Olympia Stadium - Grand River & McGraw

[Ltdave]

growing up 65 miles from detroit, not having much of a hockey influence around me [[i played in the street with a tennis ball and the weekend pick up game at the local arena) i didnt really follow any hockey team. i played more baseball than anything. i didnt watch the lions either...

i never saw olympia when it was standing and ive only ever been in "the Joe" 3 times. once for Bruce Springsteen [[1984 Born in the USA tour), Bryan Adams [[1987) and one Red Wings game [[19960...

why was it built with the kink in the one wall? kind of a drunken carpenter day it looks like...

[Gistok]

....why was it built with the kink in the one wall? kind of a drunken carpenter day it looks like...

Ltdave, few streets that cross Grand River Ave. are perpendicular to it. So the arena was aligned to the right side street, and the facade/lobby was aligned with Grand River. The difference is only seen on the left side wall.

C. Howard Crane was already adept at building on difficult sites. Many of his theatre designs have the entrance and lobby out of plumb with the auditorium. The Capitol and United Artists Theatres were among them.

The lobby of Olympia was therefore out of alignment to the arena itself. But Crane's mastery of design made most patrons unaware of this feature. Only the bend in that left wall of the outside gave away his trickery!