Discuss Detroit » Archives - Beginning January 2006 » Skyline picture from the 50s « Previous Next »
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Tetsua
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Username: Tetsua

Post Number: 653
Registered: 01-2004
Posted From: 68.61.194.237
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 11:27 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I bought this picture at the Detroit Festival of the Arts. Does anyone have any idea when the small buildings were demolished to make Hart Plaza?

http://www.jankaulins.com/p341 .html
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Livedog2
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Username: Livedog2

Post Number: 421
Registered: 03-2006
Posted From: 24.223.133.177
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 11:30 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Can you move the Copyright information down to the white part of the photo so it doesn't show up? When I copy it it looks so tacky with that Copyright information on it.

Livedog2
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Hornwrecker
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Username: Hornwrecker

Post Number: 1242
Registered: 04-2005
Posted From: 63.41.40.250
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 11:59 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The photo is most likely from the 30's, probably from a series of aerials that the Detroit News. Everything was demoed or moved by 1958, as you can see from this photo taken then.

1958 aerial Detroit
WSU
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Tetsua
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Username: Tetsua

Post Number: 656
Registered: 01-2004
Posted From: 68.60.110.77
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 1:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It's too bad all of that got razed, looks like it might have been cool.
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Mackinaw
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Username: Mackinaw

Post Number: 1737
Registered: 02-2005
Posted From: 70.237.11.26
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 3:26 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Personally, I think we f***ed up big time with our riverfront civic center plan. Now we are left trying to recreate what we had pre 1950s, a mixed use riverfront. Retrospectively, we made some bad moves. There was no need to make Joe Louis Arena waterfront, I mean, it's an arena. Cobo could have been built a little more up rather than out. The Ford Auditorium was unneccesary. Hart Plaza is still a great gathering space, but perhaps is just too big. Many waterfront cities have convention centers and large parks on their waterfront, many put highways along the water. But the cities with the cool waterfronts--Baltimore and Chicago come to mind--did not do this. We are doing the right thing, now, with the east riverfront. We are utilizing the waterfront for recreation, but keeping its proportions realistic, and putting a priority on creating mixed use urban space close to the water.

Large, self contained civic centers were really a 1950s fad it seems. Cobo will be expanded, in an upward motion I hope...the Ford Auditorium will be razed. Joe Louis will be abandoned and hopefully razed within a decade. Only Hart Plaza will still be utilized as it has been, but usually in conjunction with Campus Martius, a more well-concieved space.
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Tetsua
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Username: Tetsua

Post Number: 657
Registered: 01-2004
Posted From: 68.60.110.77
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 3:42 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I always kinda thought Hart Plaza would've been nice further east of the CBD (perhaps where Tricentenial park area). It really is prime real estate, but it seems so under utilized most days of the year.
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Bvos
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Username: Bvos

Post Number: 1514
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 66.238.170.51
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 4:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hart Plaza and the Civic Center areas (Cobo Hall and the City/County Bldg.) were part of the height of Modernism, an architecture school of thought that created Urban Renewal, the modern subdivision and the housing project. Basically everything needs to be spread out and have a single use. So as a statement of that period, it's not too bad of a design.

However practically speaking it's not that practical (as most of modernism has proven to be). It does need to be redone as we're doing today. However, from what I recall in reading about the redevelopment of the area, the riverfront area was targeted for Urban Renewal because it was in pretty bad shape, a declining industrial area.
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Mackinaw
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Username: Mackinaw

Post Number: 1739
Registered: 02-2005
Posted From: 70.237.11.26
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 4:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Rehabilitation of existing buildings must not have come to the minds of 1950s leaders and investors as readily as it does today. And yes, modernism was such a huge idea driving the civic center fad.
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Jasoncw
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Username: Jasoncw

Post Number: 181
Registered: 07-2005
Posted From: 67.149.141.170
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 4:16 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It's after '34, since the Theodore Levin United States Courthouse (its full name according to emporis.com) was built in 34 and it shows up in the picture.

That's all I can add to help date this.
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Gistok
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Username: Gistok

Post Number: 2306
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 4.229.81.208
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 4:37 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Historic Preservation had its' infancy in the late 1960's, and took off in the late 1970's.

Some of the earliest historic preservation schemes were old movie palaces. In the late 1960's Columbus's Loew's Ohio Theatre, and St. Louis's St. Louis Theatre were reborn as performing arts centers. In Columbus it became the Ohio Theatre for the Performing Arts, in St. Louis it became Powell Hall, new home of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
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Psip
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Username: Psip

Post Number: 1088
Registered: 04-2005
Posted From: 68.60.45.70
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 6:05 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The riverfront in 1970 from the roof of the CCB or Guradian

Fish eye

(Message edited by PSIP on June 14, 2006)
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Lmichigan
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Username: Lmichigan

Post Number: 3866
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 24.11.154.56
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 6:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The creation of the Civic Center pales in comparison too what the Lodge and Fisher destroyed. Just look at that side of downtown, now, and Michigan Avenue from downtown out to the Fisher. Parking lots for days and a completely destroyed North Corktown, Chinatown...

The riverfront on either side of downtown can still be salvaged. The mess that's created at the Lodge/Fisher interchange can't.
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Mackinaw
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Username: Mackinaw

Post Number: 1744
Registered: 02-2005
Posted From: 70.237.11.26
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 8:20 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Yeah, looking at the aerial photographs west of Foxtown is pretty depressing. Of course, this is just area for potential future development.
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Hornwrecker
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Username: Hornwrecker

Post Number: 1243
Registered: 04-2005
Posted From: 63.41.40.65
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 9:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Here's a photo of the foot of Woodward from the late 20s.


wsu
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Burnsie
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Username: Burnsie

Post Number: 441
Registered: 11-2003
Posted From: 35.12.18.235
Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 9:50 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

That latest photo isn't any later than 1922, since the building visible under construction on Woodward was completed that year. (First Federal Building, originally NBD)
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Tetsua
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Username: Tetsua

Post Number: 660
Registered: 01-2004
Posted From: 68.61.194.237
Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 11:01 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It's amazing how much more dense the downtown looked in the 20s. I'm looking forward to seeing density like this and beyond.
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Detroitnerd
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Username: Detroitnerd

Post Number: 615
Registered: 07-2004
Posted From: 209.69.221.253
Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 12:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The first photo is from at least 1947, as the Lodge is built all the way to downtown. And it may be later: Are those the beams of the cylindrical JLA going up?
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56packman
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Username: 56packman

Post Number: 371
Registered: 12-2005
Posted From: 129.9.163.234
Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 1:05 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Detroitnerd: you are living up to your name. The cylindrical structure going up is Cobo--notice that the 1955 Ford Auditorium is in place, and all of the little buildings are gone. The picture is from the early 60's, like '60,'61.
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Bvos
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Username: Bvos

Post Number: 1531
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 66.238.170.34
Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 1:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

They didn't start construction on the Joe until the late 70s.
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Focusonthed
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Username: Focusonthed

Post Number: 262
Registered: 02-2006
Posted From: 209.220.229.254
Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 2:20 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The poster already said that picture was from '58
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Detroitnerd
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Username: Detroitnerd

Post Number: 616
Registered: 07-2004
Posted From: 209.69.221.253
Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 2:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

My mistake. I thought Horn's comment about the photo being from the '30s referred to the photo he posted, not to the initial photo.

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