"The surveyors will be here at noon, Arthur," his sister, Eleanor, said from the doorway. She was already dressed for the city, her shoulder pads sharp enough to cut glass.
Arthur Penhaligon sat in the library, watching the rain blur the headlights on the street below. He was the last of his kind, a man whose family had held the keys to No. 32 since the Victorian era. But the city was changing. Outside those windows, the "Big Bang" of the financial markets had transformed the neighborhood into a playground for a new kind of wealth—one that preferred glass towers and digital tickers over velvet curtains and oil paintings. Park Lane No 32 (1989)
As the clock struck twelve, the doorbell rang. It wasn't a butler who answered, but a young man in a power suit with a cellular phone the size of a brick. The era of the grand private residence at Park Lane No. 32 was ending, and the era of the luxury corporate suite was about to begin. "The surveyors will be here at noon, Arthur,"
: No. 32 specifically sits in an area of Mayfair that has seen various reconstruction projects throughout the 20th century. He was the last of his kind, a
"They’ll call it 'redevelopment,'" Arthur replied without turning. "But we both know it’s an autopsy."