Towering Sections, photo by SNWEB.ORG Photography, LLC.
Yesterday Crain’s Detroit reported that the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. has issued a request for proposals to demolish the Lafayette Building. The building has been vacant for 12 years and although numerous people have explored renovating it, none decided to go through with it. Once concern with demolition is that American Coney Island and Lafayette Coney Island both abut the Lafayette building (photo).
Over on Flickr, southofbloor writes:
The Lafayette bldg is an early skyscraper at the corner of Lafayette and Shelby in downtown Detroit, stretching to Michigan Ave. It was built in 1923, and closed a few years ago, just in time for the Book-Cadillac Hotel to open up. The abandoned building is one of a few in town designed by C. Howard Crane, a remarkable theatre architect, and the plan of the building is one of those spectacular charcteristics unique to Detroit, sort of modified wedge shaped triangular flatiron, crowned with a great classical cornice.
You can get more at Wikipedia’s Lafayette Building entry, Emporis.com and at Skyscraper page. Here’s a link to the Lafayette Building on Absolute Michigan’s Map of Michigan.
SNWEB has some more photos of the Lafayette Building (slideshow). See a bunch more photos in this Flickr slideshow for the Lafayette Building in Detroit including a cool angle from Allan M and this gorgeous photo of the cornice by dropsheet.
Michigan in Pictures 
The Detroit News has a feature on the Lafayette Building today.
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i recently saw the last part of the demo. it’s sad to see so many beautiful detroit buildings go away. i remember walking around downtown detroit with my dad, a mechanical engineer, in the late 70s/early 80s and he would point at the buildings mentioning a few facts here and there. it was like a personal walking tour of detroit’s architecture.
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