DETROIT (WXYZ) — The historic Book Tower has now been standing tall over Detroit for a full century. The 38-story site was the city's tallest building when it opened way back in 1926.
Since then, it's undergone a complete transformation.
Watch Jeffrey Lindblom's video report below:
Bedrock Detroit reopened the tower in 2023 — but the building's rich history hasn't been forgotten.
“I’m a proud Book. Very, very proud Book,” Randy Book said. He’s the great grandson of Frank Book, who with his two brothers in the early 1900s developed much of the block — including Book Tower.
“When I walk into this building every time, I get goosebumps,” Randy Book said.
Book Tower was originally an office building with some retail — not a library — like the last name would suggest.
Book told me a lot of what’s inside the building is original like a letter box that stands right beside the historic exhibition that’s maintaining 100 years’ worth of his family’s history.
“All this, I had it in a briefcase — all this information that I had. It was just timeless information that I had,” Randy Book said.
Randy Book, a fourth generation Detroiter, says it’s a blessing the original blueprints and all the history wasn’t gone with the wind.
“You know, this building could have gotten torn down,” he said.
Video: Restoration project of Book Tower
I sat down with Bedrock Senior Vice President of Architecture and Design Jamie Witherspoon, who shared with me the rough shape the building was in prior to them taking on the project in 2015.
“It’s sort of hard to overstate the level of disrepair,” Witherspoon said. “It was a full gut.”
He says it was vacant for nearly a decade before they started an eight-year transformation — cleaning a century worth of grease, grime and old bones and giving it a new life as a hotel and apartment complex.
Related: Before-and-after photos of $300M+ renovation of historic Book Tower
The original elevators and some of the 1920s walls and floors were preserved.
A rumored basement bar during The Prohibition was replaced with actual bars and a cafe in the way of French cuisine and an old-fashioned speakeasy, hoping to make Detroiters proud.
“The legacy, right. This is a building that stood here for a century,” Witherspoon said.
Book plans to hold an on-site family reunion in the coming weeks to honor 100 years of transformation, which he believes the city has done right alongside his family’s 38-story heirloom.
“There’s no reason this building can’t be here for another five to eight hundred years,” Randy Book said. “I think that they’re going to be just really taken away.”
If you’d like to join the Book Tower in its centennial celebration, you can go to Bar Rotunda in the main lobby beginning in March for a drink they’re calling The Centennial Celebration.
