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“Well, it’s one, two, three, four
Take the elevator at the Hotel Yorba
I’ll be glad to see you later
All they got inside is vacancy”
These are the lyrics to one of my favourite songs by The White Stripes, it’s a very catchy sing-along style song that appeared on their 2001 album “White Blood Cells”
The song was recorded inside one of the rooms of the Hotel Yorba, room 206 exactly, and the video for the song was shot outside but they were not given permission to shoot any of the video inside.
Jack White was always drawn to the building, he had heard a rumour as a child that The Beatles once stayed here, a false rumour as it turned out.
While the song is an up-beat toe-tapper about a man and his lover and his longing to move out of the Hotel Yorba and for them to move in together at “a little place down by the lake, the history of the Hotel Yorba is a bit darker!
Built in 1926 on West Lafayette Blvd in Detroit, it was a temporary home for many workers building the nearby Ambassador Bridge in the late 1920s.
These days it is described as more of a flop house that offers short term stays, reportedly for $35/night.
The Hotel Yorba has served as part retirement home for elderly bachelors as well as a half-way house for prisoners of the Michigan Department of Corrections.
There are reports of suicides, rapes, rampant drug use and even a murder where a man killed his co-worker inside with a homemade sword!
The best feature of the Hotel Yorba is the large red rooftop sign that can be seen from the nearby Fisher Freeway.
I have always loved seeing the big red sign from the freeway on my many trips to Detroit over the years, so on my last trip I decided to stop by and get some photos!
Used to be there for 10 years, can’t get my stuff together because of water damage to my room ((254). They won’t pay for the damage to my room, they’re responsible for the building,they oughta pay or cut a check for me to the amount of $3000.00!
hello, these are incredible pics, is there any chance you took any photos of the back of the main sign? i’m working on a model of this and i wondered what the rear side looked like. cheers.