A Rare Look Inside Ford Auditorium
The Detroit city council voted this week to put the brakes on plans to tear down Ford Auditorium because council members want to nail down future plans for the property before they let the wrecking ball swing.
What has become of the downtown venue since the symphony moved out more than two decades ago? Detroit 2020 got a chance to go inside for a rare look at the empty Ford Auditorium.
Ford Auditorium opened in 1955 as the home of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Set on a prime piece of riverfront property, the auditorium was built with money raised by the Ford family and local Ford and Mercury dealers. But today, after many attempts to save it, it sits vacant.
Detroit 2020 cameras were allowed into Ford Auditorium recently. Hints of its grandeur remain to this day and you can almost hear the sounds of the symphony, but years of abandonment and a brief stint as a warming shelter have left it cold, dark, and littered.
Martin Luther King spoke at Ford Auditorium and it was the site of Malcolm X’s last major speech before his murder, but the acoustics in the auditorium were never well-designed for classical music performances. So in 1989, the symphony moved back to a remodeled Orchestra Hall and the once-grand auditorium began its slow decline.
Today the floor of the stage is buckled in places, pieces of the curtain lay shredded on the floor, but the rigging remains intact. The lights look like they could shine at any moment and a specially built organ may still have some rich notes to share.
Over the past two decades, there’s been talk of using the building for an aquarium, or a bank headquarters, but those plans never materialized. For one year it was used as a city warming center and here are indications it is still serving that purpose in an unofficial way.
There is a proposal that the land be used to build a 5,000 seat amphitheater, but for now the Ford Auditorium continues to sit and await its fate.
Ford Auditorium, which has been vacant for 20 years and needs to be razed! It’s a relic from a bt gone era and it’s an eyesore to the development going on with the River Walk. It cost the taxpayers $600,000-plus a year to maintain and that’s money that could be well spent on something else. And other than being used as a warming shelter during the winter it has absolutely no use. It’s estimated that razing it would cost $750,000. Well, in two years, at a savings $600,000-plus a year, it would be pay for the cost of demolishing it. And for the sentimental preservationist, my son’s graduating class held its commencement there, Bishop Borgess class 88. But it’s only a memory. So, write about Ford Auditorium’s storied past, make a scale model of it, place it in the Detroit Historical Museum and play, “Thanks for the Memories.”
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Tear it down already! The vacant land would look better than the current structure that sits vacant now. I attended my friends high school graduation in 1988 (Redford High School) at Ford Auditorium. I even recall seeing the DSO perform there during the 70′s or 80′s when I was in grade school. There’s nothing about the place that said “Greatness” to me. This place pales in comparison to Orchestra Hall, the Opera House or The Fox Theatre. Detroit has no need for Ford Auditorium today. It should have been razed 15 years ago.
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Where are the photos?
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Lily Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 7:22 pm
This seems like a pretty good video for the inside. There are some pictures of the inside of the auditorium at http://www.thebigdetroit.com.
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Ford Auditorium could be used to host weddings, small plays, dance groups, ect. It needs to be remodeled and utilized to bring additional revenue to the City.
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The Edsel and Eleanor Ford Auditorium has hosted many famous entertainers as well as been the venue for many commencements. The old TV show TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES with Bob Barker spent a week there back in the day. My wife and I saw the MANHATTAN TRANSFER perform there. But, that was then. Once Hizzoner, Coleman A. Young, ticked off the Ford family, that meant the end of Ford Auditorium, Ford’s involvement in RenCen and any other involvement in Detroit. The building should have been razed then. This city is GREAT at letting buildings tear themselves down (Packard Plant, Michigan Central Depot, countless movie houses and factories, Tiger Stadium, Cass Tech and houses and strip malls all over). The only folks who would be disappointed with Ford Auditorium going away are the homeless and the security guard who is supposed to be watching the property. Then, an indicted man might get the contract! If the Red Wings get their new arena, the Joe Louis Arena will join the list of abandoned hulks and the Auto Show will leave town. Detroit duplicates the same silly garbage over and over.
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I grew up with the Ford Auditorium. I enjoyed every chance I had to spend there throughout the decades. I was devastated to return to Detroit only to discover that yet another childhood memory and great gift to our city had been abandoned and left to slowly waste away. I cried at the loss of the Hudson Building downtown where I spent many years shopping and enjoying the Christmas season. Now, yet another historical building is being tossed aside like so much trash. How dare they do such a thing, especially to a gift to our city from such a prominent figure. It is similar to blocking the Detroit River! I dislike and despise the way our city throws away such precious gems. One day, people will look back and wish several buildings and icons still stood in our city for our posterity to enjoy as much as we did.
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Yep, Detroit’s answer to all treasured architecture….don’t deal with it for years then level it to rid of the “problem.”
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DIANE HAMPTON Reply:
March 22nd, 2011 at 6:46 pm
I CAN’T REMEMBER THE AUDITORIUM WHEN IT WAS IN IT”S HEYDAY,BUT I THINK THAT IF IT IS SAVABLE, AND DOESN’T COST A LOT OF MONEY TO RENOVATE, IT COULD BE A NICE COMBINATION OF MUSUEM, SHOPS, AND ANOTHER STORY ON TOP OF THE PRESENT DAY STRUCTURE COULD BE A BEAUTIFUL NIGHT SPOT (RESTAURANT/CLUB), GLASS VIEW OF THE RIVERWALK FOR ANOTHER HALF OF A CENTURY FULL OF WONDERFUL MEMORIES FOR
DETROIT CITIZENS AS WELL AS VISITORS TO THIS AREA. CROSS OUR FINGERS!
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Since the state of Michigan caused the deficit inDetroit Public Schools with state appointed Kenneth Burnley and Robert Bobb the state needs to accept responsibility and forgive or pay off the Detroit Public School Deficit. There would be no need for an EFM to take over the Detroit Public Schools if the state would own up to making a mistake in taking over Detroit Public Schools, The state of Michigan created the crises in DPS and the students, employees and citizens are being asked to correct the state’s incompetence, Detroit continues to get separate and unequal treatment. Mayor Bing said that if an EFM were appointed for the city of Detroit it would be devastating and upset the citizens. We are already upset that we have had to endure a takeover and the appointment of an EFM for our schools. Why is it OK to violate the rights of the citizens in Detroit???????? The state needs to pay its debt to Detroit Public Schools
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I’m 77, and used to go to Merrill Palmer around 1960. Every chance I got I went to hear the Detroit
symphony under Paul Paray. He was superb in French music.
The building itself — Ford Auditorium — was quite beautiful. The acoustics, however, were not perfect, although they were improved.
The present home of the DSO was a dance hall or something — I think it was called the Paradise
Ballroom. Dime a dance place. Somehow, someone got together the money to redo the old Fox
theater, so that it rebuilt as the original Orchestra hall. And they did it. I’ve never been there. I don’t
like to go to downtown Detroit. When I came up here in 1958, Detroit was a vibrant, if not pretty town.I guess that things are improving, but I just find the place depressing.
Strictly my opinion: It seems to me that the people who run Detroit are really systematically trying to ruin the place. I don’t know why, and I won’t at my age.
Still, Detroit is located on potentially and historically important land. I’m sure that in a few tens of years, things will get rebuilt. It’s my opinion (strictly mine) that the reason for the exodus from Detroit was due to the John Lodge expressway, giving people a fast way to the suburbs.
So, good luck to Detroit. I now live in Ypsilanti, and it is a nice, if not glorious, town. And I wish that they hadn’t come up with the idea of tearing down that beautiful auditorium.
Jerry O’Dell
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