Washington is destroyed!

Word has it that the former epicenter of Bangkok's Washington Square - the Washington Theater - is in the process of being demolished. 

Though shuttered as a theater for more than a decade, the Washington represents Cold War Thailand at its pinnacle. The surrounding "square" was lined with bars and brothels that catered to American soldiers and ex-pats left over from the Vietnam War and others who gravitated to it in the war's aftermath. Needless to say, the name of the square and its anchor theater hearken back to the "special relationship" between Thailand and America during the Cold War.   

Architecturally speaking, the Washington was never the most glamorous of Thai theaters. But for better or worse, an important vestige of 20th century social history is will be lost with its demise.