  Marshall Member Username: Marshall Post Number: 24 Registered: 09-2008 |
I don't know why I suddenly thought of posting this! Back in 1968, the area around the Stone, The Colonial, and the Roxy on Woodward wad getting kind of (kind of?) seedy. While apprenticing for local 199 of the projectionists union, one of my first jobs was the Stone. They showed movies and had a couple stage shows, for which I ran the spotlight. I remember that if I was running a spot, and the vice squad would comy by, the cashier would press a button and a light would come on in my booth. It signaled me to put a blue color on the girls, which told them not to "flash". To those not in the know, to "flash" meant to quickly pull down their panties. If I was showing movies and got the signal, that told me to quickly turn to the third projector, which had "clean" film loaded. Of course by today's standards, even our "dirtiest" of pictures would probably be R rated. The Colonial was cool in that every day the janitor would come in and move all of the people in the audience to the left side of the house so he could mop. When he finished, he woke them up and moved them to the right side of the house so he could finish the job. The manager sold hot merchandise out ot the lobby at the Roxy. Supposedly someone died at the Colonial once and no one knew until they turned on the lights for their twice a month maintenance. - He couldn't have been there too long because we would have surely known by the odor. (apart from the other normal smells of the place). Another cool thing was watching the Detroit Tigers 1968 celebration along woodward from the roof of the Colonial Cool memories of a time long past. Those places are leveled now. It was fun while it lasted. (Message edited by marshall on January 28, 2009) | ||
Eastsideal Member Username: Eastsideal Post Number: 233 Registered: 10-2007 |
I remember the place, and the Roxy, which was actually pretty nice looking from the outside. Must've been, ummmm, interesting to work there. I always loved this evocative picture of the Stone:  Comes from this site: http://www.waterwinterwonderland.com/location.asp?id=766&type=5 | ||
The_rock Member Username: The_rock Post Number: 1503 Registered: 11-2003 |
The Stone I remember, same for the Colonial. But the Roxy does not ring a bell. At least not as a "movie house". Where was it? I recall we represented the Roxy Bar which was up Woodward toward Peterboro from the Stone, really a dump, but they had liability insurance at the time and that got us into the lawsuit. Some guy got tossed out of the Roxy Bar onto the sidewalk for God knows what reason, so he brought suit for his "injuries" and , of course "emotional stress". | ||
Marshall Member Username: Marshall Post Number: 25 Registered: 09-2008 |
The Colonial was about a block north of the Stone, and the Roxy was about a block north of the Colonial. The Fine Arts, another 24 hour house was accross Woodward from the Roxy (or there abouts). I worked there too. | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 1154 Registered: 04-2006 |
The Fine Arts is still standing, correct? | ||
Rustic Member Username: Rustic Post Number: 1160 Registered: 10-2003 |
... ahhh the good old days ... | ||
Dannyv Member Username: Dannyv Post Number: 528 Registered: 08-2007 |
Isn't the Fine Arts in the same location as the recently shuttered Club Bleu? | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 6072 Registered: 08-2004 |
No Bleu used to be known as the Tele-Arts back in the 1990's. It originally opened up in 1942 as a continuous news reel theatre known as the Tele-News. | ||
Eastsideal Member Username: Eastsideal Post Number: 237 Registered: 10-2007 |
Nope, that's the Tele-News (aka Plaza, aka Tele-Arts) which is on Woodward just south of Grand Circus. The Fine Arts is on Woodward north of the Fisher Fwy. http://www.waterwinterwonderla nd.com/location.asp?ID=592&typ e=5&noinfo=true | ||
Navi Member Username: Navi Post Number: 22 Registered: 09-2005 |
Wow that Burlesk sign is badass. Anyone know when this was demolished? | ||
Rustic Member Username: Rustic Post Number: 1162 Registered: 10-2003 |
Marshall, someone else a while back on this forum mentioned being a projectionist in an adult theater, not the ones you mentioned but AIR one of the ones way up Woodward at McNichols. | ||
Eastsideal Member Username: Eastsideal Post Number: 238 Registered: 10-2007 |
quote: Sometime shortly after this happened:  I believe it was torn down in the late '80s. | ||
Xd_brklyn Member Username: Xd_brklyn Post Number: 366 Registered: 10-2003 |
From the waterwinterwonderland comments, here's a photo of the burlesk in the background. http://detroitfirefighters.net /images/TMU-1%20Woodward.JPG What was the cross street in the photo and the tall building about five buildings north of the Stone Theater? Thanks. | ||
Rsa Member Username: Rsa Post Number: 932 Registered: 10-2003 |
i would say henry street based on the address, but i'm having trouble naming those tall buildings. the photo appears to be less than 30 years old, but the area is now completely unrecognizable. | ||
Gnome Member Username: Gnome Post Number: 2270 Registered: 08-2007 |
believe it or not, the Stone Burlesk has its own Myspace page. In fact, it seems that the place is kinda famous ... http://profile.myspace.com/ind ex.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewpro file&friendid=105343030 weird. | ||
Eastsideal Member Username: Eastsideal Post Number: 239 Registered: 10-2007 |
It is Henry St. The building that the fire truck is parked in front of was the building directly behind the Donovan/Motown Building at the Fisher Fwy. corner. That building was also part of Motown, and the boarded record shop just barely visible at the left of the photo was the Motor Town Music Box, Motown's record store. The tall building in the background, which was at Woodward and Sibley, is the Hoffman Building. It once housed labor and leftist organizations, including the UAW and the CIO. It was the first major office building in Detroit to admit blacks, although the building owners had to be sued to gain that access. It is probably most famous, though, for its demolition. It was one of the first buildings in Detroit demolished by dynamite sometime in the early '80s. The wizards charged with blowing it up set off the charges and then watched as the building did nothing. A few hours later though, after they had left, the building collapsed onto the West Detroiter Bar next door crushing it. | ||
Xd_brklyn Member Username: Xd_brklyn Post Number: 367 Registered: 10-2003 |
Eastdeal, thanks again. | ||
Sharms Member Username: Sharms Post Number: 79 Registered: 07-2007 |
I graduated from high school in 1963 and a bunch of my buddies and I went downtown to the Gayety Burlesk which I believe was on Woodward. We were 17 or 18 at the time and had our two bucks and tried to look as old as we could so we wouldnt get turned down at the door. What a dump....small seating area and some burned out women taking off their clothes. What I remember most was some Frankenstein-looking guy who sat on the corner of the stage....kind of a bouncer I guess. If my parents only knew....going there was akin to driving to Toledo for beer. | ||
Marshall Member Username: Marshall Post Number: 28 Registered: 09-2008 |
Wasn't there a comic at the Gaety or the National called Scurvy Jones or something like that. I think they also used to go down the aisles and sell little viewfinder things. In 1967, the Northland Playhouse did "The Best of Burkesk" with Sherry Britton, who at 65 still looked teriffic (at least from the spotlite booth under colored lights). | ||
Rsa Member Username: Rsa Post Number: 933 Registered: 10-2003 |
wow eastside; thanks. that's before my time, so i had no i dea about that block. it never ceases to amaze me the density and height that have been whittled away over the years. any idea why they tore down the hoffman building? excerpt from an elmore leonard book: quote: | ||
Eastsideal Member Username: Eastsideal Post Number: 241 Registered: 10-2007 |
quote: Same as everything else. Empty, old, and purportedly in the way. This was back during the Young administration when the plan was to tear down the southern Cass Corridor for a giant flower garden (no joke). | ||
Eastsideal Member Username: Eastsideal Post Number: 242 Registered: 10-2007 |
A little further up that strip on Woodward, closer to Orchestra Hall if memory serves, was the Artison Studios, Detroit's last taxi dance place. I believe it was open until about 1980. I had a good friend who was a semi-regular patron and I was in there once. Interesting place in a sad sort of way. Anyone else remember this joint? | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 1743 Registered: 12-2006 |
OK, the Prof is not as old as he thought. "Taxi dance"? Please elaborate. | ||
Bigb23 Member Username: Bigb23 Post Number: 3529 Registered: 11-2007 |
"Taxi Dance", was a dance hall where you bought a ticket to dance with a pretty girl/woman for a couple of songs. The women would cash in their tickets at the end of the night for cash. (Minus a house cut, of course). They had them in San Diego in the 1970's for the "Squids" and "Jarheads". | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 1155 Registered: 04-2006 |
quote:While logic would dictate that at some point that long stretch of empty land along Woodward contained something, it's still pretty shocking to see relatively recent photographic evidence of it. I've walked that stretch of Woodward a million times, but I don't recognize a single thing in that picture. | ||
Douglasm Member Username: Douglasm Post Number: 770 Registered: 10-2003 |
Was the Artison the place with the neon sign in the window that said: "Men, if you've got the lettuce, we've got the tomatoes"? "Lettuce" was in green neon, "Tomatoes" was in red. Didn't the Roxy have a vertical sign on the roof similar to the Fox? | ||
Lpg Member Username: Lpg Post Number: 111 Registered: 02-2008 |
Was'nt the Empress Burlesk also on Woodward ? I remember going to the National in the mid-60's with some of my high school friends. Dark sunglasses and a cigarette hanging out of the corner of my mouth avoided the need to show ID. I remember the baggy pants comedians. | ||
Lpg Member Username: Lpg Post Number: 112 Registered: 02-2008 |
I also remember the advertisements in the Detroit News, Free Press movie sections for the various burlesk houses in Detroit. They were always listed last in the lower corner of the page. | ||
56packman Member Username: 56packman Post Number: 2426 Registered: 12-2005 |
Yes, Scurvey Miller was a regular "baggy pants" comic at the Gayety. a good friend of mine started his career in IATSE there before going on to more dignified stagehouses. Marshall-did you work any other houses in the city? | ||
Barnesfoto Member Username: Barnesfoto Post Number: 3551 Registered: 10-2003 |
great stories! keep em coming! | ||
Eastsideal Member Username: Eastsideal Post Number: 245 Registered: 10-2007 |
quote: Correct. There were once several of them in Detroit, back when the city had a disproportionately large population of single men who had come from elsewhere to work in the auto plants. In addition to Douglasm's sign, they still had neon advertising a dime-a-dance. Once you got inside though, you found that the price had risen a bit over the years. I was 19 when I was in there, and my friend and I must've been the youngest people in the place (dancers included) by 10 years or more. The Artison was an old dark musty place with a lot of dim corners. In fine Detroit fashion a small extra tip could get one a little more action than dancing in one of those corners. | ||
Marshall Member Username: Marshall Post Number: 29 Registered: 09-2008 |
Hi 56Pacman! I worked at tons of theaters! Downtown was the Plaza (TelNews), Family (old Broadway Capitol), Palms, and Fine Arts. Worked the West Side drive-in, the Miracle Mile, Pontiac, on and on and on. I even did a stint as a news editor and in telecine at WXYZ and briefly worked for Local 38 as a stage hand. | ||
Gnome Member Username: Gnome Post Number: 2278 Registered: 08-2007 |
 scurvy Miller | ||
Sharms Member Username: Sharms Post Number: 80 Registered: 07-2007 |
I worked at Crowleys in the summer between high school and college. I would go across Monroe to a tiny lunch counter owned by a couple of Greek brothers. It was right next door to the National Burlesk. More often then not, a couple of the "dancers" would be in there having coffee before or after their shifts. Being around 18, I was quite enthralled. Someone posted a picture not too long ago of the National and I could see the tiny lunch counter just to the right of the theater. Lots of memories. | ||
Bobl Member Username: Bobl Post Number: 434 Registered: 07-2008 |
Great stories! I met an "older" woman at the Grande Ballroom (probably about 28 or 30 years old) when I had just turned eighteen. Thought she was sophisticated and worldly. Taught me a lot. She made a living as a taxi dancer and was studying to become a pharmacist. She said her job was more like a psychologist than anything else. "They tell me their problems, I tell them they will be OK." There were a lot of sad, old men there the one time I came by to pick her up from work.... | ||
Xd_brklyn Member Username: Xd_brklyn Post Number: 369 Registered: 10-2003 |
"Laugh-In" and Detroit burlesque? You follow this forum and it seems like everything leads back to Detroit. From Dick Martin's intro to The Best Burlesque Sketches: I was a little young to be in Burlesque but not too young to enjoy it. I was raised in Detroit where we had three Burlesque houses: the National, the Gaiety, and the Empress. I'm sure I went to see the ladies take their clothes off, but I ended up falling in love with comedy--the sketches performed by guys like Billy "Zoot" Reed, West and Lexing, and Scurvy Miller |
