Extraordinary photographs documenting the decline of Detroit. Numbing.

[snagglepuss]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2011/jan/02/photography-detroit

[HCE SuiGeneris]

1. Wow. The library, full of books, rotting on the shelves...

scares the bejeezus out of me.

[snagglepuss]

5. It feels like something from a sci-movie about the end of the world.

It's surreal.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

7. Stephen King's, "The Gunslinger", springs to mind.

Surreal, indeed.

[Liberal_in_LA]

34. k&r

[tavalon]

67. The world moved on

but yeah, the books are just mindnumbing.

[evilkumquat]

129. Funny, for me it was Styx's 'Paradise Theater'

Or the Grand Staircase in the ruins of the Titanic.

[truedelphi]

234. Yeah, those two are also decent reference points. n/t

[avaistheone1]

143. It does.

It's a metaphor for the unraveling this whole country is going through right now.



:cry:

[lumberjack_jeff]

153. 12 monkeys. n/t

[cascadiance]

275. The movie industry is actually being given incentives to film there now...

... and it looks like they are filming apocalyptic films in a perfect setting for such... Sad, though hopefully the film industry will help that area recover at some point more than nothing being done at all there...

http://detnews.com/article/20090618/BIZ/906180404/Michigan-through-a-Hollywood-lens

Check this page and the trailer of this film:

"Apocalyptic ‘Vanishing on 7th Street’ Trailer Makes Detroit Look Like…Detroit"

http://www.screenjunkies.com/Video/apocalyptic-vanishing-on-7th-street-trailer-makes-detroit-look-like-detroit/

[kentuck]

26. As late as the late 1960's...

Detroit was the manufacturing center of America. That is where I went to get a job when I got out of high school...

Very sad. It was never the same after the riots.

There was a lot of distrust and racism and many people just moved out. The blacks did not trust the whites. The whites did not trust the blacks or the Arab neighborhoods. Much of it was not rebuilt after the riots.

Detroit is the canary in the coal mine, I fear. The once great cities will disappear. Very sad.

[Name removed]

72. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[snagglepuss]

81. You think the TAR SANDS REFINERY is going to be good for Detroit?

http://www.dirtyoilsands.org/search/partner-search?cx=015058539071806661049%3Adqga17glb58&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=UTF-8&q=DETROIT&siteurl=dirtyoilsands.org%2Fthedirt#947

[elehhhhna]

125. overall, yes. detroit is in a fantastic location fro this refinery and they

NEED JOBS. Oil & gas PAYS its employees a dammned good wage and it's not going away

[shrike]

130. Yes

I was born there. Family went back three generations. My parents moved us out for reasons that had nothing to do with the riots; early '60s. But you're absolutely right. Things were never the same after the riots.

[On the Road]

141. Baltimore was the Same Way 20 Years Ago

It's well on its way back. Detroit will eventually recover, too -- there's too much infrastructure in place and real estate is so low that at some point it will attract new business and residents. Just going to take another 20 years.

[BladesOfAiur]

157. I hate racism

I hate it. I just fucking HATE it.

[jwirr]

259. Looking at the pictures was like Kunstler's book World Made By Hand

coming alive in our time. Scary.

[blondeatlast]

165. As an ex-library employee; don't I know it. I got a knot in my stomach seeing that. nt

[MissDeeds]

217. The end of a civilized society

It starts with one library. Jeez...this is disturbing on so many levels.

[awoke_in_2003]

292. wish they would let me rescue those book...

I could put them to good use.

[NNN0LHI]

2. Anyone thinking this is what a lot of other American cities are going to start looking like?

[snagglepuss]

10. The photo of the enormous gutted theatre with a mini-van parked inside

speaks volumes.

[bongbong]

136. That theatre was converted a while ago

The theatre was converted to a parking lot in the 1990s by "paving" over the seating areas and opening it up.

I lived in Flint & the Detroit area from 1970 to 1985, and watched it go from one of the wealthiest areas in the country to one of the poorest in a breathtakingly short time.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

137. The theater was converted to a parking structure

Now an out-of-the-wind place for Lions fans to enjoy a pre-game snack or beverage

:hi:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=C4&Date=20110101&Category=SPORTS01&ArtNo=101010809&Ref=PH&Profile=1116

[Confusious]

251. It's still sad to see such an amazing old building

Turned into a parking lot.

[RKP5637]

39. Yes, constantly! As another poster said, this is the canary! Our own country is in

a crisis, yet we spend money all around the world and wage ridiculous wars. It's disgusting! I do seriously think about it every day as we have a growing rot in the US and the system really seems little inclined to make effective change.

We simply ban-aid the system and prop up the grossly wealthy hoping for change. It doesn't have to be this way, but the US chooses to bring all of this on ourselves and we have none else to blame than the US/ourselves.

[me b zola]

70. Another fact that points out the crisis that we are in as a nation...

...is the fact that it was a British newspaper to publish these photos. US journalism is a joke, with very few exceptions.

[Moostache]

116. Hear, hear!

The pictures AND the fact that it is NOT an American new organization carrying the banner to the American people is truly as disturbing as anything else. I remember Sports Illustrated ran a series of articles from a house they set up in Detroit, but they never included such harsh visualizations (don't want a problem like this to get too much attention after all).

The Corporate States of America is a fascist oligarchy and has been for some time now. The overlords have zero intentions of changing the trajectory of the nation...especially since THEIR mansions and THEIR bank accounts do not bear ANY of these scars whatsoever...

[Bluenorthwest]

128. Of course, anyone paying attention to American reporting on

Detroit would have seen many such images decades ago. When did Roger and Me come out? By that American filmmaker? Michael Something....
His was the journalism that birthed every story you read about the region which comes from outside that region.

[Crabby Appleton]

262. Time published these photos in Sept '09

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1925796-2,00.html

The New York Time has published a few times in '09 - '10

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/ruin-with-a-view/

[snagglepuss]

265. You have got to be kidding. Time published one photo of an abandoned home and

the NYT's blog printed one from 'Detroit in Ruins'. Neither of those articles come close to the impact of the photos published in the Guardian.

[Crabby Appleton]

267. Obviously you didn't reaed the time article nor

click on the link at the end of the first paragraph

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1882089,00.html

[snagglepuss]

282. I didn't see the link but that doesn't absolve Time of it's pathetic journalism.

It certainly appears it ran the piece because two French photographers showed them up.

[Crabby Appleton]

288. Time posted these photo's almost 2 years ago

see this Mar '09 DU thread, guest you missed it but this was reported in the US media, it took a few years for the guardian to catch up with Time.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5241338

[snagglepuss]

291. My point is that Time reported on this only after the book by two French

photographers documented the shameful deterioration of a once magnificient metropolis. They write in their intro that as Europeans they were stunned this was allowed to happen. How is it that the supposed American free press was not on top of this? Why did it take to Europeans to document this travesty?

[tblue37]

257. That is because very powerful and well connected people make a lot of money on those wars.

With the money they make on wars and through corruption, they are able to live in places where they don't have to look at the hideous damage their policy choices leave in their wake, so they really don't care about these consequences.

[Name removed]

112. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[av8rdave]

120. Detroit's problems far predate Kilpatrick, and they are far more systemic than a politician

Blaming the citizenry for circumstances beyond their control does seem to be in vogue these days.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

204. I agree it was more than just Kilpatric, but it still begs the question

who really is responsible for the Detroit mess.

[av8rdave]

230. The culprits aren't too hard to identify

[L0oniX]

151. +1

[StreetKnowledge]

263. Yep. Detroit is a microcosm of America's future.

Twenty years from now, every US city will be in Detroit's boat. Stupidly-wealthy suburbs and decaying, crime-ridden, prejudice-torn inner cities.

That's the future. Because what needs to be done to save won't be.

[spinbaby]

3. I've seen these photos before

They're just stunning. In truth, though, you can find similar views in many of our older industrial cities. A couple of years ago, I got a tour of the Masonic Lodge in Wheeling, WV, and was stunned to see a commercial kitchen frozen in the 20s. It had a wall of oak ice boxes, zinc countertops, and gas burners to heat big kettles of water for washing dishes. It was fascinating.

[OneGrassRoot]

4. Speechless. :( K&R n/t

[freshwest]

189. Yes. Like a science fiction movie. Awful.

[leeroysphitz]

227. Yeah, we Detroiters are living in Mad Max times over here.

:eyes:

[TK421]

247. "WE REMEMBER THE NIGHT RIDER, AND WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE"!!!

[Confusious]

253. Sad.

Such beautiful old buildings left to rot.

[theophilus]

6. One of the saddest and most terrifying things I've seen in a long time.

Why isn't America seeing this? Wake up America, before it is too late!

[snagglepuss]

19. The photo of the Dance Hall to me is the saddest. People of my parents

generation would have been there on Saturday nights. In the relatively recent past it would have been teeming with life.

[blondeatlast]

166. That one and the empty dentist's office really spooked me somehow. Hollywood could not mimic that

kind of creepy even at it's best.

[snagglepuss]

181. The dentist phot is really creepy. When I was a kid my Mom used to

but cheap paperbacks about the paranormal, one was called "Stranger Than Fiction" with stories about people and things that simply vanished into thin air such as the mysterious disappearance of everyone abroad a ship called the Maria Christina. For several years I was terrified I would disappear. The dentist photo brought that back. It looks like the dentist and patient just evaporated.

[PassingFair]

222. The Mary Celeste

http://www.fortogden.com/maryceleste.html

Sometimes mis-remembered as the Maria Celeste

[me b zola]

272. For me it was the Art-Deco left to rot

I'm a huge fan of Deco, and to see it rot is like seeing a loved one left to die. Everything built now is just boxed, pre-fab crap. To lose these treasures is to lose a piece of our collective soul.

[snagglepuss]

290. The lost of countless magnificient buildings and artwork is devastating.

I was wrong to say that one image made me sadder than any other. I so agree that it is losing our collective soul. And not just the buildings but the effort and pride those who constructed and designed them must have felt.

I read a short online piece from Rutgers the other day about Detroit's decline. It mentioned that an established black part of town was razed in the 50's to construct the I-75. The nieghborhood that had been very significant to the Black community was utterly demolished and the anger this engendered fomented for years. What came to mind as I read this was the oft-quoted

In Germany, first came for the Communists, and I did not speak up, because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak up, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me – and by that time no one was left to speak up.

[me b zola]

71. "Why isn't America seeing this?"

Because we don't have a free press, we have a corporate press.

[snagglepuss]

83. Exactly. nt

[msanthrope]

138. america isn't seeing this because they don't want to--not because of no 'free press.'

The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit have been around since 1996---


http://detroityes.com/home.htm

[snagglepuss]

173. That is a fantastic site. I haven't been able to pull myself away and will

go back to check out all the detours and his painting. That said, I have to seriously disagree that people simply don't want to look. Many like myself had no idea the site existed and no idea of Detroit's architectural history let alone the extent of it's abject decline. There is too much info of the web to sort through which is why the 'free press' plays such an important role. Your remark simply excuses the press for neglecting to document the stark decline of America.

[RKP5637]

172. It's covered up under the American rug of "we're really OK." It's not on the

corp. agenda and hence MSM and our gov. agenda to have much of this continuously on the front burner of mass awareness. There is also a huge invisible wall in the US between the 'haves' and the 'have nots.' None of the 'real' wealth and power players in the US want this in front of the masses waking them up as it makes manipulative and propagandistic control of the masses much more difficult. It's very very sad.

[hlthe2b]

8. Numbing is right... Reminds me of Chernobyl...

A very different, but equally preventable bomb went off in Detroit. So, very sad and yes, frightening.

[petronius]

9. Incredibly haunting pictures. It's amazing that so much stuff would just be left

where it lay - the books, and police files, dental equipment...

[sharesunited]

58. Pianos.

[PSPS]

11. What's with #13?

Why are there so many people walking down the middle of Woodward? No cars either.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

12. zombies

:hide:

[rubberducky]

20. It is truely heartbreaking when you drive the streets. My heart aches for this once proud city.

I live in a suburb, but drive to the city often. The absolutely beautiful old buildings and homes bring me to tears. Yes, when you look at them you can still see the craftsmenship that went into them. We don`t build with that level of cratsmanship anymore. Probably we couldn`t afford that in todays dollars.It is so sad. :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[barbtries]

111. lol

it fits huh

[sabrina 1]

168. "Mad World" ~ it reminds of this song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXGBWQdHsyQ

Adam Lambert's version. Very haunting and would make good background music for these photos, imo.

[no limit]

192. I prefer the Gary Jules version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N3N1MlvVc4

But you are right, great background music for these.

[sabrina 1]

201. I like that, hadn't seen it before.

Thank you ~ :-)

[earth mom]

208. Adam is great but I love the ORIGINAL Tears for Fears Mad World version the best!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyLrzroUtsc&feature=related

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1vz6i_tears-for-fears-mad-world_music

:loveya:

[snagglepuss]

17. A very different Woodward. Photo of Woodward 1917

http://www.shorpy.com/node/7136?size=_original



Please scroll to right to see entire image.

[immoderate]

23. That's an awesome photo! Thanks.

--imm

[snagglepuss]

27. It's an enormous panorama. It took me a while to realize one has to scroll right

to see the full image.

[prairierose]

29. Great pic..notice the streetcars......n/t

[snagglepuss]

33. Check out this 1910 photo of a streetcar on Woodward in the winter. Would

any of those men ever imagine what would become of their city?



http://www.shorpy.com/node/9616?size=_original

[madmax]

89. We may be seeing more of this in other cities. nt

[alfredo]

142. I remember driving Woodward from Pontiac to Forrest ave

and not having to stop for one red light. I would have gone all the way to Jefferson, but I lived on Avery and had to turn off there. Of course at that time of night, Highland Park lights were flashing yellow. Still you had to stay disciplined and keep driving at the speed limit.

At that time there were still some Armenians living in Highland Park. George and Iris had a candle shop on Monroe St, and young men were still hoping the Shady lady of Kennedy Sq would return and frolic topless in the fountain. Oh yeah, people did frolic in those days.

The Shady lady had a habit of taking off her clothes when she was on LSD. We always made sure she had a good supply. She was a model for JL Hudson's, and cute as a button. Last time I saw her, she was on the back of a Harley. She was on LSD. How did I know? She was stark raving nude. She rode off on the back of that Harley, sparklers in each hand. That was the last I saw of her. I heard she had married a guy in George Harrison's back up band. I wish her well. She was a sweet gal.

She was a police informant that switched sides when she realized we were nice to her than the cops. I was the one that called her on it and she tearfully confessed. I told her one day, "you are not one of us." It was like I had ripped the head off her favorite doll. I immediately felt bad, but it was for the best. She was too much of an innocent to be caught up in that game.

It's been so many years, I have forgotten her name. She looked like a young Sally Fields, she had a real cute giggle, and her big bear of a boyfriend was good as gold. He knew me and trusted me to be her guide when she tripped.

[dana_b]

147. probably not, but it sure makes us all

think about what may happen to our cities and towns. It's hard to imagine San Francisco like that but I know that it could and may happen. :(

[hlthe2b]

45. Wow what a photo! heart-breaking to see it now.

thanks for posting that, though. It is fascinating.

[snagglepuss]

235. You want heart-breaking read a quote by the architect who designed the

Majestic Building, the tall one at the extreme Left.


“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistence. Remember that our sons and our grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty.”


-Daniel H. Burnham


Daniel Burnham designed among other things the Flatiron Building in NYC, and oversaw the construction of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. The Majestic was Detroit's tallest building until 1909, when the Ford Building (also a Burnham creation) was completed. The Ford still stands today, as well as Burnham's other Detroit creations, the David Whitney Building and the Dime Building. Sadly the Majestic was torn down in 1962 to make way for the exponentially less-interesting 1001 Woodward Building.


More information about Burham and a better view of the Majestic Building and the surrounding streets is here:


http://www.essential-architecture.com/ARCHITECT/ARCH-Burnham.htm

[shrike]

131. What my grandma used to tell me about

Old Detroit

[Iwillnevergiveup]

139. Amazing panorama that tells quite a story

In fact, I had never visited Detroit until now. THANK YOU for posting.

[dana_b]

146. what a fantastic shot

and to see that same area now is heart breaking. Wow - this is thoroughly depressing.

[RKP5637]

178. Incredibly stark comparison! Thanks, excellent stunning picture/comparison! n/t

[snagglepuss]

209. Check out the Google Earth street level view. Go figure that it was posted on DU last year

in a thread about the 1917 Woodward photo. (Note to self check out DU before googling:))

Sorry I don't know how to post the image but you'll find it on post 14 - Occulus


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=159x13921

[Boudica the Lyoness]

190. Thank you for posting that

It was so vibrant back then. The photo is really fascinating.

[leveymg]

220. Amazing clarity and depth of field for a photo from that era. Have cameras really advanced much?

American cities sure as hell haven't, much.

Like we hit a wall around 1970, and haven't done much since. It's nice to be able to chat and share photos with you all, but what other advances can you think of that were worth giving up our industrial base?

Cheap clothes at Wal*Mart?

[snagglepuss]

261. What you may find interesting is that I have read that even if industry

came back, the US would be in trouble because companies wouldn't be able to find managers because American universties are no longer graduating students who know how to run manufacturing plants. Business graduates today specialize in finance.

[sabrina 1]

238. That is an amazing photo! I had to scroll sideways and upwards to

see all of it, but it is a stunning picture from so long ago. All those people so alive and vibrant. The signs 'Steaks and Chops' etc. Makes you think how fleeting life is. All of those people are probably dead by now.

Makes me think of Shakespeare's description of the life we think of as so important:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Not sure it 'signifys nothing' but for all the 'strutting' and 'fretting' we do, a photo like that makes you wonder how best to spend the time we have here. Every on of those people in that photo at that moment, had important things on their minds, places to go, things to do! And now they are gone. It is a mystery, what it is all about.

[gristy]

240. What a treasure trove of photographs!

Thousands of them!

[fishwax]

246. thanks for posting that

both the picture and the site, which I must now go explore :)

[Doremus]

264. Fascinating photo!

One of the things that strikes me is the price of clothing --- $15.

Quite expensive by today's standards, but judging by the size of the billboards, it must have been a very good price back then.

So many other details to see, it's easy to get lost in this photo. Thanks!

[Wednesdays]

277. Changes...

Woodward and Fort Street, 1917...


...and now.

[snagglepuss]

281. Flabbergasted is the only word I can think of. Total erasure except for the

war memorial. Total sterility. Total rationalization.

"Rationalization is the process where by an increasing number of social actions become based on considerations of teleological efficiency or calculation rather than on motivations derived from morality, emotion, custom, or tradition.

It is regarded as a central aspect of modernity, manifested especially in Western society; as a behaviour of the capitalist market; of rational administration in the state and bureaucracy; of the extension of modern science; and of the expansion of modern technology.

Many sociologists, critical theorists and contemporary philosophers have argued that rationalization, as falsely assumed progress, has a negative and dehumanizing effect on society, moving modernity away from the central tenets of enlightenment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_(sociology)


Thanks for posting. The two views of the exact location speaks volumes.

[michreject]

44. Woodward was closed off the vehicles

several years ago.

[defendandprotect]

94. Late K/R -- where was this thread? -- back tomorrow --

[alphafemale]

95. I noticed that too. Foot race? Antiwar rally?

:shrug:

[SaveAmerica]

237. An episode of the Twilight Zone

[TheMadMonk]

13. Welcome to the America, Americans thought they wanted. /nt

[baldguy]

21. The America they were conned into voting for.

[TheMadMonk]

65. Only partially. The nature of the con itself is very telling.

How sad is it, that it is so easy to convince Americans en mass, that there's no money for pot hole repairs, because shiftless black people are sucking it all up through the welfare teat; To convince them that there are no jobs for decent American people at decent American wages, because Mexicans and other hispanics enter the country illegally and offer to work for a pitance (that is of course a fortune in their own country).

Now repopulate the above with "nigger" and "wetback", and toss in a few "paki register jockeys and cabbies" for good measure. Whether you like it or not, enough of the American people DO think that way, to influence the way America as a whole behaves. One hundred and fifty years down the track, and Civil War is still being fought on too many fronts.

Yes, Glen Beck and Fox News, call out and stir the pot, but the feelings have to be there first for them to be stirred up. Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reily, et al aren't speaking into a vacuum. People out there want to hear what they are saying.

Too many Americans believe they are not racist, simply because their circle of friends might cover a wide range of ethnic backgrounds, and yet they will still eagerly buy into the myth of the "African American Welfare Queen" and locust swarms of hispanic fruit pickers.

And as overt racism has become totally unfashionable, America as a whole has turned to discriminating against the poor, although even that is not a particularly new thing.



FFS even FOX themselves run regular "exposes" on exactly how you are manipulated by advertisers, by store layouts, by "once a year"/"never to be repeated"/"buy one get one free" sales. All the seedy sales techniques of a dozen seedy industries. The "interest free" store credit traps. How to use (and how not to use) the honeymoon period of a home loan.

When people are repeatedly told EXACTLY how they are being taken for a ride (or even how to avoid it to their greater benefit), and then hop on board anyway, forgive me for muttering "fucking idiots" into my substatial (think my namesake) beard.


The secret of a good con is to let the victim do as much of the conning of themselves as possible, and believe you me, from where I'm sitting, Americans seem to very busy little beavers in this regard. No matter how many fingers you stomp on yourselves, (to prevent being dragged back by freeloaders/scabs) you remain utterly convinced that the damage to your own fingers and scalp, is due to the reaching hands below.

[snagglepuss]

84. Well said. Your comment that people want to hear what Limbaugh et al are saying

is absolutely dead on, as is the observation that "The secret of a good con is to let the victim do as much of the conning of themselves as possible"

[butterfly77]

174. +1

[neverforget]

14. Reminds me of the photographs you see of Chernobyl except they had

a reason to abandon the city.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

15. Michael Moore told us this story decades ago.

The decline and fall of Flint, Michigan, in "Roger and Me".

[me b zola]

73. Rabbits for sale

Pets or food.

[xchrom]

16. We let this happen to one of our Great Cities.

All of us. We all let it happen.

[NRaleighLiberal]

18. Entropy. One of the laws of Thermodynamics - all things go to disorder without energy input.

meaning maintenance and resources. This can happen anywhere. It probably is a prediction of what much of our infrastructure will end up like. Hard to stop the decline without influx of $$$. What would tea baggers say about this, one wonders....

[snagglepuss]

22. Teabaggers would blame the auto-workers, libruls and hippies. They are

too bloody stoopid to come to any other conclusion.

[Dokkie]

41. just wondering

whose do you blame for decline of detroit? Remember, you don't have to put the blame on one person/community/entity.

[snagglepuss]

52. I blame neo-con economics, unregulated capitalism. I blame those who

oppose single payer health care because health costs are one reason businesses have gone elsewhere. I blame the Military Industrial Complex for sucking up trillions of tax dollars that should have been spent on schools and infrastructure. I blame Wall Street, banksters and corporations whose only responsibilty is to their shareholders. I blame the racism which started the white middleclass exodus from Detroit in the 50s.

[Enthusiast]

100. I'm with you, snagglepuss. nt

[jwirr]

260. Yes.

[wial]

248. personally I blame the automobile engineering managers

who failed to understand the direction the industry was going. The engineers themselves were no doubt screaming bloody murder, but management in this country is largely deeply ignorant and, ugh, republican.

[sweetapogee]

60. there is a lot

of blame to go around. But the big problem is that for every worker in the assembly line, there are 3 persons drawing a pension. The deal that GM made with the US government left funding the retirement issues unsettled. This will allow GM to survive short term and hopefully into a better business climate but the funding for pensions is the anchor that will pull GM into the abyss at some point. The american buying public, nice as it is, is not going to buy a GM car and pay 5-10 thousand dollars more for it simply to prop up the auto workers pension plan, not when they can buy a good import car at a much lower price. I personally don't see GM lasting even ten more years. Think about it, they can take all of their design talent south, build modern efficient plants and lose the pension burden.

But getting back to detroit in particular, the picture essay doesn't show the many manufacturing facilities in ruins which is the real problem. The tax base is basically gone to the burbs, there are no real industrial jobs available. In articles written in trade publications, the chevy volt (to use an example) costs almost twice as much to produce as the sticker price on the car. This is no way to run any kind of manufacturing facility, they have to at least break even or they are gone. So, as presently configured, the volt, which is GMs hope is going to finish the job of bringing the company to it's knees. The mindset has to change to a practical design, reliable and affordable or no one will buy the car, plain and simple.

[Hannah Bell]

61. bullshit.

[sweetapogee]

69. ok

whatever you say.

Have a look at the extent of detroit's wows http://detroityes.com/home.htm

[Hannah Bell]

93. The fact that detroit has woes doesn't mean the cause is too many union pensioners.

That's right-wing crap.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

200. The fact is that he did not say Detroit, he said GM

And he is right. The bailout plan ignored the looming pension issue and let unaddressed it will kill GM's competitiveness.

[Hannah Bell]

218. the fact is you don't even read the posts

[ProgressiveProfessor]

245. I did...you misread the content and went off without basis

sort of like Regency...

[Hannah Bell]

252. you don't even read

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=103215&mesg_id=104055

[tinkerbell41]

124. I really am baffled

Whenever i am on here and see RW talking points parroted.

[Name removed]

75. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sweetapogee]

77. i said

that there are 3 retired workers for every worker on the assembly line at GM. I said nothing about the workers themselves being the blame. I don't know what your problem is in total, but comprehension seems to be part of the equation.

Now, where did I place the blame on the workers?

[Name removed]

82. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hannah Bell]

105. gm's labor cost -- including union retiree benefits -- is about 10% of the price of their cars.

those $80 an hour figures they were touting in the run-up to the bankruptcy included retiree costs.

DETROIT (AP) — As bargainers for the United Auto Workers and the domestic automakers try to reach a new contract agreement, Kenneth Cooksey is one of many workers who doesn't understand why the companies are so focused on the cost of labor.

By most accounts, labor expenses for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler amount to about 10 percent of the price of a new vehicle, including wages, benefits and "legacy" costs for retiree pensions and health care.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=367x2552


So even if they paid their workers ZERO & killed all the retirees, the savings would be no more than 10%.

It's ridiculous. A big part of the difference is bloated admin & supervisory. Exec pay at GM is something like 2% of cost.

There's over $30 million in compensation for 3 execs alone in this article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2534738420080425

[sweetapogee]

162. Well

I don't have your understanding of the auto industry. I'm however involved in the aerospace industry and know a few things about GM in particular as I get a lot of trade publications, GM is one of my customers and I read almost everything I can get my hands on regarding GM.

Two things to consider:

1. GM's problems started when Delphi, it's electronics division filed ch 11. Delphi is a major customer of mine and I received periodic updates from the courts (for debtor) on the situation at Delphi.

2. GM and for that matter all of the big three make their money on financing cars, not building them. When the credit market went soft it really hurt GM.

General Motors, as I'm sure you know is a huge corporation that is into all kinds of things not just passenger cars and light trucks. For example, EMD was up until a few years ago was part of GM. EMD is very profiitable and today it is the largest D/E motive power mfg. in the world and would stand to do well with the proposed updates in the mass transit and overseas freight rail industry (at the expense of the auto industry).

The fact of the matter is that GM had to expose all of it's records to the bankruptcy court in order to get the administration to agree to the bailout. The debt to assett ratio, P&L and all things financial are known to congress and the administration. Maybe I derseve to be called names, possibly true but I have been watching this unfold for years. I have by the way, up until 2 years ago drove nothing but chevys and fords. I don't claim to be an expert on the auto industry but I do know one thing, regardless of who or whom is at fault, GM is still in a world of poop.

take care friend.

[Hannah Bell]

180. At the time it went bankrupt, Delphi wasn't "GM's electronics division," it was

a separate, stand-alone company.

Delphi did use to be GM; it was separated purposefully to shed union labor & introduce lower wages & benefits. And to serve as a test case for the anti-union attack in the company at large.

GM's losses in 2007 etc. were ENTIRELY due to its financing arm GMAC. It lost big "investing" in mortgages & other financial esoterica. Its auto operations were profitable.

The whole government-aided GM bankruptcy is a scam to allow GM to do what it wants to do; renege on its obligations to its US workers & flee overseas.

A GM car is the #1 seller in China.

[sweetapogee]

224. yes

You are correct, Delphi was a stand alone company but it had deep ties to the GM mother ship. The actual part of Delphi that started to tank was it's (military) aerospace division. Car radios are made in Asia or SA, most of the aerospace hardware is made in CA, TX and Mexico and requires two entirely different levels of skills and QC. One of it's (delphi) larger customers is Sikorsky which is a major PITA to deal with at any level. Delphi also contracts out a lot of assembly work to the lowest bidder which doesn't always go smoothly. In my comments I tried to make a complex issue simple so technically you are correct however the corporation GM was bleeding cash through Delphi (and other divisions) for years. The extent of operations that GM is involved in would make most folks heads explode if they knew everything, much like United Technologies, General Dynamics or General Electric. Many divisions of GE pays it's vendors in an amazing net 90 days. Imagine that, one of the largest compnies in the world withholding payment for 3+ months!

take care

[Hannah Bell]

242. Obviously it had "deep ties" since it used to be GM & its main business was GM.

understandably so since it was GM's decision to spin it off as a stand-alone so they could use it as a test case for their wage-racheting strategy.

Not sure what your point is.

Delphi isn't a good example of anything except the duplicity of GM & the corporate class.

The "bankruptcy" of GM follows the playbook of the "bankruptcy" at Delphi nearly move for move.

[sweetapogee]

249. you

make some excellent points.

[JVS]

78. "for every worker in the assembly line, there are 3 persons drawing a pension."

That's because GM decided to close down the US factories. If you count the number of workers in the foreign factories to which they moved the jobs, the numbers aren't out of whack.

[sweetapogee]

79. ....

no shit

[blondeatlast]

167. Self-delete. nt

[liberation]

90. Not really...

... what did GM in is the fact that they tried to be a bank, and they made really stupid financial decisions in that regard.

I bet you don't even have a fucking clue where most of GM's financial troubles were coming from. Hint: it was not the pensions.


Good grief right wing Koolaid is like manna for some of you.

[tinkerbell41]

121. Bullshit

I don't have "facts" readily available but I know import cars aren't cheaper. They don't reflect the lowered labor costs.
It always falls on the back of labor. Why?? So those at the top can make more money. If it wasn't for our labor there would be nothing to sell. No roads to drive on, no deliveries, no vehicles to drive. No electric to power computers put together for pennies a day so these fucking assholes can
punch in some numbers to decide your fate, while they sit in a cushy chair put together by some kid who hasn't eaten or washed in days. FOR FUCK"S SAKE

[bongbong]

134. Wrong on so many levels

I don't read DU to see Adolf Beck's talking points.

[snagglepuss]

182. "Adolf Beck". LOL. Perfect. Hadn't seen that before. Thanks for the laugh.

:rofl:

[soryang]

149. Actually GM is doing quite well in China

Their center of gravity has left the United States. They like other multinationals have left the United States. By 2013 more GM cars will be made and sold in China than in North America.

[Hannah Bell]

254. and funny, somehow they are able to build cars chinese want to buy there.

being as their cars are consistently in the top 10 best sellers & often #1.

despite the "competition". lol.

competition being lol because the entire chinese auto industry = product of foreign capital.

[RKP5637]

211. +1, n/t

[HereSince1628]

24. The work of the invisible hand...

Detroit is situated along what should be a shipping bonanza of stuff moving from the Iron Range of Minnesota, mines and mills of Michigan, factories and fields of Illinois and Wisconsin. This is what fighting wars for 'freedom' does when government refuses to protect the national economy.

Sadly similar pictures can be taken throughout the Great Lakes Basin.

[snagglepuss]

30. That is a brilliant heading. Too bad the Guardian editors didn't use it.

It really sums up the 'situation' nicely.

[Ian David]

25. Because of Climate Change, Detroit will be the new Florida in 50 years.

It will have the perfect climate to retire in.

[UpInArms]

28. no one to learn or teach

and no crimes to be solved

[snagglepuss]

32. Can you imagine what the photographers felt when they came across these scenes?

[JanMichael]

66. If I had been the photographer I would have cried.

Every scene, especially the library and even the police office, is a sign of abandonment and loss of culture.

[blondeatlast]

170. Yes, because just seeing the photographs made me ill and frightened.

For them it must have been far more intense.

[seabeyond]

31. they couldnt find use for all those books. just disturbing. nt

[Hannah Bell]

63. they could have found a use for them. they just didn't want to pay anyone to do the work of

getting them to a useful place.

the sheer waste is disturbing.

the "efficiency" of capitalism.

[seabeyond]

114. for books? any number of ways to set up community volunteering event. nt

[Hannah Bell]

186. someone paid has to set up the community volunteering event unless volunteers step in.

the fact is that no one did; the explanation is likely $$ & liability cost for such an event.

or that no one in power gave a damn.

or that they expected to re-open at some point & that didn't materialize.

[lunatica]

35. Ghost town

with the ghosts seeming to be right there. You can picture the past bustle and the human interaction with the buildings. You can feel the love and pride in the building of such opulence. It's very sad.

[frylock]

36. knr

[salin]

37. Shocking - even after living this reality 20 yrs ago.

When I worked in Detroit - the statistic was that on average 3 homes per city block were abandoned. It was blighted. It was tragic. A decade later on a site visit to a high school ... the block before the reaching the high school - looked like an old west ghost town. The area before that just looked like the depressed inner cities I was used to on the east coast, west coast and in the midwest. But that block leading up to the highschool - took my breath away - so more bombed out looking and abandoned then other places.

These photos are both shocking - and unsurprising. They also inspire fear in me. My current city is seeing increased number of neighborhoods with multiple abandoned homes per block. There are more areas with abandoned factories. I have said elsewhere on this board that I fear that Detroit is a harbinger for urban areas in the US.

Do not just look at these photos with shock, and then with some pity or compassion for Detroit. Look at them as perhaps the future of the big city that you live in, live near, or the biggest city in your region. This could be our coming reality.

[TBF]

38. The decline is staggering - anyone who doubts we are becoming a third

world country isn't paying attention.

[Dokkie]

42. if we r becoming a 3rd

world country, then how come we can afford multi billion dollar war and foreign aid gift?

[snagglepuss]

53. Because foreign wars secure US corporate interests in other parts of the world.

The US is in Afganistan and Iraq to secure oil pipelines. Don't hear too much about that in corporate media do we?

[TBF]

106. All the money is in the hands of a few, we afford what they consider a priority. nt

[tinkerbell41]

126. It's the citizens silly.

3rd world citizens.

[femrap]

221. Lots of TPTB make

lots of money selling arms to both sides. TPTB don't care about nations. They just care about being in control....and they love to destroy....as you can see. Detroit was a big Union Town...now it's gone.

[snagglepuss]

243. You are right on the mark. However I would add that although TPTB

sell arms willy nilly, the MIC sucks America dry.

[femrap]

255. Yes it does.....

and each of the 435 Congressional Districts has a piece of the War Machine....ie, JOBS.

The more I learn, the more depressed I become....but I refuse to stick my head up my arse.

May the New Year bring the Arms Dealers bullets in their hearts!

[Odin2005]

40. American ruins. My God.

:cry:

[michreject]

43. Pictures doesn't do it justice

I'm afraid Detroit is dead. The public school system has a grad rate of 22%. That right there is a killer.

[Hannah Bell]

64. detroit is the 11th-biggest city in the us. & your graduation figures are bullshit.

[SlipperySlope]

87. (Deleted)

[Hannah Bell]

92. 70% of Detroiters over age 25 are high school graduates. So I guess all the

people who don't graduate move to the suburbs or something.

You've got to learn that ed deformers LIE. Constantly, deliberately, to fulfill their agenda.

In fact, the statistic you mention (quoted variously as "20%" - "24%" - "22%") is a bogus artifact. Graduation rate in DPS is 58%. Not great, but not 22%.

The ed deformers just compared the 9th-grade class to the graduating class & assume all persons missing didn't graduate.

Not that they moved, entered charter or private schools, graduated early or late, died, etc.

Then they smeared that bogus statistic on the front pages of papers around the country.

DPS tracks what happened to the missing.

"A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."

Bogus, agenda-driven bullshit stat.

[Crowman1979]

132. They tried this BS statistic with my HS over in Jackson, Mich.

And they also didn't take into account some of the other factors of why they didn't graduate from Jackson High School. Plus, it's always the high schools with 25% or more minority students that get the blame in Michigan.

[Hannah Bell]

203. yep. coincidentally usually the poorest schools. and the ones with the highest percent of minority

teachers.

those schools and their faculties and parents are typically the least powerful & the first to be converted into charter schools run by corporate "Ed is US" chains.

[michreject]

97. Don't just run your mouth

prove it wrong.

[Hannah Bell]

98. you must have missed it, look around.

ps: not that i'm under any obligation since the assertion is undocumented in the post. rather incumbent on the poster to prove it right.

some folks will believe any crap they hand out if it's about poor people, especially poor black people.

[michreject]

99. Detroit public school graduation rate is 24.9%.

http://www.chacha.com/question/what-is-the-graduation-rate-in-detroit


I can google just as good as you can.

You post so much about anti BS about charter schools. You must have a hidden agenda. What's the connection? In what capacity are you employed in the public school system?

I taught in the Detroit school system for two years before leaving. I've seen it first hand, not some internet article that was read 1,000 miles away.

[Hannah Bell]

103. yeah, it's easy to google numbers put out by ed deformers with an agenda. they pay a lot of money

to make it so.

yes, the figure cited by an anonymous poster on "chacha.com" -- authoritative.

you have no clue where that number came from or how it was derived.

Bill Gates-funded study.

Diplomas Count. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
A four-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports the editorial and research activities that comprise EPE’s Graduation Project. A centerpiece of the work is Diplomas Count, an annual special issue of Education Week. In addition to the publication of the print edition of the report, the Research Center produces downloadable online highlights reports for the nation and every state and EdWeek Maps, the EPE Research Center’s GIS-based website that allows users to create maps and access graduation data for every school district in the country.

http://www.edweek.org/info/about/researchprojects.html

gee, you say you are (or were) a teacher & you accuse me of being employed in public schools.

lol.

i am not nor have i ever been employed by a public school.

perhaps you won't recognize the allusion.


“A study released Tuesday by Education Week, a national trade publication based in suburban Washington, reported that the District’s graduation rate for the 2003-04 school year was 25 percent. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, our graduation rate for that year was a little over 60 percent and has continued to rise. It was 67.8 percent for the 2004-05 school year. Preliminary indications are that it will be about the same for the 2005-06 year. In contrast, the dropout rate, which measures the number of students who do not earn diplomas, is currently 10 percent.

Education Week’s study is intellectually dishonest and is based on flawed data. The data is a mere projection that fails to take into account the number of high school students who leave our District for charter schools, nearby school districts or who move out of the area. Even the authors of the study admit as much.

Like other school districts in Michigan, we do not come up with our own graduation numbers. That is a function of the Michigan Department of Education. In other words, our graduation rates are independent, objective and verifiable.


http://detroitk12.org/news/article/1605/


EDUCATION DEFORMERS LIE CONSTANTLY & DELIBERATELY. WHEN CONFRONTED ON THEIR LIES THEY NEVER TAKE RESPONSIBILITY, THEY JUST MOVE ON TO THE NEXT LIE.

[salin]

115. Hannah, I often appreciate your posts... however, you have a blind spot

and it shows up when the discussion is about Detroit, and its pubic schools. Like the other poster, I spent a number of years teaching in Detroit. This is not about an agenda - this is about a tragedy. Documentation about Detroit's poor performance (going back several decades) per graduation rates far predate the current "reform" movement. Harvard's Civil Rights Institute did a study back at the turn of the century - data covered years.

The first study I read was dated 2001; there were follow up studies and a whole body of research throughout the decade by Gary Orfield. These academic/policy studies far predate the current reform/deform movement.

Frankly - we dismiss the crises in Detroit at our own peril. We keep pretending the crises aren't real that any discussion of it is part of propaganda (per your assertion) at our own risk.

Frankly had much more attention and resources been focused here over the past several decades - the crises wouldn't be as acute and wouldn't be ripe to be used for propaganda purposes.

Keeping one's head in the sand and proclaiming that the Detroit crisis isn't real (and I would *LOVE* to see the source for over 70% of Detroit residents (city - not including the very affluent suburban areas) having at minimum a high school diploma. That assertion simply defies all I have experienced and read over the past 20 years.

[salin]

117. additional link

http://articles.cnn.com/2007-06-20/us/dobbs.graduation_1_graduation-rate-high-school-seniors-detroit-public-school?_s=PM:US apparently the figure (old) that you cite DPS stated for a grad rate was disputed by edweek's diploma count study. Both numbers the 24.9 and the 67 are cited. One number tracks consistently with data cited by various sources from the 90s through the 2000s, the other... not so much. Was there a one year anomoly? If so, why haven't we heard of this miraculous performance come-back? Oh.... that would be the propaganda machine at work.

[Hannah Bell]

188. LOU DOBBS? You're citing Lou Dobbs? LOL.

In fact, the state of Michigan continues to track the graduation rates of all its schools & you're throwing out winger crap.

Graduation rates in Detroit schools change year-to-year. As Detroit schools have been under attack during the entire period, with budget cuts, layoffs, & conversion to charter schools, plus relentless anti-school propaganda, it would not be surprising if graduation rates declined.

However, they have never been in the 20s.

That you believe this speaks volumes.

[salin]

193. the source refers to data found from edweek

unfortunately one has to be a subscriber to retrieve the archived article from Edweek. Given that I think linking to a blocked item doesn't make sense - I linked to a reference to said data.

[Hannah Bell]

195. which i've already debunked twice.

the study in question doesn't look at graduation rates at all. it simply compares the size of 9th grade classes to graduating classes.

it's completely bogus, designed to come up with "shocking" numbers for the ed deform propaganda mills.

[salin]

194. and the last time you spent time in one of the Detroit Public High Schools was?

your insult was both off base and unnecessary. I spent a nice bit of time working there. I remember when the decline from grade 9-12 at Southeastern high school had declined by 70 percent - and then only about one-third of those making it through grade 12 were getting a diploma because the other 2/3 hadn't passed MEAP (the then Michigan graduation test) those students were only qualified to receive a certificate of completion. Caused quite a stir in policy circles.

So yes, I could believe that - not because you imply that I am some kind of tool :eyes:, but because I worked there - was on the front lines. When I pursued graduate work - I never stopped reading about Detroit - esp school initiatives. I have been back several times.

I do find the 2000 census data intriguing. Certainly far out of accordance both with my experience, and with the mountains of data collected by the group at Johns Hopkins (from data on school promotion power in cities across the country with data from 1992-1998).

[Hannah Bell]

197. your experience in detroit public schools has nothing to do with graduation rates,

or with this bogus number.

which i've shown the provenance & methodology of while you link to lou dobbs.

if you have some revelatory johns hopkins data, do link it instead of name-dropping. census data is where the official numbers on percent of the population with such-&-such education come from.

[salin]

213. here are a few

www.csos.jhu.edu/crespar/techReports/Report70.pdf - Locating dropouts - 2004;

www.gse.harvard.edu/news/features/exsum01132001.html - This is the first paper (circa 2001) I read from the group - presented at a Harvard Civil Right's Project conference.

My point is that not everyone carries the agenda you seem to believe is lurking everywhere - or that people are so stupid as to just be taken with propaganda.

Yet another body of research was conducted a decade earlier - with more qualitative data collection. Culminated in what I found to be a very interesting read: http://www.sunypress.edu/p-958-framing-dropouts.aspx See there were some folks concerned about this issue long before Gates started throwing money around.

Of course if one doesn't have any concern for the issue of drop out or graduation rates - then it is very easy to ascribe all sorts of nefarious motivations to those who do have such concerns.

[Hannah Bell]

216. same bogus methodology:

the authors estimate the dropout rates in high schools

By arriving at an indicator for "holding power"--or the proportion of students retained in a school between the 9th and 12th grades-their findings reveal that between 40% and 50% of the central city high schools in the sample (236 in 89/92, and 285 for 92/95) graduate less than half of their ninth grade class.


and on a school-by-school basis to boot. not even district-wide.



It doesn't take a harvard grad to see the *fail*

[salin]

229. Dimissive

what a surprise. However it is valid and measurable. If the issue were simple fluid mobility (as often occurs in high poverty areas) then the numbers would hold relatively static with a similar flow of students transferring in and out.

Ironically you use self-report education data - that does not talk about graduation rates, graduating within four years, or even whether a high school diploma was ever used. Using statistical sampling, the data is collected on a relatively smaller subset of the general population and then .... extrapolated (or "estimated" as you might term it.)

The data to which you refer is interesting. But it in no way reflects a "graduation rate."

[Hannah Bell]

239. lol. if you can't see what's wrong with comparing the size of the 9th grade in a single

school to the size of the 12th grade graduating class, you're no academic.

1. Detroit, as everyone keeps repeating like bots, is losing population. This bogus method assumes that every student lost to a particular high school is a non-graduate, ignoring the possibility that:

- they moved out of the district
- they moved to another HS

2. Detroit, as everyone keeps repeating, has a high crime rate & a high % of youth violence. So this bogus method ignores the fact that a student lost to a particular HS may have:

- died
- been injured
- been incarcerated

3. Detroit, as every ed deform bot knows, has closed innumerable public schools over the last 10 years & introduced innumerable charter schools. This bogus method ignores the fact that students in a particular HS may have

- moved to charter or private schools
- gotten lost in the shuffle of school closings & moves

4. Detroit, as everyone knows, has a high poverty rate. This bogus method ignores the reality that

- students may graduate early to go to work (testing out via GED)
- students may take longer to graduate due to various factors associated with poverty, i.e. family upset, moves, learning disabilities, etc.

THE METHODOLOGY IS BOGUS. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH REAL GRADUATION RATES. IT'S SIMPLY A COMPARISON OF THE SIZE OF 9TH & 12TH GRADE CLASSES IN SINGLE SCHOOLS.

SIMPLY BY THE FACT OF POPULATION LOSS, SUCH A METHOD WILL SHOW POOR GRADUATION RATES. LET ALONE ALL THE OTHER FACTORS MENTIONED.

DETROIT DOESN'T CREATE THEIR OWN GRADUATION STATS. THE STATE OF MICHIGAN DOES THAT, & THEY TRACK THE REASONS GIVEN FOR LEAVING A SCHOOL & WHETHER THE STUDENT SHOWS UP ELSEWHERE IN THE SYSTEM OR ELSEWHERE IN THE STATE SYSTEM.

SOMETHING THE BOGUS "STUDY" YOU CITE DOESN'T. THAT STUDY DOESN'T EVEN *LOOK* AT INDIVIDUAL STUDENTS.

[salin]

268. lol

FERPA. Until only recently, FERPA prevented the access in many districts and states to individual level student data. Indeed the actual use of individual student data has led to some rather ill thought out data collections (think RAND/LATIMES) that are now pushing policy makers to some very ill considered policies per using individual student data (test data) to link it to teacher effectiveness. This has gotten huge traction, in the past couple of months, in my state. Very poor policies are now being pushed - based on the very basis upon which you object to school level and district level data. Congratulations.

You can yell at me all you like. You have disregarded most of what I have posted anyway, leaving me to believe that this has never been a dialogue, but instead a series of diatribes.

The list of reasons ... you lecture me as if I haven't spent a day, let alone six days a week for nearly 12 hours a day dealing with the complex (and often tragic) lives of urban students and their families. Your list is very incomplete. But given that we are not in a dialogue, it doesn't make sense for me to add to the reasons/causes/tragedies.

I will say one last time. Your blind support for the status quo per education in Detroit, contributes to the very conditions for ripe arenas for the ed "deform" that you deride. The families stuck in such a crisis look for other answers - and when on answer - is "your experience isn't real - all is good and fine in the Detroit schools" vs. the siren song of Gates et al. Your position loses. If instead you recognized that in some areas there is an educational crisis - and it needs to be addressed (with actual solutions that address the concerns of the parent whose child is entering first grade... that is not another 20 years of let the system work out the kinks which is of no comfort to that parent) - then there could arise other alternatives. In short, your knee jerk denial is a very big part of the problem that has openned the door to the privateers in education that you deride.

That said, peace be with you, I believe your intentions are good even though it is clear that you don not offer that sentiment reciprocally. Thus the conversation ends.

[Hannah Bell]

271. & you can write as much blather as you like. the methodology is bogus & the numbers are bogus.

more than bogus; the number you cite is a flat lie.

and the solutions proferred in detroit, & across the country, have improved nothing & will improve nothing.

[Hannah Bell]

273. besides which, nothing you say addresses the methodology AT ALL.

you don't even attempt to defend the method.

you just keep repeating that detroit schools have problems & i'm standing in the way.

telling.

we're not debating whether detroit schools have problems. we're debating whether 80% of its students fail to graduate.

you've offered no evidence for that proposition except two studies that used the identical bogus methodology.

at least one of which was financed by bill gates.

[Hannah Bell]

183. census

Detroit (city), Michigan

High school graduates, percent of persons age 25+, (2000) 69.6%

Michigan = 83.4%

US = ~86%

No surprise, since Detroit has been one of the poorest cities in the country for some time.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2622000.html


The study cited by the deformers:

1. Was funded by Bill Gates
2. Did not directly assess HS graduation rates at all, merely "estimated" them by comparing the number of kids in 9th grade to the number of graduates in 12th grade.

Thus any students who move out of Detroit, moves into charter or private schools, graduates early or late, or dies is counted as a "drop-out".

That's fraudulent methodology. And all those things likely happen at a higher rate in Detroit than many areas.

The fact that Detroit is in bad shape does not mean that any bullshit number ed deformers throw out is true.

Detroit doesn't assess its own graduation rates: the state of Michigan does. And it doesn't count dead students as drop-outs.

[salin]

191. pretty authoritative

the studies I refer to come from research condcuted by Gary Orfield at Harvard. I ran across the work around 2001 as they had just been released after a Civil Right's Institute forum at Harvard. Some of the other key researchers were out of Johns Hopkins.

These were in the data collection and writing processes long before the current ed "reform" movement and before Gates focused his foundation on education.

Per methodology and grade rates/ drop out rates... One of the problems for years per studying drop out rates and graduation rates was the widely disparate way that states measured and reported such data. It was hard to look at data across states and the data meant/reflected very different phenomenon. One state for example, compared the fall enrollment data to the spring fall enrollment data - at all four grade levels in a high school, divided by four (as if the rate of leaving school was even across all grades) and voila this was the drop out index. Funny thing that happened - was regardless of attendance kids were kept on the books until the summer - then slid off the books (per being enrolled) - they simply stopped being in the count all together. Not counted as having dropped out - just disappeared.

Btw, be careful of using one source that uses estimates (and self-reports rather than documentation) while condemning other methodologies because they use estimates. It always pays to find and understand the methodology. I'd have to read the studies to which you refer per Gates and make up my own mind per the validity of their methods and thus their findings.

I am not one who thinks there is a drop out problem plaguing the country. Nor do I think that most public schools are failing. However there are some pockets of deep distress - and one of those pockets is Detroit.

I accused you of having a bit of a bias per Detroit - and failed to once again state - that I *know* and admit I have a bias per Detroit. It feels like I left a part of my soul when I worked there.

Peace

[Hannah Bell]

199. link your data instead of dropping names.

i linked to the source of the study. they don't have the raw study on their site for free, so if you want that, you'll have to pay for it yourself.

no one is disputing that detroit has higher-than-average dropout rates -- it would be astonishing if that weren't the case, since it has one of the highest poverty rates in the country, & poverty/income IS THE FACTOR MOST CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH SCHOOL PERFORMANCE, ALWAYS HAS BEEN & ALWAYS WILL BE.

The dispute is about whether 80% of DPS students fail to graduate. That is a lie.

[salin]

214. self edit

I misread 24.9 for 29.4 my bad.

[AngryAmish]

175. The previous head of the Detroit School Board was both illiterate and a public masterbator

Detroit is pretty screwed up.

[Hannah Bell]

202. "masturbator". ironic. not that it has any bearing on DPS graduation rates.

[apocalypsehow]

198. I wouldn't hold my breath: your facts are likely only to be met with personal attacks, sadly. n/t.

[Hannah Bell]

207. ironic. ps: calling bullshit what it is ain't a personal attack.

[alcibiades_mystery]

233. You're mowing them down, Hannah Bell...keep going

Their bullshit statistic is just that, as you've clearly demonstrated. They should apologize for quoting bullshit and just stop, but of course they won't. Nice job on an irrefutable debunking.

:thumbsup:

[Motown_Johnny]

46. it isn't all like that ya know

this is one of our nicer theaters











just gonna link to something that was posted here a couple days ago and let it go at that (but if whoever took that picture at Brush Park had turned around there are a couple nice houses from the same era right there)

http://www.readersdigest.ca/travel/travelTheWorld/cms/xcms/9-surprising-reasons-why-detroit-rocks_4356_a.html




Edit to add, saw Bob Dylan on that stage less than a year ago

[snagglepuss]

54. Good to see. Thanks for posting that. nt

[pauldg0]

76. I'm glad.....

...to meet optimism with hope!!! It will happen.....ALL streets are lined with gold!!!!

Thanks!!!

[Enthusiast]

101. Wow, Johnny, that is opulent! nt

[CitizenLeft]

113. beautiful - good to see! gives one hope

[GreenEyedLefty]

152. Thanks for the post.

Ironically, the same Ilitches who revamped the gorgeous, opulent Fox Theater have let other landmarks go to rack and ruin because they are too cheap to renovate.

But enough about that... I love Detroit. It's now my home (I'm originally from Flint). I invite anyone who hasn't been here to come and check it out. I bet you'd love it, too.

[PassingFair]

226. I grew up in Detroit...left downtown (Jos. Campau & Jefferson) in 1990...

lived on the east side until my oldest child
got close to school age.

I paid 12,000 for my house, cash in 1990.

Private school would have cost as much as
a house payment in the close suburb we moved
to, so with a second child on the way, I moved
out of Detroit.

Poverty killed Detroit.

Lack of funding and movement of jobs to the
suburbs killed Detroit.

The fact that those who remained in the city were without
fast, reliable transportation to get them to the new
jobs in the suburbs put the nail in the coffin.

Part of the problem is that Detroit is SO poor, they
can't even afford to demolish and remove hazardous buildings,
let alone re-hab those left standing in dangerous neighborhoods.

[Romulox]

158. I saw Flight of the Conchords at Fox, and they said it was the nicest venue they'd played in the US

I really think they were telling the truth.

[niceypoo]

47. Short video tour of abandoned skyscrapers in Detroit

Sad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpRhUVV7Cbw

[derby378]

48. Detroit came this close to becoming our nation's largest ghost town

Let's hope its revival is worth the price we paid as a nation.

[SheilaT]

49. This is the fate of the downtown areas of cities

when everyone is encouraged to buy a car and then move out to the suburbs. My husband (now my ex) grew up in Detroit and then Birmingham, a suburb. I have visited any number of times while we were married, and most of his family still lives there. The last few times we visited we'd wind up driving past those many miles of abandoned housing stock. I believe greater Detroit has lost population in recent years, which is part of the problem.

It is shocking to me that when the libraries pictured closed that no one took the books to other libraries. Or that they weren't sold or given away. And why would an abandoned police station have piles of old file photos out like that? Was it staged in some way? But why would police files not be moved when a station closes? There is something weirdly wrong here.

[snagglepuss]

56. Had these not been published in the Guardian, I might wonder whether

some photos were staged. I don't think they were staged because people stressed to the max tend to stop giving a sh*t about anything. Cycnicism is very common. Look what happened after Katrina. Utter horror stories about police 'carelessness'. I imagine the morale of Detroit's public servants have been dismal for a number of years so police leaving files scattered makes perfect sense.

So much of what we see is illusion. People may put on a show but are far too stressed out and cycical to care, for instance the TSA makes makes headlines appearing to be tough on terra yet a pilot filmed umteen security breaches. TSA puts on a good show but they don't give a sh*t. The only thing they really care about is putting on a good show.

These photos show what happens when people throw up there hands in disgust and walk away.

[snagglepuss]

85. I didn't realize a story accompanies the photos. The story provides details

about the police station. It was not staged.


snip


In December 2001, the old Highland Park police department in Detroit was temporarily disbanded. The building it vacated was abandoned with everything in it: furniture, uniforms, typewriters, crime files and even the countless mug-shots of criminals who had passed through there. Among the debris that photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre found there in 2005 was a scattering of stiff, rotting cardboard files each bearing a woman's name.

In total 11 women had been catalogued by the police, including Debbie Ann Friday, Vicki Truelove, Juanita Hardy, Bertha Jean Mason and Valerie Chalk. Down in the dank basement of the police station, where "human samples" were stored – and had been abandoned along with everything else – the two French photographers also uncovered the name of the man who was linked to all of the women's deaths. Benjamin Atkins was a notorious serial killer. Between 1991 and 1992 he left the bodies of his victims in various empty buildings across the city.

A photograph simply entitled Criminal Investigation Report, Highland Park Police Station is one of the many startling images in an extraordinary book, The Ruins of Detroit, that Marchand and Meffre have made from their seven week-long visits to Detroit between 2005 and 2009. The book's photographs suggest the countless strange and sad narratives from urban life in America in the mid-to-late 20th century. It is also a book of testimony, which not only illustrates the dramatic decline of a major American city, but of the American Dream itself. Many of the images seem post-apocalyptic, as if some sudden catastrophe has struck downtown Detroit, forcing everyone to abandon homes and workplaces and flee the city.








http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jan/02/detroit-ruins-marchand-meffre-photographs-ohagan?intcmp=239

[TheDebbieDee]

50. Looks like the "Left Behind" scenario.........

[donheld]

51. Who says this isn't coming to a city near each of us?

[Lucian]

55. Very depressing.

Especially with the libraries full of books, just sitting there, rotting away, knowledge fading. And the theaters, haunted by the performances of times past, once filled with applause. Silent.

Surreal.

[Zax2me]

57. Everything changes, nothing stays the same forever

EVERYthing

[myrna minx]

59. Wow - it looks like the "Life After People" series.

:-(

[DirkGently]

62. Shame. Trillions to kill strangers by remote assassination. For our own people, nothing. Shame.

[NJCher]

80. is there any clearer evidence?

that this country is controlled by the defense industry? And a few others, like the banking and insurance industries?

They take our taxpayer dollars, which are meant to maintain our environment and be used on behalf of all of us, and they use them to kill people a world away. They take our airwaves and our media to convince the less savvy among us that this is a "security" issue.

I can't think of anything more reprehensible. It makes me ill every time I think about it.

Ill...and oh yeah, bitter.


Cher

[DirkGently]

244. We're literally building palaces ("consulates and embassies") in the Middle East. But for us, decay.

[kwassa]

68. Other cities, like Detroit, have lost half their population and are in similar decline

They may have preserved their public buildings better but are not in economically better shape.

Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Dayton, other heavy manufacturing cities where the industries left the country or failed completely. The Rustbelt.

[PassingFair]

231. The word for it:

"Deindustrialization"....describes it perfectly n/t

[MrMickeysMom]

74. I get a sick feeling looking at this...

It's nothing but a damn shame.

[leftstreet]

86. K&R

[madmax]

88. Heartbreaking - a total disgrace..

Not published in any of our newspapers or magazines. Thanks GB - The Gaurdian is a good source for news of the USA.

[Oldtimeralso]

91. This is really sad!

I worked in and out of the Michigan Central station in the late 70's and it was a grand old place, sad to see it as it stands.

[Art_from_Ark]

96. Google Street View also gives a numbing view of Detroit

Lots of burned out and abandoned buildings, maybe even a crime scene or two

[Enthusiast]

102. K&R The word is 'priorities'.

When, the free market, tax cuts for millionaires and wars of choice become priorities the working class will suffer. "You ain't seen nothing yet."

[fasttense]

104. Where are all the excessively wealthy to buy up these properties?

I thought the uber rich were suppose to jump in and buy up these historical properties for the bargains. I thought the invisible hand of the free market was suppose to correct all these problems. Seems that capitalism sure wastes a lot of time and money.

[Tansy_Gold]

108. 100 Abandoned Houses

http://www.100abandonedhouses.com/




I first saw this site when someone posted it on DU a couple of years ago. It has haunted me (pun fully intended) ever since.




TG, TT

[salin]

118. Thanks for the link, TG

I worked very close to the area in Detroit where the photographer started this project. At that time (early 90s) there were on average 3 abandoned houses per city block.

In parts of my own city... there is a similar rate of abandoned homes. Worrisome times.

[cutlassmama]

160. No wonder they have $10,000 houses up for sale all the time. Looks

like a ghost town.

[Paper Roses]

107. Incredibly sad. Such beauty gone forever.

What really surprises me is the fast decay of all of these lovely buildings. Vandalism and weather I suppose.
How could we ever allow these national treasures just rot away? Nothing will ever be built to compare with the strength and beauty of these once great buildings. Sad.

Equally sad, a few less bombing runs, one less aircraft carrier, end a war or two and all this could be put to rights.

We are allowing the decay of a great American city and our financial hands are tied.
Shame.

[Island Blue]

109. These remind me of photos of New Orleans after Katrina.

Only this was the aftermath of a hurricane of a different kind. :-(

[newspeak]

196. and like NOLA, Detroit is one of our

older historic cities. These cities are part of our heritage- these cities are part of our past and our future. If the greedy politicians and their non-american global corporate masters care nothing for the well being of the majority of americans and our communities, then maybe the people who do care need to come together.

[barbtries]

110. wow how very sad

in so many of the pictures it's like the people just up and walked out in the middle.

[grahamhgreen]

119. Here's a similar video we shot in Clarksdale, MS, home of the blues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spvQY9SGogw

[CoffeeCat]

122. Reminds me of Will Smith's movie "I Am Legend"

Seriously...these photos look post-apocalyptic.

Remember in "I Am Legend" when Legend, after he's the last person alive in NYC, enters
abandoned buildings and homes to search for food and supplies?

These pictures look like that.

I'm sure to many who have experienced the decline of decline of Detroit, it feels
post-apocalyptic.

Sad.

[randr]

123. First they destroyed Detroit

Predominately Labor and Black families in what we now refer to as the rust belt were the first victims of this most recent redistribution of wealth. Thank the incentives they granted themselves to move American jobs over seas to cheaper labor markets with less environmental and employee protection controls. How many of us shop at Walmart?
Make no doubt about it, this is a class war we are waging in our country and the working class majority are losing.

[Horse with no Name]

127. Vestiges of an empire

"The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose."
William Blake

[fascisthunter]

133. this is how the poor and middle class sacrificed for the rich in this country

for a system the rich created with our government. This IS what happens when money influences our elections and our government itself.

http://www.100abandonedhouses.com/

[msanthrope]

135. "The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit" is a website that has been around for more than decade.

Speaking as someone who has a spike from Michigan Central, and dirt from Tiger Stadium (hubby and I were on the last public tour,) Detroit's decline is slow and painful to watch.

The city will need to consolidate and be physically smaller to survive.

http://detroityes.com/home.htm

[Bozita]

145. Superb website!

[lonestarnot]

140. More than disturbing.

:(

[PatSeg]

144. After looking at these photos,

I started watching YouTube videos of Detroit and it was like seeing European cities right after World War II. Sadly most of the videos had very few "views".

[Bozita]

148. My fav: "Detroit Wildlife"-fascinating French documentary about the decline of a great American city

http://www.yourdailyfix.net/vega/2009/01/detroit-wildlife-a-fascinating-french-documentary-about-the-decline-of-a-great-american-city-.html

MUST SEE video!

[felix_numinous]

177. This is a good documentary.

What stuck out for me was that historic mural (painted in the 30's?) about how Detroit was once an agricultural area that converted into an industrial one. Now they seem to be converting back to agriculture, plants and animals are everywhere.

[Bozita]

219. Diego Rivera and his murals in Detroit - fascinating stuff!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103337403

Detroit Industry: The Murals of Diego Rivera
by DON GONYEA
April 22, 2009


The images are iconic.

Assembly workers with tools raised in a frozen moment of manufacturing. Doctors and scientists stand near a child in a nativity scene that pays tribute to medicine. Secretaries and accountants, heads bowed, fingers on typewriters and adding machines. One panel even shows Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, seeming to watch a collection on unseen workers below him.

The meaning of these images is complex, a view of industry that challenges ideas about its role in society and raises issues of class and politics.

These murals were painted by Mexican artist Diego Rivera. Rivera was already well known as the leader of the Mexican muralist movement when he started the work, and he considered Detroit Industry the most successful piece of his career.

In 1932 Edsel Ford, the son of Henry Ford and president of the car company that bears the family name, and William Valentiner, the director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, commissioned Rivera to paint two murals for the museum's Garden Court. The only rule was the work must relate to the history of Detroit and the development of industry.

Soon thereafter Rivera and his wife, painter Frida Kahlo, arrived in Detroit and began studying and photographing the Ford automotive plant on the Rouge River. The factory so fascinated and inspired Rivera that he soon suggested painting all four walls of the Garden Court. Ford and Valentier agreed and soon Rivera's commission was expanded.

He spent about a month on the preliminary designs, and started painting in July 1932. The murals were completed in March 1933. Besides images of the assembly lines made famous by Ford, the murals also depict office workers and airplanes, boats and agriculture as well as Detroit's other industries at the time — medical, pharmaceutical, and chemical. They also show images of nudes representing fertility and a panel depicting vaccination.

The Controversy

Many people objected to Rivera's work when it was unveiled to the public. He painted workers of different races – white, black and brown, working side by side. The nudes in the mural were called pornographic, and one panel was labeled blasphemous by some members of the religious community. The section depicts a nativity scene where a baby is receiving a vaccination from a doctor and scientists from different countries took the place of the wise men.

A Detroit News editorial called the murals "coarse in conception … foolishly vulgar … a slander to Detroit workmen … un-Ame"ican." The writer wanted the murals to be destroyed.

Even the commissioning of Rivera caused a stir. The country was in the midst of the Great Depression and some questioned why a Mexican artist had been chosen over an American painter. Others questioned Rivera's communist ties.

Edsel Ford, patron of the murals, never publicly responded to the outcry. He only issued a simple statement saying "I admire Rivera's spirit. I really believe he was trying to express his idea of the spirit of Detroit."

[PatSeg]

187. That was fascinating, thanks

There was almost a positive slant to the film, as if the city is being transformed from industrial to rural. It is still sad to see so much waste and desolation.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

205. I had no idea

Very interesting video. Thanks.

[RKP5637]

212. Thanks!!! n/t

[EvolveOrConvolve]

150. Sad - the inevitable outcome of unbridled capitalism is on display here

Really, really sad...

[Locrian]

155. exactly

The result of decades of extraction of any type of value and concentration of wealth. At least when companies and the robber barons were local you got a few who were concerned enough about where they lived to contribute. Now, it's all a smash and grab - strip mining, dust bowl mentality.

[BobRossi]

154. Just keep buying Chinese shit.

And support offshore jobs. The American middle class was built in Detroit.
But not to worry, we now have the "Nerd" running Michigan, all is going to be fine! <:>

[L0oniX]

156. The future of our cities as the jobs continue to disappear.

[Romulox]

159. "Should I buy a Prius?"

(MY!) Union Yes!

[matt819]

161. This is appalling

Juxtaposed with another home page post re decline of human civilization. This is what decline looks like. You could just as easily be looking at Baghdad in 2004. When we as a nation allow this to happen, can you really see any hope of a turnaround?

[Initech]

163. Holy shit. You'd think this was a third world country.

But it's not. It's the USA. This is what happens when you let the robber barons take control.

[blondeatlast]

164. Tears and literally, a little knot in my gut. I'm an architecture fan--heartbreaking as hell. nt

[snagglepuss]

179. I too love architecture and feel exactly the same. I don't know if you

checked out detroityes.com which was posted above but it's worth checking out if you can handle the nausea of seeing the extent of destruction. The buildings documented in the OP are just a small fraction of the magnificence that has been destroyed. It beggars belief. Sheer disbelief that architectural gems that weren't left to rot were razed.

[jdadd]

169. This pretty amazing and,

unfortunately, only the worst example of
what's happening lots of places in the great lakes states. This is the
world that capitalism built....oh no, I keep forgetting. It's
all the union's fault. Maybe after John Kasich fixes Ohio he can go
north and open Michigan for business.

[salin]

176. no need for Kasich... frmr Gov Engler already laid the ground work

for speeding up the decay.

[WillyT]

171. Two Initial Thoughts...

Still proud... to be an American ???

Look at all those infrastructure jobs!

:shrug:

:kick: & Rec !!!

[swilton]

184. Note, it takes a foreign country to point this out!

Where is our own MSM? They'd rather cover the teabaggers or Paris Hilton.

[Crabby Appleton]

266. These pictures were published in Time in Sept '09

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1925796,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1882089,00.html

[WCGreen]

185. Detroit 1 8 7 is a new cop show on ABC that shows how bleak the Motor City

has become...

Interesting how people view one particular movement going on in Detroit. The city is huge, vast swaths were there are hardly any people living legally.

they want to consolidate the population into areas that are manageable for utilities, public service and to try and concentrate commercial areas.

Some say this is racism and I can see that but many other see this as the only way the city can survive.

They are talking about reclaiming the emptied out parts of the city for farming and public use.

They are doing that on a much smaller scale here in Cleveland with at least two viable city farms operating here in the city as well as a vineyard a friend of mine is getting ready to come on line...

[Faygo Kid]

206. I was born (60 years ago) in Detroit, and raised there. It will always be Home.

Great history - on the Detroit River, founded by the French in 1701. It was crucial to our nation, during the Civil War, the migration of liberated blacks from the South, the auto industry, WWII. My family emigrated from Scandinavia at the turn of the 20th century to Detroit, and found work and dear friends. My grandparents are buried there.

I was there for the 1967 riots and the 1968 Tigers. I knew Bob Seger when he was a teen and Coleman Young before he was elected, and Dennis Archer was my friend before he was mayor.

Detroit is and always will be home. I entered my teens with Motown, attended Wayne State University for the first Earth Day and then Kent State, and was and always remain an east sider (in Detroit, you are an east sider or a west sider, depending on Woodward Avenue). I worked at National Bank of Detroit for 10 years, and although it no longer exists, I am grateful. They actually cared about their employees. Imagine that. And as a kid I watched Soupy, and Captain Jolly, and Milky, and Johnny Ginger, and Jingles, and Robin Seymour.

I know every inch of Detroit and its history, and I will love the city until the day I die. And now I'm getting hungry for a coney dog from Lafayette or American.

Plus, the Lions just won their fourth in a row. I used to go to every Thanksgiving Day game with my uncle (we usually lost). Perhaps there is hope. If you're a Detroiter, there is always hope.

[snagglepuss]

210. You have then witnessed a tsunami of destruction. It must be dicfficult

to see the city as it is now compared to what it had been.

I've been hoping someone with a knowledge about the former Detroit would post because I am dying to know the name of the tall building on the very left of this 1917 panoramic photo of Woodward. Might you know?


http://www.shorpy.com/node/7136?size=_original

[Faygo Kid]

215. Wow, that's Woodward and Fort. Right across the street from NBD. The old City Hall.

They used to be separated by Kennedy Square when I worked there, and it was the First Federal building. Today it is apparently an Ernst & Young accounting building:



You can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Kennedy_Square

Thanks for your interest. My brother is a noted photographer of Detroit, and I will post his work here shortly. I hope you will look for it, and comment.

P.S. My mom was the first woman in the nation to win the War Production Board award during WWII when she worked at Packards, and Eleanor Roosevelt flew to Detroit to present the honor to her personally.

My uncles (engineers) worked at Ford and Buick, and my Dad (an alcoholic loser) at the GM Tech Center in Warren when it first opened. My Detroit roots are as deep as they get.

[snagglepuss]

232. Thanks for the reply. The building I was referring to on the left, I discovered

is the 1896 Majestic Building according to a post on Shorpy's -

"The building on the left is the 1896 Majestic Building, designed by the famous Chicago architect Daniel Burnham. Among other things, Burnham also designed the Flatiron Building in NYC, and oversaw the construction of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. The Majestic was Detroit's tallest building until 1909, when the Ford Building (also a Burnham creation) was completed. The Ford still stands today, as well as Burnham's other Detroit creations, the David Whitney Building and the Dime Building. Sadly the Majestic was torn down in 1962 to make way for the exponentially less-interesting 1001 Woodward Building.


A better view of the Majestic Building and the surrounding streets is here:

http://www.essential-architecture.com/ARCHITECT/ARCH-Burnham.htm



What is staggering is that if the war memorial wasn't in the picture you posted, I would never have imagined it was the same corner. The destruction of so many manificent buildings is unbelieveable.

I hope you posts your brother's work. I am very interested to see it.


:hi:

[Romulox]

269. Oops. Responded to wrong post. nt

[LuckyTheDog]

223. This is misleading

Sure, they show the decayed United Artists Theatre.

But what about the restored Fox Theatre: http://www.olympiaentertainment.com/venues/foxtheatre.jsp

Or the restored Detroit Opera House: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D602174%26page%3D6&usg=___YJLsiL3QURKjvxTUXmMuMpys38=&h=375&w=500&sz=198&hl=en&start=0&sig2=iNugOmTijjIhW8--GR2O6g&zoom=1&tbnid=iBVzaRwSQnukFM:&tbnh=142&tbnw=208&ei=g_kgTZHkCKTenQevtZmTDg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddetroit%2Bopera%2Bhouse%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1T4ACAW_enUS384US384%26biw%3D1345%26bih%3D570%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C171&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=526&vpy=225&dur=890&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=149&ty=104&oei=f_kgTfSzCdPVnAev6ZnTDQ&esq=3&page=1&ndsp=12&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0&biw=1345&bih=570

Or the restored Orchestra Hall: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelliekp/353254525/&usg=__zYzUdQwKASBnWlw7NghNBk4gNo4=&h=351&w=500&sz=204&hl=en&start=0&sig2=IiV4_4fX6TfWFqHYpABVWQ&zoom=1&tbnid=-f_H5twuVja1AM:&tbnh=143&tbnw=179&ei=0_kgTcy3CIionQeXneHlDQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dorchestra%2Bhall%2Bdetroit%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1T4ACAW_enUS384US384%26biw%3D1345%26bih%3D570%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=140&oei=0_kgTcy3CIionQeXneHlDQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=128&ty=87

Or Detroit Music Hall: http://www.musichall.org/

Or the Gem Theatre and Century complex: http://www.gemdetroit.com//GEM/Site_3/GALLERIES/GALLERIES.html

[snagglepuss]

241. The Guardian simply published photos from a book entitled Detroit in Ruins

by two French photographers. The story behind the book is interesting and worth the read.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jan/02/detroit-ruins-marchand-meffre-photographs-ohagan?intcmp=239

[leeroysphitz]

225. Oh good, more urban decay porn.

[LuckyTheDog]

228. See this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x106460

[kurtzapril4]

236. One of my favourite Detroit sites

This guy took photos of all the decaying mansions in the wealthy area of Detroit. I'm sure some if not most have been torn down by now.

http://www.100abandonedhouses.com/

[RubyDuby in GA]

250. Has anyone else seen the show on the History Channel called Life After People?

They did one where the cities featured were Chicago, Atlanta and London, but a side city that was featured was Gary, Ind. where this is already happening. The city is already crumbling away as if it were abandoned decades ago. So sad...

On edit: after seeing the photos, this is exactly what that show is like.

[valerief]

256. Such beautiful structures, rotted away, like the souls of the industry leaders who killed Detroit. n

[ladywnch]

258. how heartbreaking, to see such beauty/history left to rot.. I had no idea.

my sympathies to Detroit

by all means, let's give the rich more money so they will invest in restoring all these treasures!!!!! Oh, yeah....they just sit on their money and watch. Never mind.

[Romulox]

270. One thing DU has taught me is that ALL experts on Detroit live in Seattle, or possibly Germany

Please, no one who lives (or even has ever visited!) in Detroit need reply to threads like these--the experts all come from elsewhere!

[Hannah Bell]

274. or they live in the white suburbs, like yourself.

the issue is not where someone lives; in any large city there are hundreds of thousands of people with different opinions about what's going on and what should be done. detroit is no difference.

if the issue were where someone lives, then teabaggers have the answers to american problems because they live in america.

and you lose the argument because you live in the white suburbs, not in detroit.

the issue is whether the facts are as stated & the quality of the arguments.

[Romulox]

278. LULz. A rare mistake for our Out-of-Town Expert!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dearborn,_Michigan#Demographics

[Hannah Bell]

283. Dearborn: 86.86% White, 1.28% African American. Detroit: 81.6% black, 12.3% white.

Henry Ford's low-tax company town.

[Romulox]

284. So...that's how a NON-DISINGENUOUS person would describe Dearborn's cultural and ethnic mix?

"We are men of the action. Lies do not become us." :silly:

[Hannah Bell]

286. no, that's how the census dept describes it. take it up with them.

[Romulox]

287. Stunning insight, once again. Truly you see us as we could never see ourselves!

:silly:

[Romulox]

285. You see...THIS is the sort of insight that shines only from Seattle-way!

Dearborn--your average whitebread suburb! :silly:

[Romulox]

279. Your mistakes notwithstanding, don't you ever wonder why none of you "expert" commentary is ever

corroborated by anyone with any specific ties to this area?

"the issue is not where someone lives; in any large city there are hundreds of thousands of people with different opinions about what's going on and what should be done. detroit is no difference."

What absolute rot. Detroit's problems are specifically and uniquely it's own. As your past threads have shown, overlaying the concerns of yuppy coastal cities like Seattle (e.g. "gentrification") onto Detroit produces comedy, not insight.

[Alexander]

276. You know, Robocop may have been right about the future.

What we know of as Detroit might very well be destroyed in favor of a new, corporate-created consumer paradise, like "Delta City" in the movie.

[TK421]

280. ......

[Crabby Appleton]

289. Here is a Mar '09 DU thread about the same photos

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5241338

[snagglepuss]

293. That's nice. So what's your point?

:shrug: