Although I can sympathize to a degree with the anonymous author of “Then and Now” (November 1988) about the remodeling of the Times Tower back in the sixties, his or her apparent glee that the Allied Chemical Company, which instigated the work, is now “defunct” is based on wishful thinking, not on reality.

Yes, Virginia, the Allied Chemical Company is still with us, alive and well, but it is now known as the Allied Corporation. Thousands of businesses in this country, large and small, have shortened, hyphenated, acronymed, or otherwise altered their old names in recent years for reasons varying from fundamental to frivolous. Allied is just one of them.

I wouldn’t be so hard on the architects. After all, they too have mouths to feed. In my view they made the best of the lousy proposal they were saddled with. The remodeled building still looks a lot better to me than any in its near neighborhood.