DETROIT CITY COUNCIL VOTES TO DEMOLISH M.C.S.!

[Ghostsoldier]

Especially with a dead guy in one of the elevator shafts....
Rob

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Especially with a dead guy in one of the elevator shafts....
Rob

Huh? Please explain.


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[Marc Chevalier]

I hope preservation-minded folks can band together and save this beautiful example of Beaux Arts architecture.

It's beyond saving. Sometimes, losses have to be cut in order to rescue buildings that have a better chance.


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[Ghostsoldier]

Huh? Please explain.


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Marc...you gotta read the links, brother.... ...I quote:

Manuel "Matty" Moroun is a billionaire, that's a thousand times a million, and he should own up to his responsibility and tear down that eyesore, Michigan Central Train Station. Not a single red cent of stimulus money should be used to raze it. Nor should the city incur any expense to have it razed! That building was neglected and left to be raped and pillaged by scavengers. It's a dangerous structure as evidenced by a man's body found frozen in a water-filled elevator shaft late last year. It's a relic of a bygone era. And it's a sign of the ominous kind of change that time has brought to Detroit and that change has'nt been good. It's time to close the book on this symbol of Detroit's history. Let's write about its' grand history, make a scale model of it, place it in the Detroit Historical Museum and play "Thanks For The Memories." --- Thomas A. Wilson Jr.

Bold italics mine.
Rob

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Thanks very much, Ghostsoldier ... and


Actually, the body was found in a warehouse next to the station, not in the station itself.


There's something poignant (if weird) about this newspaper article's title: Frozen Man was our Johnnie.


The article itself is kind of ghoulish: http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090131/METRO08/901310382


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[Ghostsoldier]

So is this one...replete with photo....
http://detnews.com/article/20090129/METRO08/901290400
Rob

 

[Marc Chevalier]

"It starts with a phone call made by a man who said his friend found a dead body in the elevator shaft of an abandoned building on the city's west side.

'He's encased in ice, except his legs, which are sticking out like Popsicle sticks,' the caller phoned to tell this reporter.

'Why didn't your friend call the police?'

'He was trespassing and didn't want to get in trouble,' the caller replied. As it happens, the caller's friend is an urban explorer who gets thrills rummaging through and photographing the ruins of Detroit. It turns out that this explorer last week was playing hockey with a group of other explorers on the frozen waters that had collected in the basement of the building. None of the men called the police, the explorer said. They, in fact, continued their hockey game."



My God.


This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

(And with heartlessness.)

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[Marc Chevalier]

.

"The building [where the frozen body was found] is known as the Roosevelt Warehouse, once belonging to the Detroit Public Schools as a book repository. Located near 14th Street and Michigan Avenue, the warehouse burned in 1987 and caused something of a scandal as thousands of books, scissors, footballs and crayons were left to rot while Detroit schoolchildren -- some of the poorest children in the country -- went without supplies."



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[Ghostsoldier]

The sad thing, Marc, is that this type of activity...and this type of thinking...is prevalent all over the U.S....it's a pathetic comment of man's callousness, and is not native only to Detroit...
Rob

 

[Son_of_Atropos]

another sad story.

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/brads_edge/marabel_farewell

"It starts with a phone call made by a man who said his friend found a dead body in the elevator shaft of an abandoned building on the city's west side.

'He's encased in ice, except his legs, which are sticking out like Popsicle sticks,' the caller phoned to tell this reporter.

'Why didn't your friend call the police?'

'He was trespassing and didn't want to get in trouble,' the caller replied. As it happens, the caller's friend is an urban explorer who gets thrills rummaging through and photographing the ruins of Detroit. It turns out that this explorer last week was playing hockey with a group of other explorers on the frozen waters that had collected in the basement of the building. None of the men called the police, the explorer said. They, in fact, continued their hockey game."



My God.


This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

(And with heartlessness.)

.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

It's unbelievable that Detroit can't muster enough funds to bury Marabel (and the 34 others), but they can damn sure pay outrageous public official salaries, and make sure the Welfare checks get to the beer-and-cigarettes-and-lotto crowds on time....simply unbelievable...
Rob

 

[adamjaskie]

I drive by MCS every day on my way to work. It's a beautiful building, but too far gone. Like most abandoned buildings in Detroit, it doesn't have a single intact window left; you can see right through the building's upper stories as you drive by. Of course, the City Council probably won't do anything. It will sit in its current state until it collapses on some gang of kids throwing a rave, then someone will sue Matty, and the case will languish in the courts for 25 years. That's just how stuff works around here.

Did he call the police?

"No, I figured someone else did," he said.

 

[Story]

Another piece of vintage Detroit gone

The abandoned Packard plant goes up in flames - many photos
http://jalopnik.com/5303681/abandoned-detroit-packard-auto-plant-catches-fire/gallery/

 

[adamjaskie]

The abandoned Packard plant goes up in flames - many photos
http://jalopnik.com/5303681/abandoned-detroit-packard-auto-plant-catches-fire/gallery/

Yeah, that happens every other week. The thing is something like 3 million square feet, so the FD just lets it burn itself out if they can't deal with the fire from a safe distance. Most of the re-bar has been chiseled out and sold for scrap by now, so they don't want to risk going inside to put out a burning pile of old sneakers.

 

[adamjaskie]

Some pictures of Detroit. There's a picture in there from the Packard plant of the Packard plant; you can see the soot-covered cracks in the windows. The Packard plant burning isn't unusual.

http://www.marchandmeffre.com/detroit/index.html

 

[John in Covina]

We loose a lot of neat places. Perhaps we should see if we can do a land grant and give Detroit to Canada.

 

[Tomasso]

Unfortunately, the owner of the building is a loser and has let it and many other of his properties decay over time.

Manuel "Matty" Moroun; Horatio Alger gone bad.