(no subject)

[titusnowl]

Justin took the work camera back to Broadway Terrace and took some digital pictures to supplement the film we haven't developed.

From the road it is invisible - just a wooded hill. Nothing remains standing but the wall behind the trees.

The office is nothing but an oddly-shaped foundation.

The rooms were about fifteen feet square. You can still tell where the bathrooms were.

There are plants growing in the shower drains.

The ghosts of old linoleum tiles still cling to the floors of the main rooms.

Steps lead to a door that's been gone for years. How many weary travelers - salesmen, perhaps; the ad in the phonebook offers a special rate to commercial men - plodded up these stairs into a room just large enough for a single bed and a color tv, took a shower in the two-foot-square cubicle, and slept the sleep of the just on a scratchy mattress under an orange wool blanket?

Those salesmen are dead. So is the motel.

Comments

[angel1828.livejournal.com]

so whats the story behind this motel?

[chikkiboo.livejournal.com]

See last night's post. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/chikkiboo/331609.html)

[angel1828.livejournal.com]

I saw that. but what happened to it? I mean did it burn down or what?

[3weasel.livejournal.com]

No idea. It doesn't look burnt, and it was made up of six or seven brick buildings, so you'd think something would still be standing if it had burned.

There's a small pile of (clean) bricks near one of the foundations, and a little pile of shingles on top of one of the foundations at the back.

Maybe somebody recycled the building materials, or knocked them down to make room for something else that never got built.

[chikkiboo.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking they were disassembled and recycled. Those shingles were all piled together, so somebody must have put them there on purpose, and since nearly all of the bricks are gone, with few or no broken ones lying around, I'm guessing they weren't just knocked over. A simple knocking-over would have damaged the foundations more, too, I think - and if there were planning on building something else there they'd've taken out the slabs as well.

I bet somewhere in Longview there's a building made of light tan bricks from the Broadway Terrace Motel.

[angel1828.livejournal.com]

that is soo weird. you should try and ask around or go to the library and look at old newspapers or something.

[chikkiboo.livejournal.com]

I doubt it was anything unusual. It was very small, had very little parking, and was hard to get to because of its hilltop location. Add that to the fact that there were at least five other motels running at the same time - at least, there are a good five or so motels STILL OPEN from the same period, although none of them are doing so well - and it stands to reason that it would be among the first to go out of business. Somebody probably bought the property, intending to build something else on it, then never got around to actually doing it, and then either that person or somebody else figured there was no point in leaving the bricks up when they could be resold on the architectural salvage market, or used to build a garage on his house, or something.

Then of course there's what happened with the Pineview, a Mineola motel we explored last year, which just kind of sat there forgotten until the pool was filled in and the cabins actually rotted away...

[3weasel.livejournal.com]

And don't forget the crazily-angled sign!

[angel1828.livejournal.com]

thats so strange though... like it almost never existed.

[chikkiboo.livejournal.com]

I know. That's the sad part - it happens to tons of places, and there aren't many people like Justin and me to go out and root out the past. James Lileks in Minneapolis, there's a Forgotten Baltimore site, and a handful of others - but most places like this completely disappear. You're right, it is like they never existed.

I sound all melodramatic now, but that's exactly why I love doing this sort of thing. I know it's just a motel, and it's not like it has a soul or anything, but I wouldn't want it to just disappear from the world entirely. At least now all the people who've seen these journal entires know about THIS motel. It's like I'm saving it from dying, in a way. You know what I mean?

[terry.livejournal.com]

Nice pics. It's amazing how fast nature takes back these places especially around here. That miniature golf course on Eastman Road is almost unidentifiable and it's only been closed for about 15 years.

Thanks for the addresses on those old drive-ins. I'm pretty sure everything's gone now but there are a couple of other places I may go look for.

[politzania.livejournal.com]

I love the last picture - nice job on the overlay! :^)

[joeycooper.livejournal.com]

That's great, I love stuff like that.