Don't Miss Porch Fest in Flint's Carriage Town Neighborhood

 

Flint Photos: The Doors of the Vehicle City

Flint Icons: The Durant-Dort Office Building

The news that General Motors had pledged to financially support the historic Durant-Dort Office Building on Water Street, which is owned by the Genesee County Historical Society, was a reminder of how close Flint came to losing this Vehicle City icon.

Like much of Carriage Town, the building where Billy Durant and J. Dallas Dort created G.M. and helped transform America had seen better days before it was restored as part of the ill-fated push to transform Flint into a tourist destination, proving that even bad ideas like AutoWorld can yield something positive for a community.

A brief history of the building on Wikipedia reads:

In 1895–96, the company built this building near their factories to house offices and, on the second floor, a carriage showroom. A contemporaneous account describes it as "an elegant office in connection with [the] main factory, where a small army of clerks, stenographers and typewriters are engaged in the clerical part of the company's business. The office building was originally built as a two-story Italianate structure with a flat roof. Around 1900, the flat roof was replaced with a hipped roof, and an entrance portico was added, giving the structure a Georgian appearance. In 1906, a fire damaged the roof, and rather than repairing it, the company added an extra story and capped the building with a flat roof; the portico was also removed at the time. The building remained in this configuration until the 1980s.

Durant left the Durant-Dort Carriage Company in 1913, and J. Dallas Dort used the office building and nearby factory for the production of automobiles by his Dort Motor Company. The building was used by Dort until 1924, after which it provided office space for various service organizations such as the Red Cross and the local Chamber of Commerce. In 1947, the Arrowhead Veteran's Club obtained the building for use as its headquarters. The club owned the building until 1977, when the city of Flint purchased the building with the help of an anonymous $55,000 donation. The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978. Using the designation and the deteriorating condition of the building as an impetus, the Genesee County Historical Society undertook the task of restoring the building. Funds were raised, and the building was restored to its early 1900s condition, replacing the hipped roof and portico that had been in place at that time. The restoration was completed by 1986.

I can't help wishing many other buildings could have had the same luck. A restored Sill Building, with its slender profile, would be a nice addition to the UM-Flint campus if it hadn't been demolished. The houses on Manning Court would be a greater asset to the city than the parking lot that replaced them.

But rather than dwell on the historic structures the city has lost, let's be thankful for the one that didn't get away. Here's a selection of photos of the Durant-Dort Office Building over the years. For more photos and information, Gerry Godin's personal take on the building at his All Things Buick blog is a must. And the Durant-Dort Carriage Company Facebook page is another worthwhile source.

The original two-story exterior in 1898.

 

By 1901, a third story had been added to the building.
 

Despite the external decay, much of the ornate interior details were still intact in 1975 when Flint was beginning its downward slide.

Workers reconstruct the third floor in 1982 with the doomed Hyatt-Regency in the background.
 

The finished product.

Flint Photos: Carriage Town Fire, Summer 2010

Photographer Lori Dellinger writes: "The photo was taken on August 18, 2010. This was the year that it felt like the whole city would burn down. Some friends and I were at The Torch when word came that there was a vacant house burning in Carriage Town. A friend said this had been a gorgeous home at one time with so much potential if it was in the right hands. For me, the photo symbolized the hopelessness that many people were feeling as we watched our city burn."

The Urban Alternatives House Lives On

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The new Urban Alternatives House on Eddy Street in Flint.

The saga of the Urban Alternatives House continues, but this time there's some good news. If you remember, the project originally involved restoring an abandoned house at 519 Garland Street in Carriage Town with funding from the Genesee County Land Bank, federal neighborhood stabilization grants, and UM-Flint.

The goal was to create classroom space for university students, the community and visiting school children, according to the project website. The house would maximize energy efficiency and introduce sustainable, innovative ways to manage energy and water use. In the lot adjacent to the house a vegetable garden would be planted to encourage more active and healthy living and provide a demonstration site for urban agriculture.

The original home of the Urban Alternatives House (left) and the partially restored Jackson Hardy House (right) on Garland Street in Carriage Town.

"Special programs geared for K-12 students will be presented at the UAH," said UM-Flint Associate Professor Richard Hill-Rowley. "The focus of these programs will be on the science aspects of energy use and conservation. A premise behind these programs is the need to introduce ideas about climate change to these students and use the site to explore ideas of sustainability, walkable communities, and locally grown food."

The house at 519 Garland Street around 1900.

But the arson spree that swept through Flint in 2010 undid all the hard work that had gone into the project when both the UAH and the Jackson Hardy House were destroyed by fire.

This empty block was home to the planned Urban Alternatives House and the Jackson Hardy House. The empty lot next to the brick house in the background to the right is the former site of Third Avenue Fish and Chips.

Now, Professor Hill-Rowley has a new location and additional funding for the Urban Alternatives House on Eddy Street, near the old Central High School. “We sort of regrouped for a while and we had a lot of community support and I was anxious to see if we could still continue with the idea,” he said. “And this house was available through the (Genesee County) Land Bank and so it’s a different place. It’s a little further away from campus, but not that much.

“It’s a house that would do what we needed to do.”

Shaun Byron of mlive reports:

The objective of the program is to teach sustainable and green living, support environmentally friendly renovations for Genesee County Land Bank Properties and promote neighborhood stability. 

The total development cost is $429,840. Two-thirds of the funding for the project comes from the land bank, with another third coming from the university via foundations. 

“The house is still owned by the land bank and we are leasing the space. Because it’s federal funding, they have rules about the way they can lease the house,” Hill-Rowley said.

Flint Photos: Travels to Vehicle City 2

My first batch of random travel photos from three years of research and reporting trips to Flint got mixed reviews. One viewer called them "odd and grotesque," while another complained that they were "ruin porn" that failed to capture some of the positive aspects of my hometown. So our team of highly paid photo archivists at Flint Expatriates went to work and came up with another batch of photos that won't ruin your weekend. (There's a bonus nostalgia shot of three Flintoids at their 8th grade graduation from St. Mary's in 1980.) It's a reminder that, despite all its problems, Flint is still a friendly, welcoming place filled with people who haven't given up.

Flint Photos: Travels to Vehicle City

Over the past three years I've traveled to Flint numerous times and taken a lot of photos while I was writing about the city. Here's a small sample, in no particular order. Some of these have appeared on Flint Expatriates in the past, some are new.