Chris Cornell’s Detroit Death Suite Macabre Mecca For Fans

DETROIT, MI — Now hear this: The hotel room where Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell hung himself last week is closed until further notice. MGM Grand Detroit said it has been flooded with calls to book Room 1136 from fans of the musician known for his soaring, powerful voice.

Cornell killed himself May 17 after Soundgarden played a sold-out show at Fox Theatre, according to a medical examiner’s report. Cornell’s bodyguard found him on the bathroom floor in his hotel suite with blood running from his mouth and a red exercise band round his neck, police said.

It’s unclear when the room might be available to guests. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Detroit Patch, click here to find your local Michigan Patch. Also, follow us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

A reporter for the Detroit Free Press reserved Room 1136 Monday but was told it was unavailable later that day and was offered another room, the newspaper said.

The hotel room could become a destination in the growing dark tourism industry, which focuses and sometimes exploits places where death and suffering have occurred.

“Ghost and sinister history tour offerings have exploded in recent years and are popular worldwide,” Karin Risko, director of City Tour Detroit, told the Free Press. “Detroit is a latecomer to this genre, which is surprising considering Detroit is older than the also French-founded New Orleans, considered by many to be the most haunted city in the United States, and we've had more than our share of tragedies and misfortunes.”

One of City Tour Detroit’s offerings is the Notorious 313 Sinister History Tour, which shuttles guests to places where mobsters and hippies were murdered and areas of the city that legend holds are haunted. Another stop is the location of the former Garrick Theatre, where illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini gave his final performance on Oct. 24, 1926. He died on Halloween of that year after suffering of a ruptured appendix.

Cornell’s death was high-profile enough that Risko might deviate from her standard practice of excluding recent deaths out of respect for survivors, she told the newspaper.

For some hotel managers, the rush for reservations is a hassle they’d rather avoid. Others embrace the macabre culture.

Suite 434 of the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, where superstar Whitney Houston died in 2012, became a mecca for her adoring fans who reportedly managed to get in the room and stage alcohol and drug parties, and some even lay naked in the tub where she accidentally drowned and posed for photos. (Houston’s death was ruled an accidental drowning in the hotel bathtub, and she had substantial amounts of cocaine and prescription drugs in her system, according to coroner’s reports.) The hotel subsequently remodeled the room and changed its room number.

The Samarkland Hotel in London, England, won’t let guests actively book Room 507, where American rock guitarist, singer and songwriter Jimi Hendrix died after overdosing on barbiturates on Sept. 18, 1970, Priceonomics wrote. The luxury hotel operates today for extended stays. However, another London hotel, The Cumberland, is listed on Hendrix’s death certificate as his place of residence, and now offers a “Jimi Hendrix Suite.”

The Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood, California, where acid-rock queen Janis Joplin, lead singer for Big Brother and the Holding Company, died of a heroin overdose on Oct. 4, 1970, wouldn't actively market her room immediately following her death. The hotel name was changed in the mid 1980s to The Highland Gardens and was later sold to new owners, who market the room to fans who want to sleep in the room where Joplin died. Fans often scribble drawings and leave love letters to Joplin in the closet of the room.

And it’s not just the places of death of celebrities that are destinations in the growing dark tourism industry. World War II concentration camps, Civil War battlefields and other “war tourism” stops where mass casualties occurred are regular stops for vacationers around the world.

Philip Stone, director of the Institute for Dark Tourism Research at the United Kingdom’s University of Central Lancashire, told The Atlantic that war tourism isn’t anything new, dating back to the 1700s and 1800s when people flocked to public hangings.

“But what’s changing is how these trips are being formalized through the tourism industry, as well as the fact that technology and the internet are also picking up on it,” he said.

Featured photo: Soundgarden vocalist and guitarist Chris Cornell is pictured on the scoreboard during a moment of silence before a game between the Chicago White Sox and the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field on May 18, Seattle. Photo credit: Stephen Brashear/ Stringer/ Getty Images Sports