If you ever want to see the architectural equivalent of divorce, or at least separation, you will find it exquisitely in evidence at the new Mormon Temple opposite Lincoln Center. This temple is housed in the broad base of a 1970s-era residential tower – and a ghastly one at that – where it formerly resided as the Mormon Visitor’s Center immortalized in Angels in America.

The transformation is a bit ironic, given that Mormons are so far from sanctioning divorce that they believe that couples marry, not only for the entirety of their natural lives but for all eternity. Which is well and good, except that in the present context they clearly wished to have nothing whatever to do with the tasteless tower to which they have been joined for the past 30 years.

Their solution is so deft and subtle it almost takes your breath away. Yes, they have cleaned and refaced the base of the building, adding a few vernacular details to the drab Modernism of the original. But that is a minor change. The real difference was the addition, a few weeks ago, of a diminutive tower at the southwest corner of the base. It now rises in travertine and is topped by a gilded angel that positively presides over this busy intersection of Upper Broadway.

What is so delightful about the simple tower and its angel is that they were all it took to transform the building from the ugly appendix of even uglier building into a splendid, indeed classic, example of what we may fairly call the Mormon Style, whose clean-cut monumentality is most conspicuously visible in Salt Lake City.

Through this one conjuring, the temple no longer seems to belong to the host building at all. For the first time, it asserts its own identity and, within the unfortunate architectural context that it inherited, it now looks better than anyone could ever have imagined.

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That is not the only improvement to this intersection of Broadway. Several months ago I expressed my reservations about the Grand Tier, a residential tower and base that were then being built just south of the Mormon Center. Designed by Costas Kondylis Partners, it struck me as a fairly unimaginative application of 1980sera Classicist contextualism, better, surely, than the two tower-and-base structures that flank it, but not good enough to be interesting.

In large measure I stand by that assessment. But this seems like a good occasion to enunciate a useful axiom of architectural criticism (just what you wanted!), an axiom I have come only gradually to appreciate: No matter how good or bad a building is, it looks better and makes more sense when completed than it does under construction.

Now that the epic scaffolding and the constructions crew have cleared out and pedestrians can reclaim the sidewalk, how splendid, how Parisian this stretch of Broadway suddenly appears, as you walk beside the rusticated base of the building. Just yesterday people went out of their way to avoid walking here. Now, with Bed Bath & Beyond already selling its wares, this street has become one of the statelier places in the city.

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Another improvement to the area for which we may thank Costas Kondylis, is right around the corner at 43 West 64 Street. Preserving in a very respectful manner only the rusticated base of a pre-existent building, and giving full play to its swags and single broken pediment, a granite-faced building now rises up eight stories and terminates in a tasteful frieze. From there it continues in a set-back for an additional four floors. Facing south, it is divided into five bays up to the eighth floor and the lateral windows are adorned with balconies that seem formed from so very elegant wrought iron. A more Spartan but still elegant facade covers the northern face of this building that, despite its relatively small size, runs through the entire block. So, too, does the popular O’Neil’s Saloon, which resides at the base of the building.

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Any diminution of automobile traffic in Central Park is surely a good thing. But the new restrictions being implemented by the Parks Commission leave me puzzled. The main difference between what we have known and what will go fully into effect on January 3 is that the park will be shut to cars between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. (not counting the intersections at 66th, 86th, and so on).

When I first read that bit of news, I thought I had misread it: Surely they meant 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Conceive that the park is closed in any case between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. That means that, except for an hour or so during the summer months, these new restrictions will limit cars precisely when no one is there in any case and will lift those restrictions punctually at the instant when the public returns.

True, a number of entrances and exits, most notably those at West 72nd, 77th, and 90th, will be permanently closed. But the crucial entrance at East 72nd will remain open. The overriding point of reducing cars in the park is to cause its users to feel that they are escaping the importunate city. That is unlikely to be the result of these new restrictions.

Part of the problem is that the Parks Department draws a false dichotomy between cars and bikes, when it should be drawing a distinction between cars and pedestrians. Indeed, if the parks department expands its purview, it does so only to include joggers. But the park was originally conceived for pedestrians, and they are they are the ones most shortchanged by the escalating num bers of cars, cyclists, and runners.

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But this isn’t the only example of the Parks Department’s insensitivity to its users. Last December I wrote about the scaffolding that covers the Bandshell, at the all-important focal point of Central Park. It went up in spring of 2003, just as people and fair weather were returning to the park, and was supposed to come down in October of that year. Well, it is still up and there are no signs of its ever coming down. Meanwhile, the under-passage at Bethesda Terrace was boarded up in late August and was supposed to reopen in early September. Then October. Then November. On my most recent visit, a sign announced that it would be closed “until further notice.”