The story
The Union Hotel rose in 1878 on Flemington's Main Street, New Jersey, a mansard-roofed landmark directly opposite the Hunterdon County courthouse, and its moment in history came in 1935, when the trial of Bruno Hauptmann for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping filled the town: jurors were sequestered in the hotel, reporters including Damon Runyon drank at its bar, and the 'trial of the century' pressed the building into every newspaper on earth. The hotel served for decades afterward before closing in the 2000s, and its hulking vacancy — punctuated by stalled redevelopment schemes and preservation battles — generated its modern lore: passers-by and workers describing figures at the windows, a girl on the staircase in older telling, voices from empty floors, and trial-era echoes the town's ghost walks retell. Its current status between closure and revival must be confirmed before publishing, with exterior framing unless genuinely open. Present the stories as town telling around a building whose documented history — the courthouse drama across the street — is the real weight.