The Michigan Central Station, after sitting vacant for decades and held hostage by a billionaire’s greed, has almost reached its opening day. Towering over the northwest end of Corktown and overlooking an expansive park planted with beautiful flowers that links it to Michigan Avenue and downtown, the station replaced a smaller depot deeper in the…
Tag: Beaux-Arts
Corktown and Environs, Detroit
I was driving around in the Hubbard Farms and Mexicantown neighborhoods, and I snapped these photos. I also spotted the Michigan Central Terminal off in the distance; we’ll come back to it in a bit. But then I finally found what I was looking for, which is the Corktown neighborhood, which claims to be the…
Woodward Avenue, Churches and Other Buildings, Detroit
We’ll leave Brush Park behind and turn on to Woodward Avenue at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and head north. Woodward Avenue is perhaps one of the most iconic streets in Detroit, and stretches all the way from the Detroit River all the way past Eight Mile Road, the city limits, all the way to the…
City Methodist and Other Places, Gary, August 2023
Oh my, I was expecting this by looking up recent photos on the internet, but nothing can really prepare you for what you see when you’re there in person. There roof over the nave of City Methodist Church has almost completely collapsed, and it is totally dangerous to get anywhere near this structure. The nearby…
From the Vault: Union Station, Gary
Update: Announced in August of 2023, the station will undergo an $8 million dollar renovation, which I covered in this post from September of 2023. The impressive Beaux-Arts edifice of Gary Union Station opened in 1910, only four years after the founding of the town it served. Abandoned since the 1970s, I find a certain…
From the Vault: Gary, Indiana
Update: I went back in the summer of 2023. This is Gary, Indiana. A city only founded in 1906, which peaked at a population of 178,320 in 1960, an increase of 33% from the 1950 federal census. In the most recent census of 2020, it has dropped to 69,093, a drop of 61%. These photos…
LaSalle Street Revisited and the Art-Deco, Chicago
I looked at LaSalle Street briefly back in June of 2008, taking photos of the Rookery, Chicago Board of Trade and another bank. In July of 2008 I featured a skyscraper that had been “chopped off” and replaced with a more modern tower. But let’s look at the Rookery first, which like the Wainwright Building…
The Chicago River and Civic Identity
I would argue that the approximate one mile from the Lake Shore Drive Bridge to Wolf Point, where the Chicago River splits into its North and South branches, is easily one of the most famous vistas in the world. Along it you will see the Wrigley Building, the Tribune Tower and many others you’d recognize…
Civic and Retail Monuments, Chicago
I was always intrigued how for decades, the Cook County Building/Chicago City Hall stared at the Marshall Fields Department Store across the Daley Plaza and Block 37. Then, several years ago, Block 37 was redeveloped, Marshall Field’s became a Macy’s, and that grand urban vista was blocked and altered, most likely forever. While it looks…
Churches Around the Courthouse Square, Decorah, Iowa
The ensemble of buildings around the Winneshiek Courthouse in Decorah is extraordinary in that churches fill a full two dies of the square, and the remaining two are partially filled with civic buildings. Starting on the west side and working in a counter-clockwise direction, we see St Benedict’s Roman Catholic Church. As is common with…