Born & raised in Chgo - the first I went to Detroit I thought the buildings were beautiful.... I live there for 8 years never got tired of seeing the master craftsmanship that went into all the bldgs... now I build new bldgs & when I see the demo of these works of art it's just sad !
This is rediculous. The city has ZERO care and respect for its history and heritage. I am very disappointed. This was a beautiful building. Take that same amount of money for the demolition costs and use it to restore and maintain the existing building. Our great American cities are slowly disappearing. Very sad and breaks my heart!
Absolutely insane! Why are they destroying the culture of the city by ripping down beautiful, old, classical buildings????? Aren't there enough monstrosities from the 60's and 70's that could be torn down instead! This is total madness!!!! No matter what they put up, it can never replace 'class'.
Detroit isn't alone in destroying beautiful, landmark buildings. Look at cities like Gary IN, Niagara Falls NY, and New Haven CT. These are seriously troubled cities who seem to believe that they can just demolish their ways out of serious urban problems and urban decay. However, the final results of this careless demolition only worsened their urban conditions.
There was no legitimate reason to demolish this landmark building. Granted it was empty and abandoned with trees growing on the roof but demolition was the wrong answer. This building should have been cleaned up and sealed up from the elements until Detroit's real estate market comes back to life making renovation and restoration of this building highly feasible. However, Detroit choose to do the irresponsible and demolish this building. I guess that Detroit is so on the down low that it has no faith in getting itself out of the urban crisis and has opted for destroying itself. The tremendous amount of money spent on tearing down the Lafayette Building could have been better spent on demolishing several fire gutted, abandoned houses throughout the city.
R. Preskop, I ask, who owned the building? If it wasn't the city, it was on the city's tax rolls. Vacant or loaded with companies, the city wants the property taxes paid, and on time. The owners, with no income and being ruined by a relentless tax system, have no option but to take it down and they only have to pay taxes on vacant land. From the drive-by videos I see of Detroit, this is happening on residential housing and commerciial buildings and turning Detroit back into where the buffalo roamed. Even without the tax problem, where are the owners going to get the money to repair the famous and beautiful building? Who would invest money in a building in a dying city? No one would move into it and the investment might take sixty years before the city is rebuilt from the ground up. Too many people would grow old and die in that period, and that building would still take a fortune to keep it in good repair while empty for all those years. Once a building goes unoccupied, the thieves and vandals set upon it and steal the copper piping, the brass and chrome faucets, plus any other valuables. It is much like what happens if a car runs out of gas in any major city. When the owner comes back with a gallon of gas, the tires are gone, the cd player is gone, the steering wheel is gone and the car is an irrecov- erable relic. Believe me, the tires will be gone in five minutes. It is much the same with a huge building. Once it's vacant, it's gone forever. ~ Ross Murphy, Shawnee, Kansas, who got out of Los Angeles while the getting was good.
@@kansasross Disagree. I've seen buildings empty for more than 50 years come back to life. Got to try harder. Is it really so hard to keep thieves out? Are there no security firms in Detroit? If not, someone start one up. Simplistic, I know but anything else is just excuses.
This is a tragedy. The problem of Detroit, Chicago and some another US City's is: "America is great" and "we're are the best". This is a handy cap. The d industries are close, the City's have not enough money and new industries are not coming Sorry another Country's have the identity problems and have found a way out of the problem. "Strukturwandel" The biggest European "City"* have the identity problem! The old Coal mining close, the modern Steel Industries close, GM close and the City* was from the Job machine to the homeless, Jobless region. But the today? The region is a green region withe Culture, Parks, modern high tech industry and some new Jobs. *the different is, the State give some Money for new ideas, for new ways, infrastructure the City, theater, sportevents, tourism. *the City is not one City, it is "Ruhrgebiet" Here are some City in a Cluster of one City. Destroy 1939 to 45 new build in the 50tees and in the 80tes "no hope, no Jobs, no money". Today a Cluster withe a good future. The way are hard, but when the USA make a small tax for all, for helb the City's withe problems, became Detroit and some City a new hope and 1 Dollar tax came in the future retour. *when You see on the Map, You see in western Germany some points withe City Name's. But this is really not exactly! The City's really have no place between the City's! Cologne, Leverkusen, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, here is House on Houses, roads, Duisburg, Essen Mühlheim, no space between the City's. Is it a Cluster of City's Learn from Russia, Scootland from a imperium to an state with some crises to a new Land withe future Amerika is great, but America must learn "to learn"
The demolition machine is interesting. It's long arm with the pincher at the end is similar that of a giant spider crab. Maybe they'll design one with two arms. With two seperate cabs on either side so one man can operate one arm while the other guy controls the other arm. Attack Of The [Mechanical] Crab Monsters! Run for your lives!
P.S. I'm a big fan of the architecture of the old buildings of the 20th century love the architecture of Detroits buildings and it's highly regrettable to see them having to be torn down. But the ones who are really responsible for the buildings demolitions are not the wrecking crews, but the folks with the money who abandoned the buildings and left them to die slowly of neglect.
This looks like the kind of building that should have explosives strategically placed throughout then bring it down in one shot. Better yet, leave it standing, but I guess that's too much to ask.
Detroit makes me feel fine, in and out of dumpsters all the time. Dont be afraid to care. Be yourself. Dont let the world be like this. Try, pickup a piece of paper.
Really I don't understand instead of destroying a landmark building let's rebuild it inside how much will it cost for a new building if Detroit is bankrup who's gonna invest
Tony coello with a bad economic situation they're just not enough tenants to rent out such a big structure without enough tenants the building loses more money than it makes because upkeep is expensive the larger the building. by knocking it down and clearing out that leave the blank slate for developer to build to suit.
um yea, save for ones that actualy have a style, jefferson pointe mall is an outdoor mall here in indiana, its built in the the spanish italian style with arches and balconys on the buildings they are not real functional balconys but they have nice brick work and look very nice, as well as all the high price upper middle class stores they have in there, expensive, oh and there is this one mall in fort myers florda that has an art deco facade on the outside of the building and old style lights
Yes sir.. what a waste of a good structure.. hell with it,, lets just build a new one lol.. for 30x the cost to renovate it haha.. it's not funny, sad people with power don't know or just don't give a fuck about historical value today.. probably be a walmart in there with the year
There is never going to be a Wal Mart at that downtown site. It is too small and too cost prohibitive for a Wal Mart. That store prefers huge chunks of virgin land in the outer ring suburbs.
Most likely it cost the city untold, large sums of money to tear down just this one large building. The city of Detroit would have been wise to seal up and moth ball this landmark building and instead focused its demolition efforts on abandoned fire gutted houses throughout the city.
ehh that was an art deco, they dont have many of them anymore, if it was still stable why tear it down, but atleast it was a cat, nothing worse then seeing them foreign jobs being used on our old buildings to take them down.
watch out a bank was selling houses cheap a family member got sucked he bought one for 800 the bank dint tell the buyesr they were asbestos infused he lost his ass
