Local Icon Detroit Cental Market goes to Greenfield Village
A Market Saved
Greenfield Village Resurrects Detroit Central Market’s Vegetable Shed
IT WAS A WET, BLUSTERY day, almost 20 years in the making. But—thanks to some shelter—it was perfectly fine.
Greenfield Village’s 2022 season opened to members on April 15 with gale-force winds and a decidedly cool spring mist. Members seemed hardly to notice, eyes affixed on the Village’s newest structure, the freshly completed Detroit Central Market Vegetable Shed, in remarkably better condition than when it last stood on Belle Isle in 2003.
“We are really just amazed at how it came together. The building is truly an amazing survivor,” says Jim Johnson, director of Greenfield Village and curator of historic structures and landscapes at The Henry Ford. “It’s with us today as an amazing testament to its design.”
Three almost-consecutive amazings can run the risk of seeming overdone, but not in the case of the Vegetable Shed. The more-than-160-year-old structure has existed at two earlier locations, suffered at least two fires and fallen into such disrepair from neglect that it was slated to be demolished before a city planner reached out to The Henry Ford with hopes of saving it.
From its inception in 1860, the building stood apart as something special. The City of Detroit hired architect John Schaffer to design an open-sided market building for the Central Market District, now better known as Cadillac Square, near Campus Martius. A German immigrant, Schaffer incorporated design elements reminiscent of a Bavarian lodge, with carefully hand-milled intricate scrollwork and cast iron rarely seen in something like a market building.
“Cast iron was the new building material of the 20th century. Detroit was moving toward being an industrial city,” says Johnson, pointing out how the structure marries Schaffer’s influences in the form with the building’s need to function. “The City really wanted to do something over the top and functional and quite beautiful at the same time…. It’s his aesthetic. Typically they’re a lot more utilitarian than this.”
“The new market building in the rear of City Hall is nearly completed and promises to be a fine structure,” the September 29, 1860, Detroit Free Press recorded. “The building will accommodate all the business of the market, and will constitute an ornament as well as a great convenience to that important branch of city commerce.”
The market was the crossroads for everyone in Detroit. Between the main towering brick building known as City Hall Market, which held the butcher shops and administrative offices, and the new Vegetable Shed, the market had just about everything—from produce to baked goods, fishmongers to magicians.
“The market was a centerpiece for social life in Detroit. It’s where you went to hire day labor. You’d shop there for food and other things and they had what they called Saturday Nights at the Market,” says Johnson.
In the early 1890s, the City decided the busy market’s location was too valuable for such congestion and the challenges that came along with it, including rats.
“It was a lively place and the City decided it was time to beautify,” says Johnson, explaining that Eastern Market had opened in 1891 and risen to prominence. It could take on the role of the city’s main market.
After 30 years of operation—April 1861 to February 1894—the City demolished City Hall Market. The Detroit Parks & Boulevards Commission decided to relocate the Vegetable Shed to Belle Isle to become a horse shed. Through the next century it gradually became a shadow of its former self. Its sides were bricked in and other elements added to its rooftop.
By 2003, the building was clearly in disrepair and vandalized. Its end was imminent. A city planner and historian recognized a last chance to save the historic public building and reached out to The Henry Ford.
“Alex Pollock alerted us. We did some quick investigative work and were able to secure the building,” says Johnson, who explains that through its many years the building had fallen into disuse and started to deteriorate. “At one point, a car crashed into it and started a fire… It was just slipping into oblivion and word got out that it was going to be demolished.”
The Henry Ford hired timber frame consulting firm Christian & Son to determine if the building had hope left in it. It did. In the next 12 weeks, The Henry Ford acquired it and a team secured and carefully labeled each piece, saving what they should and removing what didn’t belong.
“We dismantled it and put it into storage with hopes of putting it up in the Village. That was nearly 20 years ago,” says Johnson, adding that the Shed never fell off their radar. “Finally we got over the hump of funding when the pandemic hit.”
The last bit of fundraising came not only for the building itself, but for the concepts surrounding its unique ability to tell the story of community food, particularly through Greenfield Village’s Edible Education initiative.
Finally, Greenfield Village could begin the process of reconstructing the building, near the Village’s most recent previous addition, the Detroit, Toledo & Milwaukee Roundhouse, assembled in 1999—2000. Because some of the materials weren’t salvageable, mostly due to being subpar replacements through the Shed’s long life, the structure today is about one-third shorter than the original, with seven of the 11 bays reconstructed. The remaining columns stand in the plaza beyond the building to give a sense of the original size.
About 80% of the original old growth pine timber-framing materials was salvageable, a feat in and of itself considering the building’s age and modern-day safety requirements, including, says Johnson “codes not only for holding the building up but for keeping the building down.”
Johnson credits Rudy Christian, principal of Christian & Sons, the Village’s timber framing expert, who reached out to colleagues to brainstorm solutions and ultimately devised an underground “moment frame” system with a foundation nearly the full size of the building. It added the necessary safety components and met a goal important to Greenfield Village: that extensive modern support happen invisibly.
On top of that, literally, Johnson wasn’t sure the original rafters could still hold the structure’s weighty slate roof.
“What you see below are the original rafters. They’re back in place,” says Johnson. “This building is unusual because it’s a combination of roof timber framing and ornate cast-iron columns. It was a fairly new technology in 1860—61 when our building was built.”
The reconstruction uses 16 of the original 32 spiral-design cast-iron columns. Because cast iron gets more brittle as it ages, the columns also needed additional support from those early days. The modern columns are noticeably differentiated by being smooth, with a fluted top.
“We were able to use quite a few. All of the cast-iron original columns are along for the ride,” says Johnson, pointing out that the steel ones are holding the weight.
But “every little bit of the original framing” was saved, says Johnson, noting that the Belle Isle move had changed the assembly from wood pegs to nails.
“Timber framing had been on a decline as a way to build things. Balloon framing was being used quite a bit, so when they took the building apart in Detroit, they dismantled it, but then they spiked it back together. That put some challenges for us in taking the things apart, but they managed to do it,” says Johnson, adding that a significant amount of materials had to be abated because of lead paint, making the timbers look new again.
Johnson also describes the anticipation of learning the building’s original colors, which many on his team, including himself, expected would be vibrant.
“As we did analysis, we found this was the early use of a commercial-grade zinc-based paint and ended up being what we now call ‘disappointing brown,’” he says with a laugh. Some of the pediments are a slightly lighter creamy brown. “We were hoping to have a wonderfully decorated colorful building of the Victorian era.”
Still, that doesn’t dull anyone’s love for the Shed.
“It’s a fascinating structure and we’re glad to have it,” he says.
Now that the Shed is reconstructed, The Henry Ford will shift focus to its programming. It will house several activities this summer, but ultimately the building will help complete the narrative of food at the Village, from growing and harvesting crops at Firestone Farm to reflecting upon the grower-consumer relationship, says Debra Reid, curator of agriculture and the environment at The Henry Ford.
“It’s a huge story and it relates to the foods that we grow,” says Reid. “The building was remarkable from its construction for many reasons and it was remarkable it survived because it’s pretty fragile. It’s quite a survivor.”
Along with helping Henry Ford Academy students complete their three-course edible education curriculum, it will eventually serve as a market, with vendors selling fresh cut flowers, produce and honey; open conversations about historic agricultural practices, including food preservation practices; and provide an opportunity to engage and educate visitors about how to make food systems more accessible and sustainable in the future. All of this is part of developing the long-range plan, says Reid, careful not to get ahead of herself. Further down the line she hopes to add a greenhouse building near the reconstructed market to further grower engagement, including experimenting with aeroponics and hydroponics.
“It’s a relief, in ways, because we know what we can accomplish and feature this year and there will be so many things in the future,” Reid says. “It is a structure with many stories to tell, so way beyond Edible Education.”
Story threads include the architect’s new-immigrant story, the then-cutting-edge architectural materials and how the building belonged to the City.
“There’s the politics of public projects,” says Reid. “The City invested the funds, hired the architect and the builder and then managed the market for 30 years. Then there’s all the growers and customers and the middlemen— and -women—’the hucksters.’ There’s all those layers of economies that are operated daily in the market.”
To tell those stories, the building will have a re-created stall and eave benches to introduce guests to the market’s former selling spaces. Beginning in June, actors will portray two of the people intricately involved in the market: Mary Judge, female huckster, and Benjamin Franklin Hockley, an African-American chimney sweep and whitewash painter who was available for hire.
Reid is eager to start these discussions about the Shed. She warmly recalls the first time she was able to talk to guests with the building coming into view, last year during Summer Stroll.
“It was so uplifting and helped me focus on the stories to delve into,” she says. “Bear with us as we tell the stories of those dedicated to delivering food from growers to consumers. It was the city in microcosm and all the changes would happen with conflicts and celebrations and immigrations. It’s all there. We’re just slowly unpacking it.”
To learn more about the Vegetable Shed and its dedication weekend June 10—12, visit thehenryford.org/visit/greenfield-village/detroit-central-market
LOOKING TO LEARN MORE
In its day, virtually every Detroiter would have walked through Detroit’s Central Market, or at least set eyes on it. Debra Reid, curator of agriculture and the environment at The Henry Ford, is hoping that anyone who has the market in their ancestry will help complete its story.
“We would love anyone with that market history to share it with us,” Reid says. “We’re really hoping for the stories that will deepen the interpretation and enrich the content for a structure that’s within our site now.”
Have information or photos to share? Contact ask@thehenryford.libanswers.com.
