United Artists Theatre

**cman710** · July-20-09, 08:59 PM

For Gistok and everyone else, here is a picture of the UA building that I took on July 12th.

Attachment 2403

DetroitDad · July-20-09, 09:36 PM

The development oppurtunity banners and for sale/lease sign came off the United Artist right around the time that work started. I believe the building has also been taken off a couple real estate websites as well. Besides the U.A. I find it very interesting that anything is going on with the Adams in such a soft office market. What is going to happen around Grand Circus Park that will call for these two properties being brought back?

**mcsdetroitfriend** · July-20-09, 11:35 PM

Originally Posted by cman710

For Gistok and everyone else, here is a picture of the UA building that I took on July 12th.

Attachment 2403

Is that a chute coming from the top floor on the right?

**reddog289** · July-21-09, 12:21 AM

One other thing this site has given me is that I never knew how beautiful those theatres were . I am glad I did see the Riviara Theatre before they tore it down and that was because I was looking for the Grande.
I have a hunch that because the UA is still standing there must be something in the works for it .If I would have found this sight when I was spending my Saturdays downtown 2 yrs ago I would have been more informed and might have looked even further into the buildings.

Toolbox · July-21-09, 06:52 AM

Originally Posted by Gistok

Gnome, I know that horsehair was used for the ceiling of the main banking hall at the Guardian Building to remove the echo from the vast chamber. But I was not aware of its use in movie palaces [[or Orchestra Hall). Ditto for the use of straw. I'll have to ask Michael Hauser [[co-author of the Arcadia book on downtown movie palaces) about that one. Even when PBS had a special about the magic of the sound of Orchestra Hall, they didn't mention either horsehair or straw.

The use of horsehair plaster in theaters is not anything special. It was a common in most plaster prior to 1950 in the US. The horsehair is merely a filler material that gives the plaster strength.

**Gistok** · July-22-09, 11:53 PM

Sadly, one of the things about the Detroit United Artists Theatre that I've never found is a photograph showing the theatre in full color with the jewel multi-colored house lights on.

Since the Detroit UA procenium [[arch) framing the stage had the lower half cut off by at least the 1960's [[in order to show a wider screen) and the organ screens covered up with curtains at the same time [[so you won't have to look at all that old stuff anymore)... there were never nice color photos showing the Detroit UA in its' full color glory.

But I just found something that is the next best thing... a full color picture of the Chicago United Artists Theatre.

The 1,739 seat Chicago UA was the smallest of the 3 Spanish Gothic styled United Artists Theatres. It was not only the smallest of the 3 1927-28 UA theatres, but also the least finely designed/detailed. In late 1927, C. Howard Crane was forced to put a new exotic shell into an existing smaller playhouse... the 1920 Apollo Theatre.

Sadly, the Chicago UA was pounded to rubble in 1989... but this glorious color image gives us a rare fortunate glimpse at how the similar [[and larger) Detroit UA would have looked in color with full house lighting.... [[click on the 4th theatre image down on the right side and then "ENLARGE IMAGE"):

http://www.photoeye.com/Gallery/form...lio1&Gallery=0

Wow!!

The Detroit UA with similar multicolored lighting must have looked awesome! The colorful cove lights would have highlighted many of the the stone or burnished metal looking plaster details, and would have left the theatre patrons awestruck... something that the existing black/white photo images can do no justice to...

**Huggybear** · July-23-09, 07:27 AM

The only reason I know it was 1996 was from where its picture appeared in a sequence of other pictures I had. I would place the demo in May/June. The school year was definitely over.

By department store, do you mean the MW[[?) at Oakman or the Crowley's and Federal's at Greenfield?

Originally Posted by Gistok

Thanks Huggybear, I thought it was earlier than the 1999 date posted on the website comments [[I thought 1995)... but I couldn't remember.

Sadly both Grand River and Gratiot were stripped of their most prominent buildings [[movie palace and department store) from their outlying stretch of roadway in Detroit.

EastSider · July-23-09, 07:55 AM

Originally Posted by DetroitDad

The development oppurtunity banners and for sale/lease sign came off the United Artist right around the time that work started. I believe the building has also been taken off a couple real estate websites as well. Besides the U.A. I find it very interesting that anything is going on with the Adams in such a soft office market. What is going to happen around Grand Circus Park that will call for these two properties being brought back?

Wouldn't it be something if Olympia Development built a parking garage behind the Fine Arts facade?

**Gistok** · July-23-09, 02:07 PM

Originally Posted by DetroitDad

The development oppurtunity banners and for sale/lease sign came off the United Artist right around the time that work started. I believe the building has also been taken off a couple real estate websites as well. Besides the U.A. I find it very interesting that anything is going on with the Adams in such a soft office market. What is going to happen around Grand Circus Park that will call for these two properties being brought back?

With Quicken focused on either the Hudson's or Monroe Blocks, no one knows what the plans are for either the UA or the Fine Arts Building. I don't think there will be a parking structure behind the Fine Arts Building, because that building doesn't have that large of a footprint... and where would the entrance/exit go? If a parking structure were to go in the area, the former Adams Theatre site would be a better [[larger) site.

One thing I do know... if the UA were being readied for demo... it wouldn't require 2 years of preperation AND a new roof!

Could it be the "residential/entertainment" part of what Quicken wanted downtown?

Or couldl it be part of a new hockey arena complex?

The good news is that the building is being worked on, and it doesn't appear to be preparations for demolition.

**rsa.313** · July-23-09, 02:20 PM

gistok; were you ever able to verify that there is a new roof on the currency exchange building and united artists theatre? i'm still skeptical. i took a close look from ground level and it appears that the old condensors for the HVAC system on both roofs are still in place, which would lead me to believe that they were not moved for a proper roof rebuild/installation.

however, evidence that it might not meet the wreckers ball is in the windows. the windows were painted with graffiti before the super bowl. for the super bowl, the ilitches painted over them with a simple shade of grey. if you now notice, all paint has been removed and the windows appear to be in better condition than they were in before.

i wouldn't put much faith in it being a part of any future hockey arena. when CoPa was going in on that side of woodward, it was slated for demolition. that and it's relative distance from other amassed property would lead me to believe it would not be connected to that possible future development.

neither the fine arts or adams theatre site alone lend themselves very well to a parking garage. however, if you span over the alleyway, that might be feasable. this would also make sense with the requirement for street level retail in all future parking garages in the CBD; garage entrance would be off elizabeth, ramp up to a second level, leaving the first level of the fine arts for retail. however, based on the ilitch's track record for building parking garages, i suspect both sites will be surface parking for the foreseeable future.

it did strike me as interesting that atanis and dan [[gilbert) no longer seem to be publicly "in bed" together. maybe one of gilbert's companies aside from quicken might be moving into the currency exchange building? and whatever happened to the redevelopment of the detroit life building further up park?

**Gistok** · July-23-09, 02:30 PM

Since this thread is going to the Hall of Fame, we might as well save a copy of the colorful [[but sadly destroyed) Chicago United Artists image from 1985 [[4 years before it was razed) from my link in a previous post.

After a few years links have a nasty habit of no longer working... so here's Russell Phillips nice image saved for posterity...

**56packman** · July-23-09, 05:39 PM

Gistok, I was in the Chicago UA in 1978 and remember that it kind of like the Detroit UA [[I was at the DuMochelle auction of the UA in1975) and remembered the fact that it looked odd, there were traces of a much older theatre there. I bought a book that THS put out for their 1977 convention with pictures and descriptions of all of Chicago's palaces, I still have it. I looked up the Chicago UA in that book when I got home from that trip and discovered the Crane re-model business. Went into a lot of theatres in Chicago in '77-'82. the loop still had most of its houses--the Woods, UA, Oriental, Chicago, Roosevelt, we visited them all.
Did you ever go to the Esquire before they butchered it? I went there on the same trip as the UA visit, saw "An Unmarried woman" first run.
The percentage of theatres showing first run product in Chicago vs Kung-Fu and Blaxploitation in Detroit was readily apparent to me at that age!

**Hornwrecker** · July-23-09, 06:45 PM

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EastSider · July-23-09, 07:07 PM

Originally Posted by Gistok

I don't think there will be a parking structure behind the Fine Arts Building, because that building doesn't have that large of a footprint... and where would the entrance/exit go? If a parking structure were to go in the area, the former Adams Theatre site would be a better [[larger) site.

It's only the facade they're saving. The garage could extend from the Fine Arts facade, all the way through to where the Adams was, don't you think? They could leave the alley free for the first or second story and go from there.

As far as entrance, maybe off Adams right there, next to the Fine Arts, although that would require curb cuts and that could be a tough sell. Better to enter and exit from the other street.

**Gistok** · July-25-09, 12:03 PM

Originally Posted by EastSider

It's only the facade they're saving. The garage could extend from the Fine Arts facade, all the way through to where the Adams was, don't you think? They could leave the alley free for the first or second story and go from there.

As far as entrance, maybe off Adams right there, next to the Fine Arts, although that would require curb cuts and that could be a tough sell. Better to enter and exit from the other street.

The Adams was known as an "alley jumper" theatre. I'd be curious to know if Detroit has any "alley jumper" parking structures.

Never mind... we have one even bigger... a "steet jumper"... the Millender Center Parking structure.

**Gistok** · July-25-09, 12:44 PM

Thanks for the nice images Krawlspace!

56packman, unfortunately I was never in a single Chicago theatre.

The Chicago United Artists was built in 1920 as the Apollo Theatre, a legitimate playhouse with a classic exterior. It was gutted in 1927 [[using C. Howard Crane's design) as the Chicago UA. Yes there are some features from the previous design that carried over into the newer theatre.

In reading all the comments about the Chicago UA in Cinema Tresures, it seems that they had a serious rodent problem in the theatre [[perhaps they had some restaurants nearby). The rat problem got so bad that they closed off the main floor seating, and only had balcony seating for movies. When the wrecking ball finally came in 1989, the number of rats that hightailed it out of there must have been astonishing!

Interestingly enough the razed Chicago Roosevelt Theatre [[IIRC on the same block as the UA) was a prototype for the much larger Detroit Capitol Theatre 5 years later [[similarly C. Howard Crane also had the 1917 Detroit Madison Theatre used as the prototype for 1919 Orchestra Hall).

One thing about Chicago theatres is that most of the best theatres there were outside of downtown. [[besides the Chicago, Oriental and Auditorium Theatres). The Uptown, Paradise, Marbro, Granada, Tivoli and Southtown were beautiful massive theatres in the outlying neighborhoods... now all sadly razed [[save for the closed decaying Uptown).

Here is a picture of the Chicago UA lobby [[1st pic).

And speaking of Chicago theatres and the use of ingredients in plaster to make for better plaster... here is an outside and inside view of the Chicago Paradise Theatre [[pounded to rubble 1954-56).

On the outside it was considered the world's most beautiful theatre... architect John Eberson couldn't have done a better job of capturing France's "Second Empire" architectural glory.

But on the inside it had what were arguably the world's worst acoustics. Lots of echoes and muffled sound, that even additives to the plasterwork couldn't help. One of the reason it was destroyed so early [[besides having a nearby larger theatre as a competitor) was due to the bad acoustics. It is likely that the flat dome shaped atmospheric ceiling was [[at least partly) responsible for the bad sound.

**mcsdetroitfriend** · July-25-09, 09:52 PM

Check out this lavish premiere that occured for "Anatomy of a Murder" which happened at the UA. It's like L.A.!!!
http://www.archive.org/details/Anatomyo1959

**Gistok** · July-25-09, 10:15 PM

PBS Channel 56 had a 1 hour documentary on Anatomy of a Murder production in the Upper Peninnsula, and on how it really helped the bad economy around Marquette during the 1958-59 recession. Producer Otto Preminger wanted it all filmed on location, and it was. He also wanted the world premier held here in Detroit [[UA).

Interestingly enough the Chicago UA also had a world premier during that era... Alfred Hitchcock's "North By Northwest", much of which was filmed in Chicago.

**mcsdetroitfriend** · July-25-09, 10:50 PM

Originally Posted by Gistok

PBS Channel 56 had a 1 hour documentary on Anatomy of a Murder production in the Upper Peninnsula, and on how it really helped the bad economy around Marquette during the 1958-59 recession. Producer Otto Preminger wanted it all filmed on location, and it was. He also wanted the world premier held here in Detroit [[UA).

That's awesome! Any idea of when that aired?

**Gistok** · July-26-09, 06:17 PM

Originally Posted by mcsdetroitfriend

That's awesome! Any idea of when that aired?

That was 2 or 3 weeks ago on Channel 56.1... on a Tuesday or Wednesday night... can't remember if it was at 9 or 10PM. They interviewed people still living that remembered the true story behind the rape and subsequent murder that was the real life plot that the movie was based on.

**mcsdetroitfriend** · July-26-09, 09:05 PM

Awesome, I'm glad I get that in Lenawee County, I'll have to look it up next time it's on

**izzyindetroit** · September-19-09, 10:41 PM

The UA is being prepped for a future tenant. The tenant is government related.

That is all I got, but hey, you heard it here first.

**Doma** · September-20-09, 02:47 PM

Sweet, and hint as to where this information was acquired?

Originally Posted by izzyindetroit

The UA is being prepped for a future tenant. The tenant is government related.

That is all I got, but hey, you heard it here first.

Stosh · September-20-09, 03:40 PM

Originally Posted by Doma

Sweet, and hint as to where this information was acquired?

I'll bet it's the Ministry of Silly Walks. Or the new 20 million dollar leased home of the Detroit Pension Fund. One way to get the Wings a new arena huh?

**stasu1213** · September-20-09, 06:08 PM

If the UA is made into a performance building with live shows on the first level and movies on the other level it would bring the foot traffic back downtown. It would also be another stop for the people mover. Just imagine; The people mover is used to stop at every important venue downtown. The RenCen, The UA, Greektown, Cobo Hall, Rosa Parks Transit CEnter[[where people could catch the biofuel bus leaving the venues downtown and going home) etc. The people mover would live up to it's purpose.Retail could probably be in the UA building also. Like a mini mall or something. I think Grand Circus Park will make a comeback.