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Old 06-05-2020, 11:16 AM
 
1,996 posts, read 3,129,025 times
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This is a 2-year old article from Metrotimes, but I thought it was interesting.

The Demolition of Chinatown, the Black Bottom, the Old City Hall, and the failure to build a rapid transit system are massive failures.

However, the Cultural Center, Campus Martius, and the purchase of Hog's Island (Belle Isle) are definitely significant wins for the city.

https://m.metrotimes.com/detroit/det...wFullText=true
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Old 06-05-2020, 03:06 PM
 
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I would add the renovation of the Michigan Central Station, the preservation of Detroit's grand old buildings (Fisher, Guardian, Stott, Book-Cadillac, ...), Lafayette Park, Greenfield Village/Ford Museum as wins. Failures - Qline and the People Mover, the deterioration of the neighborhoods, the demolition of Tiger Stadium (a baseball shrine), and the virtual abandonment of Detroit (Coleman Young) airport. I would also add the failure to replace the Ambassador Bridge (to be corrected by the Gordie Howe bridge).
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Old 06-05-2020, 04:12 PM
 
Location: Grosse Ile Michigan
30,701 posts, read 79,339,648 times
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Failures: the Renaissance center. Belongs in a suburb not in a city. genral misus of the waterfront. Joe Louis. Failure to update to replace Cobo in a meaningful way. Allowing the destruction of dozens of irreplaceable architectural treasures. Failure ot build boating facilites. Q line. People Mover (although it is now kind of Iconic and cool, it remains a really stupid idea - at least as executed). The fake Woodward revitalization. The Compuware building. Running a freeway through the middle of Boston Edison. Tearing down most of the cool buildings at WSU campus and replacing them with ugly. Hudsons - huge fail followed by ongoing fail after fail (now known as the big hole).

Wins: River-walk, the new River-walk park/lagoon (Hopefully); DNR outdoor center; dequindre Cut; Eastern Market; restoration of some of the few remaining gems. Preserving the Fox theater. The theater district renovation. Possibly the stadium district, at least it will be an improvement over Brush park. Campus Martius - not well designed but well utilized. Closing the end of Woodward. Renaissance High School (as a venture, not architecture). The Beach or whatever that outdoor bar at Campus Martius is called.

Not sure where to put Hart Plaza and the Mexican Villiage.

We had a Chinatown? I know we had a fake one for a few months that they made and then blew up for a movie. Where was Chinatown?

Non-Physical wins: Slow roll, Jazz fesitval, movement, peaceful protests.

Comerica park and ford field are both disasters IMO, but maybe they will serve as anchors for a new district. The Pizza stadium is not horrid except it created too much area of walking through nothing. I am not sure how it could have been done better, but someone can figure out a way.

That newly opened area where they close off a street between - now i forget where. It is very nice.

That alley with all the bars and restaurants in it is cool too. I forget the name.

What I think it most needed it put Jefferson underground and connect the waterfront to the rest of downtown so people can comfortably go there by foot, scooter, bicycle etc. The disconnection of the waterfront form the rest of the city is probably the worst failure of all. They may even be able to salvage the ren cen disaster if they connect the City to the area.
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Old 06-05-2020, 11:48 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens View Post
We had a Chinatown? I know we had a fake one for a few months that they made and then blew up for a movie. Where was Chinatown?
Detroit's first Chinatown was on Third Avenue (where the current Detroit Police HQ is). As you can see, Third Street from Michigan Avenue to Lafayette Street is a wide street with a median. The original 3rd Street was completely bulldozed and widened for the Lodge Freeway and urban renewal projects.

From the Detroityes website:

Quote:
Detroit's "organic", Chinatown was the one that stood on the the streets off of Third south of Michigan Ave. Where today, well, not much of anything stands. In fact, little has been there since the "slum" of Chinatown, and other nearby "shabby" neighborhoods, were cleared out as part of the urban renewal efforts accompanying the building of the Lodge Fwy.

A new "International Village" (sound familiar?) was promised by the city to replace the old Chinatown on the same site. But it was never built. Instead buildings and land were purchased in a "better" area, and Detroit's New Chinatown was started right there at the soon-to-be-beautiful corner of Cass and Peterboro.
A couple photos of Detroit's original Chinatown

Parade Honoring Chaing-Kai-Shek

Chinese New Year 1939

I don't agree about the Renaissance Center. Without the RenCen, downtown Detroit's skyline would be much smaller and pathetic than it already is. It could be become a destination if GM would market it and get some retail back in there. GM has put significant invesment in opening up the RenCen to the river and Jefferson Avenue.

I do agree about Wayne State. WSU has demolished A TON of beautiful historic structures in Midtown. A ton. Why don't you like the Compuware building, besides that it's ugly and not a skyscraper. The new addition to the building is great, though!
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Old 06-06-2020, 01:37 PM
 
4,464 posts, read 5,013,574 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by usroute10 View Post
Detroit's first Chinatown was on Third Avenue (where the current Detroit Police HQ is). As you can see, Third Street from Michigan Avenue to Lafayette Street is a wide street with a median. The original 3rd Street was completely bulldozed and widened for the Lodge Freeway and urban renewal projects.

From the Detroityes website:



A couple photos of Detroit's original Chinatown

Parade Honoring Chaing-Kai-Shek

Chinese New Year 1939

I don't agree about the Renaissance Center. Without the RenCen, downtown Detroit's skyline would be much smaller and pathetic than it already is. It could be become a destination if GM would market it and get some retail back in there. GM has put significant invesment in opening up the RenCen to the river and Jefferson Avenue.

I do agree about Wayne State. WSU has demolished A TON of beautiful historic structures in Midtown. A ton. Why don't you like the Compuware building, besides that it's ugly and not a skyscraper. The new addition to the building is great, though!
RenCen is not perfect and, as originally executed, was a harsh, cold fortress kind of place. But since the day it was built is the iconic symbol of Detroit's skyline. Plus since GM has moved in and upgraded the retail and exhibit areas of the complex, it's a much more pleasant place to visit.

I disagree with Coldjensen's view of Comerica Park as a disaster (Ford Field, perhaps, but I like it downtown much better than in Pontiac). Comerica, as a classic, retro/old-time stadium has enhanced midtown and downtown. Baseball stadiums, since most games are in warm weather and host at least 81 games, have a far higher impact on the downtown economy than football stadiums with their 10 home games mostly during winter months... At least Detroit was smarter than Cleveland by dome-ing their football field making it more useful for other cold weather events.

Little Caesar's Arena, btw, is the finest basketball/hockey arena in terms of its integration and enhancement of the commercial walking district. Most such buildings, despite however handsome of futuristic they are in terms of design, are cold, lifeless structures that interrupt street frontage retail and walkablility. LCA does the opposite. The Arena is integrated into the street fabric of Woodward Ave, much more so than the new-ish townhouses across the street which, though attractive, have no street presence and form a lifeless cul-de-sac more suited to the burbs than the heart of a major city.

Detroit's failure to build rapid transit would rank as my no. 1 misstep for the City. So many negative aspects have flowed from this yet so many positive ones would emerge if Detroit could get its act together and finally build it.

Last edited by TheProf; 06-06-2020 at 01:48 PM..
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Old 06-08-2020, 06:26 AM
 
7,072 posts, read 9,535,598 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens View Post
Failures: genral misus of the waterfront. Failure ot build boating facilites.
True. Detroit has a great waterfront but it is not developed correctly. Detroit needs a version of Baltimore's Inner Harbor.
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Old 06-08-2020, 09:06 AM
 
Location: Grosse Ile Michigan
30,701 posts, read 79,339,648 times
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Interesting about Chinatown. A former neighbor of ours was a personal friend of Chang Kai-shek. (He died a little while ago, but he was basically responsible for building Taiwan's infrastructure with US dollars). We had an exchange student from Taiwan who we took to meet him. She was bored by the old guy until he pulled out some medal Shag Kai-shek gave him and then she was stumbling over herself to be polite to him. He really impressed her. I am not sure what the medal was, but apparently a big deal. Unfortunately Detroit's Chintatown was long gone by then because she hated most American food and kept asking for "noodle, please" We had a hard time finding anywhere they she really liked the food. Most Chinese places she asked it that was really supposed to be Chinese food. Everything was so sweet and fatty.

The REN Cen is a disaster for a downtown building because it was designed as a building for a suburb where you have nothing around you. It was designed to be self contained and inwardly focused rather than approachable or street friendly. There really is nothing that can be done to make it a decent building to have in a city. I agree it does create an iconic look for our skyline (sort of, there are smaller but identical buildings in Los Angeles and Atlanta(I think Atlanta. I am not sure which city the other one is in, I have not seen that one). It has enough retail space to rival a shopping mall, but it is never been able to support more than a few small businesses and restaurants because it does not get any traffic except people who work int he towers (who do not come there to shop) and an occasional festival or convention. Once in a while, they make some progress and get a half dozen new places but then another handful go out of business. It does not draw people in and no one is going to cross Jefferson for a Burger King or a Subway shop. It is not designed to be part of a city and to draw people in and it never was. It is a self-contained fortress. It simply does not tie into the city in either direction (few people coming in to shop or dine there and few people who work there leave the complex and venture into the "real" city). A large number of the people who work there have never left the building except to drive home.

Comerica park - it is funny you call it an old style park, one of my reasons for not liking it is because it is not a cool old style park like Dodger Stadium or Fenway. It is half stadium and half amusement park. As a result, it is too large. Then you add in surrounding it with blocks and blocks of parking lots and there is no reason to walk around the area except to go to or from a ballgame. If you are going to have acres of parking lots, you should locate outside of the city, or at least outside of downtown, or, you build enough tall and subterranean parking to avoid turning the surrounding area into a wasteland of parking (empty parking for most of the time). If the stadium distinct actually happens an take off, it may liven up the area somewhat, but that hundred or so acres of park and parking around the stadium will always be a wasteland 90% of the time. (That is assuming Covid goes away enough to allow baseball stadiums to resume at all - social distancing stadiums are not going to work).
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Old 06-08-2020, 01:54 PM
 
Location: Central Mass
4,526 posts, read 4,782,523 times
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#1 Failure: Abandonment of Woodward's plan
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Old 06-09-2020, 12:22 PM
 
Location: 404
3,006 posts, read 1,472,275 times
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When Detroit utilities were extended beyond city limits, the city paid for its own destruction.
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Old 06-10-2020, 01:38 PM
 
Location: The Carolinas
2,509 posts, read 2,798,138 times
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Removing of the streetcars by the greedy oil, gas, rubber, and auto manufacturers. THAT was the lynchpin.
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