Detroit's Beutiful, Horrible Decline

[TheMightyFavog]

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1882089,00.html

Very haunting photo essay.

[Blue_In_AK]

1. I've never been to Detroit,

but these pictures are so sad. Thank you for posting them.

[Bluebear]

22. City of my birth to my high school years.

Very, very sad.

[sandyj999]

2. Yes, that's the way it is. The other photo essay with the abandoned stores is powerful also.n/t

[likesmountains 52]

3. Thanks for posting this..all of their photographs are worth looking at..

[hedgehog]

4. I'll see your Detroit and raise you Youngstown.....

http://illicitohio.illicitohio.com/youngstown.html


A lot of people think of Youngstown as a terrible place, but it was where my extended family lived, so it is part of my home territory.



This web site has a bunch of links to other photo essays at the bottom of the page.

[Botany]

15. Ohio, Michigan, & Pennsylvania

Once the guts of America the place our G.I.s wanted to come home to from WW II and build their lives and raise their families have become
ruins ..... smoking ruins. Steel, cars, rubber, bricks, paper, glass, and all those little tool and dye shops that helped to support those
businesses are gone.

We need jobs.

[lib2DaBone]

16. Steel, Rubber, bricks, cars... all sold on the cheap to China...

America was sold for 25 cents on the dollar by Reaganomics.. Republican Horseshit....

How long will Americans put up with Neocons?

[Botany]

18. Clinton didn't help w/ NAFTA either

Rigid Tools now made in China w/ a the Rigid name

[Obamarama]

23. Actually Detorit should be renamed Youngstown, after former Mayor Coleman Young

What you see in those photos is the result of him being the 5-term mayor of Detroit.

Critics argue that Detroit began its steep decline under the Young administration and only began to come out of that decline after Young's departure from office. In his last three terms as mayor, Young's administration was plagued by allegations of fraud, bribery, and mismanagement. The mayor remained blunt and unapologetic, and his combative relations with the press worsened. During Young's last term, his police chief was indicted in a financial scandal amid allegations that Young had operated a slush fund from his campaign war chest. Young was plagued by poor health and seemed ever farther removed from the everyday problems of the city. A growing number of critics, including a younger generation of African American politicians and other community leaders, attacked the Young administration for neglecting the city's neighborhoods, not tearing down abandoned houses, allowing basic city services to decline, and failing to stem crime.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleman_Young

[Hannah Bell]

35. it's the result of money being pulled out. period.

it's *always* the result of money being pulled out, & detroit's not the only victim.

[sufrommich]

48. No, it's the result of people pulling out. Detroit ,in it's heyday, was

a city of 2.1 million people. Today it's a city of 800,000.Detroit is a product of the rush to the suburbs after the 1968 riots, anyone who lives around here knows that.

[DoctorMyEyes]

5. We moved to Pittsburgh 2 years ago

and parts of this city are very reminiscent of these Detroit photos. I remember one day while we were house hunting we stumbled into a neighborhood of decaying mansions. Real mansions - not the cookie cutter McMansions of late and although we realized immediately that we were not going to make any purchases in that neighborhood we spent the whole afternoon going slowly up and down every street, trying to give these old homes at least one last look of respect and appreciation.

It's sad to see these things and imagine the human histories threaded through the rise and decline of such grand architectural ambitions.

[distantearlywarning]

25. Unlike Detroit, however, Pittsburgh is getting better.

And welcome to the city! :hi:

[WilliamPitt]

33. Congrats on #6

I was wearing Mr. Paloumalu's jersey that night, in honor of my friend Dan from Pittsburgh.

:toast:

[DoctorMyEyes]

34. Thanks for the welcome

And that's what I hear - that Pittsburgh is getting better. I guess it's all relative. I do gotta say: the people here are great. I found a house that I love in a neighborhood that I like, but aside from that I don't know if I'll ever really be able to call the place "home".

[spinbaby]

50. I'll bet you were in Old Allegheny

There's quite a history there. Still, Pittsburgh as a whole is faring quite well through the Bush depression. We were never really hit with the housing bubble and we've got a lot of high tech.

[SteelPenguin]

54. Yeah

The thing to remember about Pittsburgh is that it, like Detroit, used to be one of the biggest cities in the country. In the last half century the city itself lost about half it's population, maybe a little more than that, when steel and manufacturing left for distant shores. (it's one of the reasons you see Steeler fans everywhere...There was a diaspora of Pittsburghers in the 70s and 80s...We're the Irish of America now...More Pittsburgher's live outside Pittsburgh than in.)

The big difference though is that our halt has slowed, and possibly even reversed. There is some speculation that there will be growth in the next Census. Plus the city has worked tirelessly to reinvent itself when steel dissapeared, and has become a solid hub of a number of high tech industries such as robotics, biotech, as well as small precision manufacturing of types that are unlikely to be moved offshore. Add to this that the real estate bubble was never truly felt here, and you have a city that is fairly recession proof. Oh no place is perfect and jobs are being lost here as well now, but it should weather this recession a bit better than most places.

Still, the loss of that population 2 decades ago, with the slow decline that came after it has left a number of neighborhoods practically empty. Braddock, on the Mon river, has lost 90% of it's former population. Other neighborhoods, once centers of affluence, have shifted, leaving neighborhoods of enormous victorian mansions subdivided into apartments, or just sitting there empty. A noticible difference again between Pittsburgh and Detroit though is that these areas are being reclaimed in Pittsburgh. Neighborhoods such as East Liberty, once the second biggest shopping hub in the state, which fell into crime and disrepair, is being rebuilt, the mansions being restored, slowly but surely, block by block.

Other neighborhoods that had falling into this disrepair are already rebuilt...but still others remain untouched. You can't lose over half your population and not have a few ghost towns scattered within your city.

it's looking up though, and while there is aways to go, I'm generally happy at the positive trend in Pittsburgh. I just hope our local politicians don't screw it up.

[hatrack]

6. Incredible - like Blade Runner without the neon

Unreal, and horribly real.

[Ninga]

7. Haunting indeed. Actually as a former Detroitor that worked downtown in the early

60's, I found the photos to be disturbing as well.

I remember wearing short white gloves and a Jackie pill box hat to work, riding the Joy Rd. express bus downtown. Lunch hour was a bee hive of activity, people all over the streets and the revolving doors into JL Hudson's and Crowley's and Jacobson's were constantly spinning. Shopping month-end sales in downtown Detroit always yielded an arm full of bags and boxes. I could go on and on.....it is so very sad and wrong and wasteful and former Mayor Coleman was a huge part of the city's decline.

[infidel dog]

8. There is a really sad, fascinating site I believe is called "fabulous ruins of detroit"

out there. Heart wrenching stuff, really.

[alfredo]

10. I put a link down below, and an image of where I lived for a while.

[alfredo]

9. Here's another Detroit site. It even has one of my old places.

http://www.detroityes.com/home.htm

I lived in the basement apartment on the left. Junkies lived right above me. The some of the MC5 lived on the first floor second apartment to the right. I used to sit on the open window ledge above the entrance. It was a nice place to sit while tripping on acid. The shades on the front door are the same color as when I lived there in the early seventies.

[Arugula Latte]

11. Cue Yeats ...

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[Urban Prairie]

12. The first image of the Michigan Central Station

I worked in that building in various offices and departments on almost every floor from 1974-1982, now it is like a gigantic tombstone representing the deaths of many other businesses and neighborhoods in the city of Detroit.

R.I.P.

Ironically the last railroad that owned the building and operated there, Conrail, finally became profitable in 1981, before they laid off hundreds of employees (including me) then abandoned the MCS and eventually sold it.

[cali]

13. Just went to Cincinnati

and got an extensive tour of the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood by an architect friend. Heartbreaking. This neighborhood has some of the finest examples of Italianate and other architecture of the 19th century in the country- and it's going to ruin.

[XemaSab]

14. Very powerful

It's amazing to see the decay in buildings that have only been abandoned for 10 years. The winters there are obviously very hard.

[tridim]

17. Looks like Chernobyl

[TahitiNut]

19. The United Artists Theater was one of the first theaters I went to ... for dates.

[liberalpragmatist]

20. A lot of St. Louis is similar

I live in St. Louis, which in terms of population bust actually exceeded Detroit, plunging from nearly 900,000 people in 1950 to a little over 300,000 today.

Here are some pics of North St. Louis - a great website, btw, called builtstlouis.net











http://www.builtstlouis.net/northside/map-overall.html

That being said, St. Louis has a relatively diversified economic base and the St. Louis MSA is actually wearing this recession relatively well - unemployment in the St. Louis metro area is actually slightly less than the national average. Also, St. Louis City actually has plenty of healthy, middle-class and upper class neighborhoods on the South Side and in the Central West End.

But the St. Louis segregation line is incredibly stark - simply put, non-blacks simply never venture north of Delmar Ave., and north of Delmar is where most of the cities worst neighborhoods are concentrated. That's not to say there isn't life in North City - there is - but it's very patchy, with intact streets coexisting with wrenching poverty and utter dilapidation.

St. Louis, Detroit, and so many other places are an indictment of our priorities over the years. No government program can be a cure all, but our systematic underinvestment and abandonment of cities and existing neighborhoods - often linked to racism - has left the U.S. with areas that look like the third world.

[Blue_Tires]

45. is the situation in East St. Louis stil as bad as it's historically been?

drove through there once on the way to K.C., and I never wanna do that again....

[patriotvoice]

21. Absolutely beautiful. I love Detroit.

For the trivia hounds, numerous scenes in "12 Monkeys" were filmed in the United Artists Theater (slide 5).

[Stinky The Clown]

24. That's deeply disturbing because it could be anywhere .....

[distantearlywarning]

26. I have to say these photos really creeped me out

Don't know why - but they made me feel strange and bad. :scared:

[Bozita]

27. It's even creepier when your memory holds images of these same places from long ago

[Bluebear]

28. You said it, and mine does.

[sufrommich]

29. I like this guy's pictures of Detroit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetjuniper/sets/72157594416772324/

Played to this soundtrack:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXxmIcsmpnQ

[sarcasmo]

30. Just a shame.

[lostnotforgotten]

31. A Massive Failure Of Stewardship

eom

[noamnety]

32. I wish Time had used some local photographers

It's a bit annoying that Time chose to highlight the work of nonlocal photographers, when we have so many local photographers with so much talent who specialize in the abandoned buildings here.

[Lorien]

36. So sad

:-(

[Hannah Bell]

37. detroit is in a prime location. when industry pulled out of my small town in the 80s,

the % of out-of-town ownership jumped significantly. it's on a major transportation corridor with a significant waterway as well.

they build it up, sell high, pull out their money, buy it back on the cheap.

[Hannah Bell]

38. This guy's been documenting it for years, he's a local: Fabulous Ruins of Detroit

http://www.detroityes.com/home.htm

[XemaSab]

41. I looked at ALL the pictures

Here in California, buildings over 50 years are considered historic, but even still we have so few truly epic buildings...

Some of the towns have historic downtowns with beautiful brickwork, but most of the older stuff is made out of wood or stucco.

It seems so crazy that such massive, beautiful, solid buildings are torn down and not repurposed. :(

[Hannah Bell]

43. yes, they're gorgeous. such massive waste.

[sasquatch]

39. Sad, Southern politicians (Clinton included) have been wanting to do this to us for years

A reverse Sherman if you will. Muerte al Sur.

[Urban Prairie]

49. Pretty close assessment.

When Conrail, who served the NE and Midwest industry (formerly the Pennsylvania RR/New York Central RR) was sold to the CSX (Norfolk Southern RR/Chesapeake & Ohio) there were more tracks laid in the South to access those two areas via rail more cheaply, which enabled the Japanese auto manufacturers located in the Southern states to use railcars to ship their vehicles, rather than more expensive auto-hauling trucks.

But it was also the wholesale offshoring of our manufacturing base that did most of the damage and hollowing out of the Midwest. We have both some Democrats and mostly Republicans to thank for greasing those global free-market wheels. Guess our leaders thought that we could sell each other vapor or shit made in other countries. Now that the housing bubble popped, there is nothing that is solid and tangible left to rebuild the economy on.

[KillCapitalism]

40. Those pictures make me wanna...

:cry:

All that grand old architecture just left to rot.

I imagine that city was really impressive back in the 1940's.

[enigmatic]

42. My hometown of Cleveland is dying, too

I have friends still there and the stories they tell me of Cleveland's decline break my heart. I love Cleveland, and it'll always be my home in a little part of my heart, no matter where I live.

[corkhead]

44. here are a bunch more detroit photos...

here is another one of the train station...



http://forgottendetroit.com/

[Blue_Tires]

46. tragic...a real-life set for some post-apocalyptic popcorn movie...

[MrScorpio]

47. One day Detroit will come back

I grew up next to the Elmwood Cemetery, the city's oldest.

The city and state will have a revival. I don't know if it'll happen in my life time, but I have faith that it will.

[raccoon]

51. I keep thinking, if you live in Detroit and like to write this is a golden opportunity to write a

post-apocalyptic novel/story/novella.

Thanks for the link.

[Urban Prairie]

52. "Detroit Of The Living Dead" "28 Days In Detroit" "The Motown Witch Project"

"Mad Maxine Beyond Zug Island" "MotownRunner"

Plenty of abandoned buildings, islands in the Detroit River and "haunted" houses/mansions to use here as props to film sci-fi/horror/apocalyptic movies!!

[1gobluedem]

53. This is what happens when you sell out your manufacturing to cheap, overseas labor

Just so the rich can get richer.

Shameful. :cry: