Description of an Urban Block

On a gray, and early morning in Detroit at the intersection of Cass and Charlotte, a woman crosses a snow-covered street stopping nearly halfway across to get a better grip on her handbag. A bus drives by. There is steam rising from the streets up into the air, and thick gray haze blankets everything, and in every direction. Cars are passing by busily. In the distance, in the haze, there are some tall buildings. Their faces are masked by the thick gray haze. Only by noticing a tiny flashing light on top of the tallest building can you notice their height.

A small, flat, cinderblock building is to my left. It is a square, boxy building, which has been painted only halfway. It is an earthy brown-red color, and has a sign mounted to the roof, which reads “Stream in the Desert”.

Behind it is a very old-looking building made of dark red brick. It is three stories tall, and has a chimney on the eastern-most side. Opposite the chimney on the roof is an old television antenna; the only one on the roof. Some of the windows are boarded-up, and painted red. There is indistinguishable white graffiti on the north side. The remnant of a sign hangs in the front of the building. It is rectangular, and black, made of heavy steel that is no longer plumb with the wall it is mounted to. The entrance to that building is also red, but a brighter red, and there is an awning hanging over the door, with a semi-circular frosted glass window above it.

To the left of the dark red brick building is a much taller building. The taller building is the color of sandstone, and appears remarkably square, without any visible ornaments or architectural design signatures. It is as a wooden block toy for children, painted and planted randomly in the cityscape. This structure is about 10-12 stories tall, and I am unable to accurately count the floors because other buildings closer to me are blocking the view. Above the column of small windows on the north side of the top floor is a painted-on sign that reads “Hotel Eddystone”. Two electrical poles are placed symmetrically on both sides of the artificial divide, which the vertical line of the small windows creates. Their wires hang ever so bowed downward. The poles themselves are not straight either. They are also both leaning to the left. On top of the building named “Hotel Eddystone” is a smaller structure, square as well. It has a ladder attached to its side which curves downward just past the roofline of the smaller structure. It has large stains on the wall with the small windows as if they are scars. The stains are the bare bricks visibly from paint and stucco battered by time and the elements.

To the left of “Hotel Eddystone” and closer to me lies a colorful structure. It appears to have three parts to it, and it is five stories high. It has sandstone, green, and dark red brick, with pink chimneys. Most of the windows are either broken or boarded-up. The boards are painted green. There are old dilapidated telephone poles in front of the north wall. They have no cables attached and are discolored – the color of a dead tree trunk – a silvery-white. A lone-standing tree in a large clearance, next door to the colorful structure, joins them. There are no benches, and the snow has blanketed the ground so that everything appears the same – dirt, gravel, and asphalt. The snow has dressed everything the same. This is the rear end of the building, and it is quite deceiving. At first, and from the back it looks like an ordinary building, which blends in with the neighborhood, but the front of the building – the sandstone part has a massive wall with enormous stones. It inspires a fort-like appearance, and there was heart and soul put into its design. It is the type of building which in other circumstances could have its face somewhere in uptown Manhattan.

Directly across Cass Avenue from the three stories dark red building with the red boarded-up windows is another sandstone building around the same size as “Hotel Eddystone”. The structure is U-shaped with a darker façade then backside. On its southeast corner it has a large metal, and glass sign that reads “American Hotel”. The sign is long, and column-like, and the word “American” occupies most of the vertical space, in red. “Hotel is written with blue script, and is perpendicular to “American” under the letter “n”. The north side of the building has an old faded painted-on sign, which reads “Hotel Fort Wayne 300 Rooms with bath”. Most of the windows in the back of the building are shattered.

The general theme of this block seems to be “forgotten by time”. Most of the buildings are dilapidated, and vacant. They appear to have been like this for an extended period of time. The street signs seem to be the most renovated objects in the neighborhood. There are overgrown bushes, and untrimmed trees, along with graffiti on most structures. Telephone poles, and public lighting poles also show neglect, as most are battered, bent, rusted, and cracked. There is one constant though. Life seems to move on. Cars roll by; people walk by, seeming not to notice any of the details of their surrounding.