By Karen Klinger

In Porter Square, it's the building people love to hate.

Some find it an odious structure that not only clashes in its stark modernism with the Victorian buildings in the surrounding neighorhood, but towers over--and obscures--the landmark St. James's Church across the street. To others, it is more of a metaphorical insult, a daily reminder that the city poked an entire neighborhood in the eye by allowing its construction over the strenuous objections of residents.

"It is universally loathed, and rightly so," says Porter Square Neighbors Association President Susan Hunziker.

But the 15-unit condominium complex at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Beech Street, still known as "Long's" for the funeral home previously located on the site, is more than that. As a housing development it has been an abject failure. read more...

Porter Square Neighbors Association President Susan Hunziker gives update on status of controversial building at 1979 Mass. Ave that has entered foreclosure. (See previous story.)

It has been called the "plywood palace," among other epithets, and the "most hated building in Porter Square," if not in all of Cambridge.

And now it is in foreclosure.

The unfinished 15-unit residential structure at 1979 Massachusetts Ave. at the corner of Beech Street long has been the subject of a lawsuit brought by neighbors disgruntled by the city's decision to grant a building permit for it to developer Husam Azzam. Now, the nearly five-year-old controversy surrounding the building has been amplified by the decision of Azzam's lender to pull the plug.

A legal notice in the Cambridge Chronicle says an auction on the premises is set for November 16 to sell off the units as condominiums. Alternatively, the mortgage lender could sell the entire building. Or the sale could be postponed. At this point, it's anyone's guess what will happen.

"Right now, we need to wait and find out who the new owners are," says Susan Hunziker, president of the Porter Square Neighbors Association (PSNA) and a key figure in the protracted battle by residents against the city's decision to allow construction of the building on the site of the former Long Funeral Home. read more...