Posted November 23, 20159 yr I recently concluded another fall travel season, and with that I made about a half dozen trips to the Motor City over the last couple months. Here are a few pictures from my travels. Started the season off with a Tribe game at Comerica on Labor Day weekend. Finally saw a win there for the first time since '07. I'm constantly annoyed how Cleveland is still in the dark ages with its coin operated parking meters downtown. I had to take this to show that even Detroit has upgraded These next six are from Campus MartiusPark in downtown Detroit. This is one of my favorite urban spaces in the Midwest M-1 Rail tracks! Detroit's only currently operating "rail transit" system- The People Mover Some Woodward Ave shots The Ren Cen I ventured over to the east side to check out Grosse Pointe Park. The border between the Pointes and the city of Detroit was pretty striking. This first picture is the intersection of Kercheval Ave and Alter Rd in Detroit. Here's the border between the two cities And the view from the other side And the nice quaint main street area of Kercheval in the Park For some more contrasts, let's go to Indian Village The following two pictures were taken literally one block from each other The Detroit River is great for watching ships make their way around the Great Lakes An old Nike Missile site turned park The famous "Spirit of Detroit" in front of city hall Sweetest Heart of Mary Catholic Church St. Florian Catholic Church in Hamtramck Cadillac Place in New Center. Former home to GM, now offices for the state of Michigan The beautiful Fisher Building And of course, the Guardian Building Back to Campus Martius Lobby of the recently restored David Whitney building The Book Tower, recently acquired by Dan Gilbert Capitol Park-- the site of the old Michigan Capitol building when Detroit was the state capital Over to Corktown... "The Corner" The old Tiger Stadium grounds The Detroit riverfront The oldest known house in the city of Detroit A great "rail to trail" greenway- the Dequindre Cut, which is currently being extended Detroit's original cathedral church, Ss. Peter and Paul Catholic Church Grosse Pointe South High School View of Zug Island from downtown I forgot to add this last one. You can't go to Detroit without getting a coney. It had been a few years since I did a Lafayette vs. American blind taste test. To the ire of many Detroit locals, I always preferred American...and the taste test again proved that American is superior. Although, the best coney I've had in Detroit is from Duly's in SW.
November 23, 20159 yr Nice tour of downtown and Corktown. "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
November 23, 20159 yr The rehab of the David Whitney Building seems like it was really well done (from this and other images I've seen).
November 23, 20159 yr The rehab of the David Whitney Building seems like it was really well done (from this and other images I've seen). It is indeed. They did a great job with it. The building houses an Aloft Hotel and an W XYZ bar in the main lobby area
November 23, 20159 yr I think Michigan Avenue out to Corktown and maybe even downtown Dearborn should get a second spur of light rail. The street is a major arterial that's more than wide enough for two tracks, and there are enough neighborhoods with potential on it to justify the cost. I'd like East Jefferson to get a third spur...or hell, how about Fort Street and Gratiot too? That'd be a nice light rail system that'd hit the parts of Detroit with the most potential for investment and be walking distance from existing strong nodes.
November 23, 20159 yr I think Michigan Avenue out to Corktown and maybe even downtown Dearborn should get a second spur of light rail. The street is a major arterial that's more than wide enough for two tracks, and there are enough neighborhoods with potential on it to justify the cost. I'd like East Jefferson to get a third spur... Unfortunately light rail is not in any of RTA's long term master plans. Instead, they are looking to do BRT on the major radial artierial roads. But I agree with you
November 24, 20159 yr I'm intrigued by Detroit, and I'd love to visit and explore Downtown and some more of the core neighborhoods. Most of my time in the Detroit area has been visiting family out in the suburbs, and I've never really had an opportunity to go into the city. Downtown looks like it's clean and ready for a revival, though the lack of people or activity in these photos (and others that I've seen of Detroit) is still kind of jarring for such a large city. Detroit's wide streets, extreme flatness, and relatively boring residential architecture make the city less appealing than other cities of its size or other cities in the Midwest, in my opinion. However, there's no denying that there is a renaissance underway in Detroit, and it will be really interesting to watch the city change over the next 10 years or so.
November 24, 20159 yr I'm intrigued by Detroit, and I'd love to visit and explore Downtown and some more of the core neighborhoods. Most of my time in the Detroit area has been visiting family out in the suburbs, and I've never really had an opportunity to go into the city. Downtown looks like it's clean and ready for a revival, though the lack of people or activity in these photos (and others that I've seen of Detroit) is still kind of jarring for such a large city. Detroit's wide streets, extreme flatness, and relatively boring residential architecture make the city less appealing than other cities of its size or other cities in the Midwest, in my opinion. However, there's no denying that there is a renaissance underway in Detroit, and it will be really interesting to watch the city change over the next 10 years or so. I find Detroit more intriguing than any other city I've ever been to. You should definitely spend more time in the city. Downtown Detroit is really coming along well, and to be fair, many of those pictures of downtown streets were taken during the weekend. It's much busier on the sidewalks during the week. The problem with downtown Detroit is that it's so spread out and segmented by parking lots that it's hard for it to always feel vibrant. My concern moving forward is the huge amount of real estate owned by Bedrock. It's kind of insane when you look at a map of their properties. At the same time, it's hard to criticize that fact though since they are indeed investing so much in the city. I disagree with your comment about Detroit's "boring" residential architecture though. I used to have that opinion, but Detroit has much more varied residential architecture than it gets credit for and much more of it is brick than I expected. There are some beautiful homes and apartment buildings throughout the city. Unfortunately, a lot of it is in real bad shape.
March 28, 20169 yr I was up in Detroit again this past weekend, but instead of creating a new thread, I thought I'd just update this one with a few pictures I took. My first time seeing Michigan Central Station with all its new windows in place The (in)famous Slow's BBQ in Corktown, looking down Michigan Ave Michigan Ave is really wide You'll notice no buildings on the south side of Michigan Ave pre-date the 1940s. The street was much narrower, but the buildings on the south side were completely demolish in the 1940s in order for the road to be expanded. No caption needed The plus side of Detroit's wide streets? Lots of room for bike lanes Now moving downtown The JACK Detroit Casino-Hotel Greektown Look at that: a protected bike lane buffered by parking lanes! Atwater Brewery's new brepub Palm Sunday Mass at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament. It was designed by Cleveland based architect (and my great great great uncle) Henry Walsh M-1 Rail (QLINE) construction in Mid Town Inside the Guardian Building Detroit's tackily decorated ballpark Soldiers and Sailors monument at Campus Martius Yes, this is a real thing
March 29, 20169 yr Hop Cyaaat! "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
March 29, 20169 yr I'm intrigued by Detroit, and I'd love to visit and explore Downtown and some more of the core neighborhoods. Most of my time in the Detroit area has been visiting family out in the suburbs, and I've never really had an opportunity to go into the city. Downtown looks like it's clean and ready for a revival, though the lack of people or activity in these photos (and others that I've seen of Detroit) is still kind of jarring for such a large city. Detroit's wide streets, extreme flatness, and relatively boring residential architecture make the city less appealing than other cities of its size or other cities in the Midwest, in my opinion. However, there's no denying that there is a renaissance underway in Detroit, and it will be really interesting to watch the city change over the next 10 years or so. I tend to agree. I tell my friends, Detroit has similar woes to Cleveland, but seems to be a decade behind the CLE in terms of it's comeback. It seems everything we did 10 years prior to Detroit -- like building new downtown sports stadiums; more sports bars around them; office building-to-apartment conversions, urban gardening, etc... Of course, Detroit mentored Cleveland in the area of a downtown casino (and Detroit was really reacting to Windsor, ONT across the river, which was drawing Detroiters over the Ambassador Bridge to their casinos). And the daytime emptiness of downtown Detroit is like Cleveland's downtown about a decade ago, particularly with all the dust and dirt along Euclid when the ECP/HL BRT corridor was being built. Cleveland really seemed to hit its stride around 2010, and has been on a roll since. Hopefully the same will happen to Detroit, too; the signs are good. I also agree that Cleveland, like Detroit, has some of those super wide streets that can sometimes be off-putting because it makes the neighborhoods surrounding them seem barren. Michigan and Gratiot Aves, are like portions of Superior and St. Clair here -- Clifton on the West Side is like that, too, at points, but Clifton is more alive; surrounded by such a mass of brownstone apts and interesting houses, it offsets that empty feeling... But this is a nice photo thread... It once again shows that Detroit has lots of interesting bones to build upon. Seriously investing in quality mass transit would be a BIG step forward. The tiny M-1 LRT is small step forward, as is the region finally creating an RTA, but not nearly enough.
March 31, 20169 yr These pics are incredible, good job TPH. I'll also say I've enjoyed learning more about Detroit from you in general. I actually really like these wide boulevards. I was in Philly recently and have never seen such a heavy preponderance of tiny alleys, which was also really cool. I just get tired of seeing the exact same 4-lane roadway with no median, in every neighborhood of every city, all across the Midwest. Detroit's huge ROW widths also at least creates a really unique sense of place.. Woodward Ave going up through Oakland is similarly kinda cool (and it's getting a cycle track!). They will need better way-finding through to help non-motorized users find the downtowns in Royal Oak and Birmingham, etc.
Create an account or sign in to comment