The Book Tower Restoration Project

[Burnsie]

As far as the fact that the Book Tower was decorated like a wedding cake... that is an interesting analogy...

A 5/31/70 Free Press feature notes the Book Tower's "horizontal rows of wedding cake ornamentation." If memory serves, W. Hawkins Ferry's "Buildings of Detroit" also refers to the "wedding cake" look of Kamper's Book Cadillac. That hotel has looked a bit unbalanced ever since the 6th and 27th floor cornices were removed in early 1959.

It's a bit of a miracle that the Book Building and Tower's ornamentation all survived the cornice removal spree of 1958-1959 which followed Myrtle Taggart's death from Winkelman's crashing cornice. Some of those were inspected, found unstable and ordered removed by the city. But much was simply voluntarily scraped off by building owners in an overall push to "modernize" them.