By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
More than 10 years have passed since then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist broke ground on the first major renovation of the Supreme Court since the building opened in 1935.
As Rehnquist’s successor noted recently, the landscaping phase of the project is still going on. “Things are so dug up in the area, you’d think we were looking for Jimmy Hoffa or something,” Chief Justice John Roberts said at a conference in West Virginia.
Renovations often don’t go exactly according to plan and the court project has been no exception.
Faulty measurements meant that a first set of replacement windows didn’t fit.
More recently, someone discovered that the amount of dirt workers were planning to pour in the garden on the north side of the building would have threatened the collapse of the police offices beneath the court.
So workers installed dozens of large, space-eating lightweight foam panels to protect the police below.
A separate problem involves the court’s iconic front, which is covered with scaffolding for repairs to the building’s marble. A basketball-sized piece of marble molding fell from the facade over the entrance to the court in 2005.
All of the work now is supposed to be done early next year.
Roberts isn’t so sure, likening the project to a paradox described by the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea.
The point of the paradox is that motion is an illusion. “That’s apparently how our construction project is going,” he said.
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