Convention Hotel
Renaissance Center
The venue for this years convention in Detroit was GM’s Renaissance Center. This is quite an impressive building with reasonable room rates. We managed to get a room on the top floor of the center tower, 70 stories up. We were right under the white stripe on the near the top. The top three floors are GM offices.
Needless to say the view was spectacular.
\Our room faced the river and looked back into Windsor. Vita would not come within two feet of the windows, which span from the floor to the ceiling. Its a bit disturbing to look straight down!
It was a pretty good spot for taking pictures, except the windows were dirty. Too bad I couldn’t open one, I’d crawl right out there.
With the 300mm lens I was able to get shots of the railway across the river in Windsor. Our room looked directly down this line. Not sure what line it is though.
With a west facing room, we were treated to some spectacular sunsets. The smog really helps generate some impressive skies!
This was taken a few minutes before a thunderstorm rolled through. That was quite a spectacle.
The hotel was full of cars and what looked like interesting displays. I never actually made it to any of them. While the place is an impressive structure, it is without question the most confusing place I have ever been in. Ask anyone who was there, it must have been designed by some sadistic mouse in a maze dropout. Several times I simply gave up from exhaustion trying to find a restaurant or lounge or anything for that matter. Every time I went up to the room it was a different route, and not intentionally!
-Tim
About the Author:
I'm your host, Tim Warris, a product developer in Port Dover, Ontario. Since March of 2007 I have been documenting the construction of the former CNJ Bronx Terminal in HO scale. For my day job, I design track building tools for Fast Tracks, a small company I own and operate. Fast Tracks makes it fast and easy to hand lay your own trackwork. Stop by our website to learn more!
Posted by: Tim | 08-03-2007 | 10:08 AM
Posted in: 2007 NMRA Train Show - Detroit | Picture of the Day
Hi Tim. I saw of your trackwork samples at the show – even more impressive in person !!! Beautiful pictures from your room. Your telephoto shot of the train on the Canadian side is the inbound CN-VIA train which terminates in Windsor. The overhead structure / foreground buildings and silos are Hiram Walkers Distillery and the blue and gray structures in the upper right is Ford’s recently shut down engine plant.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the feedback! I figured putting the image of the train on the site would help clarify what I was looking at. Our room looked directly down the line, but had to be viewed with the telephoto lens as it was quite far away. In the image above it if you look close you can see this line in the distance.
Cheers!
Tim