Grande Ballroom - Photos
Grande Ballroom
The Grande Ballroom exterior in 2023
Detroit's Grande Ballroom got an impressive new mural commemorating MC5 in 2018.
Exterior detail
The Grande’s history stretches back to 1928, when it was built by Charles Agree, in a Moroccan-Spanish style. Agree also designed the Vanity Ballroom on Detroit’s east side, the Hollywood Theatre on Fort Street, the Whittier Hotel off East Jefferson, and the Belcrest Apartments on Cass.
The backside of the Grande Ballroom building.
The thought of artists that went through that back door still takes your breath away.
Those vines indicate how long it’s been since that door has been opened!
The Grande has been left to rot for three decades. Holes in its roof have destroyed much of its plaster.
What's left of the escape ladder
The stage where so many legends performed has been laid to waste.
The stage where so many legends performed has been laid to waste.
The things this hallway saw back in the late 1960s ...
What the elements haven't destroyed, vandals and scrappers have.
Looking at the stage that hosted everyone from the MC5 to the Who to Led Zeppelin to the Yardbirds to John Lee Hooker.
What's left of the stage of the Grande Ballroom
The Grande Ballroom has declined in condition considerably as decades of abandonment and neglect have really taken its toll.
The mural keeps attracting onlookers, and did even even before Los Angeles-based artist Gabe Gault had finished mapping out its dense visual narrative of social justice, musical influence and hope — along with recognition of one of Detroit's most influential bands and one of the city's most legendary music halls.