Though this building was a latecomer to Detroit’s historic Monroe Block, it gives insight into the story of this famed stretch of downtown in the years before and after its controversial demolition.
This two-story commercial building appears to be at least partially built out of the shell of the lobby of the former Columbia Theatre, as well as the building next door at 44-46 Monroe - part of the Johnson Block that dated back to 1852 - whose last known use was as a liquor store. This building was most likely built in 1958.
In January 1959, it opened as the Empire Bar, a jazz venue, and offered free parking behind the building after 6 p.m. This most likely referred to the surface lot that was once home to the Columbia Theatre’s auditorium. At this time, the only artist advertised at the bar was pianist Bess Bonnier and her trio, in November and December 1959.
The bar, now going by the name the Empire Bar & Lounge, began to host exotic shows with jazz starting around early February 1960. A Detroit Free Press advertisement from Feb. 3 read, “Now! The newest downtown ‘exotic’ show spot!” Among the performers were Shimmy Wilde and Zeena the white goddess. The club advertised that it had “no cover — no minimum — no door charge,” as well as free parking in its lot.
This appears to have not gone over well, as this was one of the only times the Empire hosted exotic dancers. By Sept. 21, 1960, a Detroit Free Press ad read, “no exotic dancers.” Around the same time, the venue started calling itself the Empire Lounge. An advertisement from that Sept. 30, advertised “cool and hot jazz” and said, “There’s a reason why they’re all swinging over to us. Magnetically different - the place is jumpin’.”
Later, in 1961, the lounge advertised “olde-tyme jazz” and “dixieland jazz.” The bar would host various musicians, such as Billy Maxted, Johnnie “Scat” Davis and Tony Pastor, among many others. This change in format also does not appear to have gone well, as it disappeared from advertisements after Oct. 2, 1961, suggesting a potential closure date. The lounge went under liquidation in November 1962.
Around 1963 or 1964, T&H Discount House, owned by Helen Formanczyk, opened in the former bar space. She was displaced from her previous building, located in the Kern's Block, which was demolished in 1965-66 and had included such buildings as the second Detroit Opera House, the Wonderland Building and Kern's Department Store. These historic buildings were all razed for a redevelopment that ultimately fell through, and the site on Campus Martius wouldn’t be developed for another 30 years.
Meanwhile, the Monroe Block was showing serious signs of decay, not only from neglect but age. Most of the buildings were nearly a century old, and as Detroit’s fortunes had begun to fall, they had been empty for years. Roofs failed. Vandals broke windows. By the mid-1970s, only a handful of businesses remained in the surviving buildings. Many viewed these historic buildings, not as potential assets that could revive downtown, but as blight that was holding downtown back.
In 1974, 13 buildings along Monroe Avenue were nominated for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), and added in early 1975. Included on that list were the first and half of the second Williams Block Building (the other half of the Second Williams Block was the Family/Follies Theatre which burned and was demolished in 1973), the six surviving Johnson Block buildings, the National Theatre, the other three buildings on the 100 Block, and T&H Discount House. However, the only mention of this building in the NRHP document is, “The Columbia (1911-1956) at 50 Monroe Ave., now T&H Discount, was the precursor of the moving picture theater and vaudeville to invade the realm of the nickelodeon on lower Monroe Avenue, and was one of the first in the city.”
Around the same time, plans were announced for a 15-acre downtown shopping center with backing from Detroit Renaissance, and led by Joseph Hudson Jr. of Hudson’s Department Store and Alfred Taubman, the man often credited with creating the concept of the modern suburban mall. The price tag on the project, known as Cadillac Square Mall, was slated at $238 million, the equivalent of $945 million in 2025, when adjusted for inflation – a mammoth investment in downtown Detroit.
But the project would be met by several issues. The project design called for the facades of the Monroe Block buildings to be preserved and a parking deck to be built above and behind the storefronts. Preservationists opposed demolishing the historic block for a mall, and Taubman said he was struggling to find two anchor stores to join Hudson's in the proposed mall. But the real nail in the coffin was how hard Detroit was clobbered by the 1980 recession and a double-dip recession from July 1981 to November 1982, all of which caused interest rates to soar. Of the $238 million for the project, some $128 million was to come from private investment. This was the largest factor for the plan being killed in 1983, the Detroit Free Press reported Dec. 13 of that year. Nevertheless, despite the financial turmoil, the City moved forward with the plan.
In December 1980, Formanczyk told the Detroit Free Press that she and the other two tenants still left in the Monroe Block were being forced out for the Cadillac Square Mall redevelopment, having received a court order to vacate the building by March 1981. Formanczyk said that she would not move from the block unless the City actually started work on the project because she had been forced out of her previous building on the Kern's Block 17 years earlier for another mall project that never took happened. She said that Russell Chambers, the real estate administrator for the Community and Economic Development Department (CEDD) that owned the Monroe Block buildings, told her to “get the hell out.” He denied being rude to Formanczyk, but the other business owners - Lee Canady and Clarence Reynolds - accused him of similar treatment. This led to the City Council requesting him to explain his conduct on Dec. 17, but he never showed up. Formanczyk moved out in early 1981.
The City Council was also threatening the CEDD to delay action on their requests, stating the importance of small businesses for Detroit. On top of that, documents stated that eviction requests would be withdrawn, and instead, the City would work with them to relocate, The Detroit News reported Dec. 18, 1980. "Everything is being done in order to let those buildings deteriorate so they will be in such bad shape, we'll have to level them," Councilwoman Maryann Mahaffey was quoted as saying in the July 14, 1981, edition of The Detroit News.
By 1985, the fate of this building and the Monroe Block was sealed. Though the redevelopment didn’t work out, it didn’t stop the bulldozers, as on Sept. 14, 1988, the Detroit City Council voted 8-0 to tear down 12 of the 13 buildings making up the Monroe Block. Demolition began Jan. 5, 1989, and was completed by Jan. 7, 1990. Only the National Theatre would be spared from the wreckers, though ultimately it, too, would be demolished in January 2024, though its façade was disassembled to be installed elsewhere.
Note: The Empire Bar has no known relation to Cafe Frontenac located underneath the block, besides some of the advertisements listing it at the same address.