Wow, what a treasure to let rot away.... I know this is not OKC related, move it...


http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_weekend/20101210/ts_yblog_weekend/lost-treasures-of-the-city

I saw the photo slideshow the other day of many urban decay sites around the country. It's amazing how many places there are in Gary. See the links for more pics.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yahooeditorspicks/galleries/72157625544979000/
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Urban-Decay/ss/events/us/120810urbandecay%20%3Chttp://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Urban-Decay/ss/events/us/120810urbandecay%3E#photoViewer=/ydownload/20101207/photos_net_web_yn/1291741072

This morning I saw that Yahoo Slideshow about urban decay posted above which included many of those in Gary. Too many treasures have been lost to neglect.

This building is in Detroit.

http://www.seedetroit.com/photos/michigancentralstationdetro.jpg

http://gearcrave.frsucrave.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/abandoned-places_msp_06042008.jpg

http://www.vagabondish.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/michigan-central-station.jpg

It's so sad to see such amazing structures like these just fall in on themselves all across the U.S.

Trouble is, you have to get someone to put the cash in to help restore them (which is extremely expensive). It would be great if for new construction, you had to put some small % in for a restoration fund for things like these.

The problem is what lead to them falling in on themselves in the first place. That is what needs to be solved. You don't need to look any further than OKC. If not for Urban Renewal tearing down 500 building in downtown, OKC would look like modern day Detroit. If only something could have been done that prevented downtown OKC from being abandonded in the first place (tougher crime fighting, not extending city services to the outter fringe, better investment in urban space to support families, not removing the street car system, etc...)

Wow, what a treasure to let rot away.... I know this is not OKC related, move it...


http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_weekend/20101210/ts_yblog_weekend/lost-treasures-of-the-city

If you keep watching, the next story takes you to Oklahoma...

The problem is what lead to them falling in on themselves in the first place. That is what needs to be solved. You don't need to look any further than OKC. If not for Urban Renewal tearing down 500 building in downtown, OKC would look like modern day Detroit. If only something could have been done that prevented downtown OKC from being abandonded in the first place (tougher crime fighting, not extending city services to the outter fringe, better investment in urban space to support families, not removing the street car system, etc...)

Kerry, that's quite a stretch comparing Detroit to OKC even if we had not had urban renewal destruction. Detroit has a lot more issues than that causing their problems that OKC has never faced and hopefully never will.

I don't think you are fully aware of how OKC would of looked with 500 abandonded buildings. There was a good reason OKC tore down so many buildings. Here are a few samples from Steve of buildings that are still standing but imagine instead of just a few abandonded structures, we still had them all. Now granted the reason for the blight was different, but the result would have been the same.

http://blog.newsok.com/okccentral/2009/08/09/before-we-dismiss-what-buildings-remain-standing-in-core-to-shore/

Well on one hand I can see how a comparison to Detroit could be made, on the other, the scale of the two makes for a diffrent case as well.

Detroit was abandoned because of social issues. Years of the black community not being treated fairly resulted in a "screw you" attitude when the first black mayor was elected. That's where the "white flight" started. He wasn't interested in working with the white community at all, and didn't hide it. All you have to do is watch a documentary on him or the city and you'll see it all. That left abandoned homes and businesses all over Detroit. When you go there today, literally every other home or even more frquent, is empty. It's incredibly bad there. The suburbs are doing better by far, but at what point does the metrpolis become known as the suburb name rather than the "city". It's extremely sad that all those years resulted in such a downfall....and both sides are to blame.

Now in comparison to OKC, there was a similar issue that happened here. Not in relation to the mayor's office or anything, but as communities shift, so do populations. The car took over, people started building further out, and downtown started emptying out. It's really the old story of urban flight in America more that comparing to Detroit. It's a story told all over the country, as seen in the article.

I was only saying that to the naked eye, OKC would look like Detroit. The Biltmore would look no different than the buliding I posted above. Forget about a revitalized Bricktown because to get to it you would have to drive through blocks and blocks and blocks of abandoned boarded up urban decay. It wouldn't be a pretty picture. If Detroit had gone through a major land clearing 40 years ago it wouldn't look like it does today.

Doug or Steve, do you have any pictures of downtown OKC post abandondment but pre wrecking ball?

I was only saying that to the naked eye, OKC would look like Detroit. The Biltmore would look no different than the buliding I posted above. Forget about a revitalized Bricktown because to get to it you would have to drive through blocks and blocks and blocks of abandoned boarded up urban decay. It wouldn't be a pretty picture. If Detroit had gone through a major land clearing 40 years ago it wouldn't look like it does today.

Doug or Steve, do you have any pictures of downtown OKC post abandondment but pre wrecking ball?

Kerry, that it totally your supposition that those building would be abandoned if they had not been torn down. It's just as likely they might have been rehabilitated. There is no way that the Biltmore would look like that building above if it had not been imploded. It would be completely remodeled and being fully utilized. OKC does not equal Detroit by any stretch of the imagination when looking at reasons for urban decay. Do you also think the Baum Building, the Huckins Hotel, or the Criterion Theater would look like that? I don't think so. And most of the downtown buildings in OKC were not abandoned before being demolished. They didn't have the highest use but weren't abandoned. I'm not sure where you got that idea.

Have to disagree about the Biltmore. One only has to look at the Skirvin and see where its fate was headed. If the City hadn't stepped in and saved the Skirvin, it would be gone as well. Even if a company owns a building and plans were in place to rehab it, owners change hands, deal falls thru and current owners allow the building to be abandoned so they can tear it down (SandRidge and the India Temple).

Kerry, that it totally your supposition that those building would be abandoned if they had not been torn down. It's just as likely they might have been rehabilitated. There is no way that the Biltmore would look like that building above if it had not been imploded. It would be completely remodeled and being fully utilized. OKC does not equal Detroit by any stretch of the imagination when looking at reasons for urban decay. Do you also think the Baum Building, the Huckins Hotel, or the Criterion Theater would look like that? I don't think so. And most of the downtown buildings in OKC were not abandoned before being demolished. They didn't have the highest use but weren't abandoned. I'm not sure where you got that idea.

All I can say is drive through downtown OKC today and see how many abandonded building there are right now. And that is with 95% of them being cleared by a buldozer 40 years ago. At our current rate of rehab OKC would have like a 200 year supply of abandonded buildings had they not been torn down. Also, I never said Detroit and OKC crumbled for the same reason.

Probably true. Urban Renewal cleared out a lot of stuff at a time when OKC was still at the top of it's climb (pre-crash). We fought an uphill battle after the crash that we are only now really coming out of. In that sort of time, rehab of buildings is not what developers do. Heck, look at First National. It's had owner after owner doing little piddly crap to the building and it's still in poor shape....and it's an icon. What would some boring square brick crap buildings have going for them....especially when even the Biltmore went down the toilet pre-crash. The Skirvin was alive up into the 80's, and look how far it fell and how fast it happened.

So on that front, I'd agree with Kerry.....we've still got abandoned crap now...good thing we don't have 100 more buildings too. One difference between what you see in the article and most of what OKC had....the article's buildings are gems (churches, theaters, etc), OKC had a bunch of boring square architectually boring blahness (not counting the few gems like the Biltmore). Just read OKC 2nd Time Around and you'll get the whole story on why certain things went. Remember, the Biltmore was NOT in Pei's plans to have demolished....it's fall to crap was what sealed it's fate.

All I can say is drive through downtown OKC today and see how many abandonded building there are right now. And that is with 95% of them being cleared by a buldozer 40 years ago. At our current rate of rehab OKC would have like a 200 year supply of abandonded buildings had they not been torn down. Also, I never said Detroit and OKC crumbled for the same reason.

Kerry, that is still total supposition on your part and I respectfully disagree and think that any kind of comparison (eyeball or other) between OKC and Detroit is hyperbole. All buildings go through various kinds of life cycles and some fare better than others. Saying that 95% of abandoned buildings that have been cleared means that we would have all of them still abandoned has no basis other than your guessing. And a large number of the buildings that were razed were certainly not abandoned. It's just as likely we might have more Automobile Alley or Film District type of restoration in process. Neither you or I will ever know for sure so speculating about that serves no purpose.

And I disagree with bomber's discription of downtown having a bunch of boring square architectually boring blahness. He obviously isn't old to have visited downtown much during the 40's, 50's, or 60's. I remember those buildings that were razed well and most don't fit that discription. Of course there was some crap but much of it was worth saving. Saying that rehab of buildings isn't what developers do is totally ignoring what's been happening downtown in the last 20 years even if it wasn't considered 40 years ago.

40's 50's and 60's huh. So you're saying a full 60 years later, they would have still been viable huh? I didn't have to be alive during renewal to know what downtown was like....there's plenty information out there about it. Most of what came out was crap....abandoned or not. We did lose a lot of good stuff too, but let's not pretend that the majority was anothing other than your typical structure. Heck, almost half of what came out wasn't even more than 1 or 2 floors and if you don't believe me, look at the pictures of the megablocks.

There is a great PBS documentary..."Beyond the Motor City"...that makes the case for how America's gravitation toward the automobile, interstate system, and suburban development led to the demise of some of our great urban areas. We have imbedded the video on the OnTrac website for anyone who hasn't seen it and wants an ugly dose of that reality. Detroit is certainly not Oklahoma City, although clearly these same forces led to the demise of our original streetcar system, the migration of residents from the core and the loss of many historic and valuable structures. If nothing else, the utterly depressing state of Detroit will make you really appreciate how far Oklahoma City has come from its darkest days.

http://www.ontracok.org/?page_id=26

40's 50's and 60's huh. So you're saying a full 60 years later, they would have still been viable huh? I didn't have to be alive during renewal to know what downtown was like....there's plenty information out there about it. Most of what came out was crap....abandoned or not. We did lose a lot of good stuff too, but let's not pretend that the majority was anothing other than your typical structure. Heck, almost half of what came out wasn't even more than 1 or 2 floors and if you don't believe me, look at the pictures of the megablocks.

LOL, I see now. If a building is 60 years old or more, it's no longer viable. I guess we better start razing a lot more buildings then especially if they're only 1 or 2 floors. That automatically makes them worthless. Most of Automobile Alley and the Film District will have to go. And I think being alive and seeing those building during that time makes me a little better judge of what was there than someone just looking at pictures.

That's not what I said at all. Apparently you missed all the stuff about the 1st national center.

The 1 or 2 floor structures were things like auto shops, small businesses, in your standard boring structure. There was nothing architecutrally significant about them. They weren't anything like the Film District or Automobile Alley. We're talking squares...with MAYBE a little deatil at the top. They were the same thing you'd see on any corner in america. As I've said 20 times, not every building was, but the majority was. Even the larger 8 or so level buildings were mostly pretty unimpressive structures. We lost very few "gems" in the project. And your memories of the time can also be skewed on what you remember, to what was actually there. Sorry, I'll still take the photo and all the descriptive text surrounding it from all the books.

In some future version America 60 years from now a poster known as ljbab728 is going to be lamenting all the abandonded buildings Detroit tore down in 2030 saying, (and I quote) "just because a building is old doesn't make useless."

No; the roof falling in, the windows broken out, the foundation sinking, and the brick walls crumbling made it useless. Oklahoma City had about 500 of these buildings. Those really cool pictures we see of OKC landmarks are NOT what was torn down. The ruins of these buildings are what was torn down.

In some future version America 60 years from now a poster known as ljbab728 is going to be lamenting all the abandonded buildings Detroit tore down in 2030 saying, (and I quote) "just because a building is old doesn't make useless."

No; the roof falling in, the windows broken out, the foundation sinking, and the brick walls crumbling made it useless. Oklahoma City had about 500 of these buildings. Those really cool pictures we see of OKC landmarks are NOT what was torn down. The ruins of these buildings are what was torn down.

Kerry, I know what buildings were torn down and I said some were crap but most were not. It sounds like you and Bomber were members of the Urban Renewal Commission in the 60's. "Let just tear everything down and start over." I think Bomber is even ready to tear down the 1st National Center and the way you used my quote makes me think that you really do believe that if a building is old it's useless. I"m certainly not just referring to the landmark building like the Baum Building. Your description of the state of the buildings is not accurate at all for most of the ones that were razed. The architecture and condition of most of them were similar to what you see in many downtown areas that have been rehabilitated. Downtown Norman comes to mind. Dismissing and razing older buildings just because they weren't "architectural gems" just didn't and doesn't make sense, especially when the you're replacing them with parking lots or boring blank wall buildings. If buildings are torn down because they are beyond repair I understand that, but that isn't what happened.