The Hotel Casey, The Perfect Hotel

Рет қаралды 14,048

7 жыл бұрын

A 57-minute documentary chronicling the rise and fall of The Hotel Casey in Scranton, PA. I made this documentary in my senior year at The Universtiy of Scranton in 2001. Up until now, you could only watch it on a VHS tape. This was my first venture into filmmaking so please, be kind.
-Ron Babcock
thehotelcasey@gmail.com
Full Description:
The Hotel Casey assumed its Lackawanna and Adams Avenue Throne in 1911, when it opened its doors to a rapidly growing city. The crown jewel of Scranton's skyline embodied an era of incredible prosperity, playing host to innumerable parties, weddings, and celebrities.
"The Hotel Casey, The Perfect Hotel" will take you back to a time that now only exists in newspaper morgues, while recounting the life and death of a Scranton landmark. Although the Casey sign can no longer be seen in the skyline, its story can still be told.
Executive Producer
Ron Babcock
thehotelcasey@gmail.com
Copyright 2001

Пікірлер: 46

@joecurmaci5880 Жыл бұрын

What a beautiful story but a sad ending

@rishabhdeogopichand7946 8 ай бұрын

I FELT THE SAME SADNESS AS YOU DID THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE VIDEO . I GREW UP IN SCRANTON, THINKING THAT THE HOTEL CASEY WAS FOREVER . OUR HIGH SCHOOL HAD PARENT-TEACHERS MEETINGS AT THE CASEY, AND OUR ANNUAL HOME-COMING DANCE AND BANQUET WERE HELD THERE, ALSO, IN THE GRAND BALLROOM . I MOVED AWAY, TAUGHT IN PHILADELPHIA, & EVENTUALLY SETTLED PERMANENTLY IN NYC. WHEN I WOULD VISIT MY PARENTS, I, TOO, FELT THE SADNESS, AS I CAME INTO THE CITY, SEEING AN ABANDONED, DETERIORATING CASEY INN [?] ON THE SKYLINE. WHY DOES AMERICA HAVE SUCH A BRIEF MEMORY OF THINGS PAST, OR OF THEIR BEAUTY, AND OF THEIR ADDING DIGNITY TO A CITY/COUNTRY BY JUXTAPOSING THE NEW WITH THE TRADITIONAL, THE CLASSICAL ?

@TonyTitleGuy Жыл бұрын

A beautiful job, finding all the old footage, etc. So sad.

@necessityforruins 6 ай бұрын

Looking back on this 23 years later, this is a rich document of a lost place but also such a wonderful depiction of the municipal inertia and indecision foreclosing on the future of the Hotel Casey. Rob Babcock recognized this was a significant moment in Scranton's history and left us with this great record of this building's civic life.

@theunnamable1712 Жыл бұрын

My mom worked at this wonderful hotel in the 1970s and used to take a bus from Old Forge to Scranton every morning.

@BudJames 5 жыл бұрын

This is an excellent documentary and it brings back memories of. Scranton in the past. I worked in the Casey after it passed into the 1970's. Verto Cable TV was located on the mezzanine. in the early part of that decade. I walked up those marble stairs for that summer job.

@VictrolaIX 4 жыл бұрын

I was lucky to have attended the premier of this documentary when I was visiting in home while in college in Philadelphia. The demolition of the Hotel Casey seemed inevitable by the time I was in high school in Scranton in the late 1990's. The wealth of historic architecture in the city and how it seemed to be demolished at every opportunity (and to this day still is) sparked my passion for historic preservation. Also a former roommate of mine copied the recipe for Chicken à la King and made it a signature dish in the apartment. It may sound a little kitschy now but it's quite delicious.

@daved7024 7 ай бұрын

What a wonderful documentary of a piece of history -- of the Hotel Casey. I remember this hotel as a child growing up. Thank you.

@bobruder6392 Жыл бұрын

I stumbled upon this wonderful documentary. Thank you so much for doing it. What a sad end to such a glorious building.

@jeromejay3807 2 жыл бұрын

Attending the University of Scranton in the early 1980s, the Casey Inn was always a curiosity. It was all boarded up at the street level, but I wondered what could be made of such a large important building. Learning now that the interior had already been stripped does not shock me, but odd that the City chose to abandon that building while it paid to heat the vacant Scranton Dry Goods store, a far less ornate building, a few blocks away.

@erink695 2 жыл бұрын

Welcome to Scranton! I miss that hotel.

@deltatango5642 6 ай бұрын

Fantastic documentary. My grandmother worked cleaning rooms at a hotel in downtown Scranton. I believe it was the Hotel Casey. One of my cousins says that it sounds familiar too. Unfortunately with the passing of my mom last year, we have probably lost anyone who would know for sure.

@tawthylawn351 5 ай бұрын

Excellent presentation…wonderful memories…but such a sad ending.

@joecurmaci5880 2 жыл бұрын

I'm so glad I found this I remember the ball on the crane I was a young boy but I do remember

@HSTRY-sq3dj Жыл бұрын

Great documentary.

@karenheppler9323 6 жыл бұрын

Thank you for this. My grandfather was a house detective at the Casey in the early 1900's. Loved seeing some of the historical pics.

@Layna_570 2 жыл бұрын

I lived in The Jermyn Hotel in 2014 in Apt. 705. The roof was leaking and had been for years The Scranton Housing Authority knew about it. The building is a historical landmark. Management would not do anything but patch it and it still leaks. It's a terrible shame that the Casey could not be saved. It was much better than the Jermyn. It could have housed more people and helped with this cities economy!

@timomalley9332 4 жыл бұрын

Great show! When I was a student at the U., I was part of a team documentary on the rebirth of the train station hotel.

@joecurmaci5880 2 жыл бұрын

Wow looking at those old photos at the end kind of choke you up a little we do live in the greatest place on Earth

@joecurmaci5880 Жыл бұрын

My mother sang in Chicago a man from The metropolitan Opera want to train her but she came home and married my dad in Scranton but what an exceptional woman I can't believe how many people she has touched in a positive way and they will tell you about it

@marcuspd7502 7 жыл бұрын

Wonderful documentary. Thank you!

@DOCTOR_SONG 6 жыл бұрын

I was there that day filming too and my heart breaks over and over . I am so sorry for OUR Loss

@joecurmaci5880 Жыл бұрын

I remember in 1980 I had a girlfriend from Waterbury Connecticut and we came home from culinary school and we kind of snuck into Lackawanna train station to see how beautiful it was it was a basically abandoned at the time the architecture and the will of people this area was exceptional

@paulaschaffer2418 2 жыл бұрын

This was excellent, thank you!

@jhmorgan72753 5 жыл бұрын

Marshall was caring person, he loved the Casey and could tell many stories about the guests!!!! 11:47

@Gary_C 3 жыл бұрын

SPOILER FROM THE FUTURE: The government is going to spend ~$1 billion over the next 30 years on Lackawanna Ave, and by 2021......... it will still basically be Boscov's and a hot dog stand.

@rbsmith3365 4 жыл бұрын

It broke my heart for seeing historical landmark goes down! Mid rise Hilton hotel so drab looking! In San Antonio has lot of historical hotels that have been successful restored for many years. 1859 Menger. 1909 St Anthony Intercontinental, Crockett, and Gunter hotel. At St Anthony Intercontinental Hotel In November 1934 when president Lyndon Johnson married Lady Bird from the church across the to hotel. Their wedding party at St Anthony’s roof top and still in business.

@joecummings1260 3 ай бұрын

Wow, I probably could have almost retired just on the sale of the used brick. Not as souvenirs but as clean used brick. They are worth a fortune. I knew a guy from Philly that hauled away used brick for free with an old B model Mack 10 wheeler. That was his family business, they cleaned them and stacked them, and sold them for more than new bricks

@lavenderdreams5826 Жыл бұрын

Growing up I heard stories of the famed Casey Hotel. My grandfather worked there in the cafeteria as a manager. He was related to the Caseys because his mother's sister married one of them. His own father left the family and moved to the oil fields on Coalinga Ca . He died there in 1932. One of the Casey brothers walked my grandfather's sister down the aisle when she married. Tragically, in 1940, my grandfather fell from the 5th floor of the Casey Hotel to his death. His cousin, a Dr. Casey happened to be walking on the sidewalk where he fell. The stories always were sad from that side of my family. Interestingly, I worked in the hotel industry for many years in sales .Life is so strange and intertwines.

@rishabhdeogopichand7946 8 ай бұрын

I REALLY FEEL THE PAIN OF YOUR PERSONAL, TRAGIC MEMORY AS RELATED TO THE CASEY.

@clintwirth 4 ай бұрын

Scranton stumbled but hasn't fallen yet

@erink695 2 жыл бұрын

I actually have cups and saycers from the hotel w the name and Crest on it. I remember being in there as a child. It was beautiful inside.

@joecummings1260 3 ай бұрын

That's a big wrecking ball. I used to operate a crane with a 5 ton ball and that was considered big. That one is bigger. BTW the tire us in the cable to lessen the shock traveling up the cable into the crane boom, running a wrecking ball is hard on a crane

@joecurmaci5880 2 жыл бұрын

I kept many pieces from the pizza hotel on Robinson Street

@tjsmith5477 9 ай бұрын

No photos of it under construction?

@DOCTOR_SONG 6 жыл бұрын

I had many artifacts however Chris yarns of Clark's summit stole them from me

@joecurmaci5880 2 жыл бұрын

That guy Chris should try to make good for how he's wronged you because we're in that time you don't want to get caught on the wrong side no artifact in this realm competes with the big picture it's actually minuscule

@lynettemoore697 2 жыл бұрын

Where is the Chinese Mai king restraint at now

@joecurmaci5880 2 жыл бұрын

Who is the woman with the red scarf

@laurenboyd7094 Жыл бұрын

That is Angela “Tish” Casey Cusick, she was one of the granddaughters of PJ Casey

@joecurmaci5880 Жыл бұрын

@@laurenboyd7094 did she have a son Dennis

@joecurmaci5880 Жыл бұрын

Doesn't that guy look and sound like Louie Anderson the comedian

@MichelleVanDeusenRoberts 3 жыл бұрын

The old entitled lady who is the granddaughter of the Caseys was annoying. The family lost their Hotel. The world still turns. Why didn't she do something? Typical useless poor rich people. Not so sad to me.

@rishabhdeogopichand7946 8 ай бұрын

YES, THE WORLD STILL TURNS, BUT IT'S SHALLOW PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO FEELING ABOUT THE LOSS OF OUR HISTORY.