|
|
This weekend, I made my third trip to Detroit in the past two years. I met up with several other explorers from this site and together, we hit up some great locations. 1. Our first stop was the Packard, which is now being worked on. The guard kept his eye on us the whole time so we couldn't go in but we got some outside shots and watched him chase off a couple other people.
2. Our next stop was Eastown Theater.
3. It's not the most stable place to explore but does provide some interesting sights.
4. Most of the roof has fallen in on the top floor.
5.
6. There was an old bandstand on the top floor.
7. The entire seating area for the stage has collapsed.
8. The main attraction.
9. Where the seats once stood.
10. Stop two was a large abandoned high school. The original section was built in 1915 followed by a very large addition in 1921. Another expansion in 1967 added a modern gymnasium, locker rooms and swimming pool. The school closed in 2012 and was scrapped by 2013. It has now been purchased by an auto supplier and will be turned into a training center.
11. Our first look at the gymnasium.
12. The warped gymnasium floors, installed in 2006.
13. The boys' locker room. Surprisingly, very few of the lockers in the school have been scrapped.
14. The girls' locker room.
15. Next up was the swimming pool, complete with nasty water.
16. Swimming pool bleachers. While we were in here, we heard people talking and discovered that they were workers, presumably beginning construction on the training center. We exited the buildings, walked around and found them. They ended up being cool and didn't mind us continuing our exploration.
17. The auditorium has unfortunately been the victim of arson.
18. View from the stage.
19.
20. This room was the gymnasium before the 1967 addition was built. The bottom floor (here) became the library while the upper floor was turned into classrooms.
21.
22.
23.
24. Atop one of the wings was a secret classroom, only accessed by a hole scrappers created in a wall that blocked off the top flight of stairs.
25. The cafeteria, also the victim of an arson.
26.
27. Track and football field behind the school.
28. Next we happened across an abandoned funeral home.
29. There wasn't much to see inside but the extensive fire damage made for interesting photos.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34. After being unable to find a way into an abandoned church, we went an elementary school built in 1911 and closed in 2006.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44. After we parted ways, I went to dinner and passed by a large abandoned school as I was about to leave town. Full of food, I decided to make one final quick explore before I left.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54. I had a great time and made some new friends. Hopefully we can do it again sometime. If anyone is interested, there are much larger albums on my Flickr.
https://www.flickr...tos/131085384@N06/ | |
Damn, that funeral home is creepier in the pictures than it was in real life. I'm kinda glad we couldn't see. Also, solid pictures.
[last edit 9/1/2015 3:05 AM by mrjack92 - edited 1 times]
| |
Nice pics! It's a bummer that you guys couldn't get into the church but at least there were plenty of other places to choose from! Interesting to see that Longfellow is a lot more open than we all thought. Guess the street view of that place is pretty out-of-date.
There's the crazy one, the photographer, and me, the driver, a mix of both. And we're a pretty kickass team if I do say so myself. | |
Sounds like a heck of a day! I've always been interested in roadtripping out to Detroit, but the last guy who I was gonna take with me and I had a falling out. I had no idea that theater was in such rough shape - hope it stick around for a while yet...
| |
It was a pleasure exploring with you gentlemen. Basically my photos are almost identical except lower resolution. That funeral home was something straight out of a horror movie
| |
Thanks guys! Fun times the other day. Yeah, the funeral home was plenty creepy. As for Longfellow, I was very surprised when I drove by and saw it all blown out. I thought it was something else at first but then I saw the sign. It was fun to look around in but wasn't as interesting or photogenic as Southwestern.
https://www.flickr...tos/131085384@N06/ | |
Man, Longfellow aka Detroit City High School gave us some headaches a couple winters ago. Somehow the water never got shut off when DPS closed the building. That winter was especially brutally cold so almost every pipe in the basement was cracked and gushing water. Detroit Water and Sewage ignored our daily calls for about a week before the media finally noticed our posts looking for help. It still stings seeing it how it is now, knowing all our hard work was completely in vain and the school got blown out anyway.
http://motorcitymu...from-broken-pipes/ http://www.wxyz.co...ue-in-empty-school
| |
Posted by DSomms Man, Longfellow aka Detroit City High School gave us some headaches a couple winters ago. Somehow the water never got shut off when DPS closed the building. That winter was especially brutally cold so almost every pipe in the basement was cracked and gushing water. Detroit Water and Sewage ignored our daily calls for about a week before the media finally noticed our posts looking for help.
It still stings seeing it how it is now, knowing all our hard work was completely in vain and the school got blown out anyway.
http://motorcitymu...from-broken-pipes/ http://www.wxyz.co...ue-in-empty-school
|
Wow, that's crazy. It looks like that one has gone very far downhill in a very short period of time which, unfortunately, doesn't seem all that unusual. Not only is it blown out and scrapped, the newest addition is very smelly and disgusting.
https://www.flickr...tos/131085384@N06/ | |
I remember that Dsomms
When I say I'm 'clean and sober', it means I've showered and I'm headed to the liquor store. | |
What happened to the diving board? or can I not see it in the photo?
[last edit 9/8/2015 6:33 PM by Camishere - edited 2 times]
| |
Posted by Camishere What happened to the diving board? or can I not see it in the photo?
|
The diving board is gone. When the school closed, they auctioned off a bunch of stuff. I'm guessing that's what happened to it but don't know for sure.
https://www.flickr...tos/131085384@N06/ | |
Great stuff, one day I will make it to Detroit.
| |
Posted by Camishere What happened to the diving board? or can I not see it in the photo?
|
Many public schools & even private swimming pools removed diving boards by the mid-1990s for 'risk mitigation' (liability/insurance) reasons.
Per an article I remember reading in the Detroit News years ago, by the 1970s there was a large percentage of Detroit Public Schools students who absolutely had no clue how to swim (I guess not even doing an instinctive 'dog-paddle' to keep from drowning!). Unlike public/private schools that will have lifeguards, school pools normally just had the PE teacher watching. Also, if ya think about it, back in that day, the 'afro' hairstyle was big, and in addition to not wanting to drown in the pool, a large percentage of students didn't want their hairdstyle deflated! So instead of spending more $$$ to make the Detroit schools kids at least comfortable in the water, it saved a lot of $$ to just close-down the pools instead. Meanwhile, suburban schools like the ones I attended in the 1980s still had pools, intermural swim teams, etc. No idea if new public school in Detroit (or the suburbs) have swimming pools or not.
/-/oolie
There are no stupid questions, just stupid people. | |
Gonna bring this thread back since I finally got around to editing my photos from the trip. Enjoy! 1.
2. Maybe a little too much HDR in this one...
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16. Thanks for looking!
There's the crazy one, the photographer, and me, the driver, a mix of both. And we're a pretty kickass team if I do say so myself. |
Add a poll to this thread This thread is one of your Favourites. Click to make normal.Click to make this thread a Favourite.
This thread is currently Public. Anyone, including search engines, may see it. |
Powered by AvBoard AvBoard version 1.5 alpha
Page Generated In: 125 ms
|
|