THE CORRIDOR

Cass Corridor: From the 1970s to the Present

On view October 1 – 24, 2026 | Bruce Harkness, Roger Martin and Karl Wellman

During the 1970s, photographers Roger Martin and Bruce Harkness walked the streets of Detroit’s Cass Corridor, documenting a neighborhood in the midst of profound change. Their photographs capture the people, businesses, architecture, and everyday moments that defined the district, revealing a place marked by grit, uncertainty, creativity, and possibility.

The Cass Corridor of the 1970s was markedly different from the neighborhood we know today. Its streets carried an edge and unpredictability that could be difficult to navigate, but they also offered a kind of freedom. Lower-cost spaces, aging buildings, unconventional gathering places, and a community of outsiders helped create an environment where artists, musicians, writers, and others working outside the mainstream could experiment, gather, and make their own culture.

Photographer Karl Wellman offers another perspective, taking viewers inside Cobb’s Corner Bar and into Detroit’s vibrant music scene through photographs of some of the city’s most celebrated musicians of the era.

The 1970s were a pivotal decade for the Cass Corridor. Many of its older homes, apartment buildings, businesses, and neighborhood establishments remained active in the early years of the decade, only to be abandoned, deteriorate, or disappear as the landscape changed. What emerged from this period was not simply a changing neighborhood, but a cultural landscape shaped by the people who found ways to create, gather, and belong there.

Together, these photographs offer a rare visual record of a neighborhood in transition. For those who remember the Corridor, they evoke familiar places and faces; for those who came later, they reveal a very different Detroit beneath the streets and businesses of today.

The Corridor invites us to consider the complicated relationship between place and creativity—and how environments marked by uncertainty and change can also become fertile ground for artistic and cultural expression. These photographs preserve a moment when the Cass Corridor was not only a place in transition, but a place where a distinctive culture was taking shape.