American Ruins

There is a chronology to many of his photos, showing buildings in various stages, some not decomposing but being restored. It is the power of his vision that notes that these restorations are a bit too perfect.

He dives a bit deeper into his subjects. This book, to me, has more of his person involved and is less objective than his prior work (which is also outstanding). It is not as sociologically in depth (i.e. does not spend as much time detailing the buildings, its occupants and/or its history) but gives more personal narrative and insight.

Its a unique perspective and an amazing collection of photographs of buildings and landmarks that once were, no longer are or will soon cease to be.

However, Vergara is not an urban planner or a civic leader (although Id like to see him try his hand at each). Vergaras skill is chronicling through pictures the wholesale abandonment of Americas great cities. In his introduction, the author realizes that in many cities with a shrunken tax base, it is simply too expensive to rehabilitate architecturally-significant structures, so landlords (usually with the citys blessing), juts demolish or abandon the property. For each renovated brownstone downtown, Im sure that the author can document a dozen abandoned rowhouses or factories on the "wrong side" of the town.

Call me insensitive, but I was most acutely drawn to Vergaras treatment of abandoned or near-abandoned buildings that were once important to America: the Firemens Insurance Building in downtown Newark and the Michigan Central RR terminal in Detroit (rather than his examination of the residents of the ghetto as was evidenced in "The New American Ghetto"). The photo of the modern people mover in Detroit gliding by boarded-up buildings says a lot about urban mismanagement and is hauntingly fully of despair. If the "can do" spirit of modern American technology cant save Detroit, what can?

What I found quite unique was that Vergara proposes leaving these buildings to rot, like was done in Rome and Greece. Visitors taken through these ruins would be told that an empty shell of a building once housed an insurance company, a vaudeville theater, or some wealthy merchant and his family. However, as a public employee who has to deal with these structures for a living, there are some health and safety issues that I feel the author seems to forget (abandoned buildings tend to attract junkies, rats and disease and worse, fall down on people after a while). Maybe he is strictly speaking as an artist, but his ideas are very intriguing.

Vergara is a great photographer who thrives in urban areas. Ive worked and/or visited many cities in this book, and what I like best about "American Ruins" is how he documents the death of the building over a five or ten-year period, mentioning what the building held in its heyday.

"American Ruins" is a great antidote to those who indiscriminately work to "improve" cities, either through gentrification or through ugly aesthetic improvements to historical buildings (brickface comes to mind). Its a depressing book, but it stirs the mind and challenges the soul.

As I mentioned, this book is a natural progression from his earlier book, "The New American Ghetto," and "American Ruins" complements his work as a photographer and social critic. Ive loved all of his stuff eagerly await more books by this guy every time they are released.

If you liked this book, you would also like "A Town Without Steel: Envisioning Homestead," by Judith Schachter Modell and Charlee Brodsky; "Homestead: The Glory and Tragedy of an American Steel Town," by William Serrin; and "The Destruction of Penn Station," by Peter and Barbara Moore. They all chronicle how this nation has abandoned its industrial cities for a less connected, less public, less community-minded, less responsible, less reliable and more uncertain future.