you have dreams, some more practical than others

One of my fascinations for the past fifteen years has been the old michigan central train station in detroit. I've written about it before--it comes up in conversation more often than you'd think. For one, it's a hulking mass standing a hundred feet taller than anything for miles around it, so it makes a good landmark, and whenever you talk about a building that you can watch the sunset through, people listen. Also, it is the quintessential image of urban decay, changing values systems, and the passage of time.

In 2001 I lived a short walk away from the station and could see it from my balcony. I took dozens of pictures of it: some during sunset, some on hazy days, some in bright summer. I fantasized about seeing the inside of it. I'd seen pictures and it looked unreal: another world, not some place that existed a quarter mile from my apartment. I would ride my bike up to it and look for chinks in the armor of fencing around it, too timid to try my luck with the razor wire. A few years later, after I'd moved away, my friend sliced himself pretty bad trying to sneak in and got a hundred stitches in his forearm. That finally sealed it for me: I'd never see the inside. It was one of those dreams to let go: a pleasant thought and memory of a more idealist, more radical past.

It's still a favorite stop whenever people come to visit us and want to see Detroit. We take them out on our own tour, and it usually begins or ends with a drive to the train station to marvel at the facade of carved stone and broken glass. Saturday was no different: Katie's brother Alex was in town and wanted to take pictures in Detroit, so naturally it was our first stop. A sunny but windy and cool day: good for pictures. We parked in front and walked up and down, with Alex taking particular interest in the myriad of graffiti (in one place someone had stenciled "Obama" and in front of it another had sprayed "impeach"). As I reached the side of the building, I noticed a destroyed television, face down on the sidewalk and an empty hole in the razor wire encircling the top of the fence. A hole! I tried to quell my excitement. Would I go in? I had decided I never would, but now...

I walked briskly back and told Alex. So we got the tripod out of the car and decided to go in. Careful of the remaining barbs and broken glass, we quickly hopped over and handed cameras over the top. Paranoid of being seen (why? I'm sure the detroit police have better things to do.) we gingerly stepped over the broken concrete and window glass and scooted through the gaping front, where the revolving doors once kept out intruders like us.

It was too much to believe, it was so fast. No anticipation to build. All I could do was step carefully and take pictures of the shattered windows from the inside--windows I'd seen countless times before, counting the increasing number of broken panes. The room echoed with blowing wind and the moan and clamor of loose sheet metal flapping on the roof. Cavernous and forbidding, yet warmly lit by the sunlight. The walls and ceiling were crumbling, heavy stone floors smashed (by what? sledgehammers?). The floor was littered with aerosol cans, ceiling plaster, and twenty years of grime and weather.

It could have been fifteen minutes or an hour we spent in there. All I know is the longer we stayed the colder my hands got and the more I felt like we were living on borrowed time. There were other people there. I didn't see them, but I could hear their voices and glass smashing once or twice. We only barely explored the main floor and towards the end Alex saw the stairs, "Ohhh.....", he pined. "I've heard from others that they're pretty dangerous," I said, ever the overly practical one, but also feeling like I'd overstayed already. As we were getting ready to leave, Alex took some pictures of me sitting on this odd makeshift bench sitting in the middle of the hall. It looked like it was made from an old railroad tie. As we were leaving, some people came out into the room. It was a family, with two young children(!!). I waved at them, wondering who would bring their kids in here. They waved back. The little boy was wearing a Friday the 13th hockey mask. We finally left and took a few closeup exterior pictures before quickly scaling the fence again, retreating to the car for warmth and to tell Katie with what we'd seen.

some of my pictures are here.

an amazing and sad video of the last days of the station is here. The waiting room looks good, but the side rooms are already in disrepair.

The building is a silent sentry: quietly observing the world around it, a world it no longer has the power to help. It is aged and broken but still it stands, until one day someone finally says it's okay to rest. One day it will finally be destroyed and there will be outcry from architecture fans and historians and preservationists. Save the anachronism! they'll say. Save the building that no longer has purpose. Because it's Beautiful. Because it reminds us of what we once could do, but no longer can. There will be lawsuits and fervent editorials will be published. Money will be raised to save it. It will be long and drawn out leading only to a sad, inevitable end.

I'd prefer that one day it was just gone. I'll drive through detroit, down michigan avenue or I-75 north and it's just not there. An empty space of sky and earth where it finally got fed up with us and left.