A four-foot tall "baby" on the House side of the U.S. Capitol shows the years of damage a restoration hopes to erase. Photo from Architect of the Capitol.
Posted on 04/25/2014 8:09:29 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Lawmakers are rallying around the 150-year-old U.S. Capitol Dome, weather-whipped and torn open by acid rain, worried that if an 11th-hour restoration isn’t fully funded, its most important traits could be lost forever.
“If this work isn't done,” warned Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., “we're going to lose the dome, we're going to lose it as it truly, historically is.”
A big fix, added Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., is needed, “so that we don't lose these treasures forever.”
The two Senate appropriators are joining to help Architect of the Capitol Stephen T. Ayers secure the money needed to complete the $60 million restoration projection, set to go into final stages next month with the erection of scaffolding to surround the whole dome, just like that done recently at the Washington Monument.
The interior is also in need of restoration, and the Capitol Rotunda is temporarily closed as interior safety netting is installed to begin that $21 million project.
Pockmarked with about 300 cracks and broken stone about a dozen years ago, there are now 1,300 cracks in the dome’s exterior covered with a dozen layers of lead-based paint that allow water to seep in and stain the interior. Some stone carvings are so damaged that it’s hard to make them out...
Congress is expected to fund the project, one of over 20 emergency fixes on the Capitol campus, and Ayers said it should be done in time for the next presidential Inauguration in January 2017.
The House has moved forward with funding, and the Senate is expected to follow in May. One insider suggested that members would rather spend less on it, but realize that restoring a piece of American history can’t be skimped on.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
A four-foot tall "baby" on the House side of the U.S. Capitol shows the years of damage a restoration hopes to erase. Photo from Architect of the Capitol.
Have a great day, all.
GOOD, I HOPE the WHOLE Damn thing(The Entire “Capitol Bldg”) COLLAPSES!
It ain’t rotting from acid rain. It’s melting from the inside from all that methane from the BS those guys spew. They’re all worthless. I wouldn’t fix it until they’re all thrown out.
I’ll make them a deal. If they return the federal government to what it was when the capitol was built, I’ll give them whatever is required to restore the capitol dome to its former glory.
If it isn’t one dome thing, it’s another...
Haven't heard much about acid rain since the 1990s.
Talk of it disappeared with talk of "ozone holes".
Kudos
Sixty million...
I can’t help but laugh out loud as I watch these idiots act as if a $60 million dollar expenditure would be something they would give a fig about.
Fiscal conservancy? LMAO
President Ike refused to make the necessary repairs in the 1950s.
Isn’t the capital dome figuratively on fire?
Kind of like what happened to the Reichstag?
I really really liked that one Tom Clancy book...
The baby looks this way as God tries to remind us the damage the abortion advocates have done to this USA. This building and many others in D.C. are so responsible for the American holocaust.
$60 million is chump change - take it out of the IRS and BLM SWAT team budget
I bet the thing implodes from disrepair and the elites blame it on the Bundy militia “terrorists”.
I agree, let the thing collapse, we would be better served if there was less marble and stone and more steel and concrete in Washington...
We have built temples to the false idols of government let the whole damn thing collapse.
Is “the baby” in the path of runoff water? If so, it would erode regardless of the pH of the H2O.
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