Diamond cutters, goldsmiths and silver workers all took up quarters. The fifth through 10th floors were almost all jewelers and was known as the Jewelers Courts. The first three floors and basement were designed to house retail shops, while the rest was leased to beauty and dress shops, millineries and wholesale jewelry dealers and manufacturers. From the beginning, the Metropolitan was leased to jewelers and related businesses, thus it often was informally known as the Jewelers Building. Unlike most buildings downtown, the Metropolitan was not an office building. Following Weston's death in 1932, Ellington went on to join a firm that would become Harley, Ellis and Devereaux, now one of the most prestigious firms in metro Detroit. Ellington's partnership lasted less than 10 years, their firm was responsible for such buildings as the Wardell Apartments (now known as the Park Shelton) and the Hotel Fort Wayne (also known as the American Hotel). The building is adorned with escutcheons and pieces of armor to accent its Gothic look. The Detroit architectural firm Weston & Ellington designed the wedge-shaped Gothic Revival-Neo Gothic Metropolitan, "a strikingly impressive building," the Detroit Saturday Night wrote in July 1924. The building was to be ready by January or February 1925, but it was not ready until May. Excavation for the 14-story Metropolitan began July 5, 1924. It was "an old and unsightly group of buildings," the Free Press said, tucked between Woodward Avenue and Broadway on John R Street. In early 1924, several structures, including the former home of the Detroit Times, were razed to make way for the Metropolitan Building. He wanted to erect a building "at once beautiful, accessible and practical," the Detroit Free Press wrote in May 1925. Yost, vice president of the Central Detroit Realty Co., came up with the idea to centralize multiple facets of a single trade into one building. Storefronts began to fill the area between Campus Martius and Grand Circus Park. By the end of the 1910s, the city was starting to sprawl north up Woodward. And with the rise of the automobile came a rise in the city's fortunes - and with those fortunes came more places to spend them. Now it has been reborn as an Element Hotel and is home to one of downtown's most popular rooftop bar.Ä«etween 19, Detroit's population more than doubled, from 465,766 to 993,678, thanks largely in part to the rise of the automobile. For nearly 40 years it sat abandoned, an unpolished gem. Once home to the city's jewelers and watchmakers, today it is a symbol of Detroit's unbelievable renaissance. The Metropolitan Building arises like a medieval castle nestled near Grand Circus Park.
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