Fyfe Shoes. Once largest shoe store

Here are the shoes that started my hunt. And here is the building that the clues all lead to.

lovely set of photos from the Library of Congress.
http://www.loc.gov/search/?q=Detroit+FyfeFyfe's Shoes, Grand Circus Park, completed in 1919, the 14-story Fyfe's Shoes building was the largest shoe store in the world.

Located at Woodward at Park Avenues, the Fyfe Building once housed a 14 story shoe store called Fyfe's Shoes. These days the building is in use as an apartment building, but its great to accidentally stumble upon some history simply by finding a pair of vintage shoes in a resale shoppe!

Designed by architectual firm Smith, Hinchman and Grylls in the relatively uncommon–for Detroit–neo-Gothic style. Extra conceptual bonus for me is that this team absorbed my grandfathers firm in 1996 and became what we know today as Smith Group.

 

According to the Fyfe Building Apartments website, “Originally built for Richard Henry Fyfe, a Detroit merchant who earned his fortune as a shoe merchant in the late 19th century, it was an introduction of neo-Gothic style to the Detroit skyline.”