Nice pics, thanks for sharing! As a history buff and someone who likes old buildings etc. I find Detroit a sad,but very interesting place to visit in the daytime!
Detroit, MI
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Thanks for the great photos of Detroit. I remember going to Detroit several times in the 60s and 70s and never worried about crime, etc. Visited Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum several times in Dearborn. Used to cross the tunnel into Windsor and travel along the north shore of Lake Erie on a trip with my parents. Even went to the docks to pick up some equipment for my employer in flat bed truck. And driving by old Tigers Stadium.
It is certainly sad what can happen to a city when its industry leaves, but Cleveland is an example of a city that is coming back economically and culturally and hopefully Detroit will someday have the right leadership to do the same thing.
It is certainly sad what can happen to a city when its industry leaves, but Cleveland is an example of a city that is coming back economically and culturally and hopefully Detroit will someday have the right leadership to do the same thing.
I'm so glad you enjoyed your trip.I'm reviving this thread to thank everyone for the valuable information and to say I had a great time in Detroit. I went on a couple of guided tours, and happily, I was able to get some photos inside the Guardian Building. None are very good. It's really a difficult building to photograph for an amateur like me.
Downtown Detroit really is not scary. I hope to visit again to see how it continues to change.
More Detroit photos here if you are interested.
Those are beautiful pictures.
Thanks for the comments. After seeing the all development activity downtown, I'm getting my hopes up for more good things to happen there. I'd really like for that theater turned parking garage to be turned back into a theater, but I've read that the guy who bought the building usually says more than he actually does. I've got my Facebook newsfeed full of stuff from Detroit now, so I'm going to keep following.
D
Detroiter
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Sadly what these pictures show is a former American city that has now died and been emptied of its residents. Please notice there are virtually no people in these pictures. You would see more activity in photos of Pyongyang than this. Just buildings and monuments but no activity. If you compare Detroit to another former industrial city like Pittsburgh (half the population and many times the success) I think you will see that it's a failed picture. Sad.
For some of us, that's the draw. There's a certain beauty in emptiness.
Additionally, we still have hope.
For example, the Book Cadillac used to be a favorite of urban explorers, but now it's a luxury hotel.Then: http://forgottendetroit.com/caddy/photos.html
Now: http://www.bookcadillacwestin.com/
I feel compelled to add something. There were thousands of people downtown that weekend for both the Jazz Fest and a Muslim convention at Cobo. At the time I was taking pictures at Hart Plaza, it was closed to pedestrians in preparation for Jazz Fest. Our Preservation Detroit tour guide was able to get us special access. Vehicular traffic was limited because of road construction.
On top of all that, I really go out of my way to avoid getting people in my touristy photographs. I admit it was much easier to do that in Detroit than it is in Chicago, but it wasn't so empty as it seems in my pictures.
Sarah - I was hoping to stay at the Book Cadillac, but there weren't any rooms available. Next time.
On top of all that, I really go out of my way to avoid getting people in my touristy photographs. I admit it was much easier to do that in Detroit than it is in Chicago, but it wasn't so empty as it seems in my pictures.
Sarah - I was hoping to stay at the Book Cadillac, but there weren't any rooms available. Next time.
Yeah, I was down there for orientation (Wayne State) a couple Fridays ago, and there was a ton of traffic and pedestrians. In addition to Wayne's orientation, there was also an Eminem/Rihanna concert and a Lions game. It was nuts.
The problem is that people come downtown for special events and then high tail it back to the burbs when they end! ( Tigers, Lions,Wings Games, Concerts etc.) No-one actually lives in the renovated Downtown Detroit close to the River and the people who work downtown ( mostly @ GM) smoke out for the burbs before dark! The rest of Detroit makes Baltimore and Buffalo seem like Paris!
I remember when the Book Cadillac was THE Prestige Hotel in Detroit, Celebs, Sports Teams etc stayed there by choice and arrived by Train @ the Grand Michigan Central Station! Glad to see it back to its former glory! (Westin means Classy Hotels) Wish Michigan Central could get the same treatment and also LD Trains to NY and Toronto once again!
Unfortunately until Detroit's financial problems are solved, and people once again move back downtown, it will continue to be a nice/sad place to visit!
Everytime I go I visit in Detroit ( in the daytime) but stay in Windsor!
Detroit, an interesting place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there!
I remember when the Book Cadillac was THE Prestige Hotel in Detroit, Celebs, Sports Teams etc stayed there by choice and arrived by Train @ the Grand Michigan Central Station! Glad to see it back to its former glory! (Westin means Classy Hotels) Wish Michigan Central could get the same treatment and also LD Trains to NY and Toronto once again!
Unfortunately until Detroit's financial problems are solved, and people once again move back downtown, it will continue to be a nice/sad place to visit!
Everytime I go I visit in Detroit ( in the daytime) but stay in Windsor!
Detroit, an interesting place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there!
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The following article from 2013 might have you singing a different tune. People do live in downtown Detroit and the occupancy rates for rentals in the area are quite high.
http://www.freep.com/article/20130218/BUSINESS06/302180059/Greater-downtown-Detroit-has-more-wealth-racial-diversity-than-city-as-a-whole-report-finds
I read the article and frankly it sounds like boosterism and C of C propaganda! A per capita income of $20,000 is almost poverty level if you live in a City!
As I said before, the financial problems of the City, the neglect of the City and the penny pinching by the State of Michigan as well as the current Political Climate in Washington in regards to Social Programs and Infrastructure makes the prognosis for Detroit seem bleak!
No City can flourish if most of the City is poor and they surround a privileged island of wealth in the core of the city! I'm of the opinion also that there is not enough Tourists interested in visiting nor enough to attract an influx of people from other areas to move to Detroit!
In my view,(which I find sad), and many others, Detroit has seen better days and will never recover enough to be an attractive place to live and prosper! Its in the same category as Buffalo, Rochester and other faded Rust Belt Cities times two! YMMV
As I said before, the financial problems of the City, the neglect of the City and the penny pinching by the State of Michigan as well as the current Political Climate in Washington in regards to Social Programs and Infrastructure makes the prognosis for Detroit seem bleak!
No City can flourish if most of the City is poor and they surround a privileged island of wealth in the core of the city! I'm of the opinion also that there is not enough Tourists interested in visiting nor enough to attract an influx of people from other areas to move to Detroit!
In my view,(which I find sad), and many others, Detroit has seen better days and will never recover enough to be an attractive place to live and prosper! Its in the same category as Buffalo, Rochester and other faded Rust Belt Cities times two! YMMV
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NW cannonball
Conductor
Excuse me -- but "Rochester" -- former home of Eastman Kodak" -- How the mighty fallen. The school there is still pretty darn good.
I found an Indian Head penny on the sidewalk there back in the late fifties.
I heard about the 98% downtown occupancy while I was there. The rent in the building we visited on our tour ranged from $900 to $5,000. Obviously, they will have to develop more residential units if they want to continue to draw people down there.
But Jim, the point you made that I am refuting is that no one lives in downtown Detroit. A reported 97% occupancy rate for rental units downtown as stated in the article directly refutes that argument.
I take it you've never been to Paris because it is exactly as you describe in your first sentence. Wealthier inside the core and poorer in the ring around the city core. A number of other European cities are similar. What you describe seems to be the norm in a number of cities in the US and Canada (NYC, SF, Seattle, Vancouver and Toronto come to mind immediately) over the past decade plus with new luxury condo and apartment developments replacing blighted areas. I've even seen this phenomena first hand here in Sacramento.
Detroit's biggest issue was one of poor leadership and corruption over the past four decades or so. One hopes that the recently elected mayor in conjunction with the bankruptcy monitor work to stabilize city government and work toward drawing new industry into the city. These things don't change overnight or even over a few nights. Getting away from their traditional auto industry and manufacturing focus would do wonders toward beginning development and increasing the job base. If I were a large company Detroit offers some attractive things for consideration, cheap land to build facilities; the University of Michigan being close by to provide an educated workforce and direct access to the Canadian marketplace via Windsor.
Using Birmingham, Alabama, a relic of steel production and then left for dead as a test case the above can be done but it does take time. Thus, with the right leadership, regional cooperation and vision Detroit can see better days, and to use your words recover enough to be an attractive place to live and prosper.
Thanks tp, your last two paragraphs are excellent and COULD come true with, as you say, the right Leadership and Funding which, as I said is in short supply in these penny pinching days of wanting to have government do nothing so the wealthy can get more tax cuts!
As for your post about rents in downtown, how many people can pay thousands of dollars to rent an apartment when there are no jobs that pay liveable wages!
I live in a city that has attracted wealthy people to move back downtown ( average rent in Austin is now $1,200 a month and rising fast! In the hundreds of luxury condos and apartments being built the rents are $2,000-$5,000 a month! As a result over 40% of the Population is unable to afford to live in Austin due to the low wages here!
( High Tech,Retail, Tourism Service Jobs , Drug Dealing/Criminal Enterprise and Government are the jobs here!)
Also the middle class home owners taxes have become so high due to the right wing that controls the State Government failure to provide funding for Education and State Services as the State Constitution requires! As a result they are moving farther away from Austin leading to horrible traffic with no money being provided for needed infrastructure like light rail and road and bridge repair!( we used to have great roads, now we have clogged and toll roads!)
This is a recipe for disaster since the wealthy living downtown won't pay the taxes necessary to fund the City and will leave for the next "Hot" place leaving behind another, dare I say it,Detroit!
As for your post about rents in downtown, how many people can pay thousands of dollars to rent an apartment when there are no jobs that pay liveable wages!
I live in a city that has attracted wealthy people to move back downtown ( average rent in Austin is now $1,200 a month and rising fast! In the hundreds of luxury condos and apartments being built the rents are $2,000-$5,000 a month! As a result over 40% of the Population is unable to afford to live in Austin due to the low wages here!
( High Tech,Retail, Tourism Service Jobs , Drug Dealing/Criminal Enterprise and Government are the jobs here!)
Also the middle class home owners taxes have become so high due to the right wing that controls the State Government failure to provide funding for Education and State Services as the State Constitution requires! As a result they are moving farther away from Austin leading to horrible traffic with no money being provided for needed infrastructure like light rail and road and bridge repair!( we used to have great roads, now we have clogged and toll roads!)
This is a recipe for disaster since the wealthy living downtown won't pay the taxes necessary to fund the City and will leave for the next "Hot" place leaving behind another, dare I say it,Detroit!
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neroden
Engineer
This is unfortunately really common in "company owned towns", and Detroit was a really extreme example of such, even if it was three companies. Rochester's only just beginning to recover from decades of poor leadership and corrupt government -- another company town. The underlying economic shifts were the main problem, but they get exacerbated in company towns because nobody is willing to say anything bad about The Company; for some reason that makes them especially prone to hucksters.
By contrast, Buffalo was never a company town, and corrupt government was never really the problem there -- it just got hit really, really hard by the economic shifts which eliminated its importance as a port. Arguably Binghamton got hit even worse; it's been slowly declining since the Erie Canal opened and shifted commerce away from the Susquehanna River corridor, and I don't really think there's anything which will reverse that.
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L
lp
Guest
If you are planning to walk around the area, I would, at the least, advise pepper spray, don't wear any jewelry and maybe use a canny pack instead of a purse. The Dearborn stop might be a little safer but there was a shooting right across the street at the mall the other day. Good luck and be safe.
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