Abandoned Vanity Ballroom: Detroit's "Most Beautiful Dance Rendezvous"

vanity ballroom Abandoned Vanity Ballroom: Detroits Most Beautiful Dance Rendezvous (Image: Detroit Urbex, cc-3.0)

It was once billed as “Detroit’s most beautiful dance rendezvous”. And even in a state of abandonment, it’s easy to see why the Vanity Ballroom gained its reputation. Designed in 1929, architect Charles Agree envisioned a flamboyant venue for people to dance and enjoy the sounds of the big band. While the Vanity didn’t achieve the fame or notoriety of Agree’s other well known ballroom, the Grande, it hosted some of America’s biggest music stars before finally closing its doors in the early 1980s.

vanity ballroom dance floor Abandoned Vanity Ballroom: Detroits Most Beautiful Dance Rendezvous (Image: Detroit Urbex, cc-sa-3.0)

Like its counterpart the Grande Ballroom across town, the Vanity featured five retail units downstairs while the ballroom occupied the entire second storey, boasting a vast sprung maple dance floor capable of holding 1000 couples. Built as an Art Deco dance hall with elements of Mayan Revival, the ballroom also featured a promenade on three sides, with a stage and bandstand set against the backdrop of a scene representing Chichen Itza, a pre-Hispanic city on the Yucatán Peninsula.

Agree also designed the interiors of three retail shops on the first floor, incorporating wood and marble trim, with terrazzo floors, in a design every inch as splendid as the Vanity’s decorative facade. Standing at 1024 Newport Street, the Vanity Ballroom was the most important music hall in east Detroit during the roaring ’20s and ’30s, playing host to such stars as Duke Ellington, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and Red Nichols.

But its popularity eventually declined due to changing musical tastes, leading to its closure in 1958. Reopening in 1964 for one night a week, the Vanity remained in use until the early 1980s before finally closing its doors for good. Despite a brief appearance in Eminem’s film, 8 Mile, the Vanity Ballroom has become derelict due to years of neglect, despite being listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1982, and is well known to urban explorers.

This series of photographs by Detroit Urbex shows the abandoned Vanity to be in significantly better condition than its sister venue, the Grande Ballroom. But since the photos were taken the property has reportedly been badly vandalised and is now sealed off. Let’s hope that, unlike other modern ruins in Detroit, the Vanity Ballroom’s place on the historic register will cement its survival.