This week's throwback thursday is of Old Town/North Lansing in god knows when. lol It's obviously after 1879, as the capitol is visible, but I have no idea other than that. Anyway, it's at the railroad tracks in between Center and Turner looking slightly southeast from the north side of the street. The building featured in the foreground was torn down and a brick building now stands there (a tattoo parlor). The building immediately next door, however, is still standing. The railroad tracks seen are the old Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad, which was used way back in the day mostly to service North Lansing. There have been plans to put what's left of those tracks back in service to serve Friedland Industries in Old Town since 2010, and it looks like a exactly a month ago to the day they had an engine testing out the tracks.
It would be so great use all the little rail routes that cross the Lansing area to move people. Out east they used a self motorized diesel passenger cars on some lines I think they were called BUD cars. Basically a bus on rails. I could see that sort of train being used here for commutators from nearby towns and maybe north to Mt. Pleasant and south to Jackson east to Willamston and west to Grand Ledge. It just a fantasy, I like trains and think with the rails that are already in place we could use them for passenger service.
I think I've mentioned an old failed project my dad told me about called SpiraMart, a 31 floor building proposed for the block that the Radisson and One Michigan sit on. My dad found a news blip from the Detroit Free Press while searching newspaper archives (the LSJ isn't on the site yet). This one is from September 20th, 1973:
I'd attempted to find something on this in the LSJ's microfilms before without knowing the date, now that I have a date to work with I should be able to find the LSJ articles with more information and renderings. I'd also like to find more info on the apparent reasoning behind its failure, it was supposedly tall enough to drive the smoke/soot from the nearby Ottawa Power Plants down to street level so the proposal was either blocked or voluntarily cancelled. Whenever I finally get to the library I'll post anything interesting I find here.
Also, here's a more general article on Lansing's urban renewal from the Free Press on October 3rd, 1973. (Photobucket wont let me post a large enough image to read it so follow the link and click the '+' sign on the image for a readable article.)
So many bad decisions back then. Makes me wonder what types of bad decisions we're making now, in terms of Lansing and also in terms of the current best-practices of urban planning nationwide.
Nationwide I think some big mistakes are giving unlimited amounts of money to sports teams for their location, when many studies have shown that they don't come anywhere close to breaking even on the investments from the public money.
I remember the Spira-Mart plan, I think it was the last grandiose plan ever proposed for downtown, up until the casino maybe. I remember besides the power plant issue there was one property on that block that was holding out for more money during the whole urban renewal period, it was called the Opera House or it was an opera house. I think that by the time they took that building the 70's recession had begun. The Middle East wars lead to the oil embargo which was not good for Oldsmobile sales. I think they lost funding or lost interest in Lansing. All the grand plans were turned into practical and defensive plans with cement everywhere. The mall never was a place that people used, the buildings are very average and I don't think anyone from those days would be happy with what we got for knocking down 3/4 of our downtown. I think that mall started the general agreement among people in Lansing that still holds today, "there is nothing downtown,why would I go there?" Today this belief is not true there is a lots to see and do downtown, but many still hold the old thought about downtown.
It's sad this city has been so lacking in vision for the past 40-50 years. Even now we only have a trickle of investment in the central city and most of the buildings built are mediocre both in design and quality. It's sad to see other cities exceed our efforts, whether it's Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor or any of the other successful mid-sized cities, they almost make me embarrassed to call Lansing home. We're the state capital and home to a major university, we have what I imagine to be a very diverse economy for a metro our size and yet we still can't capitalize on all those advantages. When the bulk of your urban renewal is poorly designed, cheaply built four floor buildings all built by the same developer you have to wonder if there's any real momentum at all. (Sorry for the rant, but your comments brought out my concern over the current state of things.)
As for SpiraMart, it could've been a great thing, I still think a fairly large multifloor urban mall would do wonders to make downtown's retail segment stronger. Hopefully I'll make to the library soon to satisfy my curiosity about this project.
Larch is the cross street in the lower left, where they come together is where the Rum Runners building is. You see the railroad tracks at the right-center with the old Union Depot (now Claras) behind as well as the adjoining railroad facilities (freight houses and such) on both sides of the tracks where parking lots now mostly stand. The Boy's Training School can be seen up on Pennsylvania a bit further in the background. This is one of those rare pictures where the subject (the northside of the 600 block) is still mostly intact.
BTW, this was taken from the old standpipe in the general vicinity of where the BWL's solar array between Cedar and Larch now stands. I think the "hill" there actually covers some old water tanks, which I'm not sure if they are still in use or exactly what they were used for.
Lost Lansing has an article and pictures on the original Scott House, the namesake of Scott Park where the new substation is proposed for: The Scott House - Lost Lansing
I also came across a story about a proposal from the 1930's for a seven floor cooperative apartment building at 230 W Washtenaw: Just like New York - Lost Lansing
As a general reminder, Lost Lansing seems to be consistently updated with new stories and photos covering various aspects of Lansing history, there's a lot of info there.
Love those old apartment buildings with the Moorish influence. Detroit is full of them. That would have been an awesome building to have anywhere in the city. What side of the street is 230; the north or the south?
Comments
Railroadfan.com
I'd attempted to find something on this in the LSJ's microfilms before without knowing the date, now that I have a date to work with I should be able to find the LSJ articles with more information and renderings. I'd also like to find more info on the apparent reasoning behind its failure, it was supposedly tall enough to drive the smoke/soot from the nearby Ottawa Power Plants down to street level so the proposal was either blocked or voluntarily cancelled. Whenever I finally get to the library I'll post anything interesting I find here.
Also, here's a more general article on Lansing's urban renewal from the Free Press on October 3rd, 1973. (Photobucket wont let me post a large enough image to read it so follow the link and click the '+' sign on the image for a readable article.)
heh.
Nationwide I think some big mistakes are giving unlimited amounts of money to sports teams for their location, when many studies have shown that they don't come anywhere close to breaking even on the investments from the public money.
As for SpiraMart, it could've been a great thing, I still think a fairly large multifloor urban mall would do wonders to make downtown's retail segment stronger. Hopefully I'll make to the library soon to satisfy my curiosity about this project.
Larch is the cross street in the lower left, where they come together is where the Rum Runners building is. You see the railroad tracks at the right-center with the old Union Depot (now Claras) behind as well as the adjoining railroad facilities (freight houses and such) on both sides of the tracks where parking lots now mostly stand. The Boy's Training School can be seen up on Pennsylvania a bit further in the background. This is one of those rare pictures where the subject (the northside of the 600 block) is still mostly intact.
BTW, this was taken from the old standpipe in the general vicinity of where the BWL's solar array between Cedar and Larch now stands. I think the "hill" there actually covers some old water tanks, which I'm not sure if they are still in use or exactly what they were used for.
I also came across a story about a proposal from the 1930's for a seven floor cooperative apartment building at 230 W Washtenaw: Just like New York - Lost Lansing
As a general reminder, Lost Lansing seems to be consistently updated with new stories and photos covering various aspects of Lansing history, there's a lot of info there.