Living in Detroit's Packard Plant

- open
Post Reply
User avatar
Michael^Heaven
mnml mmbr
mnml mmbr
Posts: 497
Joined: Sun Jul 22, 2007 8:21 am
Location: stateside
Contact:

Living in Detroit's Packard Plant

Post by Michael^Heaven »


Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of Detroit "ruin porn" is it inherently ignores the very real people who still live in the city. Now there's a convergence — the amazing story of Allan Hill, the man who legally lives inside the city's abandoned Packard Auto Plant.

What's most surprising about this moving mini-documentary is Hill's "quality of life" doesn't look as terrible as you'd imagine, nor does his reasoning for choosing to stay in the largest abandoned factory in the world seem so unsound.

The whole creation is a huge gut-check to our biases. Yes, the Packard Plant is so giant and empty and strange they shoot Michael Bay movies there. And, occasionally, kids push a dump truck out a window !

Yet, Hill has power, Internet access, a welding setup, and a small kitchen. He even maintains a webcam. The owner apparently gave him his blessing so long as Hill works as a custodian of the property.
"So knives out
Cook him up
Squash his head
Put him in the pot "-jz
Casanova808
mnml mmbr
mnml mmbr
Posts: 146
Joined: Fri Apr 16, 2010 12:57 am

Re: Living in Detroit's Packard Plant

Post by Casanova808 »

The problem is that he doesn't actually live in the Packard Plant. He might live in a building on the grounds, but he isn't in one of the main buildings.

You'd have to be really foolish to explore, much less live in, the Packard Plant. It isn't the same set of buildings that we used to party in almost 20 years ago. Those buildings have been scrapped to the point where it is extremely dangerous to go into it them. The floors are falling apart because people have ripped out all of the heavy steel beams that were put in place to keep the building standing. I used to go to raves there in the 90's and I have explored it during the day. In 2012 it's a tired, worn out set of buildings that just need to be torn down.

If you are looking for these kinds of stories, but with more basis in reality, this is a good place to go: http://www.detroitblog.org/
Dal-Tech
mnml mmbr
mnml mmbr
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2009 6:34 pm
Location: NY, USA From DFW, USA
Contact:

Re: Living in Detroit's Packard Plant

Post by Dal-Tech »

There are other post-industrial places in the US with abandon buildings.

Pennsylvania is an example:

http://www.opacity.us/locations/region/us/pa/
Dal-Tech wrote: Everyone else is trying to be cool, not me.
hey everybody : I'm a douche !
Post Reply