Utterly lovely! Thanks so much for taking the time to post all of this...
I notice you keep mentioning how this or that replaced so-and-so's mansion. Why was that? Generally, people who have mansions are loathe to give them up, so why did a mansion district turn into a dense district of hotels and apartment buildings? Did it redevelop that way after the earthquake, perhaps? Or did it redevelop after another neighborhood suddenly become the place that all the rich people simply had to be?
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"To sustain the life of a large, modern city in this cloying, clinging heat is an amazing achievement. It is no wonder that the white men and women in Greenville walk with a slow, dragging pride, as if they had taken up a challenge and intended to defy it without end." -- Rebecca West for The New Yorker, 1947
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