There are few things more enticing than going "behind the scenes" and getting to explore something that's normally off-limits.
Add to that the chance to connect with the past, and you can see why the upcoming "Hidden Kalamazoo" tour is on its way to being another sell-out.
The tour is coming up June 20 and 21. It takes you into six different hard-to-access spaces in downtown Kalamazoo, and it's put on by the Kalamazoo Historic Preservation Commission.
Sharon Ferraro is with the commission, and she says people love the project.
“They really enjoy it. There’s a little bit of that urban exploring that people like to do. They like to see places that are a little bit dilapidated and deteriorated. But the comments we get usually are: 'I just had no idea this was here,' 'I didn’t even realize to look up and to figure out what might have been behind the scenes there.'"
Hotel Holt is one of the stops on the tour. A tiny 30-room hotel built in 1910, it hasn’t been occupied since the late 1960’s. People could walk by what’s below – a bike shop – and have no idea of what was happening years before in that same space.
