Abandoned Detroit:   Touring The D

Abandoned Industrial Site

The Continental Motors site is a large expanse of ruins on Detroit's far East Side, located next to one of Detroit's two operating auto plants along Conner Street, just north of Jefferson Avenue. Continental Motors, founded in 1905, built engines for a number of car companies until they went out of business and the site was taken over by an aluminum company calling itself Continental Aluminum. The site has multiple buildings in a state of decay. There were once more buildings on the site, and there are long stretches of cracked concrete. The buildings, which are full of graffiti, are accessible to explorers. The ruins here make a real contrast with the modern auto plant, Chrysler's Jefferson Avenue Assembly Plant, visible from the top of the ruins.

Abandoned Factories

The automobile industry grew up in Detroit, beginning with a small building near downtown where Model Ts were built by hand and growing to encompass large factories and complexes of buildings that employed thousands of workers. Today, many of those places where workers toiled and great products were born are just empty walls and silent railroad tracks, ghosts of the former good times that once made Detroit a city of homeowners living the American Dream.

The Abandoned Packard Plant. See more photos of the Packard plant.

The Abandoned Fisher Body Plant. See more photos of Fisher Body.

Abandoned Churches

Detroit's churches, including some beautiful buildings, somtimes end up abandoned because their congregations have left. The city also has many little storefront churches. Commercial buildings that can no longer find tenants often become storefront churches, but these too can become abandoned.

Abandoned Schools

Wheb a city loses population, it has surplus schools. Some school buildings find new uses, but many end up abandoned. For more photos of abandoned schools, see my webpage on Detroit's Abandoned Schools.

Abandoned Commercial Buildings

All over the city, buildings that used to be occupied by a business are empty, deteriorating. Most will never be occupied again.

This building, with its lovely architectural elements, is at Fenkell and Livernois on the West Side