Walking Detroit

Spent a sunny Saturday prowling around downtown Motor City with the Detroit history and heritage group Preservation Wayne.

Once the richest city in the world, per capita, it's now a deserted place full of empty 1920s skyscrapers...

... abandoned city lots, and piss-stinking shelters

surrounded by a doughnut of freeways, shopping malls and suburbia.

So many exquisite buildings, once proud, now stand abandoned and falling to pieces.

It's not a ghost town: some are still in use, restored and treasured.

Like the Guardian building, an exuberant Art Deco gem from the Roaring Twenties.

... with vibrant aztec motifs and glittering ceramics atop its towers.

At the river you look south (yes, south!) to Canada, and this memorial to the 'underground railroad' - on the site where fugitive slaves on the run crossed the border to safety and freedom. Interesting aside: The bridge to Canada, pictured in the background, is privately-owned. And yes, it's a toll bridge.

Michigan dish? Well, there was a café open, and they did a pretty mean sweet cheese danish (shame about the coffee).