Bill Shea of Crain's Detroit Business reported earlier this week that the whales on the side of the David Broderick Tower are going to just f-f-fade away. There is no interest among building owners or artist Robert Wyland to save them.
Writing in Curbed Detroit, architecture critic Kelly Ellsworth notes "it is Detroit's way to get a mural and then let it gently decay," and she sees the idea of letting Wyland's creation on the Comerica Park side of the building fade away as "standard operating procedure."
Had they decided they wanted to keep the mural and had it touched up - or replaced with the image on ceramic tiles like the artist has offered - that certainly would have been fine, but they are in no way the bad guys in this scenario, she writes.
Conclusion: "Letting it fade away seems to be the right thing to do."
