Hayward

Those suburban apartment structures are terrible. I feel your pain Columbus. I live on a street of early 1900's housing stock and there's one 4 story structure from the 1960's that looks just like those 'colony apartments' pictured above. It even has that shingled top floor, that protrudes out. I wish they'd all be demolished, lol.

The stadium looks beautiful. I've seen some proven examples of how these minor league stadiums have led to surrounding development. It looks perfectly situated to be an anchor to downtown, stimulating more retail and residential.

Honest answer: the homeless and the bus station. I wish it wasn't that way, and I feel awful saying the homeless are the problem, but it's true. People avoid that area because there is a 90% chance you will get panhandled by a bunch of people. Capitol has an odd smell to it, the streets system is strange, and the park area is dark and depressing with such few lights. It doesn't have to be that way, and Detroit has proven that with some maintenance, brighter lighting, and enforcement against panhandling, the area can improve, and possibly encourage redevelopment. There are "plans" for all those buildings around the park, it's just a matter of the owners sitting and waiting.

MCS as it was in the 70's vs 2008. This is a jaw dropper, and best now and then I've ever seen of this building. You must check this one out. http://onlyndetroit.com/html/decay/ond-0016-all_abord.htm

You mean the other alley on the other side of the park. Walking by, the smell was revolting. I've never smelled something so terrible. Even the worst trash filled alleys of New York on a 105 degree day during a trash holiday couldn't come close, not even by a mile. ------------- I like the Detroit Pizza Factory in Capitol Park. 2 inches of bullet proof glass and homeless patrons who try to mooch off the owner. I also like the big mural on the restaurant wall of Detroit being burned down and destroyed. I think the RenCen was the only structure left standing.

http://freep.com/article/20090407/NEWS01/90407070/Council++Tear+down+Central+Depot++at+owner+s+expense The landmark train station is to be demolished. I really, really hate to see this one go, but I honestly can't present any defense to save it. I wish some miracle would come along. For once though, the city council is right. It's just not right to let this billionaire sit on this rotting property. Something must be done, I just wish the end result had never been demolition. Currently, the building is a hot-spot for urban explorers due to its easy accessibility and high profile nature. Neglect and the elements have seriously destroyed the building, although renovation has always been possible, but at a high price tag of $300 million.

I need to make a critical decision within the next 3 weeks. My 4 year old laptop just died and I'm about to purchase a new computer. It will definitely be a desktop, but I don't want it to have a CPU tower. I'm stuck between the Dell All-In-One studio desktops or an iMac Reguardless of being mac or pc, I will install vista on the machine I want a big screen. I do a lot of visual work in photoshop and illustrator My budget is to be no more than $2000 on the standard market price of the machine, although I will not be paying that much because of a student discount. (I'm technically spending more around the $1600-1700 range, which would get me a $2000-2100 computer at the apple store for example). I don't understand the differences between processor speeds on the macs and pcs. I want as much processor speed and RAM as possible. This is really where I'm stuck. I'm curious to hear if anyone is running windows on their mac. I must install vista because all the programs I own are only windows versions, and I don't feel like purchasing them all over again. In the meantime I'll be using my Sony Viao from 2003. It works fine, but the Pentium 4 cranks up the fans. :oops:

Yes, and thank god we don't!

Ypsitucky, what Ann Arbornites call Ypsilanti. Seriously, the differences between these two cities is vast.

Although I feel I should be celebrating the death of an indoor shopping mall, this also kind of makes me sad. Except for some cheesy signage ("Trend" "Style") that had me laughing, it's a completely updated mall that will now be useless. This phenomena seems to be a large city metro thing. Look at cities with populations under 150K and their regional malls continue to remain succesful without major updates. I can think of a few malls up here in Michigan that I wish would feel the threat of competition to at least get rid of some of the 70's decor. So this mall was managed under Simon, huh?.......yeah..... I can understand. BAH!! You'll find me at the Woodfield Mall....and at least they don't mind photography there. I see people taking pictures of that ramp mess in center court all the time.

My dad visited me two weeks ago and mentioned this great idea of what he should have done. Purchase a rental property for my sister going into college. She started in 2000 and graduated in 2004. I started college at the same university in 2003 and continued on to grad school and will be leaving in 2009. I pay my current rent, but lets pretend I didn't. A family in this situation paying their kid's rents (in Ann Arbor) would pay over $80,000. If both kids went to grad school (not uncommon), parents would pay collectively $100,000. Just imagine if they outright purchased a house, made their kids live there and rent out the remaining rooms. The kids market the property by encouraging their friends to move in, and those rents help pay the mortgage. After the kids move out, the parents can continue to rent and eventually sell.

That's the difficult part, which is why I'm happy I have two mirrors facing each other in the bathroom. I'm going to need to save up a bit more since I just dropped $400 to pay for the LEED New Construction Exam I'll be taking in June. On the other hand I walked into the Architecture and Urban Planning deans office and basically asked nicely for more federal grant money. Typically you are only allocated a set amount, and when it's gone, you're done. Well instead of spreading out my hours, I maxed them all out early this semester meaning I'd need to find another job (not using federal money). At first, they were reluctant but when 6 out of 7 employees failed to show up where I work with me then putting in a 10 hour shift, it was immediately approved. So I guess that gives me a brief time extension to be employed till my apartment lease is up and I can go get a real job (hopefully)

Yeah everyone was fine. It was the couches on the front porch that ignited. AA declared porch couches illegal a couple years ago, but don't enforce or ticket unless a fire actually happens. There's a new for sale sign out front. Any buyers? It looks like there isn't much smoke damage on the inside when the boards were off. Judging by area rents, this house generates almost $50,000/year

The house is still currently inhabited

Well, the "just" restored home across from my apartment building was in flames today. I woke up from a nap when my smoke detector starting going off. Looks like the house will be salvageable but the front iwll need to be rebuilt. My camera battery was dead, so no action shots, but I did get some photos after everyone cleared out.

The same can be said about Matty. Just how crazy is this guy? He's building a second bridge to Canada. The US Government said NO! The Canadian government said NO! Last time I passed through, the approaches for the bridge were being constructed on the U.S. side. That takes guts. I'm imagining a half completed cable stay bridge on the Detroit river at the border. Ilitch looks at everything from a business approach. He doesn't actually care about what's best for the city, but rather what's best for himself. People give him too much credit for the Fox, Comerica, and Gem. They are great accomplishments, but they haven't actually fixed downtown's problems 24/7. The tradeoff for all the stadium developments was leveling dozens of structures that could have been the backbone for a great urban neighborhood. Even the buildings he is trying to "save" are in deplorable condition. It's a really complex issue that's exhausting to type up. If you read about this guy, you might think of him as a saint, but there's a lot to be explained from a planning perspective and what the future is for downtown.

Finished up the last of my graduate capstone project. What an incredible feeling. Held down for 7 months, and the responsibilities fell pretty heavy on me and one other member toward the end. I spent 12 hours on two days getting it printed and bound. I then celebrated with a trip to Chicago this weekend. Making labels for 40 CD's to be sent out to our project sponsors. That computer console is where I enjoy urbanohio Preparing the documents to be cut down in a large cutter. I wanted to cut the "unprintable" margins off you can see on the edge of the blue cover.

Fabulous Ruins is part of Detroityes. It's just that it's been pushed to the back since the photos are over a decade old. It would be nice to see a fresh update of all the same sites to show what exactly has been lost. From my personal opinion, I would say downtown Columbus is more intact than Detroit's. Columbus is not faced with the specter of increased abandonment like Detroit is facing. There's also no tools or mechanisms in place to perpetuate development in downtown Detroit. Greektown and maybe the Penobscot block are the few exceptions, but even around Campus Martius things are quiet.

A couple years ago, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed all of Downtown Detroit on the endangered list because of plans to level most of the urban core for parking. While this happened awhile ago, Several buildings were still lost. The 8-story Madison Lenox Hotel was torn down illegally The Statler-Hilton (16?), People's Clothing (14 stories), a row of buildings on Woodward, Motown Music Headquarters, and the Olde Building were all leveled for parking. The Lafayette Building (google this) is now slated for demolition. It will be turned into surface parking. Mike Ilitch, owner of the Pizza Pizza empire and Olympia entertainment leveled a bunch of buildings behind the Fox Theater for parking. The areas is surrounded by many city blocks of.....you guessed it....parking. Downtown Detroit is losing major buildings almost every year, so I'll use this thread to post photos of what has come down. I may even do some now and then's when I get the opportunity. For now, I'll post updates on the future of the Lafayette building.

Well. Apparently one of the bridges spanning the roads as part of this plant collapsed. This will obviously be the most visible sign that this building won't be around much longer.

Word. I love Comcast Tower. Yeah, I'd love to see that building in person and at night. It's supposed to look really cool after dark. What's going on with these? I hope they aren't coming down. :| They aren't being torn down. I think a few similar projects nearby stalled out because of the economy.

I just don't cut my hair. :wink: $20 buys a lot of milk. Honestly, milk is like half my diet. Well, come up to Ann Arbor and we'll give you a one week supply the next round of expirations lol. I'm also taking home some left over bagels I believe are from a business local to you down in Toledo. Barry's? I've never paid attention to the labels.

" 'cuse " LOLOLOL

I've been taking home more expired food from work. Today I drank milk 1 week past its expiration date. Still tasted fine to me.

I think I'm only one in this world that puts nothing special in my hair. The only ever maintenance it receives is a daily shampoo, or when I cut it myself every four weeks. I can already tell I save a lot of money. My roomate two years ago was trying to form waves after cutting off the afro, and had the bathroom filled with a bunch of oils and various shampoos. The smell would be absolutely revolting.