I had one goal for this route: to make a few photographs of the sign at The Como Motel before being demolished.
A small group of people wanted to save this place. They were not successful.
I'm a fan of saving history and incorporating pieces artfully into a changing world. But this just wasn't something I thought deserved to be saved. Except for the sign. The sign was super cool.
As I walked in the narrow passageway between the motel and the building next to it, I wondered how many happysad times were spent inside this place?
Presented with a very worn building where everything was closed off and boarded off, the only real options were either to give it a lot of love (like, A LOT), or tear it down to make space for something new.
Some may have wanted to save The Como Motel because of it's iconic mid-century design (seriously, look at it!). Some, because it was the first drive-in motel in the area.
The Como Motel was also the site of Candy Montgomery's affair that resulted in Betty Gore's literal axe murder, an event covered in a lengthy, well-worth-your-time, Texas Monthly article (1984) and two miniseries: Candy (2022) on Hulu, and Love and Death (2023) on Max. And Captain Sully Sullenberger recalled visits on family trips in his youth. Maybe they wanted to save it because of all of these things.
But none of these details and historical events made it worth holding on to in its existing location. The area surrounding the motel is very different than when it was built. 75 is a busy, noisy place full of people in cars, isolated from reality and with better places to be.
Maybe I'm being unimaginative. But I do very much appreciate making a case for what you believe.
Whatever the case, I hope the sign ends up somewhere cool.
