Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Wednesday Mystery Spot

Dusty D thinks she should just give up and write a boilerplate Mystery Spot intro in which I resign myself to having once again been trounced by the peregrine-on-caffeine-like Mystery Spotters, but then pluckily square my shoulders and smugly say that THIS time I've really found a REAL stumper. Copy and repeat for next week...and the week after that...

Last week's photo was correctly guessed by BF, designated conservative, cmadler, Elizabeth, and Anonymous.

This building with the distinctive roofline (dang, I knew I should have cropped that more!) on N. Huron near Lowell was occupied by many different businesses through the years. Here's its timeline, according to the Archives directories:

1924: (first appearance of building in directories): Michigan Crown Fender
1926-c. 1942-5: United Stove Co.
1948: No listing except for "NCRR crosses")
1951-1972: Standard Oil
1975-1986?: Suds Factory
1986?-2002: Storage facility for building's owner's collection of fire trucks, later moved to our 2002-opened firehouse museum.
2002-2010: empty?
2010: VGKids we hope!

Ohhhhh-kay. Now, I'm taking the gloves off. I'm gonna go for broke and post a photo I've been holding back on my desktop because I thought it was utterly too obscure. And it is--a generic building portrayed in a damaged glass-plate photo. So. The gloves are off. (My hands are cold, darnit). Take your best guess!

6 comments :

Edward Vielmetti said...

Ypsi Laundry Co was corner of Race and Chidester, opened in 1915. Telephone 464 in the 1918 phone book.

Still there in 1922.

Still there in 1927; also, rug cleaning.

BF said...

http://tinyurl.com/yjnlxan

Dusty D said...

(Enigmatically) Interesting guesses, there, gentlemen. We shall see.

Joe said...

Very tricky. Since race stree was renamed Catherine, I am assuming its the auto junk yard building on the corner of Catherine and Chidester. Finding the perspective is difficult since the building seems to have been modified many times. Is it looking south from Catherine?

Building Place said...

Well, if it hadn't been for Ed's comment, I would've guessed it was the back of what became the Hudson dealership and now the Auto Heritage Museum.

Dusty D said...

Joe and BP: Two more interesting guesses...luckily Next Wednesday is coming up fast! :)