In case you don’t have eyes, a demolition derby has been going on in Detroit lately. From the Madison-Lenox, to Rivertown to the Statler. Detroit is being demolished at an alarming rate.
I’ve heard grumblings from my street prophets that the next building on the hit list is the United Artists Building, owned by everyone’s favorite “holding” company. From what I hear there has been a flurry of activity over there lately. Lots of men with clipboards and hard hats coming and going.
The UA Marquee, installed in 1950, replacing the orignal 1928 one.
The Office tower. Built in 1928 and designed by theater architect C. Howard Crane, the United Artists building has sat pretty much empty since AAA moved to Dearborn in 1974.
We’ll see how well it fares, however I’m willing to bet it won’t see the Superbowl.
AIW—-fine photographs, my friend!! And I gotta say that I probably have more memories of that old building than anyone else on the Forum.
Rock
Nice shots Andrew. I think it will survive since it’s not city owned and too far from the stadium to be a parking lot. Illich ain’t the biggest slumlord – the city is…
EZ – I hope you’re right…
What I’d like to know is how they manage to spray grafitti on windows that are two or three or more stories above the ground, with nothing to stand on. Is there a Motor City Spiderman on the loose, or am I just naieve regarding grafitti artists’ methods?
John, they are painted from the inside.
In the early ’70’s, I was attending Wayne State University. Desperate for a job, at the age of 21, I took the position of night bartender at the Tuller Hotel. I also moved into the Tuller, and lived on the 10th floor. My room looked across the small parking lot, and into the windows of the United Artists Building, then the AAA offices. Often I would sit with the windown up, on the sill, reading, or just daydreaming about life. One day as I sat, I heard muffled, garbled yelling. At first I ignored it, Downtown Detroit had plenty of yelling and weirdness; but after awhile I began to pay attention. Finally I answered-yelling out my window. The voice was that of a man who’d been robbed and locked in an office across the parking lot. It took some time to get his story, but when I did, I called the police. Undoubtedly they found him.
The Tuller (the “boarding house across from the Hilton” was what several of the geriatric alcoholics who spent the waking existence in the bar refered to it as) was an eye-opening place to live for a guy just 21. Even then Detroit was in major decline. I quit working there in June of 1971 after an aged femaile beer-head who I had refused to serve a Stroh’s to-she was very intoxicated when she staggered in-pulled a 38 caliber pistol out of her handbag and fired a fortunately poorly aimed shot at me. Stroh’s might have been a good beer, but not good enough for me to take a slug for. The cops, after taking her gun away, took her up to her Tuller room (she was one of many unstable full=time residents of the Hotel) and put her to bed. They told me not to worry, she was just and old drunk. I was gone the next day.