Posted
8:46 PM
by Gene

You want a depressing Web site? I stumbled by accident onto
Detroit Rises!, a photo gallery of the ruins of that once magnificent place. When the Motor City boomed in the twenties so did construction; some incomparable structures went up, like
the Guardian Building (above). But the city never fully recovered from the Great Depression; the infamous '67 riots and the surge of the Japanese and OPEC utterly doomed it. The city has tried to revive many times since but perhaps it has gone through too many urban renewals to be renewed; today the downtown is a jarring melange of architectural landmarks and refrigerators, fronted by vast empty streets and vaster emptier lots. If any city needs condo projects it's Detroit.
P. S.
The Book-Cadillac renovation has been delayed -- again. Isn't it past time?