For eight decades, the Packard overpass on East Grand Boulevard was one of the most familiar landmarks of the Detroit auto industry.

While the covered bridge over East Grand Boulevard was essential to the identity of the grand old Packard plant in Detroit, in fact it was a rather late addition. Constructed in April of 1939, it connected a newer portion of the plant on the south side of the avenue to the original factory, parts of which dated back to 1903. And since the complex eventually stretched more than half a mile over a number of city blocks, there were multiple overhead bridges to connect all the buildings. The one on East Grand Boulevard was simply the most visible and handsome of them.

The photo below shows the actual purpose of the overpass. It housed a conveyor line that transported body shells from the body and trim shops on the south side to the final assembly area at the north end of the plant. The Packard complex was a bustling place in the 1940s—in the best years, annual production there exceeded 100,000 units.

Before the expressways were built, Grand Boulevard was one of the major thoroughfares in Detroit, and many thousands of cars passed through the overpass every day. The bridge soon became one of the company’s most familiar symbols, as shown in the illustration above from a 1940s product brochure. But when production was shut down at the East Grand Boulevard plant in late 1954 and relocated, first to Conner Avenue a few miles away and then to South Bend, Indiana, the facility fell into disrepair. The bridge was disfigured with broken windows and graffiti, like the rest of the 3.5 million square-feet complex, which fell prey to vandals and scrappers.

After a series of botched attempts by the city to sell and rehabilitate the old Packard plant, in December of 2013 the facility was acquired by Peruvian real estate developer Fernando Palazuelo. He secured the buildings and launched a major cleanup of the site, and as part of the effort the overpass was given a much-needed facelift. But the makeover was in reality a canvas cover painted to duplicate the original look of the overpass. (See our feature on the plant makeover here.)

Unfortunately, underneath the convincing trompe l’oeil artwork (below) the bridge structure itself, which had been partially exposed to the elements for years, continued to deteriorate. On the afternoon of Wednesday, January 23, 2019, the entire overpass collapsed and fell onto the boulevard. (While traffic was blocked for an extended period, no one was injured, thankfully.) The collapse of the overpass served as a portent. In October of 2021, Palazuelo announced that the ambitious renovation project was abandoned, and now the entire Packard plant is slated for demolition.