An anonymous donor paid the building's 142,000-dollar back-tax bill in 2013 and saved it from foreclosure - it turned out to be a rock star whose mother had ushered in these aisles. The Masonic Jack White Theatre, formerly the Cathedral Theatre, is the second stage of the Detroit Masonic Temple at 500 Temple Street - the largest Masonic building in the world. The building beggars belief: George D. Mason's Gothic Revival colossus - 14 storeys, 1,037 rooms, three theatres, two ballrooms, a chapel, a drill hall and sixteen bowling lanes - broke ground on Thanksgiving Day 1920, laid its cornerstone with George Washington's own trowel, and opened on 22 February 1926 with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra performing on Washington's birthday. The rescue is Detroit legend: when the Temple faced foreclosure over unpaid taxes, Jack White - the White Stripes founder who grew up attending shows here while his mother worked as an usher - quietly paid the bill; the association revealed the donor and rededicated the 1,500-plus-seat Cathedral Theatre in his name in June 2013. The room holds its own against its 4,600-seat big brother upstairs: with about 1,513 reserved seats or 1,725 general-admission, the Jack White Theatre takes the tours that want the Temple's Gothic atmosphere at club-plus scale - Thom Yorke and Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds among the modern bookings under the AEG Presents agreement struck in 2019. The concert lineage spans the building: the Temple's stages have carried the Who, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones and Frank Zappa, and the complex - a National Register listing since 1980 - anchors the Cass Corridor's revival, its ballrooms and lodge rooms doubling as one of Detroit's most atmospheric event and film locations. Practical notes: the Temple sits at Temple and Cass across from Cass Park, a short hop from the QLine's Sproat Street stop; the floor is flat for GA shows so the raked balcony is the sightline play, the Gothic detailing in the lobbies rewards early arrival, and checking which of the two theatres a ticket names matters - the building is easy to get lost in, gloriously so.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 500 Temple Street, Detroit, MI, United States, 48201

Website: https://www.themasonic.com

Cover Charge: 1

Capacity: 1725

Opening Date: 22/02/1926

Accessible