Gotham Hotel

03 / The story of this place

What was here?

This nine-story, 200-room Italian Renaissance hotel was built in 1923–24 as the Hotel Martinique for white guests; in 1943 John White, Walter Norwood and Irving Roane bought it and turned it into what the Michigan Chronicle called the finest Black-owned and -operated hotel in the country. Every room had a private bath, murals brightened the lobby, bow-tied waiters worked the Ebony dining room where Joe Louis often ate, and Black Detroiters made business deals and raised campaign money here. It was listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book from 1946, and the guide kept listing it until 1967, even after it closed. It shut in September 1962 as integration opened downtown hotels to Black guests; on November 9, 1962, a 112-officer raid exposed a huge numbers operation run from its floors. The demolition permit came on July 11, 1963, as part of the Medical Center urban renewal plan.

• Black-owned landmark from 1943
• Joe Louis often ate in the Ebony Room
• In the Green Book from 1946

Former names

Hotel Martinique (1924–1943) · Gotham Hotel (1943–1962)

Architect

Percival R. Pereira

Green Book

Listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book, the travel guide that showed Black travelers where they could stay safely during segregation.

What’s there now?

Orchestra Place no longer exists; the site lies within the Detroit Medical Center area of Midtown that replaced this part of Paradise Valley in the early 1960s.