Regular readers of my web column know that I have a theme (one of many): Why do new buildings have to be so ugly? And by “new” I mean buildings put up after — what, 1965? Yesterday, I walked past a rec center in New York. The Asser Levy Recreation Center. Built around the turn of the century, I think. (I ain’t talkin’ ten years ago.) Snapped a picture for you: here. Looming behind the rec center are modern apartment buildings, typically ugly. I mean no particular offense to those buildings — some of the best people I’ve ever known have lived there! They’re just typical.

Have a better picture of the rec center, plucked from the Internet: here. Engraved high on the façade (or whatever the right terminology is) are the words Free Public Baths, City of New York. Such a striking building. And this wasn’t a Chase bank or something. Just a building for baths, for everybody: for the unwashed (literally).

When I was growing up, I traveled to and through a lot of Michigan towns. And a pattern was obvious: There was a beautiful junior high school in the middle of town. It used to be the high school. There was an ugly building more on the outskirts of town: That was the new high school. Why? Why? Why must it be so?

Back when Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln Center) was closed for renovation, we had chamber concerts in the auditorium of the Ethical Culture Center, nearby. Beautiful thing, with wood and marble shaped in superb ways. I asked a knowledgeable person why we couldn’t have such rooms today. He said, “It’s not just that the materials are scarce or very expensive. It’s that we don’t have people anymore — artisans — who know how to do such things!”

One more remark: A few years ago, I was riding around Massachusetts with my friend and colleague Nathan Goulding, NR’s web genius. There was this beautiful, stately, tastefully ornate building. I said, “Nath, what’s that?” He said, “Oh, that’s the prison.” There was a time in America when people thought that even prisons should be pleasing to the eye. Long time ago …

P.S. This item conservative enough for you?