Fabulous Ruins - Your semantic interpretation?

[East Detroit]

When you think "The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit".... are you thinking:

a) Detroit is a Fabulous Ruin
b) Metro Detroit is a Fabulous Ruin
c) Detroit has some Fabulous Ruins, like Italy
d) It is fabulous that Detroit is ruined


I always though it was C, but I am beginning to think that many people were interested in or thought it meant one of the other options.

[Retroit]

C. But more technically, that Detroit had some fabulous buildings that have fallen into ruin.

[gibran]

c... when I was a guest student at Wayne [[long long time ago) I always rode around the old brown stones and was amazed... then after I moved south and saw the sprawl of Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio etc... and other areas I would drive around to find similar areas where there were "ruins" and it was so sad that our city planners abandoned the inner cities and it's buildings and old neighborhoods...some preserved them well and some didn't... so now when I go to Washington and walk the streets of Georgetown etc.. I could only imagine a little foresight would have gone a long way...could you imagine a vibrant and diverse community in Detroit stretching from Trumbull/near old Central or west to east to Grand Blvd... up gratiot ....the homes in detroit were well built in th ecity proper and would be worth a fortune elsewhhere...funny what fear and prejudice gets yah...many of the neighborhoods still has pride and hope..they just need infrastructure and people [[ i know, I know; that's what we have been moaning about for years on here)..but good thread and yes retroit past tense..only if we continue to let it go...man that show "after people" is interesting isn't it.

[DetroitDad]

c... but a and b aren't that far off... unfortunately.

[Stosh]

I vote for E. Of course E isn't an option, so let me elaborate.
If I had placed E in the mix, in the question I would have had it like so:

E: No ruins are fabulous.

While I admit that the A and B option are tempting, I reject the notion that somehow ruined buildings are "cool" or "hip". They are what they are, eyesores.

[Retroit]

Can I change my answer to E.?

[gibran]

ditto ditto

[Blarf]

E: No ruins are fabulous.

While I admit that the A and B option are tempting, I reject the notion that somehow ruined buildings are "cool" or "hip". They are what they are, eyesores.

Does this apply to Rome as well?

[Stosh]

Fine. After about thousand years of stagnation then you can call it square. But the enthralling thing about Rome and Athens isn't the ruins, it's the dead civilizations that they represent. I see nothing special about the early to mid 20th century Detroit culture that is especially enthralling, do you? That Rome vs, Detroit argument stinks to high heaven. The Italians built on TOP of the ruins.

[Blarf]

I see nothing special about the early to mid 20th century Detroit culture that is especially enthralling, do you?

Actually yes, I do.

[Stosh]

Actually yes, I do.

Great, please elaborate. I'd like to hear where your idealogy lies in respect to the classical Greek and Roman cultures.

[Blarf]

Great, please elaborate. I'd like to hear where your idealogy lies in respect to the classical Greek and Roman cultures.

But I don't care about the Greek or Roman cultures. I live here, not over there. And I'm not interested in that time period.

[Stosh]

But I don't care about the Greek or Roman cultures. I live here, not over there. And I'm not interested in that time period.

Then, unfortunately, you can't effectively use the comparison of Rome and Detroit in the terms of ruins. The ancient city of Rome [[Forum) lies 25 to 14 feet lower than the modern city. Excavation brought the runs to light. Debris filled in the Forum in the intervening years between the fall of the Roman empire and the archaelogical excavation.

I can't imagine anyone that would wish that the city of Detroit deteriorate to that state.

And here's an interesting picture from 1900, They actually demolished a 17th century church to get at the ruins. See the differences in ground level due to the excavation.

In January 1900, the demolition of the baroque church of S. Maria Liberatrice marked the beginning of archaeological excavations in the area. Note the difference in ground level between the already excavated part of the Roman Forum [[foreground) and the ground level on which the 17th century church was built [[SAR archive photo).

[Blarf]

Then, unfortunately, you can't effectively use the comparison of Rome and Detroit in the terms of ruins.

I wasn't comparing Rome to Detroit, I was simply asking if you're opinion that "No ruins are fabulous. They are eyesores" also applies to the ruins in Rome.

[Retroit]

^ Interesting debate. I suppose if Detroit had a 1500 year old train station ruin, I would be in favor of leaving it as is. But a 100 year old train station ruin just doesn't have the same charm. It looks like it should be occupied, while a 1500 year old one would look like it shouldn't.

[[Yes smart asses, I am aware that there weren't trains 1500 years ago. )

[Stosh]

I wasn't comparing Rome to Detroit, I was simply asking if you're opinion that "No ruins are fabulous. They are eyesores" also applies to the ruins in Rome.

There is one vastly significant difference between the ruins here, and Rome, The Roman ruins have significance to a wide variety of people. If the ruins of Detroit had a fifth of the cultural significance of the Roman ruins, then by all means keep them. But they dont, and never will.

Rome as eyesores, I'd have to say that they were when they were in decline through the intervening centuries between the fall of Rome and the restoration. And make no mistake about it, the "ruins" of Rome have undergone a lot of restoration and stabilization.

For sake of comparison and the interest of the inhabitants of the area, they used the Forum as a cattle grazing area.

Eyesores? I'd say at times yes they were. Now, not so much. Name me one ruin here worth saving and why, and the method that you would use to fund this. I'll preface this with the hope that there would be, one day, a restoration of all these buildings that you lovingly refer to as ruins. But we all know that money will never appear.

During the Middle Ages, when the population gradually settled in the Campus Martius, the Forum – although strew with debris – came to be used as grazing for cattle and acquired the name of Campo Vaccino [["the cattle field"). It was not until the 19th century that the archaeologists began to unearth the half-buried ruins, digging sometimes as deep as 65 feet.

[Josh]

I for one find ruins of any type and age quite fascinating and as such am fascinated by the ruins of Detroit. I find that there is a strange beauty in all the decay. And when I look at an abandoned house, for example, I think about the history behind it -- the people who built it, the families who called the place home, and how it ended up in its current state of abandonment and disrepair.

That said, I don't think I'd describe them as fabulous, however. The phrase "fabulous ruins" strikes me as a tongue-in-cheek phrase, mainly because one would normally not associate an adjective such as "fabulous," which is a positive attribute, with a noun such as "ruins," which generally has negative associations. So the phrase sounds somewhat contradictory and oxymoronic.

But as a positive attribute is not normally paired with a negative noun, it is a good marketing ploy because it attracts attention. Reading is all about anticipation. For example when we read something like "I went to the gym..." we would anticipate reading something like "...to work out." We would not anticipate the sentence to continue "...to buy groceries." Thus if we were to read "I went to the gym to buy groceries" the dissonance of it would break our reading rhythm and cause us to think about the incongruity of the sentence. So, in this respect the incongruity of "fabulous ruins" causes an unexpectedness of sorts, and gets people to think about the phrase and what is meant by it. Anyway, that's my semantic analysis.

In fact, I believe I read somewhere that it was initially meant to be an ironic phrase, but then took on a life of its own. I probably read it on this site somewhere, but I can't seem to find it now.

As for the Rome/Detroit thing I don't compare Detroit to modern day Rome with its ancient ruins, but rather to what Rome might have been like after the collapse of the Roman Empire. It is generally believed that Rome had something in the neighborhood of one million residents during its heyday. In the years/decades leading up to the collapse of the empire and the years/decades after it Rome saw a declining population and probably ended up losing more than half of its residents. Some even say that Rome's population fell to less than 100,000. As we can see with Detroit, when a city that had been built up to support a certain population loses half that population there is going to be a lot of empty, abandoned structures. Hence, with many people leaving Rome there were probably many abandoned structures. And with no one to take care of these abandoned structures they fell into disrepair, thus causing blight. As is the case when there are empty buildings nearby there was probably also a lot of building scavenging going on which of course added to the disrepair of the buildings and increase in blight. In fact I believe it is the case that the most famous ruin of Rome, the Coliseum is missing a good sized portion of its surrounding wall not due to falling apart over time, but rather because scavengers stripped the wall down to use the building material for other purposes.

So, I imagine that Rome, with its population decline in the years after the fall and the subsequent urban blight that resulted from it, resembled Detroit in many ways.

Anyway, as someone who is fascinated by ruins, and by extension Rome and Detroit, I have pondered this thought many atime.

[larrym]

It saddens me that my home has become a ruined city.

[MIRepublic]

Given the original intent of the site, Lowell showcasing the ruin of some of Detroit's storied, abanonded properties, I guess I've never even thought of it anything other than Option C, though, I wouldn't say "like Italy", at all, given the pretty decent gulf of disparity [[for the most part) between why buildings were abandoned/are being abandoned in Detroit and why they were in Italty.

[Stosh]

I for one find ruins of any type and age quite fascinating and as such am fascinated by the ruins of Detroit. I find that there is a strange beauty in all the decay. And when I look at an abandoned house, for example, I think about the history behind it -- the people who built it, the families who called the place home, and how it ended up in its current state of abandonment and disrepair.

There was also a strange beauty in the properties before they were ruined. When I see an abandoned house, I see tragedy and blight. It's strange all right. One can wonder about the potential hsitories of things without waiting for them to be spoiled.

That said, I don't think I'd describe them as fabulous, however. The phrase "fabulous ruins" strikes me as a tongue-in-cheek phrase, mainly because one would normally not associate an adjective such as "fabulous," which is a positive attribute, with a noun such as "ruins," which generally has negative associations. So the phrase sounds somewhat contradictory and oxymoronic.

It should be a tongue-in-cheek phrase. That's how I took it when I first looked at this site. I was interested in the ruined building photographs for a bit. Then, I moved on. It's been quite a while since I looked at the companion site here. While it serves a purpose, glorifying destruction isn't my cup of tea. What I like to see is successful reuse of properties that have been neglected, of which there are some in the "Fabulous Ruins" site.

As for the Rome/Detroit thing I don't compare Detroit to modern day Rome with its ancient ruins, but rather to what Rome might have been like after the collapse of the Roman Empire. It is generally believed that Rome had something in the neighborhood of one million residents during its heyday. In the years/decades leading up to the collapse of the empire and the years/decades after it Rome saw a declining population and probably ended up losing more than half of its residents. Some even say that Rome's population fell to less than 100,000. As we can see with Detroit, when a city that had been built up to support a certain population loses half that population there is going to be a lot of empty, abandoned structures. Hence, with many people leaving Rome there were probably many abandoned structures. And with no one to take care of these abandoned structures they fell into disrepair, thus causing blight. As is the case when there are empty buildings nearby there was probably also a lot of building scavenging going on which of course added to the disrepair of the buildings and increase in blight. In fact I believe it is the case that the most famous ruin of Rome, the Coliseum is missing a good sized portion of its surrounding wall not due to falling apart over time, but rather because scavengers stripped the wall down to use the building material for other purposes.

So, I imagine that Rome, with its population decline in the years after the fall and the subsequent urban blight that resulted from it, resembled Detroit in many ways.

Anyway, as someone who is fascinated by ruins, and by extension Rome and Detroit, I have pondered this thought many atime.

Josh, thanks for the well reasoned thought on the fall of Rome.

It seems that some feel that we are somewhat akin to ancient Rome in many ways, I suppose we are, if you consider the sacking of buildings and general decline in population and power.

The multiple sackings of Rome in the 300's AD caused the vast majority of Romans to flee the city, those that were left, anyway. Rome had ceded the Empire's authority to Constantinople, so in effect their power base was cut out from under them. Once the Goths, and others pillaged the city, it was obvious that Rome was toast.

As it is now, the people of the region have chosen to flee the city. Crime, racism, economics, education, among other reasons varied and personal. Our power base is being cut out from under us as we watch, horrified. Our auto industry has been our Empire for the last 100 years. We don't have Goths to do our pillaging, we obviously are doing a good job of doing that to ourselves, sadly.

I'm not sure that there is really any answer to this problem at present. I love the architecture of Detroit as much as anyone. However I'm not going to glorify it's demise. A contraction of sorts may be in order, to eliminate the dangers inherent to having abandoned buildings amongst viable ones. The day that the people stop treating the City as disposable property, is the day of it's rebirth.

[EMG]

I vote for

F. Detroit has many ruined abandoned buildings and houses, and anyone who says these ruins are "fabulous" is just being sarcastic.

[EMG]

However I'm not going to glorify it's demise. A contraction of sorts may be in order, to eliminate the dangers inherent to having abandoned buildings amongst viable ones. The day that the people stop treating the City as disposable property, is the day of it's rebirth.

I would definitely agree with that.

[Retroit]

A lot depends on perspective. If you live near ruins, or once lived near occupied buildings that are now ruins, they probably are not fabulous. But if you have always lived out in the near-pristine suburbs, then an excursion into the Ghetto to take some pictures of ruins may be an novel & entertaining experience and may evoke the feeling that they are fabulous.

[RickBeall]

Definately A

I've wandered through ruined buildings in Detroit for 20 years. Most of the buildings I used to wander through are long gone and I'm always amazed that there is always more.

[Stosh]

Definately A

I've wandered through ruined buildings in Detroit for 20 years. Most of the buildings I used to wander through are long gone and I'm always amazed that there is always more.

I wonder whether they should charge admission to these buildings, like they do in Rome for the Forum now. I'd bet that would cut down a lot on the random wanderer, and possibly get some cash money to rehabilitate some salvagable buildings.