Gowanus Lounge has nothing but praise for the LA Times story about Broken Angel. I am on a mission to read the LA Times as a good high school friend is the OP ED Editor there and I promised him I’d read it more often. Meghan Daum has a column there. The paper is going on my Bookmarks toolbar…

NEW YORK — Turn down a side street in the Clinton Hill neighborhood and
a strange structure rises above the skyline. It is wooden, and
handmade, and — depending on your angle of approach — it can resemble a
15th century flying machine, or a warped Gothic cathedral, or a pile of
sharecroppers’ shacks poised deliriously over Brooklyn.

The
building is the work of Arthur Wood, a slight man of 75. For 27 years,
Wood’s neighbors have watched him climb to the top of his building to
begin work on its next level. Wood builds without exterior scaffolding
or a harness, and often with no assistance except for his wife,
Cynthia. The structure has risen to 108 feet. Wood says it is about
one-third finished.

"Broken Angel," as Wood and his wife
named the building, is loved by many in Brooklyn, and recently it was
the backdrop for the documentary "Dave Chappelle’s Block Party." But on
Oct. 10, Wood’s solitary work ran into trouble when a fire broke out on
an upper story. The fire triggered an inspection by the city Department
of Buildings, which declared the building "highly cannibalized" and a
"deathtrap." When Wood would not vacate the premises, the department
ordered his arrest… read more here