Local Guides World
Kali
1 reviews on 1 places
I don't have words to describe my experience. I am an avid cemetery goer, and lover of history. After visiting the art fair on Belle Isle and Michigan Central, I then visited Ms. Aretha Franklin's childhood home and some of the many places named after her. We made her resting place the last stop on our day trip, here at Woodlawn. The GPS took us to a side entrance of a mausoleum, with a single door that was open with no sense of security whatsoever. There was a giant pothole directly in front filled with water. We walked in and she was on the immediate left. Not a single flower to be found on her marble door, whereas many others had them. A single dollar store American flag sat on a table with "for Aretha" written in marker. After paying our respects, we headed to the next vaults which held her sisters, and noticed chep plastic flowers and debris on the floor. A single fan was circulating the air in the whole hallway and it was utterly stagnant. Hardly a place you'd expect an icon to be interred.
Bumping through pothole after pothole, we went around front only to realize the building was really not that attractive as far as mausoleums go, yet they call it the main mausoleum. Opposite of it were three stones marked only with "Ford" from the front with no explanation whether they were members of the Ford family, and a little orange caution net surrounding it broke the aesthetic.
Before leaving, we learned that Ms. Rosa Parks was interred in the small church to the left of the entrance. I walked around it until finding that you could go in from the opposite side. It was very hotbthat day, and whn i walked in, i was immediately put off by the smell. There's no other way to describe it aside from exactly what you'd expect decay to smell like with zero proper ventilation 93 degree heat. It was sweltering and humid in there despite being dark. I couldn't even pay proper respecrs, I had to leave, and the smell stuck with me the whole way home.
If this is the way icons are treated, I can't imagine how ordinary people buried in here are treated.
Bumping through pothole after pothole, we went around front only to realize the building was really not that attractive as far as mausoleums go, yet they call it the main mausoleum. Opposite of it were three stones marked only with "Ford" from the front with no explanation whether they were members of the Ford family, and a little orange caution net surrounding it broke the aesthetic.
Before leaving, we learned that Ms. Rosa Parks was interred in the small church to the left of the entrance. I walked around it until finding that you could go in from the opposite side. It was very hotbthat day, and whn i walked in, i was immediately put off by the smell. There's no other way to describe it aside from exactly what you'd expect decay to smell like with zero proper ventilation 93 degree heat. It was sweltering and humid in there despite being dark. I couldn't even pay proper respecrs, I had to leave, and the smell stuck with me the whole way home.
If this is the way icons are treated, I can't imagine how ordinary people buried in here are treated.