Shorpy: Grand Circus 1919 from Madison Ave

[gnome]

GCP long before Occupy made it such a friendly place. http://www.shorpy.com/node/11814?size=_original It appears that the pic was taken on Madison Ave, across from the DAC, however the building on the far left doesn't look like the Milner to me. It can't be the Madison Lenox as the windows are all wrong ... any guesses? Another interesting artifact of the past is there seems to be a photo studio on the top floor of the building fronting GCP.

[Ray1936]

Look carefully and you can find Hazen S. Pingree sitting in his chair. He don't move much, does he?

[MikeM]

Madison Avenue at bottom right corner; would run in front of photographer, so photographer is on north side of Madison.

Plaza Hotel at left edge, northwest corner of Madison & JohnR, so photographer is probably on top of DAC, pointing camera west.

[Lowell]

I think I see Ray1936's fingerprint on the Statler.

It is amazing to think what the next ten years would add to that picture, the Broderick, United Artists, Michigan, Park Building ... boomtown Detroit cloaked in smog.

[Gistok]

Hard to tell from that small fragment of the building... could it be the Milder with all its' cornices still intact?

Other interesting perspectives in this image are the Book Building before the tower to the right was built [[in the mid 20s). We can see the courtyard or light well that is no longer visible.

Also nice view of the Whitney Building before the regrettable mid 20th century remodeling removed all its' ornament. The now gone Statler also had a lot of its ornament and urns removed in the mid 20th century to "modernize" it.

We also see the Madison Building [[no Eaton/Broderick Tower behind it yet) with its' auditorium intact... [[the windowless portion to the left).

Also, the hodgepodge of low level buildings in the foreground will be destroyed within about 18 months for the completion of the [[Jan. 1922 opening) Capitol Theatre. In the right distance we see the Kales Building and [[what is now only a facade) the Fine Arts Building [[Adams Theatre entrance) to the right of it. In between them is that narrow dark stone faced 7 story Hurley Hospital, long since razed.

One other interesting oddity is in the foreground. Are those lawns with long walkways in front of the houses along Madison Avenue? That empty property appears to be what was used to turn Madison Ave. from a narrower street into a wide boulevard. It may have been city owned all along and just not used to widen Madison until circa 1920.

[MikeM]

The view of the camera:




The Hotel Plaza, captured in the left corner of the photo:

[Gistok]

Also the Tuller Hotel has the old [[right) and new [[left) wings completed. The left wing was built on the site of a church that was torn down to build the hotel expansion. There is a house [[or church rectory?) building just to the left of the new Tuller Wing.

When the United Artists Building and Theatre were completed in 1928, this small building/property may have refused to sell out, since that small parcel has been empty for at least 70 years [[see image). It was only within the last few years that Ilitch Holdings has been able to purchase it from the "Shapiro Family", longtime owners of the site. The Shapiro's also owned the back corner [[behind the Tuller) of the block, and Ilitch Holdings also purchased that empty [[parking lot) site, to complete the ownership of the entire Tuller/UA block.

Also to the right of the older portion of the Tuller Hotel [[across Adams), the Park Building, and the Oriental Theatre and hotel above it [[along Adams) were still not constructed. Today that site only has the 2 towers along Adams, with the Oriental [[later Downtown RKO) Theatre auditorium along W. Adams razed in 1951 for a parking lot.

[gnome]

wow, that was a fast ID. Plaza Hotel, yikes, never heard of it before.

Couple of other questions ... It looks like there is a boulevard on Bagley between the Tuller and Statler and sitting on that Blvd is some sort of monument. I know it's difficult to see, but to me it looks like that Chris Columbus tribute that now rests on a forgotten bit of scrub between CAY and the Millender.

Another thing ... what the heck was/is a "European Plan"? Doe that mean ur-o-peeing down the hall?

[MikeM]

I think you see the Columbus monument on the median of Washington Boulevard:

http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/cgi/i/imag...-77161%5D77161

[dtowncitylover]

What are those angel statues overlooking Woodward?

[old guy]

Another thing ... what the heck was/is a "European Plan"? Doe that mean ur-o-peeing down the hall?

Doesn't include meals with the room.

[old guy]

Just out of curiosity, I've always wondered where the origin of the name Grand Circus Park came from?

[Gistok]

What are those angel statues overlooking Woodward?

Are you talking about the "4th of July" type bunting? It looked like angels to me at first as well....

[gnome]

Thanks MikeM, I was wrong when I wrote Chris was on Bagley, obviously his first home was on Washington Blvd between the David Whitney and the Statler.

here is a pic from a Columbus Day gathering

http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/cgi/i/imag...tart=;resnum=2

[MikeM]

Maybe the angels are leftover from a war bond rally or an Armistice Day parade.

[Gistok]

OMG.... look at that large image again.... above the Madison Theatre [[corner of the Whitney Building).... see the pyramid with the round bulb on top.... it has a large circular halo of light around it.... with a smaller circle of light to it at 10 O'Clock....

... it can't be... is that the "Downtown Vortex"......

[Ray1936]

Maybe the angels are leftover from a war bond rally or an Armistice Day parade.

Mike is right. Here's a clearer shot of one of the "angels" that were on either side of Woodward from an earlier Shorpy posting. That's my car parked next to it........

[MikeM]

Statue of winged Victory holding laurel wreath on stand by curb, in front of park with leafless trees. Booth on sidewalk farther up street. Several men passing on sidewalk. Buildings visible behind park. Handwritten on photograph front: "Detroit, April 27-19. Victory statue." Handwritten on photograph back: "27 Ap. 1919."

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/dpa1ic/x...56/dpa3456.tif

[jackie5275]

OMG.... look at that large image again.... above the Madison Theatre [[corner of the Whitney Building).... see the pyramid with the round bulb on top.... it has a large circular halo of light around it.... with a smaller circle of light to it at 10 O'Clock....

... it can't be... is that the "Downtown Vortex"......

I noticed that too. Glad I'm not imagining it.

[MikeM]

More Victory statues from 1919:

[Gistok]

Oh I see the angels in the park that are referred to.... facing each other across Woodward. I thought that Gnome was referring to the bunting to the left of the Downtown Vortex halo. That looked almost like angels with outspread wings.

Those all appear to be made of plaster [[an impermanent material outdoors)... a pity really because they appear to be of quality workmanship.... such as that of Augustus St. Gauden, America's leading sculpture of the turn of the century.

And has anyone else noticed that old Hazen Pingree changes location in GCP more times than the topiary in the latest Steven King's THE SHINING movie... almost creepy!

[Hamtragedy]

Hey Gistok, let me ask you.....the picture you provided with the UA and the Michigan Theater, and of course, all the other theaters, including even the modern day FOX.........why were they so big? Not the theater part, of course, but the rest of them? Did they all hold offices theater related, or just office space that was meant to be leased?

[Gistok]

Hey Gistok, let me ask you.....the picture you provided with the UA and the Michigan Theater, and of course, all the other theaters, including even the modern day FOX.........why were they so big? Not the theater part, of course, but the rest of them? Did they all hold offices theater related, or just office space that was meant to be leased?

The latter... they all had separately leased [[non-theatre related) office space. Besides theatre circulation space [[lobbies, foyers, staircases, dressing rooms, restrooms and mechanical space), there was very little actual office space in most movie palaces. Also the office space usually had separate entrances.

The combination of office and theatre space usually provided a buffer for if a particular theatre season wasn't that good [[not a lot of blockbuster movies that year, etc). And also with the very expensive price of land downtown, putting 2 uses to one parcel of property [[the offices were usually over the lobbies and foyers) made sense economically.

And the building is usually quite separate mechanically from the theatre... separate electrical and ventilation, etc. This was partly due to the strict fire codes after the tragedies at the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago, and the Cocoanut Grove in Boston. This also explains all the metal fire escapes found along the sides of theatres.

Also downtown palaces were rarely had their auditoriums alighned with their their lobbies and entrances. Many, such as the Capitol [[DOH) and United Artists were built on irregular sites.

And in most cities where movie palaces were on the main street of the town, due to the expensive land most auditoriums were quite a ways back from the narrow main street entrance, with a lot of lobbies and foyers separating the two.

At the Fillmore [[State), when you enter thru the theatre entrance, you pass thru the Storm Lobby, Outer Lobby, Rotunda Lobby, and Grand Foyer, before you finally reach the auditorium. But with so much to look at, you don't realize how far you are walking.

And back when there were 4 or 5 movie performances a day at the downtown palaces... if you're waiting for the next performance, all the opulence and decor takes your mind off the fact that you are waiting.

[mallory]

I absolutely love these pictures. What a great glimpse into the early history of Detroit.

As a film buff, I am particularly intrigued by the movie posters along the lower left hand side. The first one is a sad sight, "When Men Desire" featuring Theda Bara. She played the vamp in many silent pictures, and was at one time one of the biggest stars of the screen. The sad part is that most of her films have not survived due ot a fire at a FOX studios storage facility in the late 30's.

Thanks for sharing the Shorpy!

[Gistok]

Interesting observations Mallory!

I didn't notice those movie ads along the side of the Madison Theatre auditorium exterior. For signage, it was rather elegantly done [[compared to a decade later when signage would become rampant and random all over booming downtown).

That image also sparked a memory.... that the Madison Auditorium [[now sadly demolished for a failed project, and thus just parking today) was not flush with Broadway, but slightly angled from it, so that the left most part of the auditorium was about 20 ft. away from the streetwalll, while the rightmost portion of the auditorium was only about 5 ft. away from the Broadway streetwall.

I'm going to foward the link to this image to THS [[Theatre Historical Society). They have an archive of over 100,000 images of nearly 8,000 theatres. This image is to show them how the GCP theatre district looked soon after the Madison and Adams were built [[both in 1917), and before the construction of the Capitol [[1922), the Oriental [[1927) and the United Artists [[1928) all within view of this camera angle.