#23 This Church In Detroit, Mi Hasn’t Been Cleaned Since It Was Built 134 Years Ago. I Always Thought The Stone Was Black
dailymail.co.uk
This kind of limestone is very porous. It likely got dirty in the early 1910s/20s when automobiles were all over the streets. Back then automobiles weren’t exactly “environmentally friendly.” They used to have street cleaners just to remove the soot from the streets. Most buildings, but especially limestone Romanesque buildings like this one, became filthy (I have some great before and after photos of some if you like showing how the automobile dirtied houses compared to the horse and buggy). The subsequent decades didn’t help but automobiles got cleaner so most of this dirt is likely near 100 years old.
–
