How Much Time do the Book Building's Cherub Clock and caryatids have Left

[Lorax]

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. >>



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.

[Gsgeorge]

Well this will really help the scrappers if they want to know right where the valuable stuff is....

[wolverine]

This thread is kind of pointless. I can understand there would be concern if the guard was let go, but there's already multiple Book Tower threads to discuss any action.

[Khartoum]

Why the hell would scrappers steal the caryatids?

I know Lee Plaza had architectural features stolen, but that's outside of downtown. I can't see scrappers carefully chiseling out those giant caryatids and delicately carrying them downstairs.

I mean it is Detroit, stranger things have happened. Just saying.

[iheartthed]

They better hurry. Analysts are projecting a decline in copper prices...

[Sstashmoo]

Still in awe about the axe marks in the Spirit of Detroit's arms. That just floored me. I can see some guy with an axe in the middle of the night swinging away.

[Gsgeorge]

Do you really not know anything? You know that all entrances have been boarded over, a security guard is staffed 24 hours, and maintenance is periodical. You do know that, right?

If the clock was to be stolen, it would have been at the beginning of the year. From what I have heard from many people the building was open to trespass for about a month. A photo from this period I seen online on flickr shows vandalism on the roof. A 'gsgeorge' tagged/wrote his name on the roof. When I asked here before if this could be the same person all I got was silence.

Just about everyone and their mom knew my friend Ryan and I were up there when the tower was open ... along with several dozen other photographers and history buffs over those weeks. It opened up a pretty interesting debate on flickr which can be seen in the comments of the photo. I've already said my two cents there. Also talk to the guys who ripped out the electrical boxes and threw bowling balls around on the 20th floor if you want to accuse people of vandalism.

[Lonyo exit]

If you're such a "history buff" then why would you spray-paint your dumb-ass name on a historic building?

[Lorax]

I started this thread to raise awareness, to be vigilant in keeping a watch on this superb pair of buildings, I'm sure we can all agree that's a good thing.

I doubt any scrappers are reading this forum, quite a leap to assume many of them can read, or own a computer.

If the building was once open, it most likely will be again, guard or no guard. The Lee Plaza has certainly hundreds of cars going by on any given day, and still the copper roof and terracotta lion heads were stolen. I called the cops myself, and was told they don't have the resources to send a car for property crimes.

And people wonder if the caryatids will be stolen in broad daylight?

Does anyone remember back in the late 80's when the lamp posts and railings designed by Samuel Yellin on the terraces of the DPL were stolen in the middle of the night?

You do know that cops noticed what appeared to be an official city work crew in safety orange and hardhats with lights on, removing them, at night, and did nothing.

Next morning it was all over the news. The railing inserts and lamp posts were stolen. The irreplaceable bronze work was "found" at a scrapper's yard, whom, everyone thought was a good samaritan, who called the city, saying he had these items, and paid cash to some guys, but thought the better of it, before melting them down.

Truth is, the city had to pay this guy to get the stuff back, and no doubt kickbacks were handed to one of CAY's cronies in this obviously planned pillage. The follow-up to the story was buried, and no one went to jail over this.

Detroit has a history of this kind of crap going on, and the DPL case wasn't an isolated incident.

Please, let's keep a watch ouselves, since the city, most building owners, and the police have no interest in doing so.

[SaintMe]

Just about everyone and their mom knew my friend Ryan and I were up there when the tower was open ... along with several dozen other photographers and history buffs over those weeks. It opened up a pretty interesting debate on flickr which can be seen in the comments of the photo. I've already said my two cents there. Also talk to the guys who ripped out the electrical boxes and threw bowling balls around on the 20th floor if you want to accuse people of vandalism.

That photo is sick! Wow.

[stromberg2]

Unbelievable shot!! WOW!!

Stromberg2

[Gsgeorge]

If you're such a "history buff" then why would you spray-paint your dumb-ass name on a historic building?

First off I didn't spray-paint it, and I never would use spray paint or any kind of paint because that actually causes damage. I'm not one for tagging, and never have before, but this was a bit different because, well, look at the photo above. It's like if you climbed Devil's Tower in Wyoming, wouldn't you carve your name in a rock up there? We went once, we knew we'd never be back, and we wanted to leave a little proof behind. So we scrawled "I was here" and our nicknames and the date on a small part of the roof.

I used a non-permanent black marker on a metal piece of the building's upper roof that was out-of-sight from the public and anyone who would be using the building on a daily basis. The only people who would ever see it would be utility people and the occasional urban explorer. I honestly thought my little 4-inch-by-4-inch "I was here" tag would wash off after a few weeks of sun, snow, and rain, and it probably has. I'm not exactly painting "WARD" all over the windows or "GARY" on the copper roof in huge 8-foot-tall letters. If you can't see the difference then I don't know what to tell you. I didn't do it to tout my 'tagger name' or get exposure or whatever these guys do. It was no different to me than carving your initials and the date in a tree at the top of the Alligator Hill overlook in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Immature, maybe, but not anything that is going to destroy or compromise the Park's status as a National Lakeshore -- or in this case, compromise the historic integrity of the building.

I'm not endorsing trespassing. I would be happy to pay the fine if it was levied against me. I think it's for the better if the building remains sealed and I hope to see it restored in the future, and would fight tirelessly to save it if the DEGC threatened to bring it down.

[Patrick]

If it is closed and not your property you have no business inside. Doesn't matter if you were just there to admire the views.

[RickBeall]

Awesome picture!

If it's open, it's going to be explored! We'll probably be glad the pictures exist in 20 years once the buildings are long gone.

[Lorax]

Awesome picture!

If it's open, it's going to be explored! We'll probably be glad the pictures exist in 20 years once the buildings are long gone.

No doubt much of what is in those wonderful photos won't exist in the near future. Certainly I fear that the Book Tower/Building are next in line, perhaps after the David Whitney, Broderick, and Stott Towers, which are not going to get restored anytime soon.

I have no problem at this point with people taking photos, or indeed trespassing for the common good, since the building owners, the city, and the police aren't interested in what's going on.

I even empathize with scrapping to a point. Better the details of a building are saved when a building is going to come down.

The city, in it's zeal to demolish as many buildings as it can force the feds to pay for, should have a program of methodically stripping doomed buildings, placing the pieces in storage at the DHS, where they can be placed on display at some future date, much as the Athenians did with the Parthenon, and other pillaged historic sites.

I would rather these appurtanences be available for the public's view than blended into the modern architecture of some billionaire's subruban gated community. Planning such a stripping at least makes the city take some ownership of what they are doing, and the public can then have access to these artifacts one day.

The Lafayette building's cornice needs to be removed and kept in storage, and any other ornamentation designed by the great C. Howard Crane which will otherwise end up in a landfill.

[dexterferry]

"much as the Athenians did with the Parthenon,"

you mean lord elgin? there's a place where the best parts of the parthenon were kept after they were stripped. it's called the british museum. goddamn scrappers.

detroit's elgin marbles are the lee plaza lions watching contentedly over the gentrified north chicago neighborhood where the condos they are incorporated into were built.

[Lorax]

"much as the Athenians did with the Parthenon,"

you mean lord elgin? there's a place where the best parts of the parthenon were kept after they were stripped. it's called the british museum. goddamn scrappers.

detroit's elgin marbles are the lee plaza lions watching contentedly over the gentrified north chicago neighborhood where the condos they are incorporated into were built.

I wasn't referring to the Elgin Marbles, that's a different story.

The Athenians have been rescuing pieces of the Parthenon, and thousands of other historical sites around Greece for decades now, storing them, and in fact, just opened the new Acropolis Museum recently. The famed caryatids are there.

Everytime Greece seeks to lay new road bed, dig sewers, lay rail lines, they run into historical sites which greatly slow down the civil engineering projects they are trying to complete, but must allow time for archaeologists to excavate and remove artifacts as they find them.

That's what I was referring to.

And I believe most of the Lee Plaza lions were returned and are in storage at the DHS.

[Gistok]

Lorax,

I would think that those Caryatids would be extremely heavy [[much larger than the Lee Plaza lions heads)... and would possibly require a crane to remove.

But I do worry about the buildings future...

[Hamtragedy]

anyone remember the gargoyles adorning the book cadillac?

[Lorax]

Lorax,

I would think that those Caryatids would be extremely heavy [[much larger than the Lee Plaza lions heads)... and would possibly require a crane to remove.

But I do worry about the buildings future...

I know, it's a stretch to assume the Book Building's caryatids could be removed by some guy with a crowbar, but it wouldn't keep some of them from trying, and damaging them in the process. There are also incredible blue ceramic panels between the caryatids, forming the overhang of the structure, which are no doubt in danger as well.

[Lorax]

Anyone have an update as to the security of the Book Building/Tower?

I will be in town on Tuesday, and will spin by for a look myself. We really need to be vigilant on calling out any breaches we see in our favorite buildings. This one is mine, of course!

[ASR89]

I went by there a couple weeks ago during the day. All of the street-level entrances and windows of the Book Building and Tower were sealed off by giant white... boxes.

[EastSider]

I doubt any scrappers are reading this forum, quite a leap to assume many of them can read, or own a computer.

Wasn't there a guy on here in the past year or so who openly admitted being a scrapper? The poster I'm thinking of had some kind of eye problem or something.

[ASR89]

Didn't he also stack rocks? I wonder whatever happened to Jango.

[digitalvision]

I was by yesterday, place looked pretty sealed up to me. Actually, I wish they didn't paint the boards white, it looks like a sore thumb on an otherwise rather attractive walking area. You can see that it's boarded up for blocks.