But inside the school, a red brick behemoth of more than 3,500 students on the Brooklyn-Queens border, not many are ready to declare victory.

The centerpiece of the renovations is the new Arthur Ashe Stadium, a brick behemoth that seats 23,000 and replaces Louis Armstrong Stadium as the showcase arena.

She returns to her lemon-yellow 19th-century brick behemoth with the twisting staircases and stained-glass windows, feeds the cats, settles back into her armchair and stares at the wall.

On his watch, 40 brick behemoths have been dynamited, an ailing downtown has pulsed with new life, and thousands of homes have sprouted on a landscape once scarred by riots and abandonment.

Mr. Peretzman and other state officials said they never considered the school, a brick behemoth built in 1920, appropriate for young students because of its size and multiple entrances.

A short hike brought me to the northern edge of the Health Sciences Center - a complex of brick behemoths rumoured to house more corridor space than the Pentagon.

One of only two buildings left standing on a forlorn little street, it's a windowed brick behemoth with a stone inset that reads, "Hartford Fire Department 1920."

In exchange, Winn says it plans to invest $100 million to redevelop the red brick behemoths into the largest infusion of new housing here in 130 years, according to Mayor Michael J. Sullivan.

An acronym for "Big Old Building," the four-story brick behemoth, which dates from 1903, is a former grocery warehouse transformed into an entertainment complex with three restaurants, a microbrewery, two dance clubs and a comedy club.

He suspected they had, but would have been dumbfounded to stand where he now stood, to look up at the orange metal of the bridge arching so insolently over the brick behemoth.