4461 West Jefferson Avenue
Detroit Railway & Harbor Terminals Company, Detroit Harbor Terminals Building, Detroit Marine Terminal, Boblo Building
As we speak, this building is being torn down. For a long time, this structure has meant a lot to me. The reasons for that vary in seriousness and are primarily rooted in experiences; however, before we get to that, let’s get down to brass tacks about the history presented by this behemoth structure at 4461 West Jefferson Avenue.
The Detroit Railway & Harbor Terminals Company was founded in 1925. The Buhl Family, one of Detroit’s most prosperous families, were involved, with Arthur and Lawrence serving as company directors. In forming the company, it was decided that no stock would be offered, but bonds were made available to fund the corporation and the structure it would call home.
DRHTC tapped local architect Albert Kahn, who has risen to fame posthumously for his work around Detroit, for the design. He opted for a reinforced concrete structure, which his brother Julius had a hand in inventing. The firm Parsons, Klapp, Brinckerhoff, & Douglass did the construction work. The warehouse, completed in 1925, was directly adjacent to the Studebaker Plant near the intersection of Clark and Jefferson and was known as the Detroit Harbor Terminals Building.
Up until that point, Detroit wasn’t a huge port. The Detroit River had a lot of traffic—however, many of the ships left the Motor City in their wake. Those starting the company felt this was just the beginning and had ambitious plans to build more port warehouses.
In addition to having its own switch on the rail line, the warehouse boasted a 1,400-foot marine dock on the river, an electric Gantry, two locomotive cranes, two stationary electric cranes, and a caterpillar crane. The structure had offices, a power plant, and room to grow. The slogan for the business was “The House of Personal Service.”
A 1932 advert in the Detroit Free Press sought to entice wealthy motorists to store their cars at the warehouse in the winter months to prevent damage. After all, “why drive your car through the bad winter months when we offer attractive rates in a heated, fireproof concrete building?”
Later that year, James and Artie Purse hoped to receive a $10,000 judgment from Circuit Court Judge Arthur Webster for an issue regarding the storage of their potatoes at the warehouse. They claimed that because of a steam pipe running through their storage area, their 3,140 bags of potatoes turned into bushes because the moisture caused so many spouts from the spuds. I’m not a lawyer, but as potato merchants, shouldn’t they have known that would happen?
In 1933, when prohibition ended nationally, legislators in Michigan weren’t sure how to open the floodgates of booze into Detroit’s streets. To get things started, the state set up stores in a few local warehouses until new selling methods could be figured out. The booze would begin at the Central Detroit Warehouse at 10th and Fort, be stamped and bonded, then shipped to the other warehouses for sale. The Detroit Harbor Terminals Building was one of the warehouses that had booze available. The whisky and gin up for grabs came from Walkerville, Louisville, and Peoria.
From the get-go, the warehouse was plagued with financial issues. The company ended up in receivership in the mid-1930s, and Alex J. Groesbeck took over to steady the ship. Groesbeck was born in Warren and previously served as the 30th governor of Michigan and the Attorney General.
According to a 1935 advert, the Detroit Harbor Terminals Building was the only warehouse combining direct rail traffic and marine shipping in Detroit. Still operating as the Motor City’s “House of Service,” the warehouse boasted 2,500,000 cubic feet of cold storage, 1,600 feet of marine dock, and 5,000,000 cubic feet of general storage, at least according to the advertisements.
Something striking about the adverts in the 1930s was that they used images that appeared to have been shot with a camera. They were very eye-catching, even when looking at them in 2023.
The late 1930s brought unionization and strikes at the warehouse, which split workers there. Not because the unions were a negative thing but because different unions supported the workers. Seafaring unions represented dock workers, warehouse workers had a different union, and light manufacturing workers had another.
In 1938, the International Longshoremen’s Association signed a close-shop agreement providing workers with a wage increase. They struck the deal directly with Detroit Harbor Terminals, Inc., which only affected those workers. The ILA planned to attack other warehouses in Detroit next.
On May 1, 1942, the United States Army took over a large portion of the warehouse as a part of the war effort. Seven tenants had to move out to make their use possible. It’s unclear what they used the space for.
Two years later, it was reported that two German soldiers escaped a prisoner-of-war camp in Canada. The guard at the Detroit Harbor Terminals Building notified police when he believed he saw two men jump from a rail box car and flee to a running car that sped off as soon as they got inside. The guard said that the men appeared to be wearing German officers’ uniforms and thought he saw Luftwaffe wings on their coats. This was reported numerous times in the paper, but I assume this was fearmongering to get folks behind the war effort. If you were a German soldier escaping Canada into the United States in 1944, would you wear your full uniform?
On March 10, 1953, Alex J. Groesbeck passed away in Detroit. Detroit Harbor Terminals, Inc. named William P. Young his replacement in April. A year later, 500 tons of breaded-to-cook fish sticks arrived at the terminal. It was one of the largest loads ever at the time.
The 1950s began an intense decades-long argument over whether Detroit should have a publically funded and run port. Construction started on the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1954, sparking a conversation about how Detroit could handle the influx of overseas traffic afterward. It would connect the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, opening new waves of commerce—but we’ll get to that.
In 1956, Detroit Harbor Terminals purchased the Timken-Detroit Axle Plant next door, formerly Studebaker Plant #3. It was purchased by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 1942 to manufacture vehicle axles for the Army Ordinance Department and was declared surplus in 1945 when World War 2 ended. It was leased, most recently by the Timken-Detroit operation, until its sale to Detroit Harbor Terminals. The purchase added 290,000 square feet of covered storage—but the most critical aspect of the deal was the additional waterfront the property boasted.
In November 1957, the Port of Detroit bond issue was defeated at the ballot box. It would have established a warehouse with docks for two ocean-going ships and an office building next to the Detroit Harbor Terminals operation. To pass, the proposal needed 60% of the vote. It got 58.88%. The biggest opponent to the plan was the Greater Detroit Board of Commerce. They argued that private businesses had been able to handle the needs of Detroit’s Port since the inception of the assembly line, and it will continue to as industry and shipping expanded after the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
The M/V Montrose left the Detroit Harbor Terminals Building with 200 tons of aluminum aboard in 1962. When crossing the river, the freighter crashed into a barge headed downriver. The crew guided the sinking ship toward the shore, where it ran aground and waffled in the water below the Ambassador Bridge. It would take months to salvage the aluminum, float, and repair the ship. The boat was visible from the shoreline for a few months, and thousands of people came to see and photograph it.
In 1964, the first Japanese cars shipped into Detroit by water arrived at the Detroit Harbor Terminals Building. 48 Datsun automobiles left the warehouse to dealerships in Michigan—where other vehicles that had been trucked in waited to greet them.
The Jefferson Seaway Corporation, owned by Frank Scoby, purchased the company and warehouse in 1966. Before the sale, the company was run by Mrs. Vanda Ann Young. Her late husband had been in charge of the company for years, and she stayed on after the sale. Under Scoby’s ownership, things would become interesting.
The conversation around a public Detroit Port Authority became heated after the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed in 1959. More boats were passing through Detroit, and when they had to stop, there were often long waits for the captain and their crews. This predicament was highlighted in a 1967 piece in the Detroit Free Press.
Downriver, Toledo was investing vast amounts of money into their own public Port Authority to try and get more shipping to come through their warehouses. According to the article, general cargo brought $17 to $24 a ton into the local community through jobs, services, sales, and taxes. However, ship captains and shipping companies noted that they had to wait longer in Detroit than anywhere else on the Great Lakes to load and unload their goods. Other ports were looking more enticing, which put more pressure on Detroit to have a publically owned port to have more control over wait times.
Frank Scoby, the owner of the Detroit Harbor Terminals Building, had an idea to remedy that issue.
Scoby pitched an idea to Detroit Common Council to form a non-profit to purchase the terminal from his company, Jefferson Seaways, by issuing $9 million in tax-free bonds. After that, the nonprofit company would lease it back to him for 30 years. By 1996, after three decades, the city would own the structure and the cargo-handling business and could do with them as it pleased.
In May 1967, the deal was investigated by a Grand Jury to see if there was any foul play in the agreement. After interviews with Frank Scoby and Mrs. Vanda Ann Young, no action was taken, and operations continued at the terminal.
Detroit Harbor Terminals, Inc. was sold by Frank Scoby in 1974 to Southeastern Michigan International Terminal Incorporated (SEMIT), a group funded by 20 investors. Scoby stayed on board as a consultant.
By 1976, the Detroit Port Development Corporation, the non-profit formed to purchase the Detroit Harbor Terminals Building from Scoby in 1966, filed for chapter 10 bankruptcy reorganization. All the non-profit income came from the lease of the warehouse and port, but they hadn’t been receiving rent from the new tenant.
By September, Detroit Edison Company had shut off the power. The structure was without electricity for two hours and 24 minutes. There were between $50,000 and $60,000 in unpaid bills. Detroit Harbor Terminals, Inc. owed nearly a million dollars, so the bills couldn’t be paid. When power was turned back on, Detroit Edison worked with the organization to devise a payment plan. Because they were notified in advance, nothing in the cold storage section of the warehouse went bad during the blackout.
On March 2, 1978, there was an auction at the Detroit Harbor Terminals Building. Forklift trucks, straddle carriers, and material handling equipment were available for purchase. I assume this was the end of the operation that wasn’t paying their lease bills.
At some point, the structure became known as the Detroit Marine Terminal and continued operations for a few more decades. Between 2003 and 2004, a financial crisis caused the company to fold. According to the Detroit Free Press, “U.S. tariffs and booming demand in China drove up the price of steel, the terminal’s main import, and companies cut back on shipping.” The warehouse closed for good after decades of operation on the Detroit River.
At this point, the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority, officially established in the late 1970s, was in a load of debt. Similar to what happened a few decades prior, a wealthy man with absolutely no agenda was there to save the day. If you hadn’t heard of Mr. Scoby, you’ll have heard of the next player.
In June 2005, it was announced that Manual J “Matty” Maroun would purchase the Detroit Harbor Terminals Building and turn it back into a shipping facility. There were many articles about it in the Detroit Free Press, most praising Maroun for his investment in Detroit. As you can see from those photographs, that investment never happened. However, the deal did have another effect.
Maroun’s company loaned the port $2.1 million to assist in paying off the defaulted bonds. The Detroit Free Press said he “received sweeping control of the facility, favorable interest rates on the loan, tax exemptions, a new revenue stream and a right to buy any riverfront property the Port Authority might hope to sell.”
By 2015, the loan balance had grown to $2.2 million, even though the city had already paid $1.3 million into the contract, which was only 10% completed.
In recent years, the late Maroun’s Ambassador Port struck a new agreement with the Detroit Wayne County Port Authority. According to Crain’s Detroit, the deal waived the $2 million debt owed by the Port Authority and allotted them “$1 million outright and…$2 million in blight removal and cleanup work. As part of that work, [Maroun’s] Ambassador Port agrees to demolish the Boblo building.”
Over the years, the building had become known as the Boblo Building because the Boblo Boats used to dock there.
Work to begin demolishing the Detroit Harbor Terminals Building started last week. One morning before work, I saw workers trying an extensive steel line to the water tower atop the structure and yanking on it like a little kid playing with a cat toy. If I had stayed any longer, I would have been late to work. By the time I returned, the water tower had fallen.
I shot these photographs the week before demolition officially began. While wandering around the structure, I recalled numerous memories that will be stuck in my head for as long as I live. Well, I hope, anyways.
When I started exploring Detroit, the Detroit Harbor Terminals Building felt like a goal. I had never been inside and didn’t want to go alone, but I knew I wanted to see the view. I remember the first time we were brave enough to go in; it was the dead of night in the wintertime. The flashlight was broken on my phone, so I stumbled along from the lights of my friends in front of and behind me. When we finally reached the top and took in that view for the very first time, we were blown away. The roof became a playground for learning photography, from early morning sunrises to 3 AM long exposures of downtown, Zug Island, and the Detroit River.
During a stint where I slept in my car, I used to park in Riverside Park for the night, and I had an old wooden baseball bat that belonged to my dad in the passenger seat. I was younger then—I must have thought that if somebody wanted to hurt me, a baseball bat would help me. However, on one occasion, my friend and I took it on top of the Detroit Harbor Terminals Building and hit rocks into the river with it. As many structures are, the rooftop was covered in stones to stop it from overheating and protect the membrane from the elements. Considering the structure was abandoned, we didn’t feel too bad smacking a few into the river.
One night I went up there with two friends—Tom and Julian, to take in the view and shoot some photographs. We had recently gotten a ton of snow, so we trudged through it atop the building to get the right angles for our photos. On our way down, we noticed some kids sneaking inside. As quick as lightning, Julian jumped and yelled. This sent the kids into a frenzied sprint back from where they came from—but we felt bad, so we told them we were only joking and which staircase was better to take en route to the rooftop.
On a similar evening, when I was still using my first proper digital camera, I left my intervalometer on the roof after I was done shooting. It’s a piece of gear that enables you to take long exposures and timelapse videos if your camera doesn’t have the settings in-house, which mine didn’t. It wasn’t expensive equipment, but I was broke as a joke then, so I returned the next day to look for it. Find it, I did, but it had been smashed up. I like to joke that the rocks were paying me back for smacking their friends into the river, but I more than likely stepped on it when I left the night before, or some kids had some fun with it.
One summer afternoon, I wandered in alone, which wasn’t uncommon for me in that era of my life. While strolling around the main floor, I heard a noise and turned around to see a large pitbull sitting in the corner of the elevator shaft. He was perched there, staring at me, not moving a muscle. I was terrified—I thought that as soon as I moved another inch, the dog would leap towards me, and I’d be in the fight of my life. After a moment, the dog looked back down at the ground. The dog appeared healthy but had no collar. I started to walk away slowly, and the dog didn’t move. When I returned down the stairs, I looked back into the elevator, and the dog was gone. To this day, I’m shocked it didn’t come after me, and I’m curious about where it went off to.
My most recent memories of the structure are from my time working on the Detroit River. I knew it was almost time to go home when the boat passed the Detroit Harbor Terminals Building. Whenever we passed it, I’d step out onto the port side bow, feel the wind rushing through my hair, and think about what I would do when I got off work. Most of the time, the answer was as simple as riding my bike or catching the bus home, but those few moments of thought staring at the skyline always helped me finish the shift.
Putting aside my childish memories of the structure, this demolition is a bummer. I can’t help but think the Marouns will build another warehouse on the land. The new build won’t be as architecturally significant, iconic in the skyline of Southwest Detroit, or have been designed by famed architect Albert Kahn. Sometimes, buildings need to be demolished, and I understand that. Luckily, countless photographers have documented this building, so we won’t forget the memories created by those who spend their lives working there or the vagrants like me who forayed the structure in the years before its death.
There will truly never be another Detroit Harbor Terminals Building. But hey, maybe that’s a good thing.
