WJBK-TV Studios Building

01 / The story of this place

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This red-brick, Georgian Revival building on the southwest corner of Second Avenue and Bethune Street was built in 1956 for Storer Broadcasting's WJBK-TV, Detroit's third television station, replacing its earlier home in the Masonic Temple. Designed by Palm Beach architect John L. Volk in his only Detroit commission, it held two large television studios, a control room and a film laboratory, with doors wide enough for cars and trucks to drive straight onto the sets. A young Casey Kasem, later famous as the voice of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo and the host of American Top 40, worked here as a Detroit broadcaster in the 1950s, playing the children's-show clown Krogo. WJBK moved out in 1971, and Detroit Public Television bought the building, using it for the market's first color broadcasts; Mosaic Youth Theatre later occupied it through the 1990s and 2000s. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016 as the only intact 1950s television studio left in Detroit, the building now serves as headquarters for the nonprofit Midnight Golf Program.

1. Built in 1956 for WJBK-TV, Detroit's third television station.
2. Designed by Palm Beach architect John L. Volk, his only Detroit project.
3. Casey Kasem worked here in the 1950s, voicing the clown Krogo.
4. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.
5. Now headquarters of the nonprofit Midnight Golf Program.