Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

SURPRISE: One of the key tenets of RENDELLISM is that building AHTS Taj Mahals will lead to a boom in the economy by opening up restaurants and hotels and jobs for waitresses and janitors and busboys. WELL, wouldn't you know, some of these RENDELLIST projects aren't even necessary! And wouldn't you FURTHER know, a lot of the outfits that do manage to build their new temples run operating deficits! Isn't THAT a SURPRISE!



And those three of you who come here for something other than PR0N may remember this building: the Spertus Institute in Chicago -- the masterpiece that said ITS tenant could afford a sexy starchitect! Well -- let The Paper of Re-CORD tell ITS surprising story: it seems the institute

owes $43.6 million of the $51.6 million it borrowed for its new building on South Michigan Avenue, completed two years ago. The institute’s galleries are now open only on alternate Sundays and the second Thursday of every month, its Wolfgang Puck kosher cafe [!] is closed, and 26 percent of the staff has been cut.

And consider these nuggets of wisdom scattered throughout the piece:

“[N]obody actually asked: ‘Is there a need here? If they build it, will they come?’ ”

“Facilities cost money to operate, and they deteriorate. The facility itself becomes a series of expenditures.”

“There is a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses quality to museum building.”

“Although expansion is usually seen as a sign of health, it is not always a sign of vitality.”

“We have become increasingly concerned about the sustainability of organizations as a result of these building projects.”

We make a very big thing of this because RENDELLISM is the guiding principle of big-city government, and it's predicated almost solely on EDUCATIONHEALTHCARE, CONVENTIONCENTERSSTADIUMS -- and the AHTS. If the AHTS can create such giant flops, who's to say the whole notion of RENDELLISM isn't one cataclysmic fiasco?

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)