7351 West Warren Avenue
Economy Furniture Company, Sen-Handi Multi Services, Born to Build, Inc.
7351 West Warren was built in 1926. I’m not sure who the architect was, but I’m quite confident it was built to be a furniture showroom. Detroit had many retailers around the city—the buildings were often two or three stories and had high ceilings. Given the nearly 2 million people that once occupied Detroit, it had its fair share of furniture stores.
Starting at least by 1947, the Economy Furniture Company occupied the space. They ran many adverts in the Detroit Free Press, so it wasn’t hard to find them. One of the owners was named Alice Abe.
The structure is broken into two parts. Observing from the street, I believe that the two-thirds on the left was the furniture store. The leftover third may have been another storefront with an apartment above it. I’m guessing about those details—but you can tell that the left side of the structure had large windows at one time—whereas the brick encases smaller windows on the right side.
There was an article in the newspaper in 1949 that made me chuckle. Economy Furniture was robbed. That isn’t funny—but the bandit’s escape method had me laughing a little. A man robbed $24 in cash and two of Alice’s rings worth an estimated $155. In 2022, the loot was worth around $2.2K. To flee the scene, the robber took a DSR bus. You heard me right—he hopped onto a bus and escaped without a trace.
DSR stands for the Department of Street Railways. Although Warren once had a streetcar route, sometime in the 1940s, it was scrapped for a bus line. The transit was so good back then that a thief could count on a bus to be there as a getaway vehicle!
The ads for the Economy Furniture Company at 7351 West Warren stopped around 1967. I haven’t found any evidence that the store was involved in the rebellion, but many businesses closed up shop and left the city in the aftermath. I have yet to determine what happened to the structure for the next two decades after that.
In 1986, a non-profit moved into the building. It was called Sen-Handi Multi Services, and they helped senior citizens with rides, meals, activities, help to find living quarters, and janitorial services. Their name was short for Senior Citizen Handicapped Multi Services. Their headquarters was named the Sen-Multi Service Center, and it was home to several senior and community events over the next two decades.
From their articles of incorporation, I determined that Jacqueline Thomas and Jordan Brockman founded the non-profit. When they organized, they listed the building at 7351 West Warren as having a banquet hall, residential, and kitchen quarters. They estimated that the structure was worth $45,000, or roughly $120,000 in 2022 terms. The non-profit still exists, although I have yet to find an updated address or information on its current operations.
Around 2007 another non-profit called Born to Build, Inc. started hosting events at 7351 West Warren. The organization moved its registered office to the address in 2009, but I’m not sure they ever owned it. Sen-Handi Multi Services also listed their address there until the early 2010s. Born to Build was incorporated to ‘purchase and rehab property in order to provide housing, recreational, professional, & rehabilitation services to adults and children in need.’ They held at least one kids’ carnival and a building class at the location on West Warren. The hall was still available for rent, too.
By 2011, the building was vacant. Soon, graffiti covered all four exterior walls, and the interior was broken into. The few windows that hadn’t been closed with cinder blocks were smashed and eventually covered with plywood. In 2010, it would be sold for $10,500. The new owner has secured the structure, replaced the windows, and done general upkeep to the exterior.
7351 W Warren stands (mostly) alone on its slice of the west side of the city. There’s a single, small abandoned house to the east and nothing for the rest of the block to the west.
Given what it’s been through to get to this point, this one deserves to be rehabilitated.
