Van Dyke Sports Center (formerly known as Butterfly Suite)

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danox574

Forum Member
I walked through this somewhat disaster of an arcade with my wife yesterday when we needed to kill 10-15 minutes and were heading down Van Dyke. I'm almost 40 now so I was visiting this place back in the 80s and remember it was a great place to go play games, even if it got a little rough at night. I guess I've been going there for over 25 years periodically.

It's in terrible shape now, but now that I'm looking at it, I'm absolutely fascinated by the building. The shape of it is just bizarre, and I seem to remember more areas of it being open when I was younger. The back room has the remnants of a dance floor and a sunken bar, but I recall on the entry hallway there used to be a furnished room (looked like a hotel maybe) off to the left. The place is clearly filled with secrets, there are areas closed off and if you look at it's construction, you can tell the building has some odd history. I think there is a upper level that you can't get to.

When was the place opened and what was it like originally? Was it a high-end swanky nightclub in the 70s or something? Or was it always kind of rough? What was the building originally? What were the odd upstairs rooms and other unique areas used for when it opened?

I figured some long-time Detroiters might know the history.
 
im too young to know much but i went there after 15 years and its still the same lol lotsa good memories there
 
found a tidbit just googling: this actually used to be the location of the VanDyke Drive-In Theater years ago. I remember going to see movies here many times back in the 70's... I'm guessing Butterfly's is what was built right after the Drive-In closed.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGihcUitp4s
Back in the early 80's, a young group called The Inversions provided local entertainment for many, playing one-hit wonders and British-invasion tunes from the 60's.

A highlight of when they began to emerge at their best is reflected in this evening where they played at The Butterfly Suite in Warren, Michigan.
 
The Van Dyke Drive-In closed because they wanted to put in a driving range. The driving range had/has two levels. The screen is still there if you could look the grounds over (disassembled). They probably make more money with the drive-in. There was also a go kart track there as well.

EDIT: Man, looking at a couple of recent ariel shots, you can tear down that damn dome and put the screen back up.
 
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Was the main building a club as well? Most drive ins did not have a bar that I knew of, maybe this one did. The dance floor in the youtube video shows a live performance in the early 80s (and the white pants and hair confirms), but the drive in did not close until 1986. Were there additional projection sites or were the spires of the main building the location of the projectors?
 
God bless that place. It wasnt a club when I used to hang there, just a skanky bar, pool hall, and arcade with countless numbers of people from the bottom echelon of society :lol:
 
I used to get 40z of cobra, drink em behind the dumpsters and go play pool there when I was like 16. Shithole, but thats why I liked it back then.. BTW 16 was 9 years ago.
 
Yeah that was our hangout when we were skipping class in HS. I went to Centerline so it was nice & close.

I havent been there in prob 5 years, and even back then it had turned even worse, and I wouldnt trust my car or any female to come out of that place with major damage.
 
The structure was constructed from materials from the old Detroit Police Stables from what I was told. The maintenance guys live upstairs. It was a disco bar and housed the largest speaker. If you look up from the dance floor it was still hanging there the last time I was there a few years ago. If you are at the back arcade bathrooms and go toward the outside wall there was maybe still is pics from a party there many years ago.
 
I saw a few movies there in the early to mid 80's. I hung out there sorta regularly in around 87 to 89 and every once in a great while my wife and I still go in for the hell of it and see what old video games they still have. It was a dump back then but it was kids from Warren and a lot of Arabs now it seems more black than anything.
Lots of memories though that's for sure, we used to take black ash form the ash trays and swipe it across our hands to look like the black hand stamps so we could drink :lol: who knows if we were fooling anyone tho:laugh:
 
joestang said:
Yeah that was our hangout when we were skipping class in HS. I went to Centerline so it was nice & close.

I havent been there in prob 5 years, and even back then it had turned even worse, and I wouldnt trust my car or any female to come out of that place with major damage.
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what year did you graduate
 
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