This week, as Washington has tried to decide whether to rescue the automobile industry, Americans have wondered what it looks like when a giant automobile company goes under. The answer can be found in Detroit.
In the summer of 1956, the once-mighty Packard Motor Car Company closed its doors. Its headquarters and chief production complex still stand here, though, and their slowly decaying remains serve as a symbol for the fall of American manufacturing in general and the degradation of the auto industry in particular. The Packard plant sits on East Grand Boulevard on Detroit’s east side. It is immense: 3.5 million square feet of space in 47 connected buildings. The campus stretches for almost a mile north to south.
Since Packard’s departure, there have been attempts to use the plant as an industrial mall, and at times dozens of small and medium-sized businesses operated within its walls. Today there is only one small firm remaining, a chemical processing concern. The City of Detroit and a private company have been fighting a long legal battle for ownership of the complex.
So the property is virtually abandoned, and much of it has been empty for years. Almost all the windows in the four- and five-story buildings — thousands of them — are broken. The bricks and masonry are crumbling, and two large enclosed bridges that soar over streets are falling apart. Part of one of the large passageways recently collapsed onto Bellevue Avenue, and still sits there, blocking the street.
Some floors have caved in because metal scrappers have cut out the I-beams. Vast rooms are filled with trash, from old shoes to unwanted pleasure boats.
Nature has reasserted itself: Trees grow on the roof and moss has spread inside. Chalky stalactites hang from ceilings, apparently the result of rain coursing through the walls.
Water from broken pipes collects into small lakes, freezes during the Michigan winters, then breaks up in spring and runs out of the plant onto neighboring streets. The plant is home to wild dogs, feral cats, homeless people. Arson is a regular event.
In its day, when Detroit was the Silicon Valley of the early 20th century, the Packard complex was a center for innovation. In 1905, the architect Albert Kahn designed Building No. 10 with reinforced steel concrete, creating an airy, spacious workspace. Such construction revolutionized the building of factories around the world.
The demise of Packard took place as the city’s industrial base was beginning to unravel. Other notable firms that folded or merged in that era included the Hudson Motor Car Company, Murray Body, Motor Products and Detroit Stove Works. By the end of the 1950s, unemployment had soared, white flight was under way and Detroit’s downward spiral had begun.
Misery has rarely been mentioned as a reason to pass an auto industry bailout. But walk through the Packard plant on a December day and you will know that once a car company disappears, in southeast Michigan at least, nothing comes along to take its place.
Bill McGraw, a columnist for The Detroit Free Press.