PRESERVATION DETROIT’S
2026 LECTURE SERIES

Get Your Detroit Queer History Straight:
LGBTQ History in Detroit Walking Tour

Join Preservation Detroit with special guest speaker, local historian, and tour guide Michael Boettcher in "Get Your Detroit Queer History Straight," a hands-on exploration of Detroit's rich and largely untold LGBTQ history! Commemorate Queer History Month through a Downtown walking tour of some of the earliest sites associated with Detroit's LGBTQ community, starting in the 1930s.

From the groundbreaking Club Frontenac, which opened in 1936 as the city's first gay bar, to the vibrant Palmer Park "gayborhood" of the 1960s, Boettcher traces the evolution of Detroit's queer community through decades of triumph and adversity. The tour examines how Detroit once boasted dozens of gay bars and a thriving LGBTQ district. Boettcher's tour not only celebrates the city's pioneering LGBTQ heritage but also connects this history to contemporary efforts to revitalize Detroit's queer community.

October 3rd, 2026
11 AM - 1 PM

Guardian Building Promenade
500 Griswold Street
Detroit, MI

Book Talk with Max Chavez - “Art Deco World”

Join us in welcoming Chicago-based author & architecture historian, Max Chavez, for a book talk as he launches his new book "Art Deco World"!

About the Event:

Join Preservation Detroit in welcoming Chicago-based author and architecture historian, Max Chavez, for an evening book talk as he launches his new book "Art Deco World". The event will be hosted at Book Suey, a cooperatively-owned and democratically run bookstore located in the heart of Hamtramck.

Doors open at 6:30 PM, and the talk will begin at 6:45 PM.