162 Comments for Metropolitan Building

What is that building to the right between the Wurlitzer and the Ford Field? It looks like it could be a library.

This architecture is stately enough to be a cathedral.

I was hoping for a new gallery. Hopefully Detroit will experience a renewal one of these days.

Metropolitan Building does not look like it is such a bad state.
Sure hope this is kept - it sure is beautiful.

So many items and practices of past years were hazardous, we just didn't know it at the time. Look at children's toys from the early part of the last century, even into the 1970s. Made of cast iron or sheet tin with sharp edges that would slice your arm off! Yet kids played with them. I remember a James Bond toy car I had in the 70's that was made of tin and had sharp edges, small parts and pointy things all over it. I played with it a lot and didn't get hurt. Now I wish I still had that stupid thing because I've seen them on eBay selling for many hundreds of dollars!

Probably no one stole the radiators because they each weigh a ton. I took radiators out of a house once and just about broke my back doing it.

this building seems to be in bad shape. It's hard for me to imagine that there are lots of buildings looking like that in Detroit.

Now that money said it- I also think they look like little dead cows.
How come nobody stole the radiators? I meand, the metal is worthy (is that the right word?).

Yeah, many of the radium dial painters suffered horrific radioactive-induced deaths from working at watch factories. A lawsuit finally ended the practice, filed by women who worked at a plant in NJ, known as the Radium Girls, though they were testifying on their death beds. Pretty crazy stuff.

That tall handsome building back there is the Book Tower built in 1916, and it's just covered in 100 years worth of soot. Yup it was abandoned, but like many buildings downtown it was purchased by Dan Gilbert and will likely be renovated soon.

They're painted over; I think the entire facade became covered in graffiti.

I believe those are corrugated panes of plastic material; lets more natural light into the interior spaces.

Now I REALLY hope the people restoring this building keep all of this, by the love of all that is holy. This is a grandeur that should not be replaced by something modern and unappealing.

*least. Curse my inability to proof read my typing.

I really hope they keep, or at leasty reproduce, all this tilework and timber. It is so beautiful that it would be a heart crushing shame to have it taken out.