The Dorchester Motel was built in the heyday of America’s roadside motels, when newly-constructed highways and cheap gas promised freedom and mobility. In the 1950s, places like this popped up along busy roads in suburban cities like Redford, Michigan, to catch the passing tide of salesmen, factory workers, and families headed north for a little holiday fun and sun. Back then, the Dorchester offered clean sheets, a hot Howard Johnson meal, and the quiet night’s rest before hitting the road.

A vintage AAA postcard is a tryptich showing the same bricked wall present today behind a crisply-made firm double bed, diving board stretching over a azure swimming pool, and a wide-angle view of the hotel along a stretch of green grass in the sun.  The postcard back boasts the selling features of the motel : "Convenient to Detroit's Industrial Offices and World Famous Northland Shopping Center.  Sales Conference Room.  Heated Swimming Pool, Air Conditioning.  Phones, TV, Hi-Fi, Carpeting.  Fire & Sound Proof Construction.  Howard Johnson's Restaurant next door."  For reservations, travelers need only dial five digits, "Call KEnwood [sic] 3-8400."

Decades later, the traffic thinned.  Big Three factories closed. Real estate values slumped, and travelers disappeared. Chain hotels clustered near freeways, and small motels like the Dorchester were left behind. What remains is no longer a waypoint for vacationers, but a last resort for people with nowhere else to go.

Today, the Dorchester functions as a long-term, low-budget hotel. Rooms are rented by the week, day, or as the lighted sign proclaims, "Day Time Rate." The pool has been cemented over.  Shopping cart is chained to cinder blocks in its place.  A boy kicks a soccer ball in the courtyard under the watchful eye of his father.  Curtains stay drawn. Strangers drift in and out. Police calls are common. Drugs circulate along the shadowy upper balcony and in the back parking lot. The line between tenant and transient is blurred.

The Dorchester is dangerous, sometimes, and unstable. A half-mile from the Detroit border, it has a reputation for "crack heads and prostitution."  But it is also a refuge of necessity for some. 

I spent a year visiting the Dorchester periodically as it sits a short 15 miles from my home.

Each time I visited, I encountered new faces.  I met a young couple who had lived there for several months.  "J" is from Stamford Connecticut, "G" from rural mid-Michigan.  I first encountered them a short walk away at Tony's market.  It was a hot, muggy summer night and they were buying a case of beer.  Prior to the Dorchester, they lived unhoused in Lansing.  This is where G acquired a scar on his nose in a fight.  As he stated, "One minute the guy was fine.  The next minute, he was attacking my face.  He just went psycho."  J is quiet and stares hard at me.  She takes her cues from G.  I later look her up and find a human interest piece about her third grade class.  As we stand in front of their motel room door, G flips through images on his phone.  There are pictures of a happy family.  A brother, a dog, a mother and father, hanging out in the woods.  I wonder if there was a definitive moment when their lives took such a dramatic turn.

I met a man who worked across the street in the kitchen at the very hospital where I was born.  He stared at me so hard from atop the balcony while I chatted with another couple that I nearly left.  As the woman described it, "He's mean mugging you." This was the only time I felt compelled to flea.  I nearly made a fleeting decision, but, as he approached, he held up his cell phone and smiled.  It turns out he wanted to be part of the interview. He spent five minutes interrogating me while at the same time sharing photos from his phone and telling me all about his life.  He implored me to return the following day to get all the details down.

I met an immigrant family who packed six people into a single room.  They traveled here from Central America, possibly for work or other reasons, and spoke no English.  We communicated by Google translate, smile, and gesture.  I photographed the family as they lingered in the courtyard on a golden summer's eve.  I forwarded the image to the little boy's father.  He thanked me then and again several months later when he fell ill.  His text simply stated, "I am in poor health."  When I asked if he was in the hospital, he said he was at a friend's house.  He has one photo on his Instagram account.  It is of the Welcome to Michigan sign along the Ohio border.  I wonder if this was the American Dream he had in mind.

I met others as well.  Transients who passed through.  A man who has on-site housing at his factory job during the week but stays weekends just to "get away."  A woman who left her marriage and was "in between" things for now.

The Dorchester is no longer selling convenience, comfort, or escape. It is selling time—one more night indoors, one more week without sleeping in a car, a fragile buffer between stability and collapse. Its now painted-over brick walls and flickering sign hold stories no longer the thing of postcards: of people working full-time still unhoused, of families compressing their lives into a single room, of quiet endurance unfolding behind drawn curtains. Once built to serve motion and optimism, the Dorchester now bears witness to stagnation and survival. It stands along Grand River Avenue as both relic and refuge, a reminder that the American road still leads somewhere, but not always to a destination of joy or hope.



Images from The Dorchester Motel will be on display as part of Karen Lippowiths's Extended Stay photographic exhibit during the month of April at the Novi Civic Center at 45175 W 10 Mile Rd. All are invited to the opening event Thursday, April 16 6-8 p.m., which features light refreshments. Lippowiths will be on hand for a meet-and-greet as part of the event.