Thoughts: I'm not surprised to hear about this happening. Just like people investing at the top of the residential market, some investors are bound to be burnt. What I still don't understand is why some companies still pay the $60-100/sq. ft. to be in a building in the middle of a city. If your company has no need to be near a city, why pay those prices? I think after this downturn you will see a lot more office construction outside of cities.

follow more of the breaking developments here.

J.L. Bell reports that while the upcoming HBO mini-series on our own John Adams might be riveting, possibly the most riveting scene of all never happened: A royal customs agent was not tarred and feathered here by a mob acting on the orders of John Hancock (although there was an actual tarring and feathering a year later; Adams represented a defendant in that case, which involved a ship that had been seized from Hancock).

Computerworld, a trade publication in Framingham, recently ran an article about some software the company's IT department installed to increase the uptime of its systems in one division. Now somebody claiming to be a John Hancock lawyer is threatening to sue Computerworld unless it takes the article off its Web site. Is it libelous? No. Does it reveal trade secrets?