Things to do in Detroit

Culture · Midtown

One of the great American collections, built on car money, with Diego Rivera's 27-panel Detroit Industry murals wrapping an entire courtyard.

Local tip: Residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties get free general admission under the tri-county millage — bring proof of address. The murals are the reason to come; give them an hour rather than ten minutes.

Food · North-east of downtown

The largest historic public market district in the United States — sheds full of produce, meat and flowers, with a Saturday market that has run since 1891.

Local tip: Saturday is the big one, but the Tuesday market is where locals actually shop without the crowd. The warehouse walls around it are an open-air mural gallery that gets repainted each September.

Nature · In the Detroit River

A 400-hectare island park with Olmsted's fingerprints on it, a 1904 glass conservatory, an aquarium and a view of the Canadian shore.

Local tip: It became a Michigan state park in 2014, so you need a Recreation Passport on your plate — a few dollars added to your vehicle registration, and easy to forget until the booth.

Landmark · Corktown

The 1913 Beaux-Arts terminal that stood derelict for thirty years as the emblem of the city's decline, reopened by Ford in June 2024 as a mobility campus.

Local tip: The surrounding Corktown blocks — Detroit's oldest neighbourhood — are where the restaurant scene moved. Walk Michigan Avenue rather than driving between the station and Slows.

Culture · West Grand Boulevard

The ordinary house where Studio A ran almost around the clock and Motown was recorded — the piano, the Coke machine and the room are all still there.

Local tip: Tickets are timed and sell out well ahead, so book before you plan the day around it. It is a house, not a stadium; the whole visit is short and worth it.

Neighborhood · Two separate cities inside and beside Detroit

Hamtramck is a five-square-kilometre city entirely surrounded by Detroit, historically Polish and now heavily Yemeni and Bangladeshi. Dearborn, west of the city, holds the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.

Local tip: Warren Avenue in Dearborn for Lebanese and Yemeni cooking, and the Arab American National Museum with it; Joseph Campau in Hamtramck for Polish bakeries and Bangladeshi kitchens within two blocks of each other.