Schwankowsky Temple-of Music Shot Up?

**leland_palmer** · April-11-09, 10:44 AM

Has the Schwankowsky Templeof Music/Wright-Kay Building been shot up or have bricks been used to bust out numerous windows in the building? It's been a while since I have payed attention to the building so I was wondering if it had to do with any of the gunplay that occured when the Appartment Nightclub was operating? The south side of the building looks even worse. I hope someone seals it up soon.

http://fadeddetroit.blogspot.com/200...right-kay.html

**buildingsofdetroit** · April-11-09, 11:37 AM

Sad. I was talking to Torya of Good Girls Go to Paris and she said she'd seen people in there stripping it. After several calls to police, the thieves were finally caught. What a shame.

**Zimm** · April-11-09, 12:17 PM

that's a shame. it's probably my favorite building in the city.

**Bigb23** · April-11-09, 12:35 PM

I can't say I'm a architecture fanatic, but that's a beautiful building. What a shame.

Ocean2021 - now's the time to step up to the plate, and get out of you're fantasy league.

Lorax · April-11-09, 10:54 PM

I remember about 25 years ago when Haberman's Fabrics owned the building, they were renting the upper floors as lofts. I fell in love with the second floor which was the old silver/china/crystal floor of Wright Kay's. It was finished in a green-washed second empire style paneling with huge crystal chandeliers. I was young and couldn't afford the rent, but really wanted to live there.

The agent told me when they took over the building after it had been vacant a little while after Wright Kay left, they disassembled the pneumatic tube system which carried jewelry, loose stones, cash, and other items between floors. The tubing was sold for scrap back then, and they found loose diamonds in the tube system which had gotten lost over the many years Wright Kay used the building.

Hard to believe such an intact building could now be stripped on the inside. I'm assuming those fantastic chandeliers are gone as well.

**Gistok** · April-12-09, 11:20 AM

That building is a beauty... disturbing to hear the bad news about scrapers.

I was in that building about 10 years ago. Shawn Santo of Pure Detroit had several folks over to her 4th floor loft in that building at the time, after a SAVE HUDSONS soiree at Intermezzo. I was a noobie in preservation at that time, but was invited along with several others. The views of Woodward from that building [[such as for the Thanksgiving Day Parade) were phenomenal.

I hope something is done to restore that gem...

**Kimistree** · April-12-09, 07:42 PM

http://imgs.inkfrog.com/pix/Kimistre..._pneumatic.jpg

First posting since the new Detroityes. I hope this link works.

I used to live in the Wright Kay building in 1995, and this is a picture of the pneumatic tube system that was on the third floor. We were told that the third floor was for billing, accounting and such for the jewelry company. We I lived there all the tubing for the system was still there. It was made of brass and could be seen on the second and first floors for sure.

It breaks my heart to see this building in disrepair, and vandalized. My roomates and I loved it. A friend of mine lived on the second floor, the one mentioned with the chandeliers, and that floor was fabulous. It made a fantastic loft. The third floor where I lived us much more mundane and untilitarian.
I have more pictures of the third floor that I will try and post.

Lorax · April-12-09, 09:30 PM

Super pic of the pneumatic tubes- I do remember them telling me the story of the tubes being removed, and I saw the second floor for rent probably 20 or more years ago after Haberman's acquired the building. Perhaps only some of the system was taken out when they renovated the first floor.

**kathy2trips** · April-13-09, 01:32 PM

This is a disgrace. Abandoned treasures such as this should be secured from vandals, or confiscated. There oughta be a law.

**Detroitej72** · April-13-09, 09:38 PM

Anyone know if there are any plans in the works for this building?

**airflow34** · April-16-09, 06:42 PM

In 1980 Toby and I bought the Wright Kay- Schwankovsky Temple of Music building with the idea of creating a multi-story fabric department store.
In fact we brought it back from the dead. Four feet of water had flooded the basement and hundreds of heating and plumbing pipes were busted.
We ran our store four years, but after Hudson's closed retailing for us Downtown became even more impossible.
The loft apartments helped us hold on to the building until the mid-1990's when a sense of optimism emerged and we sold it to new owners who planned on making this gem even better.
The diamonds in the pneumatic tubes is an urban legend. The system was quite intact when we left it.
We need another Detroit booster to bring it back to it's glory once again!!

**nickstone** · April-16-09, 09:17 PM

When The Apartment was opening up trying initially to be a jazz/r&b club [[much like Flood's was at the time) I played there once, and was amazed what a cool layout it was... even so, the people running it [[from my perspective, at any rate) were kind of clueless... just as an example, most well-run clubs I play at, management or some set up people at least are there for hours and hours before they open to make sure everything's perfect... these people tried to show up like an hour before opening... that was the first sign it wasn't gonna last, at least in my opinion...