Promises of good jobs brought tens of thousands of Black families to Detroit between 1910 and 1940, but redlining blocked them from living anywhere near the industrial districts where they worked. Brewster-Douglass was supposed to be the answer, but by the 1980s it had become a new kind of ghetto.
It operated for more than a century in various forms, but there’s something timeless about the giant headframe standing silent in a field.
Buchanan was a company town unwilling to grow with its company. Then, after almost 100 years, that company left. How a rust belt city put on–then taken off–the proverbial map. Michigan edition.
Where I come from, the word “warehouse” is usually preceded by “just another,” but Detroit is a place where you can find anything, even the status quo, neglected on a street corner…
What do steam engines, Henry Ford, and shipbuilding have in common? Sure, Detroit, but let’s be specific–I give you the Dry Dock Engine Works, a Detroit relic about to go through yet another overhaul…
Fisher Body #21 made plane parts in World War II, served as a homeless shelter during the Great Depression, made Cadillacs, Buicks, ambulances, busses, and even paint. What is left of this place, besides some stories and graffiti?
Two things happened around Marquette, Michigan when the mining started: Native Americans were pushed off their land and miners got killed at work. Both of these factors filled this circa-1914 orphanage.
Built in 1911 and abandoned in 1968, this was the last refuge for the people of the Keweenaw that could no longer support themselves. Today it is in ruins.
“It’s just across the parking lot,” the kids might say, “Let’s GO!” Into the dark/into the damp/into old Mather Mine.
“Sunlight scorched what man could not, / Deep where tunnels met. / Though mine they could, / With steel and wood, / And those men that bled.” A poetic homage to an abandoned copper mine.
Known more for its afterlife of arson and anarchy, it insists to exist. It built cars between 1903 and 1958, only taking breaks to help America win its wars. Since then it has become an icon of America’s manufacturing decline.