Introduction

Chapters

Ruins

Henry T. Brush

Blue Bloods & Blood Lines

Rooming House

The Restaurant

The Essa's

Urban Renewal

Is There Anybody There?

Where Capitalism Failed

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Introduction

"The view which he has given of human life has a melancholy hue,
but he feels conscious that he has drawn these dark tints from a
conviction that they are really in the picture, and not from a jaundiced
eye or an inherent spleen of disposition."

--Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798

In downtown Detroit there exists a grand residence built in the Venetian Gothic style some 130 years ago. It stands now in ruins seemingly more comfortable in the company of a lonely castle in the Scottish Highlands than in the shadow of Ford Field (Detroit Lions), Comerica Park (Detroit Tigers), and Joe Louis Arena (Detroit Red Wings). Though its only occupants for the last 40 years have been crack dealers and the local homeless population, its history reflects the length and breath of the American Experience.

This is its Story

[To Chapter 1 - Ruins]

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