John H. Kunsky

John H. Kunsky (1875–1952) was a Detroit area businessman who made his fortune by investing in movie theaters. He later became partners with George W. Trendle and invested in radio.

Kunsky had been an early investor in Nickelodeons beginning in 1905. During the first decade of the 20th century, small vaudeville style theaters were used for stage and film. The Bijou was one of several small nickelodeon theater owned by Kunsky. Kunsky made a lot of money operating these small theaters, but decided it was time for something bigger.

John Kunsky hired architect C. Howard Crane to design the first true movie house in Detroit. The Columbia opened in 1911 and could seat over 1000. It contained a pipe organ and had facilities for its own orchestra. This was only the second large movie house in the United States.

The Strand with nearly 1400 seats and the Alhambra, with about 1475 seats were designed by C. Howard Crane, and both opened in 1915. The Adams Theater was built in 1917.

John Kunsky dreamed of building larger and grander movie palaces. Kunsky once again hired C. Howard Crane to design his first such theater. The 1806 seat Madison was completed in 1917, costing $500,000 to build.

It was not certain if movies would be a passing fad of if such large theaters could be profitable. To insure the project would make money, a five-story office building was built around the theater. This was the start of a Detroit tradition of building movie theaters as part of an office block development. The Madison was a success and Kunsky and Crane built ever larger and more lavish theaters.

The Capitol Theater opened in 1922. Although Kunsky boasted it had 4,250 seats, it actually had more like 3,384 seats (it became the Detroit Opera House in 1996 and seating was reduced to 2,765).

The 4050-seat Michigan Theater was built by the architectural firm of Rapp & Rapp and opened in August 1926

The Birmingham Theatre and the Royal Oak Theatre and opened in 1927.

The 2,051-seat Redford Theatre, which still features its original Barton organ, opened in January 1928.

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