I want Detroit to be on my mind more than it is, truthfully. I'm too busy, I guess, taking care of the decay and failing systems in my own backyard (literally) to remember to check in on this symbol of the rest of the country....I don't need symbols 'cuz I got the real thing....
But something about the gray skies this morning reminds me to check out Detroit via online Time Magazine. I find a short photo essay by Sean Hemmerle, entitled "The Remains of Detroit." My brain begins to wake up as I click past greenish-gray lit photographs of Michigan Central Station. I insert myself into the photographer's shoes -- mine would be getting wet and dirty from rain and detritus abandoned on the floor of the once crowded station, as I lose myself in the glorious light slanting in where the windows and roof used to be.
What are our values, I can't help but wondering, that we abandon people and buildings and other lovely ideals in favor of money in the pockets of a few who made these decisions? The beautiful train station, designed by the same architects as New York's Grand Central Station, opened in 1913, has been devoid of passengers since 1988. A gorgeous theater, with no less magnificent a name than "The Michigan Theater," built in 1926, now has a few cars parked under its ornate ceilings. Acres and acres of manufacturing space now host a few ratty mattresses under broken windows. And too, there are the neighborhoods, with houses missing and untended yards, looking more like abandoned fields than city blocks. (....If I bought a house there, I could fill the yard with summer crops....)
Anyway, I guess I don't need to make any more value statements....The photographs speak well enough on their own....
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1864272,00.html
Thursday, October 22, 2009
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