[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbtyUsnrY2I[/youtube]
Just discovered this well-done video of abandoned Michigan Central Terminal via Detroit Bazaar. Likely be the most depressing, heartbreaking thing you’ll see all day. What’s worse, is it was made twenty-years ago when much of the station was still intact, just after it closed. Two decades of urban-poachers have turned the place into a cement skeleton. I recall once seeing a video shown in a Windsor bar, perhaps ten years ago, of (Canadian) vandals going to the top floors and throwning toilets down the elevator shafts.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSeIKp1qZFI[/youtube]
This video from 1999 shows what some of those folks have done to the place.
Nothing can make Toronto’s troubles seem tiny like thinking about Detroit can.
3 comments
I grew up in Windsor, and lived on the river my last few years before I moved to TO. I could look out my front window and see Michigan Central, which serves as *the* preeminent symbol of the unrelenting urban decay of Detroit. How very sad.
There are large tracks of beautiful, old houses (well, they were until a decade+ of neglect or worse)in Detroit, that if situated in, say, The Annex would be $1M+ homes. Instead, those that are not condemned can be had for the price of a 1982 Chevette.
Anyone who thinks Detroit is capable of resurrection is either entirely out of touch or under the influence of strong hallucinogens.
I saw the station for the first time this year and was awestruck by its beauty and decay:
http://localecology.org/localecologist/2007/04/post-100-dearborn-detroit-chelsea.html
I am not a planner or architect or historic preservationist, but it does seem that this building and its grounds could be transformed into a viable part of Detroit’s on-again, off-again rebirth.
Wow. what a beautiful place.