For years, downtown Detroit has been a collection of mostly dull, old looking office buildings adorned with little art, giving it the look of a 3-D black and white photo.
More recently, we've seen a little splash of color with the collection of murals and art pieces at the Z Parking Garage that opened in 2014, and the Shepard Fairey mural on the exterior of the Compuware Building that was completed in May. There's also a few other colorful displays of art like the murals/graffiti in Capitol Park.
Still, there's plenty of blank, dull, earth-tone colored office buildings.
So, I think it's fair to say that the gradual increase in the number of Times-Square size ad on buildings has spiced up the downtown visual. There's a mix of national ads like T-Mobile (two of them), iPhone (two) and Pepsi, and local ones such as the Pistons (two), Shinola and MGM.
The MGM Casino ad with a giant Lion occupies a spot that has long displayed advertisements downtown on the Cadillac Tower building. From 1994-2000, there was a 14-story high Nike ad with a mural of Lions running back Barry Sanders. Sanders was replaced by Red Wings star Steve Yzerman.
Here's a look at some of those ads.
Cadillac Square
Shelby and Michigan Avenue
Shelby and Larned
Cadillac Square
Cadillac Square
Cadillac Square
Cass and Lafayette Blvd.
Bagley and Clifford
Cass and Bagley
