Detroit Again

I’ve been thinking about Detroit a lot lately. I guess it all started with the news of the Packard building a while back. From there, I began touring the “Ruins of Detroit” through websites like this one and this one. That, of course, lead to lots of reading on the history of the town and its downfall. All of it is just so fascinating to me… How can a town fall from grace so quickly and quietly? It’s like America turned its head for a brief moment, looked back, and the Motor City was gone.

I was all set to write a detailed post on my thoughts and discoveries last night when I remember a quote from Mario Puzo in the book “Fools Die.”

“Some things are best forgotten. Others are best remembered.”

Puzo’s words made me think about a group of images I found on Shorpy. Detroit in the 1940’s had a population of around 1.5 million. A large urban center for sure, but not a huge city. In fact, it was still a place of dreams just preparing for unheard of growth that would come with the war and the American obsession with the automobile.

These images were taken around 1942 and they spoke to me in two ways:

1. You can almost sense the innocence of the time. They were naive of what was really to come (both in success and failure) and things just seemed so perfect and straight. It was a Stepford town.

2. I don’t know that I ever realized how many cars were really on the road in the 1940’s. Sure, traffic isn’t traffic… but, the parking lots are full and the roads are being used. As guys that drive these cars sixty years later, this is a pretty amazing thing to think about.