Downtown Detroit, Detroit — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Downtown Detroit?

Downtown Detroit packs its landmarks close together. Little Caesars Arena anchors the northern blocks, and near it the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History gathers the district's civic and cultural halls. Older stone marks the older story.

Mariners' Church and Christ Church Detroit stand near the river, the Statue of Alexander Macomb rises over its square, and the brick Beaubien House and Ransom Gillis House survive from the district's nineteenth-century streets.

What is the history of Downtown Detroit?

Downtown Detroit is the city's oldest ground. Its riverfront blocks grew first, and the Federal-style Beaubien House and the Gothic Mariners' Church survive from the years when the district was the whole of Detroit, before the automobile spread the city outward across the plain. Commerce along the river raised these first blocks.

Grand churches followed, among them Fort Street Presbyterian Church and Christ Church Detroit, and the Statue of Alexander Macomb was raised to honour the general who once governed the territory. The core kept its old bones as towers rose around them.

Where is Downtown Detroit?

Downtown Detroit is the central district of Detroit, a compact core wrapped around Little Caesars Arena and the blocks running down to the Detroit River.