Work crews in gas masks were seen cleaning out the inside of it in early January 2009. In December 2008, FP Lofts sold the Free Press Building to Emre Uralli and his Florida-based Luke Investments for an undisclosed sum. In 2003, the building was mentioned as a possible replacement for the Detroit Police Department headquarters on Beaubien, also a Kahn. There was talk of converting it into lofts. Fortunately, the building has largely been spared damage from vandals and scavengers but is suffering from neglect. The building was sold to FP Loft LLC, a partnership that included the Southfield-based Farbman Group, in October 2001 and has sat vacant since. On July 23, 1998, the Free Press left its home of nearly 75 years - where much of the city's best journalism had been created and many of its ink-stained heavyweights had toiled. The paper had entered a joint-operating agreement with The Detroit News, so the papers' editors decided to consolidate the JOA's operations under one roof: The Free Press would share space with its rival in The Detroit News Building, also designed by Kahn. The building also was in need of repairs, including a leaky roof. And, as the costs for publishing the paper grew and its number of employees shrank with new technological advances, the Free Press' headquarters became too expensive and too big to maintain. He had Kahn design it with extra floors to help him make some extra cash as a landlord, leasing office space to other news agencies, as well as businesses like a flower shop and even a restaurant.īut, like many buildings downtown, the Free Press Building struggled to hang on to clients. The demands of daily newspapering wasn't the only reason Stair had such an imposing building erected. The paper is now printed in the suburb of Sterling Heights. That building was demolished in the summer of 2008. The presses rumbled under its walls until new ones were installed in a building on the Detroit riverfront in 1979. Lafayette, the now-demolished Transportation Building.Įverything that went into creating the paper was carried out under its roof, from the mailers being stuffed into papers to ads being sold to the gigantic printing presses that were housed in the building's basement. The paper moved into this building because it had outgrown its old location at 131 W. Stair was a member of the exclusive club, though a vast majority of the paper's employees - especially women and minorities - were not allowed to be among its ranks. The Free Press Building is joined to the Detroit Club by a walkway over the alley on the third floor, allowing for easy access. Stair had his own barbershop on the sixth floor of the building. The building's facade is made of limestone quarried and hauled from Bedford, Ind. There also are sculptures of transportation: a plane, a ship, a train and a truck. George Custer former University of Michigan President James Angell and journalists Horace Greeley, Charles Dana and George Goodale.
Ricci also carved eight reliefs: Benjamin Franklin, for his work with the printing press Gov. An arch with owls, snakes and, oddly, pelicans and seahorses is above them. The 288,517 square-foot building has limestone carvings by New York sculptor Ulysses Ricci, including two imposing statues of the goddesses of Commerce and Communication who guard the front doors. The Lafayette Hotel was among the buildings razed to make way for the paper's new home. The construction firm of Spencer, White & Prentice was entrusted to erect Kahn's limestone masterpiece. Stair and cost $6 million (about $72 million in today's dollars) to build. The six-story building - with a 14-story tower - was commissioned by Free Press owner E.D. 13, this Albert Kahn-designed gem on Lafayette between Washington and Cass, in 1925. The Detroit Free Press has had 15 homes since it was first published May 5, 1831, and it moved into No.
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