Michigan Consolidated Gas Company Building

Steel-frame thirty-two-story skyscraper (1960-62). Minoru Yamasaki Associates with Smith, Hinchman & Grylls, architects. Located at the prominent intersection of the northwest corner of West Jefferson Avenue and Woodward Avenue, the MichCon Building is square in plan. The building's entrance staircases, fountain and former water pools lead up to a platform on which the building rests. The pools were later converted to flower beds. Pre-cast white concrete panels hold the vertical, hexagon-shaped windows in place on this landmark skyscraper. The lobby is a thirty-foot tall space illuminated by eighty-two glass panes on all four sides. The lobby columns and stairs are finished in white marble, and the railings and lobby ceiling details are of polished chrome. The top four floors terminate to a recessed square penthouse that contains the heating, ventilating and cooling systems. Both roofs are flat gravel roofs. At night the top four floors are illuminated by colored lights depending on the season. At the two rooflines, the concrete panels project upward past the roofline for a crenellated effect. A pedestrian bridge at the fifteenth floor connects to the Guardian Building across Larned Street.