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Ahhh. Great video footage. Does my heart good to see the old United Artists theater back in her prime. This was a beautiful, beautiful theater inside. Last time I saw the theater, she was in terrible shape, boarded up, abandoned and unloved. Sad. And nobody today seems to know it but the same building where the UA theater (shown here on Bagley Avenue) was located was actually the national headquarters of the AAA Automobile Club. I once ran computers for them in this very building which was a wonderful place to work. The whole area was peppered with classy hotels, restaurants, theaters and night clubs. All gone now. Directly across the street from the AAA National Headquarters building was the headquarters of the AAA of Michigan. Years later AAA pulled the plug and moved everything to Dearborn. Just up the street was the fabulous Michigan Theater where Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. once performed... and where Disney's Peter Pan debuted. Incredibly, that beautiful theater was gutted, walls knocked out and turned into a parking lot. Heartbreaking to see. Should I mention this was all just steps from where Henry Ford once tinkered with cars made out of bicycle parts? Thanks for the time machine trip back to the glory days...
Leedy, you know about me and theatres, especially Detroit theatres, right?
I was in the United Artists in January of 1975, right before AAA auctioned off the contents. Aside from the whitewash paint job and the gold Cinemascope screen "surround" she was marvelously intact, every original piece of furniture and statuary was there. A month later, all gone. Now the Ilitches own it, and are talking conversion to apartments, since all downtown real estate is hot right now. Not sure how apartments in the center of the auditorium portion will have a window, or a view.
The Michigan was the first movie going experience I can remember, 1964, when my aunt took me to see "Snow White" in re-release. I was in and out of the Michigan through the 70s, and in March of 1977 was part of a crew hired to remove the projectors, right before the carnage that resulted in the parking garage began. Saw it in its last moments as it was built. Henry Ford's home, at the time he built his Quadracycle, and backyard shop were on the lot that the Michigan theatre has occupied since 1926.
The Statler Hotel, seen in the film was demolished in a hurry for the 2006 Super Bowl, that was nothing more than a jobs bill for demo companies. Now an apartment building is going up on that site.
Downtown looks nothing like it did the last time you were here, Dan Gilbert has renovated or is in the process of renovating every shuttered teens-20s office building. A huge skyscraper is going up on the JL Hudson's site, work started last month.
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