This 4-1/2" x 6-1/2: black and white photograph shows a five-story brick building standing at the corner of two brick streets. The building has a entrance canopy, windows on each floor, a fire escape, and signs that say "Savoy Hotel and Cafe". There are cars parked on the street in front of the hotel, and street car tracks run down the center of one of the streets. "Hotel Savoy" is written on the photograph.
At the time of this photograph the building at the northwest corner of 11th and P Streets in Lincoln operated as Hotel Savoy, said to have been the actors' hotel for the Orpheum Circuit. The structure began as a three-story Ledwith Block in 1887, then was call the Merchants' Hotel from 1891 until it closed in 1905. Hotel Savoy opened around 1908 and added two more stories in 1911, and the entrance canopy in 1915. The Savoy close in 1931 and Sam Lawrence reopened the facility in 1934, beginning its longest operation, 41 years, under one name. The hotel function had ceased but a restaurant still operated on the first floor until the late 1980's when Sam Lawrence Hotel was demolished along with the rest of the block for a downtown retail mall that never materialized. After several years as a city parking lot, the block became the site of Lincoln's Embassy Suites Hotel in 1995.
