Halloween Hotel Story...

I found this on YouTube and thought I would share it here. This version seems to be a reproduction of the video master and leaves the screen blank during what would be advertisements. You can skip by those by hovering your mouse over the scale at the bottom of the screen and find where the picture picks up again. Due to this, the informative part of the program is actually much shorter than the 31 minutes indicated, so it is a quick watch.

There are a couple of reasons that I am sharing this. The Knickerbocker Hotel was built in the mid 1920s, like our own Gulfstream Hotel, and is built in a similar style of our landmark Lake Worth hotel. While our version did not enjoy much of the glamour depicted here, it did share the rise and fall of popularity during the past century with the Knickerbocker. It is also telling that the Knickerbocker Hotel is now a home for senior citizens and that might be a fate that awaits our Gulfstream if we are not careful. Also interesting to note how the area surrounding the Hollywood hotel ebbed and flowed over the years, which in turn affected the popularity of the hotel.

Seasonally speaking, it makes sense to see this the week before Halloween since much about the story of the Knickerbocker portrayed in this show is about it being haunted. There are also stories about the Gulfstream being haunted as some people who work there have been witness to some mysterious happenings there. The same is true they say about the Lake Worth Playhouse, formerly the Oakley Theater. And this got me thinking how we could capitalize on these spots, as well as others that there may be in town, to promote and organize ghost tours of Lake Worth. Something to think about.

If you watch the video, you will see that the Knickerbocker Hotel had a sign similar to the Gulfstream back in the day. Here is a postcard of the Gulfstream from that era.