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The intrepid climber, wearing a GoPro camera, perches on an ultra-narrow light platform way above Cadillac Square.
This isn't a stunt for everyone to try, warns the foolhardy urban explorer who brought these eye-catching images back down to street level.
"This video is not meant to encourage anyone to try something like this," posts a teen risk-taker from Northville, who removed his six-month-old video from YouTube on Wednesday afternoon after a Reddit post drew attention to it and prompted Detroit Free Press coverage. "I highly recommend you do not free-climb anything unless you are completely confident you can do it."
This is one of three slides at the end of the now-removed video.
In the nearly three-minute GoPro video, which we saw before it was taken down, he ascends a 600-foot telecommunications antenna atop the 40-story Cadillac Tower, a 81-year-old office building at 65 Cadillac Square.
Wearing sneakers and without a clip-on safety harness, the thrill-chaser grabs steel rods and precarious footholds on an exterior side of the triangular antenna. A narrow platform for an aircraft warning beacon provides a lofty perch at the top.
Remarkably, he felt secure enough to hang on with just one hand as he used a regular camera to snap still images. Two are at right below, and two video screengrabs are at the end of this post.
He somehow gained roof access to the nonpublic area early one morning in November 2016 and started climbing as the sun broke the horizon. It was windy, a few scenes show.
The combined effect creates a destabilizing sense of vertigo, even while seated safely. "This made my hands sweat," says a Reddit comment. "Holy crap."
The result also is dazzling -- a chance to experience (sort of) a harrowing climb and skyline perspective. Rooftops and sidewalks recede steadily and an array of landmarks appear as the agile high school student rotates his head.
While standing on a light platform, the fearless climber also used a regular camera.
Scenes include the Detroit River, the Ambassador Bridge, Windsor, Campus Martius and its ice rink directly below, Millender Center, Renaissance Center, the Guardian Building, the Penobscot Building. Tiny signs for Quicken Loans and Ernst & Young look as though they're on model railroad buildings.
It's a drone-like view, only stationary and with the cameraman's legs in some frames as he stands alongside cellular signal relays.
Those devices add to the danger, the young cameraman noted in his YouTube posting: "This particular climb posed more than one threat, as radiation levels could be unsafe if you spend too long up on the antenna."
Other social media posts express the odd appeal of such trespassing for the skilled, daring photographer. Heights are "where I feel alive," he tweets at a feed that also went from public to private Wednesday afternoon. At Instagram (also now private), he shares far-above-ground adventures in Detroit and Chicago with the tag #Chasing_Rooftops and captions such as: "A feeling that never gets old."
At Reddit, one viewer expresses the emotions evoked by the death-defying Cadillac Tower antenna stunt: "What an idiot. Nice views, though."
A scene from the now-removed video of last summer's incredible downtown adventure. Another perspective is below:
