Michigan Building (Detroit, Michigan)

 movie / film / TV location, 1926_construction, parking garage

Better known as the Michigan Theater and featured in the movies "8 Mile", and "The Island", this theater opened in 1926 (on the site of the garage where Henry Ford built his first automobile, which was moved to the Henry Ford museum) and was originally a palatial theater that could seat 4,000 people. It eventually changed hands several times and by the 1970s was a nightclub and concert venue. In 1976, it was permanently closed and partially demolished. Due to problems with the structural integrity of adjoining office building, the main hall and lobby were gutted and converted into a parking structure.

Cars, Detroit's primary industrial product, now fill the once-bustling theater, and the derelict remains (it still contains many remnants of the old theatre: the curtain, decorative elements in the ceiling and walls, and backstage utilities are still intact) have, for many historians, become a symbol of the decline of Detroit.

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