Alger Theater

The 1935 Alger remains as a representative example of a whole generation of Detroit neighborhood movie theaters now mostly gone. Originally operated by Detroit movie theater and radio magnate George W. Trendle, the Alger was one of 117 neighborhood movie theaters that existed in the city in the 1940s. Only about a dozen still remain, and most of them have been renovated beyond recognition.

The Alger is Art Moderne in style and retains much of its historic finishes. The Alger Theater was presumably named for General and Michigan Governor Russell A. Alger (1836-1907). Alger served during the Civil War where he was commissioned Lieutenant Colonel of the Sixth Michigan Cavalry and the Colonel of the Fifth in 1863.

He served under General Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley until his resignation in September, 1864. After the war, Alger amassed a fortune in the lumber industry and became politically influential. Entering into public political life, he was elected Governor of Michigan for a two year term (1885-1886). Alger was a Michigan delegate to the Republican National Convention and was named Secretary of War in 1897 under President McKinley and served as a Cabinet member until 1899.

Governor Alger served as United States Senator from 1902 until he died in office in 1907. He was memorialized by the Russell A. Alger Memorial Fountain in Grand Circus Park and the naming of Alger Avenue in Detroit and Alger County in Michigan. The home of his son, Russell A.

Alger, Junior, is located in the city of Grosse Pointe Farms, a few miles from the Alger Theater.

The simply detailed Art Moderne Alger Theater has been a landmark at the northwest corner of East Warren Avenue and Outer Drive since its construction as a neighborhood movie house in 1935. A blocky two-story square-plan 'tower' with instepping parapet dominates the building's corner at the Warren/Outer Drive intersection; an angled projecting element facing the intersection supports a vertical sign bearing the theater's name, 'ALGER.' Four one-story stores front the building along the Warren side west of the tower containing the box office and entrances, and the two-story high facade of the theater proper on that side is set back behind them. The two-story high outer lobby and one-story inner lobby and the balcony-less auditorium display much of their historic finishes, the auditorium concrete block walls with decorative horizontal banding in smaller molded concrete brick and stepped metal sconces with rounded ends. The theater stands in deteriorated condition but is owned by the Friends of the Alger Theater and will be restored.