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Empty for 14 years, Detroit's Michigan Central Station has taken on a life--and a symbolism--all its own.
By Kristin Palm
Photographed by Robert Polidori for Metropolis
May 2002
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Detroit's 18-story Michigan Central Depot cost $15 million to build in
1913. It is on the national register of historic places but has been
abandoned since the 1980s. The 21-acre site (above) is surrounded by a
chain-link fence. Although the roof is badly damaged and the interior
has been vandalized, many of the original details remain intact, such as
the waiting-room ceiling (below).
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I may have been Detroit's only urban pioneer to miss out on Michigan Central
Depot. In the 1990s my friend Echoe watched fireworks from the abandoned
18-story building's rooftop. Becky danced through the cavernous interior
in any number of altered states during late-night raves. Doug and Carryn
photographed its deepest reaches and its most hardy inhabitants: homeless
men building fires at night, graffiti artists using its solid
shell as a canvas, wildlife ranging from tame dogs to rabid rodents.
Operating, as I tend to do, under the premise that things will never change,
I missed it all. The building's disquieting exterior, lording over the city's
near west side and visible for miles, has served as my beacon for years--an
oddly comforting reminder of who and where I am. But until recently I never
ventured past the once grand circular drive fronting this crown jewel of
what one artist calls our city's "fabulous ruins."
This past January, when I finally did enter the building, years after
it had been fenced off and the urban archaeologists had moved on to less
protected pastures, it was with liability insurance, an escort, and countless
caveats designed to rein in my raging curiosity. After almost two decades
of dormancy, Michigan Central is allegedly back in business. In Detroit
this means there's a big sign out front, some vague plans on the front page
of the newspaper, and rumors emanating from neighborhood meetings at a nearby
Mexican restaurant.
In almost any other city, of course, this 1913 Beaux Arts masterpiece--designed
by Warren & Wetmore and Reed & Stem, the architects of New York's
Grand Central Station--would already have been redeveloped, vacated, and
redeveloped again since its closing in 1988. But as much as locals like
to deny it, Detroit isn't like any other city. We long for street life,
denying that we live among single-family homes and backyards, not brownstones
and front stoops. We demand a downtown, forgetting that every neighborhood
once had its own shopping and entertainment district, easily accessed by
streetcar. And as my urban-planning professors were fond of pointing out,
we insist on building Detroit "back up," overlooking that significant
portions of this 140-square-mile city were never developed in the first
place. To wit, the upper stories of Michigan Central remained vacant for
all 75 years that the building was open.
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