Detroit’s Vacant Architectural Gems: Save Them or Level Them? Vote!
Call me crazy, but I love Detroit. Few do these days, and it’s a tragedy that this complex city is so devastated. But give it a try. The Detroit Jazz Fest, for example, is fabulous; you feel and hear the beating heart of the city’s great people. The Detroit Institute of Arts is redone and remarkable. Comerica Park is fun—go Tigers! Good restaurants. Concerts at the Fox Theatre. It’s all there, and so much more. Plus, the cars are competing again.
Sure, there are problems, to put it mildly. I admit that often while driving past the many bleak remains, I’ve thought it would be best to just bulldoze the crumbling husks and start over. Make a new city: smaller, well planned, green, with room to grow.
Trouble is, there are lots of buildings that may look ready for the wrecking ball, but are actually historic, architectural treasures that beg for preservation as the city is remade. But which ones stay and which ones go? The Detroit Free Press lets you express your opinion in an article called, “Be reasonable: Should these vacant Detroit buildings be saved?”
Be sure to check out the reader comments. You get a broad sense of people’s anguish, love, hope, and hopelessness. And while you’re at it, read this wonderful article by Free Press columnist Mitch Albom writing for SI.com: “The Courage of Detroit.”
I love detroit’s abandoned architecture. I was recently back there for the first time in 7 years since I graduated from Art school. Downtown had come a long way back while I was there btw 2000-2003. And even farther in the past 7 years. I would really like to see the architecture restored. Or at least preserved. It should never be torn down. It would destroy Detroit’s skyline.