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Top Attractions in Detroit

Grande Ballroom

The Grande Ballroom is a historic live music venue located at 8952 Grand River Avenue in the Petosky-Otsego neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan. The building was designed by Detroit engineer and architect Charles N. Agree in 1928 and originally served as a multi-purpose building, hosting retail business on the first floor and a large dance hall upstairs. During this period the Grande was renowned for its outstanding hardwood dance floor which took up most of the second floor. Around 1927, Detroit businessman Harry Weitzman approached Agree about creating the ballroom. Weitzman financed and owned the ballroom, which was popular in the Jewish community and a hangout for the Purple Gang. His children’s initials are carved under a windowsill at the venue . In 1966 the Grande was acquired by Dearborn, Michigan, high school teacher and local radio DJ Russ Gibb. Gibb was inspired by visiting San Francisco's Fillmore Theater, and envisioned a similar venue in Detroit for the new psychedelic music and a resource for local teenagers. Gibb worked closely with Detroit counterculture figure John Sinclair and Hugh "JEEP" Holland in bringing in bands from San Francisco, Europe and the neighbouring States and the top level of local/regional rock bands, including the MC5 (who featured their debut live album there), SRC, Jagged Edge, Rationals, Catfish, Frost, Savage Grace, James Gang, Ted Nugent, Wilson Mower Pursuit, Sky, Third Power, All the Lonely people, Teegarden and Vanwinkle, Iron Horse Exchange, and many others who were gathering around Detroit's Plum Street community as well as the suburbs, as far afield as Ann Arbor. With managers Tom Wright, Bill Robbins and others and local character Dave Miller, the club booked and presented many national and international acts as well as future Rock and Roll Hall of Famers of this period including Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Jeff Beck, Procol Harum, Cream and The Who. The MC5, The Thyme, and The Stooges served as house bands, assuring weekly performances. The Grande also featured the avant garde jazz of John Coltrane and Sun Ra. Performances of this period were frequently advertised by the distinctive psychedelic handbills of Gary Grimshaw and Carl Lundgren. The Grande's rock and roll countercultural experience was extensively documented by Detroit photographer Leni Sinclair. It was during this period that the Ballroom became known as the "hippie capitalist center of Detroit". Since Gibb closed the Grande as a rock venue in 1972, the building has rarely been used and has fallen into a state of extreme disrepair. As of 2014, the historic club remains inactive and open to redevelopment.

Belle Isle Conservatory

The Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory is a greenhouse and a botanical garden located on Belle Isle, a 982-acre island park nestled in the Detroit River between Detroit and the Canada–United States border. The park itself consists of 13 acres of preserved land for the conservatory and its botanical garden. The conservatory, along with the neighboring Belle Isle Aquarium, was designed by renowned architect Albert Kahn and built in 1904, and was remodeled and renovated several times years after. In 1953 the structure was named in honor of Anna Scripps Whitcomb, who left her grand collection of 600 orchids to Detroit, and made several generous donations afterwards. The building of the Belle Isle Conservatory itself possesses a strikingly impressive domed center reaching 85 feet in height, which houses the exotic palm trees and plant life from South America to the jungles of Southeast Asia. The conservatory is opened to the public free of charge, and operates from Wednesday through Sunday between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Ambassador Bridge

The Ambassador Bridge is a suspension bridge that connects Detroit, Michigan, in the United States, with Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It is the busiest international border crossing in North America in terms of trade volume: more than 25 percent of all merchandise trade between the United States and Canada crosses the toll bridge. A 2004 Border Transportation Partnership study showed that 150,000 jobs in the region and US$13 billion in annual production depend on the Detroit–Windsor international border crossing. The bridge is owned by Grosse Pointe billionaire Manuel "Matty" Moroun through the Detroit International Bridge Company in the United States and the Canadian Transit Company in Canada. In 1979, when the previous owners of the bridge put it on the New York Stock Exchange and shares were traded, Moroun was able to buy shares, eventually acquiring the bridge. The bridge carries 60 to 70 percent of commercial truck traffic in the region. Moroun also owns the Ammex Detroit Duty Free Stores at both the bridge and the tunnel. A new bridge, the Gordie Howe International Bridge, proposed by the Detroit River International Crossing commission, has been approved for construction by the Canadian and United States governments. The new bridge will be a government-owned and operated crossing further downriver between Detroit and Windsor.

Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History

The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History is located in the Cultural Center of the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. Founded in 1965, it holds the worlds largest permanent exhibit on African American culture. In 1997, Detroit architects Sims-Varner Associates designed a new 120,000 square foot facility on Warren Avenue The Wright Museum has dual missions, serving as both a museum of artifacts and a place of cultural retention and growth. The Museum owns more than 30,000 artifacts and archival materials. Some of the major collections it is home to include the Blanche Coggin Underground Railroad Collection, the Harriet Tubman Museum Collection, a Coleman A. Young Collection and a collection of documents about the labor movement in Detroit called the Sheffield Collection. Also in the museum is an interactive exhibit called And Still We Rise: Our Journey through African American History and Culture, seven exhibition areas devoted to African Americans and their lives, the Louise Lovett Wright Research Library, and the General Motors Theater, which is a 317-seat facility for film, live performances, lectures, and presentations. A terrazzo tile creation by artist Hubert Massey entitled Genealogy is in the Ford Freedom Rotunda Floor and the museum is topped by a 100 feet by 55 feet glass dome. The museum store sells authentic African art and books, as well as other merchandise.

Trumbullplex

The Trumbullplex is a housing collective and showspace in the Woodbridge neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan, USA. It was created in 1993 when members of the collective established a nonprofit corporation and purchased the property, two Victorian houses on either side of a single-story art space, previously operated by Perry Mallette as the Trumbull Theater. The collective's mission statement asserts that they “want to create a positive environment for revolutionary change in which economic and social relationships are based on mutual aid and the absence of hierarchy.” It acts on the basis of consensus decision-making and serves as a home, theater, art gallery, infoshop, meeting space and temporary residence for traveling activists. The art space and infoshop are run on a donations-only basis, and members pay an equal portion of the costs involved in the property's upkeep each month. The Trumbullplex has been an institution and hotbed of creative anarchism that has influenced those who have had residency and visited the Trumbullplex. The Trumbull Collective has a history of positive and unique exchange with activism happening internationally by bringing traveling plays, music, puppet shows, performance art, and workshops to the space. Members of the collective and surrounding community run the operations within the Theater and meeting space and also participate in alternative schools, such as the high school for teenage mothers, the Catherine Ferguson Academy and CFA farm, The Hub of Detroit (a cycling non-profit located in the city's Cass Corridor), to Detroit organizations promoting urban agriculture such as Earthworks, and to a variety of other causes and organizations. The Detroit IWW currently holds monthly General Membership Branch meetings in the theater for example. A zine Library was near completion as of June 2011 and the collective behind it was set to appear at the 2011 Allied Media Conference in Detroit with a zine lounge. According to their wordpress and monthly calendar the zine library would be open a few days a week with regular hours and had plans to house over 2,000 independently published books, pamphlets, and fanzines, many of which came from the now defunct Idle Kids infoshop in Cass Corridor.

Heidelberg Project

The Heidelberg Project is an outdoor art project in Detroit, Michigan. It was created in 1986 by artist Tyree Guyton and his grandfather Sam Mackey as an outdoor art environment in the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood on the city's east side, just north of the city's historically African-American Black Bottom area. The Heidelberg Project is in part a political protest, as Tyree Guyton's childhood neighborhood began to deteriorate after the 1967 riots. Guyton described coming back to Heidelberg Street after serving in the Army; he was astonished to see that the surrounding neighborhood looked as if "a bomb went off". At first, the project consisted of his painting a series of houses on Detroit's Heidelberg Street with bright dots of many colors and attaching salvaged items to the houses. It was a constantly evolving work that transformed a hard-core inner city neighborhood where people were afraid to walk, even in daytime, into one in which neighbors took pride and where visitors were many and welcomed. Tyree Guyton worked on the Heidelberg Project daily with the children on the block. He and director Jenenne Whitfield gave lectures and workshops on the project around the country. Their main goal was to develop the Heidelberg Project into the city's first indoor and outdoor museum, complete with an artists' colony, creative art center, community garden, amphitheater, and more. In 2005 the Heidelberg Project was awarded the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence silver medal.

Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History

The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History is located in the Cultural Center of the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. Founded in 1965, the museum holds the world's largest permanent exhibit on African-American culture. In 1997, Detroit architects Sims-Varner & Associates (now SDG Associates) designed a new 120,000 square foot (11,000 m²) facility on Warren Avenue. The Wright Museum has dual missions, serving as both a museum of artifacts and a place of cultural retention and growth. A wall of the museum has the museum's official poem, written by Melba Boyd, inscribed in bronze on it.The Museum owns more than 35,000 artifacts and archival materials. Some of the major collections it is home to include the Blanche Coggin Underground Railroad Collection, the Harriet Tubman Museum Collection, a Coleman A. Young Collection and a collection of documents about the labor movement in Detroit called the Sheffield Collection. Also in the museum is an interactive exhibit called And Still We Rise: Our Journey through African American History and Culture, seven exhibition areas devoted to African Americans and their lives, the Louise Lovett Wright Research Library, and the General Motors Theater, which is a 317-seat facility for film, live performances, lectures, and presentations. A terrazzo tile creation by artist Hubert Massey entitled "Genealogy" is in the Ford Freedom Rotunda Floor and the museum is topped by a 100 feet (30 m) by 55 feet (17 m) glass dome. The museum store sells authentic African art and books, as well as other merchandise. In August, the museum hosts the African World Festival, a free, three-day festival celebrating the culture of the African diaspora. Dr. Charles Wright, a practicing physician and gynecologist, was inspired to create an institution to preserve African-American history after he visited a memorial to Danish World War II heroes in Denmark. In 1965, Dr. Charles H. Wright opened the International Afro-American Museum on 1549 West Grand Boulevard in a house he owned. Some of the exhibits included the inventions of Michigander Elijah McCoy, and masks from Nigeria and Ghana that he had acquired while visiting there. The next year, he opened a traveling exhibit to tour the state. In 1978, the city of Detroit leased the museum a plot of land in Midtown near the Detroit Public Library, the Detroit Institute of Art, and the Detroit Science Center. Groundbreaking for a new museum occurred in 1985, and the museum was renamed the Museum of African American History.

Belle Isle Park

Belle Isle, officially Belle Isle Park, is a 982-acre island park in the Detroit River, between the United States mainland and Canada. Owned by the City of Detroit, it is managed as a state park by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources through a 30-year lease initiated in 2013. Belle Isle is the largest city-owned island park in the United States and is the third largest island in the Detroit River after Grosse Ile and Fighting Island. It is connected to mainland Detroit by the MacArthur Bridge. The island is home to the Belle Isle Aquarium, the Belle Isle Conservatory, the Belle Isle Nature Zoo, the Detroit Yacht Club on an adjacent island, the James Scott Memorial Fountain, the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, a Coast Guard station, a municipal golf course and numerous monuments. It also previously housed a Nature Center where visitors were able to traverse wooded trails and view wildlife natural habitats, a former Belle Isle Zoo, riding stables and the Detroit Boat Club. The island includes a half-mile swimming beach.

MotorCity Casino Hotel

MotorCity Casino Hotel is a casino and hotel in Detroit, Michigan. It is one of three casino hotels in the city, and one of four in the Detroit–Windsor area. The $825 million complex incorporates a historic building that once housed the Wagner Baking Company, makers of Wonder Bread. The complex houses a 100,000 square-foot casino with approximately 3,000 slot machines, 59 table games, and two poker rooms; a 13,000-square-foot spa; 67,000 square feet of meeting and convention space; Sound Board, a live music theater with a capacity of 2,400 people; and a luxury hotel with 400 guest rooms and suites. Opened by Mandalay Resort Group, MotorCity Casino Hotel was purchased by Marian Ilitch of IH Gaming . Detroit is one of the largest American cities and metropolitan regions to offer casino resort hotels.

Fort Wayne

Fort Wayne is located in the city of Detroit, Michigan, at the foot of Livernois Avenue in the Delray neighborhood. The fort is situated on the Detroit River at a point where it is about a mile to the Canadian shore. The original 1848 limestone barracks still stands, as does the 1845 star fortification . On the fort grounds but outside the original star fort are additional barracks, officers quarters, hospital, shops, recreation building, commissary, guard house, garage, and stables. The fort sits on 96 acres . Since the 1970s, 83 acres, including the original star fort and a number of buildings, has been operated by the city of Detroit. The remaining area is operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a boatyard. The fort was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1958 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

Detroit International Riverfront

The Detroit International Riverfront is a tourist attraction and landmark of Detroit, Michigan extending from the Ambassador Bridge in the west to Belle Isle in the east, for a total of 5½ miles . The International Riverfront encompasses a cruise ship passenger terminal and dock, a marina, a multitude of parks, restaurants, retail shops, skyscrapers, and high rise residential areas along with Cobo Convention/Exhibition Center and Joe Louis Arena. The Marriott at the Renaissance Center and the Roberts Riverwalk Hotel are also situated along the International Riverfront. Private companies and foundations together with the city, state, and federal government have contributed several hundred million dollars toward the riverfront development. Key public spaces in the International Riverfront, such as the RiverWalk, Dequindre Cut Greenway and Trail, William G. Milliken State Park and Harbor, and a cruise ship passenger terminal and dock at Hart Plaza complement the architecture of the area. The area provides a venue for a variety of annual events and festivals including the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, Detroit Free Press International Marathon, the Detroit International Jazz Festival, Motor City Pride, the North American International Auto Show, and River Days.
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