00:00Detroit has a pretty incredible history of moving buildings and today we're checking out four
00:04landmarks that literally went for a ride. Stop one, the Gem Theater. Let's start with one of
00:09Detroit's biggest movers. In 1997, Detroit was preparing for construction of Comerica Park.
00:15There was a little problem. The historic Gem Theater was in the way. Now you could tear down
00:19a building like that or you could move all 5.5 million pounds of it and that's exactly
00:26what happened. Thanks to the Forbes family, the Gem was lifted onto a massive system of wheels
00:31and moved roughly five blocks to its new home on Madison Avenue. We're talking about a building
00:38weighing nearly 2,700 tons rolling through downtown Detroit. The move was so impressive
00:44that it earned a Guinness World Record for the heaviest building moved on wheels. Our next stop,
00:49the Elwood Bar and Grill. The Elwood was moved right around the same time as the Gem Theater and for
00:55the
00:55same reason. This beautiful Art Deco building dates back to 1936 and its name is actually a
01:01combination of the streets where it originally stood, Elizabeth and Woodward. Elwood. You got it?
01:07You get it? Let's move. In 1997, the Elwood was also in the path of Comerica Park. Rather than
01:13demolish the classic little diner, the entire building was moved once again thanks to the Forbes
01:17family to East Adams Street before welcoming customers back on Tiger's opening day in 2002.
01:25And to think the building itself had already taken one pretty memorable road trip. John K.
01:30King's Books is the second biggest bookstore in the entire world. Before this four-story building
01:36became a paradise for book lovers, it was home to the Advance Glove Company. In 1948, construction of
01:42the Lodge Freeway created a problem. The factory was in the way. So instead of tearing it down,
01:47engineers moved the entire building approximately 250 feet. And incredibly, accounts of the move say
01:56the factory continued operating while the building was being relocated. Like you go to work, you leave,
02:03you come back the next day, the building has moved. That's one building with a lot of stories. Get it?
02:10Stop four, Mariner's Church. Our final stop has a connection to one of rock radio's most haunting
02:15songs, Mariner's Church in downtown Detroit. Absolutely beautiful. This historic church
02:20dates back to the 1840s. And in the 1950s, Detroit's civic center development meant the building had to
02:27move. So workers lifted the church and moved it about 880 feet using hundreds of steel rollers.
02:35Imagine moving an entire stone church without destroying it. The relocation took months,
02:41but the building survived and still stands near the Detroit River right there at the tunnel going
02:46into Canada. And here's the music connection. Gordon Lightfoot of Canada immortalized Mariner's
02:51Church in his 1976 classic, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. And when Gordon Lightfoot passed away,
02:57they rang the bells 29 times for the lost souls of the Edmund Fitzgerald and one time for Gordon
03:03Lightfoot. Four historic Detroit buildings, four incredible moves. Proof that in Detroit,
03:08when history gets in the way of progress, sometimes we just pick history up and we move it.
03:13The Weird, the Wild, the Wonderful. Rockin' Road Trips with 94.7 WCSX.
