Mariners' Church of Detroit

Description:

• Dating to the 1840s, Mariners Church was modeled after seamen's chapels on the US East Coast. The Gothic structure has services on Sunday morning and at noon on Thursdays. It is often the site of funerals of Detroit civic notables. The church's mission is to serve Great Lakes sailors and their families, and nautical images festoon the interior. Bells toll whenever a life is lost on the lakes. They most famously rang 29 times in November 1975 with the sinking of an ore ship in Lake Superior, an event immortalized in the popular Gordon Lightfoot song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." The church was moved 900 feet after World War II to make way for Detroit's Civic Center buildings. Come by to offer your prayers or to be simply enchanted by this mystic place.
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