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Kim Bender

@kimpbender.bsky.social
327 followers 324 following 118 posts

DC not Washington | reviving old things

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Reposted by Kim Bender
Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
DC People: for your rainy day inside, I wrote about our nosy Federal in-law.
thebirthofacapital.info
Who made NPS the boss of DC?
Et in arcadia, Hoover?
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Kim Bender @kimpbender.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Neil makes a compelling argument that the site of the “Triumphal Arch h” - which sits on the axis between Robert E. Lee’s ancestral home and the Lincoln Memorial - should actually be a memorial to Emancipation. www.thebirthofacapital.info/who-came-up-...
thebirthofacapital.info
Who came up with Memorial Bridge?
The answer should give us pause.
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
You heard the lady
[woman with cornucopia of coins]

INVESTMENT
IN
WASHINGTON-
REAL ESTATE
AND THE 
PROFITS THAT COME FROM IT
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Historical Marker Ahead @historicalmarker.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Truly understated
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Brian Miller @b-miller.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Went to the Memorial Bridge equestrian sculptures today and it’s not a reflecting pool situation, the work was done by top notch craftspeople from The Gilders’ Studio and you can faintly see the gold leaf squares in the last pic. You can hate the expenditure and aesthetic, but it’s the real deal.
very gold equestrian statuevery gold equestrian statuevery gold equestrian statueclose up of a very gold equestrian statue showing faint evidence of square gold leaf application
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
The size of the backlog at most archives I have used is enough for a jobs program itself, and then another to begin to interpret the material.
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The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 19/07/2026
People, including Matt Seaton, love walls, especially the weather-grizzled, lichen-blotched stone walls that crisscross New England. Seaton writes about his decision to quit his day job as an editor at this magazine and become a part-time waller.
bit.ly
The True History of New England 's Stone Walls
Why we love them, and why I build them.
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
There’s something for you in the DC archives.
51st.news
Check out thousands of photos of midcentury D.C.
The District of Columbia Archives has released its largest digital collection of historic photos
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Kim Bender @kimpbender.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Absolutely 100% agree
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Roger Senserrich @4freedoms.es · 26/06/2026
Every hometown’s got the ominous megastructure. What is yours?
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Kim Bender @kimpbender.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Took a detour through the Great American State Fair. Sometimes DC is a mind-boggling city.
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
Many people have been saying that adaptive reuse is the future of architecture... well if you look at billed hours, the future is already here.
bloomberg.com
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Believe it or not, there's a rich history to the monuments and water features the president is painting. So, I've started putting together a scholarly bibliography for the design of the National Mall. It's heavy on my interests, so if you see I've missed something, let me know in the replies! 🗃️
thebirthofacapital.info
A bibliography for Trump's Washington
If you read one book about the city Donald Trump has set out to transform, make it Howard Gillette's Between Justice & Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D.C. It re...
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
RIP Mark Rothko. You would have loved how the hydrogen peroxide bleach is only turning the Reflecting Pool blue around the perimeter
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
I wrote about how I am boiling detective stories to their bones to make my book as readable as possible—without making it about me. 🗃️
thebirthofacapital.info
Am I writing a heist story?
A confession of literary larceny.
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Jalane Schmidt 📢🚫🧊🚫👑✊🏾🏴🌈🇨🇺🇻🇪 🇬🇱 🇺🇦🍉YIMBY🏘️🏗️🏢✝️🌹 @jalaneschmidt.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
When your community removes a racist statue, do like Charlottesville and melt that fucker down. Because if you just stash it in storage, it becomes what @artcrimeprof.bsky.social calls “America’s strategic racism reserve” — ready for redeployment. www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/s...
nbcwashington.com
Statue of founding father who enslaved hundreds installed at Freedom Plaza
Caesar Rodney’s statue was taken down in Delaware during protests in the summer of 2020 because of Rodney’s legacy of enslaving hundreds of people.
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Kim Bender @kimpbender.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
I’m so excited and proud!!
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nanaslugdiva @nanaslugdiva.blacksky.app · 10/05/2026
Voting rights
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Good interview with Owen Hatherley. His speculation on the background to these projects is not informed but the alternative visions for the city are excellent.
nytimes.com
Opinion | Trump’s Architecture Rankles. But Why?
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Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
It’s a synthetic fantasy about a future along the Potomac River where rising tides, storm surges, and more intense hurricanes don’t exist.
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
In a democracy, there is something shameful about the security that surrounds its leaders. But Donald Trump doesn't feel any shame. Me in the Atlantic on the victory of bunker mentality.
theatlantic.com
The White House Is a Fortress. It’s Not Supposed to Look Like One.
Trump’s ballroom would contort a design that is supposed to emphasize democracy and openness.
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
You are invited.
Neil Flanagan
Fiancis Aculands
Makes a Home for his
"Empire al Home
The DC History Conference:
May 2nd, 2026
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DC Public Library @dcpubliclibrary.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
DC History Conference returns to MLK Library. 📅 May 1–2 ⏰ 9:30am–5:30pm Free, two days of talks, storytelling, and deep dives into DC’s past and present. Students, scholars, artists, and neighbors all in one space. Plan ahead. Register here: bit.ly/4tvmGtq
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Kim Bender @kimpbender.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
I’m all for getting people to engage more in history but…wut?
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Mitch Ryals @mitchryals.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
The Board of Zoning Adjustment hasn't been able to establish a quorum for more than a month, bringing housing renovations and development to a screeching halt. Suzie Amanuel spoke to an elderly couple who are caught in the middle: washingtoncitypaper.com/article/7838...
washingtoncitypaper.com
The Board of Zoning Adjustment Hasn’t Had a Quorum For More Than a Month, Snarling Housing Renovation and Development
A series of recent departures and a yearlong vacancy have effectively halted crucial zoning decisions. Cases have been pushed back to June—at the earliest.
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DC Archives Foundation @dcarchivesfdn.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Happy 40th Anniversary to the DC Archives!!
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
I have heard very, very good things about the status of the DC Archives funding. The hearing is 4/27. 🗃️
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Dr. Peter Paul Rubens @peterpaulrubens.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
View and map of Toledo, 1610. Another wild & wonderful work by El Greco, who died (in Toledo) on this day in 1614.
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
Historic Days in April from the Crisis, April 1912 hdl.handle.net/2027/msu.312...
HISTORIC DAYS IN APRIL

3. Negro troops enter Richmond, 1865 .

4. Richard Allen and Absalom Jones organized the first Negro aid and beneficial society , 1787.

5. Report of commission sent to San Domingo to investigate the question of annexation sent to Congress , 1871 .

6. Second Continental Congress passed resolution against importation of slaves , 1776 .

7. Lewis Hayden , fugitive slave and tireless worker for the advancement of the Negro , died , 1889 .

8. New York prohibits slave trade , 1801.

9. Lyman Trumbull's Civil Rights Bill, which gave the Negro status in the courts of the United States, became law , 1866 .

11. Richard Allen, first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church , consecrated , 1816 .

12. Battle of Fort Pillow , 1864 . 

14. First abolition society in the United States organized , 1775 .

15. Abraham Lincoln died , 1865 .

16. Emancipation in the District of Columbia by act of Congress , providing for compensation of slaveholders , 1862 .

17. Robert G. Shaw commissioned colonel of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment , 1863 .

18. Reconstruction constitution of Louisiana ratified , 1868 .

19. Oberlin , O. , founded , 1833 

20. Anti-Ku-Klux Act approved , 1871 .

23. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler offers to suppress servile insurrection in Maryland, 1861 .

27. Toussaint L'ouverture died , 1803 

30. The Fifteenth Amendment pro- posed , 1866 .

L. M. HERSHAW.
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
If you stay in bed a little longer, you’ll have more time to read this ⬇️
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Martin Austermuhle @maustermuhle.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Of nerdy urbanist interest: Next week the D.C. Council will cast a first vote on @brianneknadeau.bsky.social's bill to allow for new D.C. buildings up to six stories tall to have only a single stairwell in them, instead of the current two. Proponents say it creates more residential space.
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Not only is this correct, it's how the designers of the National Mall thought. The McMillan Commission imagined clearing out neighborhoods for grand buildings and wide roads. NCPPC executed that vision with a full commitment to the automobile era. The Mall has been obsolete from the start.
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Jacob Lawrence @jacoblawrence.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Workshop (Builders #1) www.wikiart.org/en/jacob-lawrence/w…
Workshop (Builders #1)
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
That’s right. @kimpbender.bsky.social
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Erik Schlenker-Goodrich @riogranderift.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
Rivers are living beings.
A 1944 map by geologist Harold Fisk charts a 40-mile stretch of the Mississippi River from Friars Point to Gunnison, Mississippi. Fisk used aerial photos and maps to estimate the past and then-present channels. Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/mississippi-rivers-hidden-history-uncovered-by-lidar?fbclid=IwY2xjawQYXkdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFCZ2JBT2tWdVlXMmEzNU5Uc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHsbjW-Yuubr_o_Kfeh0Elzc94geDwfXIZmeNL7NyljEBAOEjH53m2QLSo1NF_aem__4NkCIJ_D8J6mI1e8eMByg
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Leon Jackson @drleonj.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Today’s archival research has been weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable other than the random fragment of a poem about vegetables on the back of an 1819 receipt tendered to the Boston Board of Selectmen 🗃️
A receiptA fragment of a poem about vegetables
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Tammy Stidham is going to vote for this but she voted against the DC Archives. Just something I expect to remember in 2029.
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Kim Bender @kimpbender.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Neil’s newsletter is destined to be required DC history reading. 🗃️
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
It was a pleasure to talk to Alex Wagner about the president's half-baked and self-aggrandizing plans for Washington. Thank you to @heurichhouse.bsky.social for allowing me to film in their amazing and acoustically great dining room.
youtube.com
Trump Gives DC a MAGA Facelift (w/ Heather Cox Richardson)
YouTube video by Runaway Country with Alex Wagner
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Pleasure to talk to Anthony Burke about the administration’s plans for Washington, and in good company.
abc.net.au
Designing for power: White House changes and the signal they send - ABC listen
If buildings speak, the White House never whispers — and recent design overhauls have given it a whole new vocabulary. In this episode, we decode the aesthetic signals embedded in its latest transform...
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DC Archives Foundation @dcarchivesfdn.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
🎂
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Heurich House Museum @heurichhouse.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Help us find our next Executive Director. good-insight.org/careers/
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Kim Bender @kimpbender.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
Some more news: I am thrilled that my next role will be to support DC's architectural community! In March, I will start my new role as Executive Director of AIA|DC and the Washington Architectural Foundation, who together run the District Architecture Center.
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Hyperallergic @hyperallergic.com · 19/01/2026
Since 1986, Don Miller’s 56-foot painting at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC, has served as a visual portal into the civil rights leader’s life and legacy.
hyperallergic.com
40 Years On, DC Artists Revisit Don Miller's MLK Mural
Since 1986, the 56-foot painting at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library has served as a visual portal into the civil rights leader’s life and legacy.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 16/01/2026
to despair and embrace cynicism was to hand powerful weapons to the enemy
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Kim Bender @kimpbender.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Some News: After 15 years at the @heurichhouse.bsky.social , I have decided it is time for me to leave my role as Executive Director. 🗃️
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Heurich House Museum @heurichhouse.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
What a year! Thank you to all the event attendees, tour takers, Biergarten visitors, and program partners who shaped 2025 at the Heurich House Museum. We’re looking forward to another year with you and the building that makes it all possible.
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
i love furniture restoration videos because they show how quality is important and you can get some really beautiful, overlooked furniture if you learn certain skills IG savedbydesign.tn
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