6600 Mack Avenue
Van Hollenbekl’s Store, Paul Lawitzke Bar, Jackie’s Bar
I believe that construction of this building began around 1920. By 1922, it was complete and home to Van Hollenbekl’s store. Thanks to an ad from that year, we know that he sold Mukley’s Salt products. Later that year, the structure was for sale. According to the ad, the owner had roughly $500 in equity, and the price was $2,500, which is approximately $50,000 in 2024.
In March 1930, Paul Lawitzke and Larry Bates were arrested at the structure. By this time, I think it had transitioned into a bar. That said, prohibition was in full swing, which made doing business with the hard stuff illegal. Investigators allegedly found whisky, gin, and rum inside. In the end, Paul Lawitzke was charged with a probation violation stemming from the incident and sentenced to four months in the Ann Arbor Jail.
By 1933, prohibition had been repealed, and in February 1934, the state approved Paul Lawitzke’s application to sell liquor by the glass. I can imagine his first night back slinging drinks after spending time in jail for doing the same thing was bittersweet, similar to those who may have been incarcerated for marijuana-related crimes walking into a recreational dispensary for the first time.
I’m not sure when Lawitzke sold the joint, but by 1949, the watering hole was called Jackie’s Bar and run by Jack Ventimiglia. In May that year, the proprietor was granted immunity in a case stemming from tax fraud charges laid a month prior. Ventimiglia testified that he ordered his tax man, Kleinbrook, to cook the books to make it look like he had sold less beer than he did from March to November 1946. This wasn’t for tax reasons but because he had sold more than he was legally allowed to, according to Liquor Control Commission standards. I imagine this was still breaking the law, but Ventimiglia was free, and prosecutors got Kleinbrook with conspiracy to violate the state sales tax, which was the figures finagled to make it look like Jackie’s Bar had slung less booze than it had.
On May 25, 1952, Thomas Werden entered the bar with a companion and tried to rob the joint. The night manager, John T. Rowan, put up a fight, so Werden shot and killed him. He would later turn himself in for another crime, but his backstory is worth sharing.
According to an article in the Detroit Free Press, Werden grew up in a flat with six siblings and a drunken father. At 13, he lied about his age and joined the United States Army. He quickly became a Private First Class and toured in Japan and Korea. When fighting broke out in 1950, Werden’s mother got worried about him and ratted him out to Army officials, who discharged him. After returning to Detroit, he started getting into trouble, robbing various establishments around town. There were many veterans in Detroit, but it’s easy to see how Werden would have been bitter about his situation.
After murdering 58-year-old John T. Rowan at 6600 Mack Avenue, pictured here, Werden fled to Plainfield, New Jersey. He eventually contracted malaria and was tired of running from the law, so he turned himself in for the $6,000 holdup of the Palmer Park Recreation. Unfortunately for him, he had left a fingerprint on a glass at the bar on Mack, and three men who were playing shuffleboard at the bar before the incident identified him as the murderer. When it was all said and done, Detroit Police claimed Werden and his gang of criminals had gotten away with $15,000, and his mother sobbed to the paper that she wished she “had let him stay in the Army.” He was just 18 when he was sentenced to life in prison.
In August 1965, Jack Ventimiglia died. At the time of the murder, the bar was still called Jackie’s; however, I’m not sure when Ventimiglia sold it.
After that, I’m not certain what happened to the structure. As you can see from these photographs, the structure was poorly maintained over the years, as the back half came crashing down around 2017. That said, the owner has cleaned up most of the mess and fixed the brick wall that collapsed on the structure’s east side around 2008. According to someone parked at the industrial facility next door, an old wooden bar is still inside the structure’s main floor.
Considering the damage that Mother Nature has already done to this structure, I don’t see any realistic way it can be saved. Still, its history was an interesting peak into this industrial corridor’s past, and I’ve seen crazier things happen!
