Ruins Porn Goes Upscale

[Lowell]

Pure Detroit to offer tours of Packard Plant

"Tours will be available Saturdays at noon and 3 p.m. They cost $40 per person and are limited to those 18 years and older and groups of 30 per tour. The tours will run 90 minutes and include 1-2 miles of walking. Along the way, a tour guide will discuss the history of the facility built in 1903."

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...-packard-plant

Not to worry. The bleacher view from Trinity Cemetery is still free.

[Király]

Tour director Dan Brennan says the "tour is safe", with "not a lot of asbestos in the facility".

[Honky Tonk]

He did asbestos he could.

[clubboss]

Pure Detroit to offer tours of Packard Plant

"Tours will be available Saturdays at noon and 3 p.m. They cost $40 per person and are limited to those 18 years and older and groups of 30 per tour. The tours will run 90 minutes and include 1-2 miles of walking. Along the way, a tour guide will discuss the history of the facility built in 1903."

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...-packard-plant

Not to worry. The bleacher view from Trinity Cemetery is still free.

A fool and his money are easily parted

[royce]

I truly don't get the appeal of the "dilapidated" Packard Plant. It's an old crumbling former auto plant that is falling in on itself. Just look at the picture Lowell showed of it from the cemetery. Much of the building north of Grand Boulevard is just as dilapidated. I don't know why the developer even wants to spend money trying to rehab this hunk of mess. Now, the administration building along Grand Boulevard and the building just south of I-94 look like they might be salvageable but not much else.

Tear down all of this hulk and try to attract some warehouse or storage type businesses. Maybe some light industrial. Tear it down and clear out the neighborhood up to Warren and build a new "city" airport. Do anything but keep the Packard Plant standing. It's a waste of money in my opinion.

[Zacha341]

^^^ Yeah, I don't really get the reasonsing for not moving on in this case. Salvage what can be, but quickly tear down the rest immediately!

[Lowell]

Tear down all of this hulk and try to attract some warehouse or storage type businesses.

Ah yes, but who will pay $40 a head to see a new warehouse?

Some years back Camilo Vergara created an outrage when he suggested Detroit create a ruins park, ala Rome or Athens, in then dilapidated Brush Park and downtown area.

Now it appears that vision is being carried out. And the argument may have some basis, come to think about it.

Packard, like it or not, is the most symbolic visual artifact embodying what happened to 20th C Detroit -- from its revolutionary Kahn design, to making the cars of Presidents and Kings, to its WWII racist wildcat strike, to its bankruptcy, collapse and ruination.

[mikefmich]

Not to worry. The bleacher view from Trinity Cemetery is still free.

Wow...that has REALLY fallen in a lot since the last time I wandered the old place.

[BMoo]

In fairness to Pure Detroit, their tours are very well-researched and informative - even for a native Detroiter. Based on their free architectural tours that I've done, I imagine that this tour will focus less on the ruin porn and more on the architecture and history of the space.