Too bad about the building, it's always sad to see a historic and beautiful structure demolished for "progress". It would have been wonderful if it could have been turned to productive use, like a drug rehab center, or a B&B. As for "Gatsby", I never got what everyone saw in that book. I never felt any kinship for those characters or that age, or the way Fitzgerald painted their world.

And its not a social or political position either, I wasn't particular intimidated by the aristocrats of "Brideshead Revisited", either, but at least they seemed more interesting, and Waugh's tour of their universe more insightful.