And now for the MacDaddy of all club houses, the worlds largest Masonic Temple, Detroit Michigan. Built in 1922 by George D. Mason. It is indeed a place of superlatives, derived from the gilded age fortunes of Detroits industrial elite, who happened to be Masons. The nearly 5000 seat Masonic Temple Theatre, as well as several others, including the Jack White Theatre are housed within its walls, along with dozens of meeting rooms, a massive clear-span drill hall measuring 100 x 160 feet, smoking rooms, swimming pool, bowling alley, a barber shop, billards hall, and two enormous and magnificent ballrooms, one measuring in at over 17,000 square feet, and seating over 1000. Standing 16 stories and with 1037 rooms, the elite of Detroit society were members, from the earlier 19th century incarnation of the societys club house, to this more modern, and now nearly century old Gothic revival structure. Henry Ford I and other car company founders were relatively new members of this club, at the turn of the last century, alongside various lumber and railroad barons, industrialists in marine engines, paint, varnish, carriages, stoves, steel, who left a giant Detroit footprint on Americas industrial age. I like to think of this most ungainly, and in some measure, unfinished building, as a metaphor for the citys past, its present, and its future.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 22:49:38 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015