Purple Hulk smashed

Well, I thought it eventually would come to this, just not after over six and a half years of post-closing rot and legal time-wasting:

Lincolnwood’s old Purple Hotel, which started life as a Hyatt before sliding down the scale of respectability, met its date with the wrecking ball Tuesday. Local officials celebrated the occasion as the end of an eyesore even as they looked back wistfully at its days as an icon.

The PH hosted 6 Capricons, two Duckons and Reactors apiece and a Windycon and was at one time a nice, woodsy/homey small hotel before it became a veritable health/building code violation magnet (several of which nearly closed the place down previous to Reactor in 2006, which was also the last large fan-related event it would host before it closed permanently in January 2007).

Believe it or not, I'll miss the place; After all, it hosted Capricon 5, which was the first fan-run SF convention I ever attended back in 1985. I just won't miss the disused, genuinely dangerous piece of crap it became in later years due to not-so-benign neglect and ownership that apparently had no idea what they were doing and seemingly didn't care much about that fact.