Michigan - Detroit

Detroit



Detroit-Wayne County Airport (DTW) is my favorite ever because it has an indoor monorail. Movable walkways are so 20th-century. Get with the times, everyone else, and get you a train going back and forth between gates. I ride this for fun while waiting for my flight every time.


It's all held up by skyhooks.


Greektown is close to the only safe, walkable place in Detroit. This is St. Mary's Church at the edge of it.


The Wayne County Building, which sounds like it does everything for Detroit all in one.


The second most walkable place is the riverfront, location of the Red Wings and just about every other attraction not in Greektown. Look! Kids are playing in the fountains! It's like there's a living city here.


GM headquarters is among the important riverfront properties and definitely the hardest to miss.


Windsor waves from across the Detroit River, safely in Ontario.


Reclaimed industrial buildings further downriver (northeast), around Atwater St.


Stepping away from the water, another Detroit headquarters for another company (well, for their UAW, which is unrelated to the company), although by the time I got here in 2009 DaimlerChrysler had long since divested itself of Chrysler. I guess the building was in uncertain ownership as a result?


Another stylish UAW center. Your union dues built this - are you okay with that?


Moving inland, the former US Immigration Station.


This is on East Ferry Ave. by the impeccably named John R Street. No, his last name wasn't Street.


Another Ferry Ave. house, but the sign in front says Ferry St. Can't win them all.


This was once a train station, which I bet surpassed Grand Central or any of the Pennsylvania Stations. Now it's one of the largest chunks of unused stone outside a quarry.


A lot of care went into something that has lain neglected for so long. There's no hope to turn this back into a train station, and what's sadder is there's no use in Detroit for a tall, empty, structurally sound building. You honestly could not give this away, not the least because no one would want to drive through empty neighborhoods to get there, or be stuck in Detroit at night.


Former ramp to the lower level, no way of knowing what lies below without scraping over some barbed wire. No, thanks.

The Heidelberg Project
Belle Isle Park
More buildings on Woodward Ave. (Michigan Route 1)
Detroit Roads
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