"Soul of the City: An artist finds beauty in crumbling treasures"

Detroit Sunday Journal
May 17, 1998

By Michael Betzold
Journal Staff Writer

If you ever have loved Detroit, then your heart surely has been broken time and again by its abandoned buildings, homes and neighborhoods. Nowhere has that loss been so starkly documented as on Highland Park artist Lowell Boileau’s poignant "Fabulous Ruins of Detroit" Web site.

With its haunting photographs of once-grand palaces of industry and wealth rotting or being demolished, Boileau’s cyberspace tour of Detroit’s throwaway history is relentlessly compelling. One Web site visitor described it as "a family reunion at the cemetery."

The idea that Detroit’s detritus might be "fabulous" occurred to Boileau after he visited ancient ruins in Africa, Europe and the Middle East in the early 1970s. He came to realize that the storied ruins of Athens, Rome and Zimbabwe are no more impressive than the likes of the Michigan Central Station, the Grand Circus Park movie palaces or the Brush Park mansions.

Boileau long has specialized in painting urban landscapes, including abandoned auto factories. He also photographed landmark structures with a digital camera, some at the time of their demolition. Those photos and a few paintings, with running prose commentary on the buildings’ significance and history, comprise the Web site.

It’s structured as a tour, complete with a clickable map and two options: a leisurely stroll through scores of photos, which will take an hour or more, and an "express tour" that’s about a third as long.

"It just struck me as a tongue-in-cheek thing to create a tourist guide like you might see for the ruins in Rome," said Boileau.

Boileau’s viewpoint is neither jaded nor sentimental. Though he said he would love to see the buildings he displays preserved, he declares: "I’m not a Hudson’s hugger." His is the attitude of a lover of the city who is mournful at the passing of architectural friends but largely resigned to their demise.

The Web site includes examples of successful preservation -- Orchestra Hall, Fox Theatre, Detroit Opera House and a few homes.

But the most impressive images are those of the fallen giants of what Boileau calls "the pre-eminent industrial city in the world."

The tour begins with "Industrial Ruins," starting with the recently demolished "Seven Sisters," the old east-side Edison power plant along the Detroit River. Following are views of "The Factory That Changed the World," Ford’s Highland Park Assembly Plant, where the first assembly line went into operation before World War I. Boileau also presents its less-known predecessor, Ford’s Piquette Avenue plant, where the Model T was first produced, as well as the Studebaker plant on Piquette.

Personal experience lends an authoritative edge. Commenting on the Uniroyal plant near Belle Isle, Boileau writes: "They don’t build ‘em like this anymore. The Uniroyal Tire Plant was built to withstand aerial bombardment. During its demolition, I once counted the number of hits by the wrecking ball that it took to knock down a single column for a single floor. Amazingly, the column withstood 13 hits before it fell."

Boileau includes a few of his paintings, including a 1985 portrait of the Fisher Body plant, and his 1983 "Requiem for Dodge Main," showing the famous Hamtramck plant falling to the wrecking ball.

The "Downtown Ruins" section documents changes wrought by plans for new stadiums: the recent moving of the Gem Theatre, the demolition of the downtown YMCA and YWCA, abandoned homes and the 606 Horseshoe Lounge, one of the last remnants of Paradise Valley, the center of black culture in Detroit for decades.

The extensive downtown tour also includes shots of Hudson’s, the old Monroe Block, the various Grand Circus Park theaters and landmarks, and a few lesser-known buildings. These include the Madison Lenox Hotel, the triangular GAR Building on Grand River and the Metropolitan Building.

Boileau’s running commentary combines historical anecdotes, grand eulogies, wit, a tinge of sarcasm and a few outbursts of rage. The anger is mostly directed at the soulless corporations which built such imposing structures and then abandoned them.

Writing about the Albert Kahn-designed Ford headquarters building next to the Highland Park Ford plant, Boileau comments: "Long abandoned and seriously damaged, it faces an uncertain future. Here is a great puzzle. How could Ford Motor Co., whose great success grew from the decisions made in the building, let it become such an ignominious outcast?"

Boileau includes shots of some abandoned 1960s-era Southfield office buildings, showing that the cycle of corporate building and abandonment is, if anything, increasing in its pace.

Writing about the old Holiday Inn in Highland Park, Boileau notes: "Here is the repeated pattern of a large corporation abandoning its interests by selling it to another interest who, in turn, allows the business to run down and then abandons the decayed structure, which the hosting community must live with, while the originating corporation is absolved of responsibility."

In "Neighborhood Ruins," Boileau comments: "Impossible is the economics or political will needed to spare these lovely dwellings. Now depressing eyesores, drug and crime havens É there is little sentiment for their survival. Gaze upon them for one last time."

There is wryness in Boileau’s photos showing how the plaza built in the 1980s around the Detroit Institute of Arts has been inexplicably turned into a parking lot. His photo of a statue towering over a couple of parked cars is labeled: "Rodin’s Thinker Ponders his Parking Lot Attendant Status."

Boileau makes room for optimism. In "The City Rising" he states: "In spite of what has preceded, I am pleased to report that Detroit is energetically rebounding."

In an interview, he said: "I’m not a real preservationist … We have to move on with development. We don’t have any choice."

In many ways, "The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit" is testament to the inability of the people of Detroit to control the forces that have swept through the city in this century, making it such a grand and then such a forlorn place, and now making efforts to restore it to greatness.

But compared to the fabulous ruins assembled by Boileau, those efforts seem feeble indeed.

Boileau is thinking about making a CD-ROM of his "Fabulous Ruins" and plans to continue to add to it. Expect images of Tiger Stadium soon.

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