Bruce InCharlotte
Google
Grand Circus Park back to Judge Augustus B. Woodward's master plan to rebuild Detroit after the 1805 devastating fire. The park was meant to be a full circle - the "circus" the name - but rising land values north of Adams Street led property owners to resist selling, leaving the park as a half-moon bisected by Woodward Avenue.
It links Detroit's theater district to its financial core, and over the decades, it has hosted everything from presidential eulogies to public protests. In fact, General George Armstrong Custer once delivered a eulogy there for Abraham Lincoln before thousands of mourners.
The park is adorned with statuary and fountains that speak to Detroit's civic pride. The eastern half features the Russell Alger Memorial Fountain, designed by Henry Bacon (who also designed the Lincoln Memorial), with a Roman allegorical figure sculpted by Daniel Chester French. Nearby stands the statue of Mayor William Cotter Maybury. The western half is anchored by the Edison Memorial Fountain and the statue of Mayor Hazen Pingree, a populist reformer whose legacy still looms large.
It's a layered space - literally, as there are parking garages below - with memorials and a green park. Plenty of benches and tables and a free wifi. And a very strong police presence during the daytime and after Tigers games.