This house on Riverside Drive West, between Rankin and Randolph has always caught my eye as standing out from the rest, despite the bad renovation job over the years.
This photo above appeared in the paper in July, 1924. The caption reads:
Residence of Mr. E. R. C. Struthers, Sandwich St.
As you can see, someone closed in what was a large front porch to expand the living area. It appears that the house is today a multi-unit rental property.
According to my trusty 1923-24 City Directory, the listing for Mr. Struthers is as follows:
E R C Struthers, Proprietor, Concrete Bumper Co. House 805 Sandwich E (Sandwich)
The Concrete Bumper Co., was located at 520-524 Tuscarora.
Here’s where the building was in 1937:
Today the site is home to a much smaller building.
Wow, I didn’t even realize that that house was so old. I saw it for sale as a four-plex a couple years ago… I always thought some lawyer built it in the 1980’s and a decade later it was converted into a four-plex as the neighbourhood changed. It looked a lot better in its former glory with the awnings and what appears to be stained glass windows. I wonder if the building was originally white stucco with terra cotta red awnings or a light yellow with red Moorish detail like the Fisher Mansion in Detroit. If there was moorish detail on the inside, it’s probably long gone now.
That Riverside Drive house has looked worse! By the early sixties, it was an unbelievable, nasty green – and it was already a four-plex. One of the teachers at Forster lived there with her husband.
Very strong rumour has it that there used to be an underground tunnel from that house to the rivers edge and guess what for?
In one of the early scenes of True Romance, shot on the railway lands on the Detroit side, you can see this house clearly over Dennis Hopper’s shoulder.