Historic photo question - large mystery building
I was working on a little project about the history of electric cars when I ran into the photo below, which is from UM's Burton Historical site. It's a picture, labelled as being circa 1908-09, of a building of the Anderson Carriage Company who were the builders of the Detroit Electric car [[and were later renamed The Detroit Electric Car Co.).
But my question has nothing to do with the company or electric cars.
In the background of this picture to the left you will see a huge, ornate brick building that I do not recognize. Does anyone here know what this building is? Know anything about its history?
The site's description of the picture has it located at Clay and Riopelle [[actually then named Guilloz). That is indeed where Anderson and later Detroit Electric were located. And, in fact, at least one Anderson/Detroit Electric factory building is still standing nearby in the Russell Industrial Center.
Given the large unknown building, I thought for a while that the location given for the photo might actually be wrong, and that it may not even be in Detroit. But a close look at the largest version of the photo reveals that the poster in the window is for an "Automobile Parade" taking place on Belle Isle.
After scouring period maps of the surrounding area though, the only real possibility I can come up for that big building is the Grand Trunk locomotive house that once stood at the nearby Milwaukee Junction. But the building in the picture seems quite large and ornate [[and square) for that purpose. Is that what it was though?
A very large full-size version of this picture can be seen at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/dpa1ic/x-mr0263/mr0263.tif
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/imag...y=3;view=image
