Admirers and wisecrackers are commenting about a set of four photos from one of Dan Gilbert's offices downtown, posted on Facebook by The Detroit News.
They show scale models of downtown's business center skyline and include a distinctive feature, as The News' post Tuesday describes:
Detroit is Dan Gilbert's Toyland -- literally. This impressive model of the city of Detroit sits on the 10th floor of the Quicken Loans offices inside the Compuware Building downtown.
When Gilbert and his companies acquire a building, its model counterpart is lit up. With upwards of 20 buildings totaling more than seven million square feet, the model is quite bright.
One of the paper's readers, Frank Murphy, thinks the models show that "life is a game of Monopoly for Mr. Gilbert." Sean Crawford of Taylor comments: "I picture him with fists in the air, laughing maniacally!"
An inflatable toy monster straddling the Penobscot Buildings prompts Angelo Noal to post: "Look out, it's Danzilla!"
And at the Curbed Detroit real estate site, editor Paul Beshouri is -- or more likely pretends to be -- a bit spooked by what he sees:
Like many of the ultra-wealthy, Dan Gilbert appears to have a vaguely creepy, tangible representation of his empire.
What do you think of Gilbert's impact and building models? Post a comment below.
