Monday, December 14, 2009

Flint Postcards: River and Factories





5 comments:

  1. Does anyone know where this was taken from? I have been looking at aerial maps and can not find the location.

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  2. My guess is that the shot was taken from either the Genesee Towers or the Mott Foundation Building. The bridge in the lower foreground is Stevens Street, which no longer exists northerly of First Avenue. The bridge upstream has to be 5th Avenue (Longway Boulevard).

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  3. I think I may have figured it out. I think the road crossing the river at the bottom of the shot is no longer there. If you extended campus drive across the river, it would be it (there are a series of electrical lines crossing there that probably used to run through the bridge). The other road crossing the river is 5th avenue. The road left of the river is James P Cole and the one further to the left is industrial. What does everyone think?

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  4. Gerry Godin of All Things Buick (http://buickcity.blogspot.com/) provided this info on the shot:

    This view of Buick seen in the distance was taken with a telephoto lens from the Mott Foundation building. This would have been taken before December of 1968 due to the fact that the old main office is still intact. You can also see the A.C. plant is still intact. That is the Fifth Avenue bridge crossing in the center. You can just see the roof structures of the Farmers Market off left center. The bridge in the foreground no longer exists. Perry Printing is gone now and U of M owns that property.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.