Decadence

Gaudiness epitomizes desolation. Both are the inevitable result of decadence.

The Stanley's Mexican baroque architecture, Hotel Utica's overwrought pretense. Both true beauty once but built and conceived sourly. The foundations and fruits of every empire lie in undeserved labor. Glory offends the sight of God. Yet both of these facades cast a pallor of twice-false hope on this turgid city; first, that it shall again regain its lost cultural crown; second, that it should seek such a mantle. This city brims with misplaced hope. The Stanley cannot succeed. The grand balustrades and chandeliers of the Hotel belie something so mundane as a vast tax debt to a city urgently in need. This corner of the empire lies in ruins already, and its truest benefactors have given it what it most deserves: peace. Let Utica die.