Famous people's places / Detroit – Midtown
Closed – archive entry3-D Record Mart
Berry Gordy's first business, a short-lived jazz record shop on Detroit's west side that taught him the lessons behind Motown.
DETROIT / Places to explore / ¼
Places. A thousand stories.
Explore museums, parks, stages, and distinctive neighborhoods across Detroit and nearby cities. Each place comes with its own story and related events.
41 places found
Famous people's places / Bloomfield Hills
Academy of the Sacred Heart
A Catholic independent school in Bloomfield Hills founded in 1851, one of two schools actress Elizabeth Reaser attended growing up.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Brush Park
Albert Kahn House
The Prairie-style house Albert Kahn designed for himself in 1906, where he lived until his death in 1942; now the Detroit Urban League's headquarters.
Famous people's places / Detroit
Closed – archive entryAmerican Motors Headquarters (Plymouth Road)
Detroit's 1927 Kelvinator/Nash-Kelvinator complex, American Motors' headquarters where George W. Romney ran the company; demolished in 2022–2023.
Famous people's places / Detroit
Closed – archive entryAnna Records
The Detroit label run by Berry Gordy's sisters Anna and Gwen Gordy, a direct forerunner of Motown where Lamont Dozier got his start.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Downtown
Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac Statue, Hart Plaza
A riverfront statue at Hart Plaza honoring Detroit's French founder, unveiled on the city's 300th birthday in 2001.
Famous people's places / Troy
Athens High School
A public high school in Troy, Michigan, where actor Martin Klebba, known for the Pirates of the Caribbean films, graduated in the 1980s.
Famous people's places / Auburn Hills
Avondale High School
A public high school in Auburn Hills, Michigan, where actress Elizabeth Reaser graduated in 1993 after transferring from a Catholic school.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Downtown
Michigan Building (Bagley Avenue Workshop Site)
The Downtown Detroit site where Henry Ford built his first automobile in a small shed, later covered by the Michigan Theater and now a parking structure.
Famous people's places / Detroit – University District
Bates Academy
A Detroit public school for academically gifted students, attended in the 1990s by America's Next Top Model winner Naima Mora.
Famous people's places / Detroit – East Side
Battle of Bloody Run Historical Marker
A 1977 Michigan historical marker on East Jefferson Avenue recalling the 1763 ambush of British troops by Pontiac's warriors near Elmwood Cemetery.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Belle Isle
Closed – archive entryBelle Isle Bridge (1889–1915)
The original span to Belle Isle, from which Harry Houdini made his famous handcuffed river jump in 1906, before it burned down in 1915.
Famous people's places / Belleville
Belleville High School
The Van Buren Public Schools high school where Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson met and became the Belleville Three, founders of Detroit techno.
Famous people's places / Berkley
Berkley High School
A public high school in Berkley, Michigan, that actor Curtis Armstrong, best known as Booger in Revenge of the Nerds, graduated from in the early 1970s.
Famous people's places / Harper Woods
Closed – archive entryBishop Gallagher High School
A Catholic high school in Harper Woods, open from 1962 to 2005, where actor Danny Jacobs discovered acting before it merged and later closed.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Near East Side
Closed – archive entryBlack Bottom
Detroit's historic African American neighborhood east of downtown, home to a thriving Black community until 1950s–60s urban renewal razed it for I-375 and Lafayette Park.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Midtown
Bob's Classic Kicks
A Woodward Avenue sneaker store and hub of Detroit hip-hop culture, where rapper Dej Loaf performed early in her career at its Air Up There showcase.
Famous people's places / Detroit – East Side
James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership
The East Side Detroit home of activists James and Grace Lee Boggs from 1962 until their deaths, now headquarters of the community organization named for them.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Boston-Edison
Boston–Edison Historic District
A grand residential district on Detroit's west side, once home to Henry Ford, Berry Gordy, Joe Louis and other prominent Detroiters, still a residential neighborhood today.
Famous people's places / Southfield
Boy and Bear (Southfield Public Library)
Marshall Fredericks' beloved 1954 bronze-and-limestone sculpture, moved from the demolished Northland Center mall to the Southfield Public Library in 2015.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Near East Side
Closed – archive entryBrewster-Douglass Housing Projects
The nation's first federally subsidized housing for African Americans, home to Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard, Joe Louis and Smokey Robinson; demolished 1991–2014.
Famous people's places / Detroit – New Center
Cadillac Place
Albert Kahn's General Motors headquarters, home from 1922 to 1978 to the Campbell-Ewald ad agency, where copywriter Elmore Leonard worked; now Michigan state offices.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Downtown
Cadillac Square
Downtown Detroit's historic public square, once the site of City Hall and the Central Market, named for the city's French founder Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Downtown
Carl M. Levin Public Dock and Terminal
Detroit's riverfront cruise-ship terminal, opened in 2011 on a site used by passenger ships since 1909, named for U.S. Senator Carl Levin.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Midtown
Cass Technical High School
Detroit's storied magnet high school for technical, arts and academic training, opened in 1907, whose alumni include Diana Ross, Jack White and Big Sean.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Boston-Edison
Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament
Detroit's Catholic cathedral on Woodward Avenue, built 1913–1915 and consecrated as a cathedral in 1938, seat of archbishops Edmund Szoka and Allen Vigneron.
Famous people's places / Detroit
Central High School
Detroit's oldest public high school, founded in 1858, once housed in the former Michigan State Capitol building; alumnus Carl Levin graduated in 1952.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Downtown
Century Theatre
A small downtown Detroit theater built beside the Twentieth Century Club's 1903 clubhouse; moved five blocks in 1997 to make way for Comerica Park.
Famous people's places / Hamtramck
Closed – archive entryChevrolet Gear & Axle Plant
GM's Chevrolet forge and axle complex on the Detroit-Hamtramck border, where poet Philip Levine worked nights in the 1950s; closed 2012, demolished 2013.
Famous people's places / Bloomfield Hills
Christ Church Cranbrook
George and Ellen Booth's Episcopal church on the Cranbrook estate, opened in 1928 and rich in Arts and Crafts stone, glass and metalwork.
Famous people's places / Livonia
Churchill High School
A Livonia public high school, opened in 1968 and known for its Creative and Performing Arts program, where actress Judy Greer studied.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Downtown
City Theatre
A 400-seat downtown Detroit theater, opened in 2004 inside the Hockeytown Café, where Mitch Albom's play Ernie premiered in 2011.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Mexicantown / Hubbard Farms
Clark Park
Southwest Detroit's main community park since 1890, in the heart of Mexicantown, where musician Jack White played baseball as a boy.
Famous people's places / Clarkston
Clarkston High School
Clarkston's only public high school, in its current building since 1999, where actor Michael Raymond-James graduated in 1996.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Midtown
College for Creative Studies
Detroit's leading private art and design college, descended from the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts, founded by George Gough Booth in 1906.
Famous people's places / Detroit – Conant Gardens
Conant Gardens
Once Detroit's most prosperous Black neighborhood, settled from 1928 by families shut out of restricted districts elsewhere; birthplace of jazz pianist Tommy Flanagan.
Famous people's places / Bloomfield Hills
Cranbrook Academy of Art
Eliel Saarinen's graduate art academy and museum, one of America's most influential design schools, whose students included Charles and Ray Eames and Harry Bertoia.
Famous people's places / Bloomfield Hills
Cranbrook School
George Gough Booth's 1927 boarding school for boys, whose students included Mitt Romney, Daniel Ellsberg and novelist Edmund White.
Famous people's places / Bloomfield Hills
Cranbrook House and Gardens
Albert Kahn's Arts and Crafts manor for George and Ellen Booth, completed in 1908 and the seed of the entire Cranbrook Educational Community.
Famous people's places / Bloomfield Hills
Cranbrook Kingswood
Eliel Saarinen's 1931 masterpiece school for girls, championed by Ellen Scripps Booth, where actress Selma Blair studied in the 1980s.
Famous people's places / Detroit – North End
North End, Detroit
One of Detroit's most important historically Black neighborhoods, home in the 1940s and 1950s to Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin and the Four Tops.
An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.