Yesterday Cousin Dee & I went on our weekly photo expedition in and around Detroit. Usually our outing is structured but yesterday was pretty loose & for the part neither one of us were satisfied with what we captured when we recapped at the end of the day.

It was kind of fucked up because we usually have at least one money shot between the 2 of us but for the 1st time we were both losers.

Well my feelings on the money shot changed when I got home & loaded up my images to get a good look at what I had captured. So after combing through about 200+ pictures I found my money shot(s).

When I was driving down Alfred I saw a dilapidated structure & thought nothing of it until I got closer & saw a tree growing inside of it through missing windows. So I hit the brakes, jumped out the car grabbed my gear & got busy.

This structure seemed to be in the Twilight zone because just across the street from it is a home going though reconstruction & next to that was a brand new condominium complex. To the right of the building (an entire city block) stood nothing but overgrown grass, weeds, broken bottles and memories of what once was. To the left of the store on the other side of Beaubien sits the deeply depressed Brewster Projects.

This is the old Beaubien Party Store Located at the corner of Alfred Street & Beaubien (East Side Detroit). While I was taking my snapshots a toothless woman from the neighborhood approached me and said that she remembers when the whole street was lined with homes. She said that it was all row houses and in the 70’s the neighborhood took a turn for the worst when families and houses started to disappear.

She blames Mike Illitch (property pimp) for the ubiquitous blight in the area today.

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