Where was the Motor City Arena?

[townonenorth]

Thanks everybody! I've not only been in that building, but my sister even worked there far a while. Having been in the rather low-ceilinged first floor, it's bizarre to me that it once was an "arena" that was a boxing venue, and even more so that it was host to regularly televised events. I never would have thought that.

When I first started to run into listings for "Motor City Arena" in boxing records, I assumed that it was probably just a mislisting for Arena Gardens, which I knew to have hosted boxing cards. However, the question for this thread came up when I was doing some research on Detroit baritone saxist Pepper Adams and ran into a listing for a Stan Kenton Orchestra show in 1956 [[when Pepper was in that band) that was supposedly at Motor City Arena.

I was very surprised to see a musical event listed for this venue [[although now, knowing where it was, I have to wonder if that wasn't a mislisting itself for the Greystone). It occurred to me that Arena Gardens would have been gone by that date - having been torn down for the building of the Ford Freeway - so the "Motor City Arena" must have been a separate place. The intrigue took me to that Sports Illustrated article I linked above, which confirmed the existence of the venue and led me to wonder just where exactly the place was.

I also wonder about if the connection to the Norris family and Olympia that's suggested by that SI article was an actual one.

Which is what led me to post that photo above of what was mislabeled Briggs stadium in the VMC site at Wayne.

You really have to wonder, though, about the connection between Greystone and the gym. If I were to guess, I'd say that there was a working relationship between the two, and the Arena was possibly in the larger Greystone?