Famous people's places / Detroit – New Center
Former Temple Beth El (Woodward and Gladstone)
Closed – archive entry · 1973
Albert Kahn's grand 1922 domed synagogue at Woodward and Gladstone, Rabbi Leo M. Franklin's pulpit for two decades, now a community center after the congregation moved away in 1973.
01 / The story of this place
Make time for these
Temple Beth El, Detroit's oldest Jewish congregation, had outgrown its earlier home by the 1920s, so it hired the architect Albert Kahn, a member of the congregation himself, to design a grand new sanctuary at Woodward and Gladstone. The building opened in 1922 with a domed, 1,600-seat sanctuary, Corinthian columns and a banquet hall, and it became the pulpit of Rabbi Leo M. Franklin, who led the congregation until his retirement in 1941 and was one of Detroit's most prominent religious leaders. Temple Beth El kept growing through the mid-twentieth century, and in 1973 the congregation left Woodward Avenue for a new, Minoru Yamasaki-designed building in Bloomfield Hills. The Woodward and Gladstone building survived, and it now operates as the Bethel Community Transformation Center, home to a church and several nonprofits working to restore and reuse Kahn's landmark for the neighborhood.
- Albert Kahn designed the building; it opened in 1922
- Rabbi Leo M. Franklin led the congregation here until 1941
- 1,600-seat domed sanctuary with Corinthian columns
- Congregation left for Bloomfield Hills in 1973; now the Bethel Community Transformation Center
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 1
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Leo M. Franklin 1870–1948 · Reform rabbi of Temple Beth El
Worked here
The congregation's 1922 Albert Kahn temple, Franklin's pulpit until his retirement; today the Bethel Community Transformation Center.
Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25
An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.
03 / Events
Events at this place
Published events automatically linked from our event guide. Times are local to the venue.
We have no published upcoming events linked to this place yet. That does not mean the venue has no events; check its official calendar too.
Source and former website ↗