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Re: Historic Packard Bridge Collapses
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Forum Ambassador
 
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The incompetence of the City of Detroit for allowing such a dangerous structure to exist over a city street is criminal. What if someone was passing under the bridge when it collapsed and were killed.
Sad to see such a great monument to the auto industry and of PMC in particular to be allowed to decay in such a manner.
Posted on: 2019/1/24 14:33
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Re: Historic Packard Bridge Collapses
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Home away from home
 
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I am sure that the bridge collapse left many of us feeling devastated. For those of you who subscribe to Amazon Prime, the brand new series of the Grand Tour (Jeremy Clarkson et al) first episode for 2019 is a painfully snarky tour of derelict Detroit with several glimpses of the PMCC and bridge. I am sad with the portrayal they gave viewers of Detroit but glad that they filmed in time while the bridge was up. They also mistakenly said that the Clark Street (Fleetwood) Cadillac plant was on Connor.
Posted on: 2019/1/24 15:10
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Re: Historic Packard Bridge Collapses
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Forum Ambassador
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Just curious if there are more historic Detroit sites that maybe don't mean as much to Packard folks but are sentimental to others that were allowed to get in a similar situation. Seems like the Packard plant gets the press and is the poster child for what not to do but just wondering if it is the only one -- or just the oldest, worst or most nostalgic.
The PBS series This Old House featured a couple of Detroit homes undergoing the renovation treatment a few seasons ago. The renovation was directed and partially funded under the auspices of some city agency. The before shots showed what looked like once grand old homes in deplorable condition -- one was empty and gutted by wire and metal scavengers and the other looked like the family had just walked off leaving everything behind and people had come in and trashed the place after they left. At the time Detroit officials were interviewed and said the homes featured on the show were just a small sampling and a similar clean up approach was happening to abandoned homes in neighborhoods all over Detroit. Said the program also had or was planned to include some of the larger historic sites making them suitable for "repurposed" uses. Is that actually happening or just so much wishful PR? I seem to remember reading South Bend was much more proactive with the old Studebaker facilities and had found uses or had razed and redeveloped the land around some of them. Are any of the major Stude buildings still there and in similar condition?
Posted on: 2019/1/24 15:54
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Howard
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Re: Historic Packard Bridge Collapses
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Home away from home
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Hello Howard:
Yes, there are plenty of old automotive and parts supplier buildings still standing vacant in Detroit. And they are dangerous. Last week a guy fell 9 stories to his death in an open elevator shaft.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detr ... -and-seek-death-detroit/2581816002/ Remember this city has imploded, losing 1,200,000 people in the past few decades. Detroit is still losing 2,500 people a year. How many empty buildings would there be in your town if it lost two-thirds of its population? The City of Detroit is screwing around with the American Motors Factoryabandonedrelics.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/amc-headquarters-in-detroit/ Even the venerable Ford Highland Park Plant is mostly vacant and looking for someone to save it. We have an oversupply of industrial buildings waiting for redevelopment or demolition. Beside the industrial buildings, Detroit has between 44,000 and 72,000 (they cannot keep an accurate count) of vacant and blighted homes and small business buildings that should be boarded up or demolished.metrotimes.com/detroit/despite-demolitio ... -neighborhoods/Content?oid=17692371 Howard, do the math. It take about $20,000 to tear down a home, cart it away to an approved landfill and fill in the basement with clean dirt. So, $20,000 X 44,000 sites = $880 MILLION just to have vacant lots. The City has a goal of tearing down 8,000 homes a year, but they have fallen short of that goal the last few years. Those This Old House episodes were aired in 2016, about a year after the City of Detroit exited Chapter 9 bankruptcy. I don't know where the City received those funds to help fix up that house. Any redevelopment activity has been centered around Woodward Avenue from downtown Detroit out to the Cultural Center just south of the old GM Headquarters. Very limited redevelopment has occurred outside of the city center. So, for the most part, it has been wishful PR at best or outright propaganda.
Posted on: 2019/1/24 19:48
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Re: Historic Packard Bridge Collapses
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Home away from home
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Quote:
Thanks, Roger for remembering my article about the Packard Plant in The Packard Cormorant magazine. And the bus tour I led at the 2013 Packard Club National Meet. I don't think it was ever done before, but we began the bus tour on Belle Isle, just like the article did. We started on Belle Isle at Scott Fountain where Ed Macauley often took his special cars and photographed them and made his decisions about how to do his never-ending serial modifications. As I pointed out Packard landmarks along the way, eventually we ended up at the Packard Plant on East Grand Boulevard. And while I had seen the plant and explored it many, many, many times over the years, I was still shocked at just how badly things had deteriorated at that point... and this was nearly six years ago and it was heartbreaking. My aunt had once worked for a senior person in Packard management and she got me a pass badge that allowed me to enter the plant during the 1960s and 1970s. I still have that badge today. I can assure everyone that the building still had plenty of tenants in the 1970s, and numerous businesses operating out of sectionalized areas of the plant. Yes, I have lots of photos. These businesses generated jobs and tax revenue... and the city should have had an appreciation for this situation. But somebody got greedy-and stupid. I can only say that incredible stupidity combined with incredible greed (basically on the part of the City of Detroit) transformed what was once merely an old factory with viable new businesses in it... into a hulking, brooding, scary, vandalized nightmare and scourge that was a magnet for even more trouble and decay. Why was the City of Detroit STILL trying to tear down the Packard Plant even after being told not to do so? THIS is the moronic response to most things OLD in Detroit: tear 'em down! I cannot tell you of the beautiful old homes that were torn down in the 1970s and 1980s and continue to be torn down and trashed today. Ever see the Gar Wood mansion??? Believe me, I know. What's left even if someone can afford the tear-down is a vacant lot strewn with trash. This very same thing happened to the streamlined moderne headquarters building of Creative Industries of Detroit on East Outer Drive. It sat and sat and was vandalized repeatedly while no one lifted a finger. Finally the roof caved in and the building was repeatedly raped of every possible bit of metal and electrical wiring and plumbing. And NOBODY knew this was all happening? And WHO is buying all of this scrappage? They have no idea where it is coming from? The garage on the east side and later the northwest side where I kept my NOS sponson-hulled 1952 mahogany hydroplane racing boat was also broken into. The barbarians who broke in made off with my two NOS 1950s Dodge-Ram hemi engines with GM superchargers... all chromed, ready to go and NEVER run... the boat was NEVER in the water. I'm told that some scrap yard paid the dopers $75 apiece for the engines. You mean to tell me the scrap buyer didn't KNOW these valuable engines were not hot? Somehow when all these things are happening, the responsible overseers always seem to be looking the other way. Or creating absurd, unsolvable squabbles while the property, facilities or what have you are either robbed, or just deteriorated into oblivion. If the City thought the plant was so valuable, then why did they stand by while it was raped and gutted and did nothing? THIS is the ultimate absurdity of the greed and ignorance involved. And the barbarians could plainly see that nobody was minding the store, so why not rape the place for all they could get? But... it is what it is. And now everyone can plainly see where this has all led. I lived in two of the finest neighborhoods in the city of Detroit growing up. But I could not even park my car in my own driveway without fear that the convertible top would be cut, or tires, wheels and radio stolen! We couldn't go on vacation without fear that the house might be broken into. My family had commercial properties and businesses in the city, but these were regularly vandalized and robbed too. The environment of the city and how it was run (or lack thereof) simply served to encourage bad behavior. Eventually I got fed up and moved out of the city. Most of the others I grew up with left too. The Packard Bridge fell for a reason: to show us that the fall of Detroit from what it once was is now complete-no matter how many P.R. spins and sugar-coatings one can put on it. And as an old Detroiter who loved the city and certainly had immense love for Packard... the whole thing breaks my heart.
Posted on: 2019/1/24 22:01
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Re: Historic Packard Bridge Collapses
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Home away from home
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Here in Detroit we are all waiting for the axe to fall given the long anticipated plant closings and down sizings.
However, the problem is not restricted to Detroit. Michigan government is corrupt through and through. They poison water supplies, seize property and sell it for profit, misappropriate ear marked funds, etcetera, etcetera. There is a cancer on the nation given the concentration of wealth. When I look at what the rich do with their money I don't think they deserve to have it. I knew of a historic dwelling in New Jersey that was torn down for a MacMansion. That is happening all over. If the rich are going to behave like that then perhaps the money should be used to pay down the out of control national debt. I too remember when the Packard plant was a sound property. However, I don't see very much demand for sound thinking either so these problems will continue until an irreducible collapse takes place.
Posted on: 2019/1/25 6:29
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Re: Historic Packard Bridge Collapses
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Home away from home
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I've lived in Wayne County (Detroit and surrounding area) and elsewhere in Michigan, and the funding issue is compounded by a great unwillingness in the rest of the state to send funds into a municipality with such a long history of financial mismanagement and malfeasance.
At this point, I think taking down the ruins of the factory and continuing the focus on preserving the Packard legacy at the Proving Grounds is the right strategy.
Posted on: 2019/1/25 11:39
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Re: Historic Packard Bridge Collapses
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Quite a regular
 
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I cant believe it, I was just there 2017 but did not have my Packard with me at the time. I was going to be there this summer with my Packard and get a pic next to the bridge. Did the city ever declare this as a historical part of Detroit?? how can this happened? Should the Packard club been involved?? All I know now is it's gone and I missed out. At least I got to see it
 
Posted on: 2019/1/25 15:12
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happiness is a 1950 Packard
 1950 club sedan deluxe  [img]https://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/registry/index.php?Action=view&ID=1892[/img]
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Re: Historic Packard Bridge Collapses
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Home away from home
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Quote:
Did the city ever declare this as a historical part of Detroit?? No, the city is still working out their post-bankruptcy plan. They were prepared to sell off items from the Art Museum and the Historical Museum to pay off debts. That did NOT happen, but is shows you how much they care about history - zilch. Should the Packard club been involved?? Excuse me if I sound a little "snippy" here. Concerned Packard people from the local region of Motor City Packards and the Packard Motor Car Foundation have been all over this for the last 20+ years. Do you think we are oblivious as to what is going on in our city? It may be too late for the PMCC Plant, but if you really are interested is saving a Packard property, then contact me and we'll find a spot for you on our Volunteer List at the PPG. Or, if you cannot make the daily commute, then send us a check to support those that are working there for the cause. Now to update you guys on the bridge collapse. East Grand Boulevard has been cleaned up and open to what little traffic there now is there. Meanwhile, in Saturday's Detroit Free Press they reported that Arte Express is 3 years behind in their real estate taxes and subject to a tax foreclosure sale.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detr ... ard-plant-detroit-taxes/2686758002/ Article is not clear if they are also behind in paying City of Detroit taxes.
Posted on: 2019/1/27 15:14
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