Detroit’s Lindell AC - The Nation’s First Sports Bar

Johnny in front of the original Lindell Bar

In 1949, Greek immigrant Meleti Butsicaris with his sons—Johnny and Jimmy—leased the ground floor of the run-down Lindell Hotel and opened their bar on Cass and Bagley avenues. At first, they couldn’t afford to have a sign made with a different name, so they went with the hotel’s signage and called their tavern the Lindell Bar and the name stuck. The bar was near Briggs Stadium, where the Tigers and Lions played, and the Olympia arena, home of the Detroit Red Wings.

Legend has it that a young New York Yankee second baseman—Billy Martin—suggested to the brothers they change the drab atmosphere of the bar with an athletic theme. That would not be difficult. In addition to being co-owner of the bar, Johnny Butsicaris was also the official photographer for the Olympia. He had plenty of original sports photographs he could use. It was not long before sports memorabilia adorned the walls with autographed photos of Detroit sports stars, signed team jerseys, bats, and hockey sticks--even a jock strap belonging to Wayne Walker, a Detroit Lion linebacker. The new look helped define the bar’s clientele.

Jimmy with Andre the Giant.

The Lindell soon became a hangout for Detroit sports figures and players from visiting teams. It wasn’t long before local sports writers and celebrities performing in Detroit found a home at the Lindell. National celebrities like Milton Berle and Jayne Mansfield would stop in. Local celebrities like Detroit’s favorite weatherman Sonny Eliot and Detroit News sports columnist Doc Greene were regulars. Even the Beatles and their entourage went to the bar after their Olympia concert.

The most notorious event in the history of the original Lindell Bar was a publicity stunt for a wrestling match between Detroit Lion defensive tackle Alex Karras and wrestler Dick the Bruiser. Karras needed the cash since he was no longer drawing his NFL salary. The week before, Karras was suspended from the NFL for the 1963 season for admitting he bet on football games.

Karras and the Bruiser in publicity still.

Karras was a friend of Dick the Bruiser from Karras's one season as a pro-wrestler. The Bruiser wanted to help his friend in need. The original idea was born in the mind of Dick the Bruiser. He proposed a publicity stunt in the Lindell Bar to increase the gate at the Olympia match. What began as a publicity stunt became a full-blown bar brawl. In the process, the Bruiser wrecked the bar. The scheduled wrestling match the following Saturday night earned Karras $30,000. [See the link below for more information on that incident]

The Butsicaris brothers took Karras on as a business partner with his $30,000 from the wrestling match. After the bar brawl, the three partners moved the location of the bar to Michigan and Cass avenues. They had no choice. The Lindell Hotel was condemned and scheduled for demolition.

Detroit News sports reporter Doc Greene suggested adding AC (Athletic Club) after the new bar’s name as a sly reference to the Detroit Athletic Club, an exclusive members-only club. Only the city’s business elite and socialites were members. Even famous sports figures could not enter the club without a special guest invitation from a member.

Doc Greene got many of his exclusive sports stories sitting at the original Lindell Bar. He did not want his bosses to know how much time he spent there getting his exclusive stories. In his Detroit News sports articles, he would write he was interviewing this or that athlete at the Athletic Club. It became an inside joke at the bar. Greene would call his wife and say he would be home soon when he was finished at the Athletic Club. As a tribute to Doc Greene, the reincarnated Lindell Bar became the Lindell AC.

Johnny’s son Mel Butsicaris remembers working the night an elephant was brought into the sports bar.

Sonny Eliot behind the bar at the Lindell AC. Photo courtesy of Mel Butsicaris.

“The most talked about photograph in the bar was not of an athlete or celebrity. Back in the 1970s, Bell Telephone and the Yellow Pages had a slogan about an elephant never forgetting, but you have the Yellow Pages for help. They were making a commercial across the street with a baby elephant.

Sonny Eliot

"You don’t see an elephant in downtown Detroit too often, so my dad and I walked over to watch. My dad told the film crew to come over to the bar and he’d buy everyone a drink. As a joke, my dad said while petting the elephant, ‘Bring your friend along.’ About an hour later, the front door opened with this guy pushing this beast through the door. We still can’t believe it, but the elephant fit through. We worried if the floor could handle the weight. Everyone had a good laugh when Sonny Eliot started giving the elephant Coca-Cola to drink. Shortly after, the Coke acted as a laxative for the animal. We used snow shovels to clean up the mess.”

Alex Karras and Curtis Yates

In 1980, CBS filmed a made-for-television movie in the Lindell AC bar called Jimmy B. and Andres. It was based on the true story of Jimmy Butsicaris, who wanted to adopt an African-American boy. Alex Karras starred with his wife Susan Clark, and as the young boy, Curtis Yates. The bar was sanitized as a restaurant for the movie. The spin off became the ABC sitcom Webster with Emmanuel Lewis playing the child’s role.

Jimmy Butsicaris died in 1996, and his brother Johnny died in 2011. The Lindell AC sports bar, said to be the first in the nation, closed its doors in 2002. The building was scheduled for demolition to make way for the Rosa Parks Transit Center.

More information on the Alex Karras/Dick the Bruiser bar brawl:

http://fornology.blogspot.com/2017/02/alex-karras-and-dick-bruisers-detroit.html 

Lou Gordon "The People's Champion"

Lou Gordon--Detroit Crusader

Detroit political commentator Lou Gordon died in his sleep from a heart condition in his Bloomfield Hills home early Tuesday morning, May 24, 1977. Detroit Free Press columnist Billy Bowles described Gordon as a "feisty interviewer who was a power to be reckoned with by Michigan politicians."

Lou Gordon was born in Detroit on May 17, 1917, and was a product of Detroit public schools. He graduated in 1935 from Central High School on Tuxedo Street. Gordon attended one term at the University of Michigan, but this was during the Great Depression. He quit college to work as an insurance agent for United Life Accident Company. During World War II, Gordon became an air cadet and served for two years in the Army Air Corps.

After the war, Gordon returned to the University of Michigan on the G.I. Bill and earned a degree in journalism. He landed a job with the Booth Newspaper chain in Washington D.C. as a political reporter. There he met and became friends with famous liberal columnist Drew Pearson, who greatly influenced Gordon's development as a political pundit. Gordon was willing to take dangerous assignments dealing with organized crime figures and political corruption and soon began to make a name for himself.

When his father died in 1950, Lou returned home to Detroit to take care of his mother. To make a living, he became a district sales representative in Detroit for the White Stag sportswear line. He increased the firm's local business ten fold from $150,000/yr to $1.5 million/yr. 

Through commissions, bonuses, and shrewd investing, Lou became independently wealthy, but he missed the rush and excitement of his journalism career. Gordon told Detroit Free Press reporter Billy Bowles once in an interview, "My heart was never in the sales business. I longed for the old days of politics."

In 1957, Gordon was hired by local Detroit radio station WXYZ as a political commentator and soon began building a fan base. WXYZ management realized Gordon's ability to attract an audience. He had an engaging smile and cast a strong media image. Gordon wore impeccably tailored suits and never looked less than his best. The station manager offered Lou a fifteen minute spot (10:45 pm - 11:00 pm) every weeknight called Detroit Deadline. Lou would discuss a single issue and interview a guest, often a local politician or community leader. Gordon did this for seven years.

The show was so popular that rival Detroit start-up station WKBD-TV (Channel 50) lured Lou away with a better offer in 1966. The station offered Lou his own ninety-minute show to air at 10:00 pm over the weekend on Saturday and Sunday nights. The Saturday night show discussed local Metropolitan Detroit issues which rankled and alienated people from across the political spectrum. On Sunday nights, the program discussed national political issues with any politicians or journalists who were brave enough to be his guests.

The Lou Gordon Program debuted in September of 1966. The background music heard under the program's title card was the instrumental interlude from the popular song "MacArthur Park." Lou would appear onscreen and say, "Welcome to the program, where there are no cue cards, no teleprompters, no idiot boards, just ad-lib conversation where we tell it like it is."

From the program's onset, Lou Gordon vowed "to speak out against social injustice and become the champion and voice for the common man." Working-class and middle-class Detroiters, aged 35 and above soon became Lou's loyal audience, especially when he took on the local utility companies accusing them of ripping off the public.

Modern television viewers are accustomed to the blood sport that modern politics has become. But in 1966, there was nothing else like The Lou Gordon Program on weekend, late night TV. Lou enjoyed drawing his guests into a lively conversation and carefully watching them for weak spots in their arguments before pouncing. Then, he would spring a "gotcha" moment on them.

Lou Gordon and his staff read many newspapers and political magazines from around the country researching them daily. When confronted with evidence, some guests would simply deny the facts, but they did so at their peril. Lou was prepared, even over-prepared some said. Other guests became angry or simply walked off the set mid-interview, and some would attack Lou, his facts, and his methods. All of it was good television.

George Romney -- GOP hopeful.

What brought Lou and his program to national attention was an interview he did with former Michigan governor George Romney. Romney was a front runner in the Republican party to be their standard bearer for the presidency in 1968. During the interview, he came out against the war in Vietnam saying, "When I went on a fact-finding tour of Vietnam, the generals and the United States diplomatic corps tried to brainwash me."

Despite agreeing with Romney's position on the war, the newshound in Gordon recognized that Romney's careless use of the term "brainwash" was politically provocative and headline news. Because of the limited scope of WKBD's reach, Gordon called Detroit's New York Times bureau chief Jerry Flint and gave him the full transcript of the interview.

The Times ran the brainwashing remark as their headline and distributed the story on the news wire services. The national nightly news TV programs broadcast the story the next evening and most newspaper chains ran the story coast-to-coast in their morning editions. Shortly afterward, George Romney withdrew from the presidential race.

Lou Gordon's sudden national recognition prompted WKBD's owners to syndicate his show across all of their seven United States markets creating the first nationally recognized late night news discussion program. In 1971, the Lou Gordon Program could be seen in Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

With today's internet technology, once a program file is created, a single person can send it to as many places as necessary with a database and a single key stroke. But in the early 1970s, VHS video tapes were recorded, copied, and send to each media market separately via the United States Post Office. This was labor and time intensive. The syndication gamble paid off. Lou's program became especially popular with the Los Angeles Hollywood crowd which helped him book celebrity guests.

As if Lou was not busy enough producing his own show, he also wrote a twice weekly political column for The Detroit News. His obsession with politics seemed limitless. Lou was truly a workaholic who loved what he did for a living.

The Lou Gordon Program ran for twelve years. At the top of his game, Gordon died in his sleep at his Bloomfield Hills home on May 24, 1977. Lou succumbed to complications of an aortic valve replacement. He was only sixty years old. Gordon left behind his wife Jackie and their five children: Carol, Debbie, Jon, Ruth, and Scott.

Lou and Jackie Gordon. Jackie would read Lou questions early in the broadcast sent in by viewers.

On Friday, May 27, 1977, the Detroit Free Press reported on Lou Gordon's funeral service at the Ira Kaufman Chapel, attended by an overflowing crowd of nearly 700 people. Many statewide political people as well as local television celebrities like Bill Bonds, Bill Kennedy, and Sonny Eliot paid their final respects.

The oak casket had a sculpted Star of David carved into the lid. Jackie dressed in a white belted dress and dutifully greeted a long line of friends in a small, private reception room. Afterward, a black hearse took Lou Gordon to his final resting place, Clover Hill Park Cemetery in Royal Oak, followed by a gray limousine carrying Jackie and her family. 

Bill Bonds