The building on the right with the big sign is Summerfield & Hecht, a furniture store opened to cater to the Detroit's growing blue collar population. They were among the first stores to introduce paying using the installment plan -- they billed themselves as the "House of Dignified Credit". The building burned in 1929; they reopened a week later in a new storefront, by buying out a competitor's inventory. Just three months later, they sold out all their stores to another competitor -- just before the Wall Street crash.

But being a Mason, he probably would have been eligible to do so.

It's good to see the (rival?) GAR building come into view: Apparently camera shy, it was just out of range in an earlier post.

Thanks, Dave, for all the pictures of old Detroit. I have been studying them, trying to recognize some building or other, but I'm not old enough at 74 and most of them were gone by the time I was old enough to care. I do remember old City Hall, mainly because of all the fuss made about tearing it down when I was a kid. This note will concentrate on two of the buildings in this most recent shot.

I barely remember the Gayety Theater but not at this location. This must have been an earlier location of the Gayety because it was located at Cadillac Square, which was east of Woodward. Because of the way the major streets run in the photo this is obviously west of Woodward. The "newer" Gayety was built in 1912 and torn down in 1958 (I don't really remember but I looked it up). I was only seven at that time, but I remember going downtown with my dad and going past it and no, he never took me there (darn).

I think more interestingly, the GAR building is in this shot. It was built in 1899 and still exists. It's located on Grand River, the street running NW/SE at the far right. It has turrets with battlements on top, so it looks a little like a castle. The Grand Army of the Republic association, created in 1866 right after the Civil War, was like the American Legion of its time. There were GAR buildings all over the country. They gave the vets a place to go and be with their peers and hang out. I won't go into any more detail, but you can read more about this building here.