Women's City Club Building

The Women's City Club is significant for its sophisticated architectural design as well as for its important role in the social and cultural life of Detroit. The club traces its origins to 1919 when nine civic minded women established a downtown club for women. The by laws defined its purpose: 'The object of this Club shall be to promote a broad acquaintance among women through their common interest in the welfare of the City of Detroit, and the State of Michigan; to maintain an open forum where leaders in matters of public import and civic interest may be heard frequently, and to provide a club house where its members may meet informally.' The organization expanded rapidly and soon outgrew its rented quarters in the Bigsby Building at 141 Bagley Avenue. By 1922 the building committee had purchased the present site and engaged as architect William Buck Stratton, the husband of committee chairwoman Mary Chase Stratton.

Construction began soon thereafter and the present building was occupied by 1924. The club flourished, eventually enrolling over 8,000 members making it one of the largest women's clubs in the world. Over the years many nationally prominent women came to the City Club for help with their causes. Lillian Russell asked for assistance in the drive to register women voters; Jane Addams came for aid in feeding the starving children of Europe through the Herbert Hoover Fund.

Other local and national figures came to the building to give concerts and lectures and to exhibit arts and crafts in the Art Corner. The Club maintained a professionally produced monthly magazine, and sponsored civic affairs forums with local civic leaders. The Club served as a focal point for the activities of women in other organizations. Among those groups meeting regularly in the building were: Altrusa, D.A.R., League of Women Voters, School of Government, the Board of the Women's Association of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Pro Musica, Musicians League, Native Detroiters, Panhellenic, Detroit Women Writers Association, Women's National Farm and Garden Club, and Zontas.

The City Club worked with various civic enterprises, including ethnic programs, the United Foundation, Keep Detroit Beautiful, the Red Cross and Women's Suffrage. For its members and residents there were a wide variety of classes, programs, dinners, as well as recreation activities housed in the Club's incomparable facilities.

The Women's City Club occupies its entire lot at the corner of Park Avenue and West Elizabeth Street in downtown Detroit. It is surrounded by commercial and office buildings ranging from three to fifteen stories high. The building is rectangular and constructed of pink and beige tapestry brick with exposed elevations facing Park Avenue and West Elizabeth Street. The design of this severely plain, flat-roofed, six-story structure consciously reflects its dual function as a social club and residential facility.

The first three floors, containing stores on the street level and meeting rooms, lounges, dining rooms and functional spaces on the second and third stories, are clearly demarcated from the upper three residential floors. These upper stories are treated visually as if they were an entirely separate structure placed atop the lower three floors almost as if by accident. The massing, the fenestration, the arrangement of bays, and the detailing are entirely unrelated to the lower portion of the building. To further accentuate the division, a brick soldier course above the third story signals a subtle change in coloration with the upper floors being faced in a lighter shade of brick.

The more important elevation faces Park Avenue. This elevation most clearly illustrates the functional considerations that inspired the design. The main entrance to the club is centered at street level within a series of receding brick arches. The fully glazed double doors with sidelights and fanlight are enframed by a ceramic tile band of stylized leaves made at the locally famous Pewabic Pottery.

Flanking the door on each side are two rectangular, fully glazed, store fronts. At the second floor three, multi-paned, tall, casement windows with transoms centered above the entrance are flanked on each side by two large rectangular bands of grouped, casement windows aligned with the store fronts below. The third floor contains five, symmetrically arranged bands of similar, but shorter, casement windows. The fourth through sixth floors reflect a totally different system of massing and symmetry as well as a different type of window unit.

These stories are massed in a 'U' shape with an open well facing the street. Double-hung sash windows are distributed symmetrically to respond to floor plan requirements and do not relate visually to the fenestration of the first three stories. At the fourth story level the court within the legs of the 'U' is filled by a one-story, end-gable-roofed structure that extends out to the face of the building, with a facade of three, closely-spaced, casement windows centered over the fenestration of the lower stories. Although from an angle this structure appears to be free-standing, it is connected to the legs of the 'U' on each side by recessed hyphens with french doors leading out to small balconies with iron picket railings.

The West Elizabeth Street elevation reflects the same dichotomy of design but is more varied in its fenestration. The most distinctive elements are the paired oriel windows extending from the fourth through the sixth floors and the large, arched, central windows at the fourth floor.