Best semi-abandoned neighborhoods for photography

[usroute10]

The Dexter-Davison neighborhood is a good one to photograph - a very unique neighborhood of differing housing types, and classic but crumbling (and slowly vanishing) commercial storefronts on Dexter Avenue. Go through every east-west running neighborhood street between Dexter Avenue and Linwood Avenue, from Waverly street to West Chicago Boulevard. You will find some interesting vacant and deteriorating apartment buildings, and as well two-,three-, and four family flats, and some nice houses on Buena Vista, Glendale and Leslie.

*Another semi-abandoned residential neighborhood that I find impressive is bounded by Livernois/Davison/Elmhurst/I-96 Freeway.

*Another semi-abandoned residential neighborhood and almost completely abandoned commercial strip is the Grand River-Oakman Boulevard area. The neighborhood to the west of the commercial district is rapidly deteriorating. It is full of cute Craftsman and American Four Square houses that in any other city would be rehabbed by hipsters and urban pioneers.

*My neighborhood of Grand River and Greenfield is similar to the one above, but more inhabited.

*Try the North End neighborhood as well.

*The East Jefferson Avenue-Chalmers has an abandoned, but somewhat intact 1920's era commercial district and the neighborhood to the south has some great residential blocks in varying states of disrepair. The far northwest side equivalent is the Grand River/Lahser neighborhood (called Old Redford).

Now that I think about it, just about 80 % of Detroit's neighborhoods are semi-abandoned.

[usroute10]

Now that I think about it, add the Boston-Edison, Atkinson Ave, and La Salle Gardens neighborhoods to your tour

Boston-Edison District is 4 streets (Boston, Chicago, Longfellow, and Edison) that each stretch 1.5 miles long on the near-west side of Detroit. You will not find another historic district as large as Boston-Edison, but many of the houses west of the Lodge Freeway are falling into disrepair.

La Salle Boulevard stretches from West Grand Boulevard to Calvert Street, and it is intersected by a park with 2 streets of fine-quality housing running from it.

The Atkinson Avenue district has slightly smaller houses of the same architectural styles. This is a one-street district that stretches 1.5 miles long. It is one block south of the Boston-Edison. (For some reason, there is a 1 or 2-block section of trashy 2-family flats that exist smack dab in the middle of the Atkinson Avenue district.)

Also try streets like Glynn, Taylor, Burlingame, and Lawrence on the near west-side, starting from Woodward and ending at the Lodge Freeway. Great architect, sad state of disrepair.

[Ewan]

Originally Posted by zthatzmanz28

Pick a street, any street.

In recent weeks I have driven around:

Virginia Park
Linwood
Dexter
Kelly / Hayes
Outer Drive (though this road is "better" than some areas.
Conner
Chandler Park
Woodbridge
Joy (from Linwood to Telegraph)
Van Dyke (from 94 to Davidson)

Not sure if any one place has a bigger impact than another. After a while it all looks the same.


If you look for the well cared for homes (and there are a few in the city) that would make for better photography. Nothing is more amazing than a beautiful Home & Gardens house, landscaped and bathed in sunflowers and botanicals and surrounded by abandoned burned out structures and ruins. THIS IS THE REAL STORY OF DETROIT!

That is a very fair point and one that I agree with completely. I'm not just looking for ruin porn - there's enough of that online. Homes flourishing as the rest around them falls into decay is a great image. Many thanks for your posts.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by jonnynonos

This is a great resource.

DetroitYES Forums

Probably the crown jewel of decayed grandeur visually was Brush Park, but I think it's significantly rehabbed now.

Fantastic website! Absolutely beautiful pictures.

[Retroit]

Originally Posted by jonnynonos

Got it. I wasn't sure. There were big plans for it back in the day.

Several years ago, the city went through Brush Park and cleaned it up quite a bit. Dilapidated homes were torn down or band-aided with poorly done brickwork and cheaply done roofing. Signs were posted saying "This home is being restored by...", but no restoration was subsequently done. Almost all of the trees and overgrown shrubs were removed, but the overgrowth has continued unabated since then (grass 4 feet high!). They paved new sidewalks (can't have homeless people walking on non-ADA compliant sidewalks!) and streets (with very ugly zig-zagging curb line).