Michigan Theater Detroit, Michigan

The theater in the Michigan Building in downtown Detroit became one of the icons of Detroit’s faded glory and urban demise. The ornate theater interior is still evident, especially the ceilings and upper walls, even as the space became an indoor parking lot. The 13-story Michigan Building was built in 1925, and its theater had seats for 4,000 people. In the 1970s it became a nightclub, and after that, in 1976 or so, a parking lot for the building’s tenants. The fact that the building was constructed on the site of the garage where Henry Ford built his first car adds to it’s significance.