Posts by Kathryn R Berringer

According to The Western Architect, four hundred and fifty million bricks were used in construction in Detroit in 1916. Among the brick buildings featured in this reporting is the Victor Theatre, located near the Ford factory that was, at the time, the largest manufacturing site in the world in Highland Park, an autonomous city in the center of Detroit. Today, this building is the main location of the Ruth Ellis Center, a nonprofit organization providing social and medical services to LGBTQ youth in metropolitan Detroit. While the exterior of the building is now unrecognizable – the façade covered over in the intervening years – certain interior spaces in the theater have been preserved: the detailed proscenium arch framing the stage-turned-conference-room and the upstairs dance hall where, prior to the novel coronavirus pandemic and enforced social distancing, youth gathered to share meals and vogue during the Center’s drop-in hours.