The Ruins of Detroit

As I was perusing the myriad of articles showcasing "The Best of ________ in 2011" I came across a photo essay on TwistedSifter via the iPad app Flipboard. See the full post here:  http://twistedsifter.com/2011/02/ruins-of-detroit-yves-marchand-romain-meffre/ The article states, "Parisian photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre took a trip to Detroit to capture the urban decay of a once-thriving city. In their book, The Ruins of Detroit, Yves and Romain photograph abandoned buildings, offering a chilling look into a city in decline."

This example of the once beautiful, proud and unique architecture that abounds in Detroit vividly shows what it has crumbled to today:

Photo courtesy MarchandAndMeffre.com 

The images shown saddened me deeply. Having grown up in the Detroit suburb of Centerline, just two miles from the Detroit city limits which began at 8 Mile Road, I have wonderful childhood memories of that once great and magnificent city. To see what it has decayed into and been stripped of is sad indeed.

My mother worked downtown at the J.L. Hudson Department Store. My father worked close-by in Highland Park. As a teen, I road my bike to 8 Mile Road and boarded the Van Dyke/Lafayette DSR (Detroit Dept. of Streets and Railways) bus to take me into the heart of the city...with no worries.

Today, I wouldn't consider doing it for a moment. Still, I've been back numerous times over the years, most recently with my son, Greg, to make a weekend of attending a Detroit Tiger game, enjoying a Greek lunch (including a shared Saganaki, of course...Ooopah!), enjoying a ride around downtown on the People Mover monorail and losing some money at one of the casinos.

Oh, I could go off on a tirade about the rampant corruption of city officials like Mayors Coleman Young, Kwame Kilpatrick and others that sucked this wonderful city dry. Or get on my soapbox to preach about the failure of program after program of entitlement (read: handouts which kill personal ambition). But not here; not in this post.

This post is for bidding adieu to a once-sparkling gem, now brought to its knees. What a shame.