A fortified city (that fort, the Casbah, lent its name to the neighborhood you see inside the north end of the walls). French colonial improvements along waterfront and in lower town. Partial credit to SisterStL and Weedwhacker.

Time to know your city. The answer is… 3rd largest city on the Mediterranean (wanna go double or nothing and guess 1 and 2?): Algiers.

The National Cultural Center, as it was first called, acquired the slain President's name in 1964. For more on its history see Roger Meersman, “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts: From Dream to Reality.” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C. 50 (1980): 525–88.

Is there a Trump-sized hole in the facade that needs fixing?

Let’s get back to Know Your Cities. Perhaps the new details given by the image on right will clear up the mystery.

Longest sentence given to one who shot a federal officer. Others include some who lit off fireworks (on the 4th of July) and left scene when told. All convicted of aiding a “terrorist” organization which may or may not exist—but offers a useful tool to prosecutors henceforth.

Reflecting Pool is truly shallow beside this. Longest conviction for J6—literally an armed uprising against the govt.—was 22 years.

You call that an art gallery? There’s nothing like the National Building Arts Center. Anywhere. Check out NBAC website for info on NON STNDRD, Counterpublic, monthly tours and all the other stuff amid America’s biggest collection of architecture. web.nationalbuildingarts.org

So in this case someone tore off the emperor’s clothes?

I used to teach a quadrennial seminar on presidential elections. We'd meet during election season, track current events, and trace historical roots. In 2016 I stopped: One couldn't stand back and analyze, in non-partisan fashion, how each side drew on common traditions. The mold was broken.

Clinton, Bush, Obama: All crafted public images, all craved public approval. But as Runciman implies, that image fit the expected American politiclal mold: a public persona more caring, patient, forgiving than the complex private self.

From David Runciman’s LRB rvw of Kamala campaign memoir—seems right. Trump doesn’t “tell it like it is.” He tells it like people want it to be. He finds “himself” only in the approving eyes of others. Then he fortifies that weak self by getting people to think they need HIS approval instead.

Today feels, somehow…shorter.

Carlson joins Collins in the “C” line for people who have concerns.

A propos of our stadium discussion, below: Will Bears really locate to Indiana? And are Hoosiers ready to pay the price to bring them there?

Post-Father’s Day I’m recalling my dad saying that paying taxes was a privilege of living in a free society. Imagine how some in today’s R mainstream would make him out to be a wacko socialist chump.

I realize I’m making you strain your powers of imagination. Be grateful I don’t force you to imagine the civic impact of taxing Musk or Bezos’ personal wealth or raising their capital gains rate.

Urban spectacle only works in the context of resilient, concentrated retail and service spaces. Imagine if Amazon put the money it spends on data and distribution centers into small or medium-sized retail outlets in urban shopping streets—spaces made vacant by e commerce and chain retailing.

“it is accurate to describe the academic consensus as generally opposed to public underwriting of professional sports venues.” …from one recent take: the cost/benefit debate over publicly financed stadiums is well settled. Still we go chasing rainbows.

US cities willing to live or die by pro sports. St. Louis paid for a stadium to lure an NFL team, got the Rams, now scraping back a bit of the loss endured by their 2015 departure. Settlement tied up for years, now available to rebuild poorest neighborhoods devastated by 2024 tornado.

Speaking of which…

“It’s never been about jobs.” Good historical take on the threads that tie anti-Reconstruction to MAGA. I disagree—I think racial animus offers cover for the more intractable anxieties spurred by capitalism. But good to see well-reasoned historical argument make its way into the papers.

Please Lord, grant us world peace and don’t let them change a thing at O’Connell’s.

Father’s Day. A time to think about the contrast of human and political history. Someone born before the American Revolution could’ve known of the birth of someone born before the Civil War, who could’ve known of my own birth. Just two human lifetimes connect my generation to the 18th century.

A new week, another Know Your Cities contest. I don’t believe we’ve looked at a port before—obviously this is one. (Orientation not nec. identical to map.) Note what appears to be a defined city within the larger urban cluster. And improvements along the water. Bonne chance…

And that’s what you get for trying to drain the swamp.

Fellow authors: Look me in the eye and tell me you haven’t wished you could get Amazon to do this for you.

What awaits you on the “Freedom 250“ website...

Honestly? I’d let him keep it if he‘d just fly away.

Also, get off my yard.

Fascism alert. Trump-ed up charges.

Big. But you may not have caught it in the national news. Because Missouri.

Remember you can’t spell “triumphal“ without Trump.

Since we noted the watergate anniversary two days ago , fitting that we observe the birthday of a movie that captures the spirit of the years that followed.

History wars revisited: Local v federal oversight is the ostensible issue…but judges feel free to add their approval of the new text re Washington’s slaves.

I’ve always said anyone can be a historian. But then, I never met Gary Player’s golf caddy, did I?

Maybe New Delhi’s closest influence is the McMillan Plan of DC—drafted in 1902 for a newly imperial US. Gave us the Mall as we know it today. (Not sure what they had to say about algae.)

New Delhi: British architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker. Not unrelated to Hampstead Garden Suburb, mentioned earlier—but supercharged with imperial ambition. By 1947 it belonged to a sovereign democratic state.

The answer to this week‘s Know Your Cities is…the world‘s second largest: Delhi, India. You’re looking at New Delhi, Britain‘s purpose-built capital city c 1910s-30s. A study in baroque/orientalist/progressive urban design. PDP earns credit for showing his work.

Wd. love to know more about when politics started replacing wealth or ethnicity as key factor in neighborhood selection. Don’t mean UES v UWS, or yuppies and Richd. Florida. Something bigger happened in the way residential sorting took place. Ideas?

Good to see the data…but not exactly surprising is it?

I'm kind of with Trump on this one. 'Affordability' sounds like a workshopped word, made for D's afraid to state the obvious: The House is on Fire. If we get cheap eggs, will democracy be out of danger?

Yesterday in history: Jones v Mayer (1968): To "bar all racial discrimination, private as well as public, in the sale or rental of property," is "a valid exercise of the power of Congress to enforce the 13th Amendment." Finished work begun by another St. Louis case: Shelley v Kraemer (1948).

Hegseth’s bluster tells you what you need to know about admin fears that they’ve been called out for making a weak deal.

If I’d just spent $14M trying to clean my pool before my 4th of July party I’d be pissed too.

I haven’t forgotten this week’s Know Your Cities contest. Hope you haven’t either. Again, consider the scale—and the money and political power required to build this way. Who’d have such a power, and why would a city matter this much?

On this date in 1972 you were either observing the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill (unlikely), doing nothing in particular (highly probable), or wondering what to make of this minor item in the Washington Post.

The Cold War’s legacy extends to some unlikely places, including North St. Louis County, where families suffer the price of radioactive waste simply because of where they chose to buy a home.

Political historian—and IU grad—Paul Musgrave offers persperspective on pending Iran deal.

Where’s Sarah Palin when we need her to say, “How’s that whole FDR and Grant thing workin’ out for ya?”