A few weeks ago I shared my adventures to the Vanity Ballroom on Detroit's East side. On Friday, TaGeez and I stopped at her sister ballroom on the West side, The Grande Ballroom. It was a puzzle location for RayQix's Come Dancing: The Grande Ballroom GC45WAW.
This Moorish Deco landmark was a gem in Detroit's vast musical legacy. Generations of Detroiters share stories of their parents meeting there on the weekends; their brothers seeing Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin; they saw Detroit's M5.
Ray does a fabulous history, including pictures of the ballroom's heyday, on his cache page.
Unfortunately, when we stopped to see it on Friday, there wasn't even a whisp of that Golden Age ghost present among the ruins. Even the Vanity still held some of its architectural charms.
My two takeaway memories on that bitter afternoon were:
- The tree that was growing within the ruins, whose branches were spied peeking out one of the broken windows.
- The initials of the original owner's kids still etched along the second-floor line.
I was sad as we pulled away from and headed towards the lights of Xochimilcos in Mexicantown.
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