When the Harper Theatre opened its doors on Dec. 1, 1939, it was the East Side’s newest neighborhood movie palace, and one of architect Charles N. Agree’s final theater designs. Rising at Harper and Chalmers, the 2,000-seat Art Moderne house was commissioned by the Wisper-Wetsman chain, with murals by Thomas di Lorenzo and the kind of sleek, streamlined detailing that defined Agree’s late-1930s work.

For decades, the Harper served as a community anchor, offering first-run films to generations of Detroiters. But like many single-screen theaters, it struggled as television, suburban multiplexes and population shifts took hold. By the mid-1970s, the projectors went dark, and a nightclub took over the space. The name evolved from Harper to Harpo’s — and eventually Harpos — as the building transitioned from neighborhood cinema to rock club. That shift would define the building’s next life.

Beginning around 1979, new owners leaned fully into hard rock and heavy metal, expanding the stage and sound system and turning the once-sedate movie house into one of the Midwest’s most notorious heavy-metal venues. Through the 1980s and early ’90s, Harpos earned its reputation as Detroit’s “Metal Church,” hosting everyone from Motörhead, Dio and Iron Maiden to Slayer, Pantera and Megadeth. Its towering vertical sign, cavernous dance floor and gritty, all-Detroit energy became part of its mythology.

But the good years didn’t last forever. By the late 1990s and into the 2000s, the club was hit with lawsuits, neighborhood challenges and mounting maintenance issues. Harpos went through bankruptcy and several ownership changes, operating sporadically as its condition declined.

Today, Harpos continues to operate as one of Detroit’s last surviving historic concert halls of its kind. Though battered by time and decades of evolution, the building still carries Agree’s beautiful Art Deco/Moderne bones beneath the layers of nightclub grit.