THE RUSTED MITTEN: MICHIGAN'S POST-INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPES

THE RUSTED MITTEN: MICHIGAN’S POST-INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPES

Detroit -> Flint -> Saginaw -> Muskegon -> Grand Rapids -> Kalamazoo July 2009 -> August 2009 Jamie Wilson, Ashley Hetrick & Sam Senn

In the summer of 2009 a group of three architecture students from the University of Michigan embarked on a five-week bicycle trip around the state of Michigan.

The itinerary included Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, Muskegon, Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo. Three days would be spent exploring each city on bicycle.

The goal was to survey the post-industrial spaces and landscapes of each city. We would seek to interact with the individuals who live in these cities. We would learn about these cities by listening to those who knew them best.

It was to be an experiment of exploring urban space on bicycle. It would be an epic tour of the state’s diverese landscapes and history. Not only would we see the urban centers with their landscapes of industry past - we would also see the vast open spaces inbetween the cities - the farms, the parks, the wilderness. It would be an adventure.

This book is a collection of selected photographs and writings that resulted from the trip. therustymitten.wordpress.com

/Photographs & writing by James Wilson./

This trip would not have been possible without the extremely generous support and encouragement of many friends, family and complete strangers.

To all of the many kind and helpful souls that we met along the way, to all of those who took the time to speak to us and tell us about your cities: Thank you.

CHECKPOINTS: Detroit > Ann Arbor > Hartland > Saginaw > Clare > Cadillac > Traverse City > Copemish > Pentwater > Muskegon > Grand Rapids > Kalamazoo > Jackson > Ann Arbor Approximate distance traveled: 650 mi

approximate route traveled

Detroit

Detroit

Our first full day of urban exploration in Flint turned out to be quite eventful. After a quick dip in the lake at our campground, we headed out to a decommissioned and long-vacant water treatment plant on the outskirts of the city. What we found when we got there was an eerily quiet, lonely shell of what was once a quite dignified example of an industrial complex. The old building’s brick facade, with its collection of broken window panes and welded-shut doors does little to convey the level of decay we found inside.

Rooms full of forgotten equipment, standing amidst puddles of stagnant water and piles of glass, rubble and junk greeted us inside the plant. A long room with enormous empty water tanks on either side of the room was found filled with sunlight pouring in through the skylights that ran down the center of the ceiling. The lower level, with its huge assortment of bulky machinery was flooded with several feet of water. What looked to be an office/filing room at one time was now nothing more than a collection of bookshelves with heaps and heaps of rotting folders and binders on it. Graffiti marked most of the walls – cryptic messages left years ago? days ago? The only sounds beside our footsteps crunching over the mix of debris on the floor were that of pigeons living in the rafters and the distant swooshing noise of traffic. [continued]

Flint

What was this place like in its prime – when it was fully operational and filled with workers, when tons and tons of water cycled through it on its way from the Flint River to the city’s water supply? What might this place have become if someone had thought to rescue it before time and nature swept in to reclaim it? Might this place still have some kind of chance, no matter how unlikely, to become something altogether different than a water treatment plant? Is there a new life for this building lurking deep within its flooded and silent interior? Or has the building already found new life through its death – has it become, once again, an inseparable part of the landscape that surrounds it?

Wildflowers and grass have snuck right up to the buildings walls – the roof has sprouted a variety of wild plants – moss has begun to cover interior brick walls – birds nest in it – a hawk hunts for food in the wide open meadow on the backside of the plant – this is one of the landscapes that has replace what was once a vast, vibrant industrial landscape. Rust and nature now reign supreme here.

As we continue on our trip, documenting the new landscapes to be found throughout the Rustbelt of Michigan, we will continue to wonder to ourselves – What were these places once like? What has become of them? Have they found a new and different life? We hope that, through our efforts to simply to find what’s out there and to document it, that others will begin to wonder these same thoughts and that a dialogue might then be started.

Flint

Flint

Saginaw

Saginaw

Saginaw

Saginaw

Saginaw

Saginaw

Saginaw

Saginaw

As we continue our investigations into the postindustrial spaces left scattered across the cities of Michigan, I find myself becoming more and more interested in the landscape itself - how it has been adapted for industry, how it is now left empty, barren and polluted. We’ve been fortunate to have been offered many leads by many kind and helpful people everywhere we go as to where we could find the evidence of industry come and gone. [Not that, in towns like Detroit, Flint and Saginaw it’s very difficult to find such evidence - it nearly surrounds you.]

Many of the sites we’ve visited are now nothing more than vast, empty and windswept concrete fields dotted here and there with small heaps of garbage. Of the abandoned buildings we’ve visited, nearly all of them are in such a state of decay it’s hard to imagine any kind of redevelopment or renovation being possible. We know, from our own observations, as well as from the various interviews we’ve conducted so far, that these sites are heavily contaminated by years and years of pollution from industrial processes. The clean-up costs for any one of these sites would be considerably high.

So the question I find myself asking now is: What should/could be done with these post-industrial sites that have accumulated throughout the Rust Belt? from an environmental standpoint as well as from an architectural and urban design standpoint. How can these polluted landscapes not only be cleaned up, but also turned into inhabitable spaces that enhance the communities to which they are linked to?

Saginaw

All kinds of wild ideas start to pile up if you give it some good thought - however far-fetched or otherwise. Bio-remediation, as we saw at the Rouge Plant, is a viable option so far as environmental clean-up, but what about all the many options there are for the creation of inhabitable space on these sites?

As Sam has suggested, maybe as a supplement to this research project, we should design for these sites our most imaginative ideas of adaptive reuse. An example: the site of a former GM plant is transformed into a paintball arena, or an ultimate frisbee field, or an extreme obstacle course, or all three. Maybe some of these sites, as the old Central Station in Detroit already has, will become backdrops for scenes in films. Or maybe some altogether new and original type of space will be designed - a space that will have been impossible to conceive of or implement before there existed these post-industrial landscapes.

I’m not at all certain what this wholly post-industrial type of space would be like, but the idea of it excites me. I do feel certain that there is a way to reclaim these scarred and deserted landscapes from the unfortunate future assigned to them by industries long gone - we just need to commit to it and most importantly, use our imaginations.

Saginaw

Saginaw

Saginaw

Saginaw

Muskegon

Muskegon

Muskegon

Muskegon

Muskegon

Muskegon

Muskegon

Muskegon

Muskegon

Muskegon

The three of us are sitting in the library at Aquinas College [woo! my alma mater!] taking refuge from the rain and beginning our research of Grand Rapids. We have a lot to think about now after a very successful thred days in Muskegon. We were very fortunate to have had gorgeous weather as well as to have crossed paths with some friendly, insightful, knowledgeable individuals. One of the most helpful new friends we made while there was Brandon B. We stumbled upon Brandon’s amazing collection of photography on Flickr – documenting several Michigan cities then and now – and decided to ask him if he wanted to get a cup of coffee and talk about Muskegon. Lucky for us, he did want to. After several cups of coffee and two incredibly delicious pastries [Mia and Grace you rock!] we found ourselves much more knowledgeable of Muskegon’s past as well as its current and developing state. Brandon was then so kind as to “give us the tour” of post-industrial Muskegon.

What we saw was slightly unexpected. Muskegon has had a long reputation of being a “dirty, industrial city” – at one point, we were told, the entire east and south coasts of Muskegon Lake were lined with factories. Today, however, most of those factories are gone – long gone. There remains very little evidence that the city was once such an industrial center. Instead of the abandoned, decaying buildings and vast vacant lots that we saw so much of in Detroit, Flint and Saginaw, we saw buildings like the Amazon building, the Art Works building, and the Shaw-Walker building. All 3 of these were once large industrial factories. Now they’ve all been redeveloped or are currently in the state of being redeveloped [Shaw-Walker]. The thing is, they’ve all been redeveloped into condos. And there are plans to redevelop at least one more building in the downtown area into condos. This strategy of “adaptive reuse” has been seen elsewhere [Grand Rapids].

The question is: will it work? Will people want to live in these condos downtown if the only other thing downtown is other condos? The answer to this question, according to those residents of the area we interviewed is simple: no. [continued]

Grand Rapids

Lucky for Muskegon, and those who currently live in these downtown condos, there exists a growing number of individuals who are striving to bring those other things essential to a healthy city – shopping, restaurants, entertainment, that unique “something” that helps give a city some appeal – to the city’s downtown area. We visited some of these new pioneering individuals and got a refreshing take on what the city could become.

Bob at Clay Street Cellars told us the story of his building – once an old filling station, built in 1928, and slated for demolition to make way for a Hertz car rental agency. They successfully saved the building from the wrecking ball and had the entire 75 ton building moved. It now sits on Clay Street, across from The Art Works, the former boiler works which now houses artists of every discipline. They make and sell a huge variety of different fruit wines. And business has been good, as it has for the owners of The Cheese Lady, a great little store not too far away that sells cheese from all over the world. [Just don’t ask for Velveeta.]

The couple that owns The Cheese Lady, long time residents of the area, know “Wino- Bob” and support his business, just as he supports theirs.

And then there’s Mia and Grace, a bistro and bakery in the same downtown area. Started by two chefs, Mia and Grace that is, who moved to Muskegon, this place is now known in the area for its excellent food, pastries and atmosphere. Mia and Grace are also part of this growing collaborative group of small business owners and entrepreneurs that cooperate to support each other. Together, these individuals are working to make downtown Muskegon a place where people are going to want to live. They are recreating the city’s identity.

Grand Rapids

And this is really what I wanted to write about – the identity of a city – the way it changes – the power individual citizens can have in the formation of a new identity for their city. What if, instead of looking at the decline of industry in a city as a completely negative thing, we saw it as a truly opportune moment in the city’s life? So the industry that once formed the foundation of this city’s existence is gone – what happens? – does the city cease to exist in a sense? – do the people move out to other cities? – does the city essentially die? - or does the city adapt to the situation and recreate itself?

You start to think about the traditional definitions of a city – all the existing types of cities – what if the Rust Belt, in its efforts to survive the exit of industry unwittingly becomes the birthplace of a completely new type of city – what if everything we thought we knew about cities suddenly came into question as these old industrual cities struggle and begin to morph and develop in an organic fashion – creating, as if through a series of tests and experiments, a functional, vibrant city that requires a whole new definition of what a city should be. It’s really exciting to think about – but at the same time, it seems an extremely daunting task. It’s something we’ll be thinking a lot about as we turn our attention to Grand Rapids – a city that certainly seems to be in the process of creating a new identity for itself.

Grand Rapids

Kalamazoo

Kalamazoo

Kalamazoo

Holga snapshots, Detroit