Welcome to Gratiot.

One of those streets in Detroit I stumbled across while looking for something else. It’s quite the stretch. Took a pounding over the years, and what remains often looks as if it's permanently resigned to decline and destruction.

So I said last week, remember? No? I don't. Anyway, this is part two.

This was a nice machine-age structure from the 30s:

There's so much optimism in these shapes.

It’s the churches that seem to have gone out of business that makes a street look gloomy and downcast.

Probably reopen as a nightclub some day.

Not difficult to imagine the happy lives that may have occupied this home:

Christmas mornings, summer nights with the windows open, Mom playing the piano.

WOHLFEIL

Plundered and walled up. A building that went from “modern, well-equipped, on the popular commercial street” to “defensible positions in the upper floor”

It’s for sale for a mil and a half, and here’s what they hope to do with it.

The architect later admitted “second story proportions aren’t my strongest suit”

Ah! Something nice and clean and modern; it’s like a cold glass of water.

God’s gone, left no forwarding address

(as of 2019, the graffiti has been cleaned up)

It’s not lost yet:

GOESCHEL:

From 1914:

1914? That doesn’t fit with the details. A source I can't find now:

 

Originally built with three floors, the Goeschel endured major renovation in 1931, which included the removal of the top floor. The blueprints from the renovation were recently uncovered in the basement of the property and show, in detail, the changes that occurred during renovation.

As of today, the boarded-up storefronts are painted green. It’s something.

KNACK

No one’s driving their car through the front door any more. Damned if that happens again.

A nice civic structure for a different culture:

The backside:

And a sad note over the door:

After empires fall, the stones of their monuments are carted away for reuse by those who remain.

A WORLD OF OPPORTUNITY

An ancient sign, covering up one even more ancient.

Old sign, evidence of the adjacent demolished building with raw-hamburger wall, cement-blocked windows, unexpectedly vibrant paint:

Hard to tell exactly when its owner gave up for good.

Quality furniture

Hard to tell if it’s a going concern, from the outside

One does get the impression that it was once so much more, doesn’t one?

Or was.

funfoodfolly.com is a 404, which seems appropriate.

And more. It goes on and on.