[UA] Bit of an architectural mystery

[Tim Toner]

 From http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070723/ap_on_re_us/history_mystery :

(Image located for posterity here :  
http://picasaweb.google.com/timtoner/UAListItems/photo#5090426574749954146)

 Symbol in NYC building a history mystery

By JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press WriterMon Jul 23, 7:13 AM ET

A final thrust of the crowbar cracked the wooden crate open, and the 
architect, the anthropologist and the mortar expert leaned in to look at 
the oddity that had drawn them to an out-of-the-way warehouse.

It was a 3-foot-by-10-foot section of timeworn brick wall, its 
predictable rows abruptly interrupted by three distinct, 
deliberate-looking triangular shapes. Once part of a warehouse, it now 
does nothing but raise questions.

Painstakingly preserved from a 175-year-old building in lower Manhattan, 
the brickwork symbol is part of a tantalizing historical whodunit. The 
setting conjures both New York's mercantile past and its future, and 
those who may be involved include a prominent, deeply Christian businessman.

Could the design be a cryptic marker of mystical beliefs? A tradesman's 
signature? A bit of architectural shorthand? A creative way to patch a hole?



UA-ing it:  Three triangles?  333, anyone?  Given Colgate's deeply 
Christian routes, we can assume 1) he was duped into endorsing someone 
for the clergy under the guise of 'good Christian values' or 2) his 
wealth and influence gained him access to a ritual that he found deeply 
blasphemous, and yet, given the number of people there who has as much 
or more power than he, he knew he couldn't stop it.  Or could he?  
Couldn't he fight fire with fire?  He sank scads of money into the 
Occult Underground of his day, and fashioned something that, through 
madness, actually worked:  an empty placeholder.  The construct wedges 
open the clergy in one spot, and as long as the symbol remains intact, 
it will never reach 333.  Of course, those who performed the ritual took 
the money gladly--Colgate was a fool.  Given the nature of the Long 
Game, the building would be rendered into rubble soon enough, and 
whether that was 10 years or 1000 years, it would happen.  What's not 
well understood is what will happen when the symbol is destroyed.  At 
anyone's best guess, the void becomes a vaccuum, and the Clergy, like 
Nature, abhors a vaccuum.  It will either grab the person who destroys 
the symbol, the person most responsible for destroying the symbol, or 
the person physically closest to the symbol with a sufficiently high 
enough avatar rating.  The other great question is whether or not the 
building houses the power, or just the 10x3 section.  People are 
jockeying for position as we speak.

tt

-- 

Steve Allen's nine rules for reasonable thinking :

   8. Don't be afraid to change your mind