Future Friday: The Detroit That Never Was, Part III

The 1892 Masonic Temple as it actually once stood.

 

In the third installment of our series on proposals for buildings in the city which were never built, we find a situation in which we clearly got the better deal. One of the city’s architectural jewels, the Masonic Temple, almost did not get built! Rather than building their 1037 room temple off of Cass Park in 1922, the city’s Masons nearly widened their cramped 1892 building at Lafayette Boulevard and First Street. They bought the surrounding lots to do so, and postcards were even produced showing the building expanded to three times its width. Thankfully for years of concert-goers, roller derby enthusiasts, and anyone who’s ever gone on one of the Detroit Historical Museum’s Behind the Scenes tours of the structure, they opted to move.

The proposed expansion.