Huffington Post: Paris Love Locks

While Paris has long been the idyllic destination for lovers, it is the Pont des Arts pedestrian bridge over the Seine River that has recently become the place to symbolically leave your heart in the city of romance.

During a recent trip to Paris, my husband and I discovered 'love locks' on the Pont Des Arts Bridge. Hundreds of padlocks in various shapes, etched with dates and couples' initials, have been affixed to the railings of the wooden slatted bridge. For the past few years couples have been attaching engraved padlocks to the bridge and throwing the keys into the Seine as a sign of never-ending love...

You can read my article in full on the Huffington Post. Happy Valentine's Day.

First Huffington Post Blog: Out with the Old?

It was quite a rush to see my first Huffington Post blog post, Out With the Old?, go live yesterday. Writing for the Huffington Post has long been a dream of mine, and I am thrilled to now be a part of that community. A very special thank you to my friend Shawn Henderson for believing in my writing and making the introduction.

In the past few years there have been numerous depressing examples of demolition of historic buildings that continue to remind me that buildings and monuments are not only historically important to a region and culture, but they serve as visible symbols linking us to our past.

Most recently, book The Ruins of Detroit by French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre has haunted my thoughts. You can read my take on preservation and adaptive reuse of buildings here.

Photo by Marchand and Meffre: The ballroom of the 15-floor art-deco Lee Plaza Hotel in Detroit, Michigan. The apartment building and hotel was built in 1929 and has been derelict since the early 1990s.