9840 Dexter Avenue
Dexter Recreation and Market Center, Martin’s Market, Dexter Market, Dexter-Boston Market, King Cole Market, Dexter Recreation and Billiards, Goodwill Industries Thrift Store, Medicine Chest, Mandies Fine Foods, Dave’s Cut Rate Drugs, M.W. King Solomon Grand Lodge AF & AM, Fish & Souldfood Cafe
(Address includes 9838 Dexter Avenue. At one time, Dexter Avenue was Dexter Boulevard)
I believe this is one of the most unique structures still standing in Detroit, and it’s a shame that more hasn’t been done to preserve it.
Completed in 1927 at the hands of developers R. B. Rowley and G. L. Waters, Dexter Recreation and Market Center was complete with 24 Brunswick-made bowling lanes, 16 Brunswick billiards tables, a drug store, a new restaurant, a grocery, a meat market, and offices.
According to an advert in the Detroit Free Press, “The floor construction consists of steel floor trusses furnished by the Gabriel Steel Company. The trusses are covered with three inches of solid concrete on top lath, making the structure wholly incombustible.” In addition to the reinforced concrete, soundproofing between the floors made each level more enjoyable for patrons. When it opened, it was a gem of Dexter Boulevard.
Pin boys were an essential part of the bowling alley during the first wave of the sport’s popularity. They were needed to reset the pins, return the balls, and, eventually, reload the pin-setting machines. In 1928, Dexter Recreation was hiring white-only pin boys and offered sleeping quarters for the workers.
While pins crashed in the bowling alley and pool players took smoke breaks between games, the market was in full swing. Martin’s Market, run by Martin Bankovich, the one-time president of the Detroit Retail Meat Dealers’ Association, was operational in 1931. Later, the name was changed to Dexter Market. In other offices, numerous businesses operated over the years. It’s odd to think of a bowling alley with random companies inside; however, anything is possible in a walkable community. Have a stressful day? Go bowl a game.
Over the first few decades, Dexter Recreation was a place for Detroiters to forget about work, drink, celebrate good times, and bowl in leagues. In 1931, Mike Greenberg bowled a perfect game while playing a practice game with friends. In 1932, St. Joseph’s Commercial College (an affiliate of De La Salle Collegiate High School) defeated the Dexter Recreation Juniors at their home alley.
In 1934, now-legendary billiards player James Caras gave exhibitions at Dexter Recreation. He would win five World Straight Pool Championship titles between 1935 and 1949 and be inducted into the Billiards Congress of America Hall of Fame in 1977. In a December 1934 advert for a free lesson he was doing, Caras was dubbed the ‘Greek Wizard.’
In 1940, Joe Adams bowled the first 300 of the season while playing a practice game at Dexter Recreation with friends. Adams would do it again in another practice game a year later. This was his third, having bowled his first in 1939.
In 1942, Richard Healy, 16, bowled one, too. He was a Central High School Student and bowled a 142 and a 150 after his perfect game.
After years of only hiring white pin boys, the bowling alley was hiring white or black workers in 1943. Sleeping quarters were still provided, and race was dropped entirely from the adverts by the end of the year.
In September 1944, Richard V. Healy, who bowled the perfect game at 16 two years prior, claimed the city’s marathon bowling championship. He bowled 100 games in 11 hours and 7 minutes at Dexter Recreation. His highest game was 268, and his lowest was 146. He claimed that he walked more than 16 miles and carried more than 12 tons during this feat.
That same year, the wage for a pin boy at the bowling alley was $1 an hour. In 2023, that’s roughly $17.50, which isn’t half bad. The operation was constantly hiring, which typically meant the work wasn’t pleasant.
In October 1945, Carolyn Soop converted a challenging 4-7-10 split at Dexter Recreation by hitting the four, which overtook the 10, and her ball took out the seven. A year later, Florence Scroggins converted on the same pin layout, announced in the Detroit Free Press under the title, ‘Florence Has Her Big Day.’
Between April and May 1948, The UAW-CIO hosted the International Bowling Tourney at Dexter Recreation. It was co-sponsored by the National Committee for Fair Play, and the event was expected to draw entries from UAW locals across the country.
By 1949, the grocery had changed names to become the Dexter-Boston Market. Eventually, there would be an operation called King Cole Market here.
In the 1950s, legendary Detroit bowler Bill Rhodman managed the bowling alley. Before 1951, non-whites weren’t allowed to join the American Bowling Congress. Rhodman was the first black man to bowl a 700 and 1,900 in the ABC. He was “considered the greatest black bowler and he was the first inducted into the Greater Detroit Bowlers Hall of Fame,” according to Lafayette Allen, Jr., one of his contemporaries.
Prior, Rhodman worked at the Briggs Manufacturing Company Plant. He later won the Singles Championship twice and became an inspiration for black bowlers around the midwest. In 1954, he was diagnosed with Leukemia. In 1959, he had to have both legs amputated, and the Detroit Free Press listed him as in critical condition at Harper Hospital. The public was asked to donate blood in his honor. He died in 1961.
Back on Dexter Boulevard, the structure pictured here was later called Dexter Recreation and Billiards. In May 1967, Ralph Belamy, a 22-year-old rack man in the billiard room, was shot twice while working. The killer was an ex-convict who argued with Belamy over a dime. The 22-year-old was dead on arrival when he got to the hospital.
Shortly after, Goodwill Industries opened a thrift store inside the structure. This would be their 15th Detroit-area store, carrying “clothing, shoes, furniture, and small appliances.”
In July 1967, the Detroit Rebellion swept across the city after Detroit Police raided a blind pig on 12th Street, roughly a mile and a half from the building pictured here. The aftermath was devastating, with fires, fighting, and murders across the city. Within the carnage, Dexter Boulevard was hit hard. At the time of the rebellion, the thoroughfare was still lined with buildings, businesses, and apartment complexes.
When the fires were put out, and the dust settled, many structures were severely damaged and subsequently demolished. 9840 Dexter, pictured here, survived, but many nearby buildings weren’t so lucky.
The Detroit Historical Society has a set of images between Rochester and Boston on Dexter Boulevard that showcase the carnage. The structure connected to Dexter Recreation was torched, as was another storefront at the intersection of Dexter and Rochester, and the businesses across Boston Boulevard from the bowling alley and pool hall were hit hard, too. Many of those structures were demolished and never rebuilt. Driving down Dexter Boulevard today, it’s hard to understand what it once looked like.
By 1974, the Goodwill was still operational. At the time, the thrift store had five other locations in Detroit. Based on population statistics in 1980, assuming all six stores were still open, there was a Goodwill Thrift Store for every 200,556.5 Detroiters. Today, there are no Goodwill Thrift Stores in Detroit. If my math is correct, we should have at least three if the ratio were to have held.
Around 1980, Fred Dally, an immigrant from Iraq, opened the Medicine Chest, a liquor store, on the ground floor. He would also own Serra’s Market in Warren. He was shot and killed while opening the store on Dexter in the spring of 2012. According to an article from Local 4, “He…hired people from the neighborhood to work for him.” He was the former chairman of the Associated Food and Petroleum Dealers.
By 1987, Mandies Fine Foods restaurant had also opened here. There was a coupon in the Detroit Free Press to get a peach cobbler for $1 and a bread pudding for $0.75. The restaurant was still there in 1991.
By 1993, Dave’s Cut Rate Drugs had moved in. I’m not certain how long it lasted.
One of the last major tenants of the structure was the masons. By 1970, M.W. King Solomon Grand Lodge AF & AM had moved in. They may have owned it, but I’m not certain. The organization, incorporated on the state level in 1937, was created to “promote the general welfare of the King Solomon Masons.” The organization’s original registered address was 324 Eliot at the corner of Brush, not far from Brewster Douglass.
Eventually, the registered address moved to 313 East Hancock, which is now a parking lot. Paperwork signed on October 28, 1970, and filed on November 4 solidified another move to 9840 Dexter Avenue. At some point, Dexter had become an avenue, not a boulevard, even if some signs still say Boulevard. Regardless of that, the King Solomon Grand Lodge was officially on Dexter.
The last documents for the non-profit are from 2007, which was dissolved in 2010. Although the Prince Hall Masons do not recognize the group, the organization was around for nearly 75 years and occupied a mammoth structure on Dexter Avenue; that seems legit to me.
The Fish & Souldfood Cafe was the last tenant of the smaller space on the main floor. The liquor store at the corner closed around 2012.
Today, the structure is owned by All My Children, a nonprofit formed by Hilda Vanessa Hall and others in 2014 to “provide charitable support services and aid to needy children.” To my knowledge, they’ve never done any work to the structure besides boarding it up after it gets broken into.
I lived a short ride down Dexter from this building for just under a half-decade. For the most part, it was always secured despite looking tattered. On one snowy evening, my friend Jon and I noticed it was wide open, and we wandered inside. The bones were in relatively good shape, but there wasn’t much ornament left inside the structure.
At the time, I couldn’t help but think that the space was going to waste. As a resident, I knew the surrounding neighborhood needed more positive catalysts for change. I don’t know whether All My Children is the group to jump-start that process; however, if they aren’t, they should sell the property to somebody who can make a difference in the community.
As I started this piece, this is a one-of-a-kind structure on a thoroughfare that’s seen it all: humble beginnings as a pool hall, becoming a neighborhood staple for working people and their families, the aftermath of the rebellion in 1967, Detroit’s transitional change that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s, and standing tall in a neighborhood that saw rappers like Dex Osama change the game and Kash Doll come back to promote her 2023 mixtape, Back On Dexter, with a photo shoot at A Eagles Coney Island.
The Dexter Recreation and Market Center deserves to be saved. The neighborhood deserves it.
