The New York Times reports:

A judge ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration could inch forward on a plan to paint the gray granite exterior of the Eisenhower Executive Building white.

In an order from the bench in Federal District Court in Washington, Judge Dabney L. Friedrich said that initial tests to evaluate how the paint would affect the building’s walls and other preparations would not directly harm preservationist groups who sued to stop the effort.

But she warned that she would intervene if the administration moved ahead with a full paint job before other legal questions were settled. [Continue reading…]

Dorothy Robyn writes:

History and aesthetics aside, Trump’s plan violates a key rule of building maintenance: Do not paint granite. Granite is a superior building facade that has been used for other distinctive structures in Washington, D.C., such as the Library of Congress and the Old Post Office. Left unpainted, granite requires little maintenance. Once granite is painted, however (and examples are rare), it requires extensive maintenance in perpetuity. Greg Werkheiser, a co-founder of Cultural Heritage Partners, a law firm representing the DC Preservation League (which is suing over the project), has warned that the EEOB could become the Golden Gate Bridge of federal buildings: As soon as painting is finished on one end, it will be time to begin again on the other. [Continue reading…]

Actually, it would be worse than the continuous repainting of GGB, which is painted International Orange, a deep reddish-orange hue.

Unless Trump plans on turning Washington DC into an all-electric city, particulates from air pollution would become visible on every horizontal surface within days — not weeks, months or years. If the building’s appearance was intended to be an expression of the superiority of whiteness, it would need to be continuously washed.

Since there is already an abundance of evidence that Trump’s plans to give the nation’s capital a make-over are not an expression of his genius as a real estate developer, they can instead better be understood as the kind of territorial behavior through which all kinds of creatures leave their mark.

Think of Trump as an orange hippo, broadcasting his turds in every direction.