While walking through much of downtown Detroit can be like touring a not so amusing ghost town, the eastern area along the riverfront is a vibrant and rather attractive section of the city with lots t
April 1, 2006 (Press Release) --
Rivertown
While walking through much of downtown Detroit can be like touring a not so amusing ghost town, the eastern area along the riverfront is a vibrant and rather attractive section of the city with lots to see and do. Detroit's black circular glass Renaissance Center (RenCen) is full of offices, hotels, restaurants and shops. From the top, it has a stupendous view of the Great Lakes, Michigan's prairies and nearby Canada - worth a peruse either from the revolving restaurant or the free viewing deck.
Walking distance from the glitzy RenCen is Greektown, a packed 8-block hub of Mediterranean life, full of traditional Greek restaurants, fresh-baked baklava bakeries, bustling coffeehouses and ouzerias. There's also an active Greek orthodox church that's quite easy on the eyes. Nearby is Trappers Alley, a historic fur trapper's warehouse that now houses shops and a museum.
Cultural Center
A few miles north of downtown is the Cultural Center, a cluster of world class galleries and museums. The collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts spans 5000 years, but its pièce de résistance is a Diego Rivera mural called Detroit Industry, which takes up all four walls of a large interior garden court. Rivera painted the 27 fresco panels in 1932 to depict the auto industry and contrast the area's natural resources with its factories. Little did he know that times would get tough for both the industry and its workers a few decades later. The Ford Motor Company's plant at River Rouge (south of Detroit) served as a model for parts of the mural. The Detroit Historical Museum, a couple of doors away, fills in the blanks of Detroit's earlier days. Its exhibits include Detroit at work, a chronology of the auto industry and recreated Detroit streets from the 1840s, 1870s and early 1900s.
Detroit was an important station along the Underground Railroad, a rough and tumble network of escape routes used by abolitionists and African-American slaves who traveled from America's southern states, through the US north and into Canada. The Second Baptist Church of Detroit was the city's first African-American church and served as a leading 'station' on the Underground Railroad in the mid-1800s. Today it gives tours of the crawl spaces where the slaves were hidden on their journey. The Museum of African American History is the world's largest African-American historical and cultural museum with exhibits, classes, a library and theater. The museum is in the heart of the Cultural Center, one block from the Institute of Arts and near the Detroit Science Center, a space dedicated to scientific interaction and featuring an IMAX theater.
Source: http://www.yahoo.com
While walking through much of downtown Detroit can be like touring a not so amusing ghost town, the eastern area along the riverfront is a vibrant and rather attractive section of the city with lots to see and do. Detroit's black circular glass Renaissance Center (RenCen) is full of offices, hotels, restaurants and shops. From the top, it has a stupendous view of the Great Lakes, Michigan's prairies and nearby Canada - worth a peruse either from the revolving restaurant or the free viewing deck.
Walking distance from the glitzy RenCen is Greektown, a packed 8-block hub of Mediterranean life, full of traditional Greek restaurants, fresh-baked baklava bakeries, bustling coffeehouses and ouzerias. There's also an active Greek orthodox church that's quite easy on the eyes. Nearby is Trappers Alley, a historic fur trapper's warehouse that now houses shops and a museum.
Cultural Center
A few miles north of downtown is the Cultural Center, a cluster of world class galleries and museums. The collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts spans 5000 years, but its pièce de résistance is a Diego Rivera mural called Detroit Industry, which takes up all four walls of a large interior garden court. Rivera painted the 27 fresco panels in 1932 to depict the auto industry and contrast the area's natural resources with its factories. Little did he know that times would get tough for both the industry and its workers a few decades later. The Ford Motor Company's plant at River Rouge (south of Detroit) served as a model for parts of the mural. The Detroit Historical Museum, a couple of doors away, fills in the blanks of Detroit's earlier days. Its exhibits include Detroit at work, a chronology of the auto industry and recreated Detroit streets from the 1840s, 1870s and early 1900s.
Detroit was an important station along the Underground Railroad, a rough and tumble network of escape routes used by abolitionists and African-American slaves who traveled from America's southern states, through the US north and into Canada. The Second Baptist Church of Detroit was the city's first African-American church and served as a leading 'station' on the Underground Railroad in the mid-1800s. Today it gives tours of the crawl spaces where the slaves were hidden on their journey. The Museum of African American History is the world's largest African-American historical and cultural museum with exhibits, classes, a library and theater. The museum is in the heart of the Cultural Center, one block from the Institute of Arts and near the Detroit Science Center, a space dedicated to scientific interaction and featuring an IMAX theater.
Source: http://www.yahoo.com
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