Guides · Detroit
Detroit
25 places · 7 areas · a free route, then $4.99 for the whole city · offline map 6.9 MB
The free route
Free in the app, permanently, before you pay anything. 7 stops, 1 day, about 6 km, planned by the app's own engine.
Day 1 · ~6 km
1
Dequindre Cut
from the Riverwalk north to Eastern Market; sunken rail-line greenway lined with graffiti
Walk or bike the sunken path from the riverfront up to Eastern Market, looking at the graffiti on the old bridge walls.
2
Eastern Market
northeast of downtown; the largest historic public market district in the US, busiest on Saturdays
Come on a Saturday morning to walk the market sheds among the farmers and flower stalls, then wander the side streets to see the murals.
3
Fox Theatre
Woodward Ave at Grand Circus Park; C. Howard Crane's movie palace of 1928, the largest surviving from the 1920s
See the marquee on Woodward at night, and catch a show to see the auditorium and its huge glass chandelier.
4
Campus Martius Park
Woodward Ave downtown; the city's central square since 1805, reborn as a park in 2004
Find the Point of Origin medallion by the Woodward Fountain, see the Civil War monument, and in winter watch the skaters on the rink.
5
Guardian Building
500 Griswold St; Wirt Rowland's Art Deco Cathedral of Finance of 1929, with a tiled lobby open to all
Walk into the three-story vaulted lobby to look up at the Pewabic and Rookwood tiles, and find Ezra Winter's mural of Michigan industries.
6
Hart Plaza
riverfront downtown; 14-acre plaza of 1975 with Noguchi's Dodge Fountain, where Detroit was founded in 1701
Walk around Isamu Noguchi's Dodge Fountain and his spiraling steel Pylon, then go to the river's edge for the Gateway to Freedom memorial, looking across to Canada.
7
Renaissance Center
riverfront downtown; John Portman's tower cluster of 1977, with Michigan's tallest building
See the glass towers from the Riverwalk, and if the Wintergarden is open walk through it to the river.
More of the top sights
A few of the 25 places in the full guide. Each one has its own written guide in the app: what to do, what to notice, the history, and why it hits.
Michigan Central Station
Corktown; Beaux-Arts station of 1914, a ruin for decades, reopened by Ford in 2024
Belle Isle Park
Detroit River; 982-acre island park laid out in part by Olmsted, a state park since 2014
Detroit Institute of Arts
5200 Woodward Ave; encyclopedic art museum of 1927 with Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry murals
Detroit Riverwalk
along the Detroit River; wide riverfront promenade running east toward Belle Isle, with Canada across the water
Motown Museum
2648 West Grand Blvd; Hitsville U.S.A., first home of Motown Records, with Studio A
Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory
Belle Isle; Albert Kahn's glasshouse of 1904 with an 85-foot palm dome and a famed orchid collection
Areas
Downtown and Riverfront · Eastern Market · Midtown · New Center · Corktown · Belle Isle · East Side
Illustrations are drawn for the app. Place descriptions are written by hand and checked against a primary source; facts draw on Wikidata (CC0) and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors.