This website is dedicated to the city of Detroit, and all things unique to it. Detroit has undoubtedly evolved into one of the most unique places in the world. The Motor City was once the 4th largest city by population in the United States. During the early 20th century Detroit was known as "the Paris of the Midwest" because of its French ancestry and architecture. The auto industry was at its peak. Muscle cars and the Motown sound enveloped American culture. Detroit was a thriving destination city, rich in history and culture.

By the late 1960s, Detroit's good days started to come to an end. White police, politicians, and big business increasingly oppressed the majority of the African Americans that lived in the segregated city. The auto industry was starting its inevitable spread outward from Detroit; the population started to leave the auto capital. In 1967 racial tensions reached the breaking point when massive riots erupted. The riots lasted five days, and in the course of the riots, 43 people were killed, over 2,000 buildings were burned; and 7,000 plus people were arrested as a result of president Lyndon B. Johnson's deployment of the National Guard to restore order.

The riot was started when police raided a blind pig (illegal after hours party) on the city's west side. An angry mob burned and looted white owned storefronts and neighborhoods.Brush Park, one of the most historic and upscale residential areas in Detroit was nearly totally destroyed. To this day the city has not recovered. The Archer and Kilpatrick administrations have been successful in tearing down burned out houses, but progress has been stifled by citywide corruption.

These were not the first riots in the city; in 1943 violence erupted because of increased demand for housing due to the wartime production of planes, tanks, and artillery. This created a massive demand for housing in the growing city. At this time, people from all over to country were arriving in Detroit to work unskilled positions in factories created for the war effort. Unfair lending practices made it nearly impossible for African Americans to secure financing for a home. Segregation was at its peek, making life even more difficult to the black man who arrived in Detroit looking for a good wage.

After the 1967 riots, the white population suddenly made a massive exodus from the city to the suburbs. In 1973, Coleman A Young was elected Detroit's first African American mayor marking a shift in local politics. With the decline and globalization of the auto industry, the population of the city dropped from nearly 2 million in the mid 1950s to less than 900,000 in present day. A shell of a once grand city has been left behind with nothing spared: skyscrapers, houses, churches, factories, schools, firehouses, marinas, police stations, theatres and stadiums. These relics are filled with artifacts from the past. It is estimated that 10,000 people move out of the city every month. Just recently the Census department revised the population of Detroit, marking an increase in population due to the amount of people living here and not reporting it.

Although the future may seem bleak for Detroit, its history has transformed the city into the most unique city in the world. As the city has shrunk, the once grand buildings have been turned into charred shells, transforming the city into what it is today. Main roads through the city are lined with empty lots from where storefronts and homes once stood. These empty lots are a direct result of fires from the riots, and years of Devil’s night. Devil’s night is now known as Angel’s night. This volunteer campaign was the main driving force to stop arson on the night before Halloween. On this night, throughout the 80's and 90’s, city gangs and vandals started fires across the city on a massive scale. Business owners also took advantage of this as an excuse to burn their property down in efforts to collect insurance money.

Out of the downfall, Detroit has become the best place in the world for urban exploring with the abundance and selection of buildings. Graffiti thrives in this environment filled with blight. As a result the city’s culture is just as unique as the environment. All these factors from history to music, politics, art and decay have combined to create a place that can only be described as

onlynDetroit.

A modern dictionary defines decay as • (of a building or area) to fall into disrepair; deteriorate and to decline in quality, power, or vigor. A gradual rotting, festering, or decomposition of a material, and or belief.

Living and working in this city can make for interesting scenery as you go through the motions of life, but few ever take time to simply enjoy something in all of its devastating beauty. This section of onlyndetroit.com is dedicated to accounts and pictures of some of Detroit’s most notorious woes of neglect. From the 3.5 million square foot carcass of the historical Packard, to the endlessly tall Book Cadillac and Broderick Towers, you will find stories and photos of our explorations and accounts of all things possible…onlynDetroit

For anyone who has spent time in Detroit either photographing, living, or working in the city you have undoubtedly encountered epic decay on a scale unseen by modern man. The sprawling 146 square miles of Detroit are littered with relics of the cites past, and finding them is our goal. Beyond the illegal dumping and abandonment, there is simply widespread blight and lack of promise or willpower that causes most of the areas to look like wartime Europe.

Even in areas that have been models for renovations and rebirth, lying just blocks away are some of the worst of Detroit’s ghettos and slums. Homage if you will to ancient Roman ruins, Detroit style. The financially strapped city has until recently shown no real progress in the area of cleaning up these areas of blight and squalor. Mayor Kenneth Cockrell Jr. has temporarily stepped in to fill the place of the now convicted former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Soon the cities residents will have to make the decision on who they trust to lead the city out of the depression we are in. Detroit low voter turn out and track record of electing selfish, and corrupted officials has most of Detroit holding it’s collective breath.

Detroit has and always will be a haven for inspired artists and thinkers. The traditions of bringing contemporary art to the public goes all the way back into the 1940s and 50s when architects started combining old world gothic and new modern art deco styles. This blending of old and new has become a trademark of Detroit and its unique look. That unique spirit is conveyed and pushed further today by artists living in the city, as a way to vent and deal with the bleak outlooks surrounding them.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the graffiti sub-culture, and Detroit’s urban Art movement. Graffiti is a form of expression that asks not for permission, but for a reaction. In your face, love it or hate it, it’s become a staple of living in the city. From the undeniable talent of artists getting up in the Dequindre cut, or the world renowned murals of Wyland and his “Whaling Walls’ to the cult of Tyree Guyton and his junk yard army, its all graffiti at the heart. The rouge painter has now become the curator of the museum of urban art. He decides at a whim or at great length as to where to place his or her art. The randomness of some of the pieces seems to exemplify the randomness of the Detroit itself. At bare minimum you must recognize the time and efforts that go into this un-bashful art form. Onlyndetroit.com is dedicated to archiving and sharing Graffiti and other urban arts forms from around the city and profiling prolific Detroit artists so they can receive the recognition they deserve.

Each and every abandoned building has some level of graffiti; those with larger concentrations are Detroit’s equivalent of “Street Art Galleries.” In this section you will find building profiles and graffiti, archived and broken down by building. Enjoy and be careful exploring.

Raves...even the simplest of four letter words can conjure up memories and nostalgia from Detroit parties, stretching back all the way to the early 1980s. Parties of such importance, they are now legendary across the world and back. Detroit Techno has been our biggest export to the world over the last 25 years. A genre of music that has changed the face of this city forever. From the infected throbing masses that swarm Hart Plaza dancing every year at the annual Detroit Electronic Music Festival, to the back alley bars and after-hours that keep us bouncing into the early morning, Techno is king in Detroit.

Paying homage to a day when the future of Detroit was as mysterious and new as the sounds created, mixed, and blended by Juan Atkins years ago. Rave parties are the ultimate manifestation of this futuristic electronic movement as it grew and expanded overseas and back. Starting as social soirees in the early eighties between west side high school kids and east side party crews, the scene quickly escalated into a united Detroit dance music scene and eventually evolved into it's own culture. Taking notes and queues from the Detroit pioneers, London and Manchester scenes overseas morphed the idea of this social event into a full-scale interactive dance music experience.

This section of onlyndetroit.com is our way to pay homage to the pioneers of the Detroit Techno pioneers and the events that shaped the worldwide scene as we know it today. This page will contain and display rave flyers from the 1990’s. That period of the music was by far the golden years of flyer design. To help us archive and share these artifacts of Detroit rave culture, feel free to send us high-resolution scans and pictures from any parties posted or not yet posted. We need and appreciate your help, please enjoy the memories.

Detroit <3's Techno

The over flowing bursts of steam that billow out of manholes throughout the landscape of Detroit are the result of an almost ancient urban infrastructure. It once was used to supply steam generated heating to the Victorian era homes here. Wayne State, and many of the downtown high-rises used to belong to Detroit’s steam loop. Today, big oil and global energy corporations have phased out the need for steam heat. The city still continues to produce the steam for residents to heat their homes and as a power alternative for industrial manufacturing.

In Detroit, the pressure is building, and unlike the sewers that line our streets, this pressure is not going to vent itself. This section of onlyndetroit.com is dedicated to the issues that are facing the turnaround effort in Detroit. We want to provide a semi-in-depth look into these problems with an overview that helps address the issues clearly. We have lived and experienced what it means to truly be Detroit, and live Detroit. Like anyone who calls this city home, we know intimately the struggles of every day life. We are not concerned with the problems of any one particular class or race. We are concerned with issues that relate to us all, problem we can all identify with, and see a common element that makes all of us Detroiters.

Parts of Detroit… dead, gone, demolished and forgotten. The buildings that made old Detroit what it was are now just memories and stories. A picture here and there, but still only memories. The footprints of these giant structures that made up Detroit’s colorful and sorted past are scatted throughout the city as parking lots and newer more modern buildings. The era of gothic architecture is over; never will buildings of this caliber be built again. The ones that survive will lay testament to a way of life long forgotten and distant in almost every aspect. From the way streets used to be lined with vintage marquees, or the trolleys that no longer run, to the buildings that lie silent in disrepair, we are going to revive the dead. Here in the "Rest In Pieces" section, you will find descriptions and pictures of the buildings that made up Detroit’s grand and historical past. If you can help us by providing original pictures, artifacts or stories of explorations from these forgotten treasures, we ask that you donate these items for documentation. Sharing this with others will help people understand Detroit, where we come from, and where to go from here. Please click the link below for contact information.