Full-service / Detroit
Griswold Hotel
Closed – archive entry · 1868–1960 · demolished 1961
A downtown hotel (1868–1960) at Griswold and Grand River where the Detroit Rotary Club first met and the very first Kiwanis Club was founded.
Quick facts
- Rooms
- 160
- Opened
- 1868
03 / The story of this place
What was here?
Alfred Goodman opened the Goodman House here in 1868, on the site of his earlier Grand River House near Capitol Park. Two stories went on top in 1895, and it carried on as the Griswold House and then the Griswold Hotel: 160 rooms, from $1 a day. The Detroit Rotary Club held its first meeting in the hotel's cafe in 1910, the first Kiwanis Club was founded here on January 21, 1915, and proprietor Fred Postal turned the dining room into one of the city's first cabarets. The Seafood Grotto restaurant ran here until 1940. Later part of the Detroit-based Milner chain, the aging hotel was sold to a parking operator on July 28, 1960, and torn down in early 1961.
- Opened in 1868 as the Goodman House
- Detroit Rotary Club's first meeting, 1910
- First Kiwanis Club founded here, 1915
- Former names
- Goodman House (1868–1895) · Griswold House (from 1895)
- What’s there now?
- A parking garage built after the 1961 demolition still stands on the site, according to Historic Detroit.
Hotels nearby
Back to hotels ↗
Extended stay / Downtown · Washington Boulevard / Capitol Park
ROOST Detroit
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The Westin Book Cadillac Detroit
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