Concern Detroit building full of windshields could collapse

By RON SAVAGE
MyFox Detroit Reporter

DETROIT (MyFox Detroit) -- A leaning second story and approximately 90 new car and truck windshields are teetering exposed to nothing but thin air.  The windshields are on wooden stacking racks where they were stored by a windshield repair business until they went out of business.

On Sunday morning, May 20, a young man in a Ford Fusion out of control turned the building into a drive-through.

"Ambulance, fire, police were all here, and the gentleman lived.  The city came out, the City of Detroit, and put these orange barrels up and scraped what they could off the sidewalk and left," said Lynn Keezer, who owns a nearby building.

The driver who drove through the brick building was rushed to Sinai-Grace, and the mess he left behind never went anywhere.

"It is not structurally sound at all.  There is a whole bunch of black glass and windshields up in there, and this thing's going to go," Keezer said.  "The safety issue is huge."

This is not on a quiet side street.  It is located on busy Grand River Avenue at Sorrento in northwest Detroit.

Keezer and her husband operate Continental Collision, an auto bump and paint shop next door.

"I have customers and employees come in here, and this building is going to fall."

We spoke with Mayor Bing's office.  They promised to check to see who owns the building.  Right now a traffic lane on Grand River in front of the building has been closed with orange barrels since the crash.  The sidewalk, too, has barrels, but people simply walk directly underneath the teetering second story full of windshields and the leaning broken brick wall.

The sign from the old business is also hanging over the sidewalk with only a few, stretched out cables attached.

"Rest assured, I don't think the city's going to do a dang thing about it.  I don't know what to do.  I don't know who to call anymore.  I just know that somebody's going to get really hurt really bad," said Keezer.