Hotel Served Anaheim Well

They knocked down the old Grand Hotel March 22 to make way for something better, a parking lot, I believe.

I can’t help but feel a little sad; I checked out her last guest two years ago. A handful of employees and I stuck around until the end; we didn’t get any rewards for doing it, just fulfillment.

I was there when the smiling guys from Disney came through her lobby doors and took over. I wasn’t smiling; I was out of a job.

In her day, she was the pride of Anaheim. As our first luxury hotel, she played host to movie stars, Broadway plays and baseball teams such as the old Yankees.

She was never part of a multinational corporation; she never had the endorsement of a large franchise or even a rodent mascot. All she had was her pride, which in the end it seems wasn’t enough.

Thirty-five years doesn’t seem that long, but in Orange County it feels like lifetimes. And through those years she served her community well. It’s hard to find someone from the area that hasn’t passed through her doors at one time or another.

She hosted countless wedding receptions, class reunions and Christmas parties. She was a meeting place, somewhere to go and just relax. She became a well-known landmark in Anaheim but was always overshadowed by the “park” across the street.

The old girl died and perhaps so did a little of Anaheim’s innocence.

CRAIG GOODALL

Anaheim