Everyone has a favorite secret spot, but a few are eager to share. For this year’s City Guide, we took on the challenge. Along with revealing a few of our own picks, we gathered recommendations from contributing writers, tour guides, and other insiders. And while logging in thousands of steps, we peeked behind closed doors and over balconies, and we ventured inside two completely offthe- grid locations that safeguard some of Detroit’s most precious artifacts.
If you know where to look, you’ll find ghost signs, the remnants of old painted advertisements on the sides of brick buildings, dotted around the city. They’re echoes of Detroit’s first big-city heyday, a time before freeways and their looming billboards featuring monstrously large lawsuit attorneys and marijuana dispensaries. Detroit also has plenty of other relics of the past, from abandoned buildings to thriving bars.
I like to drive around the city in the afternoon while the sunlight filters between the buildings, finding these reminders of Prohibition and Detroit’s drinking past. Studying history through the lens of bar and tavern culture can yield some surprising insights.
What follows are just a few of the places in the city where you can glimpse hidden connections to old Detroit.
Elmwood Cemetery
A surprising number of what I call Detroit’s “booze barons” are interred in the picturesque grounds of Elmwood, on the east side. The better-known scions like Hiram Walker, founder of Canadian Club whiskey, and Bernhard Stroh are joined by society luminaries who owned breweries and nightclubs and were instrumental in repealing Prohibition.
Former E & B Brewery, Eastern Market
Eastern Market was once the epicenter of Detroit’s beer-brewing industry, with nearly a dozen breweries operating there in the early 20th century. You can catch a glimpse of the kind of money it brought in by looking at the Flint Faience tiles on the side of the building at 1551 Winder.
Pfeiffer Brewing Company, Beaufait and Sylvester
Not far from Eastern Market and just across Gratiot, the large brick structure of the former Pfeiffer brewery stands as a reminder of the 1950s, when Pfeiffer was the largest brewery in Detroit, outselling even Stroh’s and Goebel. The area around the old brewery, near Eastern Market, is becoming a hot spot for drinking culture again, with breweries, distilleries, and bars populating the Islandview and Eastern Market neighborhoods.
Aniwa Club, Jefferson and Van Dyke
I’d driven past this old white house and the oddly attached, boarded-up building next to it dozens of times before Chris Collins, a fellow Detroit history buff, pointed it out to me. Turns out this mansion was once the home of the infamous Aniwa Club, a Prohibition speakeasy that hosted the glitterati of the east side, along with Grosse Pointe elites, and was repeatedly raided by police.
Rivard Plaza
There’s more than just a carousel at this section of the riverfront, just east of the RenCen. Admittedly, there’s no direct tie to Prohibition activity here, but I love to take guests to the map stamped into the concrete, which is a great way to visualize exactly how the Detroit-Windsor funnel was able to keep the city — and much of the country — wet during Prohibition. On days when they’re malting the grains across the river at the Hiram Walker distillery (North America’s largest), you can smell that sweet, slightly funky bread smell while imagining what it looked like to see dozens of Model Ts driving across the ice to bring back cases of Canadian Club.
Hastings Street/I-375 Service Drive at Mack
Before the ill-advised and racially motivated “urban clearances” of the 1950s and ’60s, Paradise Valley was one of the most vibrant entertainment districts in the country. Dozens of jazz clubs, hotels, and entertainment venues hosted some of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. It’s a tragic and irredeemable loss to Detroit’s history but a good reminder that even if the buildings were erased physically, the memories of Detroiters keep the culture alive.
More of Hour Detroit‘s “Hidden Detroit”
Things You May Have Missed at the Detroit Institute of Arts
Sports, Hats, Scenic Spots, and Artifacts
Under the Radar Retail
This story originally appeared in the April 2026 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Click here to get our digital edition
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