Sign in with Facebook"Some Signs of Life in Motor City" Top 5 Page for this destination Detroit by yooperprof
Detroit Travel Guide: 660 reviews and 1,443 photos
For several years, I've used this house as my "cover shot" for the city of Detroit, because to me it represented the comfortable past of the city and its decaying, squalid present. I took the picture in 1996 while on a visit to the city; it stands just a few blocks from the Detroit Institute of Arts, one of the great Art Museums in the USA.
But times change. Sometimes things do get better. Detroit still struggles, certainly, but the last few years have seen positive developments in the heart of the cities urban core. The new baseball stadium. A computer firm moving its corporate headquarters downtown. Opening up a new bookstore on the campus of Wayne State. A few new restaurants and nightclubs. The Super Bowl this year. And the redevelopment of the neighborhood around the Art Institute, restoring much of the dignity and pride that it once held.
I've got to thank fellow VT member dtownkitty for noticing this house on my Detroit page, and then putting it on the her Detroit front page. She says that the condos in the house are going for $400,000 each! (I hope she doesn't mind that I've borrowed her picture for the dramatic contrast it makes.)
Of course, gentrification in big city america is a complicated issue, and one doesn't want to see any city become simply a playground for the rich. But at a very basic level, it's good to see investment in Detroit's urban core - I hope there's a lot more of it in the future.
(With the dispersal of the poor from New Orleans, Detroit is now the city in America with the largest concentration of urban poverty.)
The beautiful bronze people have landed and taken over Cranbrook!
Cranbrook is a beautiful place in the desert of Detroit's suburban sprawl. It's a large estate dedicated to humanistic education and art, and since the 1920s it has served as a beacon of enlightenment throughout the Middle West, and indeed, around the world. For more info, check out my new Cranbrook Travelogue.
- In a nutshell:America needs to take care of its cities
Reviews (27)
"Old Main" at Wayne State University
Things to Do
(10)
Classic collegiate building from the early 20th century, in the indomitable style known as "Richardsonian Romanesque."... more travel advice
Copernicus in Detroit
Off The Beaten Path
(2)
Mikolaj Kopernik (1473-1543), aka Nicholas Copernicus, never visited Detroit, but if he had, I'm sure he would have been... more travel advice
Good News at Wayne State
Shopping
(2)
Normally I wouldn't get very excited at the prospect of a new chain bookstore, but this is downtown Detroit, and all new... more travel advice
Detroit Public Library
Things to Do
(10)
Impressive Beaux-Arts structure designed by the great classical American architect Cass Gilbert. Note the engraved... more travel advice
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Detroit Travel Guide
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- "PARIS OF THE MIDWEST. A Love Story."
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- "Some Signs of Life in Motor City"
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Comments (9)
Cranbrook is one place I wish I'd had visited more than once, when I was 8. Perhaps if I go back some day and it's still there.
Worked there 3 years. The building gives off different vibes depending on the weather. At dusk it's a vibrant wash of colors reflecting off the glass. When the weather is gray and rainy it looks like an ominous and evil castle. Nice pics though.
That old house has been saved and renovated, evidently. See 3rd pic on dtownkitty's Detroit page. Glad to hear there are still (or again) some pedestrians in Detroit. I remember Diego Riviera from the opera Frida by Robert Xavier Rodriguez.
Informative, thanks.
LOL~~~~!!~@!#
Hi Chet I enjoyed your Detroit pages and all the comments others have left here. Is it really that bad? With all the potential hopefully it turns for the better! At least your tips seem to deliver the real goods!
And just as you plan to say something uplifting about D-town, the Pistons had to instigate a riot. C'est trop Detroit! Glad you finally saw Cranbrook though. :-) K.
I visited Detroit for the first time a couple of years ago. I knew it was bad, but couldn't believe how much of the downtown area was in decay. It looks like it was once a beautiful city with great architecture. Too bad.
Greetings Yooper, I have small ties with the Hancock area, my Mom grew up there and My husband has family in the area,, please post some photos of the wonderful canopy in the fall toward Copper Mt. I have posted some suburbia of Detroit