hotel congress, tucson
man i've been coming here since the '90s, not always for work, and much of what i loved about it stemmed from its peculiar and remarkable resistance to the passage of time. had a strange intuition things would be different now coming back for the first time since 2008 and sure enough the entire neighborhood is physically transformed with fancy tall new condo buildings where there used to be empty lots and sidewalks teeming with people where it used to seem so quiet and agreeably desolate. feel like a dick complaining about what appears to be genuine urban renewal (as opposed to standard-issue icky gentrification) but it's hard not to feel like something's been lost. boo-hoo, it's not how i remembered it, time has refused to stand still in precisely the manner that i as an occasional tourist would prefer.
