The City of Detroit has ordered the emergency demolition of a partially collapsed building that was intended to be part of the Dabls MBAD African Bead Museum, Metro Times has learned.
Last week, owner Olayami Dabls launched a crowdfunding campaign with a goal of raising $400,000 for repairs after he received a $500 blight ticket from the city, fearing the building could soon be ordered for demolition.
His fears proved correct. In a statement, Detroit’s Buildings, Safety Engineering, and Environmental Department director David Bell confirmed that the emergency order was issued on Thursday.
“At the time the owner of DABLS posted information on social media About his building next to his museum, there was no demolition order related to it,” Bell said. “However, since the issue was brought to our attention, we have inspected the building and determined it to be in a state of significant collapse and must be taken down immediately. Based on our inspection, we have issued an emergency demolition order for this building.”
Bell added, “It is important for people to understand that this is an entirely separate building from the DABLS museum, which is not affected by this order. The building has deteriorated to the point it is no longer salvageable and poses an immediate threat to public safety. Our primary concern is the health, safety and welfare of residents and public who may visit the area.”
Reached by phone Thursday afternoon, Dabls said he was surprised to hear of the emergency order. When he spoke to a city inspector earlier in the day, he says, it seemed like there was a way forward.
“I’m disappointed that they decided to not allow me to make the building safe,” he tells Metro Times.
The colorful building at the corner of Grand River Avenue and Vinewood Street is located next door to the Dabls MBAD African Bead Museum and was intended to be the home of a collection of African beads, some hundreds of years old, that would “rival anything we have” as far as cultural institutions in the city, Dabls says.
The demolition “will be devastating” for his plans for his arts complex, he adds.
“That was going to be the [building] where all of the museum’s collection was going to be,” he says. “And it’s already surrounded by murals. Nothing has been said about preserving the murals on the walls.”
The crowdfunding campaign was “not going well,” Dabls says. As of Thursday only two people had donated a total of $110.
He adds, “$400,000 is a lot of money.”
That’s after the museum has already raised $200,000 for renovations at the complex in recent years.
Dabls says he only noticed the structural damage when he entered the building several years ago, when it was then being used for storage, and found that the ceiling and part of the walls crumbled. “I don’t know when it collapsed,” he says. “I opened the door once and I went in there, and saw that the whole roof fell down.”
Dabls believes a long-abandoned greenhouse built on the roof prior to his acquisition of the building led to the collapse.
“We never got around to taking it down,” he says. “It took up half the roof.”
Dabls fell in love with African beads after meeting a trader at the Michigan State Fair in 1985. He soon became a collector himself, and acquired two buildings on Grand River Avenue in 1996 on a handshake deal to house his wares. Eventually, he envisioned transforming the neighborhood into an “Africantown,” or a cultural attraction similar to the city’s other ethnic neighborhoods, like Mexicantown — something that would be right at home in Detroit, one of the biggest Black-majority cities in the nation.
Over the years, Dabls transformed two of the surrounding blocks into a sprawling art installation made of found objects and loosely inspired by African art styles. “I’m not interested in doing anything in a contrived way. I’m trying to produce art based on traditional African concepts,” Dabls previously told Metro Times. “You won’t find tall images of half-naked ladies or men with spears here.”
He dubbed the installation “Iron Teaching Rocks How to Rust,” which serves as a critique of colonialism.
“Rust is a state of deterioration. So if you’re rusting, that means you’ve given up something, and what that something is, is your culture identity,” Dabls told Metro Times in another interview. “The whole purpose of iron making everyone learn to rust is that they wanted to mimic or assimilate themselves.”
In 2011, Dabls received a Kresge Artist Fellowship, earning $25,000, and in 2022, he was awarded the Kresge Eminent Artist Award, which came with a $50,000 cash prize.
In recent years, the city’s department of Arts, Culture & Entrepreneurship designated the stretch of Grand River as one of its “Arts Alleys.”
“It’s low-budget things that people can do on the weekends,” Dabls says. “Everyone can’t afford to go downtown. The art galleries are places where people can come and just [get] free entertainment and see art and commingle.”
But Dabls says the buildings have also come under increased scrutiny by city inspectors.
“We have been there for 23 years, and the only kinds of tickets that we have received are within the last year,” he says.
The museum plans to host an “MBAD Bead Festival” from 10 a.m.-9 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 10 with vendors, live entertainment, and other family-friendly activities. The idea for the event was to celebrate the museum’s designation as an Arts Alley and also hopefully raise funds for the repairs, Dabls says.
One fan is Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino, who stopped by the museum when he visited Detroit in 2014 and made what Dabls described at the time as a “generous donation.”
“When he came here, it seemed like he and I have been friends for life,” Dabls previously said. Tarantino even signed the museum’s guestbook, writing, “Your art and your world that you’ve created is so soulful and inspiring. Thank you.”
This article was edited to make clear that the building that is being demolished is an unused structure next door that was intended to be part of the Dabls MBAD African Bead Museum complex.
