On March 4, Angie and I found ourselves staying in downtown Detroit, Michigan at the Greektown Casino Hotel. The hotel is top-rate and a relative bargain at $95. I hadn’t stayed in the core of Motown for about a decade. This is a changed city.
Part of me was a little disappointed that the city that stood as an abandoned museum of the start of the 20th century was being restored and rebuilt at a rapid rate. Part of me was happy for the people of Detroit that had watched their city decay for so long.
I’m so thankful that the city is restoring the classic buildings like the Broderick Tower, Book-Cadillac Hotel and Book Tower instead of tearing these classics down. The core would seem to be becoming an adult Disney World with the new baseball stadium (Comerica Park) and football stadium (Ford Field), along with a burgeoning Casino industry. The Detroit People Mover is a theme park-like elevated train that transports people in a loop around the downtown core.
There still is an enormous amount of decay in a massive ring between the downtown core and the suburbs. If you’re into house fires (for whatever reason..), Detroit is your dream destination. I had hoped to get more pictures of this but really only had time for the Michigan Central Station, just of Michigan Ave (see pictures below). The train station has been abandoned since 1988 but is currently in the early stages of restoration.
