The Midtown Neighborhood in Detroit, which includes the University Cultural Center, boasts a rich history, and is a shining example of the exciting redevelopment efforts in the past several years. If you are looking for a disverse and walkable community that is both old and new, it would behoove you to think about locating to Midtown Detroit.
Midtown is a large area in, naturally, the
middle of Detroit, bordered roughly by the
John C Lodge Freeway on the west, the
I-75 Freeway curving around on the south and east, and the
I-94 Freeway on the north. Within the 2-square-mile radius of Midtown, there are
two radio stations, three historic inns, eleven art galleries, thirty-five restaurants and internet cafes, six museums, nine theatres,
a hardware store, a dry cleaners,
grocery stores, specialty shops, and bookstores, a
world-class medical center, a major university, and lofts, townhomes, and apartments.
In the early 20th century, the Midtown Area was centered around the automobile industry, and was filled with
auto dealerships; especially on Cass Avenue.
Beginning in the late 1800s, many of the libraries and museums of Detroit were built in the area, ostensibly to be close to what was then
the original Detroit Central High School (built in 1858 as the first public high school in Detroit and Michigan) and what became
Wayne State University, Michigan's only urban research university.
The Cultural Center is aptly named because of the concentration of many of the city's museums and
art galleries. The
Main Detroit Public Library is located on Woodward, and is right across the street from the
Detroit Institute of Arts. Also in the Cultural Center: the
Detroit Historical Museum--which has the very popular "Old Detroit" exhibition, the
Children's Museum School, the
Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History, the
Center for Creative Studies, the
Friends of First Living Museum--featuring a live reactment of the Underground Railroad, the
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), and the
Detroit Science Center. There are also over a dozen
theater and performing arts venues and other educational institutions, including the
Max M. Fisher Music Center--home of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the
IMAX Dome Theatre, and the
Detroit School of the Arts.
Today, Midtown is exploding with both
commercial and residential properties both for purchase and lease. Lofts rebuilt from historial commercial buildings of the 19th and 20th centuries, new
condominum townhomes, updated carriage houses, and refurbished mansions in the
Brush Park Historic District are all available.
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