In Detroit’s heyday, the Eastown Theatre was one of the most elaborate movie palaces
in the city. Opened in 1931, the theatre was part of a yellow brick complex that included
a ballroom, retail stores and apartments – a combination that was unheard of at that
time. The buildings unusual façade included terra cotta masks of comedic and tragic
figures. Originally intended for movies, the lavish 2,500-seat theater also contained
a stage, used many years later when the building became a performing arts centre.
The Eastown was a movie theatre until 1967. It reopened in 1969 with its first rock
concert. Many of the rock stars of the time, including The Who, Fleetwood Mac,
Jefferson Airplane, Cream and Alice Cooper, performed at the Eastown. In 1971, it was
closed by city order after it became an unmanageable hang out for drug dealers.
It reopened in 1976 for a short stint as a jazz club. After intermittent use as an adult
movie house in the 1980s, it became the home for the Detroit Centre of Performing Arts.
They hoped to restore the theatre and ballroom but this floundered and the theatre
closed again in the mid-‘90s. The building was taken over by a church group that tried
to sell the theatre. By 2009, they had all but abandoned the property after a fire broke out
in the apartments. It became a home for scrappers, vandals, and thieves. Chandeliers,
light fixtures, metal railings, wiring – anything of value was taken.
In 2010, a fire reduced the apartments to rubble. In early 2014, scrappers cut through the
theatre’s roof beams. The ceiling collapsed. This is probably the last straw for a grand
movie palace.
