We have to Save the Union Hotel.

The Trial of the 20^th Century was undoubtedly the Lindbergh kidnapping trial.

Some people might dispute that and argue for the O. J. Simpson trial, but I have it on good authority from someone who witnessed both trials that Simpson was amateur hour on that score.

H. Alan Painter covered the Lindbergh trial as a rookie reporter and lived long enough to watch the Simpson trial on television.

The difference, of course, was technology. The Lindbergh trial had radio, black and white movie newsreeels. The Simpson trial had television, helicopters hovering over the famous white Bronco on the freeway. But atmosphere is what makes a circus.

And the Lindbergh trial had the elephants and the dancing bears and the high wire acts. Reporters signaled their colleagues out the courtroom windows as deadline approached and had many other little methods of getting the word out.

The trial is Hunterdon County’s little contribution to American history. Lindbergh was America’s hero. The Lone Eagle, Lucky Lindy. The man who personalized the fledgling world of aviation.

In an age where Elon Musk is testing rockets to send payloads to space for private clients and investing in self-driving cars, it may not occur to the younger folks among us that what Lindbergh did was really incredible. Several aviators had died trying to cross the Atlantic. Once Lindbergh proved it could be done transportation was forever changed.

In a very modern-seeming action, the Lindberghs chose to move to the secluded Sourland Mountains to avoid being stalked by photographers and the public decades before Fellini’s Paparazzo would lend his name to the phenomenon. There tragedy struck, forever placing Flemington in the public lexicon.

The courthouse, already an old building, was the scene of uncontrolled chaos. Rules about courtroom decorum by the press were in their infancy, as were kidnapping laws. Every prominent journalist of the day crowded into the second-floor courtoom and, when the day‘s proceedings were over, adjourned to the Union Hotel, a former stagecoach stop right across Main Street.

In 1935, reporters were probably even more hard-drinking than they are now. It was certainly more acceptable. Damon Runyon had quit drinking by that time, but not Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Killgallen, Walter Winchell and H. L. Mencken. The Union Hotel was where they drank, and talked, and wrote their stories. The echoes of their typewriters still resonate through the hallways and their banter still lingers in the bar.

The courthouse was carefully restored years ago.  The hotel allowed to deteriorate.

There have been attempts to save the hotel. Now, apparently, the borough has given up. Experts in historic preservation say the hotel is salvageable. It is a matter of will.

Without the Union Hotel, the courthouse would still be the courthouse, but its historic significance would be lessened. The two buildings need to be preserved as a unit. They both played a role in Hunterdon County’s most important historic event. They must be kept together.

 Flemington has many historic buildings that have been carefully restored. Like those below.

The hotel is bigger than most, but that is a challenge, not a deterrent. Allowing the hotel to be demolished would be a tragedy for the courthouse, the borough, the county and anyone who care about history.