Vanity Ballroom status & history...

[Al Publican]

I was recently back in Detroit where I resided and worked for a half century and drove past the Vanity Ballroom.
When did the Vanity hold its last public event?
Was the Vanity the site of the live J. Geils album? If so, when was it recorded?
And was is the status/future of the Vanity.

[Honky Tonk]

All I have to offer is I saw Cheech and Chong there, on their debut tour, at John Sinclair's prison release party. About 4 years ago, I met some people that were seriously working to get funding to resurrect and reopen the Vanity. With the Covid outbreak I haven't seen or heard anything else about that.

[Bong-Man]

Wrong venue for J. Geils. That was recorded at the Cinderella Ballroom, April 21-22-72, and released in the Fall.

[Hamtragedy]

Well.....I deejayed a Fun Magazine event there back in '86 or '87. We entered on Newport. There was already a leak in the ceiling of the middle of the dance floor, which caused that part of the floor to slightly buckle, but it wasn't disastrous, as it would soon be. There was even a sound guy up there on the catwalk. I don't know how many events would be held in there following but I remember it being boarded up pretty solid by 1990.

If the surrounding commercial strip in any indication, I don't forsee much of anything happening with only a couple exceptions. Which is sad. Even sadder is the prices are going nuts over there if only pushed by the investor class, as I swear the neighborhood to the canals, dare I say it, actually looks worse than it did in 2008. Although I was sanding a floor over there a couple weeks ago looking over Klenk Island and happened to spot a 14" trout swimming under the dock in the boat-well. The canals seem down about 10" compared to this time last year, but the orange flood booms installed by the Army Corp are still in place. But I digress.

[Lowell]

There has been a lot of rumblings of restoration in recent years, not just of the Vanity but that stretch of East Jefferson, including development of a master plan.

"Priorities include redeveloping Faith Church and Vanity Ballroom as well as sites at the corner of Jefferson and Manistique, and at Jefferson and Marlborough."

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/ne...ed/5540513002/

[EastsideAl]

Wrong venue for J. Geils. That was recorded at the Cinderella Ballroom, April 21-22-72, and released in the Fall.

It's an understandable confusuion, since the Cinderella Ballroom was in fact the former Cinderella Theater, which was just a couple blocks away from the Vanity at Jefferson and Coplin [[north side, between Coplin and Lakeview). I had a great uncle and aunt who lived right around the corner on Coplin, and my grandparents lived a few blocks away. They, and other relatives, used to frequent the Cinderella Bar & Grill that was on that same block.

They had rock concerts at the Cinderella for a couple of years in the early '70s, but the neighbors like my great aunt and the Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood organization complained quite loudly about it. My older cousins who lived on Chalmers were not quite so unhappy though. I think that Geils show was about the last one held there.

The Vanity was also used as a rock venue around the same time. The Velvet Underground played their last Detroit show there. But it ran into similar problems. Although Scott Campbell of Bookie's fame reopened it for a bit in the '80s.

[Gistok]

EastsideAl... your anecdote about the Cinderella Theatre/Cinderella Bar & Grill reminded me of a westside former movie theatre and a restaurant in the same block. That was the now razed Mercury Theatre. Nearby was the Mercury Fish n Chips, which many years ago moved to 10 Mile Rd. in Southfield.

Without the Theatre of that name nearby... the name Mercury Fish n Chips has a whole other [poisonous] connotation.

[GPCharles]

Something is going on at the Vanity, as it is fenced in around the building.

[Danny]

There is nothing going on at the Vanity Ballroom Building. It will remain as a Parthenon-like ruin in Detroit's West Side until someone comes up with the money.

[Honky Tonk]

There is nothing going on at the Vanity Ballroom Building. It will remain as a Parthenon-like ruin in Detroit's West Side until someone comes up with the money.

It's actually on the Eastside.

[jcole]

Yeah, Grande is on the West side

It's actually on the Eastside.

[Gistok]

The Vanity [and even Grande] were designed by Detroit architect Charles N. Agree. He had 2 employees of Chicago [movie palace] architectural firm Rapp & Rapp leave that company to come to Detroit in 1927 to help Agree design Detroit's largest neighborhood theatre... the 3434 seat Hollywood Theatre [Fort St. & Ferdinand, razed].

Those 2 former Rapp & Rapp employees started the architectural firm Graven & Mayger... which only lasted from 1927-29. Their major work was the old Mayanesque style old Fisher Theatre in the Fisher Building [gutted in 1961].

Agree's use of Mayan cartouches inside the Vanity Ballroom is spot on identical to those of the old Fisher, and I would not be surprised if Agree's Vanity Ballroom design used some of the details from Graven & Mayger's Fisher Theatre... and possibly even reused some of the unique Fisher plaster molds. The interior of the Vanity Ballroom is Mayanesque, the exterior is Aztec Deco.

Many years later before Agree died in the 1980s he gave an interview, and was asked about Graven & Mayger. He was very off putting about them, and didn't give them much credit towards any of his architectural work.

[ABetterDetroit]

I remember these guys talking about a restoration of The Vanity as one of their goals but I would venture to guess that the financial part of the plan has not come together as easily as the conversation about the idea.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.fre...amp/4229701001