Posted on 03/14/2015 11:15:15 AM PDT by rickmichaels
Detroit’s 70,000 abandoned homes are proving to be a trove for entrepreneurs who recycle century-old lumber, glass and brick into everything from terrariums to US$4,500 guitars.
“It’s like a treasure hunt,” said Craig Varterian, executive director of Reclaim Detroit, a nonprofit group that’s stripped and sold materials from almost 70 demolished homes. Floorboards and joists of early 20th century maple, walnut, hickory, fir and even chestnut are prized for their density and fine grain.
As Detroit ramps up demolitions of vacant dwellings, Mayor Mike Duggan plans a reclamation center in a city-owned building to keep tons of rubble out of landfills and create jobs and merchandise. Recycling would become a centerpiece of the city’s blight-removal effort, which is struggling to maintain funding.
(Excerpt) Read more at business.financialpost.com ...
My grandparents lived their lives on Three Mile Dr. on Detroit's east side and I have a photo of their house with a for sale sign in front of it at the time it was bought. Evidently it was a brand new subdivision since it resided in a wooded area at the time.......
A more accurate description is of maggots feasting on a corpse.
It is important for all to understand that the value realized from this scavenging is not wealth creation. It should not be celebrated. Rather it should be viewed as the final sad salvaging of the legacy of those who did create wealth.
How many times have we seen this over the past 30 years? Bad celebrated as good?
The global economy (US industrial decline), The information age (no manufacturing jobs for US workers), multiculturalism (decline of western reason based society). The peace dividend (huge power vacuum, inviting tribal warfare amongst 2nd world nations). The Arab spring etc. The liberals always have a way of making what is bad seem to feel good, thereby leading to more confusion than would otherwise have resulted.
We renovated a 1907 American 4-square about 40 years ago. We spent eight years striping paint off the oak downstairs and southern yellow pine upstairs. Gorgeous wood throughout.
I’m thinking I’d rather have the house deconstructed and sold as parts rather than torn down and hauled to the landfill once the city is successful in their efforts to take our area commercial. And, BTW, I really like the after-market motorcycle shop across the street!
Another reason the democrats will cite as creating jobs.
Tearing down homes and businesses to recycle wood creates jobs....
Yes, landfills are bad to live over for several reasons.
Concur with your assessment. For liberals reality doesn’t matter, just their fantasies.
The rest of us must live in reality and protect all, including liberals, from those fantasies!
I really hate the unscrupulous antiques dealers who descend like vultures on the carcasses of old homes. I much prefer pioneers who move in and renovate these old neighborhoods.
If you have the money, take a look at British made Agas. So old stylish and beautiful.
You have a real talent for making those —easily digested, incredibly effective.
A hurried dunce can understand them in a flash.
Indeed!
Images of David Mackenzie High School where I graduated, class of 1957 on the west side of Detroit:
It was a magnificent building constructed by legal immigrant craftsmen in the Art Deco style. The tile work was beautiful. The site where it was located is now a field of weeds.
We were urban pioneers 40 years ago, as were my neighbors. Nice little stable neighborhood, a block from downtown.
Now we are fighting repeated attempts from the city to blight our area and make us ripe for land clearance action because they want to build apartments and increase the "hipster" population around the downtown.
I would say that we'll remain as an "UP" house, but the laws in Missouri are very heavily weighed towards the development community.
I remember watching a show on HGTV where a nice looking blonde was buying houses for $1 in Detroit and trying to restore them.
I’m very sorry to hear that. This also happened when we were pioneers in a beautiful little town in NJ in which stunning old Victorian hotels had been turned into homeless shelters. The homeless wandered the streets but we took a chance and bought a home. We were there for 10 years, the neighborhood became horribly gentrified (along with tear downs of the gorgeous older buildings!) and they raised the property taxes through the roof. It’s now a gay and yuppie haven from hell.
I just hope folks share them. I drop them on Facebook and any websites that enable images to appear.
I have written novels that take me 2-3 years, and short stories etc. but who reads anymore? What is the point of winning arguments among the diminishing percentage who actually read? I figure memes can reach more people who basically don't read. A picture tells a thousand words, etc.
I commuted by train from Kalamazoo to Detroit when I came home from college between semesters or holidays when I was in college. I rode in the club car and ‘got served’ - they were not strict on showing ID on the train in those days. Yes, the woodwork, tile and brickwork were really something special in the MC Depot.
Travis ,
I have a signed Reconqista that I just discovered in my Big stack, perhaps after my study of Apache resistance.
You’re Graphics should be at protests like the Bundy ranch or Olympia Will Not Comply rallys.
Thanks for it All,
brb.
Also it looks like Seattle will be on that list too.
Detroit was known as the American Paris because of her architecture.
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