Ever heard of Henry Jamison "Jam" Handy? The pro breaststroke swimmer won a bronze in the 1904 Olympics and got into film in his later career; he was hired by General Motors for short training films. During WW II, he is estimated to have produced over 7,000 films for the armed services and he created 1965's promotional film for the city of Detroit entitled, Detroit: City on The Move. And as it turns out, he had a fan in a young man moving to Detroit from Wisconsin, who managed to buy this building that Jam Handy used to own as a film studio. Simeon Heyer and his brother Nat purchased this building in the October 2010 Wayne County tax action for a mere $13,000. (You may recognize it as the site of the most recent Detroit Soup party) He had been living nearby when he heard about the Handy connection, and it meant something to him since he had seen and studied his work. The building's big floor is about 4,000 square feet and when Simeon first got it, you could not see the skylights because a ceiling covered it. Simeon and his brother have made an apartment in the front (he calls it glorified camping) and are still working on the long-term plans for how to use all the space. · Detroit Likes to Party in Semi-Deconstructed Spaces [Curbed Detroit]
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