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Preservation Wayne


baldy

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I found this link buried in another post and thought it was worth it's own.

http://www.preservationwayne.org/

Preservation Wayne is dedicated to perserving Detroit's great architecture!

The also offer walking tours of various parts of Detroit. I have been looking for something like this for a while and never knew they existed. There are general tours offered every Saturday morning during the summer months at 10:00 and specific "after work" tours starting at 5:30 on Tuesdays. The specic tours of downtown are rotated through out the summer and include, skyscrapers, the works of Albert Kahn, work of Louis Kamper. Cost of the tours are $10 and are limited to 10 people.

The next skyscraper tour is on July 20th and at the end of the tour, you get to visit the observation deck of the Penobscot building! Now I have seen pictures from up here, but I didn't know the public had access. Does anyone know if you can go up there at anytime, or is this a special feature of the tour? Also, are there any other "observation" decks downtown which are available to the public?

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The Penobscot deck is Detroit's closely guarded secret. The only way to get up there is through the Preservation Wayne tour. There was an observation deck in the Ren Cen for years, but that closed and will be opening up in the fall as an upscale restaurant. The Bulh Building also had a restauant at the top of the building for years, but it also closed. The main tenant in the Buhl plans to re-open the restaurant once the restaurant market improves downtown.

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I went on the walking tour of downtown on Saturday morning. It was very informative and although I knew some stuff and added some stuff, there was still a lot that I learned. I would highly recommend it. We tried to get up to the observation deck of the penobscot, but the building security would not let us up and apparently this is only allowed for the skyscpraper tour only.

Speaking of the skyscraper tour, I won't be around on the 20th to take it, but I found out that if I can gather up about 10 people, we can have the tour whenever we want! I would really prefer to do it on a Saturday around noon, and was thinking on the 24th of this month.

Please let me know if you would be interested in attending and I will set everything up. The cost of the tour is $10, which is worth it just to have the opportunity to go to the penobscot building observation deck!

Edit:

The Wirt Rowland collection is a traveling show and for the month of July, is in the lobby of the Gaurdian Building even though it is under construction. This weekend was also the first time I went inside and the lobby of the Gaurdian is probably the best I have ever seen!

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Yeah, the ren cen restaraunt in longer but I hear another one should be opening shortly. We tried to go up there earlier in the year, but the elevator button for the top didn't work. As for the Penobscot, we tried with the tour this weekend to get up there, and the security was pretty tight. The guy said some people have gotten fired for letting people up to the observation deck, so he wasn't about to let us go :D Ivory tower, how did you mangage to get up there all those time?

One of the things I really want to do in the next year is get to the top of several buildings to take pictures and get up in an air plane to take pictures above the city and surrounding areas. Looks like I will be getting to go up in atleast one building, and I'm still working on the plane.

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Yeah, the ren cen restaraunt in longer but I hear another one should be opening shortly. We tried to go up there earlier in the year, but the elevator button for the top didn't work. As for the Penobscot, we tried with the tour this weekend to get up there, and the security was pretty tight. The guy said some people have gotten fired for letting people up to the observation deck, so he wasn't about to let us go :D Ivory tower, how did you mangage to get up there all those time?

One of the things I really want to do in the next year is get to the top of several buildings to take pictures and get up in an air plane to take pictures above the city and surrounding areas. Looks like I will be getting to go up in atleast one building, and I'm still working on the plane.

Well it's good they are reopening the summit, it would be a shame to close down such a great 360 degree veiw from 700+ ft. up.

The Penobscott used to be open to the public and I suppose now it's not.

That's the only thing I can think to explain why I've been able to just go up there and now people can't.

The last time I went was in 96.

My parents went up a few times when they were younger.

The only thing I can think of is that security must have tightened after 9-11.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was wondering if you went. I would have been there, but I was out of town and didn't get back until 9:30.

I still haven't heard back from preservation wayne about setting up a separate tour for this, so it looks like it isn't going to happen this weekend. I am still going to keep on them to try for another Saturday afternoon. I will try to make it to the Sept tour and I imagine the view up on the Penobscot at sunset is amazing!

Alan I can't wait to see the pictures you took from up there!

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Unfortunately it was hazy, but I still got some good pics. Yesterday was not the best day downtown because it was so hot & muggy all day. Still, we spent a good 8 hours between photo taking and the P.W. tour.

Did you call or email P.W.? If you call them you may get an answer faster.

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I've been busy, and I'm leaving on vacation, so unless I get time tomorrow morning, the Penobscot thread will have to wait until I get back, which is fine, since I don't like the idea of posting a few hundered photos, and then leaving for a week right afterwards.

BTW, I looked at my class schedule, and it appears that I might be able to make it on the night tour, so as long as I can spare 2 hours out of my day, I'll be able to get some shots from the Penobscot at night. I'll just cross my fingers and hope that I don't have some sort of gargantuan project that's due the next day. LOL.

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  • 2 weeks later...

They are posted in the photos section. ;)

Detroit from Above, Part 1

Detroit from Above, Part 2

I've got about 300 photos from that day that I haven't gotten around to posting. Haha, actually in all I've got about 500 photos of Detroit that I've never gotten around to posting. I'd like to eventually build a website to house all of them, but I can't afford to. :(

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