December 20, 2010
Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel, Atlantic City, New Jersey. It wasn’t the first reinforced concrete building in the world, but it was the largest. Construction started on the Marlborough-Blenheim in 1905, an era when Atlantic City’s boardwalk was bursting with tourists clamoring for curiosities like the Diving Horse and Dr. Couney’s Premature Infant Exhibit. With the end of World War II came family car trips, jet travel, suburbia, and, on the boardwalk, crime, poverty and corruption as tourism declined. The Marlborough-Blenheim was demolished in 1979. Today the site is occupied by a Bally’s Casino with a facade built to echo the days of Dimah the Diving Horse.

Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel, Atlantic City, New Jersey.

It wasn’t the first reinforced concrete building in the world, but it was the largest. Construction started on the Marlborough-Blenheim in 1905, an era when Atlantic City’s boardwalk was bursting with tourists clamoring for curiosities like the Diving Horse and Dr. Couney’s Premature Infant Exhibit. With the end of World War II came family car trips, jet travel, suburbia, and, on the boardwalk, crime, poverty and corruption as tourism declined. The Marlborough-Blenheim was demolished in 1979. Today the site is occupied by a Bally’s Casino with a facade built to echo the days of Dimah the Diving Horse.

6:46pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZmmWyx2EjGbL
Filed under: Atlantic City hotels Moorish Revival 
December 17, 2010
Hotel Pontchartrain, Detroit, Michigan. The clock started ticking on this architectural beauty when it opened its doors in 1907. At the time, most grand hotels still used shared baths. But less than 10 years later the Detroit Statler opened just four blocks up Woodward Avenue with en suite baths for all 1,000 rooms (and central air-conditioning… reportedly the first hotel in the country to have this). After only 13 years, the Hotel Pontchartrain was demolished to make way for the First National Bank Building.

Hotel Pontchartrain, Detroit, Michigan.

The clock started ticking on this architectural beauty when it opened its doors in 1907. At the time, most grand hotels still used shared baths. But less than 10 years later the Detroit Statler opened just four blocks up Woodward Avenue with en suite baths for all 1,000 rooms (and central air-conditioning… reportedly the first hotel in the country to have this). After only 13 years, the Hotel Pontchartrain was demolished to make way for the First National Bank Building.

(Source: shorpy.com)

5:45pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZmmWyx2CCcIG
Filed under: Detroit Renaissance Revival hotels 
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