Yes I'm back. Jetlagged and emotionally and financially ruined but I'm back. Many tales to tell and reports to post from my first States trip since 2019, yadda yadda.
Of course one of the major places I wanted to go back to this time around was Detroit. The city needs no introduction and I had such a crazy successful weekend there in 2019, it was going to be difficult to top it with the long-overdue sequel. In ways I'd say it definitely topped 2019 - the overall quality of the sites we did was better with far less duds, plus there were eight of us this time which in some way is a bad thing logistically but in a city as dangerous and unpredictable as Detroit the numbers game sometimes works in your favour - we did end up splitting up a lot though. However compared to last time where myself and my three friends were bouncing from place to place knocking sites out one after another, this trip didn't quite work out that way. It seems in the last few years, maybe due to the pandemic and other factors, Detroit has changed. There seemed to be far more people ready and waiting to spoil our fun, more people willing to call the police (we had one woman threaten to call the police simply for us parking outside an abandoned church!) and the atmosphere was much more, I don't want to say hostile, but unwelcoming than it had been in 2019. After we had a small snafu with a large number of police arriving to turf all eight of us out an abandoned school - officers who were in actual fact some of the nicest and most understanding I've ever dealt with - we decided to pretty much avoid all the schools and instead ended up doing a large number of churches and other things instead.
Woodward Avenue Presbyterian Church (often affectionately known as St. Curvy's) is the most iconic abandoned church in the city by some considerable margin. The church is a masterpiece of English Gothic revival church design, constructed at vast expense ($2.5million in todays money) in 1911 along one of the main thoroughfares into the city. Inside the church specially designed curved wooden pews swept in a fan shape around the altar, with a matching setup on the curved balcony level. A beautiful lantern shaped cupola helped add a great deal more natural light to the centre of the church. When constructed it featured a banquet hall, basketball court, bowling alley and Sunday school rooms. By the 1950s, with 'white flight' in full swing, the congregation had been reduced by half what it was at it's peak. With more black families moving to the neighbourhood, the 'old fashioned' style of worship on offer didn't particularly appeal to them and by 1971 congregation numbers had fallen to just 404, less than a quarter of it's peak number. In 1981 in an effort to save the church it merged with another struggling nearby church with that congregation moving to Woodward and the pastor from there taking over, however this did little to help and numbers continued to dwindle. In 1993 Woodward Avenue Presbyterian closed it's doors, with the pastor from the merged church taking ownership of the building and reopening it as Abyssinia Interdenominational Church. The pastor passed away in 2005 and with it the church closed it's doors for the final time, and ever since has been stuck in limbo. In 2009 it was sold to another church, and in 2011 the church was used in the film 'Alex Cross', with all the debris cleared and pews moved to enable a boxing ring to be constructed in the centre. In 2014 work began at the church with parts of the roof being repaired and the Sunday school and basement areas totally stripped back, however this stopped and hasn't progressed any further. After work ceased, a comprehensive alarm system was installed in the church which served to keep people out, however recently the system was disabled which meant it was good to go once more.
I've wanted to see this place for years, but knowing it was heavily alarmed was never a place I thought I'd see, so the news that the power was cut and it was doable again came as a great shock to me. I'd seen so many photos of it in years past but nothing at all prepared me for how utterly breathtaking it was in person and how much bigger it was too, despite large parts being an empty shell the main body of the church is absolutely stunning. Other explorers had obviously heard the news about it being a free-for-all again too and we met another group inside who were very nice, I guess nobody knew how long it'd be doable for again so they were all coming out to see it.
Getting to the narrow balcony surrounding the lantern was an experience, at some point maybe for filming the movie a couple of new narrow staircases had been installed but the last catwalk to the small opening that led to the balcony was worryingly dark and unstable.
A final phone shot looking upwards towards the lantern, an angle I would have really struggled to get with my proper camera.
Plenty more stuff to come from my trip when I've had a chance to sleep....
Of course one of the major places I wanted to go back to this time around was Detroit. The city needs no introduction and I had such a crazy successful weekend there in 2019, it was going to be difficult to top it with the long-overdue sequel. In ways I'd say it definitely topped 2019 - the overall quality of the sites we did was better with far less duds, plus there were eight of us this time which in some way is a bad thing logistically but in a city as dangerous and unpredictable as Detroit the numbers game sometimes works in your favour - we did end up splitting up a lot though. However compared to last time where myself and my three friends were bouncing from place to place knocking sites out one after another, this trip didn't quite work out that way. It seems in the last few years, maybe due to the pandemic and other factors, Detroit has changed. There seemed to be far more people ready and waiting to spoil our fun, more people willing to call the police (we had one woman threaten to call the police simply for us parking outside an abandoned church!) and the atmosphere was much more, I don't want to say hostile, but unwelcoming than it had been in 2019. After we had a small snafu with a large number of police arriving to turf all eight of us out an abandoned school - officers who were in actual fact some of the nicest and most understanding I've ever dealt with - we decided to pretty much avoid all the schools and instead ended up doing a large number of churches and other things instead.
Woodward Avenue Presbyterian Church (often affectionately known as St. Curvy's) is the most iconic abandoned church in the city by some considerable margin. The church is a masterpiece of English Gothic revival church design, constructed at vast expense ($2.5million in todays money) in 1911 along one of the main thoroughfares into the city. Inside the church specially designed curved wooden pews swept in a fan shape around the altar, with a matching setup on the curved balcony level. A beautiful lantern shaped cupola helped add a great deal more natural light to the centre of the church. When constructed it featured a banquet hall, basketball court, bowling alley and Sunday school rooms. By the 1950s, with 'white flight' in full swing, the congregation had been reduced by half what it was at it's peak. With more black families moving to the neighbourhood, the 'old fashioned' style of worship on offer didn't particularly appeal to them and by 1971 congregation numbers had fallen to just 404, less than a quarter of it's peak number. In 1981 in an effort to save the church it merged with another struggling nearby church with that congregation moving to Woodward and the pastor from there taking over, however this did little to help and numbers continued to dwindle. In 1993 Woodward Avenue Presbyterian closed it's doors, with the pastor from the merged church taking ownership of the building and reopening it as Abyssinia Interdenominational Church. The pastor passed away in 2005 and with it the church closed it's doors for the final time, and ever since has been stuck in limbo. In 2009 it was sold to another church, and in 2011 the church was used in the film 'Alex Cross', with all the debris cleared and pews moved to enable a boxing ring to be constructed in the centre. In 2014 work began at the church with parts of the roof being repaired and the Sunday school and basement areas totally stripped back, however this stopped and hasn't progressed any further. After work ceased, a comprehensive alarm system was installed in the church which served to keep people out, however recently the system was disabled which meant it was good to go once more.
I've wanted to see this place for years, but knowing it was heavily alarmed was never a place I thought I'd see, so the news that the power was cut and it was doable again came as a great shock to me. I'd seen so many photos of it in years past but nothing at all prepared me for how utterly breathtaking it was in person and how much bigger it was too, despite large parts being an empty shell the main body of the church is absolutely stunning. Other explorers had obviously heard the news about it being a free-for-all again too and we met another group inside who were very nice, I guess nobody knew how long it'd be doable for again so they were all coming out to see it.
Getting to the narrow balcony surrounding the lantern was an experience, at some point maybe for filming the movie a couple of new narrow staircases had been installed but the last catwalk to the small opening that led to the balcony was worryingly dark and unstable.
A final phone shot looking upwards towards the lantern, an angle I would have really struggled to get with my proper camera.
Plenty more stuff to come from my trip when I've had a chance to sleep....
