So I've been reading my way through "The Story of Cities", a Guardian series about urban development, and it's been interesting. There have been some places I've never heard of, and new information about some that I have. I'm getting toward the end now, and in one of the last entries (on what's become of the former capital city of Burma, Rangoon, which is now the non-capital city of Mynamar, Yangon), I just ran across something that raised an eyebrow:

"The lawyers of Yangon could have done with a little divine intervention in their recent battle against the privatisation of the former high court and police commissioner’s office, a grand classical edifice whose ionic colonnade marches around an entire city block facing the waterfront on Strand Road. The place has a dark history; its top floors were used as torture chambers by the Japanese during the second world war and by the military regime in the 1960s and 70s. They will soon become the luxury spa of a new five-star Kempinski hotel, due to open next year."

(The Guardian's curious reluctance to capitalize things that should be capitalized, such as "Second World War", also routinely raises my eyebrows, as does the British press's recent habit of not capitalizing acronyms, but that is neither here nor there for our current purposes.)

Anyway, yeah. And here I thought I was indulging in artistic license with the Imperial Hotel Lubyanka. Turns out there really are hoteliers that tone-deaf.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.