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    With Pageantry and Dignitaries, France Unveils a Reborn Notre-Dame

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    Five years after a ruinous fire, the reopening of the cathedral restored it in full glory to the Paris skyline and delivered a much-needed morale boost for France.Five years after a fire that devoured its roof and nearly collapsed its walls, a renovated Notre-Dame Cathedral reopened its doors on Saturday, its centuries-old bell clanging, its 8,000-pipe organ first groaning — and then roaring back to life.It was an emotional rebirth for one of the world’s most recognized monuments, a Gothic medieval masterpiece and cornerstone of European culture and faith.“Brothers and sisters, let us enter now into Notre-Dame,” Laurent Ulrich, the archbishop of Paris, said before poking three times on the cathedral doors with the point of his staff, made with a beam of the roof that survived the fire.As he pushed open the door, the sounds of brass instruments and the melodic voices of dozens of children singing in the cathedral choir filled the nave.The ceremony restored the cathedral to the Parisian skyline in its full glory and delivered a much-needed morale boost for France at a time of political dysfunction, a stagnating economy and a bitter budget standoff that this week resulted in the toppling of the center-right government.With the successful reopening of Notre-Dame, on a schedule that many had derided as too ambitious, France showed off its ability to execute major projects, as it did with the Summer Olympics, and exhibited its artistic and artisanal expertise.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Notre-Dame Reopens in Paris After a Fire. It’s Astonishing.

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      Benoist de Sinety, former vicar general of Paris, was on his scooter that April evening in 2019, driving across the Pont Neuf toward the Left Bank when he spotted flames in his rearview mirror billowing from under the eaves of Notre-Dame. He cursed, made a U-turn and sped toward the cathedral. Mary Queen of Scots […] More

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      Notre-Dame Shines, and World Gets a Sneak Peek, on Macron’s Televised Tour

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      “You’ve achieved what was said to be impossible,” the French president told workers at the Paris monument, which will reopen after the 2019 fire.President Emmanuel Macron of France toured the Paris cathedral five years after it was damaged in a devastating fire. The landmark is expected to reopen to the public next month.Pool photo by Christophe Petit TessonThe world got its first glimpse on Friday of the newly renovated Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.President Emmanuel Macron of France took viewers on a live televised tour of the cathedral’s dazzlingly clean interior and rebuilt roofing, five years after a devastating fire that was followed by a colossal reconstruction effort.“I believe you are seeing the cathedral like it has never been seen before,” Philippe Jost, the head of the reconstruction task force, told Mr. Macron.The French president and his wife, Brigitte, gushed with admiration and craned their necks as they entered the 12th and 13th-century Gothic monument alongside the mayor and archbishop of Paris.More than 450,000 square feet of cream-colored limestone inside the cathedral have been meticulously stripped of ash, lead dust and centuries of accumulated grime, leaving its soaring vaults, thick columns and tall walls almost startlingly bright.Mr. Macron’s visit before the monument is scheduled to reopen next week was an opportunity for him to shift focus away from the country’s political turmoil and budgetary woes. It will put the spotlight on a bet that he made, and that appears to have paid off, to rebuild the cathedral on a tight five-year deadline.“You’ve achieved what was said to be impossible,” Mr. Macron told an assembly of over half of the 2,000 workers and craftsmen from around France — and beyond — who contributed to the cathedral’s reconstruction. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israeli Strikes Threaten Lebanon’s Archaeological Treasures

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      The country is home to thousands of years’ worth of antiquities. Some have already been damaged or destroyed in the war, alarming the conservationists trying to protect them.For Mohammad Kanso, the ancient Roman temples of Baalbek felt like home.The 2,000-year-old ruins, the pride of Lebanon and considered some of the grandest of their kind in the world, were his childhood playground. When he grew up, he got the same job his father had, running the lights that illuminate the towering columns at night.But as Israeli airstrikes crept closer to the site, his family was forced to flee earlier this month. Days later, a missile landed yards away from the temple complex, obliterating a centuries-old Ottoman-era building.“My entire world went black,” said Mr. Kanso.Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah has triggered a humanitarian crisis. Almost a quarter of Lebanon’s population of about five million has been displaced and more than 3,700 people have been killed, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. But it has also gravely threatened the tiny Mediterranean nation’s antiquities, a shared source of pride in a country long divided by sectarian strife.The temple complex of Baalbek, which is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, is just one of the sites that are at risk. Archaeologists, conservationists and even the Lebanese military are now racing to protect thousands of years worth of Phoenician, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman treasures.Lebanese troops piling up sandbags around an ancient water well during a drill at an army base near Beirut. A specialist regiment has been transporting artifacts out of the country’s hard-hit south. Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York TimesLast week, UNESCO placed 34 cultural sites in Lebanon under what it calls “enhanced protection,” a measure that defines an attack on them as a serious violation of the 1954 Hague Convention and “potential grounds for prosecution.” But many antiquities are not on the list, and some have already been damaged or destroyed by Israeli strikes, according to Lebanese officials and the United Nations, including historic churches and cemeteries, centuries-old markets and castles from the Crusades.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘A League of Their Own’ Grandstand Destroyed in Fire

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      The field and wooden grandstand in Ontario, Calif., were the backdrop for the 1992 movie about a women’s baseball league.The wooden grandstand, locker rooms, press box and dugout of Jay Littleton Ball Park, a baseball field in California that was featured in the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own,” were destroyed in a fire on Thursday, a city spokesman said.Aerial footage showed scorched debris ringing a grassy baseball diamond at the park in Ontario, Calif., which is about 40 miles east of Los Angeles.Firefighters responding to the fire at 11:25 p.m. local time on Thursday encountered flames engulfing the wooden structures of the stadium, which they were unable to save, Dan Bell, Ontario’s communications director, said on Saturday.“This is an old-school, 1937, all-wood grandstand construction,” Mr. Bell said. “Once it lit, it just went up.”It was not immediately clear what caused the fire. Mr. Bell said the city had closed the field to the public four years ago because of the dilapidated and dangerous condition of the grandstand. The city had been considering finding funds to restore it.Geena Davis, center, and Megan Cavanagh, left, in a scene from “A League of Their Own.”Columbia Pictures“A League of Their Own,” which also starred Madonna, Rosie O’Donnell and Tom Hanks, told the story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, a professional league founded in 1943 when many minor league teams were disbanded because the draft was sending players and other men to fight in World War II. The league lasted 12 seasons.In one memorable scene from the movie, the character played by the actress Geena Davis does a split and makes a spectacular catch in front of the grandstand.In addition to “A League of Their Own,” the ballpark served as a setting for the 1992 movie “The Babe,” starring John Goodman, and the 1988 movie “Eight Men Out.”Representative Norma J. Torres, Democrat of California, whose district includes Ontario, said on social media on Friday that the site had been “generations of families’ favorite ballpark since the 1930s.”The park, which the city designated a historic landmark in 2003, was originally called the Ontario Ball Park, home to the semiprofessional baseball team, the Ontario Merchants.It was, at that time, a modern baseball facility with a wooden grandstand that could seat 3,500, team locker rooms and a press box complete with radio transmission towers on the roof, according to a historic structure report conducted by the city in 2019.Because wood construction was susceptible to fire, most professional baseball stadiums from the early 20th century were built with less flammable materials, such as brick, concrete and steel.For economic reasons, amateur ball parks like Ontario’s continued to be built of wood, the report said.The park was later renamed for Jay Littleton, a semiprofessional baseball player from Ontario who went on to work as a Major League Baseball scout, according to a 2003 obituary. More

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      After Fire at Sanctuary, First Baptist Dallas Church Mourns What’s Lost

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      As officials work to determine the cause, many lament the damage at First Baptist Dallas, a church that grew along with the downtown around it.The red brick outer walls of First Baptist Dallas Church were singed black on Saturday morning, and though they were still intact, along with the steeple at the front of the historic building, there was no sanctuary within. The roof, windows and interior were gone. And the smell of smoke lingered.Larry Smith and his wife, Rita, two members of the church, drove 20 miles from Arlington, Texas, to see firsthand the destruction of the fire from the previous night. Other members also gathered outside.Ms. Smith wiped tears from her eyes with a tissue as she talked about the sanctuary, with its dark wood pews and ornate carvings. There was a library in the church, she said, along with a printing shop and the offices of former pastors. “A lot of history in that building,” she said. Mr. Smith began to talk about what was lost when he trailed off, looking at the smoldering remains.Church members and other residents of the Dallas area mourned on Saturday the severe damage to the sanctuary, a landmark in the heart of Dallas where many of the megachurch’s members have been baptized, married and memorialized.On Friday night, the blaze, which caused the church’s roof to collapse, grew to a four-alarm fire that sent smoke billowing over the city. More than 60 firefighting units responded to the scene.No injuries or fatalities have been reported, according to Dallas Fire-Rescue. The fire occurred in the old part of the church’s sprawling complex, where the main Sunday services are no longer held, but which has been in use since its construction in 1890.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Estalló una guerra cultural por las casas señoriales del Reino Unido. ¿Quién ganó?

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      Una batalla en torno a la historia de las casas de campo más preciadas del país ofrecía un vistazo al estado de ánimo nacional antes de unas elecciones clave.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Un cuadro en Dyrham House, una gran mansión en el suroeste de Inglaterra, ofrece una vista panorámica del puerto de Bridgetown, Barbados, con plantaciones de azúcar salpicadas a lo largo de una ladera.En otra habitación hay dos figuras talladas que representan a hombres negros arrodillados, sosteniendo sobre sus cabezas conchas de vieira. Están encadenados por los tobillos y el cuello.Estas obras pertenecieron a William Blathwayt, quien fue propietario de Dyrham a finales del siglo XVII y principios del XVIII y, como auditor general británico de las rentas de las plantaciones, supervisaba las ganancias que llegaban de las colonias.Explicar la historia de un lugar como Dyrham puede resultar polémico, como ha descubierto el National Trust, la organización benéfica de casi 130 años de antigüedad que gestiona muchas de las casas históricas más preciadas del Reino Unido.Después de que la organización renovó sus exposiciones para poner de relieve los vínculos entre decenas de sus propiedades y la explotación y la esclavitud de la época colonial, provocó la ira de algunos columnistas y académicos de derecha, que acusaron al fondo de ser “progre”, insinuaron que estaba presentando una visión“antibritánica” de la historia e iniciaron una campaña para revertir algunos de los cambios.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Philip Johnson’s Brick House Reopens After 15 Years

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      The architect Philip Johnson’s Glass House, a rectangular glass-and-steel residence set on a grassy shelf above a wooded bluff in New Canaan, Conn., has epitomized a certain East Coast ideal of midcentury elegance since its completion in 1949. Before becoming an architect at age 37, Johnson ran the architecture department at MoMA, and the spare, luminous building, which he inhabited for over half a century, embodies the Modernist International Style that he helped define in a landmark exhibition at the museum in 1932. The home also established Johnson himself as the paragon of a specific type of New York architect: erudite, absolutist in his refinement and formidable in his influence wielding, shaping careers, institutions and public opinion like few others in his field.But since the National Trust of Historic Preservation opened the Glass House to the public as a museum in 2007, visitors have discovered there’s more to the place than its namesake centerpiece. By the time Johnson died in 2005, the five acres he’d bought in 1946 had grown tenfold to encompass 14 structures, including experimental follies, a subterranean painting gallery and three wooden homes from earlier periods, including a shingled 18th-century dwelling that Johnson and his partner, the curator David Whitney, would use as a refuge in hot weather. For the past 15 years, however, a pivotal part of the estate has remained semi-concealed: Johnson’s guesthouse, known as the Brick House and situated just 80 feet from the site’s main attraction, has been closed to the public because of water damage. Now, after an extensive restoration and in time for the Glass House’s 75th anniversary, the building has finally been unveiled.The hallway has a granite floor and doubles as a gallery, displaying Brice Marden’s “Etchings to Rexroth” (1986), from the collection of Johnson and his partner, the curator David Whitney.Dean KaufmanJohnson considered the 1,728-square-foot Glass House and its 860-square-foot brick companion, which was built at the same time, two parts of a single home — one alluringly crystalline, the other introverted and opaque. He wrapped the smaller building entirely in iron-spotted red brick and positioned it facing the main house at a slight angle, with a gravel pathway crossing the courtyard between them. The structures are also linked below ground: Along with a bedroom, study, storage room and bathroom, the Brick House contains the unsightly mechanical equipment that supplies the Glass House with electricity and heat, enabling the larger building to maintain its aesthetic purity. Tellingly, Johnson placed the Brick House’s only windows — three big mahogany-framed portholes — on the building’s back side, facing away from his glass retreat. “I didn’t see why the guests should have a window looking out toward my house,” he said in an unpublished 1991 interview for the National Trust. “They can look their own way out to the hill.” But he and Whitney also often slept in the building when they didn’t have visitors.Ibram Lassaw’s welded bronze-and-steel work “Clouds of Magellan,” commissioned for the bedroom in 1953, hangs above the bed.Dean KaufmanThe Brick House is stern, squat and solid, its front interrupted only by a tall, centered black pinewood door. Even Johnson admitted it wasn’t much to look at, calling it “perfectly plain.” But if the exterior is unassuming, Johnson created an unexpected landscape of color, texture and fantastical detail inside. At one end of the bright entrance hall, which runs parallel to the front of the house, a door gives way to the building’s showpiece: a dim, sand-hued bedroom that is at once monastic, womblike and glamorous. Johnson — who never shied away from, as he put it in the 1991 interview, “deliberately copying whatever I felt like” — modeled it after a domed parlor in the early 19th-century London home of the English architect John Soane. Soane described the layered design of that room as “a succession of fanciful effects,’’ and Johnson deployed his own series of clever tricks. First, he built an off-white plaster pavilion inside the 10-by-26-foot room. A row of vaults seem to be supported by 14 superslim columns but are, in fact, suspended from the ceiling and give the room the sheltered quality of a cloister.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Makes a Society More Resilient? Frequent Hardship.

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      Comparing 30,000 years of human history, researchers found that surviving famine, war or climate change helps groups recover more quickly from future shocks.From the Roman Empire to the Maya civilization, history is filled with social collapses. Traditionally, historians have studied these downturns qualitatively, by diving into the twists and turns of individual societies.But scientists like Philip Riris have taken a broader approach, looking for enduring patterns of human behavior on a vaster scale of time and space. In a study published Wednesday, these methods allowed Dr. Riris and his colleagues to answer a profound question: Why are some societies more resilient than others?The study, published in the journal Nature, compared 16 societies scattered across the world, in places like the Yukon and the Australian outback. With powerful statistical models, the researchers analyzed 30,000 years of archaeological records, tracing the impact of wars, famines and climate change. They found that going through downturns enabled societies to get through future shocks faster. The more often a society went through them, the more resilient it eventually became.“Over time, you will suffer less, essentially,” said Dr. Riris, an archaeologist at Bournemouth University in England. “There tends not to be wholesale collapse.”The researchers tracked the history of societies by taking advantage of the way archaeologists tell time. Most organic material, whether it’s charcoal or mussel shells, contains trace amounts of radioactive carbon-14, which gradually breaks down over thousands of years. By measuring the carbon-14 left at an archaeological site, researchers can estimate its age.This approach can also track population changes. As human groups get bigger, they burn more wood, eat more food and leave behind more garbage, all of which can be dated. When those groups shrink, their sites become rarer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More