Keep it unique

To the editor:

If they build it, we may be done. If our city commissioners vote today to approve development of a six-story Marriott hotel at Ninth and New Hampshire street, we will lose a small piece of one of our community’s most precious resources: the unquantifiable attribute we know as character or a sense of place. At Ninth and New Hampshire this is embodied in the diverse, creative patchwork of small buildings along the alley that’s home to the Social Service League and Lawrence Percolator.

By steadily replacing or invading what makes Lawrence beloved, unique and interesting with things that are cold, boring and generic, we are saying to residents and visitors that we value profit over community and development over character. It’s the wrong move. Let’s not let Lawrence’s vibrant historical neighborhoods and diverse cultural corridors be pushed aside and shaded out by high-rises and hotels. It’s not worth it.