My Yeshiva, like the Mt. Scopus Campus of Heb. U., has a beautiful view of most of Jerusalem from above. I was enjoying the view this afernoon, when the thought occured, what view in the USA do I miss most? View of the Manhattan sky line or the Statue of Liberty from a Ellis Island or Staten Island ferry boat? View of Denver down below from a train east of the Moffat Tunnel? Others also came to mind, but I decided it was Castle Gate before its destruction. And in truth, hardly a week goes by when I don't think about its loss.
Why does it bother me more than the loss of Penn Station, NY, some Manhattan and Brooklyn streetcar lines, the North Shore, the Liberty Bell Limited, the 20th Century and Broadway, and....?
I concluded that first, given enough money, time, and political will, all those could conceivably be restored, but not Castle Gate.
But perhaps more important it was one of a very few examples of nature (or the Eternal for religious person) paying a compliment to Humanity by imitating a work of the hands of human beings.