Discuss Detroit » Archives - Beginning July 2006 » Progress « Previous Next »
Top of pageBottom of page

Benjamin
Member
Username: Benjamin

Post Number: 147
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 216.59.235.129
Posted on Friday, July 28, 2006 - 11:13 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I wrote this some number of years ago, and half considered posting it on the forum at the time, as it's compleatly a Detroit piece. But I was sparked at it again recently by a request for submissions from a web-based zine I occasionally read. The introduction was written for that purpose. For the orriginal peice, scroll down to the third section.

Benjamin A. Vazquez, U.E.
Top of pageBottom of page

Rrl
Member
Username: Rrl

Post Number: 574
Registered: 12-2003
Posted From: 63.228.160.208
Posted on Friday, July 28, 2006 - 11:14 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

No linky...
Top of pageBottom of page

Benjamin
Member
Username: Benjamin

Post Number: 148
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 216.59.235.129
Posted on Friday, July 28, 2006 - 11:15 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Progress is a peice I wrote four years ago as an assignment in the Writer's Workshop class at Central Elgin. I believe there are some old Centralites, and perhaps even some current ones subscribing here, and if I'm right you're bound to recognise the name Mr. Kinczyk. He edited it for me about a dozen times before I handed it in, which means I essentially knew exactly what he'd have to say when I got it back. "The ironic title robs this peice of it's dignity." We'd argued about this for some time, and I stick by "Progress". It's not ironic, it's downright cruel, but it works better than anything else I could come up with. Beyond the title he loved the peice, and I still believe it's among the best I've ever written. Latter I submitted it to paper rain, and it was published that Spring in the 2003 Paper Rain - another term which will be lost on non-Centralites.
Progress is intrinsically a Detroit-inspired peice. There is no line in the peice where I can't point to a Detroit example I was thinking of at the time, but the general concepts apply to most cities. The unnamed building which serves as the centre of the peice is modeled roughly after the Book Building ( http://www.angelfire.com/de2/d etroitpix/BookTower.html ). In fact, the peice was orriginally titled "Ballad to the Book Building", a title with two problems. The first is that the peice is by no means a ballad. The seccond is that anyone unfamiliar with Detroit's skyline would assume that "Book Building" refered to a library. Actually, the "Book" refers to John Burgess Book, and two of his three brothers - the developers who built the place to begin with. Having given the matter some though, I rather like the idea of the building remaining unnamed. There is no question that a building of the era would have been named, but the idea that it's not named NOW, as a symbol of it's growing facelessnes and annonymity, is one which appeals to me. I also no longer imagine the building as quite so tall. I imagine a sort of 1910's neo-baroque structure of about 15 stories. For these of you familiar with Toronto, consider the King Edward Hotel, and it will serve well enough. Incidentally, the Book Building is in no immediate danger of demolition, being in the middle of a slow but steady restoration. The full lobby of the Book Building was indeed filled in with offices, perhaps the meanest space economy I've ever come accross. It has recently been reopened.
The method of demolition is also fundamentaly traceable to a single Detroit event: the demolition of the Hudson's department store ( http://www.detroityes.com/down town/index.html ), although as stated the method is widely used for tall buildings. The twin towers provides the closest to such an event most people have witnessed. The nature of their collapse actually correspondes very closely to what you would have seen in a controlled, professional demolition of the buildings, with the exceptions that the buildings had not been cleared out in advance (hence the clouds of dust and debries), and that the "charges" would have been placed on every story. Similarly, the hollowed out "Empire Theatre" was inspired by Detroit's "Michigan Theatre" ( http://www.detroityes.com/down town/38michtheat_pan.htm ) - the new name being Mr. Kinczyk's suggestion.
I have only a few notes which don't pertain to Detroit, or at least not to a specific event. The transformation of boulevards into speedways is a common theme, which perhaps no great city in North America has escaped. Toronto's University Avenue is something of an example, although it niether was so fine a boulevard at it's height nor is so utterly devoted to the automobile not as some examples in the United States. A little known fact is that the most complete boulevard system outside Europe was, in fact, in Kansas City - but that was in the 10's and 20's. I was recently speaking with a gentleman from that city, who was amazed to know that there had even been one beaulevard in that city. The lot of them have been given over to the automobile. The restaurant which found itself a cafeteria is yet another example of priorities which have become, in my opionion, very twisted since the stock market crash of 1929. That I feel nothing but disdain for the melting down of the cast iron should be obvious. As an aside I would note that there is no distinction between the monster trucks, the fast cars, and the cages. The first two are merely fancier versions of the last one. But I also disaprove of selling, or even donating, the marble women to the mueseum. Mueseums and Art Galleries in North America (or at least all the ones I have become familiar with), are short primarily on space, not items to show. It's not unusual to find an institution with vast collections of art and practically no place to show them. Removing art from public, or even semi-public spaces is a crime, as one of the great tasks of great metropolises is the constant introduction of the public to art.
Finally I would like to make a couple of notes on the nature of progres, and the fact that in this peice time has been cast as the antagnist. Jane Jacobs would argue that the first and finest ally of urban life and the urban form is time. That time is a builder and a creater, and that cities become richer through time. I agree. Moreover, this is the genuine nature of classical progress. Progress, as understood by the Victorians, and right up to the depression, was the process of preserving the best of the old while adding to it. The theory of progress states that we can only do so much in our lifetime, but if we do something, and our children add to that, and their children add to that, and their children add to that, then eventually something will have been created which no one generation could have created alone. To constantly destroy that which is old simply because it is old is to deny the very source and nature of progress. In fact it is to reverse the process, as the work of generations before us is destroyed for the work of only one - our own. This peice is not a depcition of progress, and this peice is not a depiction of the power of time. That these two forces could cease to work, to even work at cross purposes to these of the city - this is the soul of the peice. This is the tragidy of much of the modern world.

Benjamin A. Vazquez, U.E.
Top of pageBottom of page

Benjamin
Member
Username: Benjamin

Post Number: 149
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 216.59.235.129
Posted on Friday, July 28, 2006 - 11:15 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Progress

The building loomed ahead of me like a massive gargoyle glaring protectively down upon its street. Every day I had passed by it, and yet today I felt as though I was seeing if for the first time. I felt as though I had an obligation to see it. Tomorow men would come and implode the building - not an uncommon fate for tall buildings after they had been stripped of their valuables. My friends were all eager to watch: it would be loud, and fast, and destructive, and that is all they care for. And yet I can't help but shudder when I think about what I know must happen. Perhaps it comes of walking by it every day, and looking out upon it from my office. Work has often been slow, so I have time to watch the city. I know the building well. I can't quite say why I care. The building is old and small. Soon a newer, taller building will rise in its place.
At one time, this grand edifice was the tallest building in the city. I know this from old pictures, but I don't really believe it, not when the skyline towers above it so. But if that is true, then time has indeed been cruel to the building. Time has taken the shining jewel of the city and allowed it to be surpassed again and again until no one cared any more.
And that is not all time has done.
Time has gnawed at this great building's ornaments as time has gnawed at its pride. Time has taken the boulevard that it once faced, and made it a freeway - removing first the trees, and then the flowers, and finally leaving only two anorexic strips of concrete - a sidewalk few walk on. And time has taken its neighbours - once hotels, shops, and theatres - and left only parking lots. One building among them remains, after a fashion. The old Empire Theatre couldn't be demolished. It was supporting its neighbours. Still, it was gutted. Now SUVs park where kings and presidents once applauded a hauntingly beautiful melody, destined to die with its patrons and performers. And yet this tower could tell stories if it chose to. It could tell stories of barons and businessmen, of lovers and of these precious few who cared and were destroyed for their caring by a world that doesn't.
And so, the building was a messenger, perhaps the last messenger, from a time when success and wealth were measured not in money, but in cast iron flowers and marble women. And in their burgeoing optimism, I suppose they must have truly believed that cast iron flowers could never wilt, and that marble women could never grow old. But the flowers rusted away, and money - being the practical thing that it is - had them melted away to make monster trucks, and fast cars, and cages. And the women was sold to a museum, which would move her and move her and move her until she reached a dark, dusty corner of the basement, where she came to be loved only by rats and spiders. So too went the lobby - three stories of marble and stained glass. The marble was sold, and the space was filled in with three stories of offices. After all, space was at a premium, and something had to go. And so too went the restaurant on the ground floor. A cafeteria now serves much the same purpose. And though the building is much the same, it seems unbearably different. Something was lost with the chandeliers and the marble women, and that something will never come back. This is progress.

Benjamin A. Vazquez, U.E.

(Message edited by Benjamin on July 28, 2006)

Add Your Message Here
Posting is currently disabled in this topic. Contact your discussion moderator for more information.