Category Archives: Six South Street Hotel

Another odd use of history, at Six South

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The welcome addition of a new hotel in town, Six South Street, has raised interesting questions about the uses of history and college nostalgia. The place is new and sophisticated, but it needs to appeal to the green plaid pants crowd. It was presumably for this reason that the hotel’s decorators put a large drawing of Hanover in the early 1960s on one wall of the lobby (from the hotel’s appealing website):

Detail of website of Six South Street Hotel, Hanover, N.H.

The drawing was done by Aldren A. Watson in 1964 and a version of it was published in the back endpapers of Ralph Nading Hill’s book College on the Hill. Rauner Library holds the original drawing and the Trustees hold the copyright.

The hotel must have its reasons for displaying a drawing that emphasizes the Hanover Inn and omits South Street. But why reverse the view? Yes, this view is backward: the lobby decoration, which appears elsewhere on the hotel’s website, puts Dartmouth Row on the west and Mass Row on the east. [Update: The image is on glass and is oriented properly when viewed from the other side.]

Image from website of Six South Street Hotel, Hanover, N.H.

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[Update 04.23.2014: The Watson image is etched on glass and is correct when seen from the Media Room; note added.]

Architecture topics in the Upper Valley

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  • Keep checking the Six South Street Hotel blog for construction photos.
  • The New York Times had an article back in 2008 on the legal incentives to identifying “ancient roads” in Vermont. It brings to mind the observations of Christopher Lenney in Sightseeking: Clues to the Landscape History of New England (2005).
  • The Hanover Conservation Council provides maps and other information on sites including Mink Brook and Fullington Farm, the latter in the news because it is the site of the boathouse of the Hanover High crew.
  • The St. Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, just a few miles away from Hanover, has purchased Blow-Me-Down Farm (Valley News).
  • Alumni Relations has a gallery of campus trees. Number 7 is the Parkhurst Elm.

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[Update 03.31.2013: Broken link to Mink Brook replaced and Fullington Farm removed.]

South Street hotel construction

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The relatively-recent brick building with the giant gable on South Street (Street View) has been demolished, and construction on the hotel Six South Street has begun (Facebook page with January 30 photo to west).

A big exterior rendering is available on the Maine Course CEO’s blog, and interior renderings are on Facebook and the main site as well.

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[Update 12.02.2012: Two broken links to Maine Course blog removed.]

Graphic design downtown

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Speaking of graphic design, the new hotel on South Street (behind Hanover Park, where Panda House used to be) has been named Six South Street and has been given a logo by Vreeland Marketing & Design.

detail of Six South Street logo

Detail of logo

While the hotel is to be welcomed and its builders admired for their boldness and attention to urban design, the logo deserves some criticism:

The word “Street” really should be written out. While “South St.” might be part of an address, the thoroughfare that gives its name to the hotel is “South Street.” The word “Six” seems to have been spelled out to add formality or pretense, the way it is in “The Wall Street Inn” (not the plain-old “Wall St. Inn”). So the word “Street” should be as well. Only an address plaque on the building should read “6 South St.” After all, both “Six” and “South” have shorter versions that could have been used but weren’t. And even though “Hotel” is on its own line, it still makes the logo seem to refer to a “Saint Hotel” (“St. Hotel”).

When a word is abbreviated, it requires a period. Probably to prevent the letters “ST” from appearing to retreat from the righthand edge, the logo omits the period. This should have been solved some other way.

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[Update 12.02.2012: Broken link to MCHG image removed.]
[Update 11.17.2012: Broken link to Vreeland fixed, two broken links to MCHG removed.]