This browser does not support the Video element.
DETROIT (FOX 2) - It's been 20 years since the old ballpark on the corner of Michigan and Trumbull last saw Tigers baseball. In September 1999, the Tigers played their last game at The Corner, 104 years after the ballpark's foundation was first laid.
It's hard to believe two decades have passed since Tiger Stadium closed. Though it's long gone, the images of the unique field are still ingrained in memories, especially thanks to people like Brad Ziegler.
"I think that intersection was such an important part of so many people's experiences so many stories," Ziegler said.
The professional photographer had a unique look at the iconic stadium when it was finally torn down in 2008. He was hired by an engineering firm to document the demolition and remembers how emotional it was for fans who watched it come down.
"There were hundreds of people around trying to give me dollars for seats, a brick, anything like that. There were photographers lined up around with huge long lenses - but I got to walk around inside," he said. "It was literally as though people just got up and left and it was like a time capsule."
Ziegler describes it as a ghost town and says, though so many wanted to preserve it, its time had run out. Now he looks back at the pictures that day and reliving the one hundred years of life of the stadium.
He's still struck by the images from that day in 2008 - like one of a pile of chairs, which were where so many had sat to take in a game, were just piled up. There's the old ticket counter, press box, concession stand - all just abandoned.
"You feel like you want to walk up and order something," Ziegler said. "It sounds kind of silly but when you realize how many cups of beer were poured through that and for how many years."
By the time it came down, the old stadium had become yet another symbol of Detroit's decay - not unlike the abandoned train depot just down the road in Corktown.
Today, the Corner is the home of the Police Athletic League - and baseball is played there again! - while Ford Motor Company is transforming the Michigan Central Station into a mobility hub.
The times, they surely are changing.
"Now when you look back on it and you see what Corktown has become as a result of its demolition - it's a very different standpoint and I think people are probably much more accepting of it and not quite as hurt by it. Change is difficult, change is hard but it had to occur in order for everything to be able to progress," Ziegler said.