Speaking as someone who did a little urbex in the 90s, ruin-porn isn't necessarily inaccurate, but I don't think it captures the whole mindset of why we were there.
Being born in Detroit and always living in the area, the train station was more than a burned-out building to me. It was a temple of majestic architecture every bit as beautiful as the still-occupied Penobscot or Guardian buildings. Just, one which was off-limits. Forbidden fruit. Bring your own flashlight to admire the inlay tile work, but admire it just the same. It also tickled a young engineer's sense of technology, just like the famous museum a few miles away.
Sneaking in there (no breaking necessary back then, it was just a quick trot across the tracks from Mexicantown, then the doors were just open caverns) late one October night was both exhilarating because we might get caught, and sad because there was nobody who cared to catch us. It felt like a shame that it was so easy, that this splendid building and all it symbolized should be so neglected by its owners. Didn't we, as residents, have some stake in this? Wasn't the rail system a public good? Well, yes and no, for reasons of ownership that I don't fully comprehend even now. At the time I certainly didn't understand the motivations its owners had for letting it go to ruin.
Once inside, we found all the architecture and graffiti we expected, and so much more. There's no need to explain the tile, the columns, even the perfect echoes as we walked. Others have done that and more. And I'm sure the spraypainted modifications have been well documented too. But what fascinated me the most was the elevator equipment in the lower levels. Anything of value, any copper, any brass, had long since been stripped and scrapped. But the slate and steel weren't worth hauling away, and rows of Westinghouse control panels, pedestals and shafts and bearing journals, were aligned in rows beneath each hoistway. They told the story of an era when elevators were just becoming commonplace, tall buildings made practical by this new technology.
There were pumps and what I can only presume were the remains of a water softener tank, a pile of pellets on a raised pedestal, the tank that once contained them long since having been dissolved by its contents. Which makes no sense; Detroit water doesn't need softening. This mystery wanders through my head every once in a while, for the past 20 years.
A sub-basement further down offered only hints of what lay below; the level was flooded even with the floor on which we walked, such that the ladders down were scarcely distinguishable from the floor itself. Only a keen eye and abundant flashlights kept us from discovering that the hard way! Elsewhere, entire rooms held glassy lakes, mirror-smooth and surreal to inspect until a tossed pebble made some ripples to resolve the ambiguity. A keen lesson in water tables and sump pumps, for anyone tuned in to such ideas.
I was also struck by a few oddly-modern elements: Telephone wiring blocks and fire alarm panels, which I noticed appeared to be of 1980s vintage, while everything else that remained was original stone and tile from 70 years earlier. A 3-prong outlet caught my eye. It was a glaring reminder that this building hadn't been in ruins forever, and was in fact in active use, well into my childhood, until the plug was simply pulled in 1988. So recent. So hard to reconcile...
On the upper levels, a few pieces of graffiti stuck out then, and still do in my mind. One, in particular, scrawled on a marble panel, read:
"SHAME ON YOU,* DETROIT, FOR LETTING THIS BEAUTIFUL BUILDING GO TO RACK AND RUIN".
It then had "^ OLD WHITE" added at the marked point.
That vandal's anger rings true. It was spectacular but it wasn't a "spectacle", it was ruined but it wasn't "ruins". It was a shame. A crying shame. A beautiful thing forsaken for bad reasons, an embarrassment cast on an entire city that didn't deserve and certainly didn't need another embarrassment.
I can't tell you how happy I am that the next time I visit, my flashlight will likely remain in my pocket.
(I realized I should go get the photos from this trip. I just uploaded them to imgur and reworked some of this post as captions. Here you go: https://imgur.com/gallery/b9GkefT )
