On December 2, the Detroit Free Press presented the best feature ever done on the city’s historic Packard East Grand Boulevard plant. If you haven’t seen it yet, you want to check it out.
The Freep’s multi-part feature includes:
+ An interactive aerial view showing where and how the complex is currently disintegrating.
+ A straight-shooting editorial explaining why the plant must go now, including a stunning six-minute video.
+ A photo gallery with over 80 rare historical images.
+ A tour-de-force interactive gallery that overlays images of the plant from then and now. Move your mouse over the photos and be amazed.
+ A historical timeline that includes the facility’s troubled chain of ownership in recent decades.
…and more. If you’re a fan of automotive history, or the city of Detroit for that matter, be sure to spend some time with this story. It’s magnificent.
It’s sad how these pictures are used as cause to bash the people of Detroit on other sites when the decay is directly laid at the feet of the abandoned businesses, absentee property owners and wholly ineffectual city government.
My business is in a bordering city. Strong courts and code enforcement has kept the decline in check. Detroit needs to step up enforcement, before the whole city looks like this.
Couldn’t agree more, Barry. In the historical timeline portion of the feature, it was breathtaking to read how a series of two-bit knuckeheads were able to stall the city for decades.
And now it’s going to take significant federal help to raze what’s left and clean up the site. No way do the city and state have the resources. My heart goes out to the people in the neighborhood whose homes and businesses have somehow survived. I don’t know how they did it.
The clowns that run the city and its laughing-stock legal department are the one’s at fault.
Just as Michigan is getting a business court system it should also get a court to deal with issues like this. Just look at the situation downtown with the two attorneys refused to repair a building that was literally falling into the street and alley below.
It’s shameful that people work the system.
Wow, great article. I get a strange feeling in my stomach when I see all the homes that have disappeared around there. And then there’s the stunning pictures from the plant itself.
“wholly ineffectual city government”? Really?
The residents of a community ARE responsible. If you keep putting the same crowd of people in power decade after decade espousing the same ideas,who else are you going to blame?
Please, get over yourself. Looks like you’re looking for a fight. Seems like a troll post to me.
George Bush got elected, twice. Should I blame you?