Last year I visited this same place. I was in Ann Arbor to celebrate a bat mitzvah but spent as much free time as coud “seeing Detroit.”
In the past, the death of an American city have beem translated into iconic works by Capa, Smith, Frank, or their modern equivalents working for Magnum, NBC, or the NY Times. Look at the iconic pictures of the ruins of 9/11 or post WWII Berlin.
Why have the media avoided Detroit? i Is the story too depressing for today’s happy news? The problem is certainly not that there are not great photographers today and agencies that represent them. The probhlme is art of the decline of our media. Ironically, the decreased expense of publication, using the web, combined with the ,lowest common denominator of TV, mean that there is nio modern equivalent to promulgate the works of today’s Lewis Hine or Dorothea Lange.
Click on the image of Michigan Central Station or here for more of Detroit.
Click here for an opposing point of view, accusing images like this of being a form of pornography.