803 Cottrell Street
A.R.F. Zavarian Club, Delray Christian Neighborhood House, Delray United Action Council, Southwest Detroit Emergency Food Providers, True Worship Church
Detroit has dozens of handsome gargantuan structures that are well documented. Between those sit hundreds, if not thousands, of attractive small buildings that often go unnoticed. This is one of those buildings.
803 Cottrell was built between 1929 and 1930. I believe it was constructed for the A.R.F Zavarian Club, an Armenian-American organization organized in Delray. If it wasn’t built for them, they were the first tenants. There isn’t much information about the group, but there was a fair amount of reporting on their participation in helping raise money for World War II through the sale of defense stamps.
Ard Kaloosdian, then secretary of the Armenian-American Defense Savings Committee of the A.R.F. Zavarian Club, said, “it is one thing to have been born free and to have lived in comfort all one’s life and it is quite another to have been born in oppression and to have lived for years under the strain of constant fear and persecution.”
I’m not sure when the Armenian club left the property, but it would continue down the path of community involvement. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was home to the Delray Christian Neighborhood House. The organization had existed since at least 1944. I found an address for them listed at 800 Cottrell in 1948, which is across the street from the structure pictured here.
In 1983, the Capuchin Fathers opened a food distribution center in the building. Throughout the 80s, a few organizations operated soup kitchens and other feeding programs from the building. The Delray United Action Council and Project P.R.O.T.E.I.N—Southwest Detroit Emergency Food Providers both did work out of the structure.
In 1995 the property was sold to True Worship Church for $19,000. There were many advertisements for events and guest speakers at the building from 2001 until 2003. In November of 2004, the church made the front page of the Detroit Free Press Sports Section.
Jason Avant became a parish member at True Worship Church when his teammate Alijah Bradley invited him to mass while in school at the University of Michigan. Avant is originally from the south side of Chicago and became an integral part of Lloyd Carr’s Wolverines as a wide receiver. He would win the Bo Schembechler Award and play in the NFL for nine years. At the time, Sunday mass at True Life was four hours long.
I’m not certain if masses still occur at the building at 803 Cottrell or if Jason Avant ever attended again after graduating. However, the window above the door on Erie Street still reads “Welcome To True Worship Church,” and the property is maintained. The church owns a handful of vacant lots around the building.
Whenever a large, historic structure is demolished, it’s easy to get bummed out. But, for every AMC Headquarters or Packard Plant that falls, dozens of these small buildings bite the dust without any fanfare or obituary. I’m not saying this small building is as architecturally significant as those I just listed—but small structures like this are an integral part of what makes Detroit so unique.
Hopefully, this building will continue serving the neighborhood for decades to come.
