Mr. Midtown Risin

While out and about on foot in the New Center area late one night, I was arrested by the sight of something I did not expect. Through a storefront window my girl and I noticed that a recently gutted building had been hiding a secret...

It sorta looked like an old ballroom or theater used to be in here, but Sanborn maps of the area from 1921 just show a row of unnamed storefronts here. The old address used to be 1508-1510 Woodward (current address is 6534-6536 Woodward). Local architecture guru Benjamin Gravel says that the c.1920 Polk's Detroit City Directory lists Woodward Trunk & Bag Co. as the occupant.

A lot of the buildings in this strip have been purchased by a California investor, heralding the gentrification of New Center, and the northern expansion of Midtown™. Since 2007 (which is as far back as Google Streetview goes) this storefront housed a string of businesses on either side, including Angeles Fashion, Rock-N-Soul (Fashion That Rocks!), Celebrity Apparel, Instant Tax Service, and Hilal Books & Imports...pretty much in that order.

Hilal Books is still in the area, having moved a few blocks west to the basement of an apartment building next to that one French restaurant.

My girl was getting wound up to do a triple-roundhouse karate kick to blow out the front window so that we could go in and have our way with the place, but just then a busload of nuns pulled up to the stop light and shamed us out of it with some very stern finger-wagging. Our innate Catholic guilt kicked in and we decided to behave.

Just a reminder, everything you read here on nailhed.com is totally 100% factual ;)

For what it's worth, my girl handles most of the B&E and kung-fu needs pursuant to nailhed.com, as well as making a pecan pie so damn good it'll make you slap ya momma...two times. I'm just The Hand That Writes and Quickly Moves Away.

References:
Sanborn Map Vol. 3, Sheet 111 (1921)
Google Streetview