Tuesday, August 16, 2016

PI Update: The Demise Of RRBC

When you entered Pleasure Island from the No. 2 Bridge near Mannequins, the view to the background always included the imposing Rock'n'Roll Beach Club overlooking the Hub!

 Rock'n'Roll Beach Club.
 And it's famous mural.
Motion was the first club to be demolished as we showed you last week in this article. That took place in December, 2010 and ending in January, 2011. While that was going on, demolition crews began taking the glass out of Rock'n'Roll Beach Club.
So we knew RRBC would be next. A look inside in this view.
When Pleasure Island opened, the building housed XZFR Rockin' Rollerdrome where guests could skate to Rock music. Since rollerskating and alcohol were a combustible if not unwise mix, XZFR was short-lived and was replaced in April, 1990 with RRBC.
A view from the east in January, 2011 includes the Eagle's Nest Dock. The interesting story of that dock was featured in this 2011 Blog article here.

 Initial demolition took place inside the former club which necessitated blocking the windows to keep the dust inside.
RRBC didn't take long to demolish. We didn't make it out to the Island for a few weeks that February but by the end of the month, it was rubble!
While the club was second to come down, it was actually the first to close. Disney closed it with just a short advance warning after the night of February 2, 2008.  It foreshadowed the announcement in June, 2008 that all the clubs would be closing permanently that September.
Why was it closed?  It's likely at that juncture that it had not yet been decided that all the clubs would be closed.  Nonetheless, Downtown Disney management was hell bent on outsourcing as much as they could and we were told back then that they put RRBC up for lease and the lease was snapped-up immediately. Impressed about how easily it could be done, management thought they could do the same with all the other club buildings too. Of course we now know that idea failed which led to the 7-8 years of nothing.
By the end of February, 2011, the debris had been largely removed and we were left with this area later described on Disney plans as "seed & mulch".
Now when you entered Pleasure Island from the No. 2 Bridge near Mannequins, the view to the background was initially rubble and then just sky! Sad.

5 comments:

Brian said...

originally it was XZFR rockin' rollerdome.

yes it had roller skating! but to mix drinks and skating and kids and..... well you know at times that was not good.

Anonymous said...

Never was inside this one. No good pics of the interior?

KingBob said...

The Blog was created when Disney announced the clubs were being closed down. By then, RRBC had already been closed earlier in the year. Since my RRBC visits were pre-Blog, I had no business need to take photos inside.

Anonymous said...

So I'm behind on my visits here so I'm not sure if you'll see this comment but one thing I notice in your next to last photo (that I don't think I've noticed before...but it's been a long time hahahah) is that Funmeister is gone from the pole near the bathrooms...at least he survived the demolition even if he is just sitting in somebody's garage

KingBob said...

The Funmeister remained for quite some time in the off-limits area behind Fuego. But it was removed prior to the demolition of Motion.

If you're viewing the Blog from a computer (rather than from a phone), there is a search box in the upper left corner. You can type Funmeister in the search box and find articles about him.