Derelict Detroit by DER SPIEGEL.

[MKSheppard]

Link to photogallery of 36 photos

Brief story precedes it at

Link

[Zor]

Man is that depressing. Just letting such magnificent architecture decay into rubbish or become tombs to prosperity long gone. Makes me glad that allot of the stuff from Winnipeg's Heyday (which is from the same period as much of this stuff) is still intact and in use.

Zor

[FSTargetDrone]

Some of those interiors reminded me of Sebastian's home in the Bradley Building in Blade Runner.

Man is that depressing. Just letting such magnificent architecture decay into rubbish or become tombs to prosperity long gone. Makes me glad that allot of the stuff from Winnipeg's Heyday (which is from the same period as much of this stuff) is still intact and in use.

Zor

Check out Detroit Blog for more of this from a resident. Do look back in the archives for lots of this sort of stuff.

[Atlan]

That's just surreal.

[Aaron]

Those guys living in the old Packard factory are pretty amazing. And even though their struggling to get by they still find time to go out to a Reserve and teach. Good guys.

[Sea Skimmer]

I’m surprised more of these buildings haven’t been thoroughly stripped. Some of those buildings clearly have a significant value of wiring and furniture and stonework is in them. I guess its likely that in many cases no one even has a clue as to the present owner and no one wants to live in such a high crime area to do it.

[Rabid]

Add some signs written in Cyrillic, and that's City 17 for you.

Seeing the cultural loss that come with the waste of all this architectural heritage, of these historical buildings, I have to say it's damn sad that the Detroit municipality is already so poor that it can't afford to try to preserve it. Damn sad, yes...

[Marcus Aurelius]

Add some signs written in Cyrillic, and that's City 17 for you.

It only requires a little bit more decay and slime to reach the Enki Bilal's Nikopol trilogy levels...

(Full image possibly NSFW)



Oh, and I giant pyramid shaped spaceship to hover over the city.

[Falarica]

Detroit isn't alone

BBC Newsnight report from a while back, detailing the urban decay of Gary, Indiana.

Doesn't look like America does it...

[Aaron]

Add some signs written in Cyrillic, and that's City 17 for you.

Seeing the cultural loss that come with the waste of all this architectural heritage, of these historical buildings, I have to say it's damn sad that the Detroit municipality is already so poor that it can't afford to try to preserve it. Damn sad, yes...

Man, fuck the buildings, the loss and tragedy here is that the people of Detroit have basically been left to rot.

[Vympel]

There's tons of Derelict Detroit stuff on youtube. Some very eerie videos of 'urban explorers' going through stuff like abanonded police precints and such.

[FSTargetDrone]

There's tons of Derelict Detroit stuff on youtube. Some very eerie videos of 'urban explorers' going through stuff like abanonded police precints and such.

Turn down your speakers unless you like lousy local noise.

Not to turn this into a thread of videos, but what's interesting about the above is that the power is still on in some of the rooms. That's almost more eerie than if the place were dark, somehow.

[Broomstick]

YOU think it's surreal and depressing?

I remember being in some of those place when they were still alive and inhabited. When my mother worked in Detroit she took the train into town and walked through that train station Monday through Friday. I've been in at least one of those theaters for a show (it's a little hard, as the present ruins don't match my memories of actual opulence). I went with a friend one weekend to the Woodward Avenue church. These are places of my childhood lying in ruins, not some distant unknown city.

I’m surprised more of these buildings haven’t been thoroughly stripped. Some of those buildings clearly have a significant value of wiring and furniture and stonework is in them. I guess its likely that in many cases no one even has a clue as to the present owner and no one wants to live in such a high crime area to do it.

Uh... no.

You're thinking of a decayed city. These parts of Detroit aren't decayed, they are abandoned. Literally almost no one goes there, not even criminals.

But you do realize that books and articles such as these only show the very worst of the city, don't you? It doesn't show the places where there are still people, such as Eastern Market:


Hart Plaza:


Central business district at night - presumably someone is paying to keep the lights on:


Yes, 1/3 of the city is flushed down the shitter - the flip side of that is that 2/3 of the place is still a city.

As for Gary, Indiana - yes, it's going much the same way. You certainly can find completely abandoned blocks (I got up close with some of them during my Census training and work) but there are still viable businesses there in amongst the boarded up buildings. It's bad, but it's not gone.

Seeing the cultural loss that come with the waste of all this architectural heritage, of these historical buildings, I have to say it's damn sad that the Detroit municipality is already so poor that it can't afford to try to preserve it. Damn sad, yes...

The city's current priority is maintaining the viable areas for the residents still there. Yes, losing the architecture is sad but people are more important than buildings. What money there is has to go to keeping it livable for the residents.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

I think the most surreal thing about those pictures is how much stuff there is just left lying about. You expect abandoned buildings to be empty and decaying; that's a shame, but it's not really creepy. Most of those photos look more like somebody got up to go to lunch twenty or thirty years ago and just never came back. It boggles the mind how, when said people were winding down their operations, they didn't clear out or sell off their equipment.

[FSTargetDrone]

I think the most surreal thing about those pictures is how much stuff there is just left lying about. You expect abandoned buildings to be empty and decaying; that's a shame, but it's not really creepy. Most of those photos look more like somebody got up to go to lunch twenty or thirty years ago and just never came back. It boggles the mind how, when said people were winding down their operations, they didn't clear out or sell off their equipment.

In the video above you can see a broom and dustpan leaning against the 3-sided whatever it's called desk thing. You might wonder, "who was it that last used those tools and set them aside?" Did he or she think the next day would be business as usual? Surely, no one would have bothered to sweep up when the word came down that the station was closing. Same goes for any sort of personal belongings, chairs, whatever. Did the people who used those things think they'd be back to work the same day? What was the last day like? Did they know it would be the last day?

I'm especially interested in paperwork or files concerning medical or similar information. Is there duplicate information elsewhere? What happened to the people whose information is in the files?

It was on Detroit Blog, I think, or elsewhere that shows neatly shelved cremains that were left behind. Who were those people whose remains were forgotten?

There are countless stories like that, histories of perhaps long-dead people written down or typed up that are slowly rotting away.

[Glocksman]

Recently the local Whirlpool plant shut down (equipment moved to Mexico, fuck NAFTA) and there were a lot of stories about the history of the plant location in the area. The US 41 plant was built to assemble P41 fighter planes for Republic Aviation, and then made its way through several owners before winding up with Whirlpool.

Local legend has it that while International Harvester owned the plant, M1 Garands were assembled here during the Korean War and while the plant was being renovated in the 80's, a crate of 'packed in cosmoline' M1's was discovered.

I haven't been able to confirm the story, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it was true.

It's only relevant in that Evansville is yet another 'rust belt' city that took it in the ass thanks to the 'free trade' types in both parties.

[Thanas]

What surprises me is the enormous waste. Like the abandoned library, still full of usable books - or the music instruments lying around in that High School including a cello. Why nobody took them with them is beyond belief, especially considering the value of them.

[hongi]

Thirty-five per cent of the inner city has become uninhabitable.

Wow. This may sound a bit morbid, but I'd love to explore those areas. I've heard about people who go into sewers, abandoned buildings. I can't recall the name of what they do, but that sort of stuff sounds interesting.

[General Zod]

Thirty-five per cent of the inner city has become uninhabitable.

Wow. This may sound a bit morbid, but I'd love to explore those areas. I've heard about people who go into sewers, abandoned buildings. I can't recall the name of what they do, but that sort of stuff sounds interesting.

The term is urban-exploration. Considering places like Detroit though, you'd be lucky if you don't end up getting shot for doing so.

[Vympel]

Re: the instruments left behind in the technical college or whatever, I have to wonder if some of those pics have been staged. It seems unbelievable to me.

[Siege]

The instruments and the books are baffling in their own right, but what amazes me most is the picture of the Highland Park police station "strewn with old files and mug shots". I can imagine workers coming back to their work one day to find a sign saying "closed forever" or something, but I'd expect the police to take their stuff with them when they're closing up a precinct...

[Big Orange]

I agree with others that the high amount of perfectly reusable documents and equipment left lying around the empty buildlings seems nonsensical and genuinely eerie, as if the original occupants twenty years ago all abruptly got struck down with Captain Trips, leaving behind all their stuff. I half expected to see bleached skulls or something. And looking at the huge pile of police mugshots left, the majority of suspects detained by that former precinct were black, and highlights the sharp ethnic tensions that brewed in Detroit that led to its explosive downfall in the late 60s, 70s, and early 80s. It was as if the Detroit police officers posted at that abandoned station were like a defeated army in retreat and had no time to destroy their documents or take heavy gear with them when pulling out.

Still, at least two thirds of Detroit has not fallen into literal ruin and it has access to the sea and strange but more sustainable urban communities are springing up there, so it's not quite as cream crackered in the long run as Las Vegas is.

[salm]

Thirty-five per cent of the inner city has become uninhabitable.

Wow. This may sound a bit morbid, but I'd love to explore those areas. I've heard about people who go into sewers, abandoned buildings. I can't recall the name of what they do, but that sort of stuff sounds interesting.

I can only encourage that. Going to weird areas of the city, esspecially the sewers is a ton of fun. The best one i´ve done was the sewers of Ulm which you can enter and walk about 1.7 km underneeth the city. You end up in an old jazz bar that can only be entered from the sewers and is blocked towards the top and has an old bomb shelter in it´s lowest floors from WWII.

[General Zod]

The instruments and the books are baffling in their own right, but what amazes me most is the picture of the Highland Park police station "strewn with old files and mug shots". I can imagine workers coming back to their work one day to find a sign saying "closed forever" or something, but I'd expect the police to take their stuff with them when they're closing up a precinct...

The only thing that would make sense is if they just didn't have anywhere to put them when they took the rest along and they were from case files that had been closed for a long time.

[Zaune]

What surprises me is the enormous waste. Like the abandoned library, still full of usable books - or the music instruments lying around in that High School including a cello. Why nobody took them with them is beyond belief, especially considering the value of them.

And for that matter, why nobody's come along to claim salvage after the fact; some of that stuff looks like it could fetch a pretty good price at a pawnbroker, or as scrap. Or has the economy tanked so badly that there's nobody left to sell it all to?

Honestly, I'm starting to think the best thing the city council could do with those parts of of Detroit would be to rent them out to the Pentagon to practice Shock and Awe on for a bit and then turn the resulting crater-filled wasteland into a tourist attraction.

EDIT: Just for clarification, anyone happening to still live in those parts of the city should of course be given ample notice and if necessary financial assistance in order to be settled elsewhere in time to watch the show.