Behind the Scenes
Keith Sweat opens hotel for Atlanta business market
By Antracia Merrill Moorings
Power Moves: On Valentine’s
Day, R&B singer Keith Sweat was scheduled to open the doors to his brand new hotel in Atlanta. The artist’s S Hotel, located at 395 Piedmont Ave. in Midtown, will have 294 rooms designed by Sweat. His aim is to target the business market. Each room comes with flat screen televisions, CD/DVD players, highspeed wireless Internet and an in-suite bathroom with bath and separate walk-in power shower. A number of rooms also have views of downtown Atlanta. The hotel offers several smaller meeting rooms, a business center, club lounge with complimentary breakfast, all-day refreshments, evening drinks and snacks, 220 car parking spaces and a host of leisure facilities, including a gym, sauna and steam room. The S Hotel’s Grand Opening ceremony on Feb. 14 featured live performances by Kut Close, Silk, Charlie Wilson and more. The event was filmed for a DVD.
Historic Landmark Razed: Detroit’s 10-story Donavan Building—home to Motown Records from 1968 through
1972—was demolished make
room for a Super Bowl parking lot. Hundreds of pages of Motown-related documents, including stationary, travel itineraries and invoices with the names of artists like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, were said to be in the building when demolition began. Also, reportedly left behind were old tape machines and office furniture. Jamaine Dickens, a spokesman for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, said the building was part of a broader plan to remove “eye sores and symbols of a downtown abandoned,” and “was knocked down because it was sorely dilapidated.” According to Wattrick, Mayor Kilpatrick said Motown founder Berry Gordy might be interested in constructing a Motown Museum on that site. While no recording took place in the building, many in Detroit still hoped that the 10-story structure would be turned into a museum. Instead, a museum was erected at the bungalow that housed the old recording studio on 2648 W. Grand Blvd.
Hip Hop Hero: Russell Simmons was given a key to the city of Newark, N.J. on Feb. 2. The hip hop mogul was surrounded by around 2,000 students from Weequahic High School when Newark Mayor Sharpe James presented him with the key, according to the Associated Press. Simmons was honored for his work with the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, which he founded to benefit at-risk youth. Among the HSAN's achievements is the Hip Hop Team Vote program which spans 50 cities and worked to register and motivate young voters across the country in 2004. “Whatever they can imagine for themselves they can accomplish,” Simmons said of the students. “Anything you can dream about, you can do.”
Briefly, Morgan Freeman will star in “The Jazz Ambassadors” as jazz legend Duke Ellington in the big-screen biopic. The film focuses on Ellington's tour of Iraq during a 1963 CIA-led coup, in which the government planted spies in the jazz man's entourage. Filming starts later this year.… Terrence Howard will star opposite Jodie Foster in the revenge thriller “The Brave One.” Howard plays a conflicted cop in the story about a woman who seeks revenge after a brutal attack.
Finally, Actor Samuel L. Jackson's handprints and footprints were immortalized in concrete in front of Hollywood's legendary Grauman's Chinese Theatre this month. The 57-yearold is the highest grossing actor of all time and has starred in more than 100 movies since making his debut in 1972's “Together For Days.” “It's an awesome sort of experience, the kind of thing you don't really think about as a young actor,” said Jackson. “You sort of stop to pause and say to yourself, ‘Wow, you're in a very elite club.’”
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