Flint Photos: City of Flint Lifeboat

Oh, the irony.

Flint in Cyberspace

The City of Flint has a revamped website, and the design community is less-than impressed.

The $525,000 question

Just for fun, let's say you're in the market for a new home and have $525,000 to spend. Now let's pretend you're looking to buy in either Flint or San Francisco, a choice that confronts many people every day.

What would half a million get you in those two locales?

In Flint, you get the former Burroughs mansion, which sits at 925 Avon Street on the bank of Gilkey Creek. "Stone pillars mark the entrance of this home with circular drive that leads to an elegant stone mansion of Norman design," according to the Piper Realty listing. It features leaded glass windows, walnut doors and a garage that looks like Robin Hood's clubhouse.

This two-story home is situated on 3.29 acres and boasts 9,600 sq. ft., six bedrooms, four full baths, two half baths, and four fireplaces. The living room alone is 932 sq. ft., but who's counting?



And in San Francisco, you discover 1214 48th Avenue, deep in the fog of the outer Sunset District, where the aforementioned sun makes only brief appearances for weeks at a time in the summer. It has two-bedrooms, one bath, and a garage. Total square footage: 850. Ominously, it is described as a "fixer upper" on the MLS, which in SF usually translates into at least $50,000 in repairs, if you're lucky.



There are your choices. Now make your selection. But keep in mind that houses in Flint tend to sell significantly under asking, if they sell at all, and houses in SF almost always go above asking.

UPDATE: Here's the available sales information on the Burroughs Mansion, via the City of Flint Parcel/Real Property Look Up page.

12/27/2001	$437,000.00	WARRANTY DEED CONVENTIONAL
12/29/2006	$475,000.00	WARRANTY DEED CONVENTIONAL

This invasion of privacy brought to you by...

Flint's only Portable Overt Digital Surveillance System (PODSS) is located near Cecil and Jewell Drives, but it's hoping to have some friends soon.

What's the best way for a Flint Expatriate to help the old hometown out? You could donate to a local charity. Or set up a scholarship so deserving kids could go to college.

Or, let's see, you could adopt a police surveillance camera.

The Associated Press reports: "The city and a private security firm, Asset Protection Specialist, are looking for businesses and individuals willing to pay $30,000 to have their names or corporate logos placed on one of the pole-mounted boxes, which also feature a police shield and a flashing blue light."

As of today, no one has jumped at this opportunity to make Flint a better place.

Thanks to Jim Holbel for passing this along.

City of Flint carferry

Just like Flint jobs, Flint boats eventually leave and head for the South.

The City of Flint (see the majestic, if a little wide bottomed, ferry in the photo above) made her last trip out of Ludington at 2:30 a.m. on December 24, 1969, pulled by 2 tugs. She was built in 1929 in Manitowoc, WI by the Manitowoc Ship Building Corporation at a cost of $1,250,00 and had 40 staterooms and 5 parlors. She was powered by two steam turbines driving two General Electric 2,300 volt, 118 r.p.m. motors for a total h.p. of 7,200.

She was sold to Norfolk and Western Railway Company to be converted into a river ferry barge and renamed Roanoke. (See ugly, rusted-out river barge in the photo below.)