Monterey Motel - Highland Park

[Detroitgayhistoryguy]

I head about this bar called the Sunken Ship lounge in Highland Park. I found this ad on another forum. They had a window in the lounge that you could see inside the swimming pool! Wow! that's cool. Did anyone ever go there? I'm not sure, is the Monterey Motel still standing?

http://detroitgayhistory.blogspot.com/

[Detroitgayhistoryguy]

Oh, I found this also:

[gazhekwe]

Those are some cool pix. I had never heard of that pool view lounge. I guess the Monterey had been closed a long time before this happened:

USA TODAY - ProQuest Archiver - Feb 18, 1992
MICHIGAN. HIGHLAND PARK - Bodies of 3 unidentified women were found bound and gagged in separate rooms of boarded up Monterey Motel, police said. ...

I believe it was torn down not too long after that. The murderer of the women was identified and prosecuted but I don't recall the details of that.

[gazhekwe]

Ron Seigel
Michigan Citizen
01-22-1994
Council votes to destroy Monterey.

HIGHLAND PARK -- The Highland Park City Council voted at its January 10 meeting, to approve $200,000 to tear down the deserted buildings which housed the Monterey Motel and the Howard Johnson Restaurant, but members expressed doubts about Highland Park Mayor Linsey Porter's plan to build a city hall on the lad.

The vacant Monterey Motel was the site of serial murders threatening the Highland Park area a few years ago. The suspect is currently on trial.

Scotty Wainwright, administrative assistant to the Mayor, said the question of building a new city hall on the site would not be an issue at the meeting.

[Lowell]

Great finds. Thanks. It was a half block south of the magnificent, and sadly boarded up, McGregor Library. When I moved to HP in 72, just two blocks away on Colorado, it was in decent condition and had a well-run HoJo's whose orange rooftop you can see in the left of the top color picture. I never heard of the pool, what a fascinating discovery. I ate at the HoJo's a couple of times, but never realized the relative quality of the motel.

It declined very rapidly and I would guess it closed around 75 and then was an abandoned eyesore for years, like the Cavalier Motel a half block north of the libary, which lasted longer but had the same fate. Both were removed largely as a result of Benjamin Atkins, an early ninties serial murderer of prostitutes, who left his some of his victims in those motels.

The Monterey site has been a vacant lot since, with part of it used as a parking lot for the HP city hall which was relocated to a former union building on the next block south. The Cavalier Motel lot is now a small strip mall. The Monterey site was slated for residential development in the late 90's but nothing came of that.

[Detroitgayhistoryguy]

It is hard to believe looking at Highland Park today that it was ever such a nice place. Now most of it looks like a nuclear bomb went off.

[professorscott]

The scary thing about Highland Park is how quickly it went downhill, but then it was unique in that it was a separate city. This happened in Detroit, very routinely, neighborhood after neighborhood, like clockwork.

It was a sort of conspiracy between flimflam real estate agents, insurance companies and the financial institutions that did mortgages. There was a lot of money made in converting middle-class neighborhoods to poor neighborhoods! People seem to think the sleazebags were racist; that's not quite true. Racism was, to them, just a vehicle to help them make money.

The Prof lived in Berkley for quite a while, and Berkley was largely populated [[at least in the 1990s) by Highland Park expatriates. Lots of interesting stories from those folks. Most of them, by the way, took an absolute fucking bath on their houses when they sold, mainly in the mid to late 1970s.

Of course, these practices have been illegal for nearly fifty years, but nothing slows down a determined crook. All of this crap still happens today, but now it's moved beyond Detroit into certain of the inner suburbs. I wish I knew how to make it stop.

[Detroitgayhistoryguy]

True, I am a real estate appraiser and I know that before this sub-prime mortgage crisis, allot of sleazy mortgage companies preyed on poor black people to refinance and "pull cash out" This was done with a sleazy appraiser who over appraised the house, then they owed more than it was worth even when real estate prices were high. They were doomed to go into foreclosure. I saw a house in Highland Park not too long ago which was built in 1995 [[Must have been built by a non-profit like Habit) which was on the market for $1000.00 I'm sure it must have been gutted by scrappers, etc.

http://detroitgayhistory.blogspot.com/

[Jman]

I had a cocktail or two at the Monterey. A friend lived directly across the street on Woodward and sometimes we would start the evening there. Only once or twice did we actually see someone swimming. Needless to say, we never stopped during the winter.

[Lorax]

Superb photos, thanks for posting them.

Again, the Monterey was a great example of mid-century modern travel architecture, very reminiscent of dozens of motels here in Miami, most of which are gone, or turned into hooker hangouts.

The one that stood a chance until recently was the Vagabond Motel, which is about 4 miles south of me.

Space age modernism built in 1953 complete with concrete venuses standing in concrete shells with concrete dolphins leaping about. The recent owner went into default, and it sits empty, never fully restored, and it's fate uncertain now.

http://fineartwallpaper.net/Images/T...k/Vagabond.jpg

http://www.agilitynut.com/05/1/vagabond2.jpg

[Andrew in Windsor]

I think Highland Park has got to be one of the most interesting case studies for a city anywhere. From the small population in the early 1900's though the boom years of the auto industry, and the decline ever since. Has there ever been a city to grow so quickly [[and due to the small land mass, so densely), and then collapse as it has all in a 100 year or so cycle?

Historical populations [[from Wikipedia)
Census Pop.
1900 427
1910 4,120
1920 46,499
1930 52,959
1940 50,810
1950 46,393
1960 38,063
1970 35,444
1980 27,909
1990 20,121
2000 16,746

The boom from 1910 to 1920 is mind boggling.

[cman710]

Andrew, Gary, Indiana is another similar example.

The percentage increase in population in Gary was not as dramatic as in Highland Park from 1900-1920. Also, Highland Park peaked in population around 1930, whereas Gary peaked around 1960. Also, Gary has lost less than half of its peak population, whereas Highland Park is less than a third smaller in population than it was when at peak population. But there are some similarities.

Gary Indiana Population

1910 15,802 —
1920 55,378 250.4%
1930 100,666 81.8%
1940 111,719 11.0%
1950 133,911 19.9%
1960 178,320 33.2%
1970 175,415 −1.6%
1980 144,953 −17.4%
1990 116,646 −19.5%
2000 102,746 −11.9%

Est. 2007 96,429 −6.1%

[detmich]

I think that East St Louis would fit that model as well.

[szla]

With all the talk of Highland Park one more aspect seems appropriate. A couple years ago a good friend of mine became the city manger of Oak Park Illinois. He moved there from Ferndale. He was telling me about the economic demographics and the density of the city. I asked him if it was like Birmingham and he said no. Six months after he got the job I visited him and it was like a blast from the past. It was HIghland Park in 1968 in all its' glory. There were stunning apartment building and tons of arts and crafts homes. The main drags looked like Hamilton, Woodward, Glendale etc. If you're younger and you've only heard about Highland Park's glory take a drive to Chicago and check out Oak park. It was Highland Park.

[szla]

Another note. Is there a group trying to save/do something with the McGregor library?

[Todd_Scott]

It would be interesting to see what Tom could do managing Highland Park.

[softailrider]

With all the talk of Highland Park one more aspect seems appropriate. A couple years ago a good friend of mine became the city manger of Oak Park Illinois. He moved there from Ferndale. He was telling me about the economic demographics and the density of the city. I asked him if it was like Birmingham and he said no. Six months after he got the job I visited him and it was like a blast from the past. It was HIghland Park in 1968 in all its' glory. There were stunning apartment building and tons of arts and crafts homes. The main drags looked like Hamilton, Woodward, Glendale etc. If you're younger and you've only heard about Highland Park's glory take a drive to Chicago and check out Oak park. It was Highland Park.

I'd really like to see that, I'm going to make it a point to do so.

[viper1966]

Here is a pic of the Task Force chart showing the 1992 Monterey Motel murder details. It can found in the Highland Police Precinct, someone should grab it.

Dude was all over the place Unit 68,35 and I can't read the last one.

Here is a link to some pics of the inside station.

http://www.bulbish.com/view.php?sub=24http://www.bulbish.com/view.php?sub=24

[pffft]

Wildwood Crest, New Jersey has a "doo wop" motel district and has tried to preserve its '50s vintage motels...like the Caribbean:
http://www.caribbeanmotel.com/
In the 1960 movie "Where the Boys Are" there's a tank in which a "mermaid" swims for the delight of bar patrons in a motel cocktail lounge...the "Shipwreck Lounge" reminds me of that.

[Mikeg]

The Monterey Motel and its ownership was mentioned in a 2006 DetroitYes thread titled "Gone, but not forgotten Restaurants in Detroit "

Scroll down to near the bottom of this page to see photos of the Monterey Motel and its "Sunken Ship Lounge", plus all of their other amenities. The Monterey Motel and the adjacent Howard Johnson's restaurant were owned by P.L. Grissom, who owned several Detroit auto dealerships over the period 1930-1959, including Jefferson Chevrolet [[from 1942 to 1953).

[prokopowicz]

I'd really like to see that, I'm going to make it a point to do so.

I grew up in HP in the 60's and 70's, and we ate at the Sunken Ship a few times, as well as HoJos next door. After college I moved to Chicago in 1985. I lived downtown and commuted about 30 west to Naperville. Sometimes when traffic was horrible I left the freeway and took roads that led through Oak Park. It resonated with me and we've lived there since 1989. It's stronger than ever, and one of Chicagoland's handful of integrated areas. What a shame that HP could not thrive through that era in the same way.