No multipart tirades … for now. Just pictures of a few of the six firefighter gargoyles on the former headquarters of the Philadelphia Fire Department. The building is scheduled to be demolished as part of the expansion of the Philadelphia Convention Centre, which I thought was plenty big enough as it was when I was there last month. It’s said that these gargoyles will be saved, along with some other architectural ornament on the building.

Just before Christmas, two heritage buildings were demolished despite their protected status. (The Philadelphia Inquirer’s architecture critic Inga Saffron documented the whole sorry mess in the newspaper and on her blog.) When I was in Philly for a conference last month, TV monitors throughout the convention centre played and replayed tape of the demolitions.