...4.0ReturnPrev tt sne Hotel Pontchartrain 2 ashington Boulevard Detroit, MI 48226Around so long its been dubbed the Pontch by Motoners, the Hotel Pontchartrain stands on the site of Detroits first French fort of the same name. The 25-floor Pontchartrain recently underent renovations to bring its rooms into the ne millennium. Rooms overlooking the Detroit River recall the fascination the French must have felt, hile back rooms peek into Detroits fire station. All rooms are softly classic and since Detroit gre up around this very spot, be certain youre central. INCLUDEPICTURE http.detroit.comimagesresccleardot.gif t MERGEFORMATINET Luxury speed cruisers dock in front of this red brick ode to European prestige, set in Detroits quaint and quieter River Ton district. Inside in the lobby, chandeliers, rich carpeting and crimson color schemes prove this French hoteliers hold on one of Detroits more abundant addresses. In a ord, the guestrooms, from deluxe doubles to presidential suites, are lavish the services, from meeting rooms to tanning beds, span the gamut of extravagance. INCLUDEPICTURE http.detroit.comimagesresccleardot.gif t MERGEFORMATINET INCLUDEPICTURE http.detroit.comimagesresccleardot.gif t MERGEFORMATINET The City That ashen you click on points of interest in the panoramic photo of 1906 Detroit in the right frame, text and images ill appear in this frame. Each picture ithin the pages can also be clicked on to provide more-detailed, higher-resolution photos.The Detroit pictured here has been ashed aay in a tide of technological and social change more rapid, perhaps, than any in human history. Click on the photo at right, read the text belo, and itness the transformation of Campus Martius from grand civic plaza to post-Industrial urban backater. HYPERLINK http.merit.edujimmorandetphotpano.map tm Campus Martius, Detroit, Michigan, 1906This is donton Detroit, 1906, on the eve of the automobile explosion. There are no automobiles in the three-picture perspective at right, even though Henry Ford had driven his first model through the streets of Detroit ten years earlier. People and cargo travel by horse or electric streetcar, and pedestrians roam freely through the streets. Detroit City Hall 1871 is in the center ith its ide lan sloping to oodard, Detroits main street. The scene has an aura of civic idealism, equal parts bustling metropolis and manicured garden the dusty streets, striped by vehicle tracks, lend a rural air. Detroits major roads radiate from this public square knon as Campus Martius. Ironically, the city had been laid out in the shape of a spoked-heel nearly one hundred years before Henry Ford manufactured the first Model T. All distances in Detroit ere once measured from this point, including the Mile Roads that march into Detroits northern suburbs. oodard Avenue, Fort Street, and Michigan Avenue meet here, and Gratiot and Grand River start only a fe blocks aay. These are main arteries along hich Detroit is still developing in the outer suburbs. As the automobile transformed the country, Detroit quadrupled in population 1900-1930. Concrete as poured, skyscrapers soared, and the retail district, seen in the right panel of the panorama, expanded to orld class status. Increasingly prosperous Detroiters bought more and more of their on product, and donton overfloed ith cars. By 1928, Campus Martius as the busiest intersection in the country according to a contemporary visitors guide. As early as 1920, civic leaders made plans to relieve the congestion around Campus Martius. Streets ere idened, traffic signals installed, and subay schemes studied. The Great Depression put an end to the subay plans, and the citys groth sloed. After the ar, Detroiters, like most Americans, ere far more interested in the open spaces of their suburbs than in the grimy confines of the central city. Despite ell-intentioned yet often clumsy attempts at urban reneal, the central city and Campus Martius sloly ithered as families left the city to raise baby boomers in the clean air of suburban tract housing. The City Hall in the center of this picture as torn don in 1961, leaving an open public space. Ne buildings ere set back from the street, and the streets ere idened, but by the late 60s, the number of people in donton as declining. The closing of the huge Hudsons department store in 1982 signaled the end of retail in donton, and only government and financial institutions hang on today, aash in a sea of unused office space and boarded storefronts. General Motors recent purchase of the HYPERLINK http.ehhs.cmich.eduilliambrencen.html tt display Renaissance Center for a bargain basement price 72 million for a complex that cost 350 million to build tenty years ago is an indication of ho far the decline has gone. Campus Martius is still a relatively busy intersection, but no more so than dozens of other places across ton and probably less so than many rural interstate exit ramps. In the photographs at right, scattered pedestrians alk at random slants across the open space. Today, they cling together at crossalks or huddle at bus stops, numbed by the thrum of tires and the dull grinding of laboring motors. Detroiters have a bitterseet nostalgia for their donton, and some still go back for sporting events, parades, and the like but none of them ould give up their strip malls and cineplexes to go back to 1906. The collective psychology that built civic plazas like Campus Martius no longer exists, dissipated in the march of technology, time, and social turmoil that goes by the name of Progress. The average Detroiter alking across Campus Martius in 1906 probably had a pretty good opinion of Progress the frontier days ere still in living memory, and the technological and material improvements in daily life ere manifest. The average Detroiter today ouldnt alk across Campus Martius at all, though he may drive through it on the ay to a Red ings game. He may even have a fair opinion of Progress, but It probably doesnt cross his mind as he aits at just another stoplight at hat as once the busiest intersection in the country, by actual count! Soldiers Sailors MonumentAt the top of this 1871 monument to Civil ar veterans is a colossal personification of Mich igan as a semi-civilized Indian queen menacingly brandishing a sord ith her right hand and clutching a shield ith the left. From an 1870s Michigan History. HYPERLINK httpusers.aol.comdlharveycmireg.htm Michigan as indeed a menacing presence during the Civil ar,providing 90,000 troops 8th in the Union, despite ranking 10th in population for the Federal cause. The HYPERLINK httpusers.aol.comdlharvey24thinf.htm 24th Michigan Infantry part of the famous Black Hats fought at HYPERLINK httpusers.aol.comdlharveygburg.htm Gettysburg here they helped stop Lees numerically superior forces on the first day then faced the Picketts famous Charge on the third day, suffering eighty-percent casualties. Other Michigan units served ith equal distinctio...
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