HUDSON’S

Detroit’s World-Famous Department Store

Do you remember a time when shopping was an adventure? When a bus ride downtown ended at an enormous red-brick store with glittering window displays? Do you reminisce about riding smooth, shiny escalators from floor to floor, or having a Maurice Salad in a gracious, hushed dining room high up in the sky? Maybe you enjoyed hunting for bargains below street level, or browsing for books in Detroit’s largest book shop? Maybe you recall the smell of exotic fragrances wafting through the air on the sumptuous first floor of Hudson’s, Detroit’s World-Famous Department Store. If you do cherish memories like these, come join architect and historian Bruce Allen Kopytek as he leads you on an intoxicating journey of exploration through this lost Detroit landmark. Along the way, you’ll discover the rags-to-riches story of Joseph L. Hudson, the culinary delights of Hudson’s restaurants, and the stories of people that made it all happen – right here in Detroit.
This is the story of The J. L. Hudson Company

Chapter 1

The Paris of America

(excerpt)

Detroit, the city chosen by Joseph. L. Hudson in which to develop his business, was once America’s fifth-largest city; a dynamic center of industry that attained worldwide renown. The wealth produced by its factories and robust commerce was used by its leaders to forge and embellish a city that, from time to time, was known as “The Paris of America.” While this moniker may be an anomaly to those who also know Detroit as the largest American city to ever file for bankruptcy, the comparison between the two cities can be understood through a brief study of Detroit’s history. What’s more, Hudson’s home town, during the store’s heyday, was a bustling metropolis that, like the store itself, might be incomprehensible to someone familiar with Detroit’s physical state at the end of the twentieth century, even though the city is currently in the midst of a revival that, after all the devastation, has once again changed its face considerably.

The Parisian connection stems from three separate and distinct sources. To begin, Detroit was originally founded as a French outpost, and for many years housed a population that spoke the French language exclusively. It was inevitable that Detroit would participate in the joie de vivre for which French culture is widely known.

Secondly, by 1805, when the small settlement was, at least for the time being, a part of the young American Nation, it was re-planned from a haphazard town of wooden buildings, using a layout (the “Woodward Plan”) that envisioned a series of town squares and circuses linked by grand boulevards and wide, straight avenues. This plan, while never fully realized, resulted in a unique geometric layout for the center of Detroit that bears some resemblance to the nineteenth-century boulevards of Paris that give the beloved French capital its distinctive layout and elegant sense of space.

Thirdly, Detroit’s economic and cultural prowess inspired a sense of authority, in its day, that was reinforced by its many private and public institutions, and the monumental architecture required to house them. Pre-World War II photos of Detroit show a cohesive urban environment, enlivened by crowds of people on in its tree-lined streets and in its well-defined urban spaces, that has been all but lost in the modern era. The dynamism associated with Detroit in the past, in combination with its physical form, compared well to Paris, a city often noted for many of the same characteristics.