the 7 wonders of detroit

Today is Detroit's 306th birthday. Yes, it sort of looks its age. But in honor of the occasion, and inspired by a thread at the DetroitYES forum, I thought I'd list what I consider to be the Seven Wonders of Detroit. I felt these should be pretty unique, characteristic of Detroit, and man-made. They are in chronological order by date of construction.

• Fort Wayne (1845). This pre-Civil War star-shaped earthen fort and surrounding additional structures along the Detroit River never saw active combat. It was used for various military uses right up to the Vietnam War, and then for the city to house those left homeless after the 1967 Detroit riots. Now owned by the city of Detroit, it is in enormous disrepair. I've surveyed breeding birds there (Barn Swallows in the sally port, Chimney Swifts in the chimneys of officer housing), and it's one of the most interesting and saddest places in Detroit. I'll bet most suburbanites don't even know it exists. Below is a photo I took of a tree growing through a patched-up section of the outer fort wall. There are some good photos on Flickr.



• Packard Motor Plant (1907). A full mile of 40 buildings and 4 million square feet, last bustling in the 1950s when Packard moved out, save for graffiti artists, homeless, car thieves, etc. It's a favorite of urban explorers, but I've only seen it from the perimeter, which was amazing. Photos simply cannot provide the perspective necessary to envision this spectacular ruin, but these are a good start, as is the gallery included in this article from the Detroit News. Tied up in legal limbo for years, it was finally put up for sale by developers. I'm not sure how easy it will be to unload ("Ask the man who owns one.")
  
  
• Michigan Central Station (1913).  Fifty thousand square feet of beautiful architecture (same designers as NYC's Grand Central) has sat empty since 1988. The last plan for it was as a new headquarters for the Detroit police, but with a $300 million plus renovation price tag, that went nowhere. Owned by the same guy who owns the Ambassador Bridge (see next entry). Forgotten Detroit has historical and contemporary photos. The Holga below was taken by Matt Callow.



• Ambassador Bridge (1927). The 7500-foot privately-owned suspension bridge over the Detroit River connecting Detroit and Windsor.  One of the busiest international border crossings in North America. Photo below by ifmuth.



• Detroit-Windsor Tunnel (1930). Bridge too busy? Take the tunnel. I remember as a little girl how cool it was when you passed the international border, marked by a line on the tile wall with each nation's flag on the appropriate side -- 75 feet under water, sunk into the muddy bottom of the Detroit River. It's still cool.


• RenCen (1977). This office complex, now General Motors headquarters, dominates all classic photos of the Detroit skyline, as in the photo below by mandj98.  When it first opened, it was like a maze, and one of its several huge design flaws made it impossible to easy move from one tower to the next. That's been fixed, and GM also added a huge glass atrium that faces the river and the Detroit RiverWalk. This part of downtown is looking good!



• Heidelberg Project (1986). This is hard to describe. I'll take from a passage at Urban75.com:
  

  Imagine this. You're walking down a poor inner city street in downtown Detroit... You turn a corner into another city street and then stop dead in your tracks. Something very odd is going on. Your eyes are suddenly assaulted by a mass of bright colours as you find yourself in a mad street full of houses covered in numbers, with thousands of toys hanging off trees, weird painted faces beaming out from brightly coloured houses, and discarded TV's sprouting mechanical arms. Above your head there's a row of red trousers suspended off a tree casting shadows over a huge pile of bicycles piled up over an old wooden house...

  Local artist Tyree Guyton began this outdoor urban art experiment to bring attention to forgotten neighborhoods, and it has since received international attention. It is a chaotic, in-your-face statement of urban empowerment spanning the entire block. Below, the Dotty Wotty house by technochick. And yes, people live in these houses!
  
  

I have to give honorable mention to a couple of metro area wonders:

• Ford Rouge Plant, Dearborn (1917). This huge industrial complex -- nearly 100 buildings covering over a square mile -- still churns out Ford F150s. It includes a steel mill, electric plant, docks on the Rouge River, and other facilities that furthered Henry Ford's goal of a self-reliant automotive plant. It's an amazing place, made more interesting by the fact that in the last few years Ford spent $2 billion to green the plant, including a 10-acre green factory roof. 
  


• Uniroyal Tire, Allen Park (1965). Originally an eight-story ferris wheel in the New York World's Fair, this gimungous tire sits alongside of Interstate 94, between Metro Airport and downtown Detroit.
  Every so often, it gets an updated look; once it had a giant nail sticking out of it which was a favorite perch of Red-tailed Hawks. To get the gist of what it looks like, check out this photo by Kim Smith. A true metro Detroit icon.

Happy birthday, hometown!

Comments

[John]

Fort Wayne looks like it could make an interesting historical park with some restoration and regular maintenance.

[Nuthatch]

It's hard to imagine how much it would cost to restore the whole place. The barracks in the fort have been worked on, but there are many buildings that were once homes for officers and other buildings that are just short of collapse. Any one of them would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to restore. I'd like to at least see the fort walls restored with some care and attention to period authenticity, rather than Home Depot bricks slapped up there.

[farlane]

I love your blog.

Featuring this on Absolute Michigan today ... and adding a reminder for Detroit's birthday to my calendar!!

[jess]

LOVE the Heidelberg Project. I can't believe I've never heard of this before. I would totally live in a house painted like that.

[Eye See 360]

Born and raised in Detroit... Watched the Ren Cen and Hart Plaza being built, lived in a loft studio in Greektown in the building where the Dodge Brothers had their first bicycle shop! (Before the area was loft legal) Participated in the Detroit Art Community for many years, even trying to get help and recognition for Fort Wayne. I would love to see it restored.... and then operated as a place of reinactment, and staffed with period costumed "actors."
There is a wonderful example of this in Nova Scotia at Fort Louisbourgh. http://www.louisbourg.ca/fort/ Restoration was done to create jobs when the fishing industry collapsed.
It was way worse than Fort Wayne... don't give up!

Thank you for the trip down memory lane!
Do you know about "Le Nain Rouge"?

[Clare]

Hi Blogmom.

Your posts on the urban decay in Detroit always leave me a little depressed. It is difficult for me to imagine whole neighbourhoods in the state of disrepair that you've posted about before, or 35 acres of production plant in ruins. Yet you always seem so upbeat and positive about your hometown.

[Nuthatch]

Hey, kiddo. It is depressing, no doubt. But I feel profoundly more depressed after I have done field work in the suburbs, where last year there were chunks of land spreading 100s of acres that were forest, wetland, old fields, or farms that are now scraped bare and in various stages of subdivision development. Granted, much of this land was disturbed, but it did provide habitat for a surprising array of species. McMansions on artificially-groomed lots -- which people in this region cannot afford as we have the highest foreclosure rate in the nation -- provide nothing. When I hear a Wood Thrush singing forlornly in some little cluster of trees, it makes me want to cry or scream. It's there because it was there last year, in a woodlot. Based on my work, I know these forest species will cling to these spots a year or two, and be unable to successfully reproduce.

At least in Detroit, you know most of the space hasn't been decent habitat for many decades. I mean, we should know better by now. Nuff said.

And I do love this city. It has a hell of a lot of character once you take the time to know it.