The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit Lowell Boileau has created an excellent tour of Detroit as a ruins park. Far from a nihilistic maneuver, calling Detroit a ruins park honors the meanings that the city has for millennial America.
The City That Was An excellent page that allows you to take a photo tour of early Detroit.
Pictures of Detroit's Historic Buildings and Places an excellent page, created by the National Park Service, inculding an interactive map.
Forgotten Detroit is another great site offering several photo tours of Detroit's abandoned buildings.
Daniel Kosmowski has photographed several buildings, including the Book-Cadillac Hotel.
MichMarkers.Com is a very thorough site, with both photographs and short descriptions of historical places in Michigan; I've collected most of the Detroit markers here.
The Motor City page is also a must see for those interested in Detroit architecture.
Buildings OnLine has a nice list of photographs of Detroit buildings and has a page indexing articles about Metro Detroit Buildings.
Detroit Publishing Company's Photos of Detroit Buildings
Churches in Detroit
Detroit Lofts--believe it or not--has perhaps the most comprehensive collection of photos of current Detroit buildings available on line. Most of the photos are by Amanda Thiel of Center for Creative Studies. There are a special sections on the lush Farwell building and on Hasting's Pointe, as well as photos of buildings in the following areas:
Capitol Park
Corktown
East Jefferson
Eastern Market
Greektown
Harmonie Park
Historic Broadway
Historic Park Ave
Lower Woodward
Midtown
New Center
Washington Blvd.This is actually an interesting site, a good example of the we're-making-a-comeback sentiments buzzing through the city right now. Although this is a commerical site whose primary goal (as implied by the site's name) seems to be to rent/sell lofts to people, there is talk about promoting "the richness of Detroit" and the "excitement" of "cosmopolitan" living. It makes a special invite to people who "haven't been to Detroit for awhile," offering them a history of the city and description of loft living. Is this an honest attempt at building a Detroit community, or an attempt to move real estate by capitalizing on YUPPIE fantasies of urban sophistication? Does it matter?
Also at this site: Detroit Historical Society's Husdon's "Memories" Poster--sounds like a money-oriented site, I know, but if you click on the round bubble images, you can access some really good photos of the building at various stages in its history, including both the construction and the demolition.
Detroit Lofts sponser, Root Level, also operates a Detroit documentaries site, that has clips of people discussing the Hudson's demolition and a site that contains cybercast footage of the demolition itself.
Detroit's Progressive Planning Collaborative hosts an interesting site, that includes
Cityscape
Detroit--a non-profit organization for "Detroiters
who believe in rebuilding a dynamic, livable city."
Art
Deco Architecture in Detroit
including
"The Headstones Of Our Graveyard?: Detroit's
Skyscrapers" Detroit's
Decorative Architecture D-Part (Detroit . Pursuit and Resistance
Technologies) has an interesting site, including an interesting tour of
"Area 1"
and an essay
on architecture as political statement. Detroit
the Motorless City is part
of a strange ring of sites called The Urban Exploring Ring. Exploring
Detroit's Abandoned Spaces Island Design discusses plans for a Verticle
Park in Downtown Detorit and a Theater
on the River ("A bridge Between Layers of Consciousness"!). Michigan Design Resources
has a list of significant buildings in Southeast Michigan, and information
about each, though no pictures.
"Preservation:
METRO DETROIT'S TOP ENDANGERED ART DECO BUILDINGS"
Empowering
the City--New Directions in Urban Architecture
Detroit Murder City Comix has
several movie
clips of the city.
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sherid16@pilot.msu.edu
Photographs on this page are (c) David M. Sheridan
