Penobscot Building

645 Griswold – Greater Penobscot Building – Steel-frame forty-seven-story skyscraper faced in granite and terra cotta (1927-29) – Wirt C. Rowland of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls, architect. Corrado G. Parducci, sculptor. This is the third and largest component of a cluster of buildings that all bear the Penobscot name (see entries for 131 W. Fort and 140-50 W. Congress). Standing at the corner of West Fort Street and Griswold, the Penobscot building fills the site to the alley to the south. The building is square in plan in its six-story base but then front and back light courts give the upper stories almost to the top an H-shaped form. This structure was the final addition to the Penobscot Buildings, and was the tallest building in Detroit for fifty years. The Indiana limestone walls rise unimpeded to the top of the thirtieth story from a base of gray granite to a series of setbacks that terminate in an apex surmounted by a red neon beacon. Ornamenting the building is a Native American figure rising above the grand, four-story, mahogany granite entrance archway on Griswold Street. Native American figures also decorate the interior in the travertine marble of the main floor lobby and metalwork of the elevator doors. Above the base containing the lobby and shops on the first floor and banking quarters in the first five floors, an H-shaped floor plan accommodates office space. The various roof levels are flat. Dramatic exterior lighting accentuates the tower’s upper setbacks at night. The 1928 Penobscot Building connects to the 1905 and 1916 Penobscot Buildings via a hallway and staircase to the west side of the property. In 1929 the building’s lower stories housed the Guardian Trust Co., Guardian Detroit Bank, and Guardian Safe Deposit Co., and the offices of the Guardian Detroit Group holding company. From 1933 to 1944 the Manufacturers National Bank of Detroit occupied the main second-floor banking space.