Famous people's places / Detroit – Downtown
Hotel La Salle (WMBC studios)
Closed – archive entry · 1996
A downtown Woodward Avenue hotel whose top floor housed radio station WMBC, where crusading broadcaster Jerry Buckley was shot dead in the lobby in 1930; demolished in 1996.
01 / The story of this place
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This Woodward Avenue hotel opened in 1926 as the Savoy and was renamed the Hotel La Salle around 1929. Its upper floor housed the studios of radio station WMBC, home base for broadcaster Jerry Buckley, who used his nightly program to campaign against organized crime and corruption in Detroit city government. Buckley's on-air crusading helped drive the successful 1930 recall of Mayor Charles Bowles, and in the early hours after that recall vote, at around 1:40 a.m. on July 23, 1930, three men walked into the hotel lobby and shot Buckley dead as he sat waiting, a killing widely linked to the underworld figures he had been exposing and one that was never solved. The building continued on under later names, including the Detroiter Hotel, before it was finally imploded on March 3, 1996; the Crosswinds Communities condominiums now stand on the site, just north of Comerica Park.
- Opened in 1926 as the Savoy Hotel on Woodward Avenue
- Renamed Hotel La Salle around 1929; housed WMBC radio studios
- Broadcaster Jerry Buckley shot dead in the lobby, July 23, 1930
- Killing never solved, widely tied to organized crime
- Demolished by implosion on March 3, 1996
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 2
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Danny Thomas 1912–1991 · comedian, actor, TV producer
Performed here
Detroit radio station where Thomas made his debut on The Happy Hour Club in 1932.
- Jerry Buckley 1891–1930 · radio commentator
Worked here
Woodward Avenue hotel whose top floor housed the WMBC studios he broadcast from; he was shot dead in its lobby on July 23, 1930.
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
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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.
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