We don’t share this video to celebrate in Detroit ruin; we do it to raise awareness because this place could and reasonably should come back to life in some way.

The Belle Isle Zoo was something many city-dwellers loved when it was open. It never was as big as the counterpart in Royal Oak, but to many in the city, it was the zoo they could actually get to.

The zoo was opened in 1895 and it has sat closed since 2002. Now, the State of Michigan controls Belle Isle under a 30 year lease agreement and it is a state park. Right now, the former zoo portion is a twisted type of playground that the State Police are playing a constant game of cat-and-mouse at to keep the curious at bay.

If the historic aquarium can come back to life, maybe this can, too – even if it’s not as a zoo but something else. What could that something else be?