PI Update: When Motion Bit The Dust

Return with us one more time to beautiful Pleasure Island!  Today we look back on the demise of club Motion.

Motion closed with all the other clubs on that fateful night in September, 2008.  The idea to outsource everything to third party vendors had fallen apart by the time the clubs closed and in those dark winter months of 2008-2009, the Island became a ghost town at night. One idea to liven things up was to allow outside parties to rent Motion, Adventurers Club and BET Soundstage for private events. And one such event was a Gay Days DJ party in June, 2009.  The only people who could enter were those who knew about it and were there specifically for it.  Bushes blocked off the club and Disney Security chased off anyone who just wandered back not knowing about the event.  The Blog covered that event, sadly my last ever event in a PI dance club. Link.

That was the only rental event I was aware of.  Subsequent use of the club was by other Disney entities using Motion as meeting and banquet space. It seemed like Motion would hang around for awhile.

And indeed it would....until December, 2010, when demolition walls were suddenly raised around Motion and Rock'n'Roll Beach Club!

And the demolition began that December!

Apparently guests walking between Marketplace and West Side didn't like walking along the PI parking lot.  So Motion needed to be razed to make way for a new pedestrian walkway.

As Motion came down, RRBC was not touched.

The so-called Motion Corridor between Raglan Road & Portobello with a Motion sideview.  If you are standing in this spot now, Chapel Hats would be on your left, Havaianas on your right and The Boathouse straight ahead.

Pedestrians crossing the Hub on a chilly day in December, 2010, oblivious to the destruction behind them.

By early January, 2011, the entire front section of Motion had been demolished.

Another view.

One can see the front facade is almost gone while the rear section that predated Motion still needed to come down.

And by the end of the month, it was.

And as they promised, it just gets better!  No?