CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · Places & Architecture

Coronado Apartments

apartment building in Detroit, Michigan, United States

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ5172156 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Coronado Apartments is an apartment building located on 3751–73 Second Avenue (on the corner of Second and Selden) in Midtown Detroit, Michigan. It was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1980 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

History

The Coronado Apartments were built in 1894 by George D. Nutt, a prominent Detroit builder, and the architectural firm of William S. Joy & Company. The building was one of the first apartment buildings in Detroit built for affluent middle class citizens at a time when apartment living was just becoming socially acceptable. The Coronado remained a fashionable address until the 1930s, when declining demand for large apartments, and increased demand for smaller units, led the Coronados owners to divide the formerly spacious apartments in two. No further renovation was done until 1982, when the owners began a restoration and remodeling project.

Architecture

The Coronado is a four-story Romanesque apartment building built on a high basement. It is constructed of yellow brick and rusticated sandstone with a flat roof and architecturally designed elevations on both the Second and Selden avenues sides. The Second Avenue façade is primarily symmetrical, with three entrances and open loggias on the floors above each. The façade is terminated at the south end by a curved bay window and at the north (Selden) corner by a round turret.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Coronado Apartments” is apartment building in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Coronado, Apartments and apartment, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA valuable geographic starting point for tracing changing names, boundaries, uses and administrative responsibility. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1980, 1982, 1894—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Coronado, Apartments and apartment is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “apartment building in Detroit, Michigan, United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5172156. Authority coordinates are 42.347, -83.064. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1980, 1982 and 1894.

Critical limits

Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Coronado Apartments”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Coronado Apartments primary sources, Coronado Apartments archive and Coronado research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Coronado Apartments”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Coronado Apartments” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.