Hello, I am United Artists Theater. I was born on February 3, 1928 and was designed by architect C. Howard Crane. I have an auditorium that can seat 2070 people, a basement with an old bank vault, and an 18 story office block. I am 230 feet tall.
My theater is Spanish-Gothic in design, with a motif of Indian madiens. Unlike other theaters of my day, I was built exclusively for showing films. I opened showing the film Sadie Thompson. Other films I have shown include the premiere of Gone With the Wind in 1939, Cleopatra in 1963, The Sound of Music in 1965, and Tora Tora Tora in 1970. Unfortunately my theater closed, and the fixtures were sold off in 1975. Fortunately the Detroit Symphony Orchestra used my acoustically perfect interior to do their recordings from 1978 until 1984. My theater was eventually completely forgotten.
My office block received a very painful remodeling in the 1960s, when they removed and covered many of my original details, especially in the lobby. However it too closed in 1984.
I was happy when a man named Don Barden purchased me and had plans to convert my office tower into lofts. Unfortunately, he sold the building to Mike Ilitch, who has allowed me to rot. My theater's roof has holes in it, and water pours in whenever it rains. The plaster ornamentation has gradually gotten destroyed over the years. Now people only know me because of the colorful paintings that fill every window in my office block. I am worried that I am going to get torn down to make way for a surface parking lot like my friend the Madison-Lenox Hotel did.
