Kornacki: Kahn Family Impact on Michigan Everlasting
8/5/2015 12:00:00 AM | General
• Ferry Field Through the Years 
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- There is an ornamental wrought iron gate located off State Street, near the corner of Hoover Avenue, which connects academics to athletics at the University of Michigan. It represents the past while being part of the present.
That gate to Ferry Field, which became home to the Wolverines' football team in 1906, was first used by fans the year after Fielding H. Yost's "Point-a-Minute" teams had completed a 56-game unbeaten streak that included the program's first four national championships.
The swinging metal gate, standing nearly two stories high, was moved 61 years ago when progress deemed its original location the best spot for new athletic department offices.
The gate, with fleur-de-lis atop its iron bars and a metal pineapple painted yellow welded to its summit, was designed by Albert Kahn at the same time he was beginning to shape the landscape of the university.
Kahn began with the Engineering Building in 1903 and designed Michigan's most iconic buildings over a span of 35 years. Angell Hall, the Natural Science Building, General Library, the original University of Michigan Hospital, the Museums Building, Burton Tower and his personal favorites -- Clements Library and Hill Auditorium -- all were created and brought to life by Kahn.
The gate is a minor piece in the current campus layout but symbolizes so much.
"I didn't know this gate was here until about a year ago," said Carol Kahn, granddaughter of its designer. "I'm so glad it's here, and I want to protect it. It's (inspiration) came from Europe. I looked the fleur-de-lis up, and that's supposed to be a symbol of heraldry. Fred Mayer (University Planner, 1968-2003) told me the pineapple is a symbol of good luck."
Carol's son, Case Kittel, a Michigan senior civil engineering student who lives in a house less than one block from the gate, said the pineapple also can be viewed as a sign of welcome.
"I liked it," said Carol Kahn, squinting up through a setting sun at the pineapple. "It's got the same kind of flow as the fleur-de-lis. I think that's really cool."
first goal-scorer in U-M
hockey history.
She's not only the granddaughter of one of the giants in Michigan history. She's also the daughter of Edgar "Eddie" Kahn, a Wolverines hockey captain who scored the program's first goal and went on to become a medical pioneer as the Chief of Neurosurgical Service at the University of Michigan Hospital -- which just happened to be designed by dad.
The Kahns impacted both athletics and academics at Michigan over a stretch of eight decades, and their story is a fitting one to launch the 150th anniversary celebration of the university's athletic program, which began with a baseball team in 1865.
Asked to sum up her family's unique connection to so many different sides of the university, Carol Kahn paused, smiled and said, "It makes me feel so small."
She's carried on the connection, graduating from Michigan and now a registered nurse who is the clinical care coordinator for the university's Addiction Treatment Services. Carol explained that she can't see "in three dimensions" like her father and son but found her own niche.
And it all began with the man she usually refers to as "Albert" because he died before she was born and never got to know him. Though, Carol Kahn grinned when she called him "Grandpa" during the course of a conversation and has come to know him through research and talks with those who knew him.
Albert Kahn, who died in 1942, perhaps best summed up his design approach in a speech he gave to the Maryland Academy of Science on architectural trend on April 15, 1931:
"Architecture is the art of building, adding to the mere structural elements distinction and beauty...No matter what the prevailing vogue, common sense and judgment must apply. As to the merit of the results, only time will tell."
Time has served him well. Only the original hospital, among Kahn's Michigan buildings, has been demolished, and that came in 1989 after 69 years of service to the community. And if anything, his buildings are appreciated even more now than when constructed. He compromised the design of Angell Hall, originally called the Literary Building, to soothe those who considered some of his designs too modern because he didn't ascribe to the Gothic designs of Ivy League schools.
Carol Kahn said "Albert's" inspiration for the gray-white limestone front of Angell -- with its eight colossal order Doric columns, granite steps, decorative medallions and bas relief figural representations -- was Henry Bacon's Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Humphries and John Lott
Angell's classical style portico is majestic and often used for the background in photos. Wolverines football coach Bo Schembechler posed there with Stefan Humphries and John Lott, his team captains in 1983, for a program cover shot.
Kahn met Bacon while studying and living in Europe, and Bacon was one of the many influences he encountered in a magical career built without so much as a high school education and despite being color blind.
Kahn, born in Germany in 1869, ended his formal education with seventh grade. But his mother, Rosalie, arranged for his lessons with German sculptor Julius Melchers, who moved to Detroit after helping model London's Crystal Palace. Kahn's creative approach to architecture was firmly rooted in art.
Then, as the oldest of a family of eight that struggled at first after immigrating to the U.S. when he was 10, he took a job as an office boy with the Detroit architectural firm of John Scott. Melchers later referred Kahn to another architectural firm, where George Mason recognized his talent and promoted him to draftsman. Mason assigned his young protégé the job of designing the now-iconic 660-foot-long porch of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island.
Kahn, who created the revered Fisher Building in Detroit, also designed numerous Ford and other automobile company factories in addition to those used in manufacturing during World War II efforts. He presided over more than 2,000 projects and employed 600 engineers and architects to assure both speed and quality.
His design influences on the Michigan campus where his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren studied was perhaps the crown jewel in his work.
Kahn designed 23 skyline-altering and learning-enhancing buildings on campus, working actively with school presidents James Angell, Harry Hutchins and Marion Burton.
Burton said Kahn's of architectural contributions: "This larger campus and these splendid new buildings will be of real service as they are used to make a finer and nobler university."
Kahn also was the father to Edgar "Eddie" Kahn, a diminutive hockey scoring dynamo who became a neurosurgery pioneer. So, his link to athletics and academics went well beyond the Ferry gate. It also flowed through his blood.
Albert Kahn was part of President Burton's "Committee of Five," which plotted the construction of all the new buildings on campus during the post-World War I building boom of the "Roaring Twenties."
Kahn put the "I" in iconic where the distinct structures of Michigan are concerned. His buildings serve as architectural exclamation points and are what catch the eyes of students, alumni and visitors strolling up State Street and across North University Avenue.
"I'm just so proud when I come back to Ann Arbor and look at all of my grandfather's work," said Betsy Lehndorff, a former home and gardens writer and homicide reporter for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News. "They really loved Hill Auditorium. My father was nine or 10 when he walked on the stage and was instructed by my grandfather to drop (a pin) when he got to the back rows. He dropped it, and his dad heard it. The acoustics worked that well."
Carol Kahn and her son, Case, proudly reenacted the pin-dropping about a dozen years ago, with the same results.
Whether it was grandeur, acoustics or style, Albert Kahn connected visually as surely as he provided practical structures.
Lehndorff said, "Look at the superb iron work on that gate. Look at how beautiful it is!"
The Ferry Field gateway came long before Kahn became one of the nation's most recognized architects and went up when the visionary's family was growing as well.
Eddie, who died in 1985 at the age of 85, also had his father's knack for making a real difference.
"Imagine being Albert Kahn's son?" asked Lehndorff. "A lot of kids don't survive that kind of challenge, but then my father's success was just outstanding."
Edgar, described by the Michigan Daily as "probably the fastest man on the team and a hard fighter," scored the first goal in Wolverine hockey history in January 1923 and captained the team in 1924, when he graduated before becoming as prominent as his father in his chosen field.
He spent 22 years as the chairman of the neurosurgery department at his alma mater before stepping down in 1971, and he became a surgical innovator and inventor while also serving as president of the Society of Neurological Surgery.
"I'm so proud of what people in this family did," said Lehndorff. "They had character I try to emulate: honesty, concerning themselves with others in decision-making, broadmindedness. They were rarified people who achieved much.
"My grandfather brought human working conditions with his factory designs, bringing them the same air and light that carried onto all his Michigan buildings. He used design elements that worked for people rather than the glorification of the architect. My dad put people through medical school and worked for $1 a year during World War II (in the Army Medical Corps). I remember waiting for him in emergency rooms. He had real guts."
An original rendering of the Ferry Field gate and entryway.
The Kahns' connection to athletics began with that Ferry Field gateway designed 109 years ago by Albert Kahn to welcome fans to the new football home of the Wolverines built on 20 acres donated by Detroit businessman and philanthropist Dexter M. Ferry, who paid $10,000 for the construction of three brick walls to enclose the field and 18,000 seats. The ornamental gate at the corner at State and Hoover was flanked by 10 ticket windows and walls constructed of Bedford stone and red paving bricks.
"FERRY FIELD" was emblazoned near the top of the gate, which provided a sense of grandeur for those attending games there for 21 seasons until the current Michigan Stadium opened in 1927. And those were grand days for the Wolverines, who went 90-13-2 at Ferry with the legendary Yost leading the way in all but one of those seasons.
"I would categorize the gate as traditional, English-style work," said Scott Lankton, an Ann Arbor blacksmith artist. "But it's really hard to categorize because the gate itself is not traditional -- it's Albert Kahn, whose designs were transformed into iron work.
"But there are English and French touches. The fleurs-de-lis (flower of lily in French) are used."
Kittel, who also wrestles at 149 pounds for Michigan's club wrestling team, beamed when surveying its beauty and strength.
"Since I live so close to here," said Case, "I come to Ferry Field to run on the track or go to the (adjoining) Intramural Building. I normally walk right through this gate coming to the track. So, it's really cool. And that legacy is neat to be a part of."
Left: Albert Kahn, with a photo of his son, Eddie, on the wall behind him.
Right: Ferry Field.
Ferry's walls were knocked down in 1954 to make way for the building of what is now called Weidenbach Hall, where Schembechler had an expansive second-floor office at the south end overlooking the current Ferry Field track and field facility. Yost's office was on the north side of what is now called the Hartwig Building but was then the Athletic Administration Building. There is a concrete walkway between the two structures, and the re-located Ferry Field gate serves as the entrance to that area, linking the buildings and, in a way, Bo and Yost.
Charles Baird, who became Michigan's first athletic director in 1900, not only oversaw the construction of Ferry Field. He also hired Yost in his first year, setting the tone for greatness later emulated by legendary athletic director Don Canham in landing Schembechler.
Baird in 1936 donated the money for the 55 bells in the Baird Carillon in Burton Tower -- designed by Kahn. And so the pioneers of great academic architecture and a superior athletic department crossed paths once more, assuring everything at Michigan became something special, something connected.
While his son was a wonder of academic achievement at Michigan, Albert never attended college but received an honorary degree from Michigan in 1933. He learned from architects while working for firms.
A quote from a story by Janet Kreger in the Spring 1998 issue of LSA Magazine summed up his career path: "When I began, the real architects would design only museums, cathedrals, capitols, monuments. The office boy was considered good enough to do factory buildings. I'm still that office boy designing factories. I have no dignity to be impaired."
Albert married Ernestine Krolik, a Michigan graduate who was a talented interior designer and gardener, in 1896. She often advised him on color and fabric selection. They had two daughters, Lydia and Ruth, and the one son who carried on his name and ability to do great things.
"We were part of something that words just escape me to describe," said Lehndorff. "We had a great upbringing."
She recalled her father flying out of Willow Run Airport and buzzing Ann Arbor with aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, who became a friend. He mended soldiers at the Battle of the Bulge and also reportedly hung out with Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, though his granddaughters weren't able to verify that.
"He used to meet the American and global intellects of his time," added Lehndorff.
Carol Kahn revealed that her father was friends with actors Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Eddie Kahn and Bogart both attended Andover Academy in Massachusetts, before Kahn enrolled at Michigan and Bogart joined the Navy and eventually became one of Hollywood's greatest stars.
"I remember stories of my dad hobnobbing with Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart," Carol Kahn said of the co-stars "Casablanca," a 1942 classic. "My dad went to Andover with Humphrey Bogart, and they were friends. He used to say, 'Humphrey Bogart wore purple socks.' I thought that was really strange."
She laughed at the thought.
"We all had pretty exciting lives," said Lehndorff, who has taken on a second career as a silversmith making jewelry and living on Lake Hubbard near Alpena, Michigan. "I became a journalist, and Dad hated reporters."
She chuckled about that.
"Whatever we did," Lehndorff added, "we got to have our own lives."
That went for her dad, too. He interned with his father's architecture firm but didn't make it through the first day.
Eddie wrote in his autobiography, "Journal of a Neurosurgeon," about that attempt: "I put on my hat, left the office and never returned again."
That happened before he ever attended Michigan, where he found his true calling by putting his skills together in the operating room. Edgar also met his wife, Rose, a Michigan grad and a physician, in Ann Arbor.
Carol Kahn said of her father: "He was a beautiful athlete. His visual skill combined with his athletic ability is what made him the great surgeon he was. He had such physical stamina and emotional stamina."
Her sister, Lehndorff, said their father never bragged with tales of his hockey prowess.
"Dad never talked about it," she said. "All he said was, 'I had two concussions playing hockey.' He was worried about the effects of those on his long-term abilities."
Players were decades away from wearing hockey helmets in his day. However, it was football, a sport he came to love as a Wolverines season ticket holder, for which he lent a hand in safety development.
"Dad helped design the prototype for the modern helmet in the '60s," said Carol Kahn. "At the dinner table, he would talk about the inner cushion it had and how it absorbed impact. At games, Dad would look down and say, 'There's one of our helmets.' They realized the impact of the game on the kids' brains and spines before all the research done today on football head injuries."
Kittel, the son of the daughter of the son of Albert Kahn, has a photographic memory, a gift for photography and is studying civil engineering at the school his great-grandfather never attended but helped mold in so many ways.
Left: Case Kittel, Albert Kahn's great grandson.
Center: The pineapple-painted, yellow-welded fluer de lis atop the gate.
Right: Present-day Ferry Field at night.
"I've always known about Albert Kahn," said Kittel. "And I've always liked building -- putting things together and seeing what happens when you start from nothing and it all comes together for the final product."
That's what great-grandpa did at Michigan, and both his buildings and his lineage continue making it a special place in academics, service, athletics and family connections.
There are many layers to this never-ending story, but all of them are colored in maize and blue.
The 2015-16 academic year marks the 150th anniversary of Michigan Athletics. We invite the University of Michigan family to celebrate the passion that fuels us, rediscover the stories and traditions that unite us, and imagine what the future holds for us. We look forward to celebrating "This Michigan of Ours." To share a memory of Michigan Athletics, please fill out our online form or email goblue150@umich.edu.
