Before the stroke of 9 p.m., a few shoppers milled beneath Kern’s clock, the timepiece that served as a central meeting point in mid-century Detroit.
Atop the long ledge above the department store’s display windows, twinkling strands of lights enshrouded an evergreen forest. Surmounting the three-faced timepiece, the tallest Christmas tree of all adorned the department store’s fourth floor.
The clock dated from the Art Deco period, but the scene recorded in the poignant mid-1950s photo (above) was taken shortly before the end of its line. Ernst Kern Dry Good Co. opened in 1883 and the founder, his wife, Marie, and then their sons and grandsons minded the store until Buffalo-based Sattler’s Inc. acquired Ernst Kern Co. in 1957. At Christmastime two years later, the store closed for good.
Ernst Kern was a German immigrant with a knack for retailing. His first dry-goods store was on St. Antoine Street. It burned down in 1886, fueled by its stock of imported fabrics and laces, but later reopened at Randolph and Monroe streets.
Four years passed before the company acquired a five-story building on the bustling southeast corner of Woodward and Gratiot avenues. The choice location boasted a provenance as the former site of the Finney House, a lodging establishment kept by Seymour Finney, whose nearby stables in what is now Capitol Park did service as an Underground Railroad waypoint.
A subsequent addition incorporated the nine-story Weber Building into the Kerns emporium, but this proved inadequate. In 1927, Kern’s announced a project to raze the smaller building and double the size of the complex.
“When completed, the store will be one of the finest and most modern mercantile houses of the kind in the world,” a newspaper report promised. The expansion resulted in a multistory behemoth with 300 feet of Woodward frontage. For good measure, some 30,000 square feet of marble floors on the ground level complemented an ornamental ceiling.
A Christmas ad in 1928 presented a Roaring ’20s fashion trend by making a tendentious claim: “There’s a bit of coquette in every woman — and it’s sure to respond to a gift of one of these gorgeous silk shawls.” Depending on size, embroidery, and colors blended with metal threads, prices ranged from $8.95 to (gasp) $24.95.
Gifts, the ad suggested, could be frivolous or practical, but most important were those presents “the little tots will welcome with shrieks of delight when they come downstairs on Christmas morning.”
As one of Detroit’s Big Three department stores — along with J.L. Hudson Co. and Crowley, Milner and Co., which were clustered together in that area — Kern’s reflected paternalistic concerns for its 500 staff members.
“Every innovation known to mercantile building experts will be incorporated into the store,” the news report continued. “Particular care has been given to conveniences for employees.” Listed next were features including a large auditorium, a gymnasium, a roof garden, a dining room, and a library. A bank of 21 elevators served the upper floors.
The streetside display windows educated and informed with exhibits that anticipated “the needs of a rapidly growing metropolis.” One was a mock-up of the Ford airport in Dearborn (today a Ford test track), then a new marvel. The replica included models of the latest airplanes, hangars, and masts for mooring airships. It was said to be “prophetic of Detroit as the air center of the globe.”
Despite such progressive retailing, Kern’s became passé by the 1950s as the suburbs expanded. After the store closed at Christmas of 1959, the building sat empty until being demolished in 1966.
A worker used a cutting torch to bring down the revered clock, while city councilman Ed Connor asked a reporter, “Where are people going to meet for their dates now?” The three faces were stuck at 8:02, 3:15, and 3:55.
Today, the clock keeps perfect time on a pedestal at its original location, which is now occupied by Rocket Cos. at One Campus Martius.
