Business cycles

While I spent yesterday morning in Town Hall hearing presentations from the two teams who are bidding on our downtown redevelopment project, the Burlington Industries building in Greensboro came tumbling down. To the inexplicable cheers of a curious crowd, the empty and useless building was imploded. Ed Cone has an eyewitness report. Chewie, another G'boro blogger, has more, including this nice picture:

Once upon a time, Burlington Industries brought the world to Greensboro. Its executives came and went from a helipad atop the corporate headquarters, an award-winning landmark of steel and glass on a corporate campus of stunning maple trees.

The company prospered; the town became a city.

The city grew; the world changed. Eventually, no one could find much use for a textile company's corporate world headquarters.

So on May 23, 2005, they brought it down.

Various efforts to save this stunning building--Ed called it "one of the finest examples of corporate modern architecture in the southeast"--came to naught. Over in Chapel Hill, it strikes me as a dose of humility.
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