To the Editor:
I write as a longtime Greenwich resident who read your recent editorial, “Which Way Shall Greenwich Avenue Go?” with deep gratitude and a sense of civic urgency. It is a rare thing these days to encounter an editorial that is both clear-eyed and principled, and your piece was both. You have articulated what so many of us feel in our bones: that the proposed boutique hotel at the Havemeyer Building site is a missed opportunity—not only architecturally or functionally, but morally.
The Havemeyer Building is no ordinary piece of real estate. It occupies not just a prominent corner of Greenwich Avenue, but also a meaningful place in the public memory. To turn such a space into a private hotel, serving transient guests rather than the enduring needs of our community, would be an abdication of vision.
Your editorial is exactly right to remind us that hotels, for all their elegance, are not places of community. They are designed for strangers, not neighbors. They offer exclusivity, not inclusion. They require infrastructure, but they do not contribute meaningfully to the life of a town—especially a town like ours, where parking is already scarce and the balance between local and corporate enterprise grows more fragile by the year. The thought that public parking might be sacrificed to accommodate a 71-room hotel with a rooftop bar feels like a case study in precisely the kind of short-term thinking that hollows out great towns.
You offered an alternative vision—one rooted in public good, shared cultural experience, and architectural dignity. I hope the Board of Selectmen takes seriously the idea of creating a performing arts space or black-box theater. It would serve young artists, local schools, nonprofit groups, and all those whose work is not measured by quarterly earnings but by the richness they bring to our common life. If we are to preserve the soul of this town, we must resist the drift toward the transactional and reaffirm what Greenwich has always stood for: permanence, participation, and pride in place. We are not a hotel lobby. We are a town.
Thank you to the Greenwich Sentinel for reminding us of that.
Margaret Halloway
