Fox Theatre is one the largest surviving "movie palaces" of the 1920s. It was built as part of the Fox Films chain by William Fox, founder of Fox Films Company, which would later become Twentieth Century Fox. Designed by architect Charles Howard Crane, Fox Theatre is known best for its elegant interior, which features Asian- and Middle-Eastern-inspired accents throughout. The Fox opened in 1928 and operated continuously until the 1980s when it was closed due to serious maintenance issues and needed repairs. It reopened November 19, 1988 after a $12 million renovation.
In 1805, Detroit was named the capital of the newly-created Michigan Territory. On June 11, 1805, Detroit suffered a devastating fire, which left only a few buildings intact. A new plan was put forward by Chief Justice Augustus B. Woodward to create a new layout for the growing city. The plan would be based on a design similar to Washington, D.C.’s layout, with a “spoke-and-wheel” or honeycomb pattern of streets and wide boulevards. Woodward’s plan for Detroit was only partially implemented, being unpopular with residents who were impatient to get the city rebuilt. However, certain aspects of Woodward’s plan can be seen in the triangular and half-circle public spaces around the city, and in the diagonal main streets, like Woodward Avenue, named after its designer.
One of Detroit's tallest skyscrapers, Broderick Tower opened in 1928. The building was commissioned by Berrien Eaton and opened as Eaton Tower prior to its sale in 1944. The 370-foot building housed shops and a popular restaurant on the lower levels and offices above. Like many other opulent structures built in the 1920s, Eaton Tower struggled to attract and maintain tenants during the Great Depression but became a center of Detroit's boom years from World War II through the 1960s. Mirroring the larger history of the city, Broderick Tower lost tenants as many Detroit businesses left the downtown area beginning in the 1970s. Much of the building was vacant for decades, but like the city itself, the owners of Broderick Tower have worked to attract new business and with some government support, has benefited from efforts to revive the downtown area. Between 2010 and 2012, parts of the building were renovated and converted into apartments as the first phase of the building owner's plan to revive this former downtown icon.
Completed in 1915, the David Whitney Building was named after wealthy lumber tycoon David Whitney, Jr. It was designed in a Neo-Renaissance style by the architectural firm of Daniel H. Burnham, known as “the father of the skyscraper.” The building cost $1 million to complete and is 18 stories high. It features an ornate exterior and a beautiful four-story atrium with skylight. Originally, it housed high-end shops and medical offices buildings. As tenants gradually moved out with Detroit’s decline, the building was left vacant for years. A $92 million award-winning restoration project was completed in 2014, and the building now serves as a hotel and apartment space.
The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was a fraternal organization of Union Civil War veterans that was formed in 1866. The national group organized local gatherings to foster a sense of camaraderie between veterans, as well as provided charitable services to veteran families in need. Detroit's GAR members constructed this Romanesque-style building in 1899, and it was the largest GAR hall built in Michigan. The building rented shop space on the ground floor and provided offices and meeting places, including an auditorium, on the upper floors. After membership dwindled, the building was used by the City of Detroit's Parks and Recreation Department as a recreation center. Vacant for many years, it has recently been restored and now houses a diner, tavern, and media production company office.
At this location beginning in 1892, Henry Ford began experimenting with and producing a simple automobile with a two-cylinder engine, which was essentially mounted on a frame and geared to bicycle wheels. Ford would go on to create one of the most influential automobile manufacturing companies in the world. In the early 1900s, Ford Motor Company led the world in automobile production. Built with Ford’s own hands at this location, the “Ford Quadricycle” began the future industrialists career as an automobile manufacturer. In 1896 at the age of 32, Ford sold his first car for $200 (equivalent to about $5,400 today). He built two new models in 1899 and 1901. Although seen as a toy for the rich at the time, the Quadricycle inspired Ford to continue innovating and eventually start his own company, which ultimately resulted in the founding of the Ford Motor Company in 1903. His Bagley Avenue workshop was reconstructed at Greenfield Village, where it remains today.
The Michigan Theatre opened on August 23, 1926, as one of the finest movie palaces in Detroit. It was constructed at a cost of $3.5 million and designed by Cornelius and George Rapp, architects renowned for their grand movie palaces around the country. The French Renaissance theater contained an opulent lobby almost a block long and four-stories high, while the auditorium could seat over 4,000. When the theater closed in 1971, it was renamed the Michigan Palace and turned into a nightclub and rock concert venue, but these ventures proved unsuccessful. The space was finally converted into a unique parking garage for the attached office building, somewhat oddly preserving the decaying remains of the magnificent former theater.
A mishmash of styles, built a decade apart, the Book Building and Tower are an icon of Washington Boulevard Historic District. The Book Building began as a modest office building in 1917 paid for by the Book brothers. It was the first commercial space completed by famous Detroit architect Louis Kamper. In 1926, Kamper again designed the Book Tower addition, which became the tallest structure in Detroit at the time at 475 feet. However, it has been hailed as an odd piece of architecture since it was built, as it was the first skyscraper design for Kamper, who placed intricate Italian Renaissance details on a building too tall to be appreciated.
The Book-Cadillac Hotel was the tallest hotel in the world and the tallest building in Detroit when it opened on December 8, 1924. Designed by famous Detroit architect Louis Kamper, the Italian Renaissance structure had 33 floors, 1,136 rooms (book official), a grand ballroom, five restaurants, and many modern amenities for the time. It was one of the grandest hotels in the city, hosting high-class social events and important celebrity guests for decades. The economic downturn of Detroit hit the hotel’s business hard, and it closed its doors in 1984. After nearly two decades of vacancy followed by a $200 million renovation, the hotel finally reopened in 2008 as the West Book Cadillac Hotel.
Michigan became a territory of the U.S. in 1805, and Detroit was named its territorial capital. A brick Greek Revival building was constructed in 1828 to serve as the territorial courthouse. When Michigan gained statehood in 1837, it would become Michigan's first state capitol. The building was where Michigan's first constitution was drafted and where its first elected governor took his oath of office. The legislature voted to move the state capital to Lansing in 1846. The building was used as a high school from 1847 to 1893, when it was destroyed by fire. Rather than rebuild another school or public building, the space became Capitol Park for public enjoyment.
A tailor from Orange County, New York, Seymour Finney moved to Detroit in 1834. Finney opened his own business, the Finney Hotel, in 1850 [1; 4]. The hotel's brick barn quickly became an important station of the Underground Railroad as Finney, his son Seymour, Jr., and other anti-slavery citizens of Michigan helped former slaves escape via the Detroit River to Canada [1; 3]. The location of Finney's Barn, at the northern end of Michigan's Underground Railroad routes, near the river, made it a station of vital importance [2]. Unfortunately, the barn was razed in 1892 to make way for the Detroit Chamber of Commerce building, which now bears a 1926 plaque designating the site as Detroit's Underground Railway Station [2].
The David Stott Building opened on June 17, 1929, one of the last great skyscrapers built in Detroit during the Roaring Twenties before the stock market crash and the Great Depression. It was named after David Stott, an Englishman who had created a large fortune in flour milling and real estate speculation. Designed by the architectural firm of Donaldson & Meier, the Art Deco building is 38 stories high with a brick, granite, limestone, marble, and terra cotta exterior. It has artistic tiered setbacks at the top and features stone carving by sculptor Corrado Parducci. The building has suffered from low-vacancy and flooding in recent years, but was purchased by Dan Gilbert in 2015 with plans to renovate into a mixed-use development.
The historic center of Detroit, Campus Martius was laid out as the center of the city following the fire of 1805 that destroyed many of the first buildings in the area. Campus Maritus translates to "military ground"- a reference to this area's original use as training ground for the militia in the late 1700s. Until 1847, when the city government voted to fill in the once-marshy area in a major engineering project, the ground around Campus Maritus was of little commercial value.
Barlum Tower was the first building outside of New York and Chicago to reach a height of 40 floors. It was the tallest building in Detroit for one year. The Late Gothic Revival style skyscraper was designed by Bonnah & Chaffee for John J. Barlum and built in 1927 by the Otto Misch Company. The steel frame structure is clad in white terra cotta Barlum Tower was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 for its significance in architectural style, as an example of early skyscraper architecture in the city, and as the work of two Detroit firms. The office building now is known as Cadillac Tower.
This 47-story limestone Art Deco skyscraper was designed by architect Wirt Clinton Rowland (1878-1946) and completed in 1928. Named for a Native American tribe from Maine, the building features carvings by Italian sculptor Corrado Parducci. Currently the third-tallest building in Detroit, the Greater Penobscot Building was the tallest in Detroit from 1928 to 1977 (when the Renaissance Center was built). The Greater Penobscot Building is part of the National Register Detroit Financial Historic District. The district, containing mainly Art Deco and Classical Revival style skyscrapers dating to the early-to-mid twentieth century, is bounded by Woodward, Jefferson, Lafayette, and Washington Boulevard and was listed in 2009.
Fort Lernoult, also known as Fort Detroit and Fort Shelby, was the second fort built to guard the frontier settlement of Detroit. Established by British soldiers in 1778, the fort replaced Fort Pontchartrain, a French garrison that had been established in 1701 and had fallen into disrepair. Fort Lernoult was the first place where the American flag was flown over Detroit when the U.S. took control in 1796, and it was the only structure to survive the fire of 1805 that destroyed the village. The fort was recaptured by the British during the War of 1812. When the Americans again took control the next year, they renamed it Fort Shelby. As the village rebuilt and the threat of invasion became more remote, city leaders decided to raze the fort in 1827. The destruction of the fort is symbolic of Detroit's transition from a frontier outpost to an important commercial city in the early 19th century.
Now home to Detroit's convention center, Cobo Center dates back to 1960, when the original and now-demolished Cobo Arena was completed. Expanded and renovated throughout the decades, Cobo Center is named in honor of Detroit mayor Albert E. Cobo who was in office from 1950 to 1957. The former arena was home to the Detroit Pistons for many years and may be most historically-significant as the location of a 1963 speech by Martin Luther King Jr. In that speech, King delivered many of the same lines that would become famous in his later speech at the March on Washington, including the phrase "I have a dream." That speech was recorded by Motown Records and distributed as a single record entitled "The Great March to Freedom." With redevelopment plans and the construction of the Cobo Center, the former arena was demolished to expand the convention center which is best known today as the home of the Detroit Auto Show.
Nicknamed the “Cathedral of Commerce,” the Guardian Building is one of the most expressive Art Deco skyscrapers ever built. Built in 1928 and finished in 1929, the building was originally called the Union Trust Building and is a bold example of Art Deco architecture, including art modern designs. The main frame of the skyscraper raises 36 stories, capped by two asymmetric spires, one extending for four additional stories.
Sitting on the corner of Woodward Avenue and East Larned Street in front of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, the Spirit of Detroit is a large bronze statue that represents the soul and spirit of the city. Dedicated in 1958, the Spirit of Detroit statue represents both the modern and historical essence of the city. Additionally, the statue represents the city’s reputation for sports by sporting a jersey if a particular team is in the playoffs. The bronze statue is also featured on the logo of many of the city’s departments, and it is certainly one of the city's more prolific landmarks in the downtown area. The statue was built by Metro Detroit sculptor Marshall Fredericks at a cost of $58,000 in 1958, which equates to about $467,750 today. It sits atop a 60-ton marble base and it is 26-feet tall, making the Spirit of Detroit the largest bronze cast monument made anywhere in the world since the Renaissance. The casting for the statue was conducted in Oslo, Norway.
The dedication of the “Monument to Joe Louis,” informally known by locals as “The Fist,” took place on October 16, 1986. The sculpture is a memorial to Joe Louis, an American professional boxer and the World Heavyweight Champion from 1937 to 1949. Created by Mexican-American sculptor Robert Graham, the artwork symbolizes a correlation between a boxer’s closed fist and the fight against racial injustice. The sculpture has become an icon of Detroit within Harrt Plaza Riverfront Park, which opened in 1975 and was named after Senator Phillip A. Hart. The plaza also includes a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. recognizing the first time he delivered the lines “I Have a Dream” on June 20, 1963, at Detroit's Cobo Hall which was located nearby. King used the phrase in several speeches prior to his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
Historians estimate that as many as 45,000 runaway slaves passed through Detroit on their way to freedom in Canada. Although Michigan was a free state, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made it possible for slave catchers (or any white person) to claim that an African American was a runaway slave pending the decision of a special court that required only the testimony of one white person. The Fugitive Slave Law also barred the accused from defending themselves, a situation that caused many free African Americans to leave the nation of their birth and seek refuge in Canada. The anti-slavery movement in Detroit comprised of African Americans, foreign and native-born whites, and Native Americans who defied the law and worked together to provide safety for thousands of women, men, and children. Sculpted by Ed Dwight and dedicated on October 20, 2001, the Gateway to Freedom International Memorial to the Underground Railroad pays tribute to the city’s contribution and the thousands of railroad conductors who made freedom possible. Several routes diverged on Detroit, code name “Midnight,” and for many, the city was the final destination for freedom seekers until the mid-1830s. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, many of the runaways then moved to Canada. Thus, across the Detroit River in Windsor, Canada, the second part of the memorial faces the Gateway to Freedom Memorial in Detroit. From characters such as Peter Denison, who returned to Detroit to lead a Black militia, to Thornton and Ruth Blackburn, this memorial pays tributes to Americans who stood for freedom in an era of slavery.
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This tour of Detroit starts with the iconic Fox Theatre and Augustus Woodward's plan for rebuilding the city. The tour includes some of downtown Detroit's most famous buildings, monuments, and historical and cultural sites.
