City Airport Inn

hello all! hope you are having a wonderful weekend. I am currently in Florida on vacation and this morning it is a little chilly so I thought I would do another update since I suck at doing these at home. This exploration I am about to share was hands down the weirdest one I have done to date. This abandoned motel is located by the Detroit City Airport which is less than ten miles to downtown. The airport was mainly used during the 1940s before the city outgrew it, which led to another airport being built in Ypsilanti then Romulus. The city airport is barely used today which is probably why this motel became useless. I wish I could have seen it back in the glory days because all that I experienced from this place was vibes of hookers and drug use. The rooms were like time warps filled with VHS tapes and untouched beds. As you can see from the signs hung on the front desk, this was definitely a hub for prostitution. I am going to guess that the place has been abandoned for around two or three years. I was very surprised that my partner and I didn’t run into any homeless people living in here because this seems like an obvious choice. However, maybe they all come at night to sleep there. Anyways, here are the pictures hope you enjoy. Safe and happy explorations xo.

DPS

Hello all, I hope you are having a fantastic week. TGIF right? Anyways, with all this stuff going on with regards to the Detroit Public School system, I thought it is about time that I share some of my experiences with them. If you aren’t familiar with what I am talking about, basically  Detroit fucked over their school system so bad that we are something like over a half million dollars in debt. There are very few actual DPS actually open these days and the ones that are have a very low enrollment rate. My uber driver the other morning informed me that his wife is a teacher and that they might have to close early due to lack of funds and enrollment. Shit is real. Also, these places are impossible to get into now so I’m very happy I stumbled across them this summer. Fun fact: DPS has their own police force. These places are now boarded up and may possibly be up for auction.

Here are pictures from Greenfield Park Elementary. I can’t find much history on it other than the fact that it was opened in 1916 and closed 91 years later in 2006 due to lack of funding (surprise!), steep decline in enrollment, and problems with heating/cooling system. I am also hearing it is slated for demolition in the near future. There was not much in this school that was still intact.

schools have become notorious dumping grounds

auxilary gym

auditorium

Next piece here is my absolute all time favorite exploration I have ever done. My partner and I spent two hours here the first day we discovered it and then came back the next day to spend even more time. This place was built in 1924 and was closed in 2012 after merging with two other nearby high schools. I visited it last summer which is when these pictures are from. This school had two gyms, a pool, a photo lab and more. It is absolutely huge. The amount of vandalism and decay that happened in those three years is outrageous. One of my sources informed me that this school is now boarded up and is shockingly not one of the schools that DPS is auctioning off. I wish I had more background on the building for you, but I cannot find more than the fact that it was previously a middle school before it became the technical high school. Enjoy the pictures because this is one that I absolutely loved to do and I wish I could go back for. Happy Exploring xo.

view from the side

one of the many science rooms

american history X (very creative)

rocket nation

the library

fireplace in the library

view from the balcony in the auditorium

one of the locker rooms

the cafeteria

a fricken swimming pool!

the office

here you can see the seperation of teachers and students chairs

detroit magic trick

heidelberg project

Hello everyone! This post idea is one that just sorta happened due to a chance encounter I had this past weekend. I thought that pretty much everyone that is from the metro Detroit area, if not the entire state of Michigan, knew about the Heidelberg Project. It was not until a very late night group conversation with beautiful new souls I met did I realize that not everyone knew about the Heidelberg Project. So basically this post is one that I am posting just because I want everyone to know the story behind it and experience it for themselves. Sorry if you are familiar with the story already but check back soon for another adventure post! Also the pictures I am about to share with you are a couple years old when some of the destroyed houses were still standing so that’s pretty cool. I was just thinking how long it has been since I’ve been there. Probably haven’t been since I took these because I didn’t want to see the destruction that has happened. Anyways, I encourage you to do some research yourself so you can see the old days!!

The Heidelberg Project is an art project in Detroit that was created in 1986 by artist Tyree Guyton and his grandfather Sam Mackey. It was meant to be an outdoor art space in the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood, which was by the city’s historically African-American Black Bottom area. The Heidelberg Project is meant as a political protest of Tyree Guyton’s childhood neighborhood beginning to deteriorate after the 1967 riots (which I told you to look up in the last post so I hope you did!). Guyton came back to the area after being in the army and described the area as “looking like a bomb went off.”
In the beginning, the project consisted of him painting the houses on the Heidelberg Street with crazy colors and dots while also attaching objects to the house. This began to help the entire neighborhood turn from somewhere that people don’t walk the streets, to somewhere people took pride in their homes and wanted to be outside. Guyton worked on the project daily with the local children. He and director Jenenne Whitfield gave lectures about the project around the world. They wanted to develop the project into the city’s first indoor and outdoor museum, including a community garden and amphitheater etc. In 2005 the Heidelberg Project was awarded the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence silver medal.
However, like all nice things in Detroit, they don’t tend to last and the project fell to the same fate. It started with two mayors who thought the project was an eyesore and ordered demolition. In November 1991, under Mayor Coleman Young, the Heidelberg Project’s “The Baby Doll House,” “Fun House” and “Truck Stop” were completely demolished. Under Mayor Dennis Archer, a second demolition of the Heidelberg Project was ordered on February 4, 1999 that ended in the destruction of the houses Guyton termed “Your World,” “Happy Feet” and “The Canfield House.” Fuck those men honestly. Who would order for art to be destroyed ever? But that actually leads into another problem with Detroit. And that would be arson. There were two destructive years of arson in Detroit in regards to the Heidelberg Project and that would be 2013 & 2014. In 2013 we lost: “Obstruction of Justice,” “House of Soul,” “Penny House,” “War House,” and the “Clock House.” In 2014 we lost: “The Doll House,” large amounts of the Detroit Industrial Gallery, “Birthday Cake House,” and the “Taxi Cab House.”

 

 

st. agnes

Hi guys so I totally thought I posted this and it looks like it didn’t go through when I thought it had. So anyways, this is a place that I hold near and dear to my heart. It had a very important role in the history of Detroit that I am going to share with you. Also, I have recently gotten in touch with a Detroit Urbex god (at least in my book) so I will be updating much more with so many locations. And now here is the story of St. Agnes:

St. Agnes consists of a church, a school, a covenant, and a priest’s house. The pictures I am sharing with you are only that of the school and church. I tend to have rules about houses and don’t particularly like to go in them. Anyways, the site was picked out for this compound and construction on the school started in 1916 with construction on the covenant beginning a year later. The original church that was used in 1914 was too small and was outgrown very quickly. The church shown here started construction in 1922 and was completed in 1924. The church and school thrived for the next fifty years until 1967 which is when the historic Detroit race riots began only blocks away from the church (if you don’t know what I am talking about please inform yourself and look up the riots). Although the compound was spared physical damage, it would not be able to bounce back from the emotional damage. After the riots many people began to move out of Detroit and into the suburbs. The area around the church went into decline which forced the church to combine with another local church in 1989. This did little to help and the school was closed in 2000. The church met the same fate in 2006. In 2007, the Detroit Archdiocese removed the pews and stained glass windows. The church was sold to a congregation that did nothing with it. Vandals and scrappers had gotten in by 2009 and completely stripped the place of anything they deemed valuable. In 2012, the church was bought by a developer who tried to secure it to no avail. There are currently no plans for redevelopment that I am aware of at this time.

*In 1981, Mother Theresa came and spoke here to a full house. After she spoke, there was a reception of coffee and donuts that she insisted be donated to the homeless instead. Gotta love random history of Detroit facts. Enjoy xo.

outside of the school

hallway of the school

I assume this used to be the auditorium

abandoned reading nook

ladies room

outside of the church

scrappers really fucking suck.

views from the balcony

rapidly deteriorating ceiling

alter

Calvary Presbyterian Church

Calvary Presbyterian Church was built in 1916 on the corner of Grand River. It continued to grow over the years and eventually expanded the church to include a kitchen, Sunday school and offices in 1932. During the 1940s the church reached its peak of parishioners at 1,700. The population remained steady from 1950s and 1960s at about 1,500 parishioners. The church is located near the site of the famous 1967 race riots which caused the area around the church to change dramatically. After the riots, the population started leaving and moving to the suburbs, which the church decided it needed to do too. The church moved its ministry off of 8 Mile in 1991.

Calvary Presbyterian Church then became The Abundant Life Christian Center.  The Abundant Life Christian Center operated the building for a about a decade before moving to a new home in Redford.  After Abundant Life Christian Center moved out,  Greater Faith for Deliverance Church moved in.

Greater Faith for Deliverance Church occupied the location until 2009, when a fire broke out and caused heavy smoke and water damage.  While the congregation waited for insurance money to come through to fix the building, scrappers took over and cleared the building of pipes and anything else they deemed something with a monetary value. The Greater Faith for Deliverance Church has been abandoned since 2009.

outside view

fire damage

where people were baptized

view from the balcony

 

United Community Hospital

Okay so my friend from out of town has been here the past week which means there was a lot of exploring happening and I cannot wait to share the pictures with you. This exploration is one that I have done many times because of how interesting I think it is. This hospital was designed and built because of a need to merge four other minority hospitals together. Yes, this hospital was a segregated hospital built in the early 1970s. It was built so that African Americans, Hispanics, and Arabic people could go to people of their race to get treatment. Now part of the reason the hospital had so many money problems is because they agreed to see any patient, no matter if they could pay and were insured or not.

The hospital started in trouble and ended in trouble. Within years of opening, the hospital was already in debt and having difficulty attracting new patients. This caused a filing for bankruptcy in 1991. In 1997, the hospital reopened and changed names from the Southwest Detroit Hospital to the United Community Hospital. It was reopened by Harley Brown, who was an owner of a health care company. He and other investors spent more than $8 million dollars trying to fix the hospital. However, money problems got the best of it again and the hospital was shut down in 2006 with Brown being investigated for fraud. I just read that apparently he and the city are working together to fix it up and again and re purpose it, but who knows. The guy is notorious for being a crook, just google his name and see what pops up. Supposedly plans will be released in March. I will keep you guys posted. Until then, here is what I have to show you. Some of these pictures date back a few years.

The outside. This is the main entrance.

This is where the ambulances used to arrive.

The main entrance.

Waiting room.

Another shot of the ambulance entrance.

The other side of the building where the offices were.

One of the lesser destroyed hallways.

Another view of the waiting room.

View from the roof.

Creepy examination chair that still has the foot holders in it.

The famous circular windows.

Just so you have an idea how much paperwork is still here.

Eastown’s final show

Alright guys so as promised here are some of the pictures of Eastown before the demolition really started. I plan on going out there again today and update you with more in the next coming days. If you are just now finding my site, I went into the history behind Eastown a few posts earlier if you want to read up. The summary version would be that this old theatre was home to a very legendary rock n roll history that included acts by MC5, The Amboy Dukes, Muddy Water, Howlin’ Wolf, Grand Funk Railroad, Alice Cooper, BB King, the Steve Miller Band, Sly and the Family Stone, Bob Seger, Jefferson Airplane, The Stooges, Chuck Berry, Rod Steward, Joe Cocker, John Mayall, Taj Mahal, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Dr. John, Leon Russell, Ted Nugent, Fleetwood Mac, Procol Harum, Edgar Winter, Elton John, Van Morrison, The Kinks, Captain Beefheart, J. Geils Band, The Allman Brothers, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Buddy Miles, Humble Pie, The Doors, and The Grateful Dead. The lineups are literally insane.

Side note: I have just recently discovered pictures of this back hallway that was filled with 1970s graffiti and it has to be the coolest thing I have ever seen. I was only lucky enough to see a small amount of it but I really want you to see it so I did some research and this is the best website I found that showed some of it. This also shows the Eastown intact way more then I have ever seen it.

http://motownmuscle.com/forums/showthread.php?120731-Detroit-s-Eastown-Theatre-Music-hall

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now onto a lighter note, some of the graffiti I was lucky enough to see. Pretty sure this was the floor that all the drugs were sold on:

 

 

 

 

Lee Plaza

I am so happy I started this blog for the simple fact that I feel like I have somewhere to go to vent and lose myself without the judgement of people I know. I am having way too many feelings this morning about what is going on in my life so I really just need to sit here and be lost with you all for a few moments.

The seventeen story structure was constructed in the late 1920s. It was Ralph T. Lee’s crowning jewel of his real estate empire he built from scratch. It was designed by Charles Noble who was a very prominent architect at that time. Lee wanted the apartment building to look like something out of New York. And trust me when I tell you that it does. It is absolutely huge. You can see it when your driving at least a mile away. The roof was originally made of Spanish tile, but that was later replaced with a green copper roof. This was sadly taken by scrappers many years ago. It was the tallest building of its time so when the sunset there would be a very bright light on the roof that could be seen for miles. Picture a Great Gatsby style thing if you get what I am saying; the light was a sign of extreme wealth.

And then it all went to hell. Lee lost everything and became default on the building. He actually ended up dying eight years before the whole dispute was even settled.  It ended up being turned into a hotel which would barely stay afloat until a developer bought it in the 1960s, fixed it up, and sold it to the city. It then became low-income housing for senior citizens. This was the last attempt to revive it. It was finally closed in 1997. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 5, 1981. It will most likely never be open again due to the severe vandalism that has happened.

Doing the research on this one was very interesting and much of it I didn’t know. That’s why this is so awesome. I hope you enjoy the pictures and I hope you all have a great weekend.

*UPDATE 10/18/17*

So I completely changed the photos that go with this blog as the ones that were originally on here were complete bullshit, amateur stuff. Also, the Lee Plaza still looks like this (from the outside at least). I haven’t been in this one in a few years because there have been talks about it being restored. That owner has completely back tracked his plan and it is now slated to be sold to the City of Detroit to be a redevelopment project. We will see what ends up happening. Enjoy the updated photos xoxo

Looks like a castle from this view.

The Ballroom.

Ladies’ bathroom and parlor on the main floor.

View of Michigan Central Station.

View of Downtown.

The Vanity

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day. Here is more on the Vanity Ballroom that I promised.

The Vanity Ballroom opened in 1929 on the eve of the stock market crash. It was the last ballroom that was to be opened in the city of Detroit. It was designed by Charles N. Agree, a local architect who also designed the Grande, to make people feel like they were at a Mayan temple, which I showed in my previous post. It was also built and maintained by the same person that built the Grande. Five nights a week the venue would have couples dancing on the 5,600 square foot maple dance floor. I talked about how the floor was a very important part of this venue because it was floating. This references to the dance floor being on springs and were therefore “floating” across the dance floor. This was an interesting location because although it had two grand bars, it did not sell alcohol. It fell to hard times when swing dancing became no longer popular and was mainly closed until it had the same fate as the Eastown and the Grande. It ended up housing many of the same acts as the both of them. The ballroom was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on Nov. 12, 1982 although Michigan does not recognize it as one. Here are more pictures I promised.

Outside view.

Where the original entrance was (I’m assumin)

*Update 10/18/17*

The Vanity has recently been the subject of a revitalization project. There is talks underway that have it as a possible chance at restoration. The project was estimated at a cost of $8 million and calls for mixed retail on the first floor with hopes of restoring the second. I have not been by this building in a few years either so I am not sure how it is holding up. I do know that it has been secured better and is harder to get into.

 

Eastown Theatre

Once upon a time there was an English class that I needed to take to graduate called Popular Literature. I thought it would be legit, thinking it was current New York Times best sellers etc. The professor turned out to be the most brilliant, mind expanding professor I’ve ever had; his name was Mr. L. Now, in his class we read these crazy books that I never would have heard of that were neither bad nor good but interesting nonetheless. Then, after we read the book, he had somehow arranged it so that the authors would come speak to the class. The one exception to this rule was the film Louder than Love, which was the story about the Grande Ballroom. Long story short, if you don’t know what the Grande Ballroom is, and trust me I didn’t know what it was until I watched this movie either, it is an old theater/concert venue in Detroit that housed the greatest rock n roll musical acts of all time. Seriously. Look it up.

This is the Grande circa 2014. It is currently owned by a church.

Now I’m definitely not the biggest rock n roll fan but the film was on more than that. It was about the decaying of the structure that was such an important part of history. If you live in Detroit or have ever been here before, you are familiar with the decay that has been happening for decades. It is simply mind-boggling to be quite honest. Anyways, so for my class with Mr. L we had to do a creative project that could be whatever we wanted that related to things we learned or read over the semester. Well the choice about what I was going to relate mine to was obvious to me, so I just had to figure out what I was going to do. Then ding, the light bulb went on. I thought well if this theater with all this history is just being left to decay then there must be even more going through exactly the same thing! And that is when I did a little research and found a few more abandoned theaters that were built around the same time that the Grande was.So it is here that I start my urban exploration journey. It begins with Eastown Theatre.

Eastown Theatre was built-in 1930. It was originally a movie theater that was designed in Baroque style by architect V.J. Waier. It is believed that this is the only surviving building by him. Not only did it have a grand theater that could sit over 2,000 people, it also had a ballroom inside that could fit up to 300. It had a successful run of over 35 years as a movie house but in 1967 it turned into a concert venue, just like the Grande. It housed many of the same artists that played the Grande. If you are curious about the rock acts, I encourage you to look it up because you’ll be mind blown. Anyways, it operated as a concert venue for a few years and became known as the place to get dope. The mayor of Detroit at the time tried for many years to get it shut down, which he was finally successful in doing in 1973. After that it reopened as various other things, none of which were successful, before finally closing in the mid nineties. Since then it has become a decaying eyesore. Here are some pictures of this historic gem.

*Update 10/18/17*

As stated in my previous post, this beautiful, historic theatre has been torn down. I miss it so much as it had such a special place in my heart. This was the one exploration that I felt comfortable going to by myself. Enjoy the new pics xoxo