05/08/06 - Roosevelt Warehouse aka. Detroit Public School Warehouse
Donnie & I headed over to the U.S. for some exploration of Detroit. Our goal wasn't the DPS Warehouse, but I pointed it out when our original plan failed. What I thought was just a somewhat interesting building online, turned into quite the entertaining facility.
Located on 14th Street, right next to the all encompassing train station; you have the Detroit Public School Warehouse. The warehouse was once owned by the Detroit Public School system, but after a fire engulfed part of the building in the 80's it was sold in a "as-is" sale.
Now the building is owned by the same man who owns the train station and the bridge (R.R. Morend, I believe?); and this building has been awaiting demolishing since 1997.
Source: Metro Times Article
__________________
Through a rolled
up fence we approached through the loading dock. Once inside, you come
over quite a sight...crates upon crates of all kinds of school supplies for as
far as the eye can see.
__________________
In some places
the piles of papers and books reached 7 or 8 feet.
__________________
Various school
supplies littered the second floor...such as footballs...
__________________
stationary...
__________________
library cards...
__________________
And where there
was one school supply, there would be crates upon crates of that supply.
__________________
Canada Maps...
__________________
Large Geography
Pull Down Maps...
__________________
On the 3rd floor
there was a very large area of textbooks...
__________________
Old school
textbooks...
__________________
__________________
Carbon Paper...
__________________
Stoppers for
beakers...
__________________
Chemicals for
Science Class...Dziamaarsky was about to take one home, then I pointed out to
him that it may not be the best idea to take home a white powdery substance that
you have no clue what it is...he threw it out.
__________________
Martin Luther
King Jr. Pamphlets...
__________________
Dated
newspapers...
__________________
__________________
__________________
Maybe the papers
were the property of Bessie Gorman or Roberta Burton, because they seemed to be
interested in Negro History...
__________________
Dated newspaper
prices...$0.49 potato chip box?
__________________
Well once we
reached the 4th floor, it began to look strange because there was a large amount
of light and vegetation.
__________________
Once we moved
into the 4th floor some more, we found that part of a raised roof had collapsed
and trees and mosses were growing in the enclosed area.
__________________
Quite large
trees.
__________________
Another shot of
the vegetation.
__________________
I was telling a
woman I worked with about this building and she was curious as to how trees
could grow on the 4th floor of an abandoned building; so I shot this picture of
the largest tree's roots. In the background you can see the collapsed
concrete slab that encompassed the roof.
__________________
Also on the 4th
floor there was areas with drainage pipes that were now missing. The rain &
light coming through the empty hole made for a good picture in Donnie & my rainy
visit.
__________________
Also on the 4th
floor were some ravaged office areas.
__________________
Some had such a
steady amount of water pouring into them, that moss began to develop.
__________________
Donnie in a
office room of printing presses and book binding machines...
__________________
Once we reached
the roof we found the collapsed portion of the roof where trees were emerging
from the warped metal supports.
__________________
The other roof that twinned the collapsed portion wasn't looking so well.
I don't have a
lens on my camera; that's all from the metal bending under the pressure of the
concrete roof.
__________________
Also it's
understandable how trees formed on the 4th floor after seeing the roof that
wasn't collapsed having grasses and soil located atop.
__________________
The other
interesting item of the roof was the train station simply dwarfing our building
and still having such enormity even with us 40 feet above the ground.
__________________
Donnie & I went on a Tuesday and Dziamaarsky wanted to go back on the weekend.
When I went back
with Dziamaarsky, we heard someone yelling at us and realized that they were
people atop the train station. It was quite amusing to be
yelling my cell phone number at full volume from rooftop to rooftop.
__________________
People enjoying the train station.
__________________
Navi
(click above to return to the main page)