Brendan Gill

"In the later nineteenth century, the tops of skycrapers often took the shape of domes, surmounted by jaunty gilded lanterns; later came ziggurats, mausoleums, Alexandrian lighthouses, miniatures Parthenons. These charming follies contained neither royal corpses nor effigies of gods and goddesses; rather they contained large wooden tanks filled with water."

"He stared the assorted meannesses and failed promises of American life straight in the face, and they stared back."