Old Hotels

Quote:
The Battleship USS Connecticut BB18 cruising Hampton Roads in the vicinity of the Chamberlin Hotel.

Quote:
My question now is: Because I already have these cards, do you, the SCF members, think I should keep them? I ask this because I don't know any other collectors who want these for trade. So, I am thinking of getting the history on these hotel cards and mounting them in a binder?? Who knows? Maybe somebody would be interested in them as a complete unit??

Quote:
... model railroaders ... and other miniaturists greatly value these cards as they {help} us understand and duplicate in miniature various details ...

Quote:
Up to Marlborough Hotel, on corner of Great Russell Street: Formerly the 630-room Ivanhoe Hotel, squatted in September 1946, as part of the post-war squatting wave. Empty for some time, it had been used during the war to house Irish labourers repairing bomb damaged buildings. At the end of WW2 there was massive homelessness around the country – a pre-war shortage of housing had been made worse by the destruction of houses through bombing and a total halt in the building of new housing. Demobilisation of thousands of servicemen jacked this up into a crisis… As a result there was mass squatting of empty houses, and later army camps and depots, around the country. In September this spread into London: on Sept 8th Duchess of Bedford House in Kensington was occupied by over 1000 people; within the next 2 days other buildings in Kensington, Abbey lodge near Regents Park and Fountain Court in Pimlico were also squatted. The Ivanhoe was squatted on the 10th. All were luxury housing or hotels left empty during a housing crisis… The Communist Party was heavily involved in these London actions, though there has been argument over how dominant they were in the squatting movement nationally, initially they rubbished the early autonomous squatters then jumped on the bandwagon when it became obvious how the movement was taking off. Then took things over and repressed independent activity. Sound familiar? While the squatting in the camps was more the practical meeting of a basic need, the London actions were more political propaganda acts. Launched a campaign to force the Government to requisition empty private housing for those in need - It did trigger some squatting of smaller houses in the London suburbs.

The squatters here used a diversion tactic to get in to the Ivanhoe… One group drew police who were on their back off to another building some distance off, while another group moved in on the hotel. 12 families broke in through boarded up doors; by this time the cops had got wind and turned up, blocking up the doors and reboarding them, to stop other squatters getting in. An attempt by others to force their way in was prevented by the police.

The Police put a cordon round the hotel; although food and bedding could be thrown in from the outside by supporters, people could not go in or out, so the squat became a siege. There were confrontations between supporters outside and cops, here and at other buildings. Within a few days five Communist Party members involved in planning the squats had been arrested for conspiracy and incitement to trespass. Court orders were obtained against all the squatted buildings, they seem to have left voluntarily after this, reports in the press said there were just 13 people left at the end, they left in taxis paid for by the CP.