Detroit: Q & A.

Last week we covered a story from The Nation Magazine on Detroit. I was asked by several readers about the photo in the post. Specifically they wanted to know what building this was and where is it located. It is the Michigan Central Depot. This from City Magazine in June of 2007: http://www.city-magazine.com/intransit/archive.html#06/11/07/12:50/PM This is an excerpt from that post.

"One of Detroit's major "attractions" is its breathtaking and heartbreaking collection of pre-Depression brick skyscrapers dotting its skyline. Grand Circus Park, which lies just to the west of Comerica Park and Ford Field (the home of baseball's Tiger's and football's Lions, respectively) has long been described as a "skyscraper graveyard" thanks to buildings like the Kales Building, Broderick Tower, and the demolished Statler Hotel. Gorgeous Art Deco towers that would have been converted to condos 20 years ago anywhere else are finally beginning to undergo some restoration (with the Book-Cadillac Hotel leading the way).
But there is no hope for the Michigan Central Depot.
Opened in 1913, and designed by the same architects who built Grand Central Station, the MCS has sat abandoned far from downtown for nearly 20 years. Ransacked over and over by vandals and scavengers, with every single window on its 18-story facade busted, it is the Ozymandias of urban architecture, and a tombstone on the grave of urban density. Built far away for the purpose of luring Detroit's central business district to the area, that plan backfired when the Depression hit and the city closed both trolley and streetcar service across the city. (When everybody has a nearly free car from their Big Three employer, who needs mass transit?) The station entered immediate decline. The advent of Amtrak helped it stick around until Jan. 6 1988, when the last Amtrak train pulled away from the station. There are no current plans to either restore or demolish the building."