3588 McKinley Street
Norris Market
3588 McKinley Street may look unassuming, but it has a history of groceries, robberies, shootouts, and blood.
The structure was built around 1900 and features first-floor retail and two apartments. During a significant portion of its lifetime, it was a grocery store. Unfortunately, that shop was robbed multiple times.
In January of 1932, Charles Baunis was robbed at a grocery located at 3588 McKinley Street. $6 was taken. In 2022, that’s over $125.
In 1957, two armed men robbed Norris Market at 3588 McKinley. Lloyd Norris ran the shop. The two assailants stole $70 and booked it down the street with their loot. Norris chased after them with a shotgun and unloaded his weapon. The men weren’t caught, but Norris hit one of the robbers in the neck. In 2022 terms, the bandit got away with over $700.
In 1959, the store was once again the scene of a robbery-turned-shooting. The Detroit Free Press reported that on Sunday, November 1st, 1959, four teenagers stole a car in southwest Detroit’s Chadsey Condon neighborhood. They took the car to a confectionary on Lawndale, and one boy pretended to have a gun, and another watched the door.
Unbeknownst to the boys, their commotion had been heard by the woman behind the register’s husband in the attached apartment. He grabbed onto the boy pretending he had a gun, and his wife hit him with a baseball bat. The boy at the door ran but was later arrested at his home, and another accomplice turned himself in with his parents at 3 AM.
The last minor continued with his mischief, breaking the glass on the front door of the building pictured here, 3588 McKinley Street. It was still Norris Market and run by Lloyd Norris. The sound of breaking glass awoke him in the attached apartment, so he peeked inside to see a dark figure looming over the cash register. Norris returned with a shotgun and fired at the intruder. He hit the boy, who ran, later stumbling onto the porch of a home roughly a half mile away, crying for help.
One of the boys later said their crime spree was fueled by drinking beer and wine on a Sunday afternoon. The news of the crime spree was important enough to land on the second front page of the Tuesday paper.
After that robbery, I didn’t find much else about 3588 McKinley.
In 2006, the current owner, Mr. Wright, put the building up for sale. His listing in the Detroit Free Press stated that it was vacant and that the deal included an extra lot adjacent. He was hoping to sell it for $50,000, or best offer.
Today, the building has shed its decorative awnings and remains in poor shape. The front of the structure has the address spray painted on and ‘w/off,’ which means that the city has disconnected it from its water service.
Around 2018, a mural was painted on the Magnolia side of the structure. It features various anime, cartoon, and video game characters, including Deku Link from Majora’s Mask, Mega Man, a Gundam robot, San from Princess Mononoke, an Inkling from Splatoon, One-Punch Man, and others. It appears to have been painted with some connection to the Motor City Street Dance Academy, Allied Media Projects, and Youmacon.
I shot these photos a few days ago while the sun was quite harsh, so I apologize for the non-balanced shots.
