The Palmer Park Apartment Building Historic District, well regarded for its ornate and varied examples of active and abandoned apartment buildings, is located in the Palmer Park neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan. The neighborhood is named after Thomas W. Palmer, a wealthy Detroiter, one-time U.S. Senator, and President of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893.
The neighborhood began to take form in 1925 when Walter Briggs acquired the estate of Thomas Palmer and began to develop 40 buildings in the district. The majority of the buildings were built between 1925 and 1965 by multiple architects, including Albert Kahn, Robert West, Weidmaier & Gay, and William Kapp. The mostly five and six-story structures featured Egyptian, Mediterranean, Moorish Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival, Tudor, and Venetian architectural styles, along with severely plain Art Moderne and International styles.
