Lasky Theatre burned

**Hamtragedy** · May-12-09, 09:13 PM

The fire bugs have been pretty rampant the last few years in the Davison / Jos. Campau area, so much so that Saturday, heading south on Dequindre, I didn't pay much attention to the fire looking east toward the end of the Eastbound Davison. Monday morning, heading out of Hamtramck, Jos Campau was blocked off by police at Davison. Lasky Theatre/Furniture, and subsequent short lived cold storage facility was burned substantially, so much so that Tuesday, they're already tearing it down.

Sorry, I suck at taking pictures, but it appears from accross the freeway that the outer structure, which surrounds the inner theater, sustained a ton of damage, [[no roof, glass block windows blown out, already being demoed). What's the history there? The theatre seems to face south, as the tower is at the south east corner of the building.

Gistok?

Sludgedaddy · May-12-09, 09:41 PM

Ham, lived in the Klinger/ Halleck area for the past 30 years. Arsons have been occuring just about on a daily basis. Abandoned house went up this morning 3/4 of a block behind me this morning and took two others with it.

Lots of vacant properties have been recently boarded up with fresh plywood probably as a result of international media atention due to the influx of artist types enthralled by the lure of 100 dollar homesteads. I've seen more police presence lately, also, Nevertheless, additonal blighted houses have gone up in flames on Moran near Carpenter. Arsonists or rumored Speculators or insurance scammers? It appears to be anyone's guess.

In regards to the Lasky conflageration....when my group of friends were in our teens we would joke and say that R&B legend, Emmanuel Lasky's [[Welfare Cheese) father owned Lasky Furniture.

I was never aware that the former furniture store was once a theater. More info on this,please.

**FlyingJ** · May-12-09, 10:34 PM

Famous Players/Lasky-as in Jesse, became Paramount Studios
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_L._Lasky
I gave his grandson a lift a few years ago, nice old guy...all the family money was gone & he lived in a fairly dingy apt. in the Valley will his generic cigarettes & oxygen tank. Invest wisely, kids

**Trumpeteer** · May-12-09, 10:37 PM

The furniture store on West Vernor is the former Rio Theatre. Used to go there in the early 60's on Saturday to watch 2 movies and get popcorn and a drink for less than a dollar.

**reddog289** · May-13-09, 12:19 AM

Another name I haven't heard in a while. Lasky Furniture.

**Patrick** · May-13-09, 01:05 PM

I never understood the mentality of arsonists in Detroit. Are they kids just fucking around? Drive through many areas and it is a fucking desolate wasteland. Is this a thrill-seeking thing?

**daddeeo** · May-13-09, 04:22 PM

They must have nothing else better to do. Probably dropped out long ago.

**Hamtragedy** · May-13-09, 09:18 PM

I've usually thought that alot of arsons are insurance jobs. Near the Lasky, across the Davison on Gallagher [[just south of Victoria), 4 houses in a row burned in one weeekend last November. I figured some scum-bucket slumlord investor bought a bunch of cheap houses next-door to each other, and when the market tanked, figured he'd just burn them. The fifth house burned two weeks later. All the houses were identical, cute craftsman types with brick front porches.

The rate of arsons in my particular neighborhood the last couple years has been, no pun intended, alarming. There is a fire at least once a week where I wake up in the middle of the night because I smell smoke, and I always check around the house to make sure it's not my house that's burning. A look out the back door into the clouded Detroit streetlights puts my mind at ease, if only temporarily. Some houses, I'm sure, probably deserve to get burned, and I'll bet there's someone on the block who is so tired of seeing the eyesore, they just throw a match in the opened back door in the middle of the night, and the neighbors secretly rejoice.

But I always wondered: what happens when someone burns a house trying to collect insurance payouts? How often are they detected, then prosecuted? If someone burns a house in the ghetto and no one's around to care, do they serve time?

**Detroitej72** · May-13-09, 09:54 PM

Originally Posted by Hamtragedy

I've usually thought that alot of arsons are insurance jobs. Near the Lasky, across the Davison on Gallagher [[just south of Victoria), 4 houses in a row burned in one weekend last November. I figured some scum-bucket slumlord investor bought a bunch of cheap houses next-door to each other, and when the market tanked, figured he'd just burn them. The fifth house burned two weeks later. All the houses were identical, cute craftsman types with brick front porches.

The rate of arsons in my particular neighborhood the last couple years has been, no pun intended, alarming. There is a fire at least once a week where I wake up in the middle of the night because I smell smoke, and I always check around the house to make sure it's not my house that's burning. A look out the back door into the clouded Detroit streetlights puts my mind at ease, if only temporarily. Some houses, I'm sure, probably deserve to get burned, and I'll bet there's someone on the block who is so tired of seeing the eyesore, they just throw a match in the opened back door in the middle of the night, and the neighbors secretly rejoice.

But I always wondered: what happens when someone burns a house trying to collect insurance payouts? How often are they detected, then prosecuted? If someone burns a house in the ghetto and no one's around to care, do they serve time?

Ham, as I live in Hamtranck, I too view the actions that you speak of on a, somewhat, regular basis.

When I ran for city council two years ago, I wanted to penalize slum lords for the "fire and a match" style of collecting the insurance money. As you can see, I didn't win.

This year, we have another opportunity to elect folks to city council who want to stop this anarchy, and level huge fines, and or imprisonments upon the perps, who continue to destroy our fair city.

P.S., you might want to stop calling yourself Hamtragety, as its the same as the suburban folks who call Hamtown hamtrash.

If you want to be part of the solution, you must stop the preseption....starting with numeral uno...

**Hamtragedy** · May-13-09, 11:55 PM

It's amazing to me how low one's standards can actually fall in Hamtragic, which is saying a ton for a proud Detroit Public School grad. As for the suburban trash calling HamSandwich names, they're just pissed off because Bobcia still lives down here and she won't sell her house & the grandkids have been brainwashed that somehow coming south of 8 Mile will limit their so-called lives' longevity.

BTW, I pick up the trash all the time around here, cut my seven neighbors' lawns, and have flowers in my alley. Hamtragedy is indeed fitting.

There is little info about the Lasky Theater on Google. Anyone else?

**Detroitej72** · May-14-09, 12:29 AM

Originally Posted by Hamtragedy

It's amazing to me how low one's standards can actually fall in Hamtragic, which is saying a ton for a proud Detroit Public School grad.

As, I was, born at North Detroit General, grew up at 7/ Gratiot, graduated from, amongs others, Detroit schools...

I have moved back to Hamtramck, by my own choice, and ran for city council...

I have taken an active stance in Hamtramck, unlike many suburbanites...

**Detroitej72** · May-14-09, 12:32 AM

[quote=Hamtragedy; As for the suburban trash calling HamSandwich names, they're just pissed off because Bobcia still lives down here and she won't sell her house & the grandkids have been brainwashed that somehow coming south of 8 Mile will limit their so-called lives' longevity.[/quote]

Who the hell are you speaking about?

**reddog289** · May-14-09, 12:40 AM

On my way to Receiving Hospital last year I got mixed up and ended up in Hamtramak. I think I could live there. I have seen better and worse places to live.

**Hamtragedy** · May-14-09, 12:59 AM

"P.S., you might want to stop calling yourself Hamtragety, as its the same as the suburban folks who call Hamtown hamtrash.

If you want to be part of the solution, you must stop the preseption....starting with numeral uno..."

What the hell are you talking about?

**Hamtragedy** · May-14-09, 01:04 AM

Keep taking an active stance. Everywhere you go. Pick up trash, shovel old ladies snow, give the kids down the street a lawn mower so they can make some $$. Volunteer, not just at Clean Sweep, but regularly. Be the a difference. Screw city council....unpaid heartache and frustration for what?

Toolbox · May-14-09, 06:31 AM

Originally Posted by Hamtragedy

There is little info about the Lasky Theater on Google. Anyone else?

Here and here is more info.

**mikeinmotown** · May-15-09, 02:09 PM

Originally Posted by Hamtragedy

The fire bugs have been pretty rampant the last few years in the Davison / Jos. Campau area, so much so that Saturday, heading south on Dequindre, I didn't pay much attention to the fire looking east toward the end of the Eastbound Davison. Monday morning, heading out of Hamtramck, Jos Campau was blocked off by police at Davison. Lasky Theatre/Furniture, and subsequent short lived cold storage facility was burned substantially, so much so that Tuesday, they're already tearing it down.

Sorry, I suck at taking pictures, but it appears from accross the freeway that the outer structure, which surrounds the inner theater, sustained a ton of damage, [[no roof, glass block windows blown out, already being demoed). What's the history there? The theatre seems to face south, as the tower is at the south east corner of the building.

Gistok?

My grandfather worked at Laskys Furniture in the 1960's. I thought it was tore done years ago.

**Gistok** · May-15-09, 03:15 PM

Sorry but I can't add any more than the 2 excellent websites that Toolbox already posted.

For some reason Googling doesn't always get good results... but you may want to add those 2 theatre websites to your Favorite Websites list... they are a treasure trove of Michigan theatre history and information, as well as anecdotal comments posted by people who remember when the theatres were still open.

My main specialty is downtown movie palaces around the country.

Maybe 56packman or Krawlspace can add more info...

**Hamtragedy** · May-17-09, 02:53 AM

Thanks for those links. I came accross them somewhere in my search.

I did actually go inside there last week. The demolition bees were out there in full force nearly every afternoon this week, including the brick guys and the guys with the torches.

Viewing the structure from Campau on the Davison overpass, the "barn" [[it looks like a scaled down Olympia), or the theater section itself, is being torn down last. The theater itself faces south, [[the stage is at the southeast corner of the complex), and is completely bricked off from the surrounding "exterior" structure. There are windows visible from this portion of the structure as you drive by on Campau, behind a demolished portion.

So I walk around the back to the alley east of the building, and the old double doors on the barn are open, in both places. [[No exterior fire-escape like the Riviera, or Orchestra Hall, as this building is much smaller). Opposite the openings are two matching doorways on the other side. I'm in, and see one of the welders takin' a leak near where there once was a screen. The floor has no slope, and I walk to the middle of the theater, and stand dead center in the middle of the old Lasky Theater.

The theater portion was ripped out in the early fifties. So was the organ. A large cinder block freight elevator shaft sits nearly to stage right. A view upwards reveals steel supports holding up a second floor. The theater ceiling isn't visible from here. Apparently when the structure was built, in 1911 or 23 [[I'm thinkin 23 because my house is 1919, 8 blocks south), it was built as both a theater and a furniture store. I wonder if the furniture store used this newer "second floor" as some kind of crazy show room, because the entire theater ceiling is only visible from here.

As I work my way to the rear of the theater [[the barn), I finally catch a glimpse of the ceiling's green cove and smoke covered gold rosettes. I also notice those ornamented service "cutouts" in the ceiling that all old theaters seem to have. [[What are these? It looks like someone could walk up there. The State has them, the Fox, Grand Circus theater, the Vanity. The Lasky was one of the first to have AC, any corallation?)

Finally, at the rear of the barn I see in the brickwork where previous steel had been removed line the entire rear of the building. Was there a balcony, or was the building going to fall any minute?

No demolition was visible from inside the "barn" aside from a few burnt timbers lying on the ground at the rear east exit. I walked out.

Did anyone here ever visit the Lasky Furniture showroom?.

**eno** · August-11-13, 11:56 AM

From Galbraith's "Motor City Marquees", the Lasky Theater, 13320 Jos. Campau, Detroit, had a capacity of 998 and was opened on June 20, 1926. According to Galbraith, the theater closed in 1949, "a victim of the growing popularity of television.