Packard Forum Index » General

All and all, the plant seams to have survived far better than the surrounding neighborhood did.

Roger, thanks for the link to the video. Beautifully done. Makes me appreciate the flooring cube, piece of paneling, and the door I have that were taken from the plant site by the foundation. The plant should inspire us to support the proving grounds effort.

(o{}o)

Hello Big Kev:

Yes the PMCC did fare somewhat better than the homes in the neighborhood. You see is was occupied with about 95 rent-paying tenants up until about 1998. At that time, the City of Detroit illegally tried to seize the property. They physically removed the rent-paying tenants and began to tear some of the building down.

Meanwhile, the City of Detroit was losing population. In 1956 when Packard left for South Bend, IN the population was 1,800,000. From the 2000 census to the 2010 census Detroit lost 25% of its population. The 2012 population estimate is less than 700,000 people - so over 1,100,000 left the confines of the city.

Attached is a Google Earth photo of the neighborhood of the PMCC. The RED line is for East Grand Boulevard- it runs East/West until it turns south toward Belle Isle Park in the Detroit River. The BLUE line is Concord Avenue that runs North/South. Notice how only a handful of homes dot the blocks east of the plant.

My boyhood home is 3.5 miles to the south, southeast and NO homes exist on my block anymore.

Attach file:

---

  (156.72 KB)