Lawyers Building

The Lawyers Building is architecturally significant as a Chicago Style office building with simple, non-historical, ornament. It is primarily of historical importance for its associations with Detroit's important Barlum family and with the rise of trade unionism in Detroit in the 1930s. The Lawyers Building is architecturally important as the finest, unaltered, Chicago Style, high-rise, office building in Detroit. Its simple detailing, straight-forward verticality and structural clarity make the building one of the least altered remaining manifestations of the Chicago Commercial Style in the city. It is notable as one of the few major office buildings in Detroit to reject a heavy overlay of historically derived ornamentation in its exterior detailing and strive toward modernism in its direct expression of curtain wall construction. Unfortunately, the influence of historicism prevailed in the city's architectural community and the Lawyers Building stands alone today amidst the Neo-classical, Gothic, Georgian, Italian Renaissance and Art Deco inspired office towers as the only important reminder of the Chicago Style in the central business district. Historically, the Lawyers Building is significant for its associations with the Barlum family and the rebuilding of Detroit in the 1920s. It was constructed in 1922 by John J. Barlum as the first part of a private real estate development intended to transform the Cadillac Square area from a shabby produce market zone of meat and vegetable dealers and small hotels into a prestigious, modern, office and hotel complex lining a grand boulevard anchored by the magnificent Wayne County Building (1902, National Register listed) on the east and the imposing Detroit City Hall (1871, demolished) on the west. John J. Barlum's plan to rebuild Cadillac Square may have been motivated by a desire to aggrandize the origins of the family fortune that had made him one of the wealthiest men in Detroit by the 1920s. The Barlum family fortune was founded in Cadillac Square. Thomas Barlum, an Irish immigrant, came to Detroit in 1852. He began his career as a butcher in 1860 with a single stall in the Central Market at Cadillac Square. In 1865, the firm of Thomas Barlum, Wholesale and Retail Dealers and Packers, was founded. John J. Barlum, Thomas' eldest son, was a sharp businessman. Educated at Goldsmith College and the University of Detroit, he joined his father's firm as manager. Eventually, he became president of the American State Bank and was a director in the Barlum Land Company, Barlum Realty Company, Cadillac Square Improvement Company, Postal Hotel Company, Barlum Steamship Company, Whitestar Navigation Company, Ashley and Dustin Steamer Line, and the Postal Steamship Company. Over the years, Thomas Barlum had invested heavily in downtown real estate. In the booming economy of the 1920s, Detroit was second only to New York City in the number of new buildings which were constructed. John J. Barlum saw his family's holdings in the area as an opportunity to recast shabby Cadillac Square in a grand new image. The Lawyers Building was the first skyscraper to be erected on the Square. On September 12, 1922, a building permit was taken out which allowed the demolition of the four-story brick hotel which had occupied the site. Within two months, Barlum was ready to begin construction of the Lawyers Building. On November 15, 1922, he received a building permit for a ten-story, reinforced-concrete office building which was to be 44 feet in width by 100 feet in length and 116 feet high. The cost was given as $180,000. The general contractor was the Otto Misch Company, one of the largest building firms in the city. Otto Misch, president of the Misch Company, was known as the 'Builder of Skyscrapers' and was responsible for the subsequent construction of the other Barlum buildings on the square, the Barlum Hotel (1927) and Barlum Tower (1928). The three Barlum buildings were part of a larger plan to redevelop Cadillac Square. When the hotel was begun, the Detroit Free Press reported, 'It is one of the several structures designed in the program of the Cadillac Square Improvement Association/Barlum to develop the frontage of Cadillac Square' (February 6, 1927). The close connection between the Barlum family and Cadillac Square was also noted '... the elder Barlum was building up his great fortune in a meat store on Cadillac Square, which the son, John J., redeemed from a street of market stalls to the dignity of a thoroughfare of skyscrapers' (undated clipping, Burton Historical Collection). In this respect, the Barlum’s were not unlike other major landowners in Detroit at the period, such as the Book family who were constructing a similar development on Washington Boulevard at the same time. Barlum turned away from the Chicago Style for the hotel and tower which were designed to reflect Gothic and Renaissance antecedents. The complete rebuilding of Cadillac Square was interrupted by the onset of the Great Depression. In the late 1930s the Barlum family lost their real estate holdings as a result of the collapse of the American State Bank and mismanagement. The Lawyers Building is also significant as a result of its associations with the rise of trade unionism in Detroit. Never considered to be one of the prestige office buildings in the city, the Lawyers Building from the first attracted a wide variety of tenants seeking medium range rental accommodations close to the seats of county and municipal governments. In addition to numerous lawyers and such related enterprises as the Detroit Law Journal, there was by the 1930s a significant number of union and benevolent organizations such as the Railwayman’s Relief Association of America, and the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electrical Railway Employees of America. In 1937 one tenant, the A.F.L.’s Waiters and Waitresses Association, struck the Woolworth Store resulting in downtown Detroit’s first major sitdown strike. After 108 women employees had occupied the store for eight days, management agreed to recognize the union and raise their wages. After this victory, members of the union also struck the Barlum, Statler, Fort Shelby, Leland, and Cadillac Hotels in an effort to increase wages. This strike required six weeks of bargaining before the Detroit Hotel Association, representing 15 hotels, reached an agreement with union members. The 1937 strikes had a profound effect in encouraging the spread of unionism among service workers in the Detroit area. Today the Lawyers Building is being rehabilitated for continued service as a rental office building using the incentives of the Tax Reform Act.

The Lawyers Building is located in downtown Detroit in an area of highrise, 1920s, office buildings and smaller, turn-of-the-century, commercial buildings. Immediately to the east across Randolph Street is the imposing National Register listed Wayne County Building. It is prominently sited at the important intersection of Randolph Street and Cadillac Square. The building is of Chicago Style design with large window curtain walls inserted between thin, continuous terra-cotta piers enriched with molded decoration. The original entrance was centered in the five-bay Randolph Street elevation, but was moved to the western bay of the Cadillac Square elevation many years ago. The only alteration to the exterior is the modern-style Metropolitan Savings Bank glass, steel and polished granite storefront at the southeast corner of the building. The Lawyer’s Building is a ten-story, reinforced-concrete-and-steel, glazed-terra-cotta-clad, flat-roofed structure with regular bays of grouped, wood casement windows with metal spandrel panels. There are two finished elevations facing south and east. The north and west sides are blank walls which originally abutted structures that have since been demolished. The tower is divided horizontally into three sections in the typical columnar motif of the period. The ground floor and mezzanine level, which constitute the base, are separated from the shaft of the tower by a projecting, molded, terra-cotta, belt course. The tenth-floor ‘capitol’ level is set back from the face of the eight-story shaft above a projecting, molded terra-cotta cornice. A ribbed, terra-cotta parapet spans between the bold, terra-cotta pinnacles that terminate the piers at the roofline. The interior contains no architecturally significant spaces. The small elevator lobby is of simple 1960s modern design. The upper floors are simply plastered open spaces divided by non-loadbearing tenant partitions of various types and period.