Hudson's Paid to Build the Mall That Emptied Its Own Detroit Store

How did Detroit's greatest department store end up as a cloud of dust — while Hudson's, the company, was still in business? On October 24, 1998, about 20,000 people stood around one block of Woodward Avenue and watched the 25-story Hudson's building come down. For most of the century it had been the store where Detroit rode the elevator up to see Santa on the twelfth floor, ate a Shopper's Luncheon for a dollar, and watched a flag seven stories tall hang down the front of the building. On its best days, it took in a million and a half dollars. This is the story of the money behind that building. A young clothier who went bankrupt in Ionia, Michigan, and — as Detroit historians tell it — later tracked down his creditors and paid them back with interest. Northland, the shopping center Hudson's built with its own money in 1954, the largest in the world when it opened, with house lots sold right next door. A 1969 merger with Dayton's of Minneapolis, the company that had just started a plain little discount store called Target. And a letter to employees in 1982 that opened with two words: “Dear Hudsonian.” Along the way you'll meet people from both sides of the counter: the teenager who created Christmas Carol, Santa's top elf; a department manager who was there on the very last day; a man who spent twelve years asking for the store's elevators. The film draws on the store's own menus and its closing letter, preserved by the Detroit Historical Society, on wire-service reports from the day the doors closed, company histories, city records and the work of Detroit historians — and it tries to treat fairly everyone in the story, from the family that built Hudson's to the workers and the city that lived with its choices, leaving the verdict to you. 0:00 A Quarter to Six 4:00 Lunch for a Dollar 6:29 Sixty Cents on the Dollar 9:09 Fifty-Five Men and a Flag 12:21 The Store That Sold the Suburb 17:01 Half the Business 20:24 Sold at the Top, 1969 22:36 Half the Windows 25:54 Dear Hudsonian 29:48 Bricks for Five Dollars 33:32 Sixty-One Years to the Day 36:43 The Flag Comes Back Selected sources Dan Austin — Hudson's Department Store (Historic Detroit) Dan Austin — The rise and fall of Hudson's Big Store in Detroit (Detroit Free Press, 2015) United Press International — Hudson's downtown store closes (1983) J. L. Hudson Company — Letter “Dear Hudsonian” (1982), Detroit Historical Society collection J. L. Hudson Company — Dining room and children's menus (1950, c. 1952), Detroit Historical Society collection Detroit Historical Society — Encyclopedia of Detroit: Hudson's; Northland Shopping Center Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University — The Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit United Press International — Dayton Hudson Corp. annual results (1982) International Directory of Company Histories — Dayton Hudson Corporation University of Michigan History Lab — New Detroit Committee Jeff Byles — Disappeared Detroit (LOST Magazine, 2006) The May Department Stores Company — SEC Form 8-K exhibit on the acquisition of Marshall Field's (2004) This is a documentary film for general information; it is not financial advice. Some scenes are illustrated with reconstructions. #Hudsons #Detroit #RetailHistory About this film: some scenes are AI-generated reconstructions, used only where no original footage or photographs exist, and they are marked on screen as reconstructions. The narration is an AI voice. The script is researched and fact-checked against the sources listed above.