Bonstelle Theatre

When Rabbi Leo M. Franklin first began leading services at Detroit's Temple Beth El in 1899, he felt that the construction of a new temple building on Detroit's "Piety Row" stretch of Woodward would increase the visibility and prestige of Detroit's Jewish community.[2] Accordingly, in October 1900, the congregation held a special meeting at which it was decided to build a new temple. The congregation purchased a site for the new temple in April of the next year and engaged member Albert Kahn to design the structure. Groundbreaking took place on November 25, 1901, with the ceremonial cornerstone laid on April 23, 1902. The first services were held in the chapel on January 24, 1903, and the formal dedication was held on September 18–19 of the same year.[5]

The temple is a Beaux-Arts structure influenced primarily by Roman and Greek temples. Architect Albert Kahn's exterior design for Temple Beth-El has been compared closely to the Pantheon in Rome.[6] There is a prominent dome over the main area of the temple, with gabled wings on the north and south. A pedimented extension on the front once extended into a porch; the front section of the building was lost when the city widened Woodward Avenue in 1936.[2]

When the Temple Beth El congregation constructed a new building farther north along Woodward in 1922, they sold the building at Woodward and Eliot to Jessie Bonstelle for $500,000.[7] Bonstelle hired architect C. Howard Crane to convert the building into a theater, and named the resulting building the Bonstelle Playhouse.[7] Myron G. Barlow was reported to be responsible for directing interior decoration in "Italian style."[8] In 1928, the Bonstelle Playhouse became the Detroit Civic Theatre, and in the 1930s, the Mayfair Motion Picture Theater. In 1951, Wayne State University rented the facility as a performance space for its theater company, and purchased it outright in 1956, renaming it the Bonstelle Theatre in honor of Jessie Bonstelle.

In 2019, the University reached an agreement to lease the theatre to Detroit-based development firm The Roxbury Group. The Bonstelle is planned to be renovated and integrated into an adjacent hotel by AC Hotels, which is expected to open in 2024.[3] The Bonstelle was expected to host Mary Poppins as its final performance in April 2020, which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[9] As a result, the final performance by Wayne State University in the Bonstelle was A Christmas Carol in December 2019. Wayne State University's theater performances are now produced and performed at the newly constructed Hilberry Gateway.[10]

• 
  Temple Beth El, c. 1905
• 
  Jessie Bonstelle in 1908
• 
  The Bonstelle Theatre in 2008
• 
  The Bonstelle in 2023, after its closure, with the site of the future hotel to the left

• History of the Jews in Metro Detroit

• Hill, Eric J. and John Gallagher (2002). AIA Detroit: The American Institute of Architects Guide to Detroit Architecture. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-3120-3.
• Beaudoen, Marlise (2005). "Adaptation, Synthesis, and Survival: The Ancient Renaissance Antecedents of Albert Kahn's Temple Beth El". In Sobocinski, Melanie Grunow (ed.). Detroit and Rome: building on the past. Dearborn: Alfred Berkowitz Gallery, University of Michigan–Dearborn. pp. 17–27. ISBN 0933691092.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bonstelle Theatre.

• Bonstelle Theatre - Wayne State University
• Photographs from the Rabbi Leo M. Franklin archives: these include photographs c. 1903 - 1922 of both the interior and exterior of the structure.