Grand Meyer, on the West Side is not so well known. There is no Wikipedia entry and the usually helpful Google Maps turns up nothing.
But Detroitography, which created the Detroit neighborhoods map, is also a spectacular cartographic guide for me. Which is how I learned of Grand Meyer's existence.
You just know I had to start with a couple of ravaged American Foursquares, but with a twist. In the foreground is a Detroit rarity, an Italianate dwelling, also forsaken.
If visiting a gang temple is on your bucket list, you will find this Michigan bungalow at 11666 Indiana.
Two houses down is this blue-green former beauty with a collapsed porch.
The epicenter of Grand Meyer is the intersection, pictured here, of Grand River (Michigan State Route 5), Fullerton, and Meyers Road. What happened to the "s" in Grand Meyers?
Based on the faded wording on the sign, the Fountain of Life Ministry has folded or moved away, which was probably was the home of a bank back in the day.
Once again here is your beloved Blogger Laureate of Illinois in front of a preferred Detroit camping spot.
Perhaps a house divided can indeed stand.
The stairway to broken dreams.
Isn't this a pitiful site? The Smyrna Missionary Baptist Church at 12728 Grand River Boulevard is still open. But because, I assume, of multiple break-ins it is built like a fort.
Click here if you'd like to donate to the church.
What's better than one gang temple in a blog post? Well two of them of course! Yes, that says "Welcome 2 the Jungle," although the graffiti may have nothing to do with the Guns N' Roses song.
Let's walk inside! Is anyone home?
No one is here. Axl has left the building.
There is a tree, probably a mulberry, growing from this Michigan bungalow's staircase.
There's a sign on this American craftsman. What does it say?
It reads, "This building is being watched. Stop Halloween arson. Report suspicious activity, call 911."
Oops, too late for this place.
At least there is a chimney for Santa Claus.
A few photos up we saw a church that was built like a fort. Here's a liquor outlet--they're called party stores in Michigan--with the same defense strategy. But unlike the house of worship, the H&S Castle at 10035 Plymouth Road is closed for good.
As my most recent Detroit urban exploration series winds down, now is an ideal time to wax on the serendipitous glory of Lonely Planet's second-highest rated vacation destination for 2018. Was I looking for Grand Meyer to snap these pics? No, as you read earlier, I never heard of Grand Meyer until I left it. How did I find it? I just pulled off of I-96, the Jeffries Freeway. Looking for ruins is that easy in Detroit. And fun too.
Didn't Eminem's character in Eight Mile work in a Home Depot?
Earlier we had a mulberry tree growing out from a staircase. Out front is another Detroit alien weed tree, a Siberian elm.
C'mon in, the door is open!
Gas station shacks such as this one, probably an old Sunoco establishment, were common in the 1960s. Very few exist, because the filling stations have been expanded or torn down for something else.
There is a time capsule feel to much of Detroit.
Note that the fencing has been stolen by scrappers, only the posts remain.
4 comments:
Every time I click on these things I tell myself, "Don't do it Jim, it's too depressing!" but then I do it anyway. These photos of Detroit are especially moving for me because I just published a book (Recollections of Michigan) by a 19th-century author who was revisiting his boyhood home in southeast Michigan in the 1840s and was depressed THEN about the encroachment of civilization upon the wilderness. Encroachment of civilization: Detroit at that point was "a flourishing city of fifteen thousand inhabitants." Can you imagine? Since then the cycle of civilization has gone almost completely around the circle.
Wow. Kinda reminds me of the Dire Straits song, "Telegraph Road." Brightmoor is far emptier than Grand Meyer, as you probably know.
Yeah. That's it: Telegraph Road...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd3btVhwr48
[The studio version]
A long time ago came a man on a track
Walking thirty miles with a sack on his back
And he put down his load where he thought it was the best
He made a home in the wilderness
He built a cabin and a winter store
And he plowed up the ground by the cold lake shore
And the other travelers came walking down the track
And they never went further, and they never went back
Then came the churches, then came the schools
Then came the lawyers, and then came the rules
Then came the trains and the trucks with their loads
And the dirty old track was the telegraph road
Then came the mines, then came the ore
Then there was the hard times, then there was a war
Telegraph sang a song about the world outside
Telegraph road got so deep and so wide
Like a rolling river
And my radio says tonight it's gonna freeze
People driving home from the factories
There's six lanes of traffic
Three lanes moving slow
I used to like to go to work, but they shut it down
I've got a right to go to work, but there's no work here to be found
Yes, and they say we're gonna have to pay what's owed
We're gonna have to reap from some seed that's been sowed
And the birds up on the wires and the telegraph poles
They can always fly away from this rain and this cold
You can hear them singing out their telegraph code
All the way down the telegraph road
You know, I'd sooner forget, but I remember those nights
When life was just a bet on a race between the lights
You had your head on my shoulder, you had your hand in my hair
Now you act a little colder, like you don't seem to care
But believe in me, baby, and I'll take you away
From out of this darkness and into the day
From these rivers of headlights, these rivers of rain
From the anger that lives on the streets with these names
'Cause I've run every red light on memory lane
I've seen desperation explode into flames
And I don't want to see it again
From all of these signs saying, "sorry, but we're closed"
All the way
Down the telegraph road...
A Detroit news station just announced a police officer was shot at Grand River and Myers. Am waiting for updates. Hard to imagine hanging around that area. I’m with you. The Detroit ruins are fascinating. Can envision more ruins elsewhere with this Covid economic crisis. July 30, 202 @ 8:40pm. Please show more. As a woman I’m scared to explore Detroit neighborhoods. Have driven through some 3 times and felt threatened by some guys chasing us. The first time I was there a bike rider told me it was not safe to walk where I was......and the abandoned homes where I was were huge......formally an upper class neighborhood.
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