Detroit Hotel Haunting


The old boarded up Pick Fort Shelby Hotel has stood abandoned 
for over twenty years on Lafayette Street near the outskirts 
of Detroit's business district. For years it was shelter for 
homeless men who would find there way inside the building to 
find refuge from the brutal Michigan winters. 

For years the only tenant in the old hotel was the notorious 
Anchor Bar a favorite watering hole for reporters from the 
areas two newspapers. For years it had been known as a place 
where police, politicians, priests and pressmen could go for 
a cold beer, a greasy hamburger and place to bet on your 
favorite horserace or football game.

A local street person who was known only as Moe found part-time 
work doing odd jobs at the bar. After leaving the bar in the 
early morning hours he would leave the bar and make his way 
to the rear of the hotel and enter the building through some 
boards that he had loosened. 

Moe was a one eyed black man who's face showed the results 
of years of drinking and living on the street. He was quiet 
and polite but he was often seen driving away other street 
people who might try to make their residence in the ruins of 
the old building.   Sometime during the early 90's some rotted 
plumbing gave out in one of the hotels basement levels and 
unbeknownst to the bar caused all of their sewage to flow out 
into the hotel basement. 

For several years people that worked in adjacent buildings 
noticed and complained about the smell to city officials but 
it was blamed on sluggish sewers in the area. The bar itself 
was spared the odor because it was totally sealed off from 
the hotel proper.

During an unusually rare building inspection the startling 
discovery of years of human waste was discovered. They say 
that it was well over four feet deep. Inside one of the rooms 
they found the skeletal remains of old Moe. He did not drown 
in the sewage but it is suspected he became mired in the 
sludge as he came down a stairwell and could not free himself 
while in the dark and probably inebriated. 

Strange as his death may seem the strange part of the story 
is that people that work in the area still claim to see old 
Moe walking through the alleys near the old hotel. There are 
reports of seeing Moe late at night sitting in the alley 
behind the old Fort Shelby Hotel and some claim to have seen 
lights moving through some of the lower floors of the building. 
Some even swear they have heard noises coming from inside the 
building.

The bar has moved out long ago and the building is now well 
boarded and secure.

Is it the city steam that pores from the manholes and pavement 
that people mistake for someone moving through the alleys or 
is it Old Moe still standing guard defending his turf at the 
old Fort Shelby Hotel?