Goodyear Block

Constructed in 1867 for Henry Goodyear, the Goodyear Block is among the largest and best preserved Italianate commercial buildings in downtown Manchester, which contains a unique and well-preserved collection of Italianate and vernacular commercial buildings dating from the mid to late 1800s. The downtown -- and a larger area including a park, historic churches, and adjacent residential neighborhoods -- appears to meet the criteria for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and will eventually be nominated as a large historic district.

The land which encompasses the village of Manchester was part of a 100-acre tract patented by Major John Gilbert of Ypsilanti, Michigan. He foresaw this location on the Raisin River as an ideal spot for a settlement because of its water-power advantages and in 1832 contracted with Emanuel Case to construct a grist mill on the river. Other mills soon followed. Gilbert and others platted the main part of the village site in 1837 hard on the heels of the chartering of the Palmyra & Jacksonburg Railroad, which planned to build its line across the southern part of Michigan through Manchester (the line was finally built as the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad about 1850). Manchester, so named because many of the early settlers of the area came from Manchester in Ontario County, New York, grew slowly during the troubled economic times of the late 1830s and 1840s, but began to flourish with the construction of the railroad around 1850. In 1867, village government was established.

Main Street, including the block long section west of the Raisin originally known as Exchange Place on which the Goodyear Block fronted and the first block east of the river that was originally called Jefferson Street, was the community's business district from the beginning. After a fire in 1852, new buildings downtown were constructed of brick. The great majority of the existing downtown buildings were constructed between the early 1860s and the early 1880s. The Goodyear Block, one of the few three-story, two-storefront wide blocks, is one of the largest of these buildings.

The Goodyear Block stands as evidence of Manchester's early development and contributed to the role of the downtown as the commercial and social center of Manchester. Henry Goodyear, reputed to be one of the largest property owners in Washtenaw County at the end of the Civil War, purchased the site of the Goodyear Block from Edward and Sophia Orr for $450 in March, 1867. The Goodyear Block was dedicated on November 22, 1867 with attendant fanfare. Nearly six years later, in 1873, three assignees of Henry Goodyear, who presumably had gone bankrupt, sold the building to Goodrich and Amariah Conklin for $14,000.00.

Goodyear reportedly later moved to Nebraska with his wife Elizabeth and his daughter and died there. His wife moved back to Manchester and lived there until her death in 1906. Goodyear also built the Goodyear (later Freeman) House, a large hotel, in Manchester in 1869. It was demolished in the 1950s. The Goodyear Block remains as evidence of Goodyear's aspirations for Manchester.

The Goodyear Block has always been an important part of the Manchester community. The first floor has accommodated many retailers. The earliest street-level tenants were hardware merchants Miller & Webb and dry-good merchants the Wastelle Brothers. Neither remained in the building by 1896 as shown in a photograph of the Fourth of July festivities of that year. The second floor has been used primarily for offices, including those of the local newspaper, the Manchester Enterprise, and the local telephone exchange. Although no uniquely significant businesses have been identified with the Goodyear Block, those which have been identified offered a broad spectrum of goods and services.

The third floor contained a large auditorium, originally named Goodyear Hall, which hosted a variety of community events including dances, plays, commencements, and concerts. According to an early poster for a "Grand Masquerade Ball" to be held on October 19, 1875, there were: "2 Large Dressing Rooms, At the Hall, For Ladies and Gentlemen." A newspaper notice of the event in the Manchester Enterprise reported that "Prof. Beck's Full Band Played." The cost was "$2 including supper."

Manchester, like much of Washtenaw County, acquired a substantial settlement of Germans from older established German areas such as nearby Freedom Township and from Germany itself, particularly Wurttemberg, beginning in the 1850s and 60s. By 1881 the local Germans had formed the Arbeiter Verein, Arbeiter Society, or the Working Men's Benevolent Society of Manchester. In December, 1888, this organization purchased the Goodyear Block from Goodrich and Mary Conklin for $8,000.00. The building is referred to as the "Arbeiter Block" in a 1909 photograph. The society probably rented out the first two floors and used the third floor for its own activities. By 1904, eighty-one local German societies had banded together to create a state organization known as the Allgemeiner Arbeiter Bund Des Staates Michigan. In 1921 members of the Manchester Arbeiter Society attended a state convention of similar societies. The Arbeiter Society continued to use the building through the 1930s. Other groups also used the building during these years. One known example is the local chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic. It used the building for meeting space from approximately 1886 until 1936. Sometime after World War I, the Arbeiter Verein sold the building to the American Legion. The first floor remained in retail and service type uses. The third floor continued to be used for a variety of social events and, according to verbal accounts, was even used as the high school gym for a time.

The American Legion owned the Goodyear Block until 1977, when Chris and Tim Hoover, owners of the Black Sheep Tavern across the street, purchased the building. They renovated the auditorium for use as the Black Sheep Repertory Theater, and operated it in conjunction with the Tavern. The theater offered evenings of entertainment including dinner and theater. The theater saw some success and enjoyed a good reputation, drawing an audience from the surrounding region. The building then became known as the Black Sheep Theater Building.

The Hoovers sold the building in the early 1980s. The new owner planned to renovate the auditorium in order to provide improved theater facilities and to meet current, life-safety code requirements. After several years of failed efforts to raise the necessary money or financing, the owner lost the building in foreclosure. By 1988 the bank which now held title to the building was marketing it for sale.

In 1988, Chris White and Steve White, brothers who were carpenters with some experience in converting older buildings for multi-family residential use, purchased the building from the bank. They developed loft apartments on the upper two floors and continued to rent the first floor for retail use. The first-floor tenants in 1992 are an antique shop and a laundromat.

Although the Goodyear Block has had its financial ups and downs, it has always been an important building in downtown Manchester. Its retail and commercial spaces have provided necessary services, its auditorium has hosted community events, and now its upper floors provide a valued housing alternative.

The Goodyear Block is a rectangular, three-story, red brick-wall, Italianate commercial building located in the center of Manchester's two-block long, late nineteenth-century central business district. The building's facade has a bracketted, wood main cornice and round-head windows with brick caps. A rehabilitation project completed in 1990 restored the building's street-level storefronts with their cast-iron columns to an appearance similar to the original.

The building's south-facing facade is seven bays in width. Its street level contains two storefronts separated by a central entrance providing access to the upper two stories. The storefronts each have cast-iron columns, large plate-glass front windows, and high transoms above the entrance and windows. A paired-bracket, wood cornice caps the entire first floor. In the second and third stories, piers at either end of the facade and flanking the central bay project one brick in depth from the front wall plane and rise to the base of the main cornice above the third story. The raised brickwork frieze to which the main cornice is attached has a dentiled treatment along its lower edge. A horizontal beltcourse extends across the facade between the second and third stories. The cornice has a broad overhang supported by large, decorative brackets separated by bands of dentils and, in the frieze, panels with raised edges.

The building's first-floor storefront area originally contained, as it does today, a central entrance flanked on either side by a storefront. Each storefront had a central, recessed entrance flanked by cast-iron columns set on low brick piers with stone caps. Each storefront was approached by a short flight of steps. During the 1960s the storefronts were renovated. Much of the original finish was discarded, but some material, including the iron columns, was simply covered up. The east storefront was replaced by a modern brick storefront with aluminum shop windows and an aluminum door below a large, black panel made of vertical aluminum strips. The west storefront was refinished with random ashlar stone bulkheads, boxy wood trim, and a large sign panel with horizontal, white aluminum siding. The entry to the west storefront was shifted from the center of the storefront to its west side to minimize the difference in grade between the floor level and sidewalk. This difference increased from the building's west to the east due to the sloping grade of the sidewalk. At the east storefront, the floor at the retail space inside was lowered to match the sidewalk eliminating the need for steps.

During the 1990 rehabilitation, the historic appearance of the storefronts was brought back as much as current building codes permitted. The original cornice bracket locations and trim were identified by ghosting in the paint on remaining woodwork. The original brick piers, column bases, and iron columns were uncovered and repaired. The design of the new storefronts was based on their historic appearance as shown in a 1908 photograph of the building. They have wood, panelized bulkheads; large display windows with transoms; and recessed entries with tall, wood doors. The entry at the east storefront remains in the center. The entry at the west storefront remains at the west side of the storefront to provide a barrier-free access. The double doors at the central entry to the upper floors were replaced by a single door with sidelights.

A most distinctive characteristic of the building is its upper-story windows -- seven of them across the front in each story. Wood, double-hung, sash windows, they have arched heads and are framed by raised brick caps with limestone keystones which spring from corbelled brick brackets. The windows at the second floor are tall and narrow. Those at the third floor are taller, reflecting the high ceiling of the auditorium which once occupied that floor and lending an air of elegance to the facade.

The Goodyear Block stands within a row of nineteenth-century commercial buildings, and only the upper portions of its brick side walls where they rise above the buildings on either side are visible. Three simple brick chimneys appear at each side elevation. The east side wall has three windows at the second-story level and and seven -- two of them added as part of the 1990 rehabilitation -- at the third. These windows, like those in the building's rear facade, are of double-hung, round-head form. The building's west facade originally had no windows. Five tall and narrow windows were added at the third floor of the west elevation as part of the 1990 rehabilitation. They match the size and proportions of the existing windows, but have square, rather than round, tops. These windows are barely visible from street level and have no impact on the character of the building.

The building is rectangular in plan and has ground dimensions of approximately 52' in width by 80' in depth. The shed roof slopes gently downward to the rear and is hidden from view by parapet walls at all but the rear (north) elevation. The building's structural system consists of brick bearing walls supporting wood floor joists at the first, second, and third floors. Brick bearing walls aligned with the piers which flank the center entrance span the building from front to back in the first and second stories. These brick interior walls were not carried up through the third story to support the roof. Instead, the roof was supported in the center by wood beams carried on three, non-decorative, cast-iron posts. Prior to the 1990 work, one of the posts had been removed, probably when the third-floor hall was converted for use as a theater in the 1970s. As a result, the roof was sagging. This post and beam system was replaced by wood-frame bearing walls during the recently completed construction. The floor of the east first-floor commercial space had been lowered. All other elements of the structure are original.

The interior space in all three stories is now divided into three sections running from front to back. A narrow central space contains primarily staircases and corridors serving the upper floors. The larger spaces flanking the central corridor-staircase space and occupying the building's east and west ends houses commercial uses at the street level and apartments upstairs.

In the first floor, the central section, 6' in width, originally contained a broad flight of stairs extending from the front of the building up to the second story. This staircase was constructed of wood and finished in a simple manner with a wood rail and plaster walls and ceiling. It also contained a secondary, rear staircase to the second story as well as storage space. Both staircases were replaced as part of the 1990 rehabilitation with new ones that meet code requirements. The remainder of the central bay space at the first floor is used for storage and mechanical rooms.

The east and west sections are each approximately 21' in width, east and west. They have always housed at the street level retail spaces running from the front to the rear of the building. The eastern space has been significantly altered to accommodate the current tenant, a laundromat. It is divided into smaller spaces with stud and drywall partitions, and has an acoustic-panel, dropped ceiling. The west retail space now is a single space with bare brick walls and a pressed metal ceiling.

In the second floor, the central corridor provided access to offices and support spaces for the third-floor auditorium. On the east side, the south end contained an office, the center a lobby with the main staircase to the third-floor auditorium, and the north end restrooms. The office and lobby were original. The restrooms had probably been added in the 1970s to serve theater patrons. The finishes of the original spaces and stairs to the third floor were plain. They included wood plank floors, plaster walls and ceilings, and relatively simple wood trim. In the building's west side, the south end contained an office and the north end a prop room for the third-floor stage. The finishes of the office were similar to those of the original spaces in the east side, but the floors were of hardwood and the ceiling was of pressed metal. The second-story spaces flanking the corridor were recently converted to apartments. The east side contains a one-bedroom and a two-bedroom apartment, while the west contains two efficiency apartments. Original windows and window trim, flooring, and ceiling heights were retained. New elements include drywall partitions, carpet or vinyl tile floors, and simple, contemporary wood trim.

The third floor was originally Goodyear Hall, an auditorium with a ceiling height of 17'. The original finishes included hardwood floors, walls and ceiling of plaster with stenciling at the cornice line, and simple wood trim at the baseboard and windows. The original balustrated railing at the head of the staircase from the second floor had been enclosed or replaced by an approximately 3'-tall, beaded board rail. A stage at the hall's north end dated from the 1970s adaption of the auditorium for theater use. During the 1990 work, the third-floor space was divided by a central corridor with access stairs at either end. Three apartments were created on each side of the corridor. Each of the apartments has a living/dining area with the full 17' ceiling height adjacent to the windows at the outside wall. The four end apartments each have one bedroom and a sleeping loft. The two central apartments each have a sleeping loft. The lofts were created by adding a second floor over the new kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom spaces. The original windows, window trim, and hardwood floors were retained in these apartments. As at the second floor, these features and the tall ceiling height at the main living areas gives the apartments a distinctive historic character. All new features are simple and contemporary in design.