UPDATE: Interesting update on the Book Building restoration from Crain's. The famous nude female caryatids are being removed/replaced.

"Every 16 feet of it weighs about 15,000 pounds, Olszewski said. The 12 steel-filled terra cotta caryatids — carvings of semi-nude female figures — with embedded steel support for the overhang have been deteriorating from rust for decades, posing a danger to passersby underneath."
JUMP TO UPDATE post with picture of replacement caryatid. >>

Name: caryatids.jpg Views: 944 Size: 22.1 KB

Original 2009 post on this top follows:
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Getting back to one of my favorite topics, Detroit's fantastic architecture, I'd like to start this thread as a vigil, watching over the fate of the gilded bronze cherub clock hanging from the ceiling of the Book Building's Washington Boulevard entrance, which is easily seen from the street.

I will predict here that by summer's end, the clock, along with any extraneous copper that might be on the roof will be completely stripped from the building. The rows of caryatids supporting the building's cornice are probably going to be removed by scrappers as well.

Since seeing the copper roof on the Lee Plaza being stripped in broad daylight, I'm betting the Book Tower and Building will suffer a similar fate.

If any of the forum members have a chance to once in a while do a drive-by and notice the cherub clock still hanging there, please report it here.

It's been six weeks since I've been there, so I'm hoping as of this writing it's still there, but I fear "time" is running out on this fantastic c. 1917 original feature of this most tremendous of buildings.