Rust Belt cities in America are always a bit depressing, but I also find them endlessly fascinating. I’ve never had a chance to walk around Toledo before.
Most of the old buildings in Toledo are stamped with the town’s golden age directly on the buildings: late 1800s, early 1900s. Many are boarded up, a lot of them in danger of collapsing on themselves. It’s unknown if Toledo will ever get a second act, but twenty-five years ago, if you had told me that Detroit would come back as hard as it has, I wouldn’t have believed you. All things are possible. It’s always my hope that somebody will have a vision, come in, and spend the money to bring these buildings back to what they once were. They are doing it in Detroit. They’re doing it in many of the other Rust Belt cities.
For me, I’m just a traveler, passing through. I just enjoy the time travel. When I walk around these old neighborhoods and I feel the affluence and success and promise they held 100 to 125 years ago, I can picture the well-dressed families playing croquet on the lawns. I can see the hard-working, blue-collar people who built this country coming home after a long day of work, dressed in workers’ clothes of a different era. I can hear the ancient music coming from the parlors and the street corners and the taverns. If you squint your eyes, you can take yourself back to that gilded era, for just a moment.
This present-day version of America, filled with vape shops and tweakers, digital addiction, no jobs, and very little hope, saddens me. The promise is there, we just need the vision and monetary investments in the community they were once given, over a century ago. Somewhere, somebody decided to take it all away. Somebody in a tower office decided these people weren’t worth it. That’s the reality.
I dig Toledo. It’s got a soul to it. I’m curious what I’ll see next time I come through town.
See many more photos at Deke’s original Facebook post!
