l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 Detroit's abandoned buildings draw tourists instead of developers
Detroit has seen an uptick in history buffs and photographers visiting its
ruins since its bankruptcy filing.
By Alana Semuels
December 25, 2013, 4:33 p.m.
DETROIT — He'd heard stories of ruin and blight, but that didn't prepare
Oliver Kearney for what he saw:
Prostitutes roaming the streets at 8 a.m., rubble-strewn parking lots
overrun with weeds, buildings taken over by bright pink graffiti, the
message scrawled on blackboards in deserted schools: "I will not write in
vacant buildings."
He took 2,000 photographs his first day.
"No other American city has seen decline on this scale," Kearney said. "It's
really a once-in-a-lifetime thing you're going to see."
And he saw it all on a tour.
Kearney, an 18-year-old aspiring architect, persuaded his father to travel
with him from Britain to Detroit to participate in one of the city's few
burgeoning industries: tours of abandoned factories, churches and schools.
Led by tour guide Jesse Welter, they crawled on their hands and knees to
peek inside a train station closed long ago; they squeezed through a gap in
a fence to climb the stairs of what was once a luxury high-rise; they ducked
under crumbling doorways to see a forgotten ballroom where the Who held its
first U.S. concert.
"In Detroit, you can relate, you can see traces of what's happened, you can
really feel the history of a city," Kearney said. "In Europe, when things
become derelict, they'll demolish them."
That's not possible here. The city estimates it has 78,000 vacant structures
, and demolishing each derelict residential building costs $8,000 — money
the bankrupt city can't afford.
The city says that 85% of its 142.9 square miles had "experienced population
decline" over the last decade, and efforts to persuade investors to buy
commercial buildings and rehabilitate them have been mixed, at best. For
example, plans to turn the Michigan Central Depot, a once-grand train
station, into a casino and then into police headquarters have gone nowhere,
and it's stood empty since 1988.
Photographers have flocked to the city to capture the decline; two French
photographers even produced a book, "The Ruins of Detroit." But since the
city declared bankruptcy in July, hotels say they've seen an uptick in
visitors inquiring about the ruins. So have restaurants in the up-and-coming
district of Corktown, near the abandoned train station.
Welter says he had to buy a 12-seat van to accommodate the growing interest.
Welter once worked as an aircraft mechanic and then an ATM repairman. He
dabbled in photography and began venturing into the city from his home in
the suburb of Royal Oak, taking pictures of derelict buildings and selling
the shots at an artists market.
The photos, though grim, brought back sweet memories: Viewers would remember
passing through the train station in its glory, or recall photographs of
their grandparents honeymooning at a posh hotel, depicted in Welter's photos
as a decaying tower.
Welter, 42, figured that if other people were interested in seeing the
buildings, he could guide them around and, perhaps more important, keep them
safe. In October, two tourists were carjacked while visiting an abandoned
factory; others have been assaulted there.
Welter guided his first tour in late 2011, but the business has really
picked up this year. His clients pay $45 for a three-hour tour and explore
some of Detroit's most famously blighted structures: the Packard Automotive
Plant, the train station and the East Grand Boulevard Methodist Church,
which features peeling paint and vast balconies.
Welter, who is bearded and slim, knows how to sneak into buildings closed to
the public. He knows which neighborhoods are plagued by packs of feral dogs
, and which ramshackle building contains a recording studio with equipment
still set up as if its occupants just left for lunch. He knows the churches
so well that he helped a young couple find an abandoned one in which to
conduct their wedding.
It's not legal, per se, to enter these buildings. Police will give $225
tickets for trespassing if people enter schools, Welter says, but have
otherwise told him they don't mind him going into other buildings.
On a recent weekday morning, he brought a visitor to one of his favorite
spots, St. Agnes Catholic Church, a rotting structure where graffiti vandals
have made their mark. A beam of sunlight shone through the windows, falling
on the one remaining pew in the church, a haunting image that illuminated
the church's destruction. Then Welter heard a motor idling outside and
quickly ushered his guest toward the exit.
"Someone's pulling up out there; let's start walking this way," he said,
moving toward the crumbling staircase that leads to the church's courtyard,
which was littered with soda cans and food wrappers.
He's not afraid of the authorities — they're in short supply in this cash-
strapped city — but of scavengers, vagrants and others who might take
advantage of someone with an expensive camera. That's why he usually begins
his tours at 7 a.m., the best time to avoid other humans, he says.
Next, he headed into a girls' school attached to the church, climbing the
stairs to a hall of classrooms where rubble was everywhere, as if a bomb had
gone off. Some books and magazines dated to 1962 and told outdated stories
of boys living on the prairie. A bird's nest sat in one of the large windows
where a pane used to be.
Locals use a derogatory term, "ruin porn," to describe the phenomenon of
people gawking at the decay. They want visitors to see the positive parts of
Detroit, such as the vacant fields that enterprising farmers have turned
into urban gardens. If tourists are going to look at the ruins, they should
then volunteer in the community, many Detroiters say.
"The decay is not cool, not arty-farty," Jean Vortkamp, a community activist
and onetime mayoral candidate, said in an email. "I see the lady with bags
and three layers of clothes on, and then I see a group of white young people
climb out of their dad's cars with cameras that are worth so much."
Some Detroiters, including a group of urban explorers, have a beef with
Welter in particular. They scrawled a message on the walls of the St. Agnes
Church, "Go Home Jesse … We HATE you and your tour bus."
Welter says he's opening visitors' eyes to the problems of Detroit, which
could potentially drum up political will to help the city.
"People are going to do this anyway. Why not do it in a way that's going to
be safer, easier for everyone?" he said.
Jason Schlosberg went on a tour with Welter when he was visiting Detroit on
a business trip. Schlosberg, a lawyer and photographer from Washington, D.C.
, said he had long looked forward to exploring the "mecca" of run-down
buildings that is Detroit.
But his experience touring crumbling ballrooms and onetime high-end
residences caused him to think long and hard about what lessons Detroit can
teach the rest of the country.
"It makes you question your mortality as a species. We try to make our mark
on the planet by building these concrete and brick structures, but Rome
obviously fell," he said. "What is Manhattan going to look like in 300 years
? Is it still going to be a bustling metropolis?"
Whether Detroit will seek to capitalize on the tourists, or stop them, is
unclear. The office of Kevyn Orr, the state-appointed emergency manager of
the city, declined to comment for this story. Another city full of ruins,
Gary, Ind., has taken advantage of the photographers flocking to its
abandoned buildings. It charges $50 for a photography permit.
a***********[email protected] |
|
