4600 Lovett Street
John Wojtasik Grocery, Teen Challenge Center, Second True Vine Missionary Baptist Church
I believe that this structure was built in the 1920s. I’m unsure if it was modified over the years, but it had a storefront on the main floor and upstairs living quarters. This was incredibly common in that era but fell out of favor over the years. Later on, many of these structures were utilized by small neighborhood churches. Congregations would meet on the main floor, and the pastor would live upstairs. I’m not certain what business originally occupied this structure; however, eventually, it would become a church.
In 1959, John Wojtasik, 73, was robbed while opening his market inside the structure. They took all the cash, totaling $345. Wojtasik said that the thief had a long black revolver and, after the theft, fled the scene.
In November 1963, John Wojtastik died. At the time, he still lived above the storefront pictured here. His obituary stated that he was in the grocery business for 48 years. If he was still in the industry when he died, he got into the business around 1915, so he likely didn’t start at the structure pictured here. Perhaps he had the building built for purpose.
In June 1963, Preacher David Wilderson of New York City came to Detroit and announced that he was opening one of his Teen Challenge Centers in Detroit, hoping to have it operational by the Summer of 1964. According to the Detroit Free Press, this would be the program’s 5th major city. Teen Challenge, a program born in New York City, worked with homeless teenagers and adolescent narcotic addicts. The Detroit Free Press also noted that fifty pastors backed the Detroit project. Wilkerson, 32 at the time, had led the group to break ground for a $500,000 Teen Challenge Center in Brooklyn that same year.
Wilkerson liked to be known as an ‘Asphalt Jungle Preacher.’ He rose to fame in 1958 after seeing a picture in the newspaper of seven teen boys who were on trial for the murder of Michael Farmer, a 15-year-old boy who limped because he had polio as a child. He rushed to New York City, where the boys were held, entered the courtroom, and asked to speak to the boys. He wasn’t allowed to, but this incident caused him to move to New York City and found the Times Square Church.
Two of the boys that caused him to leave Pennsylvania were found guilty of second-degree manslaughter, three found not guilty, and three found guilty of second-degree murder. After starting his work in the city, “Youths have threatened to cut him up in a 1,000 pieces. One of his staff members has been stabbed, others have been beaten or had acid thrown at them. A bystander was once murdered in one of his street meetings,” according to the Detroit Free Press. When talking about why he wanted to bring the program to the Motor City, he said, “Detroit is on a plateau of gang life like that of New York five years ago.”
Initially, the plan in Detroit was to purchase a mansion in Arden Park, but the neighborhood wasn’t on board, so plans had to be made elsewhere. By 1969, the Detroit program was up and running with the mentality that God was the answer to drugs.
According to an article in the Detroit Free Press, the center was affiliated with Assembly of God Church, and the program’s money was raised separately from church donations. Though they worked with young people, they had no medical facilities, psychiatric counseling, or social workers. The program had residential farms in Capac, Michigan, for women and Rehrersburg, Pennsylvania, for men. You had to be 17 and over and be accepted into the program to be admitted. It wasn’t first come, first served.
The last mention of the center at the location pictured here was in the Detroit Free Press in 1970. Teen Challenge, though it still exists today, has seen a lot of criticism over the years for not having licensed officials working in their centers and going mostly unregulated. Additionally, it’s incredibly easy to look at the program’s success rate and think they’re miracle workers; however, considering they can choose who joins the program, the success numbers are much higher than programs that will accept anyone who asks for help. That’s not to argue that these programs aren’t helpful; it’s just worth considering everything before passing judgment one way or another.
The current listed owner for the structure is Second True Vine Missionary Baptist Church, a congregation incorporated by Reverend Hugh Ellerbee and Carolyn Brock in 1994. By 1996, the organization had ceased to exist. I’m unsure what happened to the structure afterward; however, the church’s signs are still on the building. It was still mostly intact in 2009; however, by 2011, it was mostly destroyed.
Given this building’s current state, it’ll likely be demolished. It sits kitty corner from a newer playground and across the street from homes that look like they were built in the mid-2000s. Though not architecturally significant, I found the history of this structure fascinating, even though I couldn’t find much about it!
