Proposed 16-story mixed-use building at Gratiot and Brush

[1953]

Came across this thread tonight while doing some Detroit history research. I’d like to suggest that the Owen Building was demolished in 1939 for the widening of Gratiot. Here’s a picture grabbed from a Detroit Historical Museum Youtube video.

[Zacha341]

^ Gratiot was actually 'widened' at some point? It still seems narrow to me - most notably south of East Grand Blvd.

[MikeM]

Came across this thread tonight while doing some Detroit history research. I’d like to suggest that the Owen Building was demolished in 1939 for the widening of Gratiot. Here’s a picture grabbed from a Detroit Historical Museum Youtube video.

Nice find. Looks like the building was being disassembled. Not sure what happened to the Owen & Co Furniture business...no mention of them after 1929, but a Washington Furniture Co occupied the location by the late 1930s. They advertised a "moving sale" through most of 1939 until December, then in 1940 their ads showed they had relocated farther up Gratiot.

Now, there was a building called the Owen Building at 250 Lafayette that coincidentally was demolished for the widening of Wayne St [[Washington) in 1957:

[MikeM]

^ Gratiot was actually 'widened' at some point? It still seems narrow to me - most notably south of East Grand Blvd.

The widening of Gratiot downtown in the 1930s was a decade long battle around funding, width, condemnation, alternate routes, etc. involving the state, the courts, the WPA, land owners, mayor, city council...

[401don]

I wouldn't worry about the design too much yet. It'll probably change before the final rendition actually starts being constructed.

One building that actually stuck to the rendering.

[Lowell]

Interesting side note. The "Budapest?" likely referred to the Hungarian Revolution that happened a few months prior where Russian tanks entered Budapest to suppress the uprising and devastated a great many buildings. It became earliest world affairs memory.

[K-slice]

This is what I was looking for in my thread from a few months back "The hole in Downtown No One Talks about". Massive parking lots to this day on this site, as well as the Shubert-Lafayette Theatre site next door, and the buildings seen in this picture west of Washington.

Imagine demolishing a large building like this to widen an existing street by one lane. Must have been all the leaded gasoline emissions that lead people back then to such insane decisions.

[MikeM]

Also lost for the Wayne Street widening, just north of the Owen building:

[1953]

Speaking of demolishing urban structure for parking, here is the view in the same video of Brush looking south over Gratiot to 400 Monroe in Greektown. Most of what is seen here is now parking. It took me quite a while to even figure out where this shot was taken from, since the area is so diminished.

1953

[Jimaz]

... here is the view in the same video of....

Whatever you do, don't disclose the top secret URL.
Someone might try to <gasp> watch it.

[1953]

Whatever you do, don't disclose the top secret URL.
Someone might try to <gasp> watch it.

Don't worry. I won't.

1953

[1953]

Just kidding.

Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWIW1oybR_I