10/3/2021
We did a lot of sightseeing today. We started off by walking to the Fisher Building. This is an art deco style building built in 1928. It’s known as “Detroit’s largest art project.”
Next we walked by Cadillac Place, the old GM main office. This was also designed by Albert Kahn, the man who designed the Fisher Building and a bunch of others around the city.
After that we hopped on the Q-line and headed to downtown. We got off at the last stop and went to the Guardian Building. This is another art deco building that has been a bank and financial building since 1929.
The next stop was the Hart Plaza area. This is a park on the Detroit River with a bunch of art sculptures and a view to Canada.
Next we walked to the GM Renaissance Center. This is a massive building complex that is now the GM headquarters. There are four cylindrical towers surrounding a larger central cylinder with another two cylindrical buildings across the street. The Marriott is in the central tower and is the largest all hotel skyscraper in the Western hemisphere. Overall it’s a very cool building. Normally there is shopping, restaurants, and a whole GM exhibit, but Covid of course shut most of that down. There was a GM exhibit with some of the flagship cars and the history of electric cars exhibit.
It was after lunchtime and we were hungry so we found this burger joint called The Basement Burger Bar. It was a build your own burger kind of place. I think they messed up my order, but it was still pretty good. Next, we went to Comerica Park and Ford Field, Tigers and Lions stadiums.
We were going to go to the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, but it was between exhibits and closed. As we were on the train I was looking for things to do for a couple hours before we had to get to the airport. I found out that the Detroit Auto Show was normally happening. I got really excited and then found out because of Covid they only did a one week thing and it was last week. Sad times. We ended up going to the Henry Ford Museum. It was $25 for the museum, $35 for the village, and $20 for the factory tour. It was closing within an hour so we decided to walk around the public areas and not get a ticket.
After the museum closed we still had some time to kill so we went to River Rouge – Mariners Memorial Lighthouse. It was in the middle of nowhere next to a power plant and underwhelming. Oh well, at least it had a good view of Canada.
All there was time left to do was grab some supper and head to the airport. I wanted to do the Ford factory tour so I stayed in town for the night.
More random Detroit pics.
