The Ages of [[Nearly) Every Building in Detroit

**mtburb** · March-10-14, 03:09 PM

I discovered this site while on a Google Maps-related blog. Basically, this shows how old nearly every building within the city of Detroit is. Several buildings are missing, including Delray Tower, the "Z" Building, the Vinton Building and the Greektown Casino hotel tower, while several have incorrect ages [[for example, the Fox Theater is shown to be built in 1980, but it's much older than that, as we all know, plus, there's this major one: the Rosa Parks Transit Center is listed as being built in 1987!).

http://whydontweownthis.com/age/mi/w...3718/-83.05158

**Scottathew** · March-10-14, 03:12 PM

Fascinating! The Vinton building appears to be missing as well. Also, on half of the site of the Z building there is a building from 1935 listed.

It's slightly dated, but still fascinating. I wish they had the building names in addition to addresses.

**Gistok** · March-10-14, 04:19 PM

So far about 1/3 of the buildings downtown that I checked and knew the dates for are wrong...

**cman710** · March-10-14, 05:11 PM

Originally Posted by Gistok

So far about 1/3 of the buildings downtown that I checked and knew the dates for are wrong...

Perhaps the data comes from property tax records? It would not be very unusual for those to have some incorrect information.

**mtburb** · March-10-14, 05:14 PM

Anyways, do any similar maps exist yet for any of the suburbs? I've been wanting to make one that was like this for the buildings in Wyandotte...

**Scottathew** · March-10-14, 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by mtburb

Anyways, do any similar maps exist yet for any of the suburbs? I've been wanting to make one that was like this for the buildings in Wyandotte...

Detroit has a much larger stock of historic buildings than most suburbs. This was most likely a labor of love. Folks that love Wyandotte should band together and make one if they'd enjoy it!

**hastings paradise** · March-10-14, 07:06 PM

Hastings street is there?

**wolverine** · March-10-14, 07:15 PM

Originally Posted by 48307

Detroit has a much larger stock of historic buildings than most suburbs. This was most likely a labor of love. Folks that love Wyandotte should band together and make one if they'd enjoy it!

I think much of this comes from property tax records available for download in city's GIS portals. That doesn't mean they are perfect though. Recently came across a similar map for Chicago and they showed our ballparks as "demolished buildings." This is pretty automated so there's bound to be mistakes.

Not a whole lot of pre-1900s stuff which surprises me

**drpoundsign** · March-10-14, 08:08 PM

Well East Dearborn, or rather the Polish and Hungarian [[DelRay) east of east Dearborn has quite a LOT of stuff in the 1880s and 1890s along with Mexican Village. There is even a few Antebellum [[!) meaning before the Civil War. I counted one 1850 and one 1860. The thing to know is that Downtown Detroit is not the oldest because of the cycles of urban renewal there. "up from the ashes" refers to a City Fire that took away all teh 18th century stuff.

They COULD use to solve the "Four color map problem" I cannot tell the different shades of pink so easily

**Wesley Mouch** · March-10-14, 08:18 PM

Looks to me like the date they are using is property tax, and last improvement date. So the Fox Theatre is somewhat wrong for build-date, but less wrong for 'last renovated' date.

The Hockeytown building shows 1993. Check. About when rebuilt. [[But not when built, which was more like 1940)

So some minor inaccuracies, but if it does include last major improvement, then it actual does reflect the age of the infrastructure -- not just the physical age of the bones of the building.

**Tony Codfish** · March-12-14, 12:07 AM

Building dates are largely available in wyandotte at the Marx building in the census records. While not in list form, you can look up the dates of many individual buildings there.

**mtburb** · March-13-14, 03:14 PM

Originally Posted by Tony Codfish

Building dates are largely available in wyandotte at the Marx building in the census records. While not in list form, you can look up the dates of many individual buildings there.

Any way to view these online at all? I can't make it there right now. So far, I've planned on using that Placepromo site that I found on another thread, plus Zillow, using building ages from both sites. In addition, I need to know when the building that houses the Dunkin Donuts on Eureka just west of Biddle was built, along with that strip mall at the northeast corner of Eureka and 4th.

Apologies if I derailed my own thread...