The Importance of Change in a New Town

The old Vander Hayden Hotel looked like a Renaissance palazzo. Levinson's sidewalk cafe, his Saturday retreat with its iron railing and fringed umbrellas was now Belize's dress shop. The Vietnamese restaurant which three weeks ago had replaced the Chinese takeout is now a shop specializing in fancy chocolates. On both sides of Maplewood, five-story brick apartment complexes with broad balconies rose above new stores shaded by ornamental pear trees.