The World is Coming, but the buildings are going.

As one of the last major demolitions of old Detroit buildings prior to the influx of tourists for the Super Bowl, crews over the past two weeks hastily abated what hazardous materials they could manage in a truncated span of time, and began demolishing the Donovan and Sanders buildings, also known as the Motown Center, at the northwest corner of Woodward and I-75 in downtown Detroit. And though neither building would win any awards for prettiness or upkeep, they represent the loss of even more Detroit history, a loss that has been particularly great in the past year.

The Sanders Building, the smaller of the two, predated the Donovan by about a decade near the turn of the century. At the time, the Sanders Building was the lone tall structure on that block, in the era when Detroit’s smaller two- and three-story buildings were replaced by skyscrapers. The future site of the Donovan was occupied by a rooming house run by Elma Cooper, with a tailor’s shop on the premises.

Across the street was a longstanding shoe store, just doors from the Woodward Avenue Baptist Church, where now stand rows of Crosswinds condos. Just north was Blessed John and Son Grocers. Initially the Sanders Building wasn’t the Sanders Building at all, but housed Henry Kunkle Confections for a few years before Sanders moved in and renamed the building for his company.

The 10-story Donovan Building, designed by architect Albert Kahn, was built in 1922 on the corner of what was then Woodward and Duffield (now the I-75 service drive), adjacent to the Sanders Building. The Donovan housed an odd array of small businesses from its opening. Most of the lower floors were occupied by the offices of manufacturers’ agents, individuals representing various industries. Dozens of them filled the lower eight floors, each with his own office, although an occasional odd business took up space in between the agents’ rooms. And I do mean “odd.” On the seventh floor was the Detroit Lumberman’s Credit Bureau and their Dealer’s Association. The ninth and 10th floors, providing grand views of the cluster of churches in the area, were occupied by artists’ studios and architects’ offices. LaSalle Extension University had rooms on the sixth floor.

By the 1930s various small businesses rotated through the offices not already occupied by manufacturers agents, who, along with various artists and architects, made up the bulk of the building’s tenants throughout most of its history. The Woodward School of Music occupied room 306, while the Amateur Fencers League of America took room 404.

By the 1950s about half of the lower portion of the building was occupied by the State Social Welfare Bureau, with odds and ends like the Voice of Christian Youth Inc. on the eighth floor and the Royal Norwegian Vice Consulate on the Ninth. A handful of artists’ studios still remained on the upper floors, but more vacancies began appearing. The same occurred next door at the Sanders Building which, by the mid-1960s, was vacant.

In 1968 the building had new life breathed into it when Motown Records founder Berry Gordy found that the scattered houses he’d purchased on West Grand Boulevard were growing increasingly inadequate for a business the size of Motown. He purchased the Donovan Building and moved Motown Records’ business operations there. Motown also incorporated the empty Sanders building next door, connecting the two buildings from within. The Donovan Coffee shop opened in the ground floor.

No studio recordings were done at the Donovan, though Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” was mixed in the basement there, with an alternate version of the album being produced but remaining unreleased until a special edition CD reissue of the LP came out a few years ago.

Gordy moved Motown’s operations to Hollywood in the early 70s, only a few years after having moved them downtown in the first place, and by 1974 the record company’s remaining few stray operations in the Donovan were completely shut down. Apart from the JOWA Securities Services on the ground floor, the building remained empty until they too moved out.

For years the two buildings have sat empty, with dumb graffiti appearing on the Donovan’s upper levels and the elements coursing through the open windows, as stacks of papers, memorabilia and souvenirs were scattered throughout the building by wave after wave of intruders and by gusting winds. Rain splattered walls and carpets, and lush green mold soon spread along asbestos tiles.

By the time we got into the building a couple years back, there wasn’t much left inside to see, and there was even less remaining each time I returned. Old, giant, dinosaur tape machines standing five feet high were knocked over and broken, stacked boxes of promotional materials grew yellower by the year, and millions of small paint chips lined the walls and hallways. One large room was filled with boxes of handwritten letters on loose leaf paper sent by aspiring young singers from around the country, pleading for their chance at stardom. Others contained correspondence from Motown Fan Club members, dutifully filling out membership renewal forms. Department of Labor pamphlets featuring cartoons explaining how to be a good office co-worker were mixed in here and there.

The translucent blue plastic that had been laid over the lower-level windows created a thick, dim, blue light inside, Motown Blue, while the traffic on I-75 just below the windows made a constant swoosh sound that filled the south-facing rooms of the building with constant white noise.

Old records, cracked and warped, popped up here and there, as did piles of empty Temptations and Four Tops album covers. Diana Ross posters lay trampled on the floor. Jackson 5 LP order forms remained by the thousands. Marvin Gaye’s desk – his personal desk – was upended but still contained a number of personal effects. And this was just a couple years back. I can only imagine what still remained for scavengers to walk off with 10, 20 years ago.

The nondescript roof provided a unique vantage point from which to view Detroit. To the south stretched all of downtown, to the west was Cass Corridor, looking utterly empty and desolate from that height. Large, green lots are the predominant feature of that area, with a few lonely old bars and a broken-down cab company breaking up the expanse of empty parcels. Across the street the Crosswinds condos take the place of the crumbling storefronts and empty mansions that sat there a decade ago.

Somehow the Sanders Building, long empty and scraped out, became Junkie Central in recent years. You couldn’t walk very far in some parts of there without finding dirty needles under your shoes. Even in the grassy lots surrounding the two buildings, there were as many needles as broken bottles.

The sudden expression of sad interest in the building after the equally sudden announcement of its impending demolition has less to do with its appearance, or its origin as an Albert Kahn design, as it does with it being a piece of Motown.

The demolition of Motown followed its destruction years ago by a greedy Berry Gordy, who left the city that made him and his company what they were, so he could go to a place that didn’t really need him. It’s the old story of abandoning one’s roots for greener pastures. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Unbeknownst to Gordy, his and Motown’s best days were behind them by the time they left.

None of Motown’s hits were recorded here in the Donovan; all that took place was menial office work and some mixing, yet still to this day, over three decades after the record label left the city, it’s referred to as the Motown Building. It shows the enduring impact a small record label that turned soul music into pop music really had on the city.

Though the label still exists today under different ownership, Motown’s real heyday didn’t go far past the early 70s, ending a run that lasted 15 years at the most. Yet 35 years later, Motown’s brief run has such a strong meaning to Detroiters that some of them have come out to stand in the cold and watch the destruction of a long-empty, plain building that sat for years with no markers or signs to indicate its real significance to Detroit, a city whose history tends to vanish without fanfare or tribute, but with only a quiet goodbye.