Inter-Continental Hotels ceased managing the hotel in 1985. With political uncertainty looming, the Ducor Hotel closed in 1989, just before the coup led by Charles Taylor which ousted President Samuel Doe and marked the beginning of the First Liberian Civil War. The building endured much damage during this period, due both to the violence of the war and to postwar looting. During this time, displaced residents of many of Monrovia's slums began to occupy the hotel's empty rooms.