Famous people's places / Detroit – Downtown
Patrick V. McNamara Federal Building
A downtown Detroit federal office tower named for Patrick V. McNamara, the pipefitters' union leader who became a U.S. senator.
01 / The story of this place
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This federal office tower opened in downtown Detroit in 1976, named in honor of Patrick V. McNamara, a Detroit pipefitter and union leader who went on to serve as a Democratic U.S. senator from Michigan from 1955 until his death in 1966. McNamara had spent decades in the building trades and as head of the Detroit Building and Construction Trades Council before entering politics, and in the Senate he championed labor rights and public works, including a key role in creating the interstate highway system's funding structure. Today the building houses numerous federal agency offices and remains one of downtown Detroit's major government buildings, a lasting marker of McNamara's decades of public service.
- Opened 1976 as a federal office building
- Named for Senator Patrick V. McNamara
- McNamara began as a Detroit pipefitter and union leader
- Still houses federal offices downtown
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 1
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Patrick V. McNamara 1894–1966 · pipefitter, union leader, U.S. senator
Memorial
Downtown federal office tower named after him.
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Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25
An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.
03 / Events
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