Old Hotel / New LINE

There’s a terrible human compulsion to start anew – to erase the past and replace it with a glowing, clean, blank void, out of which we hope an unsullied future can arise.

This, of course, is folly. Without the past there is no future.

The city of Austin is learning this lesson. In its constant state of speedy evolution, it is slowly beginning to understand what parts of itself cannot be sacrificed, and which mistakes cannot go ignored.

Although we’re new here, we too are indebted to this place’s past. It is written in the arches of our windows, in the shapes of yesterday that echo through our halls, and in the faces of those who make us welcome.