Dear Mayor Parker and city council members:

Wow. I just read that you might lease 800 Bell -- the building that ExxonMobil will vacate soon -- to serve as the city's justice center.

I can't say whether that lease makes sense financially, or whether the building is suited to the task. But I'm dead certain that it would be a great thing for the city if you saved that building: The Humble Oil headquarters, as the place was originally called, is a midcentury icon from Houston's salad days.

If Don Draper lived in Houston, he'd have officed there. In 1963, it was the tallest building in Texas, the tallest west of the Mississippi, tallest in the South -- visible for miles on Houston's flat horizon. The drop-dead-fancy Petroleum Club was the elite place to eat, the spot that oilmen brought astronauts for dinner. And the building was a tourist attraction, too: For 25 cents, anyone at all could ride the elevator up to the observation deck on the building's top floor. Up there, with the binoculars, was a coin-operated Mold-a-Rama machine. With a great petrochemical stink, it'd squish out a waxy little souvenir model of the building.

That was how much people loved the building: They wanted to take a little copy of it home with them.

More Information Lisa Gray is the ringmaster of Gray Matters, an online magazine for houstonchronicle.com. On Twitter (@LisaGray_HouTX), she posts loads of freelinks to Gray Matters stories.

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It makes no sense at all that the building's new owner, San Francisco-based Shorenstein Realty, has announced a "modernization" of the historic building. Plans, by architecture firm Ziegler Cooper, look awful. With a reflective glass slipcover hiding its distinctive sunshade fins, the building would lose all its 1960s cool.

Houston needs to keep its history alive. It needs distinctive buildings, ones that people love, landmarks that evoke proud memories. It doesn't need a modern-ish blah copy of Memorial Hermann.

Sure, the building would need updates. Put in new wiring. Gut the interior. But please, don't mess up the city's skyline. Leave those distinctive fins. Don't erase our history.

Your constituent,

Lisa Gray

This is an update of an article published July 9, 2014.

Bookmark Gray Matters. It's visible for miles on Houston's flat horizon.

