Est. 1915 · National Register of Historic Places · Detroit Entertainment History · Art Deco Architecture
C. Howard Crane designed the Majestic Theatre, which opened April 1, 1915, at the corner of Woodward Avenue and Antietam Street in what is now called Midtown Detroit. At opening, the theater seated 1,651 and was promoted as the largest movie theater in the world built for that purpose — a claim that reflected the ambition of Detroit's early 20th-century entertainment industry as much as it did the building's scale.
The theater's most visible transformation came in 1934, when the City of Detroit widened Woodward Avenue. The front 35 feet of the building were demolished, and the architecture firm Bennett & Straight redesigned the facade in Art Deco style, using enameled metal panels. The result is now recognized as the largest enameled metal panel Art Deco facade in the Detroit metropolitan region.
The building passed through several uses after its peak movie-house years, including a period as a church and as a photography studio, before sitting vacant for a decade. In 1984, new ownership began restoring the complex. The Garden Bowl — Detroit's oldest continuously operating bowling alley, which opened in the same building on August 1, 1913 — was preserved on the ground floor. In 1992, the second floor was converted to The Magic Stick, a dance floor and pool hall that later became a concert space.
A $1 million renovation was announced in 2018. The Majestic was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. It operates today as a multi-venue entertainment complex: the main theater, Garden Bowl, Magic Stick, Majestic Cafe, and Sgt. Pepperoni's pizza occupy the building simultaneously.
One note on the persistent local legend: Harry Houdini did not perform his final show at the Majestic. His last performance was at Detroit's Garrick Theatre. He died on October 31, 1926, at Grace Hospital from peritonitis following an appendicitis aggravated by being struck in the abdomen by a university student several days earlier.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majestic_Theatre_(Detroit)
- https://www.majesticdetroit.com/about/garden-bowl-history/
- https://detroithistorical.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-detroit/majestic-theatre
Phantom footstepsPhantom voicesDisembodied screamingApparitions
The paranormal accounts at the Majestic are employee-sourced and specific. Staff members and regular patrons present after closing hours in the Garden Bowl reported hearing, on multiple independent nights over approximately three years, the sounds of a man shouting and footsteps running above them in the Magic Stick space. Each time, the building was checked — teams splitting up to cover both the main and rear stairs — and no one was found. The pattern was consistent enough that staff stopped treating each occurrence as a plausible intruder situation.
The old mezzanine area, covered by a large drape from a previous renovation era, has also been cited. Sounds described as applause and indistinct voices have been reported from behind the drape — more than once, by multiple people present simultaneously.
The basement presents a distinct atmospheric footnote. It contains a bricked-over hallway and a small room, remnants of the original sub-structure. Several accounts over the years mention seeing a figure near the basement entrance that could not be located upon investigation.
The claim that Harry Houdini performed his final show on the Majestic stage is a well-documented myth. Houdini's last performance was at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit. He died at Grace Hospital on October 31, 1926. The claim appears to have originated as local color and attached itself to the Majestic because of its age and prominence.
