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My background is posted on the Central Square topic in case this doesn't make sense to anyone. I lived in the Savoy hotel for about 6 months starting last February. I discovered and had to explore the building the moment I saw a huge chandeller (sp?) hanging from behind a broken window in the lobby. It's hard to keep me out of any building and it wasn't long before I had discovered an entrance. The Savoy is actually two buildings, the older, shorter one on the north side and the addition on the south. The older building is absolutely rotten and decrepit. It has caved in from the top floor to the ground and actually looks pretty freakin cool. Toilets hanging by plumbing ten stories up and whatnot. Well anyways, that's where the fire escape was, though they had cut it off about two stories up. I had to climb up a support pole to reach it. And then go down an elevator shaft to get to the newer building. Once in it's always easy to find a way out. My first astonishing discovery was that the place was still completely furnished and obviously nobody had been in it for quite some time. I'm from California where land is worth more than gold so this was quite shocking. Also, the electricity was still on for some reason. There's a refrigerator downstairs in the kitchen that has the door ripped of and has been constantly on since 1988 and is probably still on. There was also a phone in the lobby that I used to get calls on. 713-something-1212. It's still listed and I used to get calls from people asking for room rates. The downstairs is actually really pretty. Tall ceilings and curved staircases, huge chandelliers and a beautiful solid marble statue in the entryway. Two libraries, (stocked completely with Texas law books) a patio area between the two buildings had a fountain and a jacuzzi, now smashed and covered in pigeon refuse. Anybody know why the hell they would leave the electricity on for so long? Makes no sense to me. The owner is obviously hoping for the "New Main Street" effect to take place that far south and have the building converted into lofts ala Rice. I don't see that happening anytime soon, but then again it's already been closed for 16 years. The upper floors are rather ugly and boring. Single hallways straight through with cookie cutter rooms on each side. The penthouse suites are kind of nice but still I don't think they could call this place urban lofts without gutting the whole building. There's no uniqueness to it. The older building was obviously a hell of a lot classier in it's day but when Best Western had control of it you could tell it was a bit cut rate. I have a pile of brochures for it from the 70's that I'll scan if I get the time. I think the hotel was mainly for visiting Shell employees across the street. They'll have to demolish the older building before they can do anything with the newer one, as they are both connected and the older one threatens to demolish itself any day now. I say smash it and start over, the building is too ugly to ever be profitable. But in the meantime, open it to the homeless sleeping on the sidewalks outside. (that's what I told the owner anyways, with a few expletives added in) They have the parking garage open now, mainly so the penny pinching millionaire can make 30 bucks a day and watch the building he's sitting on sit empty while people sleep outside. Sorry, I hate landlords, particularly that one. Any questions? Any other buildings worth getting into? I'll be back in Houston come January. Charles Grube beware.