Open Thread

Sorry some people felt offended–we can see why but we want you to now that our concern about wanting the site to feel welcoming to new commenters was genuine. To disappoint the conspiracy theorists, the post was not an attempt to generate clicks. We already have hundreds of thousands of existing pageviews that we can’t sell ads against, so there’s not really any point in juicing the stats. And, contrary to Benson’s theory, we’re not bailing on the site just because ads are down. We haven’t reduced the number of posts in recent months at all and don’t plan to. This is our life and our baby. We also happen to think it has a lot of long-term value as a business, regardless of advertising cycles. We haven’t had time to digest everything in the thread. In all likelihood, not a whole lot will change but we were alone with the kids and dog over the weekend and didn’t have a second to even re-read. One good thing has already come out of the discussion, though: Montrose Morris is going to start writing a column about architectural history and appreciation. Hopefully, that will make a lot of people happy. We’re certainly excited about it.

BRG, would they be visible from the 5th Ave and 25th street entrance? That’s the entrance closest to me and the one I tend to walk by.

The cherry blossoms have just begun in Philly. it’ll still be about two weeks before they are in full bloom (some smaller species bloom first). Then it’ll be another 2 weeks before they are in bloom here.

Beware of the underscores. Fakers abound.