Grand Circus Park Historic District

Grand Circus Park Historic District

Encyclopedia

Tutorials

Encyclopedia

Dictionary

Directory

Email this to a friend Grand Circus Park Historic District

Grand Circus Park Historic District

Grand Circus Park Historic District contains the five acre Grand Circus Park in downtown Detroit, Michigan that connects the theatre district with its financial center. It is bisected by Woodward Avenue, four blocks north of Campus Martius Park, and is roughly bounded by Clifford, John R. and Adams Streets. The building at 25 W. Elizabeth was added to the district in 2000.

History
Photo gallery
See also
Notes
References
External links

History

A part of Augustus Woodward's plan to rebuild the city after the fire of 1805, The city established the park in 1850. The Detroit Opera House faces Grand Circus Park. The grounds include antique statuary and old-fashioned water fountains. Near this historic site, General George Armstrong Custer delivered a eulogy for thousands gathered to mourn the death of President Abraham Lincoln. Architect Henry Bacon designed the Russell Alger Memorial Fountain (1921) in Grand Circus Park. Bacon's other projects include the Lincoln Memorial (1915-1922) in Washington, DC. The Russell Alger Memorial Fountain contains a classic Roman figure symbolizing Michigan by American sculptor Daniel French who sculpted Abraham Lincoln inside the Lincoln Memorial.^[1]

The half-moon shaped park is divided down its center by Woodward Avenue, the city's main thoroughfare. Its eastern half is anchored by the Alger Fountain and capped on its north western edge with a statue of William Cotter Maybury. Its western half is anchored by the Edison Fountain and capped on its north eastern edge with a statue of Hazen Pingree.

Grand Circus Park in summer 2007

Among the notable buildings encircling the park are the David Broderick Tower and David Whitney Building on the south, Kales Building, former Adams Theater, and First Methodist Church on the north, and Comerica Park and Detroit Opera House on the East. The western edge of the park was formerly home to the now demolished Statler Hotel and Hotel Tuller. Because many of the buildings that surround the park are abandoned, the area has been sometimes referred to as a "skyscraper graveyard". In 1996 Camilo José Vergara in his book American Ruins suggested that 12 blocks around the park be turned into a ruins theme park, "I propose that as a tonic for our imagination, as a call for renewal, as a place within our national memory, a dozen city blocks of pre-Depression skyscrapers be stabilized and left standing as ruins: an American Acropolis. We could transform the nearly 100 troubled buildings into a grand national park of play and wonder". Thanks in part to the new downtown stadium and the general revival of the downtown the fortunes of these skyscrapers are brighter, as many undergoing or are planned for renovation.

Photo gallery

<gallery> Image:Grand_Circus_Park.jpg|Grand Circus Park showing Thomas Edison Memorial Fountain in Detroit, Michigan Image:GradCircusParkfountainDetroitMI.jpg|Thomas Edison Memorial Fountain again Image:Detroit Mayor William H. Maybury.jpg|Detroit Mayor William C. Maybury. Image:Pengree statue, Grad Circus Park, Detroit.jpg|Hazen S. Pingree statue, Grand Circus Park, Detroit Image:Grand Circus Park path - Detroit Michigan.jpg|The lush green in the city's center is a common lunch spot for office workers. Image:RussellAlgersfoundGCircParkdetroit.jpg|Russell Alger Memorial Fountain is the only Daniel Chester French statue in Detroit. Image:Central Methodist at Detroit Grand Circus Park.jpg|Central United Methodist Church, in Victorian gothic style, overlooks Grand Circus Park. Image:Old map 1807 plan.jpg|Augustus Woodward's plan following the 1805 fire for Detroit's baroque styled radial avenues and Grand Circus Park. Image:25ElizabethDetroit.jpg|25 West Elizabeth </gallery>