Envy Apartment

Axl Rose (Photo: File photo) Pressed onto the record this week about the surge in calls across the nation to take down statues of Confederate leaders, Vice President Mike Pence played it sufficiently vague in the name of more is better. Pence, saying he was uneasy about any effort to “erase parts of our history just in the name of some contemporary political cause,” made his case Tuesday morning on “Fox & Friends” that “we ought to have been building more monuments.” The rationale, via Indiana’s former governor: “We ought to be celebrating the men and women who've helped our nation move toward a more perfect union and tell the whole story of America.” Given the context, with Jefferson Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee as the baseline of a nation moving toward a more perfect union, Pence offers some awfully broad parameters here. THROWBACK: The day Axl Rose came to town BANGERT: Monument to Confederates remains in Lafayette's Greenbush Cemetery BANGERT: If only there was a way...

For a particular New Yorker, the sort who rues having missed out on the city’s cobblestone past, Colonnade Row is a distinct architectural marvel . The Greek Revival rowhouses were completed in 1833 and are known for their imposing Corinthian columns . But they were also a stage on which the birth of Manhattan’s gilded era played out, a period when no one dared host a ball the same night as Alva Vanderbilt, and the city itself didn’t extend much past Great Jones Street . Photo Credit New- York Historical Society , via Getty Images They were built for families like the Vanderbilts and the Astors — indeed, John Jacob Astor was among the first residents — and the group was originally named La Grange Terrace , after an estate of the Marquis de Lafayette . What remained of the facade was among the first structures protected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission . In the landscape of contemporary New York, however, Colonnade Row offers other quirks. While crusty old bars and last-of-...