August, 2003 - Page 1

Posted October 15, 2003

As the summer dragged on, the Ormsby House continued its slow march towards completion. August I suppose couldn’t be considered a slow month, but neither could you call it hopping. There were a couple of visible changes to the exterior, and trucks and people were moving in and out of the site constantly. I think a lot of interior work was still going on during August, so there wasn’t a lot to see from the outside.

One of the big exterior changes during Auguast was the addition of corner windows on the top two floors of the hotel tower. The Ormsby always had hotel windows looking west and east. Never had you been able to look north or south. But in keeping with their plans to convert the rooms to suites, they cut some new openings to create a few penthouse corner suites.

Only the top two floors got this special treatment, on both ends of the building. That makes a total of eight corner suites in the new Ormsby House. At the same time, they also ripped out all the old windows in the entire tower and started replacing them with new glass. For a short while there, the tower must have been one drafty place to work. Especially on the top floors, where the wind could grab you from all sides.

Up on the hill is always a good place to keep track of the work on the hotel, since you're right at the same level as the sixth floor. Here you can see right through the building. I guess this means it's still gutted in there.

The new windows were slowly installed on all the hotel floors.

If you cut the Ormsby, does it not bleed?

At the end of the month, the back door was ripped out, taking with it a couple more of the old Guns N' Roses emblems.

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