Posted March 30, 201411 yr See Part One here:http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,29127.0.html A few more photos out and around downtown Detroit. There are so many architectural gems, and I definitely want to come back when I have more time to thoroughly explore and photograph the place. Another mostly empty skyscraper. The area around the Stott Building needs a lot of work, as you'll see. Does this park have a name? I think every building around it was empty. Such a nice building, and graffitied to death. Grand Circus must have been really impressive back in the day. More graffiti in beautiful buildings. I hate to see all of it going to waste. Are there plans for the big empty plot in the bottom left? Looks like there are steel beams sticking up out of the garage. This stretch of Woodward is actually very nice. I love long unbroken stretches of mid-size buildings. Looking north towards Grand Circus I believe. Well except the cold, apparently, seeing as no one was out and about. I actually like the Book Tower. It's so weird and topheavy but it's really unique. It's a nice church, but I feel like having tall buildings on all sides of the park would have been more impressive. The same thing always bothered me about Old Stone Church in Cleveland, too. I need to get in here the next time I come back. I'd love to see the auditorium and lobby. Speaking of Detroit theatres, I'd also like to find the theater-garage that everyone has a bunch of photos of. The only view I got of the skyline as we headed toward New Center. Hopefully I'll get some better shots if/when I return. I love the skyline from this angle. New Center, along with Midtown is on my list of places to explore next time. There's so much that I just didn't have time to see. The Fisher Building says goodbye! Thanks for looking! “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
March 30, 201411 yr I'm pretty sure that's Capitol Park. Dan Gilbert envisions that as an arts district. He's bought a few of the buildings around it but hasn't done much yet. The parking garage with the stakes is where Hudson's sat. Last year, Gilbert sponsored a design contest for that block but there's nothing firm on what will happen with it. Over the years, there's been a multitude of pie in the sky proposals but nothing that could be taken seriously. Since Gilbert is now getting involved, hopefully something will finally come to fruition for that site. That whole part of Woodward has changed drastically. It started with Compuware and the Schostak family buying up buildings years ago and Gilbert has only accelerated the process.
March 30, 201411 yr There is an identical Fox Theater in Kansas City, I believe. The infamous parking garage in a theater is in the old Michigan Theater, which is a couple blocks east of Grand Circus.
March 31, 201411 yr There is an identical Fox Theater in Kansas City, I believe. The infamous parking garage in a theater is in the old Michigan Theater, which is a couple blocks east of Grand Circus. You're thinking of St. Louis. There were Fox Theaters in STL, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Atlanta and of course, Detroit. The interiors of Detroit and St. Louis were at least historically, very similar. I've never been in the St. Louis one, but indeed, the Detroit version is an absolute gem.
March 31, 201411 yr Damn, there are so many amazing buildings in Detroit. C. Howard Crane also designed the STL Fox Theatre. It is slightly smaller, but it has the same level of awe as his Detroit version.
March 31, 201411 yr Exterior-wise, I do prefer Atlanta's Fox Theater over all of them but the Detroit one's interior is my favorite. Great photos. "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
April 2, 201411 yr I'm pretty sure that's Capitol Park. Dan Gilbert envisions that as an arts district. He's bought a few of the buildings around it but hasn't done much yet. The parking garage with the stakes is where Hudson's sat. Last year, Gilbert sponsored a design contest for that block but there's nothing firm on what will happen with it. Over the years, there's been a multitude of pie in the sky proposals but nothing that could be taken seriously. Since Gilbert is now getting involved, hopefully something will finally come to fruition for that site. That whole part of Woodward has changed drastically. It started with Compuware and the Schostak family buying up buildings years ago and Gilbert has only accelerated the process. It's great to hear all of the reinvestment that Quicken/Gilbert are pumping into downtown. One of my close friends used to work in one of Quicken's buildings on Campus Martius, and he always tells me how dramatically things have been changing down there recently. there really are some incredible buildings, and it's great that Gilbert cares enough about his city to buy out half of downtown. I really hope something fills in that empty lot on Woodward. There was a nice outdoors-apparel shop across the street that was quite nice, and I would have liked to window shop more if I had had the chance. “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
April 2, 201411 yr There is an identical Fox Theater in Kansas City, I believe. The infamous parking garage in a theater is in the old Michigan Theater, which is a couple blocks east of Grand Circus. You're thinking of St. Louis. There were Fox Theaters in STL, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Atlanta and of course, Detroit. The interiors of Detroit and St. Louis were at least historically, very similar. I've never been in the St. Louis one, but indeed, the Detroit version is an absolute gem. That's right, St. Louis. From http://www.examiner.com/article/detroit-theaters: "[Detroit] Fox Theater The Detroit Fox is one of five Fox Theaters built in the late 1920s by William Fox. The others are located in Brooklyn, Atlanta, San Francisco, and St. Louis. The St. Louis theater is almost a twin of the Detroit theater, in fact the architectural molds used in Detroit were reused in St. Louis. The Detroit theater is the first movie theater in the world to be constructed with equipment for sound films. It is also the largest surviving movie house of the 1920s and the largest of the Fox theaters. The theater as fully restored in the 1980s."
April 2, 201411 yr I'm pretty sure there are way more than 5 Fox Theaters that were William Fox's chain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Theatres Oakland and LA (Westwood) come to mind immediately. "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
April 3, 201411 yr I'm pretty sure there are way more than 5 Fox Theaters that were William Fox's chain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Theatres Oakland and LA (Westwood) come to mind immediately. Not to get too off topic, but the five I listed are the original William Fox theaters before Fox merged with other companies. Oakland wasn't even built as a Fox. It later became one through a merger and the Fox name was added. That same merged company went on to build the L.A. theater.
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