This Albert Kahn-designed building opened in 1936 on Lafayette Boulevard and Third Street as the home of WWJ-AM, the world’s first commercial radio broadcasting station.
So, how did the Motor City become the Radio City? It was a matter of timing, faith and a vision for the future of technology.
The birthplace of commercial radio
In the late 19th century, Dr. Lee de Forest - the so-called “father of radio” - began tinkering with ways to improve on radiotelegraphic communication, or "wireless telegraphy," as it was known. He invented the first practical electronic amplifier in 1908, which allowed for radio signals to be sent over long distances. In 1914, he sold the U.S. Navy his devices for radio communications, and a year later, began experimental broadcasts from his lab in New York City. Following the lift of a ban on civilian radio transmissions instituted during World War I, de Forest associate Clarence Thompson established the Radio News & Music Inc. in 1920 with the purpose of leasing de Forest radio transmitters and spreading the adoption of the new technology.
While De Forest dabbled with his gadgets, Thompson - whom de Forest called a "loyal emissary" - went around the country to newspapers, trying to convince them to install radio broadcasting transmitters as a way to disseminate the news. None, de Forest would later recount in 1936, was interested except The Detroit News.
Detroit News Vice President William E. Scripps, the son of News founder James E. Scripps, was intrigued and saw it as the next possible frontier of journalism and a way to stand out in Detroit’s crowded and competitive media market. He was also inspired by the enthusiasm that his son William J. Scripps, an avid radio hobbyist, had for the nascent medium. The newspaper’s board gave the go-ahead in March 1920. Scripps dubbed his experiment the “Detroit News Radiophone.”
Frank Edwards, Elton Plant and Howard Trumbo were tapped to make broadcasting history. Edwards had know-how with radio technology and served as broadcast engineer; Plant was a 19-year-old office boy at The News who was said to have a lovely voice; and Trumbo owned the Edison Record Shop on Woodward Avenue. The men took over a corner of the second floor inside the Detroit News Building and set up their 200-watt de Forest transmitter. After getting an amateur license, the fledgling station was assigned the call letters 8MK.
One in a series of firsts
At 8:15 p.m. Aug. 20, 1920, 8MK broadcast for the first time, with Plant saying the words, “This is 8MK calling, the radiophone of the Detroit News.” Then the song "Roses of Picardy" was played off a hand-cranked gramophone, and then the refrain from "Taps." And with that, history was made - even if few were able to hear it.
At the time of 8MK’s broadcast, there were only about 100 people in Wayne County who owned a radio receiver, and it was estimated that less than half of them tuned in for the big moment. Nevertheless, it was deemed a success, and 11 days later, on Aug. 31, 1920, the Detroit News Radiophone broadcast live election night results from Michigan’s gubernatorial primary, another of many firsts marked by the station. The front page of The News announced, “The News Radiophone to give vote results. Amateurs over Michigan are invited to give wireless parties and hear ‘voices in the night.’” It was reported that more than 500 listeners tuned in for the breaking news, getting it long before the papers hit the newsstands the following morning. This was important for The News because, unlike the Detroit Free Press, it wasn’t a morning newspaper; it published in the afternoon. Being able to broadcast live meant The News could report it first.
The day after the primary, on Sept. 1, 1920, 8MK began regularly scheduled broadcasting, initially with just two segments of news, weather and music each day, six days a week.
(Note: KDKA-AM in Pittsburgh also claims to have been the first to broadcast, but that has been disproved. De Forest also proclaimed in 1936 that WWJ was "the first commercial radio broadcasting station in the entire world." KDKA was, however, the first to be federally licensed, hence why some have given it the title. You can read more about the debate here.)
A year after its debut, the fledgling station had some 10,000 listeners. But that fall also saw new governmental regulations that forbid amateur radio operators from broadcasting news and music, forcing The News to apply for a commercial broadcasting license. This led to it being given the randomly assigned call letters WBL on Oct. 13, 1921. The station requested something more personalized, and on March 3, 1922, it became WWJ. The call letters are a tribute to station founder William E. Scripps and son William J. - William and William J., or WWJ.
The station boasted that it could be heard “thousands of miles away." After all, without much competition on the airwaves, WWJ’s signal could be picked up a long way from Detroit. To demonstrate that point, the station's engineers ran a 290-foot line in the air from the News Building's transmitter to the Fort Shelby Hotel in 1921, allowing for WWJ's signal to reportedly be received all the way across the Atlantic, in France and Germany. With so few options for listeners in these early days, even The New York Times printed WWJ’s broadcast schedule.
The News' initial strategy was to give a 15-minute broadcast at noon, when the first home edition was about to go to press. The intent was to whet listeners’ appetite to read the full story in The News. After the final edition hit the streets in the evening, another 10-minute segment was aired. In between the news, the station broadcast everything from concerts by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (the first being broadcast Feb. 10, 1922) to Sunday sermons from St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral on Woodward, starting with Easter Sunday, April 16, 1922.
WWJ was also the first radio station to broadcast a live concert, by singer Mable Norton Ayers on Sept. 22, 1920. On Oct. 25, 1924, Edwin L. "Ty" Tyson provided the first aired play-by-play coverage of a University of Michigan football game from Ferry Field. On April 19, 1927, Tyson and WWJ broadcast the first Detroit Tigers baseball game from Navin Field. Tyson would continue to call games for the Tigers until 1942. Legendary actor Will Rogers, already famous on the silver screen, made his radio debut on WWJ on March 15, 1922.
It’s worth noting that at first, all of this was a potentially money-losing proposition for The News, as advertising was not permitted over the airwaves until 1922. All of the early publicity stunts and investment in talent, infrastructure and equipment were done as a public service with the hope that it would inspire more folks to pick up a copy of The News.
But 10 years after The News’ history-making broadcast, 3 in 5 American households had a radio. According to the Library of Congress, in just four years, there were 9 million more households that owned a radio in 1933 than in 1929. In 1921, there were five radio stations in the country. Just 10 years later, there were 612. Long before America was glued to the TV, it was glued to the radio.
In 1922, there were nine people on staff at WWJ. By 1931, there were 35.
Thanks in large part to its head-start in the game, WWJ remained one of the nation’s leading radio stations. By the early 1930s, The News decided that the radio station should have a home of its own, and turned to famed architect Albert Kahn, who had also designed The News’ home on West Lafayette Boulevard.
Radio City
The 70-foot, five-story building was sheathed in Indiana limestone and given an Art Moderne look. Because broadcasts wanted as few windows and little noise as possible, Kahn designed the front facade above the entrance with wide, windowless flutings that were visually striking and, for the time, futuristic.
"Good design is always founded on appropriateness," Kahn told The News for the Sept. 13, 1936, article previewing the building’s opening. "It would have been a mistake to build the front for anything other than it is - a facing for rooms from which windows must be excluded."
Huge steel letters spelled out WWJ in an Art Deco-styled font, running vertically from the top of the building. The building’s main entrance was clad in black granite. Sculptor Carl Milles of the Cranbrook Academy of Art came up with two pieces, also in black granite, for the building’s entrance. One depicts musicians and radio entertainers; the second shows people listening to the station. The News described the panels in the preview as, "One represents a group of musicians playing for dear life. The other represents a group of listeners, some of whom are intensely interested, others patently bored."
The building cost around $1 million to build and outfit, the equivalent of more than $23 million in 2025 valuation. The new studios were formally opened on Aug. 20, 1936, as part of a 16th anniversary celebration for the station.
“Never was there such a party (that) its repercussions were heard far off on land and sea,” The News proclaimed the following day. “WWJ was dressed most fetchingly for its 16th birthday party, as lovely as any debutante.” In the auditorium, the talent of WWJ - “dressed in their best bibs and tuckers” took to the stage in front of a packed house.
De Forest went on WWJ that night as part of the celebration to deliver a history of radio's early days and to recount The News' experiment in 1920, which he described as “so courageously hazardous at that time, so epochal in its subsequent worldwide influence.”
The actual dedication of the building was its own event, held Sept. 16, 1936, with a weeklong series of special broadcasts and events.
“The handsome white stone-fronted building ... not only is ultra modern in equipment and appearance, but facilities have been provided for visitors to see as well as hear programs being broadcast,” The News wrote in a Sept. 13, 1936, special section previewing the building's upcoming dedication.
Some 140,000 Detroiters visited the building in its first year, such was the public obsession with radio. A week of special events were held to celebrate its opening. And much like with TV stations and live studio audiences today, Detroiters were invited to be part of broadcasts.
The building had a two-story, 340-seat auditorium for a live studio audience, with a stage from which the radio stars would perform. This public space took up half the ground floor. It was initially finished in futuristic silver and blue with seats upholstered in fuschia. "This is one of the most beautiful and certainly the most modern auditorium broadcasting studio in the world," The News assured readers in the special section.
What was under the hood
In all, counting the auditorium, the building had five studios across three floors, with no two alike. Two of the studios also had public observation rooms, where visitors could watch broadcasts in action.
Studio A was the largest of the four others. Located on the third floor, it was gray, scarlet and chrome. The upper portion of the room had a public observation room, so visitors could watch as they listened to the broadcast being piped through a nearby speaker. Studio B, also on the third floor, was finished in cream, gold and green. Both studios were two stories high. Studio C, also, on the third floor but one-story tall, was done up in brown and yellow. The third floor also had an artists room, done in lemon wallpaper with a silver-and-white bow-knot pattern. The carpet and drapes were deep blue; furniture was in silver and yellow. A general lounge on the third floor was finished in gray plaster and acoustical materials with chrome furniture upholstered in red and blue leather.
The fourth floor was home to the smallest of the building’s studios, Studio D. Also one story in height, its walls were made of gray-stained knotty pine. Down the hall was a rehearsal room, a women’s lounge and a music library, which had a chute delivery system for moving sheet music throughout the building. There also was a women's lounge on this floor - decorated in silver wallpaper imported from Germany, with a carpeted floor in terra cotta and gold - as well as offices for the newscasters and editors.
WWJ went to the lengths of having the four Steinway grand pianos in its studios to be specifically tuned to deliver the right tone for radio broadcasts.
The building’s basement was the base of operations for the Detroit News Home Institute, which included a test kitchen and a five-room model demonstration home built for the women’s department of The News. The basement also had a chorus room, dressing rooms and showers. To facilitate foot traffic between the WWJ and News buildings, they were connected by a tunnel under Lafayette Boulevard, allowing journalists to stay out of the weather and avoid traffic.
The main lobby had walls of deep buff plaster with panels of birch painted marine blue. A fluted wooden recess at one end was painted red.
The color scheme was the work of Virginia Scripps, wife of William J.
“Mrs. Scripps' help, good taste and constructive assistance in selecting color treatment of interiors were material factors in the results obtained,” Kahn, the building's architect, was quoted as saying in the Sept. 13, 1936, edition of The News.
From 8 Mile to beyond
A new transmitter facility was erected at 8 Mile and Meyers roads, featuring the latest in cutting-edge radio technology. The Blaw-Knox antenna tower, standing 400 feet tall and clocking in at about 42,000 pounds, went live before the new studio building did, on April 16, 1936. The facility was equipped with living quarters for the caretaker and a studio in case the main building downtown suffered a fire or other disaster, ensuring WWJ would never go silent.
"That distinguished pioneer of the air, WWJ, The Detroit News Radio Station, took another forward leap through the ozone Thursday night, when it bade a fond farewell to its transmitter on the top floor of the garage of the Detroit News at Lafayette Boulevard and Third Avenue," The News boasted on the front page of its April 17, 1936, edition. "On this auspicious occasion, WWJ flew through the air with the greatest of ease, while the celebrants bestowed both smiles and tears as it swiftly and silently changed its precinct from one down near the river to a handsome new residence away uptown."
The new transmitter also brought more power, 5,000 watts, meaning “the very best in modern high-fidelity radio broadcasting,” The News said.
The radio station could even broadcast from the air, after The News equipped a Lockheed Orion - painted Detroit News red - with a transmitter. Dubbed the Early Bird, the plane also allowed The News to show its readers Detroit from the air like they had never seen. WWJ also had backpack units in order to send reporters out in the field to do interviews and get audio, as well as a field car dubbed the Mobile Unit that could transmit news and radio broadcasts from the scene. The vehicle had a darkroom onboard, where photographers could develop their film en route and transmit them by a telephone photo-transmitter, saving crucial time on deadline.
With the old radio towers atop the Detroit News Building no longer needed, they were dismantled in 1943 and donated to the war effort as scrap steel.
WWJ also had a “little brother,” as The News called it, W8XWJ. This ultra-high frequency station transmitted at 500 watts from atop the 47-story Greater Penobscot Building from 1936 to 1940. In 1941, marking yet another first for WWJ, The News-owned W8XWJ became Michigan's first FM station, W45D. It is also still on the air, as WXYT-FM (97.1 FM, The Ticket).
WWJ moved out of its longtime home in 1983. The News continued to own WWJ until 1987, when the paper was bought by the Gannett Co. Federal Communications Commission rules at the time stated that a company could not own a newspaper and broadcast outlet in the same media market. (The News was grandfathered in as an exception, but the sale of the paper nullified that.) WWJ was purchased by the Federal Broadcasting Corp., and then sold two years later, on March 9, 1989, to CBS Radio. CBS Radio merged with Entercom in 2017, and the company rebranded itself as Audacy in 2021.
WWJ-AM, Newsradio 950, survives today as Detroit's only all-news radio station, but moved its studios to suburban Southfield, Mich., in 2013. The 200-watt transmitter used for the station’s first broadcast in 1920 is now at the Detroit Historical Museum. WWJ now beams out its signal at 50,000 watts.
The News expands into television
When television appeared on the scene, once again The Detroit News was at the forefront. Though it was only the sixth TV station in the country, The News-owned WWDT-TV (Channel 4) was still the first in Michigan, going live Oct. 23, 1946, for a one-day trial run before beginning regular programming on March 4, 1947. The TV studios were located in the WWJ building. To fit into the paper’s broadcast brand, WWDT’s call letters were changed to WWJ-TV on May 15, 1947.
Being the first television station in the state meant that, much like WWJ, it was responsible for a number of firsts, such as Michigan’s first televised newscast and telecasts of the Detroit Lions, Tigers and Red Wings.
In 1954, an addition designed by the firm Giffels & Vallet was added onto the west side of the WWJ building along Lafayette and Third, in order to provide more studio space for the TV station. This brought the building to 90,000 square feet.
The TV station was traded to the Washington Post in 1969 in order to avoid an FCC crackdown on media organizations owning print and broadcast outlets in the same market. Though, like with WWJ-AM, The News’ ownership of WWJ-TV was grandfathered in, fears of a forced divestment remained high. This led The News to swap ownership of WWJ-TV to the Washington Post Co. in exchange for what is now WUSA-TV. Being that it was no longer part of The News or WWJ radio, the Detroit station changed its name on July 22, 1978, to WDIV-TV, with the call letters representing “Detroit IV,” because it was Channel 4 on the dial.
To make the name game even more confusing, CBS (which had acquired WWJ-AM in 1989) bought WGPR-TV (Channel 62) in 1995, and changed that station’s name to WWJ-TV. This current WWJ-TV has no ties to WDIV-TV other than using its old name.
Despite no longer being tied to WWJ Radio or The News, WDIV remained in the WWJ Building until 1982, when it moved into a new facility directly next door, at 550 W. Lafayette Blvd. Construction began on that new $13.5 million facility in October 1980. Though the dedication wouldn't come until April 1983, the station's operations moved in Dec. 4, 1982, when a switch was flipped at 8 a.m. that Saturday morning to beam “The Flintstones Funnies” over the air.
The Washington Post Co. changed its name to the Graham Media Group after it sold the paper in 2013, and continues to own WDIV-TV, better known to locals as Local 4.
As previously noted, WWJ-AM had left Lafayette Boulevard in 1983. After the WWJ building’s broadcasting days were over, the Evening News Association, publisher of The News, donated the former WWJ building to the Greater Detroit Chamber of Commerce in 1984. The building underwent a nearly $3 million renovation, and the chamber moved into what was renamed the Greater Detroit Regional Chamber Building on Jan. 28, 1986, relocating from offices at 150 Michigan Ave. A dedication was held for the new building on Sept. 25, 1986. The chamber, which was renamed the Detroit Regional Chamber in December 1997, would stay in the building until relocating to One Woodward Avenue in 1998.
The former WWJ studios then became home to the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, with the building being renamed yet again, to the AFSCME Building, At some point, the union renamed the building the Walker-Roehrig Building.
A luxury hotel
In late 2016, developers announced a $54-million plan to build an 11-story, 83-unit luxury condo building behind the Walker-Roehrig Building that was set to open in 2019. The Ashton, as it was to be known, would feature floor-to-ceiling windows. The Walker-Roehrig was to be kept and turned into office space. Though the project did pre-sell about 30 percent of its units, or about 25 of them - including one with a $900,000 price tag - it didn't meet a requirement from lenders to pre-sell at least half of the condos. The Ashton did have alternative financing options, but the high interest rates were deemed unrealistic. This led developers, including the Detroit-based Holdwick Land Development and Black-owned Means Group, to switch in March 2019 to a hotel model instead.
This new plan called for a 154-room hotel in a new, ground-up 150,000-square-foot building built on the surface parking lot behind the Walker-Roehrig Building. The Walker-Roehrig Building was then to be converted into retail and office space, as well as some of the hotel's amenities. No hotel flag was announced at the time, but it was later revealed to be a Cambria location, part of the Choice Hotels brand that also includes Radisson, Quality Inn, EconoLodge and Comfort Inn.
What made the new 150,000-square-foot hotel unique was that it was made out of modular components, which were constructed and then hoisted into position. It was also the first newly built hotel in Detroit in 15 years. Royal Oak, Mich.-based Krieger Klatt Architects. A groundbreaking for the $50 million project was held Nov. 1, 2019.
It was expected to open by the end of 2020, but a series of setbacks delayed that opening until 2023, including the COVID-19 pandemic, construction delays, design changes and the death of Eric Means, principal of Means Group, of a heart attack in 2020.
“His vision for Detroit was to create projects, like this Cambria Hotel, that would attract people from all over the world,” Tracy Means said of her late husband.
The hotel had a soft opening in May 2023, but a grand opening celebration wasn't observed until Oct. 19, 2023, as construction hadn’t been completed in some areas of the hotel.
Bits and pieces from the WWJ studios were preserved, including the lobby and signage, and design themes referencing the building’s radio roots were used throughout, such as wallpaper featuring radio waves. The Sala Ballroom was carved out of the WWJ auditorium, and the lighting board that powered the studio was preserved. A May 8, 2023, press release at the time of the hotel's soft opening said, “The building's transformation can be seen as an expression of the city itself, paying homage to its legacy while boldly forging its identity.”
The Cambria includes a new restaurant, event spaces, a rooftop and lobby bar, a taco shop, and a golf driving range.
“We are a convention center hotel,” Joseph Caradonna, co-founder and principal of Koucar Management, the hotel's management company, said during the grand opening event. “We're right here with the new mobility center (Michigan Central) that's opening up by Ford; with Corktown’s resurgence, we feel like we're right in the middle of it.”