Building Fuehrer in Alabama!
Slow news morning, via AP and Alabama. There's a publicly financed building down that looks like something out of a Mel Brooks movie from the air:
Prompted by complaints from a Jewish activist, the agency that owns the government-funded building is planning to alter its shape to disguise the Nazi symbol. The move comes just a few years after a $1 million design modification meant to quiet similar complaints from a U.S. senator.
"The difficulty is there are a limited number of options for fixing a building that has been there for some time," said Mike Giles, counsel for the Methodist Homes Corp. of Alabama and Northwest Florida. "We have to come up with a way to fix an appearance that we want solved and not hurt our residents."
Wesley Acres provides government-subsidized housing for 117 low-income people ages 62 and above. Most have no reason to suspect their hallways take on a sinister shape.
The one-story building, designed in the mid-1970s and completed in 1980, underwent a $1 million alteration in 2001 with funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development following complaints by Democratic Sen. Howell Heflin, who has since died. But the addition of two wings did little to hide the offensive shape, and in some ways accentuates it.
Options for the new renovations include the addition of covered porches or other outdoor areas.
Maybe they could move Judge Roy's Ten Commandments there, put a Christo-style wrap over it all, and then forget about it.
Jesse Walker reminds me that this is not the first time a swastika skyscraper has come under scrutiny at Hit & Run.