Evergreen Brickworks - a look back at abandoned factory

The Evergreen Brickworks is getting ready for a fun Earth Day Celebration on Saturday April 23rd, 2011 at the former Don Valley Brickworks factory and park. On Thursday April 21 the site will also try to make the world’s longest picnic table. Evergreen is also celebrating its 20^th anniversary of making cities more livable. It’s time to get your Green On and participate in some free eco-activities.

Here is a look back at the abandoned group of buildings that was slowly crumbling, with holes in the roof that on sunny days let in slices of sun, and walls full of bright graffiti. The bricks long since stopped being churned out of the factory complex, fences put up in an attempt to keep out people interested in seeing the desolation that unwanted buildings and empty workplaces can produce. It was ghostly and fascinating at the same time and you could always stand in a sunbeam and look for a rainbow and a pot of gold.

Sad and abandoned

In good times and bad you can usually find something that has been abandoned and left to rot. Sometimes in the hopes that it will be rebuilt and saved for glimpse into the past and sometimes because no one has the money to change things. I will keep my eye open for abandoned things in the future.

Rainy Day Detroit

Road trip - Detroit Motorcity. Down the road from Toronto, just follow Highway 401 to it's end at Windsor and cross the Ambassador Bridge or take the Detroit Windsor Tunnel. What will you find at the end of the rainbow? A clean city with little graffiti, an elevated people mover, plenty of boarded up buildings, parking lots and fenced in gravel graveyards of former buildings, waiting for new boom times, restoration and growth. Old, historic buildings are seperated from the City by razor wire and large plywood boards - they save buildings of distinction hoping that they can be preserved later, like saving something for a rainy day. Large letters along the Michigan Central Station building, pictured below, spell "Save the Depot". I don't think there are many windows that remain in one piece in the large, haunted structure.

I have heard stories and seen pictures on the web about the abandoned and derelict buildings in Detroit. The crunch started in the late 1960's. Detroit still has beauty - down but not out, they continue to survive and grow with new development along the waterfront. But as someone seeing the city for the first time it is hard to get over the shock of the blighted landscape. The City has destroyed many buildings but so many remain, slowly disintegrating. It is sad to see neighbourhoods that were once full of beautiful homes now empty, save for one house struggling to remain a home.

I was struck by the similarity of Detroit with Toronto. Both are old cities with a lot of history, both are large metropolitan areas having desirable waterfront locations with islands and both are subject to the impact of the economy. Hopefully this scale of de-construction will never find a home in Toronto. Here is a happy wedding party taking pictures at the FOX theatre.

See more pictures of Detroit after the jump.

Here are more pictures of the Central Train Station and one of Detroit's Flatiron Buildings.

I loved this abandoned building - it was the Loyal Order of Moose - I thought it was from the Flintstones but he was with the Loyal Order of the Water Buffalo.