Woodward Building

This English Gothic structure was built as the fourth home of the Disciples of Christ in Detroit, organized by the Reverend William K. Nay in 1846. In 1871, the Protestant sect purchased a building on Washington Boulevard and worshipped there for twenty years. By 1890 the Central Christian congregation occupied a handsome stone Romanesque church facing Cass Park not far from downtown Detroit.

Following the migration of other Protestant groups to the north Woodward area, Central Christian's membership erected the present limestone Gothic structure which was completed in June, 1928. In 1978 the church was sold to the congregation of Little Rock Baptist Church. The 1926-28 Central Woodward Christian Church is a well-preserved, locally significant example of the Neo-Gothic movement in church architecture designed by one of Detroit's leading late nineteenth and early twentieth-century architects.

The structure, measuring 145 feet in length and 110 feet in width, is located on the southeast corner of Woodward Avenue at Alger in Detroit. The church is a Neo-Gothic-style, smooth limestone-clad, L-shaped structure built in 1926-28. It is similar in style and detailing to Trinity United Methodist Church, which was designed by the same architect, George D. Mason, except that it strives to be more archaeologically correct in its carved detailing than its more stylized predecessor.

The tall, narrow Woodward Avenue elevation consists of projecting buttresses terminating in carved statue niches flanking a central pavilion with an arched, recessed, entrance portal surmounted by an arched, traceried Gothic window, above which is a pierced parapet screen at the roof spanning between the buttresses. The other important elevation faces Alger Street. It exposes the long side of the tall, narrow nave with its traceried Gothic windows, looming above a low, one-story wing located adjacent to the nave and extending out to Alger Street. The gabled, slate-roofed nave terminates in a tall, flat-roofed tower with an attenuated, open belfry.

A 2-story, gabled, parish-house wing extends from the tower to Alger Street where a recessed entrance is sheltered by an oriel window. At the rear of this wing and extending behind the tower and nave are additional parish house facilities. The interior of the church is light and airy in feeling because of the cream-colored plaster walls and the large, leaded glass windows. The plainly finished nave focuses on the raised sanctuary with its carved oak and marble reredos, surmounted by exposed organ pipes.

The choir loft on the north side of the sanctuary is lit by monumental stained glass portrait windows of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Ceramic tile floors and oak pews complete the furnishings. The pitched wooden ceiling is supported by wooden arches. Elsewhere in the church are Tudor decorated offices and lounges with stone and plaster chimney pieces, oak panelling, and reproduction English furniture.

There are also Sunday School rooms and an auditorium.

The area of Detroit now known as Woodward East is located on land which may be traced back to a concession by the French Commandant of Fort Detroit, Monsieur Joseph Lemoyne, made in the year 1747 to Eustache Gamelin, an early settler. The long and narrow property passed through several owners before coming into the possession of famous early Irish trader John Askin from his wife's family after his marriage in 1772. Askin's youngest daughter, Adelaide, was to marry a young 'Yankee lawyer' by the name of Elijah Brush, who had come to newly American Detroit in 1798. Four years after their marriage, in the year 1806, Askin's valuable piece of Detroit real estate passed into Brush's hands and became the legendary Brush farm.

Extending on either side of Brush street from the river to the Grand Boulevard, the vast Brush farm did not see major development until the second half of the nineteenth century when Detroit was becoming an important industrial center. Edmund Askin Brush, the son of Elijah Brush, supervised the subdivision of the family farm into hundreds of residential lots. Of the three residential streets in the Woodward East area, Watson was the first to be opened in 1854. It was named after Joseph Watson, a friend of Edmund Brush, who had served with him on the Territorial Land Board.

Edmund Place, next south from Watson, was named for Edmund A. Brush, Jr., who died in early childhood. It was opened in 1867. Alfred Street was also named after one of Edmund Brush's sons, Alfred Erskine Brush (1850-1903) and opened in 1869.

The Brush family was quite adept in the management of their real estate. Farmer's History of Detroit (1890) tells us that the lots were not sold until all the adjoining subdivisions were built and that purchasers were required to erect houses of a certain value within a fixed time limit. These restrictions guaranteed that the area's houses were built to a high standard of quality. The lots themselves were spacious but expensive--remaining records indicate that a typical lot sold for $5000 in the 1880's.

In general the houses in this area were built in the various styles of the era. The majority are three story brick with dormers, porches and brackets. The large front porches were roofed, open and spacious enough to accommodate a number of people. Generally, the first floor is about a half level above grade.

The brick, stone and mill work on the exteriors supports the design details prevalent in the phases of the Victorian era. These single family detached houses were built on lots fifty feet wide and one-hundred fifty feet deep. The houses all faced the street and were set back uniformly from the sidewalk about twenty-five feet. The street pavement was approximately 26 feet wide and made of cedar and granite blocks.

The public right-of-ways were sixty feet wide with stone slab sidewalks on both sides of the street and approximately one foot back from the right-of-way line. The streets were lined with American Elm trees (most of which have been removed). The elm trees were evenly spaced in the area between the curbs and sidewalks with 'stepping stones' at the curb in front of each house to aid in mounting and demounting horses and carriages. Horses and carriages were quartered in brick carriage houses located on the rear of the lots and were accessible from twenty foot wide unpaved alleys which ran parallel to Alfred, Edmund and Watson.

North Woodward Congregational Church was an off-shoot of the First Congregational Church of Detroit which itself had migrated up Woodward Avenue by the 1890s. The church, designed by member Hugh Clement, was the earliest of several built on Woodward north of Grand Boulevard in a district soon to be known as 'Piety Hill' because of the number and variety of religious denominations in close proximity. The cornerstone was laid on January 6, 1911, and the congregation entered the red brick, English Gothic structure on February 5, 1912. In 1969, when the membership had largely moved to the suburbs, the building became the St.

John's Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. The church, which has not been much altered over the years, is a locally significant example of the Neo-Gothic of the early twentieth century.

The structure, measuring 145 feet in length and 100 feet in width, is located on the northwest corner of Woodward Avenue and Blaine Street. It is a red brick and limestone-trimmed, cross-gable roofed, Tudor Gothic-style church built in 1910-11. The cruciform-shaped structure is notable on Woodward Avenue in that it does not have a tower or lantern. The projecting front gable wall containing a large Gothic-arched stained glass window dominates the Woodward Avenue facade.

Extending from the front wall back to the projecting transept on the south side of the main block is a buttressed brick and limestone vestibule containing the main entrance to the church. The interior of the church is basilican in plan with a high central nave and lower side aisles. Large stained glass clerestory windows light the space which is finished in plaster with Gothic moldings. An interesting feature is the pitched, paneled ceiling which is upholstered in gold colored silk between the wood beams for acoustical reasons.

The raised sanctuary apse contains carved wood paneling and a reredos in the Tudor style. The organ is located on the south side of the sanctuary in the front of the church. The sanctuary walls are frescoed with simulated cloth hangings and medieval decorative motifs. The marble baptismal font is placed in a painted niche on the right of the sanctuary.

On the north side of the church, set well back behind a broad lawn, is the attached Collegiate Gothic-style, brick parish house. The parish house is finished in plaster with shallow, bas-relief plaster moldings in Tudor motifs. There are Pewabic mosaic tile floors and a stone fireplace of medieval design in the lounge.

The Woodward Avenue Presbyterian Church is significant as a major work of the prominent turn-of-the-century church architect, Sidney Rose Badgley, and is a very fine example of the type of lantern-dome-crowned, auditorium church for which Badgley was best known.

The structure is located on the northwest corner of Woodward Avenue at West Philadelphia in Detroit and measuring 184 feet in length and 104 feet in width. Woodward Avenue Presbyterian is a rockfaced, brownstone, modern English Gothic-style church with smooth, contrasting, limestone trim built in 1909-1911. It represents a radical departure in massing and plan from the standard, end-gable-roof-and-corner tower Gothic church type. The essentially square, two-story structure is dominated by a tall, octagonal, stone lantern rising from the center of the roof.

The symmetrical, Woodward Avenue facade is composed of two, low, square towers flanking a gabled central section containing the massive, carved-stone-enframed entrance and a Gothic-arched, traceried, stained glass window. The side elevations are dominated by the gabled transepts, which contain full height traceried windows. Adjoining the rear of the church is the two-story educational wing which was constructed at the same time as the church. The design depends upon the contrast between the rough, dark, brownstone walls and the abundant light-colored smooth, limestone English Gothic carving used for the window enframements, the parapets, the gable panels and the portal treatment.

The interior conforms to the Akron Plan auditorium type. Fixed seating arranged in a semi-circle, both on the main floor and in the curving balcony, focuses on a sanctuary platform and adjacent choir area on an interior wall. The basically square, two-story high auditorium is lit by an open lantern in the center of the vaulted ceiling. The well lighted hall contains dark oak woodwork and pews that contrast with the cream colored walls.

Painted decoration made to simulate Byzantine mosaics is used sparingly in the sanctuary and choir areas.

The broader context of Lower Woodward Avenue needs to be illustrated in order to understand its significance. The Capitol Park Historic District is just west of Woodward Avenue and north of Michigan Avenue. The east side of Griswold abuts the west side of Woodward's western alley. The pie-shaped park and the surrounding streets are part of the historic 1807 Woodward Street Plan.

The Capitol Park Historic District was determined eligible for the National Register by the State Historic Preservation Office. The buildings surrounding Capitol Park comprise one of the earliest commercial districts in Detroit, and are by some of Detroit's most prominent architects of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Much of the architecture is on the same scale as Woodward Avenue's commercial structures. Washington Boulevard is just two blocks west of the Lower Woodward Avenue Historic District.

This was an important part of Judge Woodward's historic street plan for Detroit and the true north axis. The Washington Boulevard Historic District is listed on the National Register. Architect Louis Kamper designed Washington Boulevard for the Book brothers as a complete civic concept, to be the most elegant street in Detroit. From the late 1920's - 60's, Washington Boulevard was Detroit's most exclusive shopping street, with high-end stores catering to the upscale clientele who stayed at the Book Cadillac or Statler Hotels.

The boulevard's architecture is intact, and consists of understated neoclassical limestone buildings, as well as elegant Beaux Arts skyscrapers designed by Louis Kamper.

The Lower Woodward Avenue Historic District is a collection of commercial department store buildings constructed between 1886 and 1941. Most structures on Woodward are of steel frame construction, designed with a window curtain wall, faced with a light colored brick, and classical detailing has been incorporated in the design. All of the buildings on Woodward completely fill the lot lines and are consistently built to the sidewalk. The district continues northward with structures varying in material composition from brownstone, white brick, white terra cotta, and red brick.

While the heights are generally consistent at eight stories high, the streetwall dips down to four stories on the west side, and two stories on the east side. Woodward Avenue is the namesake of Judge Augustus B. Woodward, creator of the historic 1807 plan for Detroit. Just a fragment of the Woodward plan was carried out, but the remaining portion is significant to the urban planning history of Detroit and the nation.

The Detroit street plan has been determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The extant streets of the historic plan extend south of Adams to Jefferson and are roughly bounded by Randolph to the east and Cass to the west. In the twentieth century, Woodward Avenue became the spine of Detroit, and is one of the most essential components of the historic plan. The most distinguishing characteristic of Woodward Avenue is the continuous wall of structures creating a 'canyon' of architecture.

Nowhere else in Detroit is this feeling of enclosure as undiminished and complete. Because Woodward has not seen the demolition of buildings within the Historic District, there are no vacant lots or gap teeth in the streetwall, and the sense of enclosure and sense of place are unique to Woodward Avenue in Detroit.