I seriously thought that it had simply been torn down and replaced with a bank in the mean time – hey, it’s China. That could happen. It used to be "Only in America" that the world muttered in disbelief. This century, I'm thinking "Hey, it’s China. That could happen" might just be the new black, as it were.
Were we Americans this crass and exploitive in the late 1800's? Not rhetorical, but a genuine question. I've heard the opinion expressed that we indeed were.
"There is, I think, no task-master over free labor so exacting as an American. He knows nothing of hours, and seems to have that idea of a man which a lady always has of a horse. He thinks that he will go forever. I wish those masons in London who strike for nine hours' work with ten hours' pay could be driven to the labor market of Western America for a spell. And moreover, which astonished me, I have seen men driven and hurried, as it were forced forward at their work, in a manner which, to an English workman, would be intolerable.... The complaint that wages are held back, and not even ultimately paid, is very common. There is no fixed rule for satisfying all such claims once a week, and thus debts to laborers are contracted, and when contracted are ignored."
As for intellectual property, the textile industry of New England got its start with English designs in something of an underhand way, I recall.