Famous people's places / Detroit – Eastern Market
Transmat Records
Derrick May's techno label headquarters on Gratiot Avenue, on the strip of Eastern Market musicians nicknamed Techno Alley.
01 / The story of this place
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Derrick May, one of the three Belleville friends credited with inventing Detroit techno alongside Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson, opened Transmat Records in 1986 on Gratiot Avenue near Eastern Market. The stretch of Gratiot around Transmat's building became known as Techno Alley, since Juan Atkins's Metroplex and other techno-era labels also worked out of the same strip of warehouses and storefronts. From this building, May released some of Detroit techno's foundational records and ran the label that helped export the sound to Europe in the late 1980s and 1990s. The building, easy to spot by its multicolored chevron brick base, still stands on Gratiot Avenue today.
- Derrick May opened Transmat here in 1986
- Part of the Gratiot Avenue strip nicknamed Techno Alley
- Metroplex and other early techno labels worked nearby
- Distinctive multicolored chevron brick base
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 1
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Derrick May born 1963 · DJ, electronic music producer
Founded
His label's base on Gratiot Avenue in Eastern Market, the strip nicknamed Techno Alley where Metroplex and KMS also worked.
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Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25
An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.
03 / Events
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