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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