The Detroit Packard Plant 2022 - Exploring The Largest Abandoned Building in the USA

[Music] detroit is the largest city in the state of michigan and was once a world-class industrial powerhouse as well as the fourth largest city in the united states a title that held until the mid 20th century later in the 20th century industrial restructuring and trouble in the auto industry led to a dramatic decline in jobs and population detroit's population peaked in the 1950s at over 1.8 million people a number that declined rapidly in the years and decades following in 1910 henry ford revolutionized the automobile industry when he virtually created the assembly line at his highland park plant this innovation transformed mass production and created detroit's growth and industrialization as ford's rivals quickly adopted his manufacturing techniques the automobile industry flourished and essentially elevated detroit from a second-tier industrial city to a world-class city thus detroit earned its famous nickname the motor city the packard automotive plant was an automobile manufacturing plant located on 80 acres of land in the east side of detroit packard opened to much fanfare in 1903 and at the time was considered to be the most modern automobile manufacturing facility in the world join me as i take you on a tour of one of the largest abandoned properties in the entire world the packard automotive factory in may of 2022 i headed over the u.s border for the first time in 26 months to meet up with my friend fellow photographer explorer and detroit resident robert has lived in detroit his whole life and has an incredible body of work from the streets and abandoned buildings of detroit taken over several decades of work as a local photographer i asked robert if he would like to meet up and show me around as it's never a good idea to wander around detroit alone especially when carrying camera bags full of very expensive gear [Music] [Music] so the packard plant started out at 10 000 square feet gradually growing to 14 acres and then ultimately to 80 massive acres and several city blocks [Music] at its peak the packard complex employed forty thousand people including skilled craftsmen involved in over eighty trades the plant turned out packard automobiles until 1956 except for during world war ii when production was shifted to war materials the last packard car to roll out of the plant was in 1956 and the plant closed for good in 1958 [Music] [Music] between 1958 and 1990 the property was rebranded as the motor city industrial park housing several different companies or being used for storage but one by one tenants would vacate their space leading to the ultimate abandonment of this huge industrial building [Music] [Music] look at this guys these tunnels holy crap i had no idea there was tunnels here this is crazy holy crap whoa okay okay guys let's see how far these tunnels go holy crap so much garbage down here oh man look at that eh that's something my boy rob way up ahead there waiting for me [Music] so [Music] so [Music] yep [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] me [Music] in the 1990s the packard plant was a popular destination for underground raves as more and more tenants vacated the site its popularity as an urban exploration destination also grew [Music] while ravers and urban explorers enjoyed packard for their own reasons so did the vandals and the scrappers scrappers have removed every possible bit of valuable metal wiring window frames and other materials much of this scrapping and vandalism has led to the destruction and collapse of many of the packard buildings [Music] over the years many dead bodies have been discovered inside packard on christmas eve 2013 a group of urban explorers came across the frozen body of a young black man who had been murdered in october of 2013 the body of a wayne university student was found shot at the packard site also in 2013 a group of urban explorers were robbed and carjacked at the packard site the tourists were robbed of a 2004 pontiac vibe 143 dollars in cash their wallets cell phones and a canon camera in 2019 a group were playing hide and seek inside the packard plant when a 21 year old man had been running on the ninth floor and fell to his death down the elevator shaft [Music] over the years the packard site has been used for many tv shows movies and music videos in 2009 detroit rapper eminem used several detroit abandoned buildings to film the video for his song beautiful in the video eminem can be seen wandering and performing at the former tiger stadium michigan central station as well as several scenes inside packard in 2016 the film transformers filmed scenes inside the packard plant for one of the scenes two chicago transit authority trains were positioned as if they had careened off the rail lines and giant gears and machinery lie in pieces all around the set in 2015 a british photographer obtained permits for a two-day photo shoot inside the packard plant this photo shoot included a tiger a bobcat and two wolves but during the shoot the tiger got loose and hold himself up in a stairwell on the fourth floor the trainers were eventually able to capture the tiger and get him back in his cage but the project managers for the packard site quickly canceled the photo shoot and kicked them out as they were not made aware of any wild animals only that there would be models [Music] [Music] my experience at packard while short was very much enjoyable and long overdue never before have i seen such a vast site of post-apocalyptic ruins it would take someone a whole week to explore this entire facility and while i only scratched the surface my four hours inside were definitely well spent what the future holds for this site is still to be determined on march 31 2022 a wayne county judge ordered the peruvian owner of packard and his local company to clear the site within 90 days that's 90 days to raise what took decades to build followed by decades of suffering at the hands of scrappers graffiti artists ravers urban explorers apocalyptic movie crews and tour guides according to court documents the owner must have applied for the demo permits by april 21st 2022 and the demo work was to start by may 12th the court documents stated all necessary abatement shall be completed within 90 days of this order if the owner did not take appropriate action as directed by the courts the city of detroit was then authorized to engage qualified contractors to perform all demolition and other necessary actions to abate the nuisance all at the expense of the property owner both dates mentioned above came and went with no applications for permits and with no heavy equipment moved onto the site so on may 4th 2022 the city of detroit started accepting contractor bids to demolish the packard buildings and other than some new looking fencing around some of the buildings there was no sign that any demolition would be starting at any time soon [Music] yes

Channel: Freaktography

Views: 55,545

Keywords: packard, packard plant detroit, packard detroit 2022, packard plant demolition, packard plant detroit demolition, packard plant, packard plant documentary, abandoned detroit, detroit, freaktography, abandoned videos, abandoned places, abandoned, exploring, freaktography youtube, freaktography abandoned, The Largest Abandoned Building in the USA, largest abandoned place in america, world's largest abandoned places, biggest abandoned places in the world, Detroit Packard Plant 2022

Id: rusu4CWb5zE

Length: 17min 55sec (1075 seconds)

Published: Sun May 22 2022