THE FOOTBALL ELEVEN, DETROIT ATHLETIC CLUB.
The various departments of the club-house are complete in their appointments. The reception-hall is a roomy apartment, finished in hard wood, which opens into the directors’ room and the reading-room on the one side, and a billiard-parlor and the bowling-alley on the other. The directors’ room is the headquarters of the caretakers and the office of the club. The reading-room is spacious, a big table and easy, antique oak chairs forming the furnishings, the walls being decorated with sketches of other club-houses and a series of photographic reproductions of the disc-throwers of the ancient Roman period. The mental pabulum furnished is of the class one would most naturally expect to find amid such associations—the leading journals and magazines devoted to athletics, the daily papers of the city, and the literary magazines. The billiard-parlor contains three Schulenberg tables, oak-finished, with furniture harmonizing with the club-house furnishings. It has already shown itself to be rather too small for the demands likely to be made upon it, but the house has been so designed that a wing may be extended without marring the harmony. Wrought-iron designs in gas-fixtures complete the furnishings of this part of the house.
Just beyond the reading-room, and disconnected from it, are the bath and locker rooms. A separate entrance to them is afforded from the grounds, while they are also connected by a private staircase with the gymnasium overhead. The lockers, in number about 300, are arranged in “L” fashion, the spaces between each set of six affording the privacy desirable for dressing-rooms.
The bath-room caused much marvel in these parts. It is 30 by 16 feet in size. The centre of marble-paved floor is occupied by the plunge-bath, 20 feet long and 12 feet wide. Its sides are lined with white enameled bricks, and a constant flow of water is secured from the city service-pipes. It varies in depth from three to five feet. At one end of the bath-room four marble-fitted shower-baths are located, and close by, an equal number of foot-baths.
Just beyond the bath and reading rooms, on the side of the house facing the grounds, and so depressed as to give a clay bottom for the structure, is the wing which contains the bowling-alleys. These are six in number, of the regulation length of 65 feet, and 42 inches wide. They are admirably equipped; the entire work, as well as that of the gymnasium above, having been executed by the Narragansett, R. I., Machine Company. A gallery for spectators is located behind the dead-line, above the level of the alleys.
The entire upper story, aside from that portion given to the lunch-room and staircase landings, is given up to the gymnasium. This, of course, is the feature of the clubhouse. It is a well-lighted, lofty hall, 76 by 32 feet, there being fifteen feet available in height from the hardwood floor to the open-timbered roof. The apparatus, being all new, is of the latest designs. The weight and pulley system of machines is used in every conceivable form for developing the muscles of the arms, chest, legs, neck, shoulders and the grip. Hand-over-hand climbing is afforded by ropeladders, poles, and hemp ropes suspended from the roof-timbers. Vaulting facilities appear in horses and frames, and a system of parallel and horizontal bars is provided with the necessary mattings to prevent injury. Besides these more elaborate pieces of machinery there are bells and Indian clubs innumerable for the classes in calisthenics, and gloves and foils for the devotees of the manly art and the gentleman’s sport. This practically completes the list of indoor sports.
F. D. STANDISH. FRANK W. EDDY. JOHN H. CLEGG.