Saturday's postcard of a long-ago motel in North Miami

Motel Rotunda — or is it Rotunda Motel, as printed on the back? — looks like it would have been a swell stopping spot for weary travelers. Perhaps for a family that had just spent a long day driving south, south and further south down the length of Florida, toward the tip. Or an exhausted door-to-door Bible salesman.

As this postcard, snapped by photographer Dick Deutsch and published by Pan American Publishing Corp., details, the motel was centrally located to area attractions, had color TV and featured a "delightful" recreation room. 

I can't find much about the motel's history, though. And it's long gone, like so many other roadside motels that once dotted America. Postcards are about all we have to document its history, and that it even once existed. Without these images, the structure might fade entirely from memory and history, like David Hemmings at the end of Blow-Up.

The caption on a different postcard indicates that the motel was completed in December 1950 and that other amenities touted included tile showers and bath, and free ice cubes in the sitting lounge. The owner at that point was an M. Lanzalotti. And a Florida archives postcard has Jesse N. Koehler as owner and manager.

Today, a peek at Google Maps finds that the former location of Motel Rotunda is an intersection with six or seven lanes of traffic in all directions. Businesses there include Walgreens, Five Below, Denny's, Jivana Nails & Spa, a BP gas station, Vitamin Shoppe and LA Fitness. They will all be ephemeral, too.

Is Motel Rotunda too long gone for anyone to have memories of working there or staying there overnight? It would be great to know more and record it for posterity.