Beverly Payne--WJBK-TV Channel 2 Trendsetter

Beverly Payne Eyewitness News Publicity Photo

 

Beverly Payne was not a native Detroiter, but fate brought her to Detroit. She was raised in San Francisco and went to college there earning English and foreign language (French and Spanish) degrees. In 1968, she and her husband Harry R. Payne, an executive director of an international arbitration association, moved to Japan for his job.

In Japan, the Paynes hired a housekeeper. Soon boredom set in for Mrs Payne, so she began to study Japanese and picked up enough to teach Japanese businessmen how to speak and pronounce English properly. This led to Payne being interviewed on Japanese TV, which in turn, led to a job teaching English classes on her own educational TV program. After three years in Japan, the Payne family moved back to the United States, so Harry R. Payne could take a job in Detroit.

Not long after the family moved to the area, a friend suggested that Beverly (26) audition to co-host a new program at WJBK-TV Channel 2 in Detroit named Focus: Detroit. It was a public-affairs program that discussed issues important to Detroit's minority community, a largely ignored and underserved television demographic. 

Payne was hired to begin on July 1, 1973 and teamed with experienced Channel 2 newsman Woody Willis for the Sunday morning program. Management wanted to see how she performed in the ratings rankings. Her numbers were positive.

In a move to capture a larger share of the housewife 18-to-49-year-old television audience, coveted by advertisers because they spend most of the household income, Channel 2 quickly promoted Payne to co-anchor the station's new 7 to 8 morning newscast and the noon news with Channel 2 veteran Vic Caputo.

Two years later, Beverly Payne was moved to the 6 pm newscast with Joe Glover, making her the first African American woman to co-anchor a prime time broadcast and gain celebrity status in Detroit. At the time, she was only one of four Black women in the country to co-anchor a daily, prime time newscast.

Eyewitness News print advertisement

Although Payne's meteoric rise appears to be seamless, she had a difficult hurdle to overcome. Detroit Free Press TV critic Bettelou Peterson explained in her column, "The housewife 18-to-49 demographic that Channel 2 wants to attract is also the most critical of women on the air.... Let a woman come across as aggressive and women resent her as do some men. Let a woman on the air seem too intelligent and she is disliked. But worst of all, let her look sexy, and she is unwelcome in the family living room where the housewife watches with her husband. Beverly Payne passes all the tests of being acceptable to men and women viewers. She projects an image of sincerity, trustworthiness, friendliness, and attractiveness."

Simply put, Payne was non-threatening to the Detroit viewing audience. Women began writing Channel 2 saying they watched solely to see what Beverly Payne was wearing. In response to that, Payne admitted in a fluff Detroit Free Press feature article that she spends "an inordinate amount of money on her wardrobe. I like simple clothes and designer clothes. I wear Halston and Geoffry Beene a lot. I see buying clothes and looking nice as part of my job."

When asked in the same interview if she found television glamorous, Payne candidly admitted, "The only time I feel glamorous is when I go to the bank.... People think television is glamorous, but there is incredible tension. We come across cool, but believe me, there is nothing glamorous about doing a live news show."

With television news celebrity comes great responsibility. News anchors are required to make personal appearances, host charity auctions, attend community service group events, and accept awards, that is, in addition to working their scheduled assignments. More often than not, the celebrity's personal life suffers.

Television news is a goldfish bowl inside a pressure-cooker. It requires its on-air talent to lead a somewhat schizophrenic life. Coming into people's homes everynight exacts a personal price. People feel like they know you which entitles them to violate the celebrity's privacy. Everywhere they go and everything they do in public is fair game for newspaper columnists. So even in their most private moments, celebrities have to be guarded with their behavior. Especially so for women.

The demands of celebrity must have weighed heavily upon Payne's domestic life, though she insisted "(her) chosen career was not responsible for the breakup" of her marriage. She and her husband Harry Payne Jr. divorced in mid-March of 1976 after twelve years of marriage. Beverly retained custody of their three sons Harry Payne III (10), Mark (8), and David (6).

In the year since Joe Glover was teamed with Beverly Payne, Channel 2's market research found they were reaching younger viewers without turning away their core audience. This news teaming had a calming on-camera chemistry.

In a business where your career hangs in the balance with every ratings report and the cold calculus of the station's earnings, Glover and Payne competed favorably for market share against Channel 4 in the ratings race, while Channel 7 remained far and away the ratings leader.

Beverly Payne being interviewed behind the scenes.

All seemed fine until June 15, 1977, when Beverly Payne abruptly quit her $80,000/year job in protest over a live phone interview with the head of the Nazi movement in America. She was nursing a cold at home watching Channel 2 news when she saw her co-anchor Joe Glover allow a hate-filled rant against Jews, Blacks, and immigrants go unquestioned.

The 90-second interview with the national coordinator of the National Socialist White People's Party of America was allowed "to spew his hate over the TV2 airwaves without any balance." Payne criticized her colleague for not asking any probing questions and for the station not having booked a spokesperson from an opposing group for rebuttal. "I may have washed my career down the drain," Payne said in an interview, "but I have my integrity and my dignity."

Station manager Bob McBride refused to issue a public apology over the incident but also refused to accept Payne's resignation. The station continued to honor Ms. Payne's contract which had two years left to run. The station gave Payne a temporary leave of absence to allow Glover and Payne to soothe their egos.

Bob McBride

Payne's fans stood solidly behind her, and they made it known to the station. Two weeks after her protest against WJBK, Payne returned to the Eyewitness News desk to co-anchor with Robbie Timmons while Joe Glover was on temporary assignment elsewhere. Station manager Bob McBride opened the Wednesday night broadcast apologizing to the audience for the offensive interview.

In September of 1979, Ms. Payne's agent negotiated a three-year contract with a substantial salary increase from $80,000 per year to $120,000. WJBK-TV management, not known for their generosity, realized Payne was too important to the station and its image. They did not want to take a chance on losing her to WXYZ-TV Channel 7, which had poached several of their top ratings earners in recent years like John Kelly, Marilyn Turner, and Al Ackerman.

Beverly Payne was the Channel 2 golden girl until November of 1979 when she was one of several journalists invited to a briefing session at the White House with cabinet members and President Carter. Channel 2's conservative management refused to let her attend calling the invitation "public relations puffery."

The decision was typical of WJBK management's failure to capitalize on an opportunity that would enhance Payne and the station's local stature. When she complained that if her co-anchor Joe Glover had received the invitation, the station would have sent him with an expense account. Her statement reopened old wounds. Management began to see Payne as a "troublemaker."

In November of 1980, the station sent Payne on a two-week charity mission to help feed starving Somalian children in Africa. She was able to raise $40,000 from Detroit viewers for the project. Her mission of mercy was filmed by a camera crew and later compiled into a WJBK-TV feature story. When Payne returned home, she was hospitalized at Mt. Carmel Mercy Hospital for dehydration and exhaustion. Her doctor ordered three weeks of rest.

When she returned to work, Payne announced her engagement to Guy Draper, a former chief of protocol in the Carter administration. The couple met at the Democratic National Convention in New York City. They wed on June 20, 1981, in Washington D.C. at St. Albans Church on the grounds of the National Cathedral. The bride wore a street-length, eggshell-colored lace gown. The reception was held at the Shoreham Hotel. 

Beverly Payne and Guy Draper

Payne decided to use her husband's surname on the air beginning July 6, 1981. WJBK management was bewildered and miffed after all the years and money they spent promoting Beverly Payne to their Detroit audience. Payne insisted on using her married name--Beverly Payne Draper. She continued to work at the anchor desk until December 1982 when WJBK-TV suspended her without pay for an unspecified reason. Rather than buckle under, she resigned her position after nine years with the station.

In 1985, Payne launched a new career as a consultant and official spokesperson for the Michigan Commerce Department. Two years later in March 1987, after six years of marriage to Andrew Gay Draper, Beverly divorced him and dropped his name from hers. The reason was once again held private.

In an unexpected turn of events, Detroit Mayor Coleman Young nominated Beverly Payne in February 1978 to serve as administrator of the Casino Gambling Commission and its $150,000 budget. The 35 person committee was charged with studying and drafting a recommendation whether Detroit should allow gambling casinos within the city limits. A proposal was written which the voters rejected in a special election.

Glad to be free from her gambling commission duties, Ms. Payne began a consulting firm for small businesses named Beverly Payne & Associates in June 1988. A year and a half later, Ms. Payne announced her engagement to Michigan Senator Morris Hood (D-Detroit). In no apparent hurry to tie the knot, they were married twenty months later in a private, civil ceremony performed by Recorder's Court Judge Geraldine Bledsoe-Ford.

At some point, Beverly Payne moved back to her hometown of San Francisco to be close to family. She passed away at home on November 12, 1998, of complications from cervical cancer at the age of fifty-four. At Ms. Payne's request, there was no memorial service. She left behind three grown sons, five grand kids, two sisters, one brother, and her mother Virginia Wroten.

Beverly Payne's contribution to Detroit television history is that her success opened doors for other women and minorities at news desks across the city: women like Diana Lewis, Doris Biscoe, Robbie Timmons, Kathy Adams, Linda Wright-Avery, Carmen Harlan, Kai Maxwell, and Terry Murphy.

"These women were transformed by the power of television. Deserved or not, a certain glamor and credibility is attached to these golden beings whose fate it is to be on-camera. It is magical!" wrote Detroit Free Press reporter Donna Britt.

Diana Lewis--WXYZ-TV's Grande Dame

Soupy Sales Late Night Detroit Variety Show

After serving twenty-six months in the United States Navy in World War II--twelve in the Pacific theater--Milton Supman took his G.I. Bill benefits and earned a master's degree in journalism in 1949. While attending Marshall College in Huntington, West Virgina, Supman was bit by the show business bug and began working part-time doing standup comedy in local nightclubs and dee-jaying a morning radio show on WHTN-AM.

Supman moved to Cincinnati when he landed a television spot on WKRC-TV hosting a teen dance show called Soupy's Soda Shop--the first in the country. Supman worked under the stage name Soupy Hines. When his show was cancelled, a friend at the station told Soupy about Detroit station WXYZ-TV that was looking for live entertainers to round out its local programming schedule.

The unemployed, twenty-seven-year-old performer legally changed his stage name to Soupy Sales; took his young wife and baby to stay with relatives in Huntington, West Virgina; and drove to Detroit with $10 in his pocket. He auditioned for Channel 7 general manager John Pival to host a daily, children's lunchtime show. Pival was impressed and hired him. Soupy used his fast-talking, improvisational skills to good effect and soon made his program a success. Soupy wanted to show he had the talent to attract more than a kiddie audience.

When an 11:00 PM slot opened up unexpectedly two months later, program director Pete Strand reserved the time slot for Soupy to do an adult-focused, variety show of comedy and music entertainment. Soupy's On debuted on November 10th, 1953.

 

Unlike his lunchtime show which was roughly outlined and ad libbed giving it a spontaneous flair, the evening show was scripted and well-rehearsed. Soupy and his stage director Pete Strand wrote the nightly opening monologue and comedy sketches each afternoon for the evening broadcast. The show opened with Soupy doing a standup routine followed by a cutting-edge comic sketch and live guest performances by some of the best jazz muscians of the era.

Soupy was a jazz lover living in a jazz town. Detroit at that time was the home to twenty-four jazz clubs before urban renewal in 1959 wiped out the Black Bottom and Paradise Valley neighborhoods where most of the jazz clubs were located. Soupy's nighttime show soon became a scheduled stop for jazz performers like Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday, George Shearing, Della Reese, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis, who was living in the Detroit area at the time.

Soupy's house band "Two Joes and a Hank" led by Hal Gordon had some chops too. Guitarist Joe Messina and drummer Jack Brokensha later became members of Motown's Funk Brothers. Rounding out the group was Joe Oddo, who played bass, and Hank Trevision, who played piano. Soupy's theme song was Charlie Parker's "Yardbird Suite."

Soupy portrayed an array of comic characters like belching Sheriff Wyatt Burp, European crooner Charles Vichysoisse, Colonel Claude Bottom, and Western cowboy hero The Lone Stranger. Other performers were Clyde Adler who played Indian mystic Kuda Dux and Mississippi gambler Wes Jefferson; character actress Bertha Forman, with fifty years of show business experience, played Soupy's mother-in-law; attractive blonde Jane Hamilton played ditzy literary critic Harriet Von Loon and hip-swinging floozy Bubbles, Soupy's on-screen wife.

 

Detroit's most recognized voice actor Rube Weiss--announcer for Detroit Dragway commercials and the official Hudson's department store Santa for many years--played Charlie Pan and the Lone Stranger's sidekick Pronto.

Rube Weiss

Soupy and his troupe pioneered late-night comedy shows and paved the way for programs like Saturday Night Live. His show was before the age of videotape and only one Kinescope segment (a fixed 16mm camera filming a TV program directly from the screen) survives from the show which is linked below. Soupy interviews trumpeter Clifford Brown at the end of Brown's performance.

The final episode of Soupy's On aired November 27, 1959. Soupy had done 3,300 morning and evening shows for WXYZ in six years when his variety show was cancelled. At the time, Soupy was the highest paid celebrity in Detroit television. When the station declined to renegotiate Soupy's contract, he was free to shop his talents in Hollywood.

In a statement to Detroit local media, Soupy took a moment to make it real. "I've been working in a state of exhaustion for years. My workday begins at 9:00 am and ends at 2:30 am. I get three hours of sleep at night and another two hours in the afternoon. You wear a little ragged after awhile. I see my fans more than I see my own family," Soupy said. "But let's face it. Here in Detroit, local live television is dying because the networks are producing more of their own programming and crowding out local talent."      

Soupy Sales relocated to Los Angeles and appeared in some television episodes and several movies but never became a television or movie star in Hollywood. He wasn't leading man material, and his face was too well-known for him to be a convincing character actor. But he recreated himself as a "TV personality" and made a steady living as a panelist on the game show circuit doing programs like Hollywood Squares, $20,000 Pyramid, To Tell the Truth, and What's My Line.

Here is the only surviving clip of Soupy's On from 1956 featuring jazz great Clifford Brown.

Lunch With Soupy 

Eastern Michigan University Student Queried - "Is Paul (McCartney) Dead?"

The biggest hoax in the history of Rock & Roll is surely the "Is Paul Dead?" controversy. On Sunday afternoon, October 12, 1969, Thomas Zarski, an Eastern Michigan University student, called [Uncle Russ] Gibb, a concert promoter and popular D.J. for Detroit's underground music radio station - WKNR-FM.

On the air, Zarski asked Gibb what he knew about the death of Paul McCartney. This was the first the D.J. heard of it. "Have you ever played "Revolution 9" from the The White Album backwards?" Zarski asked.

Gibb hadn't. Skeptical, he humored his call-in listener and played the song backwards. For the first time his audience heard, "Turn me on, dead man." Then WKNR's phone started ringing off the hook.

Apparently, the rumor started when Tim Harper wrote an article on September 17, 1969 in the Drake University (Iowa) newspaper. The story circulated by word of mouth through the counter culture underground for a month until Zarski caught wind of it. He called Uncle Russ asking about it. Gibb had solid connections with the local Detroit and British rock scene because he was a concert promoter at the Grande Ballroom--Detroit's rock Mecca.

University of Michigan student Fred LaBour heard the October 12th radio broadcast and published an article two days later in the October 14th edition of The Michigan Daily as a record review parody of the Beatles' latest album Abbey Road. This article was credited for giving the story legs and was the key exposure that propelled the hoax nationally and internationally.

The legend goes that Paul died in November of 1966 in a car crash. The three categories of clues were:

1. Clues found on the album covers and liner sleeve notes,
2. Clues found playing the records forward, and
3. Clues found playing the records backwards.

The clues came from the albums:

1. Yesterday and Today,
2. Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
3. Magical Mystery Tour,
4. The Beatles [the White Album], and
5. Abbey Road.

Some people thought the Beatles masterminded the hoax because of the large number of clues. They thought there were too many for this story to be merely coincidental. 

The story peaked in America on November 7th, 1969, when Life magazine ran an interview with Paul McCartney at his farm in Scotland, debunking the myth.

For more detailed information on the myth and the clues, check out these links: 

http://turnmeondeadman.com/the-paul-is-dead-rumor/ 

http://keenerpodcast.com/?page_id=602

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqBf6iNPVOg

Detroit's Shock Theater

In 1957, Universal Pictures syndicated a television package of fifty-two classic horror movies released by Screen Gems called Shock Theatre. The package included the original Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummy, and Wolfman movies. Shock Theatre premiered with Lugosi's Dracula in Detroit on WXYZ channel seven at 11:30 pm on Friday, February 7, 1958.

Each syndicated television market had their own host. Detroit had one of the first horror movie personalities in the country. The show was hosted by Mr. X--Tom "Doc" Dougall--a classically trained actor who taught English at the Detroit Institute of Technology and moonlighted as a vampire on Friday nights. Unlike later horror movie hosts who would spoof their roles or riff on the movies they showed, Dougall was grimly serious and set a solemn tone for what was to follow. What most people don't know about Professor Dougall is that he co-wrote several Lone Ranger and Green Hornet scripts for WXYZ radio.

The opening of the show was memorable, but I was only nine years old when I started staying up every Friday night to see the classic monsters and mad-scientists--The Invisible Man comes to mind. This is how I remember the opening:

The show's marquee card came up with ominous organ music and a crack of thunder in the background. Replete in vampire garb with cape, Mr. X walked slowly on screen holding a huge open book announcing the night's feature in a scary voice. Next, he would say, "Before we release the forces of evil, insulate yourself against them." With a sense of impending doom, Mr. X continued, "Lock your doors, close your windows, and dim your lights. Prepare for Shock." The camera came in for an extreme close-up of Mr. X's face, more lightening and thunder effects, and finally his gaunt face morphed into a skull. Then the film would roll.

There was something positively unholy about the show which made it an instant success with my generation of ghoulish Detroit Baby Boomers. The show's ominous organ music set the mood for the audience. The piece was listed only as #7 on a recording of Video Moods licensed for commercial television and not available to the public.

No video link to Detroit's Shock Theatre's opening has surfaced, but the above newspaper ad for the show gives an idea of the facial dissolve special effect. If anyone knows where I can find a link, Gmail me so I can add it to this post. Thanks.

Detroit's Baby Boomer Kid Show Hosts:
https://fornology.blogspot.com/2017/12/detroit-baby-boomer-kids-show-hosts.html

The Women Pioneers of CKLW AM Radio--Jo Jo Shutty and Rosalie Trombley

When we Detroit Baby Boomers were in our teens, CKLW-AM radio was known as "The Big 8." The station broadcast out of Windsor, Ontario, and they had offices in Southfield, Michigan. The Canadian station's 50,000 watt transmitter dwarfed everything within its broadcast signal, making CKLW the dominant AM station in the region on both sides of the Detroit River. 

During the day, CKLW's signal could be heard throughout Southeastern Michigan, much of Ohio, and beyond. In the evenings, the station directed its signal to a northeastern nightime signal, so it would not interfer with powerful Mexican AM radio signals to avoid static overlap. The Canadian station could be heard as far away as Des Moines, Iowa; Cincinnati, Ohio; Toronto, Ontario; and the Eastern Seaboard. On a good night when the atmospheric conditions allowed, CKLW could be heard in Scandinavia.

The station first broadcast in 1932 during the Great Depression. With the growing popularity of television in the 1950s, CKLW radio began to lose its traditional adult audience base. A decision was made in 1967 to target a younger demographic. CKLW-AM began programming locally-based disc-jockeys playing Top 40 singles for their younger listeners. The management commissioned the Johnny Mann Singers to produce an upbeat, youthful-sounding station ID jingle. Three months later, CKLW became the number one pop radio outlet in their market and one of the top ten AM stations in North America.

To complete the station's makeover, management hired twenty-two-year-old Byron MacGregor as their news director, the youngest in the station's history. MacGregor was known for his deep resonant voice and high-energy delivery. The news was repackaged as 20/20 News because they offered their news programing at twenty minutes after the hour and twenty minutes before the hour. When all the other radio stations in town had their news at the top of the hour and half-past the hour, CKLW was playing music.

The Big 8's newscasts were delivered in a rapid-fire manner to make the news sound more sensational and exciting. The sound of a teletype machine clicking audibly in the background gave the news the sound of immediacy.

Another news innovation at CKLW-AM was having North America's first female helicopter traffic and news reporter, Jo Jo Shutty. Jo Jo, as she was popularly known, spent up to seven hours a day reporting live on Detroit traffic. As a news person, Jo Jo would often be the first reporter on the scene of breaking stories where she would do live remotes. Jo Jo became an instant celebrity.

Jo Jo Shutty grew up in West Bloomfield, Michigan. At nine years old, she became a world champion baton twirler, and at seventeen while a student at Berkley High School, she became Miss Teenage Detroit. Jo Jo went to Michigan State University graduating Cum Laude with a bachelor of arts degree in television, radio, and film.

Jo Jo Shutty was twenty-six-years-old and single when she was hired to be the "Eyes in the Sky" for CKLW-AM radio on Monday, September 9, 1974. News director Byron MacGregor thought he had hired a helicopter traffic reporter, but soon discovered she became a radio personality much loved in the Detroit and Windsor area. Jo Jo's feminine voice was a welcome change from the deep-voiced, male dee-jays who dominated the radio airwaves. Her starting salary was $20,000 with an attractive fringe benefits package.

Six months later, Byron MacGregor married Jo Jo Shutty at Marygrove College in their Sacred Heart Chapel. They were both twenty-seven years old. Just shy of twenty years later, Byron MacGregor died unexpectedly from complications of pneumonia on Tuesday, January 3, 1995, in Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital.

The real powerhouse behind the Big 8's popularity was a woman unknown by most people outside the radio and music communities. Rosalie Trombley was CKLW's music director from 1967 through 1984. She had an incredible ability for recognizing talent and hit singles, earning her the title "The Girl with the Golden Ear."

Rosalie Trombley with Bob Seger on the occasion of Seger's 1978 album "Stranger in Town."

Trombley helped the careers of many Detroit and Canadian musicians by debuting their music over the airwaves: artists and groups like Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Supremes, Little Stevie Wonder, the Funkadelics, and many musicians like Bob Seger, Mitch Rider, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Gordon Lightfoot, Paul Anka, Joni Mitchell, and Anne Murray to name just a few.

Trombley chose the right blend of pop music that appealed to young Black and White audiences on both sides of the Detroit River. On the CKLW television side, dee-jay Robin Seymour hosted a popular afternoon dance program named Swinging Time, giving many of these artists their first television exposure as well.

The rise of FM stereo radio and album-oriented programming in the 1970s began eroding CKLW's youthful audience. Rock & Roll grew up and so did its audience. The Big 8 Top 40 format was abandoned in the 1980s, replaced with fully-automated programming of jazz standards and Big Band music for an older demographic. The station's Golden Age was over.

 

Rosalie Trombley passed away on November 23, 2021 at the age of eighty-two. At her funeral, Jo Jo Shutty called Trombley "an important mentor whose power as a woman in a male-dominated industry commanded respect." Trombley was posthumously inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame as a legend of AM pop radio.

 

Because of Trombley's importance and influence in the pop music business, the Windsor, Ontario City Council approved $100,000 for the creation, installation, and unveiling of a life-sized, bronze statue of Trombley leaning against a big 8. The statue was unveiled at Windsor's Riverfront Park by artist Donna Mayne on September 18, 2023, to coincide with Rosalie's eighty-fourth birthday.

Swinging Time's Robin Seymour

CKLW Jingle 

Detroit's Famous Eastern Market

What was to become known as the Eastern Market began as a hay, lumber, and cordwood market in Detroit at Cadillac Square in 1841. Soon after, farmers from the countryside brought their produce there, and the area became known as the Central Market. 

As the city grew, so did the market. City aldermen decided to relocate the market in the mid-1880s on two sites to better serve city residents and give farmers and livestock owners other venues to sell their products. Detroit's Common Council named them the Eastern and the Western Markets.

The first Eastern Market structure was built in 1886, but on December 23, 1890, a fifty-one mile an hour wind gust collapsed the roof of the structure. Farmer Agustus Barrow and his wife were at the market selling their produce from their wagon. To protect themselves from the wind, Barrow drove under the shelter when the roof fell in on them.

Both of Barrow's horses were killed and Barrow's head was split open. Mrs. Barrow had both arms broken and her shoulder dislocated. Mrs. Lizzie Valentine lost eleven chickens and her chicken coops in the collapse. In all, several wagons were crushed and two horses were killed. Claims against the city totalled $10,522.50.

Old school home delivery.

The subsequent investigation found that the stone foundation the cast iron columns of the structure rested upon were not securely anchored. Nor was the huge, umbrella-shaped timber roof attached to the pillars at the top. Weight and balance held the structure together. The judge who heard the case sided with the plaintiffs and found the city negligent.

The demolition and reconstruction of a secure pavilion became a city priority. Within three months, the Northwestern Stone and Marble Company was awarded the contract to regrade and pave the vacant lot for $2,300. A month later, Detroit's Common Council approved $20,000 to construct a new and improved covered pavillion. The Western Market was also funded $20,000 for improvements to that facility on Fort Street.

Proposals for Shed 1, an open-air sheltered pavilion in a cross shape supported by sturdy cast iron columns anchored at each end, were opened on September19, 1891. Nine construction companies bids ranged from $15,330 to $17,708. The lowest bidder, M. Blay & Son, was awarded the contract. 

Completed on April 26th, 1892, the pavilion contained over 150 covered stalls with many more uncovered stalls surrounding it. The market clerk collected ten cents for every wagon standing on market property, and an ordinance was passed making it illegal to sell produce or livestock within 500 feet of the Eastern Market boundaries. Additional sheds were built through the 1920s with Shed 5 being built in 1939. 

During World War II, the Eastern Market became a hub for the wholesale food distribution industry and an important part of America's war effort. With the construction of the I-375 in 1964, the interstate cut through the footprint of Shed 1, so the original building was torn down.

In the 1970s, murals began to decorate the stalls rented by farmers and the surrounding buildings making the area colorful and festive. In 1974, the Eastern Market was designated a Michigan Historic Site, and in 1978, it was entered into the National Register of Historic Places.

Today, the Eastern Market is the largest public market in the United States covering forty-three acres at 2934 Russel Street between Mack and Gratiot Avenues. The market also boasts the largest open-air flowerbed market in the country. On a typical Saturday, 45,000 people shop in many of the specialty shops in the market district.

Since 2015, the Eastern Market has hosted the annual Detroit Festival of Books on the third Sunday of July. It is the largest book festival in the state of Michigan. Housed in Shed 5, this event is free to the public and attracts over 10,000 people from Metropolitan Detroit. My wife and I hope to see you there next Sunday on July 16th, from 10 am until 4 pm.

Detroit's Kosher Nostra--The Purple Gang

George "The Animal" Steele in His Own Words

George "The Animal" Steele and his favorite snack.

William James Myers was raised a happy child in Madison Heights, Michigan until dyslexia separated him from his classmates. He was left behind in second grade because he couldn't read. By the time Myers was in junior high school, he was a year older and a year bigger than his peers, and he began to gain notice in school sports. By the time he began Madison High School, the coaches were waiting for him.

Upon graduation, Myers was awarded a full ride scholarship to play football at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. All he wanted to do was play football, with little concern for the educational opportunity before him. Questionable judgements and bad knees kept him off the gridiron.

With the help of his newlywed wife Patricia, he was able to earn a bachelor's degree at Michigan State and a master's degree with a teaching credential at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant. He was hired as a teacher and a wrestling/football coach at his former high school where he excelled. By then, Jim and Pat had three children and the Myers family was having trouble making ends meet on a teacher's salary.

Jim and Pat Myers

On the advice of a friend, he went to see Bert Ruby, a Detroit prowrestling promoter who sent Myers to Windsor, Ontario to learn the secrets of the squared circle to supplement his meager teaching income. He began to wrestle out-of-town matches wearing a face mask and wrestling under the name "The Student" to protect his privacy. The extra money came in handy.

In 1967, Myers was scouted by World Wrestling Federation's Bruno Sammartino and began working in the Pittsburg, Pennsylvania television market. Sammartino urged Myers to ditch the mask and change his ring name to George "The Animal" Steele. His finishing move became the flying hammerlock.

The "Animal" character was stooped over with a thrust forward shaved head. The thick mat of fur on his back fed into the promotion that he was the long sought after Missing Link. The Animal rarely spoke more than a grunt or a syllable or two and stuck out his green tongue at the crowd. He ate Clorets mints just before his matches. At least his breath was fresh.

Steele cultivated his menacing imbelcile routine in his promotional interviews often appearing with managers like Lou Albano or Classy Freddie Blasse to speak for him. He developed his wildman character by tearing up turnbuckles and throwing the shredded foam rubber at his opponents who stood by looking bewildered. His Neanderthal image couldn't be more different than the private man. 

In 1988, Myers was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. He retired from prowrestling and moved to Coco Beach, Flordia where he lived until his death on February 16, 2017 from kidney failure at the age of seventy-nine.

Before his death, Jim Myers made a candid and touching hour-long video expressly for his fans which tells his life story much better than anyone else can. For viewers interested mainly in Jim Myers' wrestling career, pick up the interview 34 minutes in. Anyone interested in the man, view the whole video.

A Walk Through Life with Jim Myers - AKA George "The Animal" Steele

George "The Animal" Steele vs. Randy "Macho Man" Savage