12719 Gratiot Avenue
The Franklin Theater, The Guild Theatre, The Guild Art Theatre
The Franklin Theater was built around 1926 in Detroit’s Gratiot-Findlay neighborhood. It was one of the dozens of neighborhood theatres that dotted Detroit’s vibrant and expanding landscape. It was a small theatre; however, it would remain open significantly longer than most others in the Motor City.
In 1934, 7-year-old Marian Jackman walked to the Franklin to see a matinee. When she didn’t return home, her parents worried and called the police. After a neighborhood sweep, officers went to the theatre and found Marian asleep inside, still in her seat.
By 1951, there was an advert in the Detroit Free Press to purchase or lease the Franklin. The ad said it would work well for a church, had 550 seats, was air-conditioned, and was fireproof. I’m not certain if it sold.
On September 27, 1956, a fire occurred in the projection room. The projectionist then was 23-year-old Carroll M. Gates, who said the film burst into flames when removed from the machine. They fled the booth and ran, and the film landed on the stairs after they opened the door.
Fires in projection rooms were relatively common because celluloid, which movie film used to be made of, is extraordinarily flammable. Luckily, the fire was contained to the projection room and the stairs. In the 1950s, celluloid films were discontinued.
On Thursday, March 8, 1962, the Franklin Theater was no more, and the Guild Theatre was born. Albert Dezel opened it with the intent to show art and foreign films. The capacity was modernized, which meant larger seats, cutting the capacity to 300. Dezel also ran the Surf, Coronet, and Art Theatres.
Within a year or two, the line between art film and nudie pictures started to become blurred, and the Guild would start showing ‘strictly for adults’ movies. As time went on, the shows got raunchier and raunchier. By the 1990s, the theatre was open from 8 AM to 12 midnight on Friday and Saturday. Advertisements say there was a ‘couples room,’ which, to put things simply, is terrifying. There were peeping booths, too.
Various places online say that the Guild closed in the early 2000s. Melody Real Estate, Inc. was operating the theatre by 1993, and that company was dissolved in 1999. Like other structures in Detroit, it was vandalized, scrapped, and mother nature started to take its toll.
At some point, KNR Holdings, LLC came into ownership of the theatre. The letters started to fall off the top of the marquee, pieces began to fall off the structure, and the facade became a canvas for graffiti artists. In 2021, the Guild was sold to Rashawn Jamil Raban for $60,000.
According to a Detroit BSEED document from September 2022, a demolition order was placed on November 14, 2002. I’m curious if the year was miswritten or if it skated by this long without getting torn down. Raban applied for a deferral, but the Property Maintenance Division recommended that it be denied. Their report read that “the property continues to be open to trespass and/or not maintained.”
When I was there yesterday, the structure had been secured. I’m not sure if it’s been taken off the demolition list—but the marquee has been cleaned up, the lower half has been repainted, and the billboards on the roof have been recently updated. A flock of pigeons has taken to living in the old marquee, leaving a heaping pile of poop on the sidewalk below.
I’m unsure what the current owner’s plans for the Guild are, but I hope they include restoration. Probably, at the least, a deep cleaning for the bird poop and human fluids.