Letters: Sad tours of Detroit

Re “The un-grand tour of Detroit,” Dec. 26

I grew up in Detroit in the 1940s and ‘50s, when it was a vibrant “motor city.” After I moved to California in the ‘60s I went back almost yearly to visit family and friends.

Gradually I began to see the decay in homes once beautiful, with more of them abandoned with broken windows and weeds. Sidewalks and streets were in disrepair.

I couldn’t believe that the city government was letting this happen. Detroit did not collapse overnight. It took many years of neglect and corruption. It became unable to restructure itself for the future when the “big three” auto companies stopped making Detroit rich.

On my most recent visit, I didn’t even venture into the city, which resembled a war zone.

Hopefully other big cities will look long and hard at Detroit, which ignored its smaller manageable problems until they grew so big that the city collapsed under their weight.

Jeanette A. Fratto

Laguna Niguel

I find The Times’ article about the tourism spawned by the decay of my hometown of Detroit smug and sycophantic.

I wonder if The Times would have the same nerve to run a story (with pictures) about those who curiously visit East L.A. and South L.A. to witness those districts’ ruin.

Ted Raimi

Toluca Lake

My father was pastor of the East Grand Boulevard Methodist Church from 1953-58, appointed to integrate the congregation. Race riots of the previous few years had hastened the exodus of Detroit’s white residents so that much of the church leadership and financial backers drove into the church from the suburbs.

When a black pastor was appointed to follow my white father, those supporters who had until that time remained faithful by driving long distances began to find churches closer to their homes.

I was fortunate to live in Detroit when it was a great city of mixed populations and when its school system was one of the best (even though the high schools were bursting with added population). My high school no longer exists, nor does the Brightmoor community where I lived nor the Taylor Methodist Church where my father served before East Grand.

My past is a vivid illustration of how much the world has changed since World War II.

Ruth Dixon Truman

Camarillo

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