Michigan Central Station
![[image]](http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/Detroit11.jpg "[image]")
Waiting hall, Michigan Central Station
![[image]](http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/Detroit.jpg "[image]")
The main concourse looked like this in 1913.
![[image]](http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/Detroit101913.jpg "[image]")
Now it looks like this, with all of the copper skylight stolen.
![[image]](http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/Detroit9MichiganCentral.jpg "[image]")
THEATRES
United Artists Theater
The ruined Spanish-Gothic
interior of the United Artists Theater in Detroit. The cinema was built
in 1928 by C Howard Crane, and finally closed in 1974
Central Park Theatre
Uptown Theatre
The Michigan Theatre
Vanity Ballroom
Detroit’s
Vanity Ballroom with its unsalvaged art deco chandeliers. Duke
Ellington and Tommy Dorsey once played here. The exterior below:
The Eastown Theatre
CHURCHES AND SYNAGOGUES
Woodward Avenue Presbyterian Church, built in the Gothic revival style in 1911
Former Unitarian Church
East Methodist Church
Mishkan Yisroel Synagogue
Detroit Synagogue Shaary Zedek
Temple Israel
St Agnes Catholic Church
HOTELS
The Lee Plaza Hotel
The ballroom of the 15-floor art-deco Lee Plaza Hotel, an apartment building with hotel services built in 1929 and derelict since the early 1990s
Fort Shelby Hotel
The telephone switchboard at Hotel Fort Shelby
American Hotel
Ballroom
Hotel Fort Wayne
Office Buildings
Bagley-Clifford Office of the National Bank of Detroit
Light Court, Farwell Building
18th floor dentist cabinet, David Broderick Tower
Dentist Cabinet Broderick Tower
Donovan Building
David Whitney Building
Metropolitan & Wurlitzer Buildings
Hudson's Department Store
The sun sets for the last time on Hudson's
Department Store.
24 October 1998.
24 October 1998.
GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS
McGregor Public Library, Then
Now
McGregor Public Library's doors
Mark Twain Library (now demolished)
Book Depository
St Christopher House, ex-Public Library
East Side Public Library
Highland Park Police Station
United Community / Southwest General Hospital
Shapero Hall at Wayne State University
Schools
Jane Cooper Elementary School, Spring 2008
Jane Cooper Elementary School, Spring 2009
Melted clock, Cass Technical High School
Cass Tech
Piano, Saint Albertus School
The biology classroom at George W Ferris School in the Detroit suburb of Highland Park
![[image]](http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/abandoned_detroit_schools_2.jpg "[image]")
There used to be a residential neighborhood surrounding this school.
This was left behind...
![[image]](http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/abandoned_detroit_schools_3.jpg "[image]")
![[image]](http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/abandoned_detroit_schools_5.jpg "[image]")
![[image]](http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/abandoned_detroit_schools_8.jpg "[image]")
![[image]](http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/abandoned_detroit_schools_11.jpg "[image]")
![[image]](http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/abandoned_detroit_schools_12.jpg "[image]")
Classroom, St Margaret Mary School
Wilbur Wright High School
Biology classroom, Wilbur Wright High School
The Grand, Old Neighbourhoods
William Livingstone House, Brush Park, a French Renaissance-style house designed by Albert Kahn in 1893
![[image]](http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/ruinb.jpg "[image]")
![[image]](http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/ruinc.jpg "[image]")
![[image]](http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/ruind.jpg "[image]")
![[image]](http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq228/kerouac2/ruine.jpg "[image]")
Mitt Romney's childhood home
James Scott Mansion
Apartment Buildings
Luben Apartments
Rich-Dex Apartments
Highland Towers
INDUSTRIAL
Miscellaneous
The burn! It hurts!
I am told that this is NOT a ruin...
Depopulation
The beauty of a city that once was...
Detroit's Fox Theatre
http://tinyurl.com/kuyclaz
You know what would be really cool? Strip 0's mug onto everyone of those so that folks would associate the ruins with him. ; )
ReplyDeleteSome of these photographs look more like paintings than actual photographs.
ReplyDeleteObamatopia...I live in the rust belt of PA>WV>OH. Enviro weenies, Unions and the IRS have and are killing us. Dam' Revenooers!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteSome of these photographs look more like paintings than actual photographs.
Might be the HDR technique you are referring to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging
Government costs. Maintaining government in the lifestyle to which it has become accustomed (viz – Michelle Antoinette Obama’s many maid-servants and endless vacations), costs even more. Maintaining government employees’ lavish lifestyles LONG after they have retired costs future generations.
ReplyDeleteGovernment employees – Federal, state, local, police, fire, teachers, councilmen, congressmen, you name it, ALL work under the illusion that they are paying taxes.
This is wrong. Civil employees MAKE nothing of value to add to the economy, they are PAID by taxes, how can they PAY taxes? But they tell you they do. It's on their pay stub. They have to file with the IRS every year too, right?
This argument is like a man standing in a bathtub with a teacup endlessly scooping up a cup of water and pouring it back into the tub saying “I'm filling the tub!”
The illusion that civil servants “pay” into the system from which they are robbing the life’s blood of America and its future must end.
We need to have a “national discussion” about this.
Norm B, you can't say it any better than you just did! Thank you
ReplyDeleteNormB, So, police, firemen, teachers, and the like should work for free? And how dare you say that teachers "MAKE nothing of value" when you seem to know how to spell at least. And the heroic efforts of police and fireman that save future generations? I'm surprised and shocked that you didn't add the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard into your senseless rant.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for posting this for us.
ReplyDeleteDetroit was beautiful. The people of Detroit DID have nice things, and the nice things were NOT just for an elite, wealthy few. Those are huge movie theatres, office towers, train stations, music halls, churches, public buildings, hotels, libraries and schools. Buildings look well-made, with elegant design and quality materials (despite the abuse).
Technology isn't the answer. I saw computer monitors heaped on classroom floors. The abandoned biology lab still had glassware and nice wood cabinets. The libraries still have books on the shelves. At least one of the schools, an elementary school, was intact in 2008, and in ruins by 2009. Why do we need more science, technology and math spending, when there were wonderful facilities in Detroit, before Obama?
Teachers and civil servants aren't supposed to be highly compensated, but they are supposed to have a decent wage. Detroit doesn't even have enough money for firemen now. Meanwhile, so called liberal progressive Democrats gentrify a few neighborhoods here and there. It isn't entirely about taxes, either. Or rather, it is about wealthy people in New York City, Washington D.C, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle having all sorts of ways to shelter their income, while insisting that everyone else needs to pay more taxes. There isn't much of a tax base left anymore, not after outsourcing and "disruptive innovation". I hate that expression! Schumpeter was NOT a nihilist nut, if any of the neoliberals would take the time to read his work. But no, they are too busy disrespecting religion, marriage, charity (given of one's own free will, not mandated by law and clumsy income redistribution efforts: the latter has only served to redistribute income from poorer people to rich people). Race inequality for black people has become orders of magnitude worse on Obama's watch, specifically in Los Angeles.
The GOP didn't push for the end of Glass-Steagall. That was President Clinton's doing. The GOP didn't end Job Corps for disadvantaged youth. No, that was run into massive deficit under President Obama in 2012. The Democrats, not the GOP, ended what Franklin Delano Roosevelt began.
I don't know what is happening. Why does Obama and his supporters want to destroy our society, our entire country? It will destroy them too, but then it will be too late for the rest of us.
This is what happens to a city based on the automotive industry that is held accountable to investors on wall street to make more money next quarter than last. In order to keep up with the demands of the investors, they had to outsource jobs to countries with cheap labor and replace workers with robots. People left Detroit, and the tax base went with them. You want to place blame somewhere? Place it squarely on the shoulders of a system that is dependent on constant monetary growth...
ReplyDeleteI live in El Cajon, Ca. and as of the first of the year, I was told that we now have the largest population of Chaldeans from Iraq, living in our community. They are coming from Detroit, which has now the second largest population of Chaldeans. They refuse to do business with Americans unless they can get half off. They are horrible to our economy because they deal with cash and spend a lot of time trying to hide their money from our government. My question to you is; Do you think their moving into Detroit had any part of this destruction and downfall?
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine the ignorant comments linking this to Obama. He had nothing to do with the GOP's inability to fund infrastructure repairs and re-population of these areas of Detroit. It costs money to maintain and repair old structures. That money comes from taxes, taxes are paid by workers. Taxes on the wealthy under Reagan and before were about 90% as they should have remained. Those who elected tea party idiots are now reaping the results of the thoughtlessness that they sowed.
ReplyDeleteThe prior Anonymous said,
ReplyDelete"I can't imagine the ignorant comments linking this to Obama... taxes are paid by workers. Taxes on the wealthy under Reagan and before were about 90% as they should have remained. Those who elected tea party idiots are now reaping the results of the thoughtlessness that they sowed."
There were no Tea Party idiots in the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush years. There were lots of economists in both parties who said, "globalize" and "free trade" and "more illegal immigration" though!
It is undeniable fact that one of the only areas in the U.S. that has prospered since 2008, in terms of rising real estate prices and incomes, has been the greater Washington DC area. That excludes impoverished minority communities. They are doing worse than ever. The GOP is hardly blameless, but who was president since 2008? Also, it doesn't help to raise taxes on a declining middle class, or even upper middle class yet grant the top 0.1% wealthy, primarily Democrat insiders, e.g. most hedge funds and so-called tech industry CEOs, extravagant tax breaks.
Under the guise of "innovation" Obama administration cabinet members and appointees have rolled back regulation that protected consumers and workers e.g. the Uber horror (championed and staffed by former Obama advisors) and the JOBS Act that has nothing to do with job creation.
Why cant everyone just enjoy the photographs instead of agruing about how all this happened? It happs everywhere and thats not good, but appreciate the beauty in the ruins of these nuildings because im sure thats why these were posted, not to argue.
ReplyDeleteSeveral comments on here blame Obama. The Governor of Michigan for several years has been Rick Snyder, the Republican responsible for the lead in Flint's drinking water. And Snyder's appointed "economic czar", when he ws through in Flint, went to Detroit. Those who want to throw blame around, should look more locally.
ReplyDeleteThough this looks like it took decades to destroy this much of Detroit, without demolishing buildings which had apparently been simply abandoned.. Did owners simply close them and walk away do the suburbs? Was Detroit city government a fault in not condemning and demolishing unsafe buildings? Or was it Wayne County government? Or the Snyder administration in Lansing? Or all of the above?
the photos are great, by the way. Unfortunately, some of them are now missing.