Park Blvd Canyon

[animatedmartian]

I really like the building that was on the corner of Adams and Parks in the middle of the picture. The Charlevoix building really took a hit when they removed the cornices.

I really have to sigh that some of these buildings became empty lots rather than new buildings. Being isn't any better either.

[detroitbob66]

I really like the building that was on the corner of Adams and Parks in the middle of the picture. The Charlevoix building really took a hit when they removed the cornices.

I really have to sigh that some of these buildings became empty lots rather than new buildings. Being empty isn't any better either.

I was just comparing some of my pictures of the harlevoix with the Shorpy picture, and I noticed they removed those cornices. Why would they have ever done such a thing!

[kathy2trips]

I was just comparing some of my pictures of the harlevoix with the Shorpy picture, and I noticed they removed those cornices. Why would they have ever done such a thing!

Those "greatest generation" types just hated 19th century architecture [[aka monstrosities) and accompanying embellishments...sleek lines and angles were what they were going for. They're the folks that invented mid-century modern. Often, they'd remove the offending artwork and just store them in the basement.

IMHO, I think they belong on the building as the architect intended. Taking them off seems, in retrospect, as dumb as putting them on a 60's suburban ranch. They're part of the livable art that makes so much of our buildings so special.

When I went to Europe I looked around George Street [[I was in Edinburgh) and I it just felt like Europe. I don't want Detroit to end up like another McBuilding-choked wasteland. Brother, when you step into the Guardian Building, there's no mistaking where you are. I don't want want to lose that sense of place we have a tenuous grip on.

[Steve bennet]

Brother, when you step into the Guardian Building, there's no mistaking where you are. I don't want want to lose that sense of place we have a tenuous grip on.

Too late. Though we do have an amazing collection of parking garages now. That ought to leave visitors in awe.

Downtown was much more interesting when the Lafayette, Statler, and Madison-Lennox were still around.

I'm glad the Hudsons building is gone though. I love that girder and concrete garden, it really adds a lot to a thriving downtown.

[Gistok]

I was just comparing some of my pictures of the harlevoix with the Shorpy picture, and I noticed they removed those cornices. Why would they have ever done such a thing!

The removal of cornices in Detroit was due to the fact that some 82 year old woman [[in the wrong place at the wrong time) was whacked on the head by a chunk of cornice from some building in the city in the 1950s and died. So the Detroit Common Council passed an ordinance for buildings to either secure the cornices or remove them. Guess what most building owners preferred?

That was during the "look at all the trouble we went thru so you won't have to look at all that old stuff" 1950s... when the tops of the Broderick Tower, David Whitney Building, and Michigan Mutual Building also got a "lobotomy"... and the first few floors of the United Artists and Lafayette Building also got "modernized". And of course some buildings such as the Boulevard Building [[NE corner of Woodward/Grand Blvd.) got a complete facade-ectomy.

[kathy2trips]

The removal of cornices in Detroit was ... So the Detroit Common Council passed an ordinance for buildings to either secure the cornices or remove them. Guess what most building owners preferred?

That was during the "look at all the trouble we went thru so you won't have to look at all that old stuff" 1950s...a complete facade-ectomy.

Gistok: You're amazing. Thanks for the choice information...and for "facade-ectomy".

[Gistok]

Gistok: You're amazing. Thanks for the choice information...and for "facade-ectomy".

LOL.... you're most welcome....

I've been wondering....

...with a hail of bricks coming down on the Clifford side of the United Artists Building in the 1980s [[wrecking a few cars parked there in the process, and forcing the closure of that stretch of Clifford for quite some time).... and with the stuff that has fallen off of the Broderick Tower.... the sudden collapse of the building next door to it... the bricks falling off the Wurlitzer Building.... and the "dropsy" of other masonry in the city....

... the biggest mystery is that no one has gotten killed or injured in recent years.