The Ruins of Detroit

[BGCarrera32]

The Packard building now houses a Splatball venue...there's a kick in the head...

[911pcars]

Unfortunate about city politics and the current situation in D-town.

However, as with most real estate, sooner or later, people will see cheap real estate prices and begin to develop the area once again. Cities usually cycle from old to new to old over the course of years. Pretty soon, the new "burbs" will be old and will be replaced by refurbished older areas of the city.

Sherwood

[tabs]

What makes these pictures even sadder is if you have been to those places...I still remeber the stories Daady has told about working as a Tool and Die Maker for Packard in the 1930's and early 40's. How he would walk through the 2nd floor where they built all the Custom bodied Packards...Later during the war he worked on the Rolls Royce Merlin engine at Packard....and of course he owned a 110 convertible...which to this day I remember his fondness for...

I think these pictures are a reflection of whats happening in America....

[azasadny]

I've lived in many places and Detroit is the worst city I've ever seen and Baltimore is next on the list.

[Sarc]

Tabs,

I can only imagine what a jewel this city once was. This afternoon, my friend (who was in town for the weekend) and I set of to to downtown to hunt for the mythical stillborn subway station that apparently exists somewhere deep underground near the intersection of Woodward/Gratiot/Grand River.
From what I hear, in the early 30's, Detroit had a fairly extensive subway system underway that apparently stopped as quickly as it started-some say the result of the depression, conspiracy buffs favor the story that it was halted by the big 3.

Interesting stuff nontheless, but on our trip down via woodward we decided to explore Palmer Woods and stumbled on a vacant house by Frank Lloyd Wright on 7 mile. This particular house was from the same era as his usonion works out in L.A. After checking out the house up close, we continued south and stumbled on the magnificent homes in Boston Edision district. Before you know it, the next street over, it's pure ghetto-making any street scene from "8 MILE" look like Beverly Hills. Of course, one of the first people we see gives us the universal sign for get the $uck out my neighborhood, whitey. Always comforting.

Anyway, we didn't get a chance to look for the subway. It was too friggen cold and there so many buildings to look at downtown since there's always a building you've never seen before.
Only, if only, I could have seen this city in the 50's.

[tabs]

My parents moved to So CA in 1954 to get away from the cold, and to make more money...Daddy was an Aerospace Engineer and made good money all his working life. So I don't have any Childhood memories of living in Detroit...only of visiting Grandpa and Grandma who lived off Van Dyke around 5 mile road...on the back side of Detroit Airport. I remember being in the Downtown Hudsons, the Book Cadilliac Hotel, Eastern Market, Wayne State, The Henry Ford Museum etc.

...Grandpa started working for Ford in 1916 retiring in 1959, he was a Speciality Mould Maker and did alot of restoration work for the museum..

Detroit in heyday was a vibrant city that had great wealth...but has always looked to NYC for it's cultural trends (remember automobile manufacturing was the Computer industry of it's day)....My Daddys 85 year old friend from Detroit says the depression hit Detroit harder because Detroit was a one commodity town...whereas Chicago was better off because it had a diversified economy. I told him about the Detroit ruins site...

[azasadny]

My neighborhood in metro Detroit is full of houses built between 1925 and 1939. My house was built in 1936 and I find it fascinating that people were building houses here during the Depression. Must have been some jobs and wealth in the area....

[john70t]

Having recently moved back to Michigan from the Bay Area, some comparisons to Oakland could be made.

Oakland was a deserted wreck for some time with the downtown pretty much vacant, and in only a few years turned around dramatically.
Even in West Oakland-where all the projects were torn down and rebuilt into condo-looking things. One block would have kids drinking 40's in the street, the next would have a couple newish white-picket-fences and new cars in the driveway and an art club down the street.

Oakland is smack-dab in the middle of a small big-money area so it was inevitable, but it shows what is possible with good streets, agressive law-enforcment, and a gov/planning commision who want change and improvement.
The potential is there, but it'll probably start block-by-block in areas with many different draws already there, and the gov somewhat decentralized.

[techweenie]

All I can think of looking at those huge old buildings is lofts, Lofts!; LOFTS!!!

In El Lay, 1600 square foot loft spaces in old industrial buildings are selling for $500-750K. In Venice, they built brand new "artists lofts" next to Otto's on Hampton and got up to $1.1 million for the top floor units. Hardscrabble shacks on 25 x 90' lots on the same street are now over $600K.

Once "gentrification" begins, it can be a powerful force. John70t has seen it happen in Oakland, and I saw it in SF when I lived there. But it would take a lot of money and faith to bankroll loft conversions in Detroit...

[Sonic dB]

all those great ideas about Urban Renewal and reBirth...

they will NOT happen in Detroit, due to the piss poor corrupt city government, from Kwamie all the way down to the lackies taking handouts of government money.

[azasadny]

Sonic (Todd),
I agree 100% Detroit will NEVER change until they get an honest city government. What are the chances of that happening...? Zero!!

[tabs]

Techie and John70T..you applying a CA liberal idealism to Detroit...there are good reasons why Oakland is experiencing renewal ....the value of property in the Bay Area is at a Premium, there is no such demand for land in Michigan...and with prices being lower why would anyone want to go through the hassle of dealing with the neighborhood and city government when just a few miles farther down the road there is plenty of land available...and iwhy would anyone want to take the gamble of trying to improve a neighborhood when it is much easier and safer to move into an allready established affluent area.

[cegerer]

Sonic's got it right, I'm afraid .....

To see what can be done (albiet on a smaller scale) take a look about 90 miles north in Bay City. Over the past several years, the changes have been impressive to say the least. Several waterfront condo projects, a new Double Tree hotel complex on the waterfront opening this past summer, numerous local restaurants and pubs, lots of retail, banking, etc. There are events every weekend in the summer on the riverfront. It's one of Michigan's few thriving downtown areas. The key has been some forward-thinking and enthusiastic government leaders who have been willing to work with local developers. Well, that and a focus on getting people to live downtown. There are numerous high-end condos - that really stabilizes things. It's quite contagious and I'm considering renovating an old building myself for our new office space with loft apartments above.

[MichiganMat]

I took some similar pictures of Detroit when I was there for Christmas last year. You can see them on my site:

http://www.tty1.org/~prophet/archives/000154.html

One of the photos:



Also, one of the best books you can read about the demise of Detroit is called "The Origins of Urban Crisis" (heres the powells link) The racism experienced there is amost unimaginable. Even worse, some of the most racist leaders in the city have their names plastered all over the landmarks of the city.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by Sarc
on our trip down via woodward we decided to explore Palmer Woods and stumbled on a vacant house by Frank Lloyd Wright on 7 mile. This particular house was from the same era as his usonion works out in L.A.

I know that house, I'm so bumbed out now.

Detroit has some great architecture, but much of it is too far gone and neglected to recover. The politics is a good point people have been making.

As an architect with Urban Design experience, I can tell you that other rust belt cities recovered in degrees and in order of how much they kept, and not tore down . That is to say, the less they tore down, the quicker they recovered.

There is a point of no return where you have the "tear down cost" added to the "rebuild cost", that is where some parts of Detroit are at.

[tabs]

Like they say on the Detroit site...it has become an "URBAN PRAIRIE"....it's amazing to see the aerial photo from 1949 of the neighborhoods and one from today....

Oh.. and you bet there is racism....I can pick it up just in the way some of the outlanders from Michigan talk about Detroit on this Board...

[MichiganMat]

Art Z - my parents just moved to Wyandotte about a year ago. If I ever go home, I'll drop by and say Hi.

tabs- what exactly are you saying?

[Jay H]

Anybody know what happened to this neighborhood?

Link

The comparison (as tabs mentions) between '49 and 2003 is stunning.

[tabs]

Thats the picture I was refering to....

A lot of people in the hinterland oc Michigan have a real bitterness towards black people...and what happened to Detroit.

All those vacant lots were nice, well kept homes...until the blacks came in and took them over...then it ALL just went downhill..until those houses were abandon, vandalized and eventually were burned down on He11 night and the city had to come out and raze them.

When I was a child visiting Detroit my Daddy took me to where he grew up...the area was largely black then and looked completely devastated...maybe one home on a block was taken care of and the rest just looked like those ruins...The people who lived in them had good jobs working in the auto factories..so it wasn't completely an issue of money. Compared to how nice and tidy the white neighborhoods were.

When I went back to see my Grandparents street there were only a handfull of homes left standing and several of them were in disrepair. Fortunately my Grandparents house was one of them...and it had iron bars over the windows, something I had never seen in that neighborhood when I was a child.

Detroit is a lawless city....where they tell you to keep your car doors locked while visiting the cemetary.

[Abby]

It's why we picked up and left in the late 70's. Factory jobs were gone do to lifting restrictions on Japan and China. Not only auto factories but all types of industrial manufacturing. I can remember bumper stickers that said

Will the last person to leave Detroit, please turn off the lights!

Combine this with the grain embargo put on Russia by Carter, and the state went into a tail spin. Not sure how things have recovered since most all of my family left or has since died.