Detroit Institute of Technology

01 / The story of this place

Make time for these

What became the Detroit Institute of Technology started in 1891 as a YMCA evening school, taking the name Detroit Technical Institute by 1908 and then Detroit Institute of Technology in 1918 as it grew into a private four-year college focused on engineering and applied science. Businessman Eli Broad, later a billionaire philanthropist, taught night classes in accounting here as a young assistant professor in 1956, early in a career that would take him into home building and finance. In 1972, when S.S. Kresge Company vacated its Albert Kahn-designed Art Deco headquarters at 2727 Second Avenue near Cass Park for a new suburban office, the building passed to DIT as its home. The college struggled after a third of its students, many of them Iranian, lost their visas during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979 to 1981, and it closed for good in 1981. The building later became Wayne State University's Metropolitan Center for High Technology, housing university offices and a business incubator.

1. Traces back to a 1891 YMCA evening school; took the DIT name in 1918
2. Eli Broad taught accounting night classes here in 1956
3. Moved into the former S.S. Kresge headquarters at 2727 Second Avenue in 1972
4. Closed in 1981 after losing many international students in the Iran hostage crisis
5. Building now used by Wayne State University as a business incubator