Urbex

Urbex=Urban Exploration.  I like to think of it as hiking the Urban Wilderness.  Dave, Brian and I went down to the old Packard Plant in Detroit last weekend.  From 1899 to 1958 it was an assembly plant for luxury cars. 

The Packard Plant in its heyday

                          
 Now more than fifty years later it is an ever changing 3.5 million square feet of urban decay, a 40 acre playground for graffiti artists (the now famous Banksy has left his tag), paint ball enthusiasts, photographers, and others with perhaps less honorable intentions.  When we were there on Sunday there was a man by his car just standing there.  Plain clothes security?  Lookout for illegal activities?  We played it safe and stayed outside the buildings.  So here are a few of my favorites; the graffiti pics will be posted later.  

One of the several catwalks bridging parts of the complex

There has been some effort to prohibit easy entry to the
inside but this plywood seems laughable

Packard employees used to use this walkway to cross E. Grand Blvd.
 from one part of the plant to another.  This one is near Concord St.
Notice the Packard Motel on the left - it's still open for business.

Fredrick St. at Bellevue St.  Can you spot TWO "fish out of water"?
 The boat is pretty obvious but note the pheasant crossing the street
 just to the right of it!  As abandoned buildings in the area are razed the
 property becomes grassy fields  allowing the return of wildlife! 
 I love the irony...

No shortage of broken windows for sure

Thousands of people used to work behind those walls

You have to wonder how the graffiti got in some of the seemingly inaccessible places,
 but I'm sure that's what the artists wanted - for us to wonder. 

A padlock and a doorbell?  Really?

Big window openings like gaping mouths drinking in the rain

The barbed wire makes this image reminiscent of a prison watchtower

One can find interest and beauty in almost anything.  Color, texture, history, mystery...