One good building: What do we do with all those old warehouses?

Marathon Linen Service Co. building

• East Warren Avenue

Address: 3433 E. Warren Ave.

Architecture: Brick industrial

History: Greek immigrants founded the Marathon Linen Service Co. in the early 1900s, and the company operated from this address for more than 80 years. The building underwent several expansions, likely in the 1920s and 1930s. It was abandoned sometime before 2010, when the company stopped operating.

Show and tell: What building in Detroit has special significance to you and why? Email aaron@outliermedia.org with your favorite, and we’ll dig into its history.

Want to find out about Detroit’s innumerable but less heralded structures? Look no further than writer and photographer Eric Hergenreder’s blog documenting these kinds of buildings.

Earlier this month, he highlighted one I’d never heard of: the Marathon Linen Service Co. building on East Warren Avenue at Moran Street. Hergenreder told us he chose to feature this building and most others on his site by simply exploring and photographing the city. He does the research later through newspaper archives, the Detroit Public Library’s Burton Historical Collection , Detroit Historical Society records and even Facebook groups.

Lately, his hobby has taken on more urgency because he’s seen more of these older, obsolete buildings getting demolished. “I’ve been trying to stay on top of that to document buildings before they’re gone,” he wrote by email. “That’s been a huge focus for me lately.”

Two Greek immigrant brothers, George and Nicholas Genematas, founded Marathon in 1905. It’s unclear when the brothers built their warehouse, but it wasn’t big enough. They expanded it with multiple additions in the first half of the century.

The tan-brick building is a great example of midsized industrial buildings that sprouted in Detroit in the early part of the 20th century. It has several patterns of brickwork near the roofline, as well as a stone relief that Hergenreder guesses is of Pheidippides, the Greek messenger whose popular myth inspired the marathon race (and the company’s name).

Hergenreder unearthed lots about Marathon’s history, which you can read in his post. The story about a police sting involving extortionists is quite colorful.

Marathon stopped operating at some point in the 2000s, and the building eventually fell into the hands of a scrapyard owner. Hergenreder speculates its ultimate fate will almost certainly be demolition. It’s expensive to redevelop an old industrial site like this one, especially when it’s in a neighborhood that’s not being actively redeveloped.

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