Essay: East Side Noel Night in Detroit
Rust Wire published a short essay I wrote about how I spent a surprising Saturday night in Detroit.
hometowning
Got lost inside the caves in my former workplace. Hit my head, too. Thought, “What a clumsy metaphor for visiting one’s hometown years after leaving!”
A few minutes later, I plopped myself down in front of a bonfire, and heard “If you want to roast a marshmallow, you can get a stick from OH HEY CLAIRE.” On the next tree stump was a pal from teenage years.
I’ll take both of those metaphors.
Metro Times Readers’ Letters To Santa
Metro Times Readers’ Letters To Santa
The Metro Times published my letter to Santa! It’s the very last one on page 2. My name isn’t on it but it’s the one they titled “Best Christmas List, Ever” and trust me, you’ll know it’s mine.
‘In Between Detroit’s Failing Streetlights’ Is A Sobering Look At A City Struggling In The Dark (PHOTOS)
My friend David Schalliol took photos showing the ways Detroiters adapt (or don’t adapt) homes and businesses to a long-term lack of streetlights.
Just the other (sporadically lit) night, driving through the East Side, I was thinking about this project and hoping I’d get to see some images from it. I spent an evening driving around Detroit with David while he was shooting these, and I came to realize that creating a beautiful, clear image of a sharp light in a sea of dark is no easy feat. I am glad to get to see these.
Detroit is a city of hope and new starts, but this is also our reality. There are three streetlights on my current block, and it’s rare that all three of them are on simultaneously. My last neighborhood, Indian Village, is wired in such a way that if one streetlight is out, they are all out. Metal thieves go for the wires, and Indian Village keeps getting its lights turned off. The neighborhood is organized and has a lot of clout and wealth so they get the lights turned back on, but inevitably they’re out again. When I first briefly lived in Indian Village in April 2009, the streetlights were always on. As a night owl, that’s one of the reasons I moved there. But lately, they might be on and they might not.
It’s important to think about the missing public services of Detroit in the context that several of them are missing on a given block at any given time. It’s not just that your streetlights are out, but the pavement is also not maintained, which can make night biking dangerous–one of the actors at the theater where I’m involved said that when he bikes unlit streets at night he hits “bone-jarring potholes.” It’s not just that your streetlights are out, but that the bus only has a 66% chance of showing up on time, and if it’s summer the grass could easily be waist-high, and the police might come in an hour if they come at all. The streetlights are a safety issue and a transportation issue, and thus they are a keep-your-job, stay-in-your-house, go-to-school issue. Some parts of the city have really been lighting up with new businesses and residents lately, but other parts of the city are very literally left in the dark.
North City Farmers’ Market: A great little piece of writing by a friend
If you are in St. Louis, consider partaking in some of this on Saturday. Even in StL, how freaking often do you get to experience such incredible positive change like what’s going on in lovely, character-rich Old North St Louis?
Thom’s post:
“This Saturday is the last 2013 market day of the Old North Farmers Market. For those of you so atrophied and decrepit that you’ve mistaken the academic, rhetoric about immediate living for actual immediate living, here’s a defibrillator for your tired, tired heart. This Harvest Fest is scored by the Illphonics, with a cooking demo by Food Outreach, and Jamaican barbecue from Mi Hungry. Across the street is the first best historic soda fountain in St Louis, the Gateway to the West, Crown Candy, as well as the 5th Ward’s business of the year (and baked good blackbelts) La Mancha Coffee House. And then there’s the classic car show and skateboard event at Ye Ole Haunt where Stray Rescue will have the cutest damned dog there ready for adoption (make a good day perfect). Ask Ye Ole Haunt’s bartender about the hot wing challenge but you’d probably better not mention my name. Breath. And then stroll down Crown Square to where the 14th Street Artist Community celebrates their one year anniversary. THANK YOU 14TH ST ARTIST COMMUNITY!
And…
as a 13th Street Gardener I can assure you that the harvest is bountiful. It’s been a good season for our farmers and our gardeners, and we are exhausted from our efforts. Please come and tell our growers, artisans and craftspersons that you love them. Tell Willie I said hi, and tell Armin you liked the beard. Tell Luz-Maria and Gloria you need in on some of them Ali Baba watermelons you keep hearing about. And tell your friends what you saw here.
Quite sincerely,
Your Pal Thom”
Hometownness: Old guitars and shared stories
Last week, I went to see a band from my hometown play here in Detroit. They play American music from past decades and are very good at it. When I was growing up, my parents’ friends were musicians who played the blues and 1920s music. So, the band the other night sounded like home in a way I at first couldn’t name: That’s what St. Louis sounds like. That’s the sound of having red brick and river mud running through your veins.
When I walked into the club, a man dressed like a dapper cowboy looked at me like he was trying to figure out if he knew me, but it was dark and I didn’t think I knew anyone who looked like that. When he came out onstage playing washboard and a harmonica with the band, I thought I know those eyes. He kept holding my gaze. It took me half the set to figure out: His piercings are still the same. Oh my god, we went to some of the same parties when we were teenagers. We both grew up in Tower Grove South.
People say that folks from St. Louis will inevitably ask you, “Where did you go to high school?” It’s thought that your high school determines your whole life forecast in parochial little St. Louis. And after the set, we talked. For the first time in a good while I got asked a permutation of that question: “Didn’t you go to Gateway?” My family moved to the Chicago suburbs before I started high school, but I would have gone to Gateway and it’s strange to think that information is still encoded into my DNA.
I guessed: “You went to Central, right?”
“Yes.”
“Creative city kid. Makes sense.”
We talked about growing up in South City. We both attended summer school at Enright and then urban explored the school after it closed, startled to find artifacts from our era left in the abandoned building: names on chalkboards, the smell of the place unchanged. We both still have bowling balls that our 16-year-old selves stole from Western Lanes when it shut down. He mentioned his lucky bowling ball from Western and I responded, “I have one too! It’s outside in my car right now!”
I think the “Where did you go to high school?” question is almost always about Catholic and suburban high schools. I know characteristics of people who went to a certain Parkway school or who went to SLU High, but such jokes rarely mention the city high schools. It was neat not to get that rare-for-me little blast of shared heritage, but also to identify characteristics that mark someone as having grown up in St. Louis City and SLPS.
Relocating to Detroit was absolutely the right decision for me. But a flipside to the wonderful possibility and novelty of relocation is that you don’t have people around that you go back with. Nobody knows the things you were content to leave behind, but they also don’t know what you’re capable of and where you’re from.
I’d been vaguely meaning to get rid of that lucky bowling ball for a while, but I think I will hang on to it a little longer. I ought to take it bowling in Detroit.
Driving Detroit Book Talk and Reception, April 26.
So, I’m organizing this event tomorrow, and you should come.
Renowned urbanist, segregation expert, mensch, and five-generation Detroiter George Galster will speak about his new book, Driving Detroit: The Quest for Respect in the Motor City. The book draws together local history, the built environment, Detroiters’ attitudes, and the writings of locals to present thoughts about the perennial question, “What happened to Detroit?” As someone who has spent several years digging in and studying this city, I both learned new-to-me information and had things I’d observed on my own connected in ways I had not thought about. In other words: Thus far, very good.
I hope you will consider joining us. There will be wine and networking, to boot. The talk is on April 26th at 5pm at the McGregor Conference Center on the Wayne State University campus. The event is free and open to the public.
(And everybody loves disclaimers: Work didn’t ask me to write this. And the opinions on this blog still have nothing to do with my employers–this is allll me.)
Quick post: Poletown: 30 Years Later talk tomorrow
POLETOWN: 30 YEARS LATER
Revisit the case with a presentation from Victor Papakhian, member of the legal team that represented the residents of Poletown.
Tuesday, March 19, 4-5pm
Wayne State University
Bernath Auditorium in the Undergraduate Library
Presented by Wayne State Student Urban Planners
Free and open to all–feel free to share with fellow Detroiters and Hamtowners, urban history geeks, curious people, etc!
For the second time this year, DDOT forgets to send schedules to Google Transit
I went to look up bus directions and got the following message:
“Sorry, we don’t have transit schedule data for a trip from Warren Ave W & Cass Ave, Detroit, MI 48201 to Joy Rd & Dexter Ave, Detroit, MI 48206 at the time and date you specified.
Get driving directions from Warren Ave W & Cass Ave, Detroit, MI 48201 to Joy Rd & Dexter Ave, Detroit, MI 48206.”
It looks like no one at DDOT has sent in the new April 28 schedule data to Google Maps, thereby rendering them unable to provide transit directions for Detroit. This is the second time this has happened this year. Google transit is used by many people and transit agencies to help people quickly and easily make sense of transit schedules, versus slowly piecing together PDF schedules and system maps.
I e-mailed COO Bill Nojay and he responded promptly. He says he will check into it, and that they are looking at overhauling their info tech systems.
Hopefully this basic, widely used tool will be back up soon.
Curious Feet 