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  • November29th

    Packard Automobile

    Posted in: Articles, General

    Packard was an American luxury automobile built originally by the Packard Motor Company of Detroit, MI, and later by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of South Bend, Indiana.

    The cars were produced between 1899 and 1958. The company was founded by two Packards – James Ward and William Doud – and a partner named George Lewis Weiss. Spurred on by the belief that they could improve the design of the horseless carriage, they went on to introduce innovations such as the steering wheel and the first 12-cylinder engine.

    The 3.5 million square foot Packard plant in Detroit covered over 35 acres and was designed by Albert Kahn. It included the first use of reinforced concrete for industrial construction in Detroit. When it opened in 1903, it was considered the most modern car manufacturing facility in the world.

    With over $21 million in sales in 1928, the company was flourishing in the luxury car business. General Manager Alvin Macauley even wrote the iconic slogan “Ask The Man Who Owns One”. Packard even made it through the Depression while other car manufacturers closed by producing more affordable sub-$1000 cars. The company coasted until the end of the war.

    A merger with Studebaker, failing sales due to their inability to distinguish their low and high-class lines with customers, and high debt finally did Packard in. The last cars rolled off the assembly line in Detroit in 1956 as all car work was shifted to South Bend.

    Today the complex is owned by a company called Bioresource Inc., although the city of Detroit say they have failed to pay taxes since they bought the building in 1987, failed to file an annual report since 2000, and dissolved in 2003. Abandoned? You tell me…The scrappers on site would say so.

    (This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Packard”)

  • November29th

    Jane Cooper Elementary Public School

    Posted in: Articles, General

    Built in 1920, Jane Cooper Elementary Public School in Detroit’s 9th Precinct was classified as an official Civil Defense Fallout shelter and served 900 children from K-5. Originally located in a neighbourhood full of tree-lined streets and large brick bungalows and colonials, it was once considered a good school. The community at the time had a large church congregation at St. Cyril’s, before it was demolished in 2003.

    As the neighbourhood declined over the years, it became the focus of Detroit’s Title V Community Prevention Grants Program. The local Prevention Policy Board brought in resources for families, parents, children, and other community members through 14 local organizations and agencies such as the YMCA, Detroit police, health, and recreation departments, universities, and community churches. Students now had after school programs to keep them occupied, peer support groups, and an innovative dental program right in the school.

    In 1998, the school received the “Innovator to Watch” award from the Governor of Detroit – awarded annually to schools that have an exemplary School-to-Work program. Jane Cooper’s included at-risk, special education and 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students. The students received specialized job training such as completing job applications, interviews, and school jobs and in return they received paychecks cashable at the school store based on attendance, homework, and other factors.

    A lot of effort and hope were put into Jane Cooper School and the neighbourhood as a whole and yet the school held its last classes in 2007. The badly cash-strapped Detroit Public Schools shut the school down but left it unsecured. It only took a couple of months for scappers to strip the building of all metal (except the rusty nail I stepped on) and leave it looking like a bomb had hit.

    Today it sits isolated in a field where a burgeoning middle-class neighbourhood once stood, every window blown out. The only pieces that remain of the children’s time here are the multitude of books strewn in the halls and the colourful plastic jungle gym out back. The blocks around the school are open fields – and the nearest neighbourhood of homes is two blocks away.

    UPDATE: The school was demolished in early 2010.

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