Famous people's places / Detroit – Downtown

Michigan Building (Bagley Avenue Workshop Site)

The Downtown Detroit site where Henry Ford built his first automobile in a small shed, later covered by the Michigan Theater and now a parking structure.

Events at this place 0 Plan your visit ↓

01 / The story of this place

Make time for these

In a small brick shed behind a rented house on Bagley Avenue, Henry Ford spent his off-hours between 1893 and 1896 building the Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, which he test-drove through Detroit's streets on June 4, 1896. The shed itself was preserved and later moved to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. In 1926, theater owner John H. Kunsky built the lavish Michigan Theater on the same Bagley Street site, a 4,000-seat movie palace where John Philip Sousa, Benny Goodman, the Marx Brothers and, decades later, David Bowie and KISS all performed. The theater closed in 1976, and rather than demolish the building, its owners gutted the auditorium and turned it into a parking garage in 1977, leaving the ornate ceiling and balconies eerily visible above the parked cars. The building today mixes offices, retail and that landmark parking structure.

Site of the shed where Henry Ford built the Quadricycle, 1893–1896
The original shed was moved to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn
The Michigan Theater, a 4,000-seat movie palace, opened here in 1926
Converted into a parking garage in 1977, its ornate ceiling still visible overhead

Famous Detroiters

Famous people tied to this place 6

Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.

Henry Ford 1863–1947 · automaker, industrialist, founder of Ford Motor Company
Worked here
The shed where he built the Quadricycle stood here; the Michigan Building and its theater (now a parking garage) later rose on the site.
Curtis Hanson 1945–2016 · film director, screenwriter, producer
Related place
The gutted movie palace turned parking deck appears in 8 Mile; it is one of Detroit's best-known film locations.
Carl Craig born 1969 · electronic music producer, DJ, label founder
Related place
The gutted 1926 movie palace, now a parking garage, where he created the multi-floor sound-and-light work Runway for Bottega Veneta in 2021.
Yuval Sharon born 1979 · opera director
Related place
The ornate 1926 movie palace, gutted into a parking garage in the 1970s, where Sharon presented Kjartansson's Bliss for Detroit Opera.
John H. Kunsky 1874–1952 · movie theater magnate, broadcaster
Founded
Kunsky's 4,038-seat flagship palace by Rapp & Rapp. It closed in 1976, and its gutted auditorium has served since 1977 as a parking deck under the surviving ornate ceiling, a much-photographed Detroit sight.
Earle Graser 1909–1941 · radio actor
Worked here
As a student he ushered here and announced the organ selections; the auditorium is now a parking deck.