Limited-service Hotel Project | 73 Essex St | Chinatown

[Lisbon]

Jeez, some of these comments sound like they were written by the Urban Renewal BRA of the 1960s.

Yeah, Chinatown may be a bit "dumpy", but that doesn't mean we should replace quality pre-war buildings there with cheap pre-cast crap. If the streets are dirty, clean them. If buildings are in disrepair, push owners to fix them. Don't accept bad architecture in place of good just because it smells a little on the corner.

+1

People said the same thing about the West End once upon a time, now it doesn't exist.

With time we can repair the buildings, fix the smells, etc. but is this building is destroyed, it will never come back. I feel what some of you are saying, though I don't entirely agree, I think Chinatown has character. I have many Chinese coworkers, and despite its small size they all frequent Chinatown for its restaurants and bakeries.

 

[commuter guy]

From the PNF:

"The Project site is located within the Textile National Register District. The approximately
three acre district is situated on the edge of Boston’s Central Business District. Roughly
bound by Chauncy, Essex, Edinboro and Kingston Streets the district is dominated by late
19th and early 20th century mercantile buildings. Noteworthy for its consistency of
architectural styles including Classical Revival, Renaissance and Romanesque Revival, the
district retains a great deal of architectural integrity. The district was listed in the National
Register of Historic Places in 1990 and contains approximately 18 resources. The building
at 73-79 Essex Street is identified as a contributing resource within the district."

The city doesn't seem to care much about the slow but steady denigration of the architectural integrity of its commercial districts. It's a shame because these integrity of these neighborhoods are one of Boston greatest assets relative to other American cities. Not to mention, these pre-war commercial buildings are in extremely high demand among small consulting and technology companies.

 

[FK4]

I hate this project. It's pure banality replacing a very good building. This is not a worthwhile trade... We're not even getting something nice in return.

 

[whighlander]

From the PNF:


The city doesn't seem to care much about the slow but steady denigration of the architectural integrity of its commercial districts. It's a shame because these integrity of these neighborhoods are one of Boston greatest assets relative to other American cities. Not to mention, these pre-war commercial buildings are in extremely high demand among small consulting and technology companies.

Commuter Guy -- Common -- its one thing to talk about the Theatre District, Comm Ave in the Back Bay or the South End as relatively consistent distinct style districts with much architecture that is worth preserving

Its entirely different to talk about miscellaneous commercial buildings [really warehouses] which were the 19th and early 20th C equivalent of what is often called on the AB "cheap crap with precast"

Without being accused of being insensitive to the Asian Community -- we need to remember the reason that Chinatown became Chinatown. Since it was filled circa 1800 it had always been a low rent district with cheap construction -- already in the middle-late 19th C when the first Chinese arrived [circa 1874] it was a down-at-the-heels area on the fringe of downtown -- -- it was never Beacon Hill nor Comm Ave

If there is any historic or architectural historic value to the area as a whole it is that while it didn't burn in the Great Boston Fire of 1872 -- several buildings date from the same period as the nearby buildings that did burn

 

[JeffDowntown]

Commuter Guy -- Common -- its one thing to talk about the Theatre District, Comm Ave in the Back Bay or the South End as relatively consistent distinct style districts with much architecture that is worth preserving

Its entirely different to talk about miscellaneous commercial buildings [really warehouses] which were the 19th and early 20th C equivalent of what is often called on the AB "cheap crap with precast"

Without being accused of being insensitive to the Asian Community -- we need to remember the reason that Chinatown became Chinatown. Since it was filled circa 1800 it had always been a low rent district with cheap construction -- already in the middle-late 19th C when the first Chinese arrived [circa 1874] it was a down-at-the-heels area on the fringe of downtown -- -- it was never Beacon Hill nor Comm Ave

If there is any historic or architectural historic value to the area as a whole it is that while it didn't burn in the Great Boston Fire of 1872 -- several buildings date from the same period as the nearby buildings that did burn

Whighlander, you could not be more wrong on this one.

It is absolute insanity that our urban planning allows the destruction of solid, 19th century mercantile architecture, the basic fabric of this neighborhood. Replacing it with a boring vanilla blob. At the same time, there is a surface parking lot one building away, that could easily accommodate the boring infill blob.

Once destroyed, never recovered. But I guess the parking lot is sacred.

 

[BostonDrew]

Echoing similar sentiment... why do we have to tear down an existing building with historical character when there are multiple properties along Essex street begging for development.

Exhibit One:
- Kaze Shabu Shabu Restaurant at the corner of Harrison Ave and Essex Street
- What is the current owner holding out for!?
https://www.google.com/maps/place/42%C2%B021'08.4%22N+71%C2%B003'41.6%22W/@42.352329,-71.0621092,149m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0

Exhibit Two:
- Parking Lot between Ping On Street and Edinboro Street
- Who knew it was named Chau Chow City Parking?
https://www.google.com/maps/place/42%C2%B021'09.0%22N+71%C2%B003'35.8%22W/@42.352491,-71.0604862,149m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0

Obviously, these properties are privately owned and not available for development.

 

[commuter guy]

I just think we need stronger planning in this city to preserve our assets. This building could be renovated into a hotel, which I'm sure would still generate a return on investment for the owner. Yes, probably less lucrative than the tear down option, but that is the one of the consequences of having planning and zoning rules in the first place. The BRA should be guiding and directing development in the most beneficial way possible. My personal opinion is that the leather district/chinatown area need stronger aesthetic protection built into the zoning code.

 

[Hutchison]

I'll just say this, people should be very clear about whether they are talking about the buildings, the neighborhood, or both...

 

[whighlander]

Whighlander, you could not be more wrong on this one.

It is absolute insanity that our urban planning allows the destruction of solid, 19th century mercantile architecture, the basic fabric of this neighborhood. Replacing it with a boring vanilla blob. At the same time, there is a surface parking lot one building away, that could easily accommodate the boring infill blob.

Once destroyed, never recovered. But I guess the parking lot is sacred.

Jeff -- I guess the answer is that we live in country where private property is still considered -- well private

Yes -- all things equal the lot would be superior as a location for the "boring blob" -- however, for whatever reason the owner of the lot wants to keep it -- while the owner of the old building was willing to sell to the developer

 

[whighlander]

I just think we need stronger planning in this city to preserve our assets. This building could be renovated into a hotel, which I'm sure would still generate a return on investment for the owner. Yes, probably less lucrative than the tear down option, but that is the one of the consequences of having planning and zoning rules in the first place. The BRA should be guiding and directing development in the most beneficial way possible. My personal opinion is that the leather district/chinatown area need stronger aesthetic protection built into the zoning code.

CommuterGuy -- that awsome power to limit the owners rights has to be very carefully managed

When unelected and to a large extent unlimited in their power bureaucracies run our lives there is a real loss of freedom. On the other hand we don't want someone to buy Trinity Church and tear it down for a self-storage warehouse. So there has to be a balance of preserving what is the essence of Boston -- while allowing owners and developers to own and develop as ultimately they are the ones taking the financial risk.

Yes the process can be messy and at times seem illogical -- why did they tear down that nice old early 20th C building to put up that tower when a block away there is still a large surface parking lot or even a musty old City of Boston Parking Garage?

The answer has to be that even the City might not want to dump the garage for that tower and the private owner might want to hold out for a better offer -- aka Anthony and the Pritzkers. Well Anthony took a financial bath for his less than above boards machinations with respect to the original agreement.

So -- let's encourage the developers to save and reuse -- but sometimes the old building is just going to come down to make way for something new -- a recent example being one of the few towers built in the 1950's the 18 story 450,000 sq ft Travelers Insurance building [1958] bit the dust in 1988 to make room for 125 High St

Some wanted it preserved because there were so few buildings of the pure international style in the city

However -- they were kind of "bought-off" because the developer of the new 125 High
Street included the restoration of three 19th-century buildings at the corner of Oliver and Purchase Streets.

Two of the structures were built in the 1880's by architect John Hall, according to Steve Jerome of the Boston Landmarks Commission. Jerome explained that the buildings are an excellent example of late Victorian mercantile architecture.... And to please the culturally-minded, New England Telephone plans to create a communications museum named after Alexander Graham Bell in the first-floor atrium of the project.

-- of course this never happened because NET became NYNEX then Bell Atlantic and finally Verizon

Anyway the "Old Travelers Building" . -- lasting a Las Vegas like 30 years was Las Vegas style imploden while we all watched

https://youtu.be/3oXoKEfh9Ew
as Controlled Demolitions wrote on their web page

The 451,000 square foot, 18-story, structural steel Traveler's Insurance Building blocked development of a valuable property in Boston's financial district.....Controlled Demolition Incorporated's DREXS (Directional Remote Explosive Severance) System sequentially severed the 4 inch thick flanges of the buildings' support columns to drop the structure without damage to a Boston Fire Department facility just 30 feet away. The 60,000 cubic yards of debris generated by the implosion of this downtown office complex was so well fragmented that it was cleared from the site in just 6 weeks.

Note that the New 125 High St project was one of the very first to be reviewed by the Design Committee -- so .......

anyway this is what the Globe said in an editorial about the original building

A High Street Enhancement
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7. 1986

The blue-and-white tower of bathroom tile will soon be demolished and few will mourn. When the Travelers Insurance Building on High Street was built in 1959, Bostonians swooned like so many carnival rubes. Boston was hungry for any new buildings and took what it could get.

The skyscraper plunked on an empty plaza was the American building style for decades. The demolition of the Travelers and its handsome replacement represent one of the most agreeable developments in Boston in years.

The new 125 High St. presents what we hope is an enduring innovation in Boston, a pedestrian-friendly building that graces the skyline. On a site that could handle a megalith of the brutal-glass-box school of architecture, the Travelers proposes a more soothing, varied complex. Retail arcades and an atrium will link Art Deco-style towers with a boxlike building echoing other financial district structures.

As modern architecture stumbles through its phases of proto-post- modernism, the most forgotten victims are the people who work and live in these buildings, as well as pedestrians. The dictum of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, "Less is more," created cold plazas that theoretically created open space in dense downtowns.

The new Travelers effort realizes that private, profitable arcades serve the public better than empty "public" spaces. The architects, Jung/Brannen • Associates, designed the Dewey Square tower, a 1970s slab that is almost the antithesis of this project. Architects and developers can learn.

A deep-pockets owner, Travelers, with a reliable tenant, New England Telephone, has concluded that giant filing cabinets are less attractive and less profitable than carefully planned, inviting urban vistas. Travelers is preserving several 19th-century buildings on the site for rentability, not sentiment.

The present tower is an icicle of the 1950s, resembling the coldness of Charles River Park. The new version will be more truly modern. At 125 High St. there may rise a more valid interpretation of "less is more."

By the way the higher tower was chopped from 600' as originally proposed to the "more appropriate" 400 and other "improvements" were made

Working with the BRA, the City's agencies and departments, concerned citizens' groups, and the Boston business community for over two years has resulted in a dramatically changed and improved project. The design plans have gone through extensive site analysis, conceptual massing approaches, massing alternative studies and eight schematic drawings. The design factors considered included issues of scale and massing, aesthetics, functional optimization, streetscape, public and private spaces and traffic and parking. Below is a brief description of the design changes that have been made.

• Tallest building height reduced from 600 feet to 400 feet
• Both of the taller buildings in the project have been broken into smaller masses by using notches and setbacks, to reduce apparent mass
• The 21 -story building sets back from the three 19th-century buildings allowing the new construction to wrap around them
• Retention and renovation of the three 19th-century buildings
• New construction rises 5-stories to match the parapet of the older buildings remaining on-site and then steps back up to nine stories
• The rhythm of taller and lower buildings in alteration along city blocks is preserved
• The existing fire station is relocated, and a new fire station constructed on Purchase Street
• Inclusion of an interior atrium
• Pedestrian access on three sides
• Access/egress to parking garage on Purchase Street
• Moved the tallest building away from International Place

In summary, today's design of One Twenty Five High Street evolved out of a
two-year review process that was sensitive to design, aesthetics, community
concerns, environmental impacts and scale. The product that has emerged
represents a careful balance of design issues, providing a development where both
public and private benefits can be optimized.

https://archive.org/stream/onetwentyfivehig01onet/onetwentyfivehig01onet_djvu.txt source for most of the quoted stuff

just in case you have forgotten what the Design Com working in concert with citizen participation and benefiting fromn the learning curve of the architect [accoriding to the Globe] hath wrought

 

[odurandina]

^^^

By the way the higher tower was chopped from 600' as originally proposed to the "more appropriate" 400"

uggh. God do i hate them.

If they just force a facadectomy I would honestly be pretty happy I don't care if they add a tower on top but it would be nice if they kept the facade especially because it would probably help save the street interaction that the replacement will probably not replicate well.

it's a good place to do this.

I'm looking at Googlemaps and I cannot fathom what "street interaction" you are referring to.

The back is just horrific, https://www.google.com/maps/@42.352...4!1sbnyHkAX_TyN5tfnkz0hCfg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

The Oxford Street side is a fortress/wall https://www.google.com/maps/@42.352...1lUxAzNY-lAc6dGorg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

and the Ping On Street side is just as bad, if not worse.
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.352...S-YalGzAoHFwTz8lhQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

Essex Street has/had something with the Dim Sum restaurant and the 88, but that is all.

Meanwhile, 225 rooms will add quite a but of pedestrian activity to that corner and perhaps liven up what is now a very dreary streetscape. Of course, having a restaurant at street level, like it does now would be optimal.

The building has great bones and some nice detail - - the best thing to hope for is a facadectomy.

However saving "the street interaction" that it currently has? No thanks!

keep the old Chinatown swank in the low floors + go up.

 

[dwash59]

I'm looking at Googlemaps and I cannot fathom what "street interaction" you are referring to.

The back is just horrific, https://www.google.com/maps/@42.352...4!1sbnyHkAX_TyN5tfnkz0hCfg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Looks to me like they expected a building on that parking lot that never got built that would cover that wall. I believe, Google Street View is out of date as that lot is becoming Oxford Ping On, and the back of the building will no longer be visible.

The Oxford Street side is a fortress/wall https://www.google.com/maps/@42.352...1lUxAzNY-lAc6dGorg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

Agreed

and the Ping On Street side is just as bad, if not worse.
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.352...S-YalGzAoHFwTz8lhQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

Essex Street has/had something with the Dim Sum restaurant and the 88, but that is all.

This project does not include the dim sum restaurant or go all the way to Ping On. That is 81/83 Essex Street, which is a different building than this project. That is part of where the concerns come from; the project is a juxtaposition of an old and new building, it should try to get it right.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Jeff -- I guess the answer is that we live in country where private property is still considered -- well private

Yes -- all things equal the lot would be superior as a location for the "boring blob" -- however, for whatever reason the owner of the lot wants to keep it -- while the owner of the old building was willing to sell to the developer

But we also have zoning and planning initiatives to try to incentivise the appropriate use of private property. It's the reason why your neighbor can't build a chemical plant on their property in Lexington. It is "private property", but with use restrictions.

If our incentives in the City of Boston are so misaligned that it is more cost effective for a developer to purchase an existing, substantial building, part of the basic urban fabric, and tear it down; rather than purchase a nearby parking lot, roughly equivalent footprint, then we have a real problem.

The BRA should be nudging (not railroading, but nudging) these projects into infill locations, rather than teardowns. There are plenty of those urban gaps in this neighborhood to fill. Urban planning, I believe is part of their job.

 

[CantabAmager]

Its entirely different to talk about miscellaneous commercial buildings [really warehouses] which were the 19th and early 20th C equivalent of what is often called on the AB "cheap crap with precast"

2-story Granite base, Stone ornament, cast-iron bays, brick pilasters, detailed corbeling, classical arrangement..., it's not a building that was built with cheap material to cut corners or with rigid simplicity. There hasn't been much alternation of the original facade or structure, which is still in good condition even if neglected by it's owners and a bit dusty - and despite it's use in a relatively unglamorous industry. It's aged better in 109 years of existence than many of it's more recently-built neighbors have in half-the-time.

It's a good building, especially so in that it doesn't stick out obnoxiously. Not worth knocking down to add a bit to speculator margins. But that's life. So be it. Just my opinion.

 

[whighlander]

2-story Granite base, Stone ornament, cast-iron bays, brick pilasters, detailed corbeling, classical arrangement..., it's not a building that was built with cheap material to cut corners or with rigid simplicity. There hasn't been much alternation of the original facade or structure, which is still in good condition even if neglected by it's owners and a bit dusty - and despite it's use in a relatively unglamorous industry. It's aged better in 109 years of existence than many of it's more recently-built neighbors have in half-the-time.

It's a good building, especially so in that it doesn't stick out obnoxiously. Not worth knocking down to add a bit to speculator margins. But that's life. So be it. Just my opinion.

Cantab -- you are making some good points for saving the facade -- a facadectomy not saving the building --

I suspect that the interior would have to be totally gutted to make it a 21st C habitable space

Look at the magnitude of the effort involved in the renovations for the Godfrey Hotel or the Ames Building -- both were far more significant buildings and deserving of the white glove renovation

Unfortunately, not every building can justify that kind of project expense

 

[CantabAmager]

I wouldn't be opposed to retaining the facade, but significantly altering the structure for a towered extension - Russia Wharf was a fine project, one that I hope becomes more and more of a precedent.

The general rule I follow when the issue of tear-down vs. maintenance, is that any proposal seeking to replace a structure of value has to be net benefit to the City and it's public - "private" property has, at no point in Boston's history, been entirely private. Not when Bulfinch and H.G. Otis employed their roles as public figures (in Bulfinch's case, an elected Alderman; in Otis', a prominent citizen, later Mayor) to shepherd their real estate speculations to fruition (Otis got the $$$, Bulfinch, the designer/architect, got the reputation but not the money - he was constantly in debt), nor when Back Bay denizens adopted one the first, modern zoning codes in the early 1900s limiting heights and usage in and around Copley Square.

I don't think a hotel, esp. not one that will not last nearly as long in as good condition as the current structure, is a net benefit to the area or the public. Short to medium-term benefit to the developers, but hotels are fickle mistresses in certain urban environments; they can act as a deadening influence, especially so when abutting transportation hubs. Few talk about the "interesting, memorable, beautiful" hotel districts abutting central rail hubs in European cities - if anything those neighborhoods are notoriously loathed by city residents for not being multi-functional. I don't think the textile warehouses down by the South Cove are in too much danger of that, but I don't think a case has been made for destroying the building other than "we'd make more money for ourselves if we blew it up" - that's not convincing for me.

EDIT: And Whigh, it's a structure of value. Cast-iron facades, long, open bays of windows are hallmarks of early 20th century construction. Boston had good decade up to 1910 (this building was built 1907), but thereafter economy started to contract, substantially so even prior to the Great Depression. From 1910, the downtown construction market slowed and then died altogether: no commercial office buildings were built in downtown Boston from 1929 to 1959 when the aforementioned Travelers' shitpile went up. So turn-of-the-century buildings like the Essex wool-warehouse are rather rare, generally found in areas like Kenmore that grew up during the early 1900s, and represent a style and technological innovation in construction and urban form that Boston never had the opportunity to fully explore.

 

[atlantaden]

From 1910, the downtown construction market slowed and then died altogether: no commercial office buildings were built in downtown Boston from 1929 to 1959 when the aforementioned Travelers' shitpile went up.

So, the only commercial building built in downtown Boston from 1929-1959 was torn down but that's ok since, in your opinion, it was a shitpile. The ONE building, the Traveler's Building, that was built in that 30 year time frame is no longer but, oh well, it was, after all, a shitpile. Of course, in 1960, for a 10 year old kid like me, driving up on the Central Artery through Boston, that building stood out as a beacon of the future of Boston, it was the most modern, gleaming, glass and steel framed structure in the downtown.

 

[CantabAmager]

So, the only commercial building built in downtown Boston from 1929-1959 was torn down but that's ok since, in your opinion, it was a shitpile. The ONE building, the Traveler's Building, that was built in that 30 year time frame is no longer but, oh well, it was, after all, a shitpile. Of course, in 1960, for a 10 year old kid like me, driving up on the Central Artery through Boston, that building stood out as a beacon of the future of Boston, it was the most modern, gleaming, glass and steel framed structure in the downtown.

no commercial office buildings were built in downtown Boston from 1929 to 1959 when the aforementioned Travelers' shitpile went up.

I don't think I took a stance on whether Traveler's Building should/should not have been torn down. But sure, I don't like the international style, nor much of what was built in the era that birthed the Traveler's. I think the Essex building deserves to be preserved, I don't think the Traveler's Building did - the latter wasn't at all the point of the former post, though which was "here's my case for preservation".

I don't begrudge you and anyone else's judgements on what looks good, what sentimental attachments we develop with buildings - I'm no different, that's life, I hear what you're saying. I think it's a vitally important point when discussing the Boston of today. A hope for a better future is a great thing. But at the end of the day, we're from different eras - that and other modern, gleaming, glass and steel "beacons of the future" were no longer gleaming and were no longer beacons for the future when I was born and raised. Some I like, most I don't - the pre-wars, the historic-revival buildings were something I could look to and be proud of when I was growing up and we're accessible to everyone since their architects, builders, designers, and original purchasers were mostly long-gone and the public had taken over their legacies. That wasn't the case with stuff built from the 1950s - 1970s to me (again...that's a personal opinion); I do my best to understand why they came about and what they were designed to do/instill, but at the end of the day, they were built for conditions that just don't exist in my life and never have, I wasn't invited to that party so to speak.

So shitpile it remains in my head.

 

[DBM]

no commercial office buildings were built in downtown Boston from 1929 to 1959

Um, where did you acquire that spectacular piece of misinformation?!

185 Franklin St (NE Telephone Bldg.): built 1947
6 Bowdoin Sq. (NE Telephone Bldg.): built 1930
230 Congress Street: built 1931
200 Berkeley St. ("little John Hancock"): built 1947
55 Batterymarch (Boston Automatic Fire Alarm Bldg.): built 1936

Please tell us you did read that somewhere and are merely accidentally propagating inaccurate data instead of generating it...

 

[CantabAmager]

Um, where did you acquire that spectacular piece of misinformation?!

"When the Travelers Building opened in 1959, it was extolled as the symbol of city being revitalized. A sixteen-story structure faced with white and blue brick, it stood in bright contrast to the grimy old buildings nearby. The Travelers was the first downtown office building in thirty years, a point touted by the president of the insurance giant who spoke to a select dinner crowd at the Algonquin Club on the occasion of the building's dedication."

That's from "Planning the City Upon the Hill" by Lawrence Kennedy and the source I was referencing. Page 167 if you want to check for yourself. So the answer to your question..

Please tell us you did read that somewhere and are merely accidentally propagating inaccurate data instead of generating it...

is yeah, I did read that.

I can't speak with 100% certainty what Kennedy's methodology was, but I think it's fairly clear. Going back to what I wrote, verbatim: "no commercial office buildings were built in downtown Boston from 1929 to 1959" means exactly that. The steep property taxes and loss of macroeconomic vitality, dissuaded companies from building office space to lease - I thought "commercial office buildings in downtown Boston" covered the concept succinctly enough, but clearly not. As to why the buildings you mentioned are not included by Kennedy, here are my best guesses:

185 Franklin St (NE Telephone Bldg.): built 1947
6 Bowdoin Sq. (NE Telephone Bldg.): built 1930

The former became the company headquarters, the latter housed company workers and switching gear - neither were leasable office space as far I know. I don't know which building Kennedy is referring to as the "last", it might be the first Telephone bldg, but I don't think so.

230 Congress Street: built 1931

As with the Telephone buildings, 230 was also a one-company affair at the time of construction, housing Western Union's main admin/engineering offices, switching infra, etc. Not a leasable-office building.

200 Berkeley St. ("little John Hancock"): built 1947

That's easy, it's not downtown. The march of the modern economy to Back Bay is one of the most interesting developments within mid-century Boston in my opinion - reshaping economic and transportation dynamics, occurring on along the contours of an ordered street network, with architectural influences different from many downtown buildings, and creating a more modern counterpoint to the old node. It's just not Downtown, it's the Back Bay.

55 Batterymarch (Boston Automatic Fire Alarm Bldg.): built 1936

Again, not leasable office-space when constructed, serving as the headquarters, wiring hub for City fire alarm infra. It is an interesting building, though, certainly one of the first built, designed, financed entirely post-depression unlike the first Telephone and Western Union buildings.

The important point he's making about Travelers was that it was an indication of economic vitality in that it was built with an eye to future tenants, not as a company headquarters, and was the first such enterprise in Downtown 30 years

None of this, however, has anything to do with the Essex hotel project anymore. I apologize for calling Travelers a shitpile if that makes anyone feel better; no way am I denigrating someone who fondly remembers it for what it represented at the time.