I remember when the Southwest General Hospital was built. It was an unusual building that garnered a fair amount of attention for its architecture at the time. It was supposed to represent a possible new model for the survival of the city's struggling small, often minority-owned, neighborhood hospitals.

The original publicity was that it would provide equitable treatment for white and black patients in a single hospital, which had not generally been the case in Detroit. But by the time the various smaller hospitals were able to come together, raise enough money, and actually build the new hospital, the racial landscape had changed quite a bit. The place struggled from the very beginning, and gained a pretty shaky reputation. It wobbled towards death for many years, before it finally closed having become a mostly empty 'ghost' hospital.

It is hard to see what that place could be used for now, particularly after all it has suffered through all that abandonment, etc. It probably is no longer suitable as a hospital, and, anyway, there really isn't a need for one there. But it is still a strikingly odd and notable building that always seems to catch the attention and pique the imagination of those who notice it for the first time.