It's been repeated ad infinitum in recent decades that the Fisher Building's gold leaf on the roof was removed during WWII to dissuade enemy bombers, or blacked over then and later removed. However, a 2/4/66 Free Press "Action Line" item states "Original roof was done in gold leaf, replaced in 1961 because it was cracking. The old gold's buried now under the Galilean Baptist Church parking lot in Livonia: It was used as filler because it was too expensive to separate the gold from the roofing."

This jibes with a 1960s-looking photo of the Fisher in an old Detroit tourist booklet I have; it shows part of the roof as solid gold and part either the current terra cotta, or construction towards that. I don't have access to the booklet at the moment, otherwise I'd scan that photo.

Does anybody know any additional detail? I'm leaning towards the church parking lot account, because the mention of it was so specific. Frustratingly, the Free Press contradicted itself 7 years later in a 1973 piece which gave the WWII bomber story. Maybe it indeed was blacked out during the war, but was uncovered afterwards, someone got things mixed up when informing the article writer, and thus begat the story we've heard ever since?

It's especially hard to figure out when color photos showing the Fisher's roof before the 1960s seem to be impossible to find. In photos on the Detroit Public Library site taken soon after the building was built, the roof seems to have the same pattern it has now, with the same lighter-colored lattice towards the top and darker underneath. Maybe it never had a completely gold roof at all, just trim? But that wouldn't explain the tourist booklet photo!