There is something inspiring about an ugly building. I don't mean high-concept ugly, like a brutalist tower, but rather a place that's provisional, and purely functional, if barely-your Meadowlands, your Knights of Columbus halls, your strip malls. These are dumps, but our dumps. Among my own cherished dumps are old newsrooms. My first was the Trentonian, a New Jersey tabloid that's still limping along, though its former headquarters, where I worked, now houses a gypsum-supply company.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced it would shut down next month after nearly 60 years, following Donald Trump's executive order to defund public media.