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Recently I embarked upon my long, long overdue return to Detroit. It was to be my first port of call having been unable to visit the USA in the entirety of 2020 and 2021, and after the crazy successful 2019 Detroit weekender, it was going to be a tough one to beat.
I'd say, comparing the two visits, they were on a par with one another. The overall quality of the locations we explored was better in 2022, whereas in 2019 we did more stuff total. The company this time was also absolutely stellar, in 2019 it was just me, Essex, SwanStation and Essex's girlfriend, whereas this time there was all of them, plus Pear, SwanStation's girlfriend, and a couple of others making a slightly unwieldy group of eight people from all corners of the USA and of course me from the UK. We rarely explored as an entire group though as it was simply easier to split up and sort of follow each other into places after the previous group had left. The one thing I will say though is that the whole atmosphere in Detroit has changed since 2019. The locals seem far more ready and willing to cause hassle for explorers by calling the police, and in all the vibe felt different - not hostile - but more unfriendly.
After an unfortunate snafu involving a large number of police officers arriving to escort us out of an abandoned school - officers who were, in actual fact, some of the nicest I've ever dealt with - we decided to largely avoid the schools and instead focus on other stuff including a brace of churches. What follows is a collection of highlights from them as it's easier than doing separate threads.
Hungarian Church - A revisit for me and the 2019 group, when we did it in 2019 it was pouring with rain outside and near darkness inside so very hard to shoot. The removal of a lot of the stained glass in the intervening years has helped illuminate the interior although to the detriment of the building.
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New Life Church - A plain and stripped church, it still had a few interesting features though. It's been known by many names and is very difficult to find any early history for.
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Green Church - Contender for the nicest abandoned church in Detroit by some way. Absolutely gorgeous decay inside, it's heavily watched over by the neighbouring properties and we went past the next day to find one of the owners covering over the access point so got very lucky.
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Woodward Avenue Presbyterian - Yes, the famous 'St. Curvy's'. It seemed this being open and explorable again was the main reason we ran into a couple of other groups of explorers in the city that weekend, as I guess they didn't know how long it would be doable for. I'd seen many many photos of it online but nothing prepared me for how jaw-droppingly gorgeous it was in person.
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Body of Christ - One which seems to be gaining traction with the Instagram crowd, I'd only ever seen photos of the gymnasium before and had no idea what the actual church looked like so was pleasantly surprised. It's still very intact for a Detroit church although now it's 'out there' I can only see it going one way.
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East Grand Boulevard Methodist - One of the most unstable churches I've ever set foot in. It was in a bad way when I visited it in 2019, but the three years since haven't been kind and it's even more of a deathtrap now.
Remember I said we bumped into a couple of groups of explorers whilst in the city? We ran into one of the groups here, which happened to contain none other than the man, the myth, the legend Bill Finan.
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Greek Orthodox - One we tried in 2019 but it was well sealed, fast forward to 2022 and it's wide open with an impressive internal collapse thanks to the metal being stolen off the dome and catastrophic water damage. Inside is very squishy.
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Crown Church - Lastly in this roundup, a location I can't recall seeing anywhere before. I spotted this church on maps just prior to my 2019 trip and thought it looked derelict, so pinned it but we didn't get around to seeing it that time. Boy am I glad we checked it out this time, well when I say we I mean two of us, after entering the building my jaw damn near hit the floor. At first I thought there's no way it could be derelict and it must be alarmed, but every other room is totally stripped bare and the carpet was soaked with water. It's in a very heavily populated and overlooked location so we stayed less than ten minutes inside mindful of the very public entry, and on emerging there were more than a few beady eyes from people in the area as we walked off.
If anything, it goes to prove there's always new stuff to be found in Detroit!
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Thanks for looking 
[last edit 3/28/2022 5:53 PM by mookster - edited 1 times]
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Fantastic set and wasn't Curvy fucking amazing?? Glad you got to finally knock that one off!!
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Hell yeah dude, this was such a fun weekend. You got really great shots from all of these too, I was pretty disappointed with how some of mine turned out.
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Great set of photos!
Bill Finan always complains he never gets invited to go and now he's spotted in Detroit? what a looney bastard!
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 50mm 1.2, Canon 28mm 1.8, Canon 16-35 f2.8L
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Good stuff man! Glad things worked out so well. I've missed our annual Detroit visits. Can't wait to see what next year brings.
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Avoiding schools these days is totally the right call.
"Great architecture has only two natural enemies: water and stupid men." - Richard Nickel | |
These are insane. High ceilings and crumbling plaster... love to see it. I find #8 oddly appealing.
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Posted by Freaktography
Fantastic set and wasn't Curvy fucking amazing?? Glad you got to finally knock that one off!!
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Curvy is unbelievable in person, one place that was high on my list of things I thought I'd missed the boat on.
Posted by Pear
Hell yeah dude, this was such a fun weekend. You got really great shots from all of these too, I was pretty disappointed with how some of mine turned out.
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Cheers man, that's a shame! I guess we're always our own harshest critic.
Posted by EsseXploreR
Good stuff man! Glad things worked out so well. I've missed our annual Detroit visits. Can't wait to see what next year brings.
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I honestly don't know how we're going to improve on the last couple of trips!
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Posted by macgruder
Great set of photos!
Bill Finan always complains he never gets invited to go and now he's spotted in Detroit? what a looney bastard!
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It was the way he emerged from the shadows after we commented on the 'Bill Finan is God' graffiti on a pillar in that church which couldn't have been timed better.
[last edit 3/30/2022 9:07 AM by mookster - edited 1 times]
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St Curvy is absolutely wonderful. Gorgeous as ever.
The Greek orthodox church is pretty rad.
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Fantastic set!
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