Pontiac Silverdome

The Pontiac Silverdome was an inflatable religious structure erected in 1975 by the citizens of Detroit to commemorate their mediocre football team, their perpetual poverty, and their nasty pizza. It was a faithful representation of Detroit, no matter how you slice it. It cost $307 million (in today's shekels) to make, which, at the time, seemed like a huge feat to the citizens of Detroit. Things went well for a while... until the fire nati- Transformers arrived.
== Early Days ==
Things actually went pretty well. Things were clean (for stadiums, at least), they had actual vendors, no seats were missing and people actually want to have events there. From Led Zeppelin, WrestleMania, and the Catholic Church, they had no shortage of popular entertainers. The only actual bad thing to happen was a catastrophic roof deflation in 1985, but they amended that for 28 years. However, this would all change one fateful day...
== Decay ==
Around the same time the economy and Detroit went to shit, the Lions (their most notable team besides their basketball, soccer, two college teams, and their ultimate Frisbee league) went up and left for Ford Field, which probably netted the team actual money for a change. Now that they had no good teams left to actually play in the Silverdome, Detroit leaders were worried that without the money, the Indian graveyard would be discovered under the field; but they were optimistic that things would turn around.
So what do you think happened?
== The half-life ends ==
The Silverdome was now aimless. With the Lions gone, people had no reason to come besides start work on early vandalism, and with lower visitation and the place starting to look like shit, no one wanted to have any events there. Needless to say, revenue became negative as the Silverdome was losing money faster than it was losing air. But there was a glimmer of "hope" when the World Hockey Association tried (and I mean tried) to reintroduce themselves into countries that were not Canada. Also needless to say, the desperate Detroit commissioners accepted the WHA's offer for a Detroit team just to gain a semblance of profit back.
=== "God has left the chat" ===
One thing the Silverdome had going for it was the annual Jehovah's Witnesses meeting. Yes. That was their last hope of revival. This was good for JWs and Detroit, as they had something barely keeping one of their most expensive endeavors afloat before Bush tanked the economy. This all ended when Detroit decided to do some renovations to remove that Crip and Blood graffiti shit from the side, the Jehovah's Witnesses finally witnessed how bad the Silverdome was, and they left for better, much more maintained convention centers in an Indian reservation, and Toledo, a white reservation.
== The Final Days ==
When the economy started to tank, the Silverdome started to host events that nobody cared about. It was truly a sad time, as the namesakes of the Pontiac Silverdome were all fading away. GM eventually dismantled Pontiac after bankruptcy, which also affected thousands of Detroit residents who were employed at GM, and the Silverdome wasn't a religious structure anymore. It was a burden, a paperweight, and a heavily vandalized structure. But with a bad economy, and no profit from the stadium, Detroit had to keep it that way, and little by little events became fewer and fewer.
Eventually, they closed down and every African-American strapped their spraypaint to their belts faster than you can say increased welfare and free food stamps!
== Deflation ==
In 2010, a man who had brought the Silverdome back in 2008 came out all of a sudden a promised a revival of the stadium and expected people to believe him, even after he did literally nothing with it for years besides pay utility. Needless to say, this didn't exactly work.
Now don't get me wrong. Things were kind of looking up for a time. The had a boxing match televised on HBO, frequent monster truck rallies, and a drive-in movie theater. It wasn't a lot (not enough to stop people from vandalizing the property, though), but it was a potential start to a great revival.
=== Actual deflation ===
This period of hope came to an end in 2013 when, after 28 years, the roof collapsed for the second time. It was inevitable seeing as nobody thought to do anything about the small hole next to the concessions stand leaking air for nearly three decades, but this was the final straw. Everything would truly fall from here.
== The life ends ==
The original owner realized that buying the Silverdome was a bad idea and liquidated everything to the dozen people who showed up, not including the vandals writing more Crip and Blood messages on the stadium walls. Some things never change.
=== The Destruction Begins ===
In 2017, Detroit decided that they had enough of this crap, and being in a slightly better state than the Recession and 1985, demolished what was left of the Silverdome; but not before Paramount paid them off to film CP film with Michael Bay; although like most of those producers, they don't see it that way.
== The Lesson ==
I guess the lesson here is that you shouldn't worship your city, because it will truly show the world just how bad it is. Unless you're Dallas. We're the best.
category:Architecture
category:Wonders of the World