Detroit Articles

Having just visited Detroit, I was interested when I saw this news article on Yahoo:   Time Magazine:   Real Moms of Grosse Point.

Links in that article led me to an amazing sequence of photographs: The Remains of Detroit.   Photographer Sean Hemmerle did a project photographing buildings in the rust belt. These photos from Detroit show some of the beauty that was once there.  I found it poignant and worth sharing.

To see more of Sean Hemmerle's Rust Belt project click here.

Detroit

I had to go over to the Canadian side to get this vantage point of Detroit. Silly me, I had never really looked up Detroit on a map. I knew it was in Michigan, but I didn't realize it was right on the border with Canada.  

We spent part of two days driving around Detroit, only seeing a small spectrum of the big metropolitan area.  We drove through one area where there were buildings and houses that had burned, buildings that were boarded up & unused and then just a few blocks later we were in Grosse Point, a very wealthy lakeside community.  What a contrast! 

Downtown Detroit is also full of contrasts - beautiful, new buildings, the Detroit People Mover, and other older buildings empty.  I know that the economy in Detroit is especially bad right now, but many of the buildings we saw throughout the Detroit area that are empty, unused, decaying, show signs that they have not been used in many years.  It is a town of many eras - and it made me wish I had seen it when some of those older buildings were new and occupied. 

Belle Isle Park is also lovely, sitting on the American side of the Detroit River - ponds, fountains, zoos, etc.  We were there when they were doing the Breast Cancer Walk.  But it also has a neglected feel. 

Here are some snapshots from driving around:

Lampstand decorations:

 

The story behind the plastic bags:

 A building I thought was beautiful as we drove by:

 

These have seen better days:

 

 The People Mover just circles downtown. It looks like it would be fun to ride: