Friday, December 22, 2006

Free Advice

Billboard messages offer free advice about parenting almost everywhere you go in Detroit. On Oakland in Highland Park, two identical messages proclaim the need for children to use car seats until they reach the height of 4 feet 9 inches.


Photoshop? No. Sadly, a decision was made to place these identical billboards next to each other. Notice the sign in the foreground proclaiming a "Drug free school zone". There are no schools currently operating in this area. The street is lined with abandoned and occupied industrial buildings and leaning street lamps.






Across the street

OK, let's forget for a moment the poor decision to place the same message next to itself. Let's forget that there are no schools along this avenue and probably not very much parent traffic. Let's ignore how difficult to discern the message, "4"9' Is The Magic Number!" is. One question remains: how many parents in this neighborhood can afford to buy child seats for 4"8' children?

Car seat prices range from about 50 to 300 dollars.

The boosterseat.gov website advertised on these billboards includes a link, "Where can I find a booster seat?" It suggests, "...stores that sell toys, children's furniture or other items aimed at parents" and to "Try typing 'Booster Seats' into your favorite search engine."

I know of only one effort to provide car seats to low-income families. A local auto parts chain partners with the Detroit Tigers in a (self-) promotion to provide car seats to "qualified families."

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) argues with statistical data that children as tall as 4"9' have better chances of surviving auto accidents if they are in booster seats. Their point is well taken. However, their use of advertising funds and "efforts" to get this message out seem misguided. Why not spend that money on discounting car seats for low-income families?

Other free advice billboards in the city ask questions like, "The Crossing Guard Knows Who Your Kid Hangs Out With, Do You?" Such questions are intended to berate bad parents into taking more interest in their kids' activities.

There's no shortage of free parenting advice, but who are the ad wizards that came up with this?


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Monday, December 18, 2006

Coachman's Records

The Coachman said that Bobo Jenkins was on his deathbed when he made him promise to keep the blues alive. In Detroit, The Coachman was a blues ambassador on the airwaves of WDET and WGPR and at his record store at Charlevoix and Mt. Elliot. The Coachman and his record store have passed.







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Packard Plant

The exploration of urban ruins is not new. Places like Rome and Tikal fascinate people centuries after their native inhabitants disappeared. Detroit is still a very large city of about 900,000 people. The region boasts more than 5 million. But then enormous buildings have long stood abandoned near the core of the region.

The daring and the desperate alike have ventured into the train station, the Broderick Tower, the Packard Plant and myriad smaller wonders of neglect. It's become less and less novel to have a set of photographs from inside these places. Still, I am compelled to visit and document. Some have visited in search of shelter. Others to scavenge contents of value. Others to vandalize and destroy. Others to create artwork. I visit them to experience and document. I'm just another explorer, I know. My photographs capture just one day in the histories of their subjects.

The Packard Plant is 3.5 million square feet of buildings on the east side that have been largely abandoned for over 50 years. Much smaller businesses continued to use portions of the property until recently. The complex was considered the most modern automobile factory in the world when it was built in 1907. The company began as a luxury automaker in Warren, Ohio in 1899 and was drawn to Detroit shortly thereafter by robber baron James Joy. Albert Kahn, Detroit's most famous industrial architect, designed the plant. Critics applauded his use of steel reinforced concrete.

Here is one of the thick pillars:



Other photos from the plant:




Notice the thriving tree on the top-right.






Inside the bridge over E. Grand Boulevard





This room was filled with televisions.


The Management has had it with cups and bottles.


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Friday, December 08, 2006

Coverups

Detroit erases its physical history. Europeans arrived in 1701, but the oldest surviving home dates circa 1840. Only vague traces of Native presence remain, like the burial mound that still sits inside Fort Wayne. Much of the Detroit's 18th century buildings were erased in a great fire in 1805. Very little of the rebuilt Detroit from the early 19th century remains. Antebellum Detroit was erased and replaced (the Monroe Block is a notable example). The architecture that can still be found abundantly in the older parts of the city doesn't begin to get built until after the Civil War.

We're still erasing, of course. While a lot remains, the majority of what was built between the Civil War and Great Depression in Detroit has been erased. Dramatic and idiotic "refurbishments" of theaters and other buildings in the decades after World War II erased much of the previous eras grandeur and replaced with colder, simpler designs.

Sometimes, entire neighborhoods get erased. Paradise Valley had the highest concentration of African American owned businesses anywhere outside of Harlem in the 1940s. It was erased by the venom and misguidance of politicians and planners. In the late 1990s, construction of the Detroit Lion's football stadium bulldozed the only remaining night club (The 606 Horseshoe Bar) of the neighborhood.

Paint can erase a lot of history. Century old advertisements have clung to the tops of buildings before finally being covered over. Murals have come and gone. Statements are made and then replaced with other statements. The billboard at the SW corner of Michigan and Trumbull was purchased this past election season by the challenger for Governor, DeVos. The retort simply painted over the "os" to spell "DeVil for Governor", and changed his hackeneyed "vote for change" mantra to "vote for satan". The DeVos people quickly and sometimes not so quickly changed the message back. The editors repeated their efforts on their other local billboards...



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Thursday, December 07, 2006

Dearborn mourns

The Mayor of Dearborn, Michael Guido, died of cancer this week. These photos are from Dearborn, the day after his death:


The old Montgomery Ward building in Dearborn. Guido was accused of improprieties after the city of Dearborn paid one of Guido's close supporters $3.35 million for the abandoned building in the spring of 2005.


Ford's Headquarters was one of the only buildings that didn't have their flags at half-mast. Are they so multinational that they have no idea what's happening in Fordville? Did Guido not bend far enough backwards for them?



One of Dearborn's "Gentlemen's" Clubs pays tribute.



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Saturday, December 02, 2006

Michigan Central Station

A little background information:

The Michigan Central Station I visited was built to replace the Michigan Central Station pictured on the right. It was built in 1913 upon at least one premise that turned out to be false--that the growth of Detroit would spur skyrise development between downtown and the new station's relatively remote southwestern Detroit location. While others have argued that planners should have anticipated automobiles leading to dramatic reductions in passenger train travel, it was difficult to foresee the extreme actions the auto industry would take to gut Detroit of its streetcar and train transportation options. After all, train stations have survived in other American cities...

Anyhow, more on the history (and more photos) of the train station can be found at Forgotten Detroit. I'm more interested in its present presence...

A number of the building's finer architectural points as they remain today:















This underground baggage conveyor led up into the baggage claim area through the double doors. The water in this room was at least 3 feet deep. Lower levels of the station were completely submerged. We found an entrance that was mostly dry and used pipes and even a ladder to get through the few inches of water we encountered. Fog on the lens made for some spots.




Climbing the train station, looking below.


The elevators on some floors still featured thick marble.


Most of the floors were long and empty. The tower was never even close to fully occupied, something only conceivable in a booming early 20th century Detroit. The size of the tower became more real to me after walking the long, hollow corridors on each level.


Elevator shaft.

From the roof:

The smoke stack towers high over the station and has been redecorated top to bottom.




To the southwest: St. Anne's, the original French-Catholic church in Detroit, sits at the foot of the Ambassador Bridge.


To the east/northeast: venerable Tiger Stadium awaits its "historic dismantling." The old and new Cass Technical High Schools sit side by side in the upper left.


To the west: The Rouge is visible billowing smoke even on a cloudy day.


To the east: Downtown.


Next door: Abandoned Post Office then School Depository.

As I walked across the vast waiting room, I could hear my footsteps cascading above in the rounded ceiling. There's so much beauty in the station that time may never take away. Should a wrecking ball? Matty Moroun, most notorious for his stranglehold on the Ambassador Bridge, owns the vacant train station. Is he at all responsible for its current state? Should he be held accountable for the massive chunk of unused land he owns in the middle of an otherwise vibrant area of southwest Detroit? How should he be held accountable? Who would hold him accountable? I doubt the mayor of Detroit or U.S. congresswoman for the area would attempt that. They are the only two democrats Moroun has ever contributed money to.

I think it should be restored into a train station. I also think that we should fill in half of Detroit's highways with community gardens and public parks... What do you think?

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