There’s a world-famous music venue on the West Side that sits in decay, dying a slow death at the hands of time and the elements, as so many historical buildings in Detroit do.

The Grande Ballroom, designed by architect Charles Agree in Moorish Deco style, was built in 1928 on Grand River near Joy on the city’s West Side. It was for years a favorite Detroit dance spot, featuring one of the largest hardwood dance floors in the country, notable not only for its size but also for the unusual fact that it was spring-suspended for easier movement.

Before radio became popular, ballrooms like the Grande and the Graystone on Woodward and the Vanity on Jefferson drew large crowds who came to dance to jazz and later, swing. By the late 40s and early 50s, changing musical tastes, the widespread popularity of radio, and the advent of television all contributed to a loss of interest in ballroom dancing, and over time the dance halls faded in popularity.

In the mid-1950s the Grande was revived as a non-alcohol dance club by John Hayes and his wife, who latched onto a revival of interest in ballroom dancing, when dances such as the fox trot, tango, waltz and bolero and other Latin dances regained popularity. The couple, who ran the ballroom without bouncers, closely supervised the crowd to keep drinkers out and keep dances pickup-free. Fridays were “get-acquainted” nights at the Grande for teenagers 17 years old and up, and on Saturdays the ballroom held nights for older and married couples, nights on which men were required to wear coats, shirts and ties.

By the 60s the Ballroom was empty, used as storage for old mattresses. Local schoolteacher and radio DJ Russ Gibb rented the hall for $700 per month, cleaned it up, painted the stage, commissioned one of the largest strobe lights ever built at the time, and began booking bands to play there, patterning the venue after West Coast concert halls like the Fillmore and the Avalon that he’d seen during a stay in California.

The Grande reopened Oct. 7, 1966, mainly booking local acts such as Bob Seger, the Stooges, Alice Cooper, and the MC5, a band that was managed by local artist John Sinclair, who also helped Gibb with promotions, bookings, advertising posters, and lighting at the Grande. The former ballroom had a difficult time breaking even financially until the next year, when Gibb began booking national acts like the Byrds, Janis Joplin, and the Grateful Dead, and international groups like the Who, Procol Harum, Pink Floyd, and Cream.

It was then that the ballroom took on national importance, gaining a stunning amount of notoriety for a Midwestern music venue. For three years, it became the premier Midwestern venue for seeing the hottest music. But by the early 70s, financial problems led to the closing of the Grande. The property reopened occasionally in the following years, last sputtering along as a second-hand shop before closing its doors for good.

The Grande seems to be one of the most frequented ruins in Detroit, partly because it’s not at all guarded, partly because it often seems to be wide open. The day we paid a visit it was simply a matter of crawling inside.

The first floor, which was last the site of the second-hand shop, was a disaster. Since the windows are covered with boards, the bottom level is pitch black, with a musty, rotting smell hanging in the air. Everything that comprised the ceiling pretty much found its way onto the floor in a heap of metal, plaster and wood, all turning to mush in puddles formed by dripping water.

The ballroom on the second floor, though, was relatively obstruction-free, though it’s suffered considerable damage, something we were reminded of by the constant drip of water leaking through the roof into the building, spalshing into innumerable small puddles, the only sound to be heard inside, apart from the quiet noise of passing cars making its way in through a couple of boardless second-floor windows.

Decorative plaster columns suffer from rot, with large chunks breaking off, falling to the floor and crumbling. Whole chunks lay scattered throughout the ballroom. But the small stage, site of so many infamous shows, remains intact and sturdy enough to stand on. The wood dance floor, apart from the usual buckling that’s found in buildings whose interiors are exposed to the weather, is solid. Elaborate baroque plaster designs on the ceilings remain intact, a stark and beautiful contrast to the rot that exists all around them.

The roof, spotted with large holes here and there, is questionable at best, but despite this I made my way up the stairs and climbed out, gingerly making my way around to get a glimpse of the multicolored Spanish tiles arrayed on the roof’s perimeter, and stayed for a while as cars rolled by on Grand River, winding their way past all the abandoned storefronts and empty houses.