You may recognize this building from the 2006 film Transformers; this is Detroit’s massive Michigan Central Station. Designed in the Beaux-Arts Classical style with the interior lobby modelled after a Roman Bathhouse, complete with Doric columns. The station was completed in 1912, but the whole area wasn’t fully completed (including Roosevelt Park, from where I took this photo) until 1920. Costing $15,000,000 in 1912 to complete the station was never fully used. That’s right, the 18-story tower that rises above the actual station was never completed. The top several floors are not even furnished. But despite this, the station hosted more than 4,000 passengers dailyRead More →

When war was declared in June of 1812, neither side was particular ready or wanting to go to war, they hoped that simply being at war would generate the fighting spirit among the troops. Plus with methods of communications being what they were at the time, there was a bit of a delay getting the word out, in fact the British forces stationed in Upper and Lower Canada knew about it before even the Americans did. The British had a very small force of regular troops stationed in British North America, most being concentrated at Quebec City, the Capital of the colonies, and Halifax, homeRead More →

A little bit of infrastructure porn for Week 10, inspired by some of Bill Schwab’s recent photos of this Bridge from the Detroit side of the River. As I was heading into Detroit for the weekend, I decided to stop and get a shot from the Windsor side. The bridge also serves as one of the busiest border crossings in North America and is one of two ways to cross the Detroit river, the other being the tunnel (which I oddly enough took). Officially opened in 1929, it was designed to ease the congestion in the tunnel without obstructing lake freighter traffic. It had theRead More →

After the disastrous defeat at the Battle of the Thames the stretch of western Upper Canada, some 200 miles became nothing more than a no-man’s land between the American garrison at Amhurstburg and the British stronghold at Burlington Heights. Neither side had the will or manpower to secure the area so it devolved into skirmishes between the few British Regulars still in the area along with local Militia and Native warriors still allied with the British and Canadian Population and the American raiding parties conducting economic warfare in the area, destroying crops, mills, and storehouses containing food and goods bound for the armies in theRead More →

Returning to the classic combo, Tri-X and HC-110. Due to flooding on my usual route to and from work, I had to take a road that I hadn’t driven in a while, and that’s where I came across this gem. It’s becoming fairly common in rural Milton to find old abandoned farmhouses, the field still used by others now, but the old houses left boarded up. I’m a little ticked at myself for leaving the gatepost in the frame, but sadly it was the only way to get the house through the trees without having to put the camera on a weird angle or findRead More →

Woodward Presbyterian Church, or rather St. Curvy, has a story like many churches that once thrived in the American mid-west. Founded in 1908 with a membership of 163, it was tasked to serve the north part of the city. With the Reverend Sherman L. Divine at the helm, the church began to seek money and land to build their church. The land the church still sits on today was donated by Mrs. Tracy McGregor. The firm of Sidney Rose Badgley & William Nicklas was hired to design the church. Construction began late in 1908, and by the time the cornerstone was laid on the 1stRead More →