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Detroit Public Schools Book Depository / Roosevelt Warehouse

The Roosevelt Warehouse, located at 14th & Marantette Streets was a staple of the Detroit urban exploration scene. Acres of rotting, burned books litter the floor of what used to be Detroit's main post office.

The Roosevelt Park Annex, built for $1.25 million dollars opened in November of 1936. Operations were transfered from post office located in the Federal Building downtown without any break in service. Over 1,000 people worked in the facility, transfering mail from trains ariving at the adjacent train station via underground tunnels.

After the Post Office moved to a new facility, the Detroit Public Schools took over the building and used it as warehouse to store books and employee records. In March of 1987, the building caught fire, causing millions of dollars in damage to school supplies. The district subsequently abandoned the building, leaving it open to the elements.

The building gained grisly notoriety in January of 2009 when the body of a homeless man was found in a flooded elevator shaft, nearly encased in ice. It took a newspaper reporter several calls before someone would come out to extract the body.

The contents of the warehouse were removed over the summer of 2012, in preparation for possible conversion into a parking garage. As part of Ford's multi-year plan to redevelop the train station and adjacent buildings, the former book depository will be turned into a "a mixed-use maker space for partners to come in and solve problems." Work is expected to be finished by 2022.