The linker, L, was designed to contain four carboxylate donors so as to encourage high connectivity but with a low-symmetry backbone capable of adopting multiple orientations. The outer benzoate groups additionally impart a degree of flexibility, via rotation about the benzoic acid-triazine bond. The synthesis of L was conducted via 'telescoped' condensation of pyridine-2,6-dicarbohydrazide with the appropriate 1,2-dicarbonyl (Scheme S1). The formation of related pyridinyl-1,2,4-triazine ligands has been previously reported. The initial benzoin addition reaction between aldehydes was performed using thiamine hydrochloride replacing the more toxic route that employs KCN as catalyst. For the conversion of the benzoin to a benzil, a Kornblum oxidation was chosen via an acid catalysed alcohol-halide substitution reaction. As before, other routes for this conversion are available, including routes using chlorine, nitric acid, and ammonium nitrate, but as with the first step the Kornblum oxidation was chosen under safety considerations. Acid hydrolysis was used to convert the ester groups to carboxylic acid groups, avoiding the use of alkaline bases typically used in saponification reactions due to the propensity of benzil groups undergoing 1,2-rearrangments to form α-hydroxy-carboxylic acids. The reactive bis(carboximidhydrazide)pyridine was obtained by reacting pyridine-2,6-dicarbonitrile with hydrazine monohydrate which was performed via a method adapted from Sagot et al. The final step in the synthesis of L proceeded via a method adapted from Tai et al, and simply involved dissolving both reagents in a minimum of DMF followed by heating at 80 °C overnight. All steps of the linker synthesis are relatively simple with minimal work up, using accessible and low hazard materials. The conformation of unbound L was determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction (SCXRD) (see S.I. for details).