Hard Rock Cafe in Detroit closing [[Motown memorabilia inside)

**woodward** · 11-29-2018, 09:49 AM

I recall reading years ago that when the Motown Cafe in New York City closed some of the items were relocated to other locations. I might be wrong but I recall that some items came to Detroit. This article says the Hard Rock Cafe includes items from the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Diana Ross.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...ng/2139678002/

It is tragic that a Motown Cafe never came to fruition in Detroit as was contemplated during the creation of the cafe's.

Has anyone ever seen all the Motown memorabilia on display at the HRC? If you have perhaps you can give us a listing of what was included.

**carlo** · 11-29-2018, 10:54 AM

I visited once and I do not remember most of the items, but I do remember they had Diana's gold satin dress on display, from her Force Behind the Power cover shoot. It understandably had a bit of a makeup stain on it. I may have photos from that trip of the other items, I will have to check. I think there may have been a Marvin Gaye gold record for What's Going On, or something of the like.

**dickiemint** · 11-29-2018, 09:31 PM

I visited when I was in Detroit 2007. Still have my key chain !! I will treasure it now. Maybe it will relocate its memorabilia to the expected expansion to the Motown Museum .

**grapevine** · 11-30-2018, 02:45 PM

We went there during my 50th birthday visit in 2006 ...there's quite a few of the exhibits on show in this old post from the archives...
http://faac.us/adf/messages/16041/12...tml?1161009853

Grape

**bradsupremes** · 11-30-2018, 08:03 PM

The Hard Rock has the tendency to display fake memorabilia. They displayed a few things claiming to belong to artists that bear out not to be true. They have two dresses on display that they claim belong to Mary Wilson, but when I showed Mary, she confirmed to me she never owned or wore them. I was in the Hard Rock Rocksino here in Ohio and they have a dress on display claiming to be Diana's. I've never seen a photo of her wearing it. I took a photo of it and other fans didn't recognize it either. There is also three necklaces they attribute as belonging to the Supremes from the Tennessee Ernie Ford special, but they never wore them.

I should also add they haven't properly displayed the artifacts they do have. When I worked at the Rock Hall, they did a Motown exhibit for the 50th anniversary with artifacts on loan from the Hard Rock. David Ruffin's glasses had old, dried glue on the bottom of the lenses and the Hard Rock had glued his passport pages together for better display. Museums with proper curatorial departments would absolutely never do anything like that. You want to keep the artifacts in their original condition as when you received them. I doubt David or the Ruffin family would glue such things.