When you think of how Detroit put the world on wheels, you naturally think of the automotive industry. But there was another institution that played a key role in helping to get our country rolling.
The Arena Gardens was a legendary rollerskating rink, so much so that the National Museum of Roller Skating in Lincoln, Neb., put out an entire book on the venue in 1999 called “The Allure of the Rink: Roller Skating at the Arena Gardens.”
“From 1935 until it closed in 1953, the Arena Gardens captured the loyalty of both the people of Detroit and of the thousands of Americans who visited,” author Sarah Webber wrote. “This celebrated roller rink, so completely designed and organized around providing roller skaters with a wholesome and enjoyable experience, represented then, as now, the paragon rink in the era of roller rink skating in the United States.”
But its eclectic history stretches far earlier than its rollerskating heyday, as the venue served as everything from a ballroom to a concert venue and a shopping mall to a car wash; it hosted everything from auto shows to ice skating to boxing; and hosted everyone from former U.S. presidents to military generals to opera stars to alligator wrestlers.
Thin ice
The Arena Gardens’ roots are tied to Detroit’s first artificial ice rink, the Detroit Arena, which opened Dec. 3, 1910, on East Warren Avenue near Riopelle Street. It was the brainchild of Harry and David A. Brown, die-hard lovers of hockey who sought to popularize the sport in Detroit. The brothers operated the General Ice Delivery Co., which made and sold ice, and also ran the arena. In addition to open skating, the Detroit Arena also hosted the Detroit Amateur Hockey League, which was formed in 1910. The 20,000-square-foot rink could accommodate 3,000 skaters at one time, and its grandstand could seat 3,000 people.
However, the rink’s “chief handicap,” the Detroit Evening Times wrote Jan. 21, 1913, was that it was too far from Woodward Avenue, the city’s main thoroughfare.
Therefore, the Browns secured options on several available sites along Woodward, “so that when the time is ripe for an artificial ice rink on Detroit’s main stem, the Brown family will have the whip,” the Evening Times wrote. “It seems certain that there is destined to be a paying rink on (Woodward) Avenue. … (Harry) Brown has watched dance balls, theater and other places of amusement being built along the big trail, and he is not unaware that that is the ultimate location for his rink. Once it is there, the popularity of hockey will have no bounds, is his prediction.”
Finally, in the summer of 1916, that vision would start to become a reality as workers broke ground on the project. Brown had hired Albert Kahn to design a huge new auditorium of steel and reinforced concrete at Woodward Avenue near Hendrie Street. The building was long but narrow - 100 by 495 feet - and stretched from Woodward the entire block, to Cass Avenue. There were entrances at each end. Brown’s plan was to use the building as an auditorium capable of seating 8,000, and holding up to 10,000 people, from April to November and convert it into an artificial ice-skating rink during the winter months. It would have about 2,500 permanent seats for hockey games, with 900 on the main floor at the north side of the rink and 18 rows of seats in the balcony.
The balcony level featured a tea room for ladies looking to escape the hockey action or for hosting afternoon skating tea parties. The mezzanine floor held the men’s smoking room, a skate-sharpening room, as well as two locker rooms.
The venue would be known at various points over the next couple of years as the Detroit Ice Palace, the Detroit Arena Ice Palace, the Arena Ice Palace, The Arena and, borrowing the name of its predecessor, the Detroit Arena.
“No longer will Detroit hockey fans and skaters have to traverse poorly lighted streets in an undesirable locality to attend games and to enjoy an afternoon or evening gliding over the congealed surface,” the Detroit Free Press wrote Oct. 22, 1916, “for sometime about the middle of November, what probably will rank as the finest equipped artificial ice rink in the country will be opened to the public. Not only in its equipment and architectural construction does the new rink now nearing completion rank the equal of those in other large cities where the skating sport is enjoyed, but its location on Woodward Avenue at Hendrie provides the (street)car accommodations in a centrally located spot.”
Kahn coated the exterior in white terra cotta, and utilized a steel truss system to keep pesky columns out of sight lines and out of the path of ice skaters. The facility had its own ice plant, which was separate from the actual rink inside, that could be used for making ice for both the rink and for the Browns’ domestic ice business.
“Nothing will be left undone to provide every convenience for the skaters and patrons of hockey games,” the Free Press continued. “Skaters will be able to enjoy their favorite sport in a temperature of about 60 degrees.”
The Detroit Hockey Club was granted use of what was then being called the Detroit Arena Ice Palace for its upcoming season, but the arena wouldn’t be ready to go until mid-December 1916. Games were held on Monday and Tuesday nights. The DHC was led by stars like Al Roberts, “Spider” Johnston and Rover "Speed" Holman; the men wore pink and white uniforms while squaring off against teams like the Toronto Crescents and the Kitchener (Ontario) Union Jacks.
“The game of hockey has enjoyed a rather checkered existence in Detroit,” The Detroit News wrote Dec. 3, 1916. “The teams of 1910-11-12-13-14 played good hockey, but patronage was lacking due to the poor location of the rink. Then two seasons ago, the Detroit Hockey Club organized, taking hockey in its own hands and its success seemed assured. … This season, the D.H.C. has made arrangements to use the new Arena rink, which has everything in the way of accommodations that the game should need to make it flourish. … Plans are being made to bring the best hockey teams of Canada and the United States here in the expectation that Detroit now is ready for ‘big league’ hockey and will support it.”
The last day of ice-skating at the arena would be March 9, 1918. After the rink was disassembled for the season, the Arena would host dancing to Shook’s Orchestra and announced a series of philharmonic concerts for the fall. But without any reason given in the papers, management decided to go in a different direction. David Brown entered into an arrangement in June 1918 with the Devoe Arena Co. to convert the ice arena into a concert venue and dance hall.
And that was a shame for the hockey club because, as The Detroit News reported Jan. 9, 1918, that they had finally managed to win over the city’s fans. Under a headline reading: “Strange sight witnessed: Detroit hockey team cheered,” The News reported that “when the Detroit hockey fans began cheering their own team Tuesday evening, it almost marked a new era in Detroit hockey.”
Left without a home, the team was disbanded. That new era in Detroit hockey would have to wait until the Red Wings arrived in 1926.
A new Arena era
The Devoe Arena Co. was run by James E. Devoe, whom The Detroit News called a “local impresario" prominently connected with the concert industry in the city. He leased the facility and served as its manager, booking acts and handling the dancing business. The arena would undergo a major transformation, and such a transformation called for a new name: the Arena Gardens.
Famed theater architect C. Howard Crane was hired and “authorized to spare no effort in making it one of the best in America,” The Detroit News reported June 23, 1918. Crane is best known for his designs that would come after the Arena Gardens, such as the Fox Theatre, Fillmore Detroit and what is now the Detroit Opera House.
The Arena was said to have already proven to have “perfect” acoustics, so all it really needed was to be gussied up. A 40-by-80-foot stage for concerts was set up on the Cass Avenue end and was deemed one of the biggest in the state. When not hosting concerts, the venue would be open for dancing on an 18,000-square-foot dance floor that was said to be the largest in the Midwest.
The arena’s interior was done up, as the name would imply, like a summer garden. On the sides, lattice work was covered in climbing vines. Red- and white-striped canvas hung from the ceiling, providing a canopy effect. The dancefloor was separated from the promenade by boxes of shrubbery. There were 1,800 seats along the floor and in the balcony, and more seats could be added to the floor to take the venue’s capacity up to 5,000.
“Hardly could the architect, C. Howard Crane, have designed a more pleasing effect than has been worked out for Detroit’s newest enterprise,” the Free Press wrote Sept. 7, 1918. The Arena Gardens was “Detroit’s new bower of beauty, where the dance-loving folk and those inclined to high-class concerts alike will be catered to. … No time or money has been spared to make the arena fill a long-felt want in Detroit. It combines the best features of the Ritz-Carlton and Amsterdam Gardens of New York and the LaSalle Gardens of Chicago, and is something unique in this city.”
The Arena Gardens formally opened with a night of dancing to the 15-piece Arena Gardens Orchestra on Sept. 7, 1918. Several hundred guests turned out to help break in the dance floor. Admission was 10 cents for women and 15 cents for men, the equivalent of $2 and $3 in 2025, respectively. Dancing was initially offered every night except Sundays or when there was a concert.
Its first concert was held Sept. 30, 1918, with four opera singers: contralto Carolina Lazzari of the Chicago Opera and Metropolitan Opera Company soprano Frances Alda, tenor Giovanni Martinelli and baritone Giuseppe De Luca. Gennaro Papi, one of the Metropolitan’s conductors, accompanied on piano. Other artists performing in the venue’s first philharmonic season included Jascha Heifetz (billed as “the greatest violinist of the century”), soprano Rosa Raisa, Metropolitan Opera contralto Sophie Braslau and soprano Mabel Garrison, and Hipolito Lazaro, “the sensational Spanish tenor of the Metropolitan.”
Dancing at the Arena Gardens was stopped in October 1918 to comply with an edict from the Board of Health over the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918-1920, but, oddly, no such ban was put in place for lectures or concerts. However, ads for the Arena Gardens and other venues around this time usually bore a disclaimer: “Health conditions permitting.” A much-hyped performance by ballet stars Andreas Pavley and Serge Oukrainsky - veterans of the original Imperial Russian ballet headed by Anna Pavlova - was postponed until April 10, 1919.
When the venue reopened for dancing Nov. 6, 1918, dancers found several upgrades made during the closure, such as a new lighting system.
The stars descend on the Arena
On Nov. 11, 1918, the Arena Gardens hosted a recital by famed Italian coloratura soprano Amelita Galli-Curci, which was said to be the largest concert audience in the city’s history up to that point, though no attendance figures for that show were given. Crowds of more than 4,500 were reported at other concerts held at the venue, so it is assumed the number of attendees that night was higher.
“The sale of seats to date exceeds in number the audience which heard the famous prima donna (Galli-Curci) last season, but the large capacity of Arena Gardens, together with its excellent acoustics, makes it possible to accommodate the largest audiences in the city’s history,” the Free Press reported Nov. 9, 1918.
The Free Press review glowed the following morning that “every seat in the large auditorium held its Galli-Curci devotee or an expectant, curious person who, before the evening was over, became as eloquent in praise of the singer as those upon whom she had cast her spell in previous visits to the city.”
The French Army Band, which the Free Press described as being “made up of 68 musician heroes” and led by conductor Gabriel Pares of the Garde Republicaine Band, performed at the Arena Gardens on Nov. 22, 1918. All 68 had fought in the French Army during World War I. Pares was regarded as the greatest band director in France, “in fact,” the Free Press wrote Aug. 18, 1918, “he is the Sousa of that country.”
It just so happened that John Philip Sousa - the American composer of “The Stars and Stripes Forever” fame and the so-called “king” of the military march - would later bring his band to the Arena Gardens, for two performances on Oct. 12, 1919.
The hometown Detroit Symphony Orchestra journeyed up Woodward from its home at Orchestra Hall to perform at the Arena on a number of occasions, including a nightly run for 12 weeks in 1920 with assistant conductor Victor Kolar. The Arena Gardens underwent a remodel to accommodate this "Pops" series, with a special stage erected in the middle of the hall against the south wall. The venue also hosted special nights for holidays or featuring jazz and Spanish dance, among other themes.
Sunday evening “war lectures” were given to satisfy the public’s fascination with the first World War. The first was given by Floyd Gibbons on Sept. 26, 1918, about one of the battles at Chemin-des-Dames. Gibbons had been wounded and lost an eye fighting with the Marines at Chateau Thierry. E.M. Newman, who toured the country giving his “Traveltalks,” arrived Oct. 6. “Mr. Newman has seen the war from behind the scenes, and those who know his work realize that this means bringing the stirring events of the great struggle before the eyes of his hearers in (a) most vivid manner,” the Free Press wrote Sept. 28, 1918. His presentation included motion pictures and color photographs of the conflict, a novelty for the time.
International opera stars, including Japanese prima donna Tamaki Miura in “Madame Butterfly,” continued to descend at the Arena Gardens, performing before thousands of spectators.
On May 16, 1919, former President William Howard Taft addressed an audience at Arena Gardens about the importance of creating the League of Nations, telling Detroiters that the “desire for the League of Nations springs from the people who have been through the vortex of war and who do not want to pass through it again.”
“Detroit surrendered gladly” to Gen. John J. Pershing - the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during World War I - when he spoke to 8,000 Detroiters at the Arena Gardens on Dec. 18, 1919. He said that it was his belief that the struggle of classes would be settled by “the rich boy and poor boy who elbow to elbow in Europe learned the value of combined action as opposed to independent action and found admirable qualities in each other.”
More than concerts and speeches
In an era where segregation and discrimination against people of color and Jews was commonplace, even in Detroit, it is worth noting that the Arena Gardens held several events in its early days that bucked the norm. For instance, on Jan. 19, 1919, a benefit gala was held for the benefit of the newly opened Dunbar Memorial Hospital for African Americans. The New York Syncopated Orchestra, a group of Black musicians, held a recital there Feb. 16, 1919. Dr. Benzion Mossinsohn, founder and principal of the Herzlia Gymnasium in what was then Jaffa, Palestine, spoke at the Arena Gardens on Jan. 19, 1919. Mossinsohn was one of the leaders of the Zionist Action Committee and General Zionist party.
The week of Oct. 6-11, 1919, saw the Detroit Auto Dealers Association bring the city’s “first exhibition of closed motor cars.” The Free Press wrote Sept. 14 of that year that “a beautiful setting for the luxurious equippages is being worked out for the Arena Gardens and from the standpoint of beauty, there is no question but that the October exhibition will outclass anything ever attempted by the D.A.D.A..” Eighty to 100 models from 38 manufacturers were to be displayed - the “greatest exhibition of closed cars which has ever been presented for public approval in any one exhibition.” The “$500,000 car salon,” as it was billed, featured performances by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra each day of the show, as well.
“The demand for this type of car has grown fast during the last three years, and today the percentage of closed cars in use is astonishing when it is considered that originally, cars were sold without tops or windshields,” the Free Press noted Sept. 28, 1919.
Makes on exhibit included Buick, Cadillac, Chandler, Chalmers, Chevrolet, Cleveland, Cole, Columbia, Davis, Detroit Electric, Dodge Bros., Dort, Essex, Ford, Franklin, Hudson, Hupmobile, Jordan, King, Lexington, Liberty, Marmon Maxwell, Milburn Electric, Mitchell, Nash, Oakland, Overland, Packard, Paige, Peerless, Pierce-Arrow, Rauch-Lang Electric, Reo, Scripps-Booth, Studebaker, Willys-Knight and Winton. Mayor James Couzens flicked a ceremonial switch that controlled the lights in the Arena Gardens to open the event.
The Arena Gardens would host boxing bouts, track meets, wrestling, labor movement meetings, Halloween parties, and conventions, such as the 40th international convention of the YMCA, which opened Nov. 19, 1919, drawing more than 5,000 attendees over five days. Hotels were so swarmed for the latter, the passenger steamship City of Detroit III was docked at the foot of Wayne Street so that its staterooms could house delegates unable to find accommodations on land.
From venue to market
It is unclear whether all these elaborate productions were unprofitable or someone outbid the Gardens’ operators when it came time to renew the lease, but just two years to the month later, it was announced that the Arena Gardens was being transformed from “a place of amusement to a market building,” the Free Press wrote Sept. 15, 1920. “This center of amusement and culture is being prepared for rededication to the problem of home maintenance.”
The building was leased to the Detroit Markets Co. and renamed the Cass Woodward Market. It featured more than 80 food shops on the main floor and 30 shops on the second-floor balcony arcade, including clothiers, music, hardware and shoe stores. In all, 70,000 square feet of retail bliss made it something of a precursor to the shopping mall. It was said to be the largest establishment of its kind in the Midwest.
One hundred workmen on three shifts stripped the Arena Gardens of its finery. The fine hardwood floor was ripped out and replaced with concrete and tile. Rows of chairs were replaced with rows of stalls. The interior was done over in white, and the stalls constructed of plate glass, terra cotta brick and tile.
When it formally opened Jan. 28, 1921, "the building will not be recognizable to those who knew it when it was a center for entertainments and artistic events," the Free Press wrote Jan. 9, 1921. "It has been made into one of the most complete centers for food handling and distribution at a cost well in excess of $250,000," the equivalent of $4.2 million in 2025, when adjusted for inflation.
This venture would prove to be short-lived, because in the fall of 1923, it was announced that dancing would return every night but Monday, thanks to a large floating dance floor. The Paramount Amusement Co., led by President H.A. Hyman, leased the building. The firm was known for operating "ballrooms of refinement," an ad said. "If it's worthwhile, it's at the Arena." A gala reopening was held that Sept. 7.
Paramount also brought back concerts through the Detroit Civic Music League. The first was Nov. 5, 1923, with soprano Rosa Raisa and baritone Giacomo Rimini. The 53-member Sistine Chapel Choir left the Vatican for a 10-week tour of the U.S., and performed at the Arena Gardens on Nov. 15, 1923. It also brought back boxing - lots of it, often weekly. The great Sonny Liston fought at the Arena Gardens in front of 2,000 fans. The 6,000-capacity Arena would host a bit of everything else in between, from indoor baseball tournaments to temporary bowling alleys to Vaudeville to fashion shows to circuses to political rallies.
The first championship boxing bout held in Michigan in which a decision was permitted by the boxing commissioner was held at the Arena Gardens on Jan. 9, 1925, between middleweight champ Harry Greb and Detroit’s own Bob Sage. Newspapers reported that the house was packed and hundreds were turned away. Greb, who outweighed Sage by 8-and-a-half pounds, won the 10-round decision.
One of the more dramatic events held was an anti-Ku Klux Klan rally on Oct. 21, 1924. Aldrich Blake, an anti-Klan force from Oklahoma, delivered a speech while thousands outside tried to drown him out by shouting and honking the horns on their cars. Supporters of Detroit mayoral candidate Charles Bowles - who had been backed by the KKK - adorned their cars bearing Bowles banners, and tried to take up all the parking spots around the Gardens in an effort to impede folks from attending the rally. They then plastered others’ cars with campaign literature. A mob of 6,000 Bowles supporters descended on the Arena Gardens in an attempt to break up the rally. Police had to resort to tear gas to break up the mob. Though they dispersed, Bowles supporters then took to their automobiles and started a parade going around and around the block, not leaving until Blake’s event was over. If any arrests were made, they were not reported in the papers. Bowles refused to comment on the near riot, but decided to hold a campaign rally at the Arena Gardens himself, on Nov. 4, 1924.
“I have made several addresses in Michigan on the Klan, and have been amazed at the strength it is showing in this state,” Blake said in addressing the riot. “The Klan controls about 29 counties of Michigan at the present time. It will reach its peak in another 12 months and unless something is done to stop it, it will have virtual control of the state in that period. The Klan is stronger here than I had anticipated. I was never interrupted to the extent of having to abandon my lecture in Illinois or Indiana or in the South.”
Bowles lost that election, but would become the city’s 58th mayor in 1930. He was recalled from office just six months later over corruption and for tolerating lawlessness in the city.
The last event of this era of the Arena Gardens that showed up in the papers was one of several Communist Party rallies held there, this one in May 1928 and attended by some 3,500 people.
It’s unclear whether the venue’s operators went bust, but just two months later, on July 30, 1928, the Arena Gardens reopened as the Arena Gardens Automobile Laundry. Detroiters could drive into the building from either Woodward or Cass avenues, get their car washed "inside and out in jiffy time" - about 9 minutes - for 95 cents and then drive out the other side. Patrons could hit up the soda fountain, watch the work being done on their car or kick back and relax in a spacious lobby. Beginning Aug. 20, 1928, the car wash opened 24 hours a day, offering nickel-polishing, oil changes, body polishing and more.
This venture also apparently proved unprofitable, because in July 1930, the Union Guardian Trust Co. advertised that the Arena Gardens was "available for immediate possession at a most attractive price."
It would find a buyer in former wrestler and sports buff Adam Weismuller.
The wrestler’s Arena
Weismuller was "shrewd, honest and generous," the Detroit Times wrote March 9, 1937. "Above all else, loyalty was his religion."
Weismuller was born in Vargas, Romania, and came to the U.S. around the age of 14, with his family settling in Chicago. At the time, he was obsessed with becoming a musician. Though he had played the concertina as a child in his native village, "somehow, fate stepped in, and the best Adam could acquire was a cheap, squeaky accordion, which, like the saxophone, is a sort of black sheep among musical instruments," the Times wrote.
Nevertheless, he mastered the instrument and organized an orchestra to play around town. While in Chicago, he became a member of a turnverein, a German gymnastic troupe. Wrestling caught his fancy, and before long, he was facing off with the "matmen." In between his bouts as a pro welterweight, Weismuller worked as a factory hand, wood finisher, pants presser and a janitor until he became among the Midwest’s best in the sport. He moved to Detroit in 1924, and the following year, he became the American welterweight champion. This was not Hulk Hogan's style of wrestling; some of his matches lasted up to two hours.
In the late 1920s, when Weismuller was at the peak of his wrestling career when another grappler approached him, seeking help. The other man was suffering from trachoma, a contagious bacterial disease that often causes blindness. Because no other wrestler would square off against him over fears of catching it, the man was penniless and in debt. He begged Weismuller for a match.
"Weismuller wrestled with him to help him out, and today is paying the penalty of his charity," the Detroit Times wrote Aug. 17, 1930. Weismuller "is doomed to end his career in a pall of darkness. He is going blind. His left eye already is sightless, and specialists tell him that he will lose the vision of his right eye. His disability has cost him his job, and his savings have been exhausted in doctor bills. Wrestling caused Weismuller's blindness, and from wrestling, he hopes to salvage something of the wreckage of his life."
He did that by taking up sports promotion and organizing a wrestling league. "I don't want to make a fortune," Weismuller told the paper. "I only want to make a living and pay my doctor bills. I know no other way in which to do it except by promoting wrestling shows."
But a modest fortune he did make. Along with Jim Londos, known as "the Golden Greek," wrestling was about to enter its golden era in Detroit. Wrestlers like Ali Baba (catchphrase: “Is he man or beast?”), Nango Singh, Man Mountain Dean, Lem Tunney, Bert Ruby and the Masked Marvel dazzled Detroiters in the 1930s and early '40s. Weismuller "became a sort of legend, a reputed King Midas of his little domain," the Detroit Times wrote March 9, 1937.
While the Depression was pinning the local and national economy, Weismuller began promoting at the Danceland in January 1930.
After taking over the Arena Gardens in 1930, Weismuller moved his show from the Danceland (later known as the Madison Ballroom) to his new charge, offering wrestling every Monday night. Seating capacity for Weismuller’s events was about 4,700, and he also held outdoor matches in a ring set up on property adjacent to the venue.
From 1933 to 1937, his wrestling troupe performed to large crowds and brought in receipts of $1,000 to $3,000 a night - or about $24,000 to $70,000 in 2025. He branched out to have a hand in wrestling outfits in Pontiac and Lansing, Mich., as well as Chicago; Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Dayton, Ohio; Louisville, Ky.; and Milwaukee, among other cities.
With his skillful promotional tactics and newfound change of luck, Weismuller decided to expand the venue’s offerings in order to keep the place busy throughout the week instead of only on Mondays for wrestling. In September 1936, he joined forces with Louis J. Giffels, the general manager at Olympia Stadium, to promote boxing matches at the two venues.
On Oct. 31, 1934, the legendary Joe Louis made his one and only appearance at the Arena Gardens before a crowd of about 1,000 people. It was the ninth bout of his pro career, and he floored Jack O’Dowd for a nine-count in the first round before knocking him out in the second.
But Weismuller’s biggest move was deciding to also add rollerskating to the menu.
Wheels up
A brief background on rollerskating is necessary here. In 1910, there were only about 150 rinks across the country. Though the pastime had experienced a surge in popularity in the late 19th century, it had fallen out of favor as rinks became notorious hangout spots for ruffians and thugs - as odd as that may sound today. With the onset of the Depression, more and more out-of-work Americans were looking for something fun - and most importantly, cheap - to do. But something had to be done to clean up the venues’ reputation.
The trouble was, Weismuller didn’t know the first thing about operating a rink. He reached out to Fred A. Martin, the general manager of Chicago’s White City Rink, for advice. According to Webber’s “The Allure of the Rink,” Martin would later recall meeting “over a good bowl of pea soup” at Trafton’s Restaurant in Detroit to negotiate a deal that would lead to “one of the foremost, finest, largest and most modern rinks in the United States.” Along the way, Martin would cement his legacy and earn himself the nickname "the Grand Old Man of Rollerskating."
Fred Avedano Martin was born Feb. 27, 1892, in Genoa, Italy, but his family moved to San Francisco shortly after. While a boy, he started working at a nearby skating rink and quickly developed a lifelong passion for a life on wheels. He took up speedskating and began racing competitively while a teen. In 1914, he won the world's 24-hour endurance speed-skating title, one he hung on to until 1920, when he gave up racing in order to focus on the business side of the sport. Following the meeting with Weismuller, the then-43-year-old Martin moved to the Motor City with his wife, Nettie, and their five children in order to become the manager of the Arena Gardens in the late summer of 1935.
The family got to work helping Weismuller turn the Arena Gardens into a rollerskating Mecca, overseeing some $18,000 in alterations, the equivalent of about $350,000 in 2025. Central to the makeover was a new 25,000-square-foot maple floor measuring 88 by 240 feet, with the wood at the both ends of the rink angled at 180 degrees to ensure that the skaters’ wheels always followed the grain. Weismuller also installed a three-console Wurlitzer pipe organ, complete with all the bells and whistles, as well as horns, chimes, bells and trumpet sounds that were found in traditional theater organs. After all, what was rollerskating without music?
Weismuller "is proud of the new Arena Gardens," the Free Press wrote Nov. 12, 1935, the day the rink opened to rollerskating. "The quiet little German points out the improvements to everyone who visits the Gardens, but he's proudest of a huge pipe organ that has just been installed to furnish music for the rollerskaters and the wrestling fans."
Russell Bice, a former organist for various movie theaters, would tickle the Arena Gardens’ synthetic ivories for almost the rink’s entire 18-year run, starting just a month after the rink’s opening. “On my first touch of the keys, I was almost knocked off my feet,” Bice told Webber for “The Allure of the Rink.” “In all of my born days, I had never played on such an instrument at this.” Favorite skating tunes of the time included “On Green Dolphin Street” and “Poinciana.”
But a year and a half after rollerskating began at the Arena Gardens, Weismuller died at Henry Ford Hospital, on March 8, 1937, succumbing to a stomach disorder that had left him ill for two months. He was just 37 years old. Per Weismuller's request, the wrestling show that night would go on, with Bull Curry squaring off against Mystery Man No. 2 in the headliner match.
"Weismuller's record as a promoter stands as a tribute to persistence that few men in any sport can match," The Detroit News wrote the day of his death.
"The grunt and groan industry won't seem the same here without him," the Detroit Times added March 29, 1937.
Anticipating that he wouldn’t recover, Weismuller had set up the Weismuller Sports Entertainment Corp. to carry on the business. Eddie "Bad Man" Lewis, also known in the rink as “Strangler” as one of the heels in Weismuller's wrestling circuit, took over the wrestling operation but struggled. Martin was put in charge of day-to-day operations of the Arena Gardens, effectively putting him in control of the place. He would ensure that the skating business kept the venue’s doors open.
After becoming manager, one of Martin’s first moves was to establish the Arena Gardens Roller Skating Club, in 1935, to build the number of regulars and create a social club of sorts to keep folks coming back. Members got discounts on admission, invitations to members-only events and a monthly newsletter, the Detroit Roller Skater. Within a year, it had 2,000 members, and by 1940, had grown to 5,000.
But there was still the matter of cleaning up the clientele if the rink was to become a destination for family-friendly fun. Martin was “one of the first to believe young hooliganism could be fought effectively,” the Free Press wrote Oct. 23, 1955.
Respectability at the rink
On April 4, 1937, Martin persuaded 16 owners who operated 23 rinks across six states to form the Roller Skating Rink Owners Association (RSROA) in order to set a new standard in the business. He invited them to lunch at La Casa Loma, at 5435 Woodward Ave., to make his pitch and hash out the details. By the end of the year, the RSROA had more than 100 members.
Martin served as secretary-treasurer of the RSROA for 13 years and served as its president for one year, in 1952. After that, he served as a promotional counsel for the association.
Rinks in the RSROA kicked out the punks and implemented strict, formal dress codes. At the Arena Gardens, men had to be in dress pants or slacks, dress shirts and a tie; women had to wear dresses or skirts that reached at least the knees. Throughout its entire existence, the Arena Gardens never allowed jeans, T-shirts, collarless shirts or sweaters. By requiring skaters to dress formally, as they would for other social events, Martin believed he was instituting a policy of civility and keeping crowds from becoming rowdy or disrespectful. While a doorman would greet each patron warmly, those with booze on their breath were not allowed inside. Anyone who was a bully on the lanes, or cut other skaters off, was told to leave.
Likewise, employees all had to dress sharply in red uniforms with white hats and gloves. The management always wore tuxedos, which Martin said helped visibly demonstrate that the Arena Gardens was a respectable place. The Arena Gardens had both Black and white employees. However, Webber’s book notes that few African Americans were known to have actually skated there, perhaps because of economic reasons or feeling socially unwelcome.
In 1942, admission was 50 cents for Arena Gardens Skating Club members and 60 cents for the general public, or about $10.25 and $12.30 in 2025 valuation, respectively.
Because many Detroiters did not own their own skates, especially in the early days following the Depression, the Arena Gardens rented out clamp-on skates that attached to their shoes. By the early 1940s, the rink switched over to renting out skates with boots attached. The venue kept about 1,500 pairs of house skates in various sizes on hand. Guests were directed to the skate room, where attendants not only provided patrons with a pair of skates, but skate boys to put them on for them.
For the die-hard skating enthusiasts, the Arena Gardens opened a skate shop along Woodward in 1945, becoming one of the first rinks in the country to do so. In those days, a pair of skates would set you back about $15, or about $270 in 2025. About 3,000 pairs were sold each year at the shop, and it also sold skating outfits, carrying cases and more. Its employees also serviced customers’ skates to keep them rolling.
If a customer was new to rollerskating, Martin called over an instructor to help them get the hang of it on a 4,000-square-foot practice rink before turning them loose on the main floor. Professional instructors also offered private lessons for $1 an hour in the 1930s (about $22 in 2025) and $2.50 in the 1940s and ‘50s (about $50 in 2025).
Martin was so committed to ensuring the Arena Gardens was the best around, he even micromanaged to the point of making sure the refreshment counter’s milkshakes were up to snuff. Other refreshments on offer included sundaes, Boston Coolers, malteds and hot dogs.
The RSROA members started a nationwide series of contests and awards for competitive skating to give the kids something to strive for and to stay on the straight and narrow. After all, ruffians weren’t allowed to participate. By 1955, there were more than 5,000 Detroit-area skaters registered to compete in official competitions, and a number of Arena Gardens skaters took home trophies. The Detroit News wrote Jan. 7, 1952, that “as far as rollerskating is concerned, Detroit has for years been the City of Champions, and Arena Gardens the Cradle of Champions."
"Fifteen years ago, rollerskating was the rowdy problem child of indoor recreation," the Free Press wrote Oct. 23, 1955. "Rinks made a great place for young hoodlums to hang out. Today, rollerskating in Detroit is an accepted member of society. Many families turn to it as the one form of recreation they can enjoy together. Rinks now are being reserved by such groups as the Girl Scouts (and) Brownies. Skaters range in age from tots of three to great-grandparents in their 80s."
This helped rollerskating become the second-most popular participant sport in the country next to bowling. Americans bought three times as many rollerskates as ice skates in the 1930s, according to the National Museum of Roller Skating, and by 1942, there were more than 3,000 rinks across the country - an increase of 1,900 percent over 30 years. It was estimated that more than 10 million Americans were lacing up their skates, and by 1940, some 6,000 Detroiters were heading to the Arena Gardens each week. Margaret Walker, who skated at the Gardens in the early 1940s, told Webber for “The Allure of the Rink” that the place was so packed, “there was no room or space to fall.”
Helping the Arena Gardens’ fortunes was the venue’s proximity to Wayne State University, as well as public institutions like the Detroit Public Library’s main branch and the Detroit Institute of Arts. Families could make a day of it in the city’s Cultural Center and cap it off with a night of skating at the Arena. There also were still a number of residential areas nearby in those days.
Martin took over the lease of the Arena Gardens effective June 1, 1950. Under a new organization called Martin Amusement Enterprises Inc., he closed the hall for the summer to renovate it, slating the reopening for Sept. 2.
He also announced a partnership with former boxing commissioner Jim Duffy called the Arena Gardens Boxing Club, with their first bout being held between Detroiters Izzy Leyton and Dave Rollins set for Sept. 26, 1950.
On the wrestling side, beefy behemoths like Hombre Montana, Pancho Romero, Super Mr. X, Ivan “The Terrible” Rasputin, Chief Lone Eagle, Flash Clifford, the Hungarian Angel, Louie Klein, Buddy “Nature Boy” Rogers and Bozo Brown took to the mat at the Arena Gardens in this era. On Nov. 9, 1948, a heavyweight wrestling bout at the Gardens also featured one Tuffy Truesdale throwing down against an 8-foot, 350-pound alligator.
On Feb. 27, 1952, a 60th birthday party was held for Martin at the Arena Gardens attended by more than 900 skaters, including a parade of Martin's champions. Martin was "a cornerstone in rollerskating in this country," the Detroit Times wrote the following day.
Making way for a different kind of four wheels
Following World War II, there was a tremendous explosion in suburban development. More people were leaving Detroit and moving to newly built houses further from the city center. Indeed, Detroit’s population would decrease every year for more than half a century starting in 1950, dropping by 1.2 million (65 percent) between then and 2024. This exodus led to the creation of freeways that would enable people to get in and out of the city faster - and with Detroit having been built border to border, that meant plowing through neighborhoods and commercial corridors.
On Oct. 10, 1952, it was announced that the State Highway Commission had bought the Arena Gardens for $180,000, about $2.2 million in 2025 valuation, in order to tear it down to make way for the Edsel Ford Expressway (Interstate-94). The final competition held at the Arena Gardens was the state rollerskating championships, which got under way April 7, 1953. More than 300 skaters signed up to compete.
That same month, the Michigan Highway Department awarded an $11,635 demolition contract (worth about $140,000 in 2025) to Midwest Wrecking Co. of Warren Township to take down the Gardens and two other nearby buildings between Cass and Woodward on the Edsel Ford Expressway route. The contract called for the work to be done by July 15.
“Elimination of these buildings will permit excavation of the east end of the first section of the Ford route between Woodward and the Ford-Lodge interchange,” The Detroit News reported April 3, 1953.
The Arena Gardens closed for good on May 3, 1953. The demolition permit was pulled July 10, 1953, and began shortly after. The rink’s passing marked the end of an era in Detroit and in American rollerskating.
The Detroit News asked Martin whether he would build another rink elsewhere, and he said that the cost would be too high and that the Arena Gardens’ magic could not be duplicated.
“It would cost at least $200,000, with $65,000 for a solid maple floor alone,” Martin told The News for an April 29, 1953, story. “I guess I’ll go fishing.”
Nevertheless, the firm Lyle Zisler & Associates came up with plans for a project called the New Arena Gardens. It would have had a rink floor of 80 by 185 feet and cost $631,500, or about $7.5 million in 2025 valuation. It was never built.
Martin died Jan. 2, 1959, at Detroit Memorial Hospital after suffering a heart attack a few weeks earlier. He was 66 years old.
Today, cars zoom across the site instead of rollerskaters. With fewer and fewer veterans of the Arena Gardens still around today, there is little to remind folks of the legendary rink that helped give rise to one of the country’s biggest fads and the building that put tens of thousands of Detroiters on wheels.