Detroit’s Penobscot Building – leapable in a single bound?

Posted on by farlane

...leap tall buildings in a single bound. by tEdGuY49

…leap tall buildings in a single bound by tEdGuY49

Narrator: Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound… (more)

The plan was to do something on Detroit’s Penobscot Building next week or so … apparently Ted didn’t get the message. Ah well. It looks like May is Detroit Architecture Month on Michigan in Pictures.

To bring things full circle, here’s the intro to the 50s classic Adventures of Superman. Ted just let me know that the intro to Superman was voiced by Bill Kennedy of Bill Kennedy at the Movies fame (on CKLW and later WKBD). Also see this great Detroit News feature The Stars who turned Detroiters into couch potatoes.

Penobscot Building information now here.

underground at the detroit electronic music festival

Posted on by farlane

underground by puja

underground, photo by puja

2002 detroit electronic music festival at hart plaza … Movement 07: The Detroit Electronic Music Festival is next weekend.

Michigan Capitol, Michigan Governor, Michigan Week

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Blair and the Capitol

Blair and the Capitol, photo by Apocaplops.

On the statue of Austin Blair “War Governor of Michigan” at the Michigan Capitol in Lansing it says “He gave the best years of his life to Michigan and his fame is inseparably linked with the glorious achievements of her citizen soldiers.” (check it out in the super-biggie-sized view and Michigan Governor Austin Blair on Wikipedia)

It’s hard to ask that anyone give the best years of their life to anything as large as a state, but it might be good to take a few moments sometime during Michigan Week (May 19 – 25, 2007) to consider the massive challenges that people of our state have fought through in the past. From hundreds of thousands of lives given to preserve the Union to hundreds of thousands of hours labored to carve farms from forest, Michiganians have a history of standing tall and staring down and battling through adversity.

While saving our state from today’s troubles is beyond any one of us, there’s little doubt that each one of us has some measure of the solution with our grasp.

Deer, Presque Isle and sunset on Mother’s Day

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

deerlighthoue

deerlighthoue, photo by Zen Me.

I kind of ignored Mother’s Day here on Michigan in Pictures.

I think that’s OK because I didn’t ignore it offline … and maybe because I found you all this great collection of photos taken on Presque Isle on Mother’s Day.

Thanks, moms, for all you do.

David Stott Building, Detroit, in Lego and in fact

Posted on by farlane

The David Stott Building - Lego VersionThe David Stott Building - Actual Version

David Stott Building, Detroit by DecoJim & The Stott by detroitsky

On David Stott Building at MOC Pages, Jim Garrett writes:

This MOC represents the David Stott building, an Art Deco skyscraper that was built in Detroit during 1929 at 1150 Griswold Street. The design of the original building appears to have been influenced by Eliel Saarinen’s 2nd place entry in the 1922 Chicago Tribune building design contest. The David Stott was designed by architects Donaldson and Meier. The building is named after a Detroit businessman who owned a mill and was a boardmember of several other companies. The building remains one of Detroit’s 10 tallest skyscrapers to this day.

Follow that link to MOC Pages for all the details on Jim’s nearly 8′ tall, 54 lb. creation and check out Jim’s Lego Architecture set for more views of this and other skyscrapers.

Wikipedia’s page on the 37-story David Stott is pretty sparse, as is the Stott @ Skyscraper Page. Emporis says the Stott is Detroit’s 13th tallest building. Model D rates the structure #7 on its Top 10 Downtown Buildings of Detroit article and says that the height seems almost exaggerated to be well over 500 feet tall, because of how thin the tower appears and how the setbacks which begin on the buildings 23rd floor, seem to gracefully go on forever.

Here’s a Google map of the location of the David Stott Building (1150 Griswold – at the corner of Griswold & State). Geoff George has a photo of the David Stott mapped as well. You can get more views of the David Stott Building on Flickr.

The Mackinac Bridge: Making Michigan, Michigan

Posted on by farlane

Mackinac Bridge by rdmegr

Mackinac Bridge by rdmegr

The photo by rdmegr was taken from high above the Straits of Mackinac, the name for the narrow passage between the Lower and Upper Peninsulas of Michigan. Lake Michigan is on the left and Lake Huron, the right with Mackinaw City (with a “w”) and the Lower Peninsula in the foreground and St. Ignace and the UP in the distance. It’s part of his Daytrip to Mackinac set of photos. Another photo from his flight to Mackinac of a freighter, the North Manitou Shoal Light and South Manitou Island was also blogged to Michigan in Pictures for general coolness and the fact that I heard his plane fly over my house.

I also have a confession to make: For months, I have been scared of the Mackinac Bridge.

This is distinct from the uneasiness that my mild phobia of falling off the Mackinac Bridge gives me when I drive over it.

Michigan’s Mackinac Bridge - 1957 - 2007I have been scared because 2007 is the 50th Anniversary of the Mackinac Bridge. To me, other than the lake-etched outline of our state, there is no greater symbol of Michigan than the Mighty Mac.

5 miles long, 552 feet tall in nearly 300 feet of water, the Mackinac Bridge has seen over 120 million crossings required 3 years, over 11,000 people and 4 million tons of concrete and steel to build. (more facts)

And that’s only the barest glimmer of the story that needs to be told. From its conception in the 1800s, through the difficult construction, all the way up to the people who cross it for business or pleasure every day with hardly a pause, the Bridge is an essential part of what joins Michigan’s two peninsulas as one state.

If you have some links to share, please add them in the comments. We’ll be telling the story of the Mackinac Bridge piece by piece here and on Absolute Michigan, and we’ll post links to all the photos, stories and videos on The Mackinac Bridge page at Absolute Michigan. (look for the button!)

The Mackinac Bridge

Dancing through West Michigan

Posted on by farlane

The PitchKlompen Dancing

Some days the photo for Michigan in Pictures is easy to find. Some days it’s not. Today was one of those days and after a lot of time wandering around the Library of Congress, I went back to Flickr and started looking through photos matching a search for Michigan.

Somewhere around page 12, I found these two photos – Untitled (from a West Michigan Whitecaps game) by Em Smith and Klompen Dancing at the Tulip Festival by Norm Hoekstra (from a group of Tulip Time klompen photos) – sitting side by side. That seemed to me to be some kind of sign, and I read it to say: blog the photos and get back to work!

Happy Friday and I hope your weekend gives you a chance to kick up your heels!

Field of Dreams

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Field of Dreams

Field of Dreams, photo by tenfrozentoes.

One of the first photos with a new lens (Canon 10-20 mm) … not a bad beginning.

I also have to note that Saline seems to be a good place to take photos of trees and fields.

slumpy … the William Livingstone Mansion in Detroit’s Brush Park

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures
Slumpy

slumpy, photo by SOUTHEN

Ryan writes: This is a house in the Brush Park neighborhood in Detroit. A few years ago the home was relocated to the spot it currently sits, but was done so poorly and now sags in the middle. Because of its sag this unique home as been dubbed “Slumpy” by people in Detroit. Its sad and only a matter of time before the home collapses.

Through the magic of FlickrVision, I have been watching Slumpy slump its way toward becoming a pile of rubble for a couple of years. Mac from Detroit BikeBlog (and also Bobby Alcott) pointed out this YouTube video of the front face of the mansion falling off (PG for language). UPDATE! Here’s an even better video (2nd one down). With Slumpy now one step closer to the ultimate end, I thought it would be a good time to dig for a little of the history.

The best I found is at Detroit 1701’s page on the William Livingstone Residence which says:

A prosperous family in Detroit in the 1890s likely wanted to build a home in one of the city’s most elegant neighborhoods. The two most prestigious, arguably, were Brush Park with its numerous mansions or Woodward Avenue where David Whitney and Colonel Hecker had built their castle-like mansion. William Livingstone selected Eliot Street in Brush Park and then employed a very young Albert Kahn who was working for the George Mason-Zachariah Rice firm. When he obtained this commission – presumably with Mason’s help; Kahn was only 22 or 23 years old and had just returned from spending 1891 in Europe studying the classical architecture of the Old World.

Albert Kahn designed in a French Renaissance mode for the home you see, perhaps, reflecting the time he spent sketching the best Gallic architecture. Currently, it takes a great deal of imagination to understand what this once-impressive home looked like in 1893 when Kahn completed it. You can see an interesting array of windows, an appealing tower with its conical roof along with an impressive entryway. This residence was originally built about one block to the west of its present location to the west of John R. The Red Cross intended to demolish this home for their new building. Preservationists succeeded in successfully moving the Livingstone Home about one block to the east.

Wikipedia has a list of buildings designed by Albert Kahn and more information about the architect. They note that as of 2006, Kahn had around 60 buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Slumptacular Links

An Afternoon at Flat River

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Frog at Flat River State Game Area

David McGowan is a travel photographer working out of West Michigan. Of the day he took this photo, he writes:

Today (May 2, 2007) seemed the perfect day to tour our public wetlands. It’s that sweet part of Spring with lots of budding and blooming, yet not so overgrown that you can’t freely move along a creek or river. This series is from the Flat River and a couple of its tributaries, which I’m sure I wouldn’t have mentioned had I found any morel mushrooms.

Click over to David’s site, humanfiles, to view more photos from his afternoon at Flat River and galleries with many more shots from Michigan (and elsewhere, but I’m not sure I can talk about photos from elsewhere).

You can get more info about the Flat River State Game Area from the DNR and also get the scoop on paddling Flat River from Michigan Water Trails.