How an Abandoned Zoo Made it to the Silver Screen

- A desolate, dystopian looking Silverdome in Pontiac, MI as seen in the trailer for "Real Steel."

On October 7, "Real Steel" will hit theaters. Set in the "near future," the film stars that guy who played "Wolverine" in X-Men as a former boxer who now plays major league Rock'em Sock'em Robots in Detroit. That's what I gathered from the trailer and Wikipedia anyways. Here's a more accurate synopsis:

"Robots have replaced humans in boxing. Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) loses a chance to become a boxing champion when robots take over, and he becomes a small-time promoter. When he has difficulty making a living, he reluctantly teams up with his son Max (Dakota Goyo) to build a robot that can contend for the championship."

- The Detroit People Mover at least gets some new trains in the "near future."

If you ask me (and let's be honest, you didn't, but you're reading this anyways), the premise of the movie sounds awful and the trailer makes it seem every bit as cliche, dull and predictable as the plot description does. I couldn't have cared less, until I caught a glimpse of the trailer the other night while watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Filmed on location in Detroit, Michigan, the film features many Motor City landmarks including one that not many people know about or get to see these days. Check out the trailer here.

- Detroit's Cobo Arena as seen in the trailer for "Real Steel." The place where Nancy Kerrigan got attacked is now a robot fight club.

The trailer screams Detroit. From views of the Silverdome (where 93,000 people once watched Hulk Hogan defeat Andre the Giant) to that of the Renaissance Center and the People Mover to the Eminem track that plays as the background music. In it, there's a place that many viewers will see, but few will recognize - The abandoned Belle Island Children's Zoo aka Safariland.

You get your first glimpse of it when you see "Wolverine," his kid and their robot walking out to a fight:

They then apparently meet this guy who starts the matches by ringing the bell and wishing he wasn't 26 years too late to audition for Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome:

Two robots square off. Remember, the premise of this movie is that no one cares anymore about human boxing. It's all about robot boxing. Yes, robots. Yes, this is a real movie:

Wolverine and his kid watch as their robot fights another robot. Lots of people watch from the catwalks and under the thatched roof of a nearby building:

A wide shot gives a better view of the whole scene and when I saw that brief glimpse, I knew what the place was:

I had been there two years ago - The Belle Isle Children's Zoo.

Belle Isle is a 982 acre park in the Detroit River just across from downtown. The Detroit Zoo opened there in 1910, but moved to a bigger location in 1956 (the same year that Richard Matheson wrote a short story called "steel," which "Real Steel" is based off of). The Belle Isle location was left as a small Children's Zoo and in 1980 was renovated and re-branded as "Safariland," which is when it received the thatched roofs and catwalk structures seen above. By 2002, financial difficulties forced the zoo's closure. In 2004 a local bond issue was passed to fund its reopening. Instead, then-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick used the money to build a new zoo literally right next door. His good friend got the contract, the new zoo only displays deer. Kilpatrick eventually resigned before becoming a convicted felon for a number of scandals and the Belle Isle Zoo remained abandoned.

Above: Robots fight in the trailer for "Real Steel"
Below: The same area seen a few years earlier.

Back in 2009, some friends and I made a trip to Detroit. Seicer, Dr. Venkman and myself met up with our pal Al Duce, who runs DetroitUrbex.com; a guide to Detroit's abandoned ruins. The zoo was the last place we visited on our two day tour of the abandoned Motor City. Belle Isle is a beautiful park. Despite the abandoned zoo, aquarium, golf course and yacht club, the park is crowded with people on summer days (Belle Isle at night is another subject though). The day we arrived, the park was packed wtih picnics and people walking the beach. We hiked through the moquito filled woods and heat to find our way into the zoo, which was a solitary and serene setting hidden from the view of the typical parkgoer by the trees.

Above: Wolverine and his kid walk to their robot fight under the Belle Isle catwalks.
Below: The Belle Isle catwalks as photographed in 2009.

The zoo is almost an island within the island itself. The faux Safari evoking structures echo the "Dharma Initiative" from the television show "Lost." My fear of snakes that hot summer day didn't bother me too much as the mosquitos kept me moving too fast to look down for any serpent threats. You can't hear the nearby sounds of downtown Detroit, or the people in the park for that matter. The zoo is a different world.

We walked past the collapsed gates that once held barbed wire high above the animal paddocks and walked out into overgown fields that resembled the African Sahara.

We climbed up onto the catwalks that once allowed visitors to overlook the roaming animals and that would one day hold some extras in a movie who would watch "the dude who played Wolverine" battle with some CGI robots.

In the center of the zoo is the largest structure. It holds numerous areas for sitting and relaxing as well as restrooms and a visitor center. In "Real Steel," this is the building that serves as the backdrop for the abandoned zoo robot fight. When we were there in 2009, the visitor center still had power. The air conditioning was on full blast and the lights still worked despite the place having been vandalized to hell.

- The visitor center.

The place seemed more fitting a setting for "Jurassic Park" than some movie about fighting robots. The animals and visitors were gone, the quiet of the zoo was interupted only by the sounds of the wooden catwalk creaking beneath our footsteps and the shutters of our cameras.

- The remains of one of the animal paddocks.

When it came time to leave, we opted out of the mosquito infested backwoods and chose to exit just as the zoo's guests had at one point: literally through the exit. We cut through some brush and under one of the thatched buildings, pushing our way through the rusted turnstyles and out back onto Belle Isle.

- The exit.

DreamWorks spent $80 Million to make a film based on Richard Matheson's short story and already has plans for a sequel. The movie comes out a week from today. It looks awful. I won't lie though, I'll probably go see it just to see the scenes filmed at the zoo.

As for the future of the abandoned Belle Isle Children's Zoo: its only visitors these days are curious photographers and the occasional hollywood film crew. Slowly, the wooden structures are rotting and the overgrowth of nature is taking back the zoo in the name of Belle Isle. The memories of past visitors, both zoo guests and trespassers, are what the zoo itself has become - a memory of different times in Detroit.

- Detroit as viewed from the shore of Belle Isle.

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Previous Update :: September 23, 2011 - "Jumping the Shark"

Jumping the Shark.

"Losing sight of a pasttime
The years fly right by with the drinks"

- Van Buren Street Station 10:45 A.M.

I'd been to Chicago four times previously. The first time on a family trip. Then it was with my 8th grade class. Some years later I got there, made it to the hotel, started drinking and stumbled onto the train to go listen to The Lawrence Arms play songs like the one quoted above and for which this post is named after. The fourth time: - an impulse with little money and a desire to take a vacation.

This most recent time, it was to see baseball and spend time with my dad, uncle and cousin. When you're on a vacation with family it makes it harder to see the things you want to see, to break away and go exploring. Not that I don't enjoy spending time with my family, I did and I love them dearly, but it's hard to make the photographs you want when you're stuck at all the usual tourist spots - just another human amongst the other DSLR wielding yuppies with their generic camera straps crowding in front of the Cloud Gate.

I knew I'd come back to Cincinnati, edit the photographs and post them on my website. They're pictures of Chicago and they're details of my trip. I don't want to make it seem as if this website has become a place to showcase my vacation photographs and tell the same story that a thousand other tourists are telling their friends - "Jumping the Shark" so to speak. The hobby of photography and writing becoming nothing more than a teenage girl's "Mertle Beach 2006" album on facebook if you catch my drift. I don't want to be a tourist. I don't want to view Chicago as some foreign entity. It's not Calcutta, it's not Paris and it's not a world away. It's an American city, I like to think I understand the city and how I want to photograph and portray it, that I can see past the "magnificent mile" and souveneir shops. I want to think that my photographs are somehow unique amongst the endless sea of the usual generic tourist captures and that this website and the content it offers hasn't "jumped the shark" into typical internet photographic mediocrity as if I'm "losing sight of a pasttime."

- Pantograph atop a train at the Van Buren Station.

- The Jay Pritzger Pavillion

We came in on a Friday afternoon and unloaded our bags at a hotel whose interior looked like that of the one from Ghostbusters. The first stop was to get something to eat. A Chicago Style Hot Dog made for a wonderful dinner and a nice change of pace from the small coneys offered by Skyline Chili back home.

We had planned to go to the Chicago Fire game that night. In the past, I've done nothing but rag on Major League Soccer. That opinion changed though when I went to a Columbus Crew game earlier this year. That night, The Fire reinforced to me why I was wrong about soccer.

Some rules of the sport certainly could change in order to make the game more interesting, but the rowdy fans setting off smoke bombs and chanting the entire match make it totally worth it.

- Fans in "Section 8" set off smoke bombs after the Fire score a goal.

On the way back to the hotel we passed a 7/11. I always forget that those exist. Coming from a city dominated by United Dairy Farmers and Circle K, the 7/11 exists only in your mind as a place on television. In desperate need of the nourishment provided by Liption's Raspberry Iced Tea, I convinced my dad to follow me in my first visit to a 7/11. The stereotypically Indian clerk at the counter glared at me as I photographed the interior of the majestic, never before experienced convenience store.

- The first 7/11 I ever stepped foot in.

The next day we had plans for a double header: Cubs @ Wrigley and White Sox @ New Comiskey (U.S. Cellular Field).

- A non-traditional way of making a non-traditional postcard.

- Roosevelt University building.

We hopped on the Red Line headed for Addison.

- Red Line warnings.

- Red Line Escalator Signs.

I was breaking a promise to myself. In multiple tirades of (usually alcohol induced) Redlegs pride, I had vowed to never step foot in Wrigley Field. I had encountered enough rude and snobby Cubs fans in my life to never care to visit the "friendly confines." As a baseball fan though, I was told it was something I had to do.

- Wrigley Field.

We went to a sports bar called "Sluggers," where we sampled Old Style beer and took in a painting of Mike Ditka on the wall.

- A can of Old Style, the Hudepohl of Chicago.

- "Sluggers."

- A portrait of the mighty Mike Ditka.

From vendors on the crowded street my cousin bought a "Pujols mows my lawn" t-shirt while I bought a Cubs t-shirt cleverly disguised as a Pabst Blue Ribbon logo. We entered into the crowded stadium and took our seats. The Cubs were playing the Cardinals - it was kind of like watching the Germans fight the Russians during World War II, you don't really like either side.

- Wrigley Concourse.

Wrigley was worth seeing though and I'm glad I experienced it. It's certainly the "thing" that gets people to go to Cubs games. It's a scene, it's a sight to see - the activity on the field sure as hell isn't nor has it been in a long time.

The bathrooms had been re-modeled and weren't that bad. The stadium has character, I'll give it that, but it almost seems like more of a "scene" than a baseball game. People crowd the upper deck patios in their pink Cubs shirts where the game can't even be viewed and you can check in on Facebook that YOU were there.

- Wrigley concessions.

The majority of the game was boring. I realize the scoreboard is traditional, but seriously some modern upgrades wouldn't kill the Cubs organization. 90% of the scoreboard is wasted on out-of-town scores that just have "Nite (not spelled right) Game" written across them.

- The "skyyline" of Chicago as viewed from Wrigley.

The game was pretty uneventful except for the roar of the USAF Thunderbirds who flew overhead for the air show up by the lake. The Cubs eeked it out though and the crowd sang some goofy "fight" song to the chagrin of the departing Cardinals fans. I've met some nasty Cub fans in my life, but the folks from St. Louis aren't really doing themselves any favors. No matter how nasty things get between Cubs and Reds fans - we will always have a mutual hatred for the Red Birds.

- Red Line trains crossing paths.

We fought our way to the top of the Adisson station platform, like we were queing for a ride at an amusement park. It didn't help that it was rush hour. Eventually we made our way onto the train and rode it to the next baseball game - Rangers at White Sox.

- Bikes at the 35th St. Station.

New Comiskey Park (truthfully known as U.S. Cellular Field), is a different world from Wrigley. It's a newer facility, built in the early 90's and renovated in the early 2000's. A game there isn't a "scene" or an "event," and truthfully it's not much different than attending a game at Great American Ballpark. I prefer it to Wrigley though. Not just because I'm a Reds fan with a bias against the Cubs, but because I could actually sit comfortably and read stats on the scoreboard - a scoreboard that is the greatest in baseball.

- New Comiskey.

- Chicago as seen through the grating of Comiskey's upper deck.

- The greatest scoreboard in all of baseball.

The multi-colored "spinning" lights atop the New Comiskey scoreboard are a retro throwback to the ones that were atop the original Comiskey scoreboard. Looking through my dad's baseball books as a kid, I thought they were the coolest thing and still hold true to that belief today.

- Downtown Chicago as seen from Comiskey.

The White Sox were not as lucky as the Natioal League team to the North, Josh Hamilton and the Rangers shut them down. We boarded the Red Line again and headed back to our downtown hotel. The rest of my family decided to get some rest. I went back to the 7/11 to experience it again and took the camera with me. I had to do some exploring, I had to get away for a bit and see the city.

- Hotel elevator.

I love the John Hancock Building so naturally it was the first place I went. On all the trips I've taken to Chicago as an adult, I've woud up at the Chicago Ave. Red Line station. I got off there, walking past the MacDonalds I had been recovering from a hangover at two years prior. I stood outside the Hancock Building, pointed the camera up and started shooting photos. Despite being accused of photographing people who were coming out of the buildig by a drunken girl and her boyfriend, my hapiness of standing at the base of that buildig couldn't be crushed. I simply said "don't flatter yourself" to the pair who thought I had photographed them and remembered the iconic structure and how it appeared on the intro to Family Matters.

- Hancock Tower.

- The Chicago MacDonalds I always end up at.

Riding the train back, I walked over to Grant Park before going back to the hotel. I took some shots of the Van Buren Station while a homeless man slept on the bench next to me.

- Van Buren Station 1:37 A.M.

We left the next morning as the rain started to fall.

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Previous Update :: September 7, 2011 - "Let's Play the Streetcar Word Association Game."