This New England

New England, I suppose, could use a gigantic, awe-inspiring monument. But this one probably won't work. Francis Treves, a Princeton, N.J., architect, has won an award from the New Hampshire chapter of the American Institute of Architects for designing a 45-foot glass replica of the Old Man of the Mountain -- that rocky profile that has remained the symbol of the Granite State even since it collapsed, in 2003.

The construction, involving 250 glass panels, would go on the side of Cannon Mountain, former residence of the Old Man, and you could go inside the damn thing. (How about a bar, too?)

The details of prizes for unbuilt projects are usually more interesting than those for the built ones...

New Hampshire officials still mull suggestions for rebuilding the Old Man or putting up some other attractiom to distract travelers in Franconia Notch, but the economy makes that more and more unlikely.

Perhaps they'd do better publicizing the nearby home of the late, great Robert Frost instead. Not that many people, but a better demographic than Mt. Rushmore-style gawkers.

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We are now in that explosive part of the belated New England spring that, no matter how old you are, produces that sweet melancholy of the about-to-graduate student.

Odd that the season most of us long for all winter so often produces such ambivalent feelings when it arrives in full flower. As many feelings of mortality as vitality.

T.S. Eliot was on to something in that famous opening to The Wasteland. So was Scott Fitzgerald when in The Great Gatsy he has someone say that life starts all over again in the fall.

 Tags  Francis Treves Old Man of the Mountain Robert Frost

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