Lost Landscapes of Detroit

[Brock7]

I've seen a very brief home movie clip of my parents wedding party riding in rented pony carts on Belle Isle in '47.

[DetroitDad]

English, I appreciate your viewpoint, it is one which is not brought up enough.

Thanks for the link... I didn't see it when it was posted last year. To me, a daughter of postmodern Detroit, it's not odd to see footage of a bustling Motor City. I grew up amid these fabulous ruins; the more splendid the ruins, the greater the fall those ruins indicate.

As always, I feel very ambivalent about this kind of nostalgia. Ultimately, I agree with this reviewer:

" These films unwittingly offer hints of why Detroit would fall so far so fast. The scenes of the auto plants cannot help but call to mind the decline of American industrial manufacturing, of course. But that is not the whole story. Detroit, in its heyday, was among the most rigidly segregated cities in the country. The only black faces you will see here [[apart from an occasional pedestrian) are shown at a neighborhood celebration for an arriving [[or departing--it's hard to tell) church pastor."

When this footage was taken, my family [[grandfather's side) had been in the city of Detroit for nearly a half century. Hate to rain on folks' parade, but the city beautiful of yesterday had a flaw perhaps other cities that didn't fall as far didn't have... a flaw that few mourning its demise would notice. How could they? One doesn't notice invisible men, women, and children.

Still, this is an important documentary recounting an essential part of our city's history. As someone interested in preservation, I enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing it.