The Fisher Building!?

Is up for auction....

The vaulted marble clad grand entrance hall with its art deco chandeliers.

I hope it goes to someone who wants to preserve its charms and beauty and revitalize it's grand theater. Many warm memories their as a teenager.  I'd barely gotten my drivers license when I was creating theater trips for my friends!  We saw the Houston Light Opera's revival of "Hello Dolly" starring Carol Channing in her iconic leading role.  The magic of the first touring companies of both "Annie" and "A Chorus Line".  You can guess which one ROCKED my world!  And I saw the play Sherlock Holmes with the late Leonard Nimoy in the title role.  Somewhere there's a playbill with his autograph on it.

Detroit Map

In light of its impending cluster fuck, I have assembled with the help of google map, this map of Detroit and am presently pondering it's future by exploring in street level detail the neighborhoods of the Motor City.

Abandoned Detroit 14 Views

These are some amazing images of abandoned and decaying buildings in Detroit, Michigan.  Detroit is the place I tell everyone that I am from.  I am happy to have that association, and sad to watch it die, which it seems to have been doing for the past 52 years that I have been around to watch it.

When the history of Motown is written 2 contemporary lists will find Detroit at the top:

#1 Cities that suffered Race Riots in the 1960's

1. DETROIT
2. Washington, DC
3. Los Angeles
4. Baltimore
5. Newark
6. Louisville
7. Chicago
8. Milwaukee
9. Philadelphia
10. Cleveland

#2 Cities that suffered Economic Death in the last 25 years of the 20th Century

1. DETROIT
2. Youngstown
3. Cleveland
4. Pittsburgh
5. St. Louis
6. Buffalo
7. Baltimore
8. Rochester
9. Toledo
10. Gary

Here are some beautiful and poignant photographs of a few of the decaying architectural masterpieces of the Motor City.

The Book Cadillac Hotel

 The Calvary Presbyterian Church & Abundant Life Christian Center

The Crystal Ballroom of the Fort Shelby Hotel 

 The East Methodist Church

 The Atrium of the Farwell Office Building

The Fisher Body 21 Automobile Factory

The Lee Plaza Hotel

The Martyrs of Uganda Catholic Church

The Michigan Central Train Station

The National Theatre

 The St. Christopher House - former Public Library

The St. Cyrils Greek Orthodox Church

The United Artists Theater

The Woodward Avenue Presbyterian Church

Vintage Postcards of Midwestern Cities

I LOVE these vintage postcards with the illuminated bubble letters of the place names. In this instance these are all cities that I have visited in my life.

Perhaps I'll keep up the theme and share postcards from other regions of the United States that I have had the privilege to enjoy. Hope your summer has given you some time to get away and enjoy the wonders around you!

2011 Emmy Prediction

Lead Drama Actor will be Michael Imperioli from "Detroit 1-8-7".

What I'm Watching #259

OMG, I'm in love with "Detroit 1-8-7". Authentic, unpredictable, sharply written, wittily acted. A little slice of home long, long forgotten. Bravo! And many, many happy returns!

Homage To The Fox

Prairie Home Companion broadcast this week from the Fox Theatre in Detroit. As part of his monologue, Garrison Keeler gave a history of the theater. Housed in an Art Deco office building in the heart of the Motor City, the Fox Theatre is truly one of the most amazing venues of its kind in the country.


From the moment you enter the lobby, you know you're not in Kansas anymore! The grand stairway is guarded by two huge marble lions, one on each side. Corinthian columns with gilded crowns are the main focus but by all means take time to admire the pair of griffins that adorn the ceiling.
Once inside the theater the world of the Fox is no less gaudy or opulent. And at one time the entire place was abandoned and lay in virtual ruin. It's a testimony to the people of Detroit and their desire to rise from the malaise of their current economic depression. It's an amazing place.

A Moment Worth Remembering

12thstreetriot1967
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

I grew up not far from Detroit. Just 29 miles south of the center of the city. My father worked for the auto mobile industry until his retirement in 1986. Only one other event in the wider world had a greater impact on my adolescence (the Viet Nam War). And it seems that these two things are intimately related.

(From the Writers Almanac)

It was on this night in 1967 that a riot broke out in Detroit, marking the beginning of the decline of one of the greatest manufacturing cities in the country. An all-white squadron of police officers decided to raid a bar in a black neighborhood where there was a party to welcome home two recent veterans of the Vietnam War. The police stormed the bar, rounded up and arrested eighty-five black men and began loading them into vans.

The riot that broke out raged for five days. Thousands of soldiers from the Michigan National Guard were called in, along with tanks. The National Guardsmen fired off more than 150,000 bullets over the course of the riot.

Forty-three people were killed and whole blocks of the city went up in flames. After the riots, many of the white residents of the city moved to the suburbs. Thousands of homes were abandoned, and the city's population plunged from 1.6 million to 992,000 in just a few years. By 1990, Detroit was one of the poorest cities in America, with one in every three residents living in poverty.

Little Orange Houses For You And Me?

tiggerriffichouses
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

Or as one blogger quipped, "If you paint it....they will come."

I love this story of grassroots activism from the Motor City. I grew up very near to Detroit and of all the American cities that experienced the race riots in the summer of 1968, none remains as devistated as Detroit. My last visit was in the autumn of 2004, and after 36 years the decay, the abandoned homes, and the mantle of hoplessness remained present and tangible.

Enter a few creative people who are fed up, add some Tiggerriffic Orange paint from the Disney line at Home Depot, and voila! These folks repaint condemned homes in a glaring, in your face, vermillion, and the city is shamed into finally demolishing them.

Bye bye crack house, bye bye rat nest, hello Hope.

Many cities which faced the exodus of both industry and people in the latter decades of the 20th century have found a new focus and prosperity in the ought days of the 21st century. Places that quickly come to mind include both Cleveland and my own Washington, DC. Others are moving in the right direction, cities like Chicago and Pittsburgh. But my dear Detroit inspite of many valiant efforts lags...somehow on some profound level still stuck in the shadows of the flames of the summer of '68. May these urban-renewers find a degree of success that has eluded the political power brokers. And may their successes form a foundation for real renewal...the kind that not only transforms lots and buildings, but inspires people to achieve and succeed.