PHOTOS: What 5 Years can do to a building [Cass Tech]

**Traxus** · March-02-10, 12:08 AM

You know the place, maybe not. An old high school that has seen the plight of scrappers, weather vandals and photographers.

Empty promises...
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yield vacant minds.
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Where potential energy...
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...is converted into violent energy...
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...that is taught to run in circles...
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...on an uneven playing field...
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...where names are irrelevant and individuals fall victim to the totality...
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...of our rust laden machine...
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...perhaps, to bear children who further fuel our vicious cycle.

**Hamtragedy** · March-02-10, 12:38 AM

Yeah, but we got a great new non-descript building one block north with a 98 yard long football field that 100 years worth of Alumni would be proud of.

Albert Kahn who?

**showstoppa** · March-02-10, 12:40 AM

good heavens, please tell me this isn't the place I think it is !

**Traxus** · March-02-10, 12:44 AM

On top of that, I heard from a current employee the new building is falling apart at the seams? Hearsay perhaps.

Also, I found this informative, but monumentally less interesting photo of a chalkboard, practically a tombstone...

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**Traxus** · March-02-10, 12:52 AM

Originally Posted by showstoppa

good heavens, please tell me this isn't the place I think it is !

Showstoppa, you guessed right, and forgive me if I'm unrealistic, but I'm tentative to reveal this place to anyone who doesn't recognize it...

Although if it's slated for demolition [[I guess Robert Bob has the funds already?) I suppose its fate is already sealed and we could open it for discussion?

LodgeDodger · March-02-10, 07:38 AM

Depressing.

**East Detroit** · March-02-10, 07:49 AM

We drove by in a Honda and didn't understand what's happened to Detroit.

Saw a chalkboard inside that had "I will not pull Christine's pony tail" written 20 times.

**iheartthed** · March-02-10, 07:57 AM

Well, in their defense, the swimming pool pictured hadn't been used for decades even before the building was shuttered.

neighbor · March-02-10, 08:42 AM

5 years didn't do that alone.

**iheartthed** · March-02-10, 08:50 AM

Originally Posted by neighbor

5 years didn't do that alone.

Well, 5 years, a few dozen squatters, 100 or so scrappers, and a few ruin porn photographers.

**Detroitnerd** · March-02-10, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by Traxus

On top of that, I heard from a current employee the new building is falling apart at the seams? Hearsay perhaps.

For real? I thought the new school was supposed to be 100 times more efficient and better than the old building.

**EastsideAl** · March-02-10, 10:52 AM

Really sad fate for a school that has been such a proud part of our history in this city [[and my personal history, and my mother, aunt, sister, and several of my cousins also went there).

Sometimes I don't understand this city at all. If they had no uses in mind for the building, why not tear it down after the new school was built and before it got to this condition? Or if they were saving it for a possible future re-use, why not seal it or at least police it and protect it from the elements? And why the hell just leave everything just sitting there as it was on the last day of school as an inevitable lure for scrappers and "urban explorers", and not even send some cleaning crews through to clean the place out?

It just seems insane to let such a historical structure in such a central and visible part of the city turn into a blown-out hulk in front of everyone's eyes, including the students at the building next door. It's just embarrassing for everyone involved, and to the general public serves to largely negate the achievement of getting the new school built and up and running.

**mikeg19** · March-02-10, 11:23 AM

I don't understand why they left everything there in place. Was it really cheaper to leave good products there and buy all new stuff? Either way, I hope this building isn't up for demo.

**Detroitnerd** · March-02-10, 11:38 AM

Originally Posted by mikeg19

I don't understand why they left everything there in place. Was it really cheaper to leave good products there and buy all new stuff? Either way, I hope this building isn't up for demo.

I have heard so many horror stories about Detroit Public Schools profligate waste of good materials.

When they were closing down the Burton International School on Cass, the guys who run the antique shop across the street saw workers throwing out desks. They thought the desks would be good enough to salvage, so they asked the workers, who were tossing them into a large trash container, if they could have a few. The workers said no, and then, according to the store owners, started breaking each desk before throwing it in the trash so it couldn't be used.

When the DPS moved from the old Maccabees building to New Center, the security guard at Wayne State said they threw out tons of paper, Post-It notes, pens, and all sorts of other materials, rather than move them up to New Center.

Then there's that school warehouse full of old supplies and textbooks near Michigan Central Station, where all that stuff is just rotting.

This from a school district that can't provide PAPER for art classes, and where kids have to draw on the backs of paper bags. Unbelievable.

**detroitbred** · March-02-10, 11:44 AM

To me the fact that furniture and materials that could not have been used in Detroit Public Schools somewhere, were not at least donated to someone who could put them to good use. There is so much need out there, and someone would have been thrilled to get those school supplies, etc. It is a damn shame on so many levels.

**HazenPingree** · March-02-10, 11:44 AM

The old school warehouse has dozens - maybe hundreds - of boxes of language textbooks sealed in plastic.

**Gsgeorge** · March-02-10, 11:55 AM

What could be done to save this place, or at least one of its impressive neogothic facades?

**RickBeall** · March-02-10, 12:15 PM

Great, sad pictures.

**mcsdetroitfriend** · March-02-10, 01:23 PM

Originally Posted by HazenPingree

The old school warehouse has dozens - maybe hundreds - of boxes of language textbooks sealed in plastic.

All of which are 30 years out of date. There's a great article written about it on a blogspot. I'll see if I can find it. It explains the insurance pickle DPS was in when the fire broke out, still a real shame and embarrassment that building.

Retroit · March-02-10, 01:27 PM

Does a language textbook go out-of-date in 30 years? I can see science or history, but language?

**agirlintheD** · March-02-10, 01:46 PM

sweet-juniper.com has an entire section on abandoned schools [[abandoned homes, zoos, etc.) and what was just left behind, what the scrappers have done, the sheer waste, the sadness of what DPS has become....sad, so sad.

**Goose** · March-02-10, 01:53 PM

that glassware, beakers, testtubes, pyrex stuff ain't cheap, but its probably out of date......

**Danny** · March-02-10, 01:56 PM

Adieu Old Gem!

**JBMcB** · March-02-10, 02:05 PM

Originally Posted by Goose

that glassware, beakers, testtubes, pyrex stuff ain't cheap, but its probably out of date......

Lab grade glassware doesn't go out of date, you use it until it breaks or the gradations wear off. It probably cost more to hire DPS workers to move everything than to just buy all new stuff and have it shipped to the new school.

I'll have to show my uncle this, he graduated from C.T. in the late 70's and got his Ph.D. in chemistry from Cornell.

**12468_laing** · March-02-10, 02:21 PM

As part of the Denby swim team, I swam in that pool in 1973 or 1974. That is the only way I recognized these pictures. Truly a shame, but what can be done?