6840 McGraw Avenue
Detroit Police Department 6th Precinct Headquarters, Special Crimes Unit, Gang Squad Headquarters, RT Software Systems
In the spring of 1930, bids were accepted to complete the construction of a new police station at McGraw and Braden avenues. It was to replace the old station on Vinewood between West Grand and Magnolia. At the time, they estimated it would cost $95,000. Nearly three dozen bids were submitted for the work.
Eventually, crews were selected, and the designs drawn up by the firm Van Leyen, Schilling & Keogh were carried out. The 6th Precinct at 6840 McGraw Avenue became operational in 1930, although it wouldn’t be called that until later. The station was quickly put to use.
In addition to policing, In 1933, you could pay city taxes at any police station. Detroiters were encouraged to do this so that they could avoid the crowds at City Hall. I can’t imagine you could ask as many questions at the Precinct as downtown, but it was closer to thousands of residents of southwest Detroit.
The 6th Precinct Headquarters was operational at 6840 McGraw Avenue from 1930 until 1986-ish. At that time, it moved to its present location at 11450 Warwick near Evergreen and Plymouth. I believe the neighborhood around the old 6th Precinct is now in the 4th Precinct, headquartered on Fort Street near Clark.
After it was no longer a precinct headquarters, the building was used for the Special Crimes Section of the Detroit Police Department. I’m not certain what that entails, but there are multiple reports of it being used as a ‘gang squad headquarters’ in the mid-1990s.
According to the current owners, the Special Crimes Section left the building around 2005. It would be vandalized and scrapped mercilessly, as was common for the time period. DetroitUrbex and Nailhed have photos of the large lobby with an ornate wooden desk, the small cell block, the ‘attic’ third-floor rec room, the firing range, and the garage for police vehicles.
In October 2013, RT Property Holdings, LLC purchased the property for $15,000. Ed Steele headed the LLC. Steele owned RT Software Systems based out of Berkley and purchased the building to renovate it into a cloud computing data center. Along the way, he cleaned up the structure, determined it was haunted, and did paranormal tours of the building.
Sadly, Steele passed away in August of 2021. Since then, there hasn’t been much activity at the building. Hopefully, someone can continue his work, and the 6th Precinct will stand for 92 more years.
This building is across the street from Munger Elementary-Middle School and next to Detroit Fire Department Ladder 22. The fire station was built in the 1920s, before the 6th Precinct. Munger was built around 1917 and demolished alongside the attached Chadsey High in 2011. A year later, a new Munger was built.
