Although last week was officially M2M Ducor Hotel week, but I had to put up this latest addition to the Moved 2 Monrovia postcard collection. It was sent in 1964, so it depicts the hotel when it was nearly brand new, and shows how denuded the hill was when the hotel finished.
The back of the postcard is embossed "DUCOR PALACE HOTEL" which is confusing because the Neil Prince memorial website credits him with designing the Ducor in 1962 as part of his worlwide portfolio of properties for Intercontinental Hotels, which was at the time the hospitality arm of Pan American Airways, which was obviously very focussed on Monrovia. But I looked back closely at an earlier M2M post on Pan Am's 1963 World Guide, which recommends the "brand new Ducor Hotel" --so it seems the property was originally called the Ducor Palace, then called the Intercontinental, then back to the Ducor Palace.
Below is a picture I took in 2008, showing how wooded the top of Snapper Hill is now, by contrast.
The postcard was sent to Wadsworth, Ohio, and shows classic ex-pat love for the city:
9-11-64"This is a fabulous place--beautiful country-- Temp average 70degrees- Rainy season now -- 6 more weeks, then Liberians tell me it get hotto-- everything has an O on the end of words. Ha!"
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