'The Ruins Of Detroit: Powerful Photography'

Hey All,

Good stuff Panther!

My alltime favorite photographer is Dorothea Lange - she once wrote...

"I am trying here to say something about the despised, the defeated, the alienated. About death and disaster, about the wounded, the crippled, the helpless, the rootless, the dislocated. About finality. About the last ditch."

She photographed the great Depression and especially documented the lives of those who left the dustbowl for California - sort of a pictorial version of "The Grapes of Wrath" - my all time favorite book. She also photo documented the Japanese internment of WWII.

8b29741u.jpg

pb_061230_trailer_sigman.photoblog900.jpg

8b31723r.jpg


The more things change the more they stay the same.

-Ed-
 
What a shame to see such beautiful buildings abandoned and left to decay. The school and library pics look like everybody just walked out one day and never came back. I wonder if this will be the fate of more American cities in the coming years. :frown:
 
This is real heart-breaking photography Ed. I stayed at the Lee Plaza Hotel back in 1984 when I was calling on AAA Insurance in Detroit. They were one of my best clients. That hotel was drop-dead gorgeous back then. I can't believe it is a derelict now! Heart-rending for sure to see a town as vibrant as Detroit was go to ruin.
Ted
 
Bjoern said:
Some buildings look quite post-apocalyptic. Left in a hurry...
Click to expand...

Uh, yeah, because it's DETROIT! People in the airline industry call it "DeToilet". Sorry if someone at SOH is from there, it wasn't me who made that up.
 
Looks alot like Dayton Ohio ..
What a bummer..

I have been to Detroit many times, and it is very depressing..
Now I can see this in my own Hometown..Bummer..
 
Bone said:
Uh, yeah, because it's DETROIT!
Click to expand...

I know, car city and stuff. At least that's what my english textbook in 9th grade with it's late 1980s content told me.

I wonder where everyone went. Probably swam over to Canada...
 
It's not all gloom and doom. If you're young young and hip it's a pretty happening place.
[YOUTUBE]joMysMDHdb4[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]rvKevvGnGt4[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]wCxC5ozQ7hQ[/YOUTUBE]

I've got a friend who moved from the more affluent Ann Arbor to Detroit about a year ago. I gave her a hard time before I knew that it's really becoming a hotspot for young artists (she's a sculptor). It's giving Williamsburg and Portland a run for their money as hipster Mecca :icon_lol:.
 
The decline of Michigan is because of crushing taxes,just like my home state of New York.The people and business get tired and leave,taxes go up to cover the shortfall and more leave until revenues drop to the point they have no money....Throw in some mismanagement for something to do also.

Not rocket science,1 million people left New York in 2009.:jump:
 
Over Christmas I read an excellent article by a cultural anthropologist regarding Detroit; within the "city limits" something like a quarter of all business buildings are abandoned and close to half the homes.

The upthrust of the article was how anthropologists have long speculated on the ruins of some large and well established cities within the Pre-Colonial Americas appear to have simply ceased to be. Speculation runs everywhere from disease to warfare, but one that never gained too much weight was they collapsed from within due to their own "social" weight.

Some cultural anthropologists are studying what is going on in Detroit because it's giving them insights into what may very well have happened to those lost city-states. Needless to say, they never expected to see it happen in their life times without some sort of cataclysmic event.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top