Ask Houstonist: What's that disappearing building?

I was near the ballpark downtown this week and noticed an old building being torn down. Do you know what it is?

Just the other day, Houstonist was talking to a visitor from Atlanta who said Houston should be proud of all its fine old buildings that have potential for redevelopment. As if to prove that we're decidedly not proud, the wrecking ball almost immediately moved in on the old William Penn Hotel at 1423 Texas Ave. Take that, preservation!

The 10-story William Penn was built in the late 1920s and was largely intended to serve travelers using Union Station, which was just a block away. Its architect was Joseph Finger, who also designed City Hall and the Ben Milam Hotel, which still stands (abandoned) in the block east of the William Penn. There's not much information these days on the Penn Hotel, but it was closed by the 1970s, when the drug rehab program Cenikor moved in.

When Minute Maid Park opened in 2000, developers predicted a building boom for the northeast part of downtown, and the William Penn would have been right in the middle of that — but the boom never happened. In recent years, the Penn was boarded up, but it still had cool features like the iron-and-glass canopy and beautiful fanlight over the front door (both of which were removed this week, though we don't know whether they'll be saved or scrapped) and terra-cotta urns (which are presumably pounded to dust now). About one-fourth of the building was gone when we stopped by Wednesday afternoon, so if you want to take a look, you might want to hurry. (Look here for some urban exploration photos and a couple of old postcards of the hotel.)