The Monument to Joe Louis is a 24-foot bronze arm and clenched fist suspended by a pyramid frame at the foot of Woodward Avenue, pointed across Jefferson toward the river. Joe Louis was the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949 and was raised in Detroit's Black Bottom neighbourhood after his family moved north in the Great Migration. Robert Graham's sculpture, unveiled in 1986, is unusual among public monuments for its abstraction and its refusal to depict the man as a smiling civic figure.
It stands a short walk from the Spirit of Detroit, making a quick downtown sculpture pair. The Hart Plaza and the RiverWalk are just behind.