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American architect George D. Mason designed Detroit's Masonic Temple, which was dedicated in 1926. Image by Einar Einarsson Kvaran. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Jack White saves Detroit Masonic Temple from auction block

Tom Hoepf
Tom Hoepf

American architect George D. Mason designed Detroit's Masonic Temple, which was dedicated in 1926. Image by Einar Einarsson Kvaran. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
American architect George D. Mason designed Detroit’s Masonic Temple, which was dedicated in 1926. Image by Einar Einarsson Kvaran. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
DETROIT (AP) – Musician Jack White has played springtime Santa, paying a $142,000 back tax bill for Detroit’s historic Masonic Temple. The move prevents a threatened auction of the famed venue where The Who and the Rolling Stones have played.

Last Thursday, a then-anonymous donor paid off the famed music venue’s entire 2010-2012 tax delinquency. The 14-story Masonic Temple was days away from being put up for sale.

The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It takes up an entire block and has more than 1,000 rooms, as well as a theater that has featured top performers for decades.

The Detroit Free Press reports that temple President Roger Sobran says his group is renaming the 1,586-seat theater in its benefactor’s name as the Jack White Theater.

White, 37, is a Detroit native who’s best known as the vocalist, guitarist and pianist of the rock group The White Stripes, which broke up in 2011.

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-06-05-13 0126GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

American architect George D. Mason designed Detroit's Masonic Temple, which was dedicated in 1926. Image by Einar Einarsson Kvaran. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
American architect George D. Mason designed Detroit’s Masonic Temple, which was dedicated in 1926. Image by Einar Einarsson Kvaran. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.