Alt Heidelberg mystery building/Henry the Hatter site

[Patrick]

Probably over 5 years I started a thread trying to find out more information about a certain building but it was a dead end. I am not in Detroit at the moment, yet my interest hasn’t waned one bit. The building I am interested stood on the site of the current Henry the Hatter location. The building was called the Alt Heidelberg and I believe it was a well-known restaurant in the first few decades of the twentieth century.

I have attached a link to a picture of this German/Flemish-styled building. I think it is an absolute shame that this building is gone but was it torn down to make way for a more “modern” building? Did it burn? I can’t really think of any other buildings in the area that had the same style. It sat next to the Cary Building which still stands at Gratiot and Broadway.

It is the second building in from the left:
http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?q1=broadway;rgn1=vmc_all;op2=And;rgn2=vmc_all; g=photojournalism;med=1;size=20;c=vmc;back=back129 0705333;subview=detail;resnum=4;view=entry;lastvie w=thumbnail;lasttype=boolean;cc=vmc;entryid=x-28581;viewid=28581


More Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZJzhAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=alt+he idelberg+detroit&source=bl&ots=TKSb-lDF2a&sig=a7WnmBn0eCXinR0Z0B0rjbyaI-c&hl=en&ei=GpfuTOCYIMX_lgfY9-DLDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0C EQQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=alt%20heidelberg%20detroit&f =false

So, what do we know about this building? Who was the architect and when was it built? When was it taken down?

[Jimaz]

Street view of that location

Wow. That was one gorgeous building.

What are those wires in the sky of the Wayne photo and why do they radiate like that?

[Patrick]

The building that houses Henry the Hatter looks like it was built pre 1930 as well.

[detroitbob]

There appears to be a penthouse [[duplex) atop the Henry the Hatter building...tiled roof, set back from the cornice line. Does anyone have any information?

[DetroitPlanner]

What dates the tearing down of the original structure to be around 1930?? It would not surprise me in the least if the photo is turn of the century if not older. This was the side of town where all of the department stores were, with several large stores only a blockor two away.

I do agree that it is a great find. Studied the Henry the Hatter Building against the original germanic one and am pretty sure that they are totally different because in most places the floors do not line-up the same.

[Gsgeorge]

It looks like the facade was replaced, maybe? I have always wondered about the Hatter penthouse level... very intriguing.

[Brock7]

The dates are what's given in the info for the photos except for the first which is estimated from directory listings. Some dates obviously have to be wrong.

1895 - The Cary Building and Alt Heidelberg don't exist in this photo, but the carbon-arc light tower is there. The first carbon-arc light towers were erected in 1884, by 1914 half of them were gone and the last of them were slated to be dismantled by 1917. The Barber and Hairdresser establishments are listed in the 1895 city directory, but I couldn't find listings for any of the other businesses.
Street car tracks on Gratiot Avenue; unknown [[EB02c340)

1898 - The Alt Heidelberg isn't yet in existence in this photo, neither is the Breitmeyer Building on the opposite corner.
Walter L. Main Circus parade; 1898 [[DPA2167)

1905 - The construction of the Breitmeyer Building on the opposite corner. The light tower is still there.
Building construction on Miami Avenue; 1905 [[DPA4371)

1908 - The Cary Building is constructed and only the first floor is occupied, but the old house still stands in the place of the Alt Heidelberg. The light tower is still on the corner.
Reynard Fur Co. on Gratiot and Broadway; 1908 [[DPA4263)

1905 - The Cary Building, Alt Heidelberg and Breitmeyer Building are standing and occupied, but the carbon-arc tower is gone, so this might actually be later than 1905.
Gratiot at Farmer; c.1905 [[DPA4265)

1907 - Everything exists as in the previous photo.
Ringling Brothers Circus parade; 1907 [[DPA2166)

Here is the page listing the occupants on Broadway from the Polk city directory from 1928. Some of the tenants of the Breitmeyer Building are the same as in the last photos, but the building is listed as the Peninsular Broadway Building. The Cary Building isn't named as such and there's no mention of the Alt Heidelberg.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text...=2229&size=400

[Patrick]

Saw a few other pictures of the Alt and Carey buildings during a parade in at least 1917 just by looking at the parked automobiles.

[gnome]

in searching google books "alt heidelberg, detroit" reveals that joseph h. lume ran the place. he also ran a hotel called 'lume's stag hotel' at 42 monroe around the corner from the old police hq [currently where the water hq is located across from wayne county building].

[Brock7]

There's a postcard of the building up on ebay.
Edit: I just noticed on the postcard there is the date 1908 on the building, it can be seen in the photos on close inspection too.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Alt-Heidelberg-G...item518aae7254

There seems to have been a restaurant of the same name on Washington Blvd. I wonder if they could have moved the building?
http://books.google.com/books?id=2i3...%20%22&f=false

There are also postcards of it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/c1940s-Interior-...item2ea91f6d39

http://cgi.ebay.com/POSTCARD-ZUR-GES...item43a34dbacd

[Patrick]

Yea, I found all those so far and thanks for sharing.....paging Gistok!!

[Patrick]

Buildingsofdetroit.com, this is your new project lol.

[Whitehouse]

1905 - The Cary Building, Alt Heidelberg and Breitmeyer Building are standing and occupied, but the carbon-arc tower is gone, so this might actually be later than 1905.
Gratiot at Farmer; c.1905 [[DPA4265)

First time I've see a tandem bicycle in a Detroit picture.

[Gistok]

From a historic perspective I don't know much about Alt Heidelberg. More than likely its' early demise was a culmination of 2 events happening in the early 20th century.... 1) was the growth of downtown as a business and commerce center [[making the land more valuable as commercial property), and 2) was the eastward migration of ethnic Germans from the eastern downtown [[Greektown and Eastern Market area) farther east and out Gratiot.

The very ornate Alt Heidelberg building is reminiscent of the Friedrichsbau portion of the Heidelberg Castle... which ironically was restored in 1900, after being a ruin for 300 years.

But the real architectural style of Alt Heidelberg is based on the architecture of north central Germany, and was known as the Weser Renaissance, named after the longest river totally within Germany...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weser_Renaissance

The Weser Renaissance style is known for the "wedding cake" exuberance of decorations of its' gables and entranceways.

[wolverine]

What an incredible looking building.

[Gistok]

Here's a building in Bremen Germany that looks surprisingly like the Alt Heidelberg Building...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Br...dtwaage_01.jpg

[Patrick]

Detroit hasd handful of talented German-American architects during that time period and I can make a safe bet that one of them designed this building. Hans Gehrke perhaps?

[Brock7]

This 1919 Shorpy photo that Ray1936 recently started a thread about got me thinking about the Alt Heidelberg and trying to detect whether the photo could reveal if the building still existed at that date. It can't, but it spurred me to google some more which turned up some new information.

According to a report from the Detroit City website, the Henry the Hatter building is indeed the same structure although remodeled around 1925-26. It's now called Standard Trust Company Building. There's mention of the architects of some of the buildings in the district, and at the end of the pdf there's a map of the buildings within it.

https://www.detroitmi.gov/LinkClick....=3096&mid=4357
Broadway+Avenue+Local+HD+Final+Report.pdf

Final Report
Proposed Broadway Avenue Local Historic District

pages 3 - 4
The assertively German Renaissance Abend Post Building, the home of August Marxhausen's German daily newspaper, built c. 1890 at the southeast comer of East Grand River, where the Merchants Building now stands, was the first large commercial building constructed along Broadway. It displayed a standing figure, presumably of Gutenberg, in a niche at the corner. Within the Gratiot-to-Grand River block of Broadway, the Cary and Breitmeyer [[Breitmeyer-Tobin) buildings, constructed in the 1905-07 period, were the next large commercial buildings. Another high, Flemish-gabled building next door to the Cary Building at 1307-9 Broadway soon followed, in 1907. It originally housed the Alt Heidelberg restaurant and buffet and the residence of its proprietor, Joseph H. Lume [[the North German or Low Country Renaissance façade was removed in 1925-26 in the renovation project that gave the facade its present character).

Little evidence of the first generation of smaller commercial buildings remains today because of subsequent renovations and enlargements and demolitions. The oldest of these buildings that retains a substantial part of its historic appearance is the Reckmeyer Building at 1326 Broadway, reconstructed in its present form c. 1896-97, the next oldest the 1911 J. Breitmeyer's Sons Building at 1310-14 Broadway.
...

A Detroit Free Press article in 1906 called Miami Avenue “the Broadway of Detroit” [[May 15, 1906). Miami Avenue was named after the Native American tribe; the name officially disappeared that year, replaced by Broadway to reflect Detroit’s growing theater district by associating it with that of New York City.

page 6
The block's other "German" Renaissance building, at 1307-09 Broadway, was built in 1907 for the Alt Heidelberg Restaurant. Occupied [[following the advent of Prohibition in 1920) by the Continental Bank beginning in 1921, it was entirely remodeled in 1925-26, probably for another bank, the Standard Trust Company, its brick front with Flemish gable transformed into a reserved limestone facade of vaguely classical inspiration. Not only the demands of commerce but also the public's hostility to all things German in the wake of World War I may have hastened the demise of these two assertively German landmarks.

page 14
1307-09 Broadway, Standard Trust Company Building
1907 [[Detroit building permit #1987, July 13, 1907); renovated 1912-13, 1925 [[alteration permits #1254-A, Oct. 4, 1912; #12947-A, Sept. 16, 1924; #22576-A, Dec. 8, 1925.
The Standard Trust Company Building is a limestone-clad, four-story commercial style commercial building. The facade above the street level is divided into two bays of tripartite windows. A metal with shallow brackets is topped by a solid balustrade with end and central piers and smaller piers aligned with the window dividers below. The top of a side-gabled tiled roof is visible above the parapet. The present storefronts may dated from the mid-1950s when Henry the Hatter moved into the southerly storefront. The building permits suggest that this building’s first two stories were constructed in 1907 and the upper two stories added in 1912-13 but a photograph of the street taken before the construction of the buildings at 1310-14 and 1322 Broadway, built 1911 and 1912, respectively) shows the building with its full four story facade. The original facade was of North German or Low Country Renaissance design and crowned above the 3rd story with a high Flemish gable. It was replaced with the current facade in 1925-26.

[Patrick]

We were "tearing shit down" even back then. That's a shame

[Brock7]

Raseman's "assertively German Renaissance" Abend-Post building across the street, at the other end of the block.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/dpa1ic/x...1/eb02f791.tif

Does anybody have an address or photo of the Hinz building? It was built by Raseman in 1908 - same year the Alt Heidelberg was completed. The only building associated with the name Hinz I can find is a "3 story brick building on lots 57 and 58 of section 9 Govenor and Judges' plan which faces on the west side of Randolph which together with lot 59 form the block between Centre and Gratiot on west side of Randolph".

Here it is - "Hinz" is carved at the top of the building. Built for Herman A. Hinz. The only other mention I can find of him is in a 1899 Common Council list of persons have filed their indemnity bonds for trafficking in liquor. Joseph H. Lume is also named, so I guess Hinz was a restauranteur or brewer.

[Gistok]

Funny thing about buildings in the "Weser Renaissance" German style is that +99% of all folks would not be able to differentiate these buildings from Dutch Renaissance ones. But I guess the names on the buildings is what really gave them away.

The Abend Post... later the Detroiter Abend Post, now the Nord-Amerikanische Wochen-End Post is in it's 2nd century of life. However, after many decades on neighboring Brush St. [[I have a friend who used to work for them)... sadly they are now located on Long Lake Rd. in Troy [[moved there about 20 years ago).

This privately owned business has purchased many of the German newspaper around the country, and now produces a single German language newspaper for German-Americans [[hence the now "North American" name). across the country... with local info about all their markets. This company also used to have a charter subsidiary named Travel Charter... that used to book charter flights to Germany, via the former Berry Terminal at Metro. I'd been on about 1/2 dozen of their flights.

[Mikeg]

Does anybody have an address or photo of the Hinz building? It was built by Raseman in 1908 - same year the Alt Heidelberg was completed. The only building associated with the name Hinz I can find is a "3 story brick building on lots 57 and 58 of section 9 Govenor and Judges' plan which faces on the west side of Randolph which together with lot 59 form the block between Centre and Gratiot on west side of Randolph".

Here it is - "Hinz" is carved at the top of the building. Built for Herman A. Hinz. The only other mention I can find of him is in a 1899 Common Council list of persons have filed their indemnity bonds for trafficking in liquor. Joseph H. Lume is also named, so I guess Hinz was a restauranteur or brewer.

I had started searching earlier and just came up with this information from the 1910 Detroit Directory and the old-to-new address for that location from the 1920 Detroit Directory. It confirms that Herman A. Hinz was a restauranteur and proprietor of "Hinz Hall" at 75 Gratiot [[later 287 Gratiot).