AMC Headquarters
Detroit is known for some abandoned buildings that had to have been quite remarkable in their heyday. One day after work I figured I’d stop by the old AMC headquarters. Well, that’s what it was called near the end of it’s life, but it started out as the headquarters and manufacturing plant for a refrigerator company called Kelvinator in 1927. That company joined with Nash and began manufacturing automobiles (the Nash Rambler) in the three story manufacturing plant in 1937.
After serving the Arsenal of Democracy during World War II many of the smaller automakers who didn’t regain their market-share and were forced to make business decisions, so Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson Motors merged and became AMC or American Motor Company. They manufactured such notable cars as the Pacer and the Gremlin.
Along came Chrysler in 1987 and the facility was turned into an engineering facility for Jeeps and trucks. It was used as recently as 1996 when Chrysler consolidated all of their headquarter operations in their new facility in Auburn Hills.
The property was sold in 2009 as part of Chrysler’s bankruptcy and has been abandoned to scrappers ever since.
I drove to the rear of the building and found nothing to prevent me from exploring other than my common sense and experience.
The debris is pretty extensive, as you can see. The courtyards are overgrown and the water runoff has frozen. I have to admit I was very cautious and listened for any activity before stepping inside the building. There were no footprints in the snow so I figured I would be alone if I didn’t go very far in. All of those photos are less than 10 feet from the loading dock. There’s no way I was going to climb any stairs. I don’t think I’d even visit in the summer.
Time to go. There are a lot of abandoned properties in and around Detroit that attract photographers from around the country. It’s very sad to see the depths to which some of Detroit’s landmarks have fallen. And in a very short time. 10 years of scrapping really takes a toll. I would have liked to see what this place looked like in the 1930s when it was new.
~ Freddy
