Rooted in air: Nature restakes its claim on downtown as trees grow on the roofs of Detroit's abandoned gems May 15, 2001 BY BILL MCGRAW High above the streets of downtown Detroit, spring is bustin' out all over. From Grand Circus Park to the Detroit River, real trees are budding and growing -- with no human help -- from the rooftops of abandoned skyscrapers, warehouses and hotels. The Greening of Detroit, 2001-style, means that some of the biggest, oldest and most interesting buildings in the nation's 10th largest city are succumbing to nature. Literally. Huge buildings that are spooky in their seeming emptiness are actually teeming with life. Some of the foliage is visible from the street, but much of it is flourishing out of sight from all but the relatively few people who look down on those roofs from other skyscrapers. Some of the plant life is bush-like saplings; a few trees reach two stories. "It's amazing," said Orin Gelderloos, professor of biology and environmental studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. "It would be really neat to do a survey of those trees." Detroit's tall timber is a phenomenon that Gelderloos said he has seen in only two other places: In East Berlin, during the Soviet era, where trees grew out of the buildings bombed during World War II. A deserted penal colony in the Bay of Bengal, where the banyan trees have overtaken old British structures. Vacant land in Detroit has long been known to revert to wildflowers and become habitat for such birds as ring-necked pheasants. Observers have paid much less attention to Mother Nature's return to the tops of tall buildings. No roof is as green as the top of the 590-room Pick-Fort Shelby Hotel, on West Lafayette at First. Its last business, a bar, closed months ago. The hotel shut down in 1975. A thick chain locks the front door. Some of the Fort Shelby's branches have been visible to earthbound viewers for several years. But seen from above, it's a jungle up there: Numerous trees spring from the 10-story building that opened in 1917 and the 21-story addition, which was designed by Albert Kahn in 1926. A couple of trees stretch heavenward more than a story. A few of Detroit's natural rooftop gardens are growing on beat-up hulks next to some of downtown's most vibrant buildings. On John R near Woodward, the beleaguered but once handsome Metropolitan Building, formerly the center of Detroit's jewelry trade, sprouts several leafy trees, including a couple that appear to be nearly 15 feet tall. Across a narrow alley is the exquisitely renovated Wright-Kay Building, the reddish-brick structure on Woodward. Its roof is devoid of nature, but its interior is bustling with the Pure nightclub, an architecture firm and lovely lofts. Watching trees grow out of buildings can touch off heavy thoughts, metaphysically speaking. "I've always been fascinated by that," said George Petkoski, an architect and Wright-Kay building owner. "Seeing that tree makes me think our time here is so insignificant. I've always been interested in how things ruin and how they age. In a few thousand years, will I-75 be just a scar on the landscape?" The 75-year-old Wurlitzer Building near the Detroit Opera House on Broadway housed what was said to be the world's largest music store in the 1930s, selling instruments ranging in price from $9.95 to $6,000. It's abandoned today, but its forbidding facade is relieved by the miracle of life on the roof -- several small trees. The massive Book Cadillac Hotel on Michigan Avenue has only one tree visible from one of its towers, near where vandals are stripping the building of its copper flashing. Across the street, healthy trees are growing from each of the boarded-up Lafayette Building's 14-story wings and from the roof of its four-story mezzanine. Nearby, the 11-story Capitol Park Building curves around the corner of Griswold and State. On the ground level is the Intimate Pleasures boutique, specializing in body oils and exotic dancewear. On the roof is a baby tree, just starting to peek over the wall. The 34-story David Broderick Tower across from Comerica Park is empty, though workers are converting it to lofts and apartments. On the east side of the building is an 11,000-square-foot painting of a humpback whale. On the south side is a sapling that is starting to grow from a ledge near the structure's summit. "I haven't seen that one, but I did pull two trees off our marquee," said Mike Higgins, an officer in the company that owns the building. "I'm surprised they can get to the top floors." Gelderloos, the U-M-Dearborn naturalist, was blown away that such inhospitable environments could produce such healthy species. The Free Press took him samples of a tree and a bush from the low-level roof of an abandoned industrial building on West Fort whose higher roof contains several trees. The building is filled with junk, wood, whiskey bottles and the creepy sound of flapping pigeon wings. Standing next to it on a warm day is like standing at the entrance of a cave: A cool breeze rushes out constantly. The roof contained the belongings of homeless people, including stuffed animals, liquor bottles and a book titled "White Boy," by Alberto Manzi. It also featured a four-foot tree and some bushes. At first, Gelderloos and a colleague, Rick Simek, were, uh, stumped by the tree. After closely examining the greenery and consulting thick reference books, Gelderloos and Simek pronounced the tree an Amur maple (Acer ginnala) and the bush a Tatarian honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica). The tree is native to Manchuria and Japan and was introduced to the United States in 1860. The bush, from Eurasia, was introduced to North America in 1752. The maple protruded from the tar roof in a clump of urban grit that included a piece of glass, a plastic bag and a top to a Styrofoam coffee cup. The naturalists said the wind likely carried the maple seeds to the roof. A bird probably deposited a honeysuckle berry it had eaten, and that gave birth to the bush. "The maple seed took hold probably in some little bit of dirt that was up there," Gelderloos said. "And the seed just started to grow, just like it might grow in a sidewalk crack. Lots of things germinate in little crevices and cracks. But then it runs out of nutrients, it runs out of water, it runs out of space, but this one just kept collecting soil that blew around. It made it. Just sheer dumb luck." He added: "The tree looks like a big bush on steroids." Other rooftop trees downtown are likely the ubiquitous Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), a hardy, foul-smelling native of China that seems to grow everywhere in metro Detroit. Gelderloos and Simek said that if left alone for a century or two, the trees and bushes would overrun the abandoned buildings. "Rooftop ecology," Simek said. copyright 2001 Detroit Free Press