Developing: Pakistani Plane Escorted by UK Fighter Jets — 2 Men Arrested

Doc Thompson’s 24-hour radio marathon, ‘#24forok,’ continues until 9 am ET — Listen Live!

The Breathtaking Then-and-Now Photos of an Abandoned Detroit High School

Dec. 10, 2012 11:42am Liz Klimas

Some would argue the city of Detroit has experienced a boom and bust like no other in the last century. With the automotive and factory industry in the 1920s and onward spurring the city’s population, infrastructure to support it followed. But industry changes led to economic downfall that depressed the city, causing much of the population to leave, while its infrastructure remains, crumbling.

The website Detroiturbex.com is featuring the dilapidated state of the city. It states that “Detroit has no other option but to change.” The project is on hand “documenting that change.”

One of its projects is of the abandoned, original building of Cass Technical High School. Detroiturbex put together eerie then and now images. Here are just a sampling of those:

The old building was torn down officially in 2011. Here’s a time-lapse video showing some of the demo:

The group also takes you through an interactive photo tour of the building’s 10 levels (a cool feature is as you click each each level it builds the school up higher). The imagery for the interactive Cass Tech model was created with Google Sketchup Pro. Detroiturbex constructed it using blueprints, student records and a survey of the buildings in 2010 when they photographed each room.

Detroiturbex Features Eeery Then and Now Photos of Cass Tech School in Detroit

(Image: Detroiturbex.com)

The entire get-up took more than a year to finish. Be sure to take the interactive tour through the school on Detroitturbex’s website here.

The school itself was founded in 1907 with the original building being completed in 1919. The new Cass Tech building was constructed in 2004 and the old school experienced a fire in 2007. Detroiturbex states that just five years after opening, the new school suffers from “shoddy workmanship and poor planning.”

You can see more of Detroiturbex’s photos of the school in a then-and-now slideshow format here.

The Detroiturbex project as a whole is intended to “raise awareness of the social and economic challenges the city of Detroit faces through photography.” The artist acknowledges that many of the places documented, like many urban exploring adventures, have not been accessed legally.

Detroiturbex has cased churches, neighborhoods, parks, schools and other buildings extensively. Find more about them here.

This story was updated to include that the building was officially demolished in 2011.

(H/T: Business Insider)

Benghazi, IRS, AP...What's next? Only TheBlaze TV offers the truth from Glenn Beck, Andrew Wilkow, and Real News from TheBlaze. Get instant access and a free trial here.

Back to The Blaze »

Comments (278)

LeadNotFollow
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:43pm
It’s Detroit. I give it six months before it’s torn to pieces and looks just like the before photos.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
El Paso Girl
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:23pm
So.. Why don’t these students people clean up the mess??????? Do they like living in that? or just Lazy….

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- himynameisliberty
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 5:28pm
  Each photo is a before/after pic. The website photoshopped old pics into the newer ones to make their point. If you look carefully at each pic you can see the contrast. The students are not actually in that mess, confusing I know.
  
  Report this comment
Apple Bite
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:19pm
Every major city and town that has been tempted by Liberal policies is like this. And yet, they continue to vote int he same maligned pattern. Blame the white man, vote democrat, pay high taxes, sit on pity pot and look down on yourself for not being well off. It was like that in Louisiana for decades. Name a city off the top of your mind, Chicago, Philly, Houston, Oakland, Baltimore, Cleveland….the list goes on and on.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
retiredguy1952
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:19pm
What a disgrace. It was obviously due to whitey and racism. We need a Joint Initiative Guaranteeing
Access to Benefits for Oppressed Organizations (!!!)

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- drs1969
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:29pm
  That’s a good one!
  
  Report this comment
dish-aw1959
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:16pm
This is why Obama and his coherts want to eliminate suburbia and move everyone into the big cities ….. more taxes dollars. And they can take your whole paycheck right under our feet, literally. More tax dollars they can rob us of and blow on special interest groups for their own agendas.

Someone, please remind me, why is USA so great? Our entire country is now turning into one of “those” neighborhoods everyone is trying to flee from.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
jungle J
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:08pm
This is the epitome of the progressive footprint.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
petitegirl
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:07pm
To me it looks like the Liberal’s vision for America.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Ghandi was a Republican
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:05pm
Glorious Comrades! All hail the collective…

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
BookMDanno
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:03pm
I used to feel bad for this until I watched what happened when the mayor of Chicago–in a magnanimous gesture to inner city residents–installed above ground pools in the ‘hoods in a hot summer in the ’60s. Within 30 days they were all trashed, unusable. Fast forward: who do you think is dumping trash, mattresses, broken glass in inner city vacant lots? Duhhhhhhhhhh….

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Independent4ever
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:01pm
Dissappointed in the Blaze…again. It’s the us against them or Team A vs Team B mentality. There are alot of bad schools in middleclass areas and low income areas. Showing pictures of an abandoned school in a low income area seems like class warfare to me.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- dish-aw1959
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:20pm
  Okay, I’ve always been from “Middleclass” and never saw a school in this shape, not even close. Besides, what does middle or low income class have to do with anything? Does it mean it’s okay to destroy these buildings? It’s not like one day it rained crap and everyone was forced to leave. Come on, don’t put a sympathy spin on this.
  
  Report this comment
- Independent4ever
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:29pm
  The school is closed – abandoned. What do you expect?
  
  Report this comment
- drs1969
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:33pm
  There have been old school buildings here that have been turned into office space. Not welfare office space, either.
  
  Report this comment
Independent4ever
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:54pm
…And the point is?

That’s happening all over the country in the private and public sector. You should see the boarded up strip mall near where I live. The strip mall is in a conservative district. There’s just no money.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- Ghandi was a Republican
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:07pm
  But these are your tax dollars at work.
  
  Report this comment
- Independent4ever
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:30pm
  I said private and public. BTW, the schools are terrible in my conservative, middleclass area. Also, the pictures that are being shown are of a school that has been closed for awhile.
  
  Report this comment
- drs1969
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:38pm
  You can thank Central Planning at the FED for many abandoned strip malls. A lot were built when interest rates were driven below the ‘market’. Banks were lending to everybody to exploit the spread. Oops, we need a bailout.
  
  Report this comment
Brother Winston Smith
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:50pm
This is the INEVITABLE RESULT of a nation REJECTING individualism and EMBRACING Beck’s republican/democrat (same thing) COMPULSORY COLLECTIVISM.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
darkeningskies
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:49pm
how amusing, to tell the truth about anything in America since the traitor in chief was criminally rammed into the presidency, consistantly becomes a racist issue

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
schroeder123
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:46pm
Looks like a picture of a closed school. Where is the new one ?

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
jagape
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:43pm
Detriot is only the beggining…The governemnt at it’s present state will turn the whole country into this kind of mess. Within 6 months to a year the economy will crash and the same kind of people that trashed this school will trash this country.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- BookMDanno
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:05pm
  Agree!
  
  Report this comment
schroeder123
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:43pm
I don’t blame anyone except for the people who liver there.

If this is your goal , then so be it. Very few will have moral guts to stand up and make something good.

Once your black community receive a reward for doing nothing, this is a perfect example of the result.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
iamnotu
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:39pm
Free money and the takers! Instant slums!

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
HOSTILETAKEOVER
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:34pm
We wounder why our kids are killing eachother.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Mamma Bear
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:34pm
“Breathtaking” you make it sound like we are supposed to be surprised by these photos – totally expected!!!! Not really breathtaking!!! Just dirty and totally neglected.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
JNinIN
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:31pm
In all honesty it looks like a dump in the before pictures too.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
garbagecanlogic
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:23pm
Hmmmmmm, lets see, using my new math, I have: Detroit + Black folk = THIS

Praise Be To Obama. Psalm 109:8

The U.S. Out Of The U.N.
The U.N. Out Of The U.S.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Ted Zeppelin
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:21pm
.
This would be a perfect place to relocate the Gitmo terrorists and it would provide employment for the losers in the neighborhood before eventually becoming a mosque when the terrrorists take over.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Scallyco
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:16pm
That’s what the Whitehouse will look like… just before the chinese bulldoze it!

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Tri-ox
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:15pm
Who cares? Detroit is just one more democrat social experiment that has failed. Voters choose the same destructive liberal policies time and time again – Detroit is just one more example of what liberal policies can do to a city, a society, a country.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Carlinpa
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:13pm
I’m sure Jamie Foxx would say ” How BLACK is that!”
No one can help the blacks now, the 1st slavery, they were freed with the death of hundreds of thousands, segregation, legislation, now they are in their second bondage, of their own doing. They keep voting for people who tempt them, feed them hate, and never talk about responsibility.
The only ones who can help the black community, IS the black community.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- drs1969
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:42pm
  When the government teat dries up, they will starve by the thousands! It’s baked in the cake.
  
  Report this comment

It appears that you have Javascript Disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser preferences for a better user experience on TheBlaze. You can not comment without Javascript enabled.