Yesterday I walked by the nearly complete NYT Tower on 8th Avenue opposite the Port Authority Bus Station in New York City. 'Obviously it's in NYC,' you say, but the NYT prints in New Jersey and is a useful idiot


for those who'd happily construct a big black hole out of Gotham granite.

I like the architect, Renzo Piano I lived close to the Menil Gallery in Houston (lousy collection, lovely building) and live close to the site of London Bridge Tower (will be the tallest building in Europe and the UK, just iconic ).

The NYT Tower looks good to me, better than the NYT stock-price. Shiny new HQs are infallible sell-signals, flagging desire for pomp before profit. Pride comes before a fool.

The NYT should operate from cheap, dingy premises in Queens or Harlem, not from a princeling's folly that screams elite! elite! elite!. ( I once worked for a triple-A firm in cheap, cramped offices just outside the City of London. Our clients took this as a sign that we were so seriously strong that we didn't need show to boost our own morale or impress the geese ).

Although the NYT stock-price has Traitor's Droop and I'd love to see it implode ( oh Lord, implode that traitor's droop! ), the stock must have recovery prospects in the right hands. That means oust the Sulzbergers or, more likely, the Sulzbergers oust Pinch and instate proper voting rights, letting the stock come in play. A suitable confederacy of dunces to take over the NYT would be a consortium of all the Als - Gore, Franken, Quaeda and the Saudi squillionaire, Waleed. There'd be no need to change its editorial line or news management.

See also Rove runs the Times and Keller as cat's paw for an effeminate/feminist/femmefatalist freakshow of Pinch and Judy and Mo came too .