  |
Hudson's department store was once the linchpin of Detroit life;
shuttered in 1983, the 25-story building is scheduled to come
down this month.
(Photo by Detroit Historical Museum)
| Both a repository of Detroit's collective memory and an emblem
of its decline, Hudson's department store is doomed to demolition. by Kristin Palm As a teenager in the 1930s, Shirley Smith often spent all day in the sprawling 25-story J.L. Hudson's department store on Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit. She might start out in Ladies' Gloves, elbow perched on a velvet cushion, as a saleswoman fitted her for the newest style. Then she would visit the millinery department, where her aunt worked, the gift shop on the mezzanine, and the music department, where she sampled records for hours on end. What she remembers most is that the saleswomen always acted as if she were their only customer. She received the same treatment years later, when she purchased her wedding dress there. "It was a nice feeling to go into that store--from the minute you went in to the minute you went out," Smith recalls. "I thought it was very special." Janese Chapman's memories of the store are very different. In the 1960s, Chapman's mother applied for a job as a clerk at Hudson's. With several college courses behind her, she was overqualified. Still, she was refused the position. The unspoken reason, Chapman says, was because her mother, an African American, couldn't pass the "paper bag test"--her skin wasn't light enough. While many young African American women worked as elevator operators at Hudson's (in 1960 none other than Diana Ross became the first African American bus girl in the basement cafeteria), they were never seen on the selling floor. So while Chapman's mother could shop there, times would have to change before she could work behind the counter. By the 1970s, the store had made strides to eliminate such discrimination. Chapman frequented the store then, although not so much to shop as to socialize. She compares the store to a similar social hub today. "I guess it was our mall," she says. Both the positive and negative aspects of her Hudson's experiences have left their mark. "It's a part of my history and my sense of place in the city of Detroit," Chapman observes. "It helps to define who I am and how I grew up, not only for me but for my family." Hudson's has represented different things to different people, but there was one thing on which everyone could agree: Hudson's wasn't in downtown Detroit--it was downtown Detroit. So when the company vacated its headquarters and flagship store in 1983, claiming it could no longer compete with suburban shopping malls, the rest of downtown went with it. Over the last 15 years, the area bounded by Interstate 75 to the north and the Detroit River to the south has become an uninviting amalgam of office buildings, dollar stores, hot dog restaurants, and wig shops--all languishing in the shadow of Hudson's, the symbol of one of the most notorious episodes of urban decay in America's history. Even empty, the significance of the J.L. Hudson's Building, for better or for worse, is not lost on Detroiters. To some, it is a reminder of the entire city's tragic decline. For others, as long as the building remains, downtown may have lost its grandeur, but not its soul. "It was a mecca," observes Michael Hauser, a former Hudson's employee and curator of "Remembering Hudson's," an exhibit at the Detroit Historical Museum up through the end of the year. "The store is closed, but people still see that building as their Rock of Gibraltar." With ground broken for new baseball and football stadiums, plans in place for three casinos, and the successful renovation of several theaters, many believe downtown Detroit is poised for rebirth. What better way to complete the picture, say some, than to turn Hudson's into the business district's thriving center once again. The mammoth brown-brick building, which encompasses a full city block, was constructed between 1910 and 1946. With eight-foot windows, 13-foot ceilings, parking inside, and an infrastructure that is (in the words of one developer) as "solid as the Pyramids," it would make an ideal residential and commercial loft project, according to a group known as the Lower Woodward Housing Coalition. But city officials don't see it that way. "Developers have indicated that they had no interest in developing downtown with an adjoining Hudson's Building," says Rob Millard, Hudson's site project manager for the city's Downtown Development Authority (DDA). So the building--all 2.2 million square feet of it--is slated to come down. The politics surrounding the planned demolition are convoluted. Two years ago, the Greater Downtown Partnership (GDP), a private, nonprofit organization formed by Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer and composed primarily of high-power corporate executives, purchased the building, with plans to sell it to the quasi-public DDA; the authority, in turn, would demolish it using city funds. The GDP brought a demolition request before the city council in early 1997, despite a lack of public plans for the site. The council initially postponed a vote until a public hearing could be held. A week later, following closed-door meetings with the mayor's office and the GDP, the council voted to allow the demolition. (The city estimates demolition will cost taxpayers $15 million; some critics' figures reach $30 million.) Since the GDP acquired the building, at least two developers with successful, large-scale rehabilitation projects under their belts have stepped forward with renovation proposals. Architects Randy Alexander of Madison, Wisconsin, and David Tryba of Denver both proposed mixed-use developments for Hudson's. Both times, the GDP said no thanks. Even star power couldn't sway the organization--Tryba's client was Arnold Schwarzenegger's company, Grand American. Now, crews are working seven days a week on demolition preparation. While the implosion date is not yet certain, newspaper accounts say the building could be leveled as early as this month. If that occurs, Tryba warns, the city will have literally blown a prime opportunity. Not only is the building culturally and architecturally significant, he says, but it's an incredible economic asset, due in part to its eligibility for historic tax credits. "They'll get the building half down and they'll realize what a horrible crime they've committed," Tryba predicts. "This would be the most economically viable project one could imagine, because of its 20 percent tax credits and the value of the existing structure and foundation. Rather than taking a year to implode the building and haul the materials to a landfill, the city could spend a year introducing new uses and restoring the outside. Instead, they'll have a massive hole in the ground." Blair McGowan, a member of the Lower Woodward Housing Coalition and an owner of Historic St. Andrew's Hall, a downtown church turned nightclub, agrees. "When you're as far down as Detroit is, you cannot blow golden opportunities," he says. "Hudson's is one of the great redevelopment opportunities in America." The psychological implications of renovation must also be considered, says Shawn Santo, editor of the Detroit-centric Left Bank magazine and founder of the coalition. "To recover the building would be monumental. It has such deep cultural significance to at least three generations of metro Detroiters," she says. "It's not just personal memories that are important, it's about a collective memory. You can't ignore that when thinking about good city-making." Chapman, who works for the city's Historic Designation Advisory Board, concurs: "Every city has a landmark and I don't know what that becomes in Detroit. What becomes our common landmark? What becomes the common place that we all identify with?" Tryba says he's bewildered by the city's inability to see the existing landmark as the linchpin of downtown's resurgence. "It's astounding," he says. "While cities like San Francisco are begging developers to come and redevelop their buildings, Detroit says, 'We're not interested in talking to you, and we're going to rip the thing down.' It makes no sense at all." |
Keywords:
demolition, Detroit, Hudson's department store, downtown
