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Leeedy,
I was on your bus in Detroit. It was/is a sad site, but I enjoyed your 1st hand account of what it was, not what it is now.

I know we made the locals nervous when some of us got off the bus in front of the plant.

Yes. Glad you enjoyed the tour. It was not planned for us to exit the busses and I was certainly reluctant to do so, but hey, it just kinda happened. I think for many people, they knew this might be their last-or only opportunity to see the original home of Packard this up close and personal.

By the way, the horrific jumble of weeds and crabgrass you see in this photo was once a beautiful lawn ringed by a low black iron barrier. At one point I remember for years they had platforms sitting here and new Packards would be posed on these platforms... displayed right here at the very space you see in my photo.

Some people probably thought I had snapped my cap when I plunged into the weeds, but I was actually looking to see if any of the anchor points for the display stands were still in the ground.

It is heartbreaking to see what has become of this very beautiful building and grounds. In the end, we were all safe and most everyone conducted themselves in a responsible manner. I don't think people realize this is a very dangerous area these days between the condition of the ruins and the crime in the area. Of course, what no one knew was that this very street was once bustling with cars and when I was growing up it was a major thoroughfare. I think I counted 2 cars driving past during the entire time we were stopped here-and this was a week day!

Aside from seeing the devastation to the property the thing that had me choking to hold back tears was seeing NO traffic on this once-busy street. And seeing traffic lights either removed without even a stop sign... or the lights tied back and turned off. If my father were alive today, he would never believe such a sight. And the other thing I could never translate to you in words was the fact that I missed the wonderful smell that used to be here... metal, paint, rubber and oil... and the hum in the air. All gone now. I guess you just had to be there. I know it was a long time ago... but for me it still seems like yesterday...

I live within site of the Rouge plant between the old DTI and the Wabash. Every hour trains pass within site carrying parts into the Rouge and finished vehicles out of the Rouge. The Wabash yard is always running.

At other plants the trains are loaded directly from finishing onto trains. If you are on site the trains are backed into the parking lot so that vehicles are driven directly onto them. It's a remarkable sight to see thousands of vehicles disappear overnight onto trains.

Some of those lots are 100 acres.

The Packard plant was not built as a high volume facility. When the luxury market collapsed they used the empty floor space to build 110's and 120's. However, the plants today are not fabricating as high a percentage as they used to. They are slapping parts together. Heck, there are more parts in the typical radio than an entire Packard dashboard.
If they were fabricating a larger percentage of parts the picture would be a lot different. They would be running plastic pellets upstairs on a conveyor to be injection molded and dumping the parts into a hopper.

Below is a link to a Detroit Free Press article that gives answers to the most frequently asked questions (FAQ) they get about the Packard Plant.

http://www.freep.com/article/20121216/NEWS01/312160154/Banksy-piece-s-fate-answers-other-Packard-Plant-questions

One question is, "..What is the cost of demolition?"

And their response is:
"But $20 million for demolition and cleanup at the site sounds like a lot of money. Is that reasonable?

That's the city's estimate. A demolition expert told the Free Press that tearing down the plant could cost $10 million, with environmental clean-up adding as much as $10 million more. The 1998 implosion of the J.L. Hudson department store on Woodward cost $12.8 million.

Yes, the buildings are different, but that figure shows that relative cost of demolishing such a large structure. Hudson's had 25 stories and 2.2 million square feet, and was close to the People Mover, which was damaged when the store was imploded. The Packard is in a sparsely populated area, nearly half a mile long, and had, at one time, 3.5 million square feet. Its tallest building is seven stories."

Here is an article that describes how the new PMCC owner, Fernando Palazuelo, is working to keep out trespasses from the site.

http://motorcitymuckraker.com/blog/2014/05/09/new-packard-plant-owner-cracks-down-on-trespassers-by-stranding-them/

"The abandoned Packard Plant already has its inherent risks - robberies, assaults and vandalized cars.

Now there's a new danger: Park your ride on the sprawling auto plant and you may find it on the back of a tow truck, leaving you without wheels in a dicey neighborhood.

It's part of an aggressive approach by the new owner, Peru-based developer Fernando Palazuelo, to keep out trespassers who are drawn to the 35-acre ruins that have come to symbolize Detroit's industrial decline.

"We are working closely with the city and other neighboring property owners to clean up and improve the area, and this should serve as a clear warning that trespassers will no longer be tolerated," Palazuelo told us."

Leeedy's comments that ended "maybe you had to be there" really rang true to me. I grew up in St. Louis, once the second largest auto producing city, after Detroit. Tens of thousands of autoworkers made a decent living for their families at Chevrolet's three plants, Ford's Mercury plant and Chrysler's two. For me, the sounds, smells and heat given off of the old Corvette plant meant that new dreams were being made inside for some lucky customers. Unlike Packard, Chevy lost the battle to save those three plants mostly due to the cost of retrofitting them to EPA standards that would have eliminated the sounds, smells and other things that made me remember them most. Now, the birthplace of the 1954-81 Corvettes is gone, replaced by a Pepsi bottling plant and job-training center, protected from unwanted intruders by a tall, chain link fence. Now, scores of Corvette fans who want to see where their cars were made are told to look where that big Pepsi sign now stands. I suppose that people who love those 1903-54 Packards can at least see EGB as some sort of hallowed ground. Those of us with Conner Street V-8s can no longer even feel that magic.

Here in Atlanta, we've now lost two GM plants and the Ford Taurus/Sable plant that produced half of all those cars for the American market. Just a few years earlier, that Ford plant was proclaimed the J.D. Power award winner for quality. Now it is scheduled to become the official "factory delivery experience center" for Porsche and Audi in North America. Sometimes, there is a happy ending to where a Dream Factory once existed. Time will tell, but I still miss driving by that Corvette plant, windows open on a warm summer evening.

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My reference to Hudson was the Hudson automobile plant that was once over on South Conner.

Your reference here is the J.L. Hudson Department Store that was on Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit. Not sure how that worked into the equation. Anyway, I knew both properties very, very, very well. My uncle in fact was a part owner of the J.L. Hudson building. But again, my reference was to the Hudson car plant, not J.L. Hudson's. Same name, same family... totally different buildings, different purposes, and different locations.

The Hudson car plant was built just like the Packard Plant... out of poured, reinforced concrete. And like I said... I watched month after month, year after year from my family's business which was in the area. I watched the demo companies as they tried and tried and tried to tear down the Hudson car plant. It was once rumored to have driven a demo company broke that was tearing it down. That alone scared folks in the demo biz back then. This was before the days of implosion-demo.

Again, for this reason, my dad's construction friend said IN the 1950s that HIS friends in the demo biz would not touch the Packard Plant for love nor money!

And as I have said before, I had free reign of the Packard Plant in the late 1960s/early 1970s (I still have my ID badge) and I can assure you, there were pits full of toxic soup even then... and dark areas with horrid smells I dared not even enter. And heaven knows what has been dumped there in the years since.

I know what it cost in the 1970s to clean up one relatively small buried dump in a beach town in Southern California. Cleaning up the site of the Packard Plant? Today? After demolition? With the EPA watching? Wow. You better hurry up and believe it will be welllllll into the millions!

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Ahhh. Like JFK once said...."Whomever the poor fellow is, I wish him luck!"

A "new danger" the paper says? What's so new about it? Sounds more like a rescue!

According to a couple friends of mine who keep tabs on the plant, people don't need Fernando to send tow trucks to haul cars away. That already happens anyway!

OR... people return to find their parked car sitting on the ground with no wheels and the catalytic converter missing! But there always seems to be yet more thrillseekers who think the odds don't apply to them!

Hello Leeedy:

I still owe you for bailing me out at the 2013 National Meet when you guided the tour of Detroit and the PMCC Plant on EGB when our original guide could not make it. You did it on short notice and spoke about details very few know about.

BTW, the reference to Hudson's was a quote from the Detroit Free Press and not me. As is getting typical here the writers are rather young and would not know about Hudson Motor Cars (where my grandfather worked). So the closet thing they could compare to would be the downtown Hudson's department store.

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Hello Roger,

It was my great honor and pleasure to assist you, the Motor City Packards Region and PAC with the guided tour of Detroit. Both of us having grown up there continues to have positive ripple effects. I only wish that I could show everyone what it felt like to drive around Detroit back in the glory days. Whenever my dad and I drove past the Packard plant (as we did very often on the way to his commercial properties) we always had a feeling of awe and great pride. There was an energy and fragrance in the air that it is impossible to really transmit to people by words today.

It was also my chance to show off Belle Isle at the base of Grand Blvd. It is terribly sad that so many publications and Packard fans exhibit old Packard photos and never realize many of those factory Packard photos were taken exactly where we were standing on Belle Isle! Many at or around Scott Fountain-which was a beautiful landmark when I was growing up. It was heartbreaking to see what is to MY eyes... devastation. I see different things when I look at what is there... and all I can see is what was such a beautiful place... with paddle canoes for rent, bicycles for rent, horse carriages, Scott Fountain (working... and changing colors at night)...the skyline of downtown Detroit across the river. The ships gliding past.

So much of what I knew there is gone and it is my belief that people today-especially young people-need to know that it wasn't always like it looks and is today. Belle Isle was a vibrant, beautiful, wondrous place that had everything one could imagine: beaches, museums, hiking trails, speed boats (with Packard engines), horse carriages, food, dancing, golf, yachting, cycling, ice skating, aboretum, zoo, horse stables, riding trails, wilderness, wild deer....

Packard's photographer only had to roll south on East Grand Blvd. and voila! There it was! No wonder Packards were photographed there so often! And...how would anyone going there today know all this unless someone tells them?

As for young folks not getting the Hudson plant ... it is our job to educate them before these memories (which are already fast slipping away) are completely gone! Anyway, that's how I see it. The Hudson Plant was built just like the Packard Plant and the two once existed at the same time. And since we have so much talk about Packard's last plant on Conner Avenue, few today even realize it was just a very short trip on the same street from the Hudson Plant. And... as I said... it was the Hudson plant that put fear in the hearts of demolition people in Detroit back then when they even thought about the huge Packard Plant! I remember very vividly my dad and his friend discussing this very matter in the 1950s. And remember, for a while, Hudsons were using Packard engines! Either way, there is far more a direct correlation here between the Hudson car plant and the Packard Plant-any way one looks at it.

As for J.L. Hudson's Department Store downtown on Woodward Avenue, I still question the wisdom of destroying this building which was a landmark and the world's largest department store! I had some people who never even shopped there seem to take offense at the very mention that it was a terrible loss to Detroit. My grandmother used to take me there for lunch and high tea (YES) when I was a child and this store was a wonderland. Losing it was the end of an era in so many ways... people are still just beginning to realize this.

Too many kids at newspapers and magazines write about and opine about things they never experienced first hand... and jump to some rather meaningless-even silly conclusions. I love the Detroit Freep... but they (like other publications today) are often a rudderless ship in recent times with sadly missing perspective on things that made Detroit the great city it was...once.