Scrapping thieves have become alarmingly more daring and audacious as police have virtually ignored an organized scrapping operation that has sprung up at the abandoned Packard Plant in Detroit.
The city is preparing to seize the Packard Plant because of unpaid taxes that the owner refuses to pay. He maintains he owes no taxes because the city won’t provide basic services to protect his property from arsonists, vandals and thieves.
Crews spent the morning filming Arquette and actress Lily Cole, who donned an ornate, primitive headpiece and rode a wreath-wearing donkey.
Dispatchers were told to stop alerting the fire department of calls about the blaze Monday night because it was too difficult to access the plant’s north side, where several fires broke out, causing floors to cave in and walls to collapse.
To many, the sprawling Packard Plant is nothing more than a dangerous eyesore and an unsettling reminder of Detroit’s tragic decline. To others, it’s an urban playscape. A mammoth canvas. The Great Ruins of Detroit. But to the embattled city, the 40-acre plant is a stark reminder of how broke and powerless the cash-starved government has […]
In just one day last weekend, two men were brutally beaten, an explorer was attacked and his car stolen and a photographer was robbed by a gunman. Thieves have smashed so many car windows that the streets and parking lots bordering the 105-year-old plant are covered in blue-green bits of glass.
Two women in their 50s rummaged through the sprawling Packard Plant for scorched wood to use for an art project. They didn’t have to look far. As the pair sifted through the debris Wednesday, a fire quietly burned inside one of the factory’s buildings, sending smoke into the sky. Not far away, a trio of […]