Keys to the city

For a Monday morning birthday party, it was pretty wild.

Drinks were served. An organist played gospel music. The crowd danced on a concrete floor. And the guest of honor was surrounded by his friends in this unexpected party setting — the garage of an old Cass Corridor locksmith shop.

"It was insane," remembers Jim Murphy, who works here.

It all took place at Fred's Key Shop on Second Avenue at Martin Luther King Boulevard. The birthday bash was thrown for "Fast Eddie" Wyatt, who'd just turned 98. He doesn't work here, he's never worked here, but this is his hangout and these are his friends, and 98 years is definitely worth a celebration, the shop's workers figured.

"I was the first customer when they opened in the '60s. First one in the door," Wyatt says proudly. "Ain't nobody can make no key like they do."

So arrangements were made, music was scheduled, invitations were sent. One employee drew up a birthday banner featuring Wyatt's catchphrase — "Ain't that nice?" Another made a flyer featuring a picture of the always sharply dressed Wyatt. Some cooked food, others brought drinks.

"He's a pretty cool old guy," Murphy explains. "They make a big deal out of it when he comes in; you know, we'll scream out his name — 'Fast Eddie!' Go around the lobby, give him a big hug." 

For years, Wyatt's come by to spend a couple hours with the guys now and then. It's an unusual choice for a hangout, but he became drawn here because a little family business like this tends to be tight-knit and friendly, because a key shop is livelier than you'd think, but mostly because just about everyone wants a place to go where they are made to feel like they belong. For him, this little locksmith shop is that place.

"As long as I've been here he's been coming and hanging out," Murphy says. "He's like one of the family."

Fred's has been around so long that they literally have the keys to the city. 

They've got a cabinet that holds the master keys to most of Detroit's skyscrapers. They've been called on to help star athletes locked out of their cars at Joe Louis Arena and Comerica Park. They're the ones who were brought in to change the locks on the Manoogian Mansion when Kwame Kilpatrick was unceremoniously escorted out. The shop has been so central to city business that years ago Mayor Coleman Young gave Fred the symbolic key to the city to celebrate one of its anniversaries.

Fred Knoche started the business in 1962 in a small place on Forest near Third Street. He's employed all six of his brothers at one point or another, four to this day.

Wayne State University bought the original building in the early '70s to make room for parking, and the shop moved several blocks south to its current site, then an abandoned gas station at Second Avenue and Martin Luther King, in Detroit's version of a red-light district. It made for some interesting times — passing prostitutes, panhandling vagrants, and random nuisances, like the drunk who came in one time, sat down and wet himself, and had to be carried out, chair and all.

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