City Views: Detroit’s Madison Theatre
A sunny day in Detroit's theater district, circa 1920
This photo shows the Madison Theatre – part of what was then Detroit’s theater district, Grand Circus Park – at right. The theater itself no longer exists, but the office building that it was part of is still there. (Apparently many theaters of the 1910s and ’20s were built attached to office structures in case motion pictures turned out to be a passing fad.) Constructed in 1916, the theater sat just over 1800 people and was, as historicdetroit.org says, “a key link between the small Detroit theaters of the turn of the century and the extravagant movie palaces that would rise in the 1920s.” The Madison would go on to be the first theater in Michigan to screen a feature-length talking picture when it showed “The Jazz Singer” at the end of 1927. It closed in 1984. The last movie shown was “The Dead Zone,” and the title remained on the marquee for years.
Here is a shot of the remains of the lobby taken by David Kohrman of the excellent forgottendetroit.com, just before the space was razed in 2000.
The remains of the staircase in the lobby of the Madison Theatre, 2000 (David Kohrman)
It’s a little blurry, but here is a view of the lobby in its heyday.
The Madison in its prime
Lastly, here is a fuller view of the exterior around the time the snapshot would have been taken, although the marquee is slightly different.
Detroit's Madison Theatre, circa 1920s
The building that housed the theater seems to be doing well. According to a story on CBS Detroit from earlier this year, “the 1917-vintage Madison Theatre Building — now rechristened The M@dison by its new owner, Dan Gilbert and his Rock Ventures LLC — has been given a spectacular $12 million makeover into some of the coolest work space anywhere.” Coincidentally, the same year the theater space was demolished, the Detroit Tigers’ new stadium, Comerica Park, opened up nearby, and they say there is a great view of the ballpark from the upper floors. That sounds pretty good, but I can’t help envying the women in the snapshot, who could have gone to see Ty Cobb at the old Tiger Stadium (known as Navin Field in that era) – perhaps that very afternoon.
Vintage Snapshots 