GASM is everywhere

Seems like I see GASM everywhere I go in Detroit.

At the bottom of Southfield Road

If you drive Southfield Fwy going south and take that big left turn after the freeway turns into Southfield Rd and continue on until it dead ends at Jefferson Ave at the Grand Port Cafe and drive behind to the parking lot, you'll be where I took these two photos.

Detroit River walkway in Ecorse, MI 48229

Mud Island in the Detroit River

More from Christmas day in downtown Detroit

Christmas day was a good day to drive downtown and take pictures. There were few people and cars so I could stop anywhere, set up my tripod and shoot away.

from north of I-75 looking back at Comerica Park and downtown Detroit

two homes sitting quietly together

the Fox Theater on Woodward Ave

Standing on a frozen lake

I haven't stood on a frozen lake in many years but here I was the other day, with my camera and tripod, standing on a frozen Walled Lake.

A snowy New Year's day

It snowed most of the day but I did get out to take this photo.

Somebody left a light on

There's a saying that's been around since the '70s: "Would the last person to leave Detroit, turn out the lights."

I grew up in the square mile that was 6 Mile (McNichols) on the North, 5 Mile (Fenkell) on the South, Southfield Fwy on the West, and Greenfield Rd on the East. It got a bit larger as I got older with Cerveny Jr. High and Cooley High School going East. The Henry Chaney branch of the Detroit Public Library on Grand River Ave, across the street from St. Mary's going South and North Rosedale Park on the other side of the Southfield Fwy.

White flight hit that neighborhood in the early '70s, only a few years after the riots, and it's still trying to recover, over 40 years later. I go back there occasionally to look around.

This abandoned house sits close to where I live now. It's in a small neighborhood far worse than any I've seen, though I imagine there are equals elsewhere in the city. It's boundaries are Puritan (north), 5 Mile (south), Telegraph (west), Lahser Rd (east). There are entire blocks of abandoned, boarded up, burned-out houses.

But take a close look at the photo. In the lower right corner, that round circle of white... that's a light shining on the side of a house on the next block. People still live around there and somebody left a light on.

I don't have any hope that Detroit will someday come back. I don't think it ever will, at least not the way it was. Detroiters will have to reinvent themselves and the city we all still love.

Right now I drive around Detroit taking photos and like the graffiti and street art I photograph, Detroit is a blank canvas waiting for its residents to paint their future.

Woodward Ave on Christmas Day

I drove to downtown Detroit on Christmas day because I knew it would be pretty much deserted of people and traffic.

Woodward Ave looking North.

Woodward Ave looking South.

Marathon's Detroit Refinery

On Christmas day, I was driving to downtown by way of Fort St. and I ran across Marathon's Detroit Refinery at 1300 S. Fort St, Detroit, MI 48217. I thought it would make some good HDR photos and it did. The first two are from the Fort Street side.

This last photo is from the parking lot side.

Detroit's little flatiron building

On Christmas day I made my way downtown and got this photo of Detroit's little flatiron building, also called the Reid building, at 130 Cadillac Square and Randolph St., Detroit, MI 48226. I could find no other information or history of this building.

Even the memories are gone

I've been reworking some of my photos. This one is from the Most Dangerous Neighborhood post and I got to thinking at how sad some of these houses are. Seems no one has lived in them for so long that even the memories are gone.