Griswold, south from Capitol Park [[Shorpy)

[Ray1936]

Great photo from 1912. Google street view shows the two buildings at right center are still there. Anyone know the names of them?

http://www.shorpy.com/node/11012?size=_original

[jcole]

Isn't that the Dime Bank building?

[DetroitPlanner]

The nearest was once Colonial Merchandise Mart in the 1990's.
Next is the Dime.
The farthest is the Ford.

[rjlj]

Great picture. You can really see how nice Capitol Park was, looked liked a nice lush oasis. Much better than the concrete jungle that exists now that no one really uses.

[wolverine]

Looks just like older photos of Manhattan. Detroit had some unbelievable building stock. Some replaced for the better, many not so much. But it definitely shows what capitol park could be.

[animatedmartian]

What's up with this building?

http://maps.google.com/?ll=42.33252,...0.19,,0,-27.19

I'm pretty sure it's the same one in the picture on the left, but the facade looks like it got a haircut!

Edit: If you go around the corner, you can see where the building used to form the usual U shape now covered up with some glass. I suspect at one point in time someone tried to update the building my making it look more modernized?

Edit:Edit: Found the wikipedia article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...vices_Building

[wolverine]

What's up with this building?

http://maps.google.com/?ll=42.33252,...0.19,,0,-27.19

I'm pretty sure it's the same one in the picture on the left, but the facade looks like it got a haircut!

Yeah I remember hearing a story how this building was heavily modified.

[margdar]

Great picture. You can really see how nice Capitol Park was, looked liked a nice lush oasis. Much better than the concrete jungle that exists now that no one really uses.

While I agree that the previous incarnation of CP is a million times more lovely than today's cementscape, it is not true that the park is unused. Not really sure where this idea came from but the park is used on a daily and nightly basis by many of the neighborhoods inhabitants, workers and visitors. Just sayin'.

[DetroitPlanner]

Cornices were removed in the early 1900's on lots of buildings as a safety precaution. Many were coming down onto the pedestrians below!

[canuck]

As was mentioned in previous threads, there werent to many cities in the world circa 1912 that could boast as many cars in their center. It is a really striking feature of Detroit. It may also explain the predicament Detroit found itself in much later. But, to me, it exemplifies the potential of urbanity that The D can regain.