Madison Theatre
22 Witherell Street,
Detroit,
MI
48226
22 Witherell Street,
Detroit,
MI
48226
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Address was 22 Witherell Street. Confirmed via two sources. Direct link to the Water Winter Wonderland website with additional photos. 2009 link only goes to Main Page.
http://www.waterwinterwonderland.com/movietheaters.aspx?id=670&type=5
A post with the history of John H. Kunsky and 9 photos of various theatres from the D Tour 313 Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/dtour313/posts/660491914158834
March 7th, 1917 grand opening ad in photo section.
In the late 60’s-early 70’s until the mid-70’s, ABC Theatres owned and operated the Madison. I recently saw a 1971 newspaper clipping that advertised the Madison – with the ABC logo in the ad – showing a United Artists double feature of Allen Funt’s What Do You Say to a Naked Lady and the original Thomas Crown Affair.
“The Sound of Music” premiered at the Madison 50 years ago today. With a reserved-seat run of 98 weeks, do you think it is the long-run record holder for this venue?
Also, on a related note, I would like to mention my new 50th anniversary retrospective for “The Sound of Music” can be read here.
Yes Woodstock did show at Madison. I was an Asher there. Woodstock appeared for 26 weeks then came back for another 15 weeks. I so met a very nice girl name barb and her bother was one of the asst. managers there. I would love to hear from her.
Here is a view of the Madison circa 1952:
http://tinyurl.com/yb83so8
More photos here:
http://tinyurl.com/d28yca
Terrific info and pictures, I was a projectionist here back in the early 80’s. Mostly karate flicks and horror films. Great memories, and I’m happy to have had an opportunity to work in an old movie palace.
Jeff VA, Yes “Woodstock” premier, was at the Maison. JerryD
The Dead Zone was the last picture to play at the Madison, its letters stayed on the marquee for a long time and became a running joke here in Detroit.
Here are photos from 1961 and 1984, respectively:
http://tinyurl.com/3dae92
http://tinyurl.com/39b4ae
Lost memory—I was part of a crew that removed the remains of the Hillgreen-Lane at the madison in 1979. It had already been picked over, and was an early “churchy” type instrument. There was a nice echo division under the balcony that was intact—we took all of that. we left the enormous manual chests, there was still organ junk in the chambers when she came down.
Did WOODSTOCK premier at the Madison?
I was an usher during high school at the Madison during the late 1960’s when Paint your Wagon and Woodstock had extended runs. During both I would usher patrons to their seat and often get a quarter tip!! Loved going behind the screen down the stairs to the beat up little dressing room we ushers used.
Really hated to see it go!
My photos of the madison are all up. Click HERE to view them.
They have had the building complete for a couple months. It looks very beautiful with details such as rosettes between floors, it is some great infill.
The building hosted a temporary bar for the Super Bowl. They said they plan to have it all finished in the near future
Regarding the comments above from phillster. Spartacus was an exclusive first run roadshow at the Madison. I was the Chief of Service at the Madison at the time, (later the Manager). Spartacus was a move over to the Mercury after a 1 Year run at the Madison.
Works have been working hard on the building this past month.
Its coming along great, the first floor brick looks nice and they are currently doing the top.
Here is the most current drawing for the building.
The building was sold as I thought so above and we are finally seeing work done to the building (work stopped a year or two ago). At the building supplies have arrived and a construction elevator installed.
Plans still call for a bar on the first floor and roof deck.
I really love this plan the building looks even more historic and beautiful than it originally did in the 20s.
When will the building be finished? Hard to tell, it won’t be done before the Super Bowl in ‘06, thats for sure.
The Post Bar sign has been painted over in a shade of black, hopefully they sold it so something will be done with the property.
The interior is the same it has been in the last 2 years or whatnot. 3 of the projectors remaining sitting on the 3rd floor.
Too bad one of Detroit’s great roadshow houses was razed for a bar that never will be completed. As well as the 2 year run of SOM, there were very long runs of West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia and the 70MM version of GWTW. Spartacus did not play here. It played at the Mercury in suburban Detroit, the first non downtown theatre to be a roadshow venue sowing movies in 70MM on a reserved seat basis. As well as Spartacus, the Mercury also had thje roadshow engagements of The Alamo, Patton and The Taming of the Shrew, with Burton & Taylor. phillster on Feb 09, 2005 at 2:30 PM
It has also been said that Post Bar build their frame for their new bar 2 inches off so no one will touch it..
Here are some great night shots of the former Madison now skeleton:
1
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It was a great place, they had to raze it. Currently still today the Post Bar that razed the building to build it’s new bar has lost funding, and is just sitting there, how nice.