2 FULTON WEST:  This was the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art (UICA) designed by Built Form Architecture and built byTriangle Construction, 2011. UICA subsequently moved to the FSU-KCAD campus and closed in 2023. This contemporary multi-story LEED certified building was for sale at the end of 2021 and remains vacant. The building has a vegetation-covered metal screen that shades the Fulton and Division Street exteriors.   The stark white interiors features a dramatic open staircase visible through the glass, in order to encourage walking rather than elevator use.  Other interior details include multiple performance and gallery spaces, lower level movie theatre, roof-top garden-gallery, and a main-floor retail space.

2 E FULTON:  The Davenport Institute was designed by Wilifred McLaughlin and completed between 1948-49. This art deco/moderne building was originally conceived as a six-story building, but just two floors were completed. The light colored brick building features a curved exterior with continuous ribbon windows, metal accents, and rounded metal roof overhangs.  Designed to be a mixed-use building with retail on the ground floor and classrooms above, Davenport University continued to expand and finally moved to a campus further east on Fulton. Other past occupants included Junior Achievement. The building hosted the ArtPrize Site Lab Art Prize installations. Then Tower Pinkster Architects & Engineers partnered with Locus Development to restore the building with offices on the second floor. The building achieved Platinum LEED certification 1D +C. Retail is on the street level.

11 SHELDON NW:  The Monument Square Building was designed by Osgood & Osgood and completed in 1917. Thisbeuatiful two-story, wedge-shaped Monument Square Building has a gleaming white brick and terra-cotta façade. Designed as a commercial building, it was home to the offices of the father-son architecture firm Osgood & Osgood, the early Grand Rapids Art Association, and many more offices and retail shops.. By the 1990s, the building had been through fires and was vacant. A group of forward-thinking women, seeing its beauty and potential, raised the funds to restore it as a children's museum. The original building was completed restored by Cornerstone Architects and opened as the popular Grand Rapids Children’s Museum which has hosted as many as 200,000 visitors annually.

124 E. FULTON: The Loraine Building (1902) | National Register Listing 1982—Owner Frederick Immen named this building for his wife Loraine. The Immens, a prominent city couple owned an elegant brick Victorian Chateau-style home at 35 N. Lafayette. Designed in the Georgian Revival-style, the Loraine Building was an exclusive apartment and commercial building with bay windows, and a steam heat plant, hot water, and an elevator. Light and airy rooms featured hardwood trim and chandelier lighting. Promoters advertised "spring water for drinking." In 1907, the White & White Pharmacy moved into the ground-level suite, and two years later, in 1909, a visitor lost his lawsuit against Frederick Immen, filed after he fell four floors to the basement through the dumb-waiter shaft. The man thought the door led to a common area water closet.

In 1910, former lumberman, Alson F. Wiley, from Bristol, Tennessee added a six floor. He redecorated using his favorite Southern gum wood for the paneling and added the open-well staircase. By 1950, the owners converted the apartments to offices. White & White Pharmacy moved in 1978, and the ground level stood vacant for two years. In 1980, the Crossroad Company restored the building, and the Heritage Lighting Company leased the space, known for brilliant window displays of chandeliers and lighting fixtures. In 1991, a chemical fire resulted from wood refinishing on the 5th floor and caused approximately $100,000 in damage.

A 2018 renovation restored the exposed interior brick, and added wood stair treads and railings to the center staircase and quarter-sawn oak panels and trim. They sandblasted the old steam radiators and polished the Douglas fir flooring found underneath the carpeting in the common areas. Third generation architect Andrew Post of Post Associates installed the vintage art-deco light fixtures in the lobby, after discovering them in the basement. Newly framed photos of historic Fulton Street buildings completed the lobby decor. Large upper floor windows in the office suites provide panoramic city views. A & B: William G. Robinson; 2018 Post Associates.

136 E. FULTON AND 18 LA GRAVE:  The One Trick Pony and Cottage Bar incorporated buildings from the 19th century. These were the 1886 H.A. Wilson and T.W. Dwight's Upholstery and Tack Shop and the Oliver Bleak’s General Store. Some of the walls, as well as the alley between the two old buildings, were still visible in the restaurants. According to the One Trick Pony restaurant website, over their history, 17 different businesses operated out of the two spaces. Early owners of the Cottage Bar (then the Cottage Sandwich Shop) were Earl and Marie Coons in 1927. The Cottage Bar was later owned by John Verhil, and in 1980, it was purchased by his son Dan Verhil. Dan and Lisa Verhil added the One Trick Pony to the complex. It was built in the 1990s around the old buildings and was owned by the Verhil’s until March 2021 when they retired selling both restaurants to neighbors Jassi and Sandeep Dharma, owners of the Palace of India.

101 FULTON EAST:   Veterans Memorial Park was once the site of Courthouse Square where the Greek Temple-style courthouse, completed in 1833, served as both courtroom and jail. Cows grazed and pigs ran wild, a practice finally banned by city ordinance. During the Civil War, the Square was the site of speeches and song-filled rallies. Known by 1871 as Fulton Street Park, the site was so neglected that Thomas Gilbert convinced the city to let him take care of it, planting trees and paying John Steketee to plow it with his oxen. Gilbert also donated the land for the Fulton Street Cemetery. When he died in 1894, the Grand Rapids National City Bank and the Gas Company installed a memorial bronze bust of Gilbert designed by Lorado Taft in 1895. Lorado Taft is known for advancing the work of women sculptors, at a time when the work of women artists went unrecognized.

The Council of the American Legion funded the new Veterans Memorial Park dedicated on November 11, 1926. Ralph Demmon, an associate architect with Osgood & Osgood and a war-time aerial photographer, designed the park pylons which were inscribed with the names of Grand Rapids soldiers who died in World War I. After World War II, the city erected granite pillars engraved with the names of World War II and Korean War veterans.

In 1975, they honored Vietnam War veterans in the same way. The park closed in 2017 for a $1 million rehabilitation, just in time to reopen Memorial Day 2018, the 100th World War I Armistice Anniversary. New park features included walks and seating, an oval shaped reflecting pool, and a new monument plaza. A & B: Osgood & Osgood, Pylon Design by Ralph Demmon; 2018 Landscape Design by Katerburg-VerHage Inc.

150 FULTON EAST:  The Willard Building was designed by Benjamin Hertel, on staff Owens, Ames, Kimball Company architect in 1930. It replaced the old Burleson Sanatorium on the same site, demolished after Burleson’s death.  The 1930 one-story Willard Building, with its large retail windows, wraps around the corner of Jefferson and Fulton, and is sometimes referred to as the Peacock Building. The Willard Building has beautiful multi-colored terra cotta peacocks that top the terra-cotta piers separating the individual business units of the structure. It has been home to a wide variety of businesses that currently range from restaurants to a community theatre troupe to a coffee shop/gallery.  The 1930 building was added to the National Register of Historic Buildings in 2013. 

207 EAST FULTON:     The city rezoned this section of Fulton Street as a Cultural Zone shortly before the architect presented plans to the city for the Barclay Building in 1961. First Church did not object to a commercial building next door, but, the plans initially met resistance from the Grand Rapids Art Museum Association and the Grand Rapids Art Gallery. Property owner and developer, J. David Boland won his appeal from the City Zoning Board of Appeals and moved ahead, constructing the Brutalist-style building on this site where the former Greenhoe Funeral Home once stood.

The design features precast concrete columns, 45-feet high, and wider columns faced with white natural stone rectangles. Between the columns they placed glare-reducing gray glass. By 2001, First Church purchased the building and incorporated it into the church campus, renaming it First Place. A & B:  James Nachtegall and Aalsburg Construction Company.

227 EAST FULTON:  First United Methodist Church was designed by Robinson & Campau and was dedicated April 9-16, 1916. The imposing Norman Gothic style church with an exterior of Sandusky limestone was said to be Fred Robinson's favorite career design. The solid oak pews were built and installed by American Seating Company in 1916.  It cost of approximately $212,000 to build and includes terrazzo floors inlaid by Italian artisans.  The santuary includes original Tiffany Favrile glass windows and stained glass windows designed by the Philadelphia Willet Stained Glass Studios. all with gothic tracery.   Names of veterans who served in WWI, WWII and other U.S. conflicts are inscribed on two brass plates in the narthex. The church is beautifully maintained, and the sanctuary seats 800. In recent years, the original tower was replaced but the Curren tower with the rnew osette window. For more detailed information about the stained glass windows and other architectural features link to the church website here:  http://www.grandrapidsfumc.org/history

233 FULTON EAST:  Masonic Temple designed by Osgood & Osgood, Architects, 1915.  This monumental brick building, of neoclassic and beaux arts design, looms large over the Fulton Street approach to the downtown. The imposing front entry features pediment and bracket trim. Massive three-story Greek columns across the front facade surround one and two-story banks of windows. The building is topped off with an ornate cornice featuring Masonic symbols.  Sydney and Eugene Osgood, a well-known father/son architectural team, received the commission to build the Temple after designing both the Battle Creek and Adrian Masonic Temples.  Both were high-ranking Masons, and Eugene was just 34 years old at the time.

The Masons laid the cornerstone on Jan. 14, 1915. A banquet at the Coliseum followed with Governor Woodbridge N. Ferris and Senator Alden Smith attending. Construction proceeded at a fast pace and the public was invited to the Masonic Temple Thanksgiving Day 1915 dinner and building preview. The seven-day Masonic Fair was the grand opening attended by over 4,000 visitors. The Masons demonstrated their influence in America the first night all lights were turned off in the downtown district two minutes before 7pm. At 7pm, in Washington D.C., President Woodrow Wilson touched a button that re-illuminated Grand Rapids. Cannon boomed the presidential salute of twenty-one guns, factory whistles blew, a band played, and a small parade of 20 police opened the Fair. Crowds were so large that over 2,000 were turned away and the Grand Rapids Press printed an apology from Temple members explaining their concerns over visitor safety. In 2023, the still-impressive Grand Rapids Masonic Center rented office and event space and is the Michigan Masonic Museum and Library. The Masonic Center has its own Facebook page Grand Rapids Masonic Center.

210 FULTON EAST: Today part of the Treadstone Company, this very interesting building began its history as the General Tire Company in 1920, this building in the 1950s (during the Cold War), the building was an air defense center where volunteers were recruited by the U.S. Air Force to assist the national radar network to monitor the skies for hostile bombers. It was later the Fairbanks Bakery, and in the 1980s, the Grand Valley Artists Association headquarters. then the EyeCons Art Gallery and later the Perception Gallery owned by Kim Smith.

220-22 E. FULTON:  This rusticated Gothic revival cottage is one of the few remaining Grand River limestone homes. In the 1840s, the stones cost $3- $4 per cord. Homeowner, and former New Yorker, Truman H. Lyon operated the Bridge Street House, that banned alcohol during the Temperance Movement, and he ran the Grand Rapids Salt Works, Grand Rapids Woolen Factory, and the Rathbun Hotel.By 1911, John H. Platte owned the house and replaced the hand-drawn clear pine shingled roof with an asphalt slate roof.

In the 1930s, it was a beauty parlor. Russell Cole had an interior design studio in the home from 1945 to 1961 and sold the house to the Grand Rapids Art Museum for their expansion. Cole continued to run his business there until 1982, renting space from the museum, although a 1971 fire forced Cole to move temporarily. After the renovation, the house was on the Heritage Hill Tour. In 2023, it was the Lifestyle Kitchen Studio.

230 E. FULTON: Abram and Elona Pike built this Greek Revival-style home for their family of seven children. Abram Pike came from Ohio to Michigan in 1827 and became a trapper. He found a job as a clerk at a Native American trading post in Niles, Michigan, and learned the customs and languages of the people there. In 1833, Pike moved to Grand Rapids to run the Port Sheldon-Philadelphia Company Store and also served as Indian Agent. He was known to host native peoples on the porch of this house. The Philadelphia Company, founded in 1835 by Philadelphia capitalists, bought 600 acres at the mouth of Pigeon Lake, south of Grand Haven. They built the $40,000 Ottawa House Hotel and spent $2 million to develop a steam mill, lighthouse and piers, and the first road from Holland to Grand Haven.

After the Ottawa House Hotel failed in 1842, Pike hauled the bankrupt hotel’s massive columns by oxen to Grand Rapids to use in his Greek Revival home. The Pikes raised seven children there. Abram died at age 93 in 1907.

In 1920, Emily J. Clark bought the Pike house for $50,000, donating it to the Grand Rapids Art Association for a museum. The Association constructed a fireproof brick gallery addition and a large center gallery in the home for traveling exhibits. Grand Rapids artist Mathias Alten painted a large exterior "Grand Rapids Art Gallery" banner hung in plain view of Fulton Street traffic to announce the new gallery. Later, Alten modified the sign to "Grand Rapids Art Museum."   The Art Museum moved in the mid-1980s to the Federal Building.

Jorgen and Meg Sorenson opened the Design Quest furniture store here. On Grand Rapids' 150th birthday, officials dedicated a City Landmark plaque on the site. Visiting architects documented this house first as part of the American Historic Buildings Survey, filing the house plans at the Library of Congress.  In 2007, Design Plus moved their offices here from the historic freight depot on Ionia. They restored the Pike home’s mahogany and walnut trim and designed the decor in period colors, authenticated with original wallpaper chips. The architectural firm also restored the home’s historic Willard Fountain, dedicated in 1929 at the Grand Rapids Art Museum’s grand opening. In 2013, the historic home became the Keller-Almassian Law Offices. A & B: 2006 Design Plus Architects. 

254 FULTON EAST: Around 1860, Martin Sweet built this Italianate Villa-style home with its distinctive cupola, known as a widow's watch. According to the home’s history, one young woman tragically threw herself from it. Sweet came to Grand Rapids in 1846, and built the Grand Rapids City Mills. Sweet operated a grain business, was the first to lease a grain elevator in the city, served as city mayor, and was the president of First National Bank. In 1868, Martin Sweet built Sweet’s Hotel, on the future Pantlind hotel site. He died in 1905 and the vacant house sparked rumors of a resident ghost named for Martin’s wife “Desdemona.”

In 1911, piano teacher, Mrs. Frank Davis, opened a music school from 1914 to 1919, directed by pianist, Ottokar G. Malek. Malek conducted the St. Cecilia orchestra, the seed group for the first Grand Rapids Symphony.

The Sweet House was a boarding house by the time the Women's City Club, founded in 1924, purchased it in 1927. They spent $55,000 to convert the house to meeting rooms where they could address issues of public interest. Members left original features intact such as spindled stairways and plaster ceiling medallions, adding an auditorium and the Wedgewood Dining Room. They decorated the dining room with a distinctive 1928 French wallpaper depicting peasant scenes. The paper had been produced from traditional 100-year-old Chinese printing blocks discovered during World War I. The Club hosted dinners there for Presidents William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Gerald R. Ford.

In 2005, the Women's City Club launched the Sweet Foundation to fund capital expenditures to maintain the building. During Grand Rapids' annual ArtPrize competition, the Women's City Club hired a curator to develop one of the best-curated exhibition spaces. In 2018, the Club moved out. In 2023, the Sweet House is an event venue.

320 FULTON EAST: This building was the  Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York constructed in 1963.  The historic mid-century modern 2-story commercial building is a complete stylistic departure from its neighbors.

846 FULTON EAST:  Purchased by Richard Zaagman in 1974, this auto shop went from a two-stall operation to a business servicing about 100 vehicles per week, now taking up four city lots. Community Garage in 2016 became one of three automotive garages nationwide to receive LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification.  The building has white floors and walls with frosted glass panel garage doors, more than 100 windows and a white roof to reduce heat absorption reducing the need for air conditioning in summer. The shop is heated with two-high-efficiency furnaces that burn waste oil. Rain and snow are diverted away from city storm drains and into underground leach basins.  Waste recycling is emphasized (Grand Rapids Press 8/14/2016).   In 2016, a LEED renovation and expansion designed by architect Jim Winter-Troutwine with Catalyst Partners as sustainability consultants. 

909 FULTON EAST:  This right-sized mid-century modern commercial building was designed as the Hoekstra Medical by architect Edgar Firant in 1966 in the "Atomic Ranch" style.  Today it is the home of the Pyrski Law Office.

919 FULTON EAST:  Once the Acorn Studio, this modern two-story commercial building was designed in the George Nelson commercial building style with a light-colored brick facade,  floor to ceiling glass storefront windows and flat roof. The multi-level structure features a floating stairway visible from the street.  Today it is the Cakabakery, a popular boutique bakery.

955 FULTON EAST:  Van's Pastry Shoppe, architect Unknown, 1929. Dutch immigrants brought their baking expertise to the United States. Van's is an institution in the Fulton Heights Neighborhood.  Check out their cookie jar collection.  The 1902’s style commercial building with its large plate glass windows and deep canopy overhang is known for its extensive collection of whimsical cookie jars.

1055 FULTON EAST:  Vanden Berg Cigar Company, Architect H. H. Weemhoff, 1920.  Vanden Berge Cigar Company manufactured the "Whaleback" and "Lady Ryan"  brands of cigars.  At that time, the early 1920's, Grand Rapid was home to at least 37 cigar companies.  This was a time when manufacturers were incorporating mechanized cigar rolling equipment. The Vanden Berge Cigar Company built their new building at 1055 East Fulton with a concrete foundation, steel fireproof windows and a facade of rough faced red vitrious brick laid in black mortar with raked joints  and trim of cut stone (Grand Rapids Herald, Feb. 22, 1920). They used the building's basement as a tobacco tempering room. Offices and packing department were located on the main floor.  The manufacturing of the cigars was done on the second floor, and also included the "girl's dining room," cloak room and wash rooms.  It had modern plumbing and steam plant.  The building contract was $19,000 and was awarded to Rosema Builders.  Today this building houses The Fulton Group.

1147 FULTON EAST:  Fulton Street Farmers Market, opened 1922.   A 2012 renovation and expansion was designed by Lotz3Metz with Triangle Construction.  The Fulton Street Market opened in 1922 at a time when there were three markets in Grand Rapids.  Originally known as the “East Side Market,” the city designated the site as a market to east traffic issues created by farmers selling their produce block by block from their vehicles or wagons.  The office building was constructed In 1926, and is still in use.  Today the Fulton Street Farmers Market is easily spotted with its extensive canopy covering the stalls, and the building is now LEED certified and provides handicapped accessible restrooms to shoppers. Restoration/renovation designed by Lotz3Metz Architecture with construction by Triangle Construction.