 
Digitaldom
Member
Username: Digitaldom
Post Number: 469
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 24.192.148.150
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 7:16 pm: |    |
Here's a whole bunch of pics from the upper woodward area of downtown... Enjoy!
(Message edited by digitaldom on August 16, 2006) |
Digitaldom
Member
Username: Digitaldom
Post Number: 470
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 24.192.148.150
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 7:18 pm: | |
Set #2
 |
Digitaldom
Member
Username: Digitaldom
Post Number: 471
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 24.192.148.150
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 7:24 pm: | |
Set #3
 |
Digitaldom
Member
Username: Digitaldom
Post Number: 472
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 24.192.148.150
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 7:28 pm: | |
Set #4
 |
Thejesus
Member
Username: Thejesus
Post Number: 222
Registered: 06-2006
Posted From: 68.62.6.138
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 7:33 pm: | |
wow...thanks for sharing all those pics...
I see what you mean about the lack of garbage on the streets...they're doing a fine job...everything looks great |
Digitaldom
Member
Username: Digitaldom
Post Number: 476
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 24.192.148.150
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 7:49 pm: | |
When did I say that? Just curious.. Ohh I think we met on the tour.. Yeah I did say that.. Yeah REALLY clean! |
Livedog2
Member
Username: Livedog2
Post Number: 959
Registered: 03-2006
Posted From: 24.223.133.177
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 7:51 pm: | |
I like the ones I can look at while I'm laying down!
LIvedog2 |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 2009
Registered: 02-2005
Posted From: 75.10.25.111
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 8:02 pm: | |
The empty spot at Washington and Park is about as depressing as the empty Hudson's plot. Our downtown lost so much continuity when the Statler was torn down; it will be great if/when some major employer builds something new there, but you cannot replace something which perfected the built environment of Washington Blvd and GCP so well. Alas, Trolley Plaza had already stained Washington Blvd. |
Thejesus
Member
Username: Thejesus
Post Number: 223
Registered: 06-2006
Posted From: 68.62.6.138
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 8:04 pm: | |
Digitaldom:
You mentioned it in my Broderick Towers thread. |
Digitaldom
Member
Username: Digitaldom
Post Number: 481
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 24.192.148.150
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 8:09 pm: | |
Ohh ok thx.. Though I did wasn't sure.. |
Chub
Member
Username: Chub
Post Number: 368
Registered: 11-2003
Posted From: 68.60.179.206
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 9:01 pm: | |
Is it just me or do all these great pictures really make downtown look like a ghost town? |
Digitaldom
Member
Username: Digitaldom
Post Number: 489
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 24.192.148.150
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 9:08 pm: | |
Yeah someone made a comment of that when I showed them the photos.. There weren't many people downtown.. 90% of them were on downtown tours! |
Douglasm
Member
Username: Douglasm
Post Number: 626
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 66.189.188.28
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 9:51 pm: | |
Chub....
.....there were two things I was thinking while I looked at those pictures.
1) I recognise so little anymore
and
b) Where are all the people?
I worked retail downtown in the mid/late '60's. It's a far cry.......
BTW, those are great pictures. Thank you for posting them. |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 755
Registered: 01-2005
Posted From: 207.200.116.139
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 10:16 pm: | |
Excellent photo tour; thanks so much. Downtown looks really clean. Nice to sit here in Las Vegas and take that tour with you! Much appreciated. |
Digitaldom
Member
Username: Digitaldom
Post Number: 491
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 24.192.148.150
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 10:20 pm: | |
That really was my point.. Too allow people who don't have the access to downtown that we do to see what it looks like today.. Some day soon.. I will take many photos of the lower woodward area as well.. Thinking about getting a better camera.. Since my little digital has a really hard time in lower light.. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 2013
Registered: 02-2005
Posted From: 75.10.25.111
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 11:10 pm: | |
Douglas and Chum, if you go downtown often enough these days, at different times on different days, you'd know damn well that downtown is no ghost town, and the level of pedestrian activity has increased steadily throughout the last couple years especially.
Noon on a weekday: go from Jefferson and Beaubien to Woodward, then walk up Woodward to the Compuware building, being sure to look west and east along the cross streets like Larned, Congress, Fort. All you see is people. Diverse people. Downtown workers out to lunch, visitors with briefcases (on business) or cameras (true visitors), and bums. Campus Martius has people lounging or eating, and many workers walk from CMP to Greektown on Monroe. All the bus stops, whether city hall or Merchants Row or Capital Park, are bustling. Harmonie Park and the courthouse area near Ford Field are usually packed. Once you get north of Grand Circus, it quiets unless there is a day baseball game. But this is the entertainment district, and it is quite lively every night. A weekend night usually has a traffic jam on Woodward with plenty of people standing outside the State theatre and local bars/clubs. If there is a Tigers game, multiply this by 10, and in this event, the pedestrians and traffic are distributed from the ballparks south to Greektown--usually well past midnight.
Now, imagine what Tigers playoff games will be like. Or, if there are shows every night at some combination of the Fox, State, and/or Opera House. Or, imagine how much livelier the daytimes would be on Woodward and Washington Blvd. if Quickens built their HQ.
Now, regarding what you see in Dom's photos...if he was at the Theatre Tour, then it was a Saturday AM or early PM. The Tigers weren't in town (if this was last Saturday). He was on Woodward, which is a business and entertainment strip; most workers aren't downtown on Saturday; most entertainment starts after dark. A lot of wedding and party-type of activity will also come downtown about this time. Normally the only activity in this area on the middle of a Saturday is people standing in line to get red-hot Tigers tickets at the CoPa box office (and believe me--the bums love it). And at this point on a Saturday, those who live downtown were probably in their cars driving to a different part of the city or a suburb to buy groceries, since there are no grocers downtown. The last point aside, I'd say this is how it works in most CBDs. The only way to overcome this is to work to make some portion of downtown a shopping destination--7 days a week, that is. In my mind this is 5-10 years down the road, but honestly, how many cities look like Chicago or NYC on a weekend afternoon?
there's my rationalization. |
Digitaldom
Member
Username: Digitaldom
Post Number: 496
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 24.192.148.150
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 11:18 pm: | |
Agreed this is true.. There are weren't any events happening at that time... Yes I was on the Theatre tour during all of these photos.. BTW.. Gistok saw me there.. Yeah it was dead in downtown.. Because honestly there was nothing going on.. I was on the 11am tour.. So it was midday and afternoon I was there.. |
Bobj
Member
Username: Bobj
Post Number: 990
Registered: 11-2003
Posted From: 65.221.183.120
| | Posted on Thursday, August 17, 2006 - 9:00 am: | |
When you compare Downtown Detroit to other cities, there is an amazing lack of people when there are no events going on.
But, I have been doing the Downtown PW Tour on Saturdays for 5 years now and a few years ago, I would do the tour, and sometimes you would not see another pedestrian the entire 3 hours.
There are more people walking around, especially around Campus Martius. |
Chub
Member
Username: Chub
Post Number: 370
Registered: 11-2003
Posted From: 68.60.139.30
| | Posted on Thursday, August 17, 2006 - 10:48 am: | |
Mackinaw, first of all it's Chub, not Chum. Hee he... Second, I work in Corktown, live in Boston-Edison, and go downtown every day. I am aware that people swarm the streets at different times. When I said it looked like a ghost town, I was only talking specifically about Digitaldom's pics above. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 2015
Registered: 02-2005
Posted From: 68.248.5.45
| | Posted on Thursday, August 17, 2006 - 10:50 am: | |
Bob--it probably has to do with the amount of people living downtown (even though it is sharply increasing), and the fact that downtown Detroit is not a shopping destination for most average people with $$ to spend (if it could even be called a destination at all). The suburbs are well entrenched in terms of this, and it will be hard to overcome.
A good sign is that when people do happen to be downtown i.e. for a game or event, they don't just go from car to venue to car to home anymore. There is a ton more lingering and a lot more pedestrian activity til the late hours, mainly because the Detroit restaurant/bar scene is fantastic, and just about everyone is at least a bit more comfortable walking around downtown (as the well should be).
you're right Chub, I believe you said "looks like" a ghosttown, not "is" a ghosttown. I just like talking I guess.
(Message edited by mackinaw on August 17, 2006) |
Douglasm
Member
Username: Douglasm
Post Number: 627
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 66.189.188.28
| | Posted on Thursday, August 17, 2006 - 5:33 pm: | |
Mackinaw....
.....I'm not debating that there probably are people that walk downtown, but compare those 11am Saturday crowds with what it was like when I was in retail downtown. It's a whole different kettle of fish nowadays. It's too bad there isn't some way that downtown Detroit can "feel" vibrant like downtown Seattle or Chicago. Maybe I'm just getting old(er?), but I'm having a hard time adjusting to the change in emphisis downtown from when I worked there..... |
Bobj
Member
Username: Bobj
Post Number: 995
Registered: 11-2003
Posted From: 68.40.89.238
| | Posted on Thursday, August 17, 2006 - 11:31 pm: | |
Mackinaw - that is my point exactly and I mention that to people on the tours, that with all the residential development in the CBD the last 5 years it has changed a lot, not the crowds you see in other cities, but a huge change in just a few years.
With all the development underway, 5 years from now it can be like other cities.
What is a bit surprising to me doing the Downtown tours is the fact that generally over 50% of the customers are from outside the Detroit area, maybe former Detroiters, but they are from LA, Las Vegas, I recently had a family of 3 from Brazil, one from the Netherlands, and 3 from LA all on a tour of 11 people. They were in the area for a variety of reasons and all had heard that Downtown Detroit had been changing and wanted to see what was going on. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 2029
Registered: 02-2005
Posted From: 68.248.5.45
| | Posted on Thursday, August 17, 2006 - 11:45 pm: | |
That's pretty cool, Bobj. What about the weekday tours? Is it more metro Detroiters than anything for those? I certainly want non-Detroiters to see the city as vibrant during there only visit here. Hopefully they all stayed around for Saturday night...
We have changed alot and downtown is way improved, but indeed making it vibrant at all hours really requires shopping and attractions to get people there on weekends. |
Bobj
Member
Username: Bobj
Post Number: 998
Registered: 11-2003
Posted From: 68.40.89.238
| | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 9:18 am: | |
Mackinaw - I haven't done a weekday tour in awhile, but it was mostly Detroiters after work.
I would like to see more locals get over their fear of Detroit or that it is just a place to zip into for a sports event/concert/etc and get the heck out. I have found the tours, if you can get suburbanites to go, it slows things down from the driving through concept, and passes on some positive info about the City. |
Pam
Member
Username: Pam
Post Number: 382
Registered: 11-2005
Posted From: 67.107.47.65
| | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 12:08 pm: | |
Bobj: I took the PW downtown tour one day last summer and we got soaked in a rainstorm. Were you the guide on that one? If so, I also had you as a guide on a Cultural Center tour last year. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 2031
Registered: 02-2005
Posted From: 69.221.36.81
| | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 12:13 pm: | |
Exactly, Bobj. All of us Detroit lovers need to do our best to bring non-believing metro Detroiter back into the fold, as it were. Making them comfortable with downtown is a good place to start. |
Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok
Post Number: 2656
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 4.229.105.170
| | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 3:52 pm: | |
I did get to meet Digitaldom and Pam during this years tour. But I didn't get much free time cuz I had only like a 2 minute break between my stints giving half hour tours at the State Theatre.
I'm glad you folks also got to meet Francis Grunow, Preservation Wayne's Executive Director (he was the gentleman that spoke at the beginning of each tour and introduced me at the State Theatre). Francis is a great guy.
Thanks for the nice pic's Digitaldom! That Saturday had the best weather in the 8 years that I've been doing the tours.
And as Mackinaw already stated with both the Statler gone, and the Tuller block now half empty (the UA is still there), Grand Circus Park has really lost the intimacy that it had with a wall of buildings all around it, especially west GCP.
The only part that is still mostly intact is what I call the "north wall", the west GCP stretch of buildings along Adams Ave., which Digitaldom has nicely captured from the southern side of east Grand Circus Park. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 2039
Registered: 02-2005
Posted From: 69.221.36.81
| | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 3:59 pm: | |
east GCP still has the church complex, with the very encouraging adaptive re-use of the adjoining tudor building by Chris Chelios. All is not lost, but by God sometimes I wish I could time travel. |
Rbdetsport
Member
Username: Rbdetsport
Post Number: 151
Registered: 11-2005
Posted From: 68.61.11.146
| | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 4:01 pm: | |
Was the pics from this past saturday? |
Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok
Post Number: 2657
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 4.229.105.170
| | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 4:05 pm: | |
Digitaldom, some of the pics you have posted from around the Statler site are somewhat confusing to view... because many of these vistas were never possible when the Statler was still standing. So you are giving some of us views of downtown that were never viewable before (such as standing on Bagley & Park and viewing the wall of buildings on the east side of Washington Blvd., with the Stott Tower in the distance).
Here's hoping that this view isn't available to see for too much longer!  |
Machoken
Member
Username: Machoken
Post Number: 1444
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 207.145.38.104
| | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 4:14 pm: | |
Is Digitaldom 7 feet tall or am I crazy?
Bobj == Bobzilla? or am I crazy? |
Bobj
Member
Username: Bobj
Post Number: 999
Registered: 11-2003
Posted From: 68.40.89.238
| | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 10:51 pm: | |
Pam, that was me, I do the Downtown and the Cultural Center Tours and we did get soaked one time last year.
I know Bobzilla and I am no Bobzilla! I actually know Bobzilla through the tours and we are different Bobs. |
Pam
Member
Username: Pam
Post Number: 384
Registered: 11-2005
Posted From: 4.229.90.160
| | Posted on Saturday, August 19, 2006 - 7:01 am: | |
quote:Pam, that was me, I do the Downtown and the Cultural Center Tours and we did get soaked one time last year.
I guess you got your notes dried out since then if you are still guiding. That was a fun tour despite the rain, thanks. |
Digitaldom
Member
Username: Digitaldom
Post Number: 500
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 69.220.232.235
| | Posted on Saturday, August 19, 2006 - 9:39 pm: | |
LOL.. NO I am not 7' tall.. I am 6'2"..
Yeah that field will become bigger soon.. Don't know when but that building next to statler is coming down too.. It has smoke and fire damage from the fire when the demo of Statler was taking place..
Yeah either this year or next I will be either a guide...(hopefully) I put in my application when I was on the tour.. You will see my tall ugly mug more often.. lol..
Yeah I have alot to learn on the history of detroit.. But I am always learning so I look forward to doing it! I know they said they have training courses in March I believe.. So we shall see...
I also inquired about if they are planning on having a second tour.. Or better yet have a seperate tour of the Mid Town / Fisher.. etc.. Such as the Masonic, Bonstelle, and Orchestra hall.. etc.. |