An item of Federal Spending for which I approve and which was desperately needed

The new Fred D. Thompson United States Courthouse and Federal Building in Nashville.

The old courthouse was an antiquated mess. Among other things, shackled detainees shared the same entrance as court visitors and it was quite probably that jurors could find themselves riding an elevator with a shackled detainee, possible from the case they were participating in.

The new building is top of the line and jurors and visitors will be completely isolated from detainees. The new courtrooms are state of the art. Very nice building. It took fully 25 years to get to the point, but it finally happened.

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It’s cool that they named it after Fred Thompson

The Architect had some semblance of taste until they designed the front doors.

Government buildings; some of the nicest not their money can buy.

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Kind of neo-brutalist, but not bad.

Sadly, doors often just have to be mass produced after thoughts whose function is to meet security standards, not really look good.

Imagine building these to anti terrorism standards?

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The Samuel Yellin wrought iron doors at the NY Fed Reserve have been upgraded to be blast resistant. Not the best photo, but in person the doors are amazing.

And the flanking lanterns are fantastic.

When money is no object.

No, not really true. Federal buildings have a maintenance budget and using it to preserve historic elements produced by renowned artists is a worthwhile investment.

First off, the Federal Reserve is not a true federal entity. It’s management is technically subject to federal influence, but beyond that it is a privately held enitiy.

Secondly, a new building as being discussed here is not historic so preserving some fancy doors from the past is not involved.

You brought up historic doors.

No, I brought up fancy doors the context of them being included in new construction.

And those are not necessarily historic doors. They just showed up in a Duck Duck Go search. The age of them was not specified.

Sure, whatever.

I am very familiar with the doors I referenced.

That’s nice. Whatever.

Still, I was not talking about historic doors just as I said.

As for THOSE historic doors and the institution they shelter, should have never existed and should be torn down, broken up and sold for scrap.