right people.

Thick as a brick

I noticed several piles of these bricks on the Cambridge Street side of the Hurley Building in Boston. Isn't this like naming your product Titanic Rivets or John Hancock Tower Windows? Yet these brickmakers proudly associate themselves with the worst public space in the world. Speaking of bricks, I was disappointed to see this in Davis Square this morning: This looked like it was going to be an interesting building before they started to add the brick veneer. I'd rather that they leave the blue wrapping paper exposed. But I guess Cotton Mather once warned against brightly colored buildings, so that's not an option.

Fiascoware

The latest issue of ArchitectureBoston has a great essay on what happened to all that glass removed from the John Hancock Tower after the windows started to pop out and fall hundreds of feet to the sidewalk. Rudolph Bedar, who wrote the essay, was part of the group charged with sweeping the faulty glass under the rug. Some of the windows went to the Building 19 chain of discount stores ("good stuff cheap"), where people bought them as wind screens for swimming pools. Even better, a young glass blower purchased some of the shattered pieces and made drinking goblets, each with an etching on the bottom indicating that the material came from the infamous Hancock Tower. Unfortunately:

In a gush of excitement over the potential of mass-producing souvenirs out of our piles of broken glass, one of our partners had the bright idea of sending off a sample to the John Hancock CEO.... A week or so later, the package was returned with a carefully worded and wonderfully restrained letter indicating that this type of souvenir was not considered appropriate.

Too bad. I would have liked to have a set of John Hancock Goblets (for when you want to get falling-down drunk), along with some Big Dig Dinner Plates (for when you want to subtly let your guests know that your cooking is way behind schedule) and a City Hall Plaza Brick Pizza Oven to keep my pies nice and hot from May through October (or for freeze-drying them the rest of the year).

Jolly ranch houses

Slate.com's Witold Rybczynski has a fascinating history of the ranch house here. He notes that the style accounted for about 90 percent of new homes circa 1950 but are almost never built today. As a kid growing up in a farmhouse (the farm itself had been chopped up into dozens of lots long before my family got there), I found the ranch houses of various friends and relatives tres chic. Thanks to the open floor plans, I could simultaneously watch TV and inspect the contents of an open refrigerator! The best feature of a typical ranch house was the huge, uncurtained picture window. On a cold winter's night, a 10-year-old boy could hurl a snowball smack into the middle of it and watch the startled faces of the grown-ups who had gathered in the living room to nurse highballs and trade mildly dirty jokes. At the time, of course, I didn't realize how much this might have seemed like the bony white finger of God pointing accusingly at the naked inhabitants of the Garden of Eden. But now I understand why prim windows with shades are back in fashion.