We recently came across a great article from the Huffington Post about the Belle Isle Zoo before it was closed in 2013 and also after it’s closure. Being native Detroiters, we had no idea of it’s prior glory. We hope you enjoyed the post and pictures as much as we do.
In the middle of the Detroit River lies Belle Isle, a sprawling park designed by the same landscape architect responsible for New York’s Central Park, Frederick Olmsted. Though there are parts in need of maintenance and upkeep, it’s still a Detroit treasure trove, with nature paths, an aquarium, beaches, sports fields, a giant slide, a conservatory, amazing views of two countries and the Belle Isle Nature Zoo.
The Nature Zoo is less than a decade old, and another attraction once drew families to the island: the first Detroit Zoo opened in 1895.
Now most island visitors would never know it was there.
“Every building and every enclosure chokes with overgrown plants in the summer,” wrote Sweet Juniper blogger Jim Griffioen. “Dead trees have fallen to crush the boardwalk in places. The buildings are mostly intact, filled with snake and spider exhibits, educational displays.”
But in its early years, the zoo was a destination:
Now, this is what remains of the Belle Isle Zoo:
But off the screen, the zoo is now a quiet place.
“It was strange to stand inside the enclosures and look up to where countless people would have watched whatever animal dwelt there,” Griffioen wrote in his meditation on the abandoned zoo. “Even stranger were the plants growing inside each enclosure, non-native species probably chosen carefully long ago to resemble the flora of wherever the animal was from but not to tempt them into nibbling. Even a simulacrum of wildness, abandoned, will become truly wild given enough time.”
There are no plans to reopen the zoo.
Original post can be found here