Living in the D

Category: Events

Rare film clips of Detroit get screening

Detroit enthusiasts, listen up. The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit will host a screening of "Lost Landscapes of Detroit," a compilation of rare film clips of daily life in downtown Detroit from 1917-70 on Feb. 10.

The Prelinger Archives assembled clips from newsreels, industrial films and amateur videos to create images of a vanished Detroit, entirely free from nostalgia.

Archivist Rick Prelinger, who's assembled similar clips for San Francisco, will be on hand to take questions. The screening airs at 7 p.m. Feb. 10. Admission is free. MOCAD is at 4454 Woodward Ave. Call (313) 832-6622 or visit www.mocadetroit.org.

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Category: Architecture

Ah, modernism

ArchBlogger was bombing up the Southfield Freeway, just south of Seven Mile, when he spied this little academic exercise in modernism on an otherwise throwaway building.

Turns out the building in question is - or was - a Detroit Edison substation, put up in 1951. ArchBlogger couldn't help smiling at how radical this design must have looked in those early years after the war, as Bauhaus (and Chicago School, to be sure) concepts penetrated ordinary American buildings.

Anyhow, while no great shakes, A.B. was nonetheless struck by its purity of design -- rectangle floating upon rectangle -- and so bailed out at the next exit, working his way back south till he found the substation.

He wishes the light were better, but unsure when he'd be back in the neighborhood around Curtis and the Southfield, he just shot and ran.

[All photos by ArchBlogger]

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Warm up with THAW events this Friday

You don't need some D-list blogger to tell you it's so cold in the D. You also don't need any reminder about the hard times that have befallen many in Detroit, and how much it costs to keep the heat on at home. The Heat and Warmth Fund (THAW) has been helping low-income Michiganders make it through the winter since 1986.

You can help with this important cause in several ways. The easiest, of course, is simply to donate money. But why not have some fun while you're at it? There are several events this weekend to benefit THAW:

• Tune in to WWJ NewsRadio 950 this Friday for its Winter Survival Radiothon and visit the online auction page starting Tuesday.
• Like to dance (or attempt to)? The Dancing Feet for Heat event from 7-8:15 p.m. this Friday features dance performances and professional ballroom dance lessons in the Grand Ballroom at the MGM Grand Casino.
• My favorite, Cocktails for a Cause, features local celebrities mixing drinks behind the bar at Pulse Detroit Martini Lounge and Bookies Bar & Grille from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. this Friday. Ever seen a state senator (Buzz Thomas) or a reality show boxer (Tarick Salmaci) mix a fruity martini? Now's your chance. Check out some of the local celebrity bartenders here.

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Category: Real estate

$1 later, I own part of 'Loveland'

I bought a square inch of land on Detroit's east side last night. Big deal, eh? I already bought an entire plot of land on the east side, with a cute brick house and everything, 11 years ago. The difference is that I own this "new" plot outright, mortgage-free, so at least I'm not under water on this one.

I ran into Jerry Paffendorf, the Shaggy lookalike who's got some nebulous plan for the empty lot he bought for $500 and calls Loveland. It's a scruffy, nondescript spot on East Vernor that, like so much of Detroit, is full of potential - and potential headaches.

He hasn't seen any pheasants yet and he still seemed a little green about the ways of Detroit, in my somewhat jaded opinion. What if someone puts something cool on their subplot and it "grows legs"?, I asked him. Well, he plans to have surveillance cameras on the property. What if the cameras themselves look shiny and valuable to passing ne'er-do-wells?, I asked. Well, they'll be elevated and maybe he'll grease the poles so at least it'll be entertaining to watch. He might hook it up with microphones and speakers so the cameras themselves are interactive, allowing viewers on a Web forum to converse, Godlike, with passers-by. Now that could be worth a buck.

I told him I plan to put a tomato plant on my square inch. The stem itself would take up about that much space, and if any adjoining landowners or passers-by want to help themselves to a tomato, that'd be fine with me.

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Category: Education

It takes a village to take back the village

I was about to post a follow-up to Saturday's DPS Reading Corps rally when I came across Karen Dybis' post over at Time's Detroit blog, and she sums it up well. Energy, positivity and a real sense of community filled the air Saturday morning. It was one of those rare moments in Metro Detroit where one felt that people honestly didn't see each other's differences, and if they did, they set it aside because there's a job to do.

I was concerned enough about the "ridiculous parking conditions" to take the bus, the No. 32 McNichols route that snakes from east to west, with an abundance of depressing sights and sounds along the way that only served to reinforce that I was doing the right thing. Burned-out, boarded-up houses lined the streets before giving way to blocks of once-beautiful commercial buildings that now house hair salons, liquor stores or gritty-looking storefront churches. In one sickly laughable scene, garbage blew around a sign reading "Keep Detroit Beautiful" and listing the penalties for littering. Hand-written signs advertising pit bulls were pinned to shredded fences or walls covered with gang grafitti. This is the "ruin porn" so many out-of-town journalists have found to be trendy of late.

I don't know about you, but the "ruin porn" peddlers anger me. They approach our crippled city like they're on a safari, staring at it in awe, videotaping from their locked cars and adding often lazy and uninformed commentary before high-tailing back home to congratulate themselves for surviving. Same goes for the smug suburbanites who seem to love throwing stones across Eight Mile. Does it ever occur to them that people live here? Kids grow up here. The teens sitting in the front of the bus, dropping more n-bombs per minute than I could keep count of, were being raised and educated in this atmosphere. The man behind me mumbling nearly incoherent X-rated talk on his phone was a product of this place. Had they been read to, tutored and guided by a caring member of the community when they were in their formative years? Why was I the only person on that bus with a book in my hand?

The people at the rally got it. When the African proverb "it takes a village to raise a child" was referenced, heads nodded, people clapped and nobody wasted time wagging their fingers about other people's failures.

It remains to be seen how this bold experiment will play out, but it's a wonderful start.

Category: Architecture

Zipping through Woodbridge

The stolid neighborhood west of Wayne State University around Commonwealth and Warren, has always charmed ArchBlogger, looking like a bit of residential Chicago airlifted into Detroit.

Mixed in with the four-square brick homes, which predominate, are a handful of nice clapboards working that Queen Anne look. A few examples -- and a photo of the sort of rot and decay that the city tolerates even in its nicer districts.

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This in an otherwise pretty neighborhood. But our City Council could give a rip. It's that "embarrassing" train station that's gotta go.

Category: Education

If you can read this, you can help

I signed up to help teach Detroit kids to read. Did you?

The strangeness and sadness of this hasn't sunk in yet. Detroit's kids, who go to school each day, presumably the same way we adults did when we were learning the three R's, need the community to step in and teach them to read.

The time for finger-pointing is over; while it's helpful to figure out how we've failed, it's more important now to fix the problem.

The Detroit News and Free Press have taken a leadership role and are encouraging employees, for whom literacy is the very essence of our jobs, to share our time and energy to help these children who aren't getting what they need at school or home. I was No. 1,996 to sign up at the Detroit Public Schools Reading Corps site. The number has since risen to 3,239. Volunteers can choose how much time to give, and the only other requirement (other than being able to read and write well enough to tutor others, obviously) is a criminal background check. Wouldn't want any shady characters getting near those impressionable young minds.

A rally and orientation is scheduled for 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at Renaissance High School. I plan to be there and hope to see a standing-room-only crowd. If you're able to read this, you can help, too.

P.S. On a side note, there's another program for adults I've heard good things about, the Dominican Literacy Center on the east side. It's holding a tutor training workshop for adult basic reading or English as a second language on Jan. 29 and 30. If you want to help someone learn to read, but kids aren't your thing, give the Dominicans a call at (313) 267-1000 and get involved.

Category: Retail

Harbortown Market reopens its doors

Good news on the grocery front! Harbortown Market, on East Jefferson a few blocks west of the Belle Isle bridge, is reopening Jan. 20.

It's no secret that Detroit needs more high-quality neighborhood grocery stores. With no large chain grocers in the city, locally owned markets help to meet this most basic need. Some of them are substandard and deserve the scorn they get from the locals, but Harbortown has always been one of the good ones, with fresh produce, a surprising high-end selection of cheeses and a well-run deli.

After a fire forced the market to close in June, owner Tom George took the opportunity to do some upgrades while fixing the damage. "It will be the same layout with improvements in every corner of the store," George said. He was helped by a grant from the Jefferson Avenue Retail Readiness Program, administered by the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. and funded by the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan.

Go, shop, eat well and thank him for getting the doors open again.

Thanks to Kelli Kavanaugh at Metromode for the heads up.

Category: Architecture

United Artists, revisited

In his previous entry, ArchBlogger referenced the artwork, much of it Mayan-inflected, that used to grace the United Artists Theatre building right outside Grand Circus Park (until the owners, the Ilitches, scrubbed it clean just before the 2006 Super Bowl at Ford Field).

The principal graffiti artists (a number cycled through the building) were Gram, Coupe, Fosik and Kevin Joy. The latter also did most of the windows on the Lafayette Building, which is now about one-third of the way through its regretable demolition (see previous blog).

Anyhow, a reader was kind enough to send a good image of the United Artists work, so we can all get nostalgic about cool, now vanished, guerrilla art. [Photo credit to Rich Ayers]

Category: Architecture

Lafayette Building: going, going, gone

It's pretty close to curtains for the Lafayette Building across Michigan Avenue from the Westin Book-Cadillac Hotel. The wrecking ball is suddenly moving with a gusto that's taken ArchBlogger by surprise.

Like a patient undergoing exploratory abdominal surgery, the Lafayette Building gets opened wide. [All photos by ArchBlogger.]

Lost in the process will be the amusing, gorgeous and occasionally subversive window art by Kevin Joy, whom A.B. wrote about in his capacity as art-guy for the newspaper.

One of Joy's windows -- "DON'T" -- appears to comment on the city's decision to knock down yet another downtown landmark.

A.B. mentioned in the article that Joy had also worked on the hauntingly beautiful windows at the United Artists Theatre building on Bagley just west of Grand Circus Park.

Anyhow, to make a long story longer, shortly after the piece appeared, A.B. got a thoughtful note from a photographer pointing out that there's an entire history and culture to Detroit window art that A.B. had succeeded in completely eclipsing.

(You can check out some cool pictures of local graffiti art here).

What made this reader's good observation even more galling is that Joy himself had cited his predecessors on the United Artists windows, but A.B. managed to leave that gracious observation out of the paper.

Well, in the sausage-making biz, sometimes good stuff winds up on the floor.

In any case, A.B. would like to amend the record on the United Artists Theatre building. As the note correctly pointed out (and Joy had earlier confirmed), a number of artists worked on the UA windows, including graffiti-art heavyweights Gram, Coupe and Fosik. (A.B. regrets that he doesn't have any of their window art to show here, but the Ilitches, who own the United Artists Theatre building, cleaned the living daylights out of it just before the world arrived for the 2006 Super Bowl. You know, because the out-of-towners might point fingers and laugh at us.)

A.B. would also like to salute a couple other artists from the Lafayette building, albeit artists who work in a form completely different from Joy. Both RIKU and GRAY had painted their commanding, block letters up there along with WARD, whom A.B. did mention in the article. The observant will recognize these names -- Can we call them tags? -- from abandoned buildings all over town. (Amusingly, Riku spelled it "RIKKU" on the Lafayette building, but artistic license is surely her right.)

With all this behind him, ArchBlogger would like to thank his correspondent for the polite note pointing out A.B.'s screw-ups. (Most people who write newspapers are not polite.) And while A.B. did not have the chance to interview, say, Gram or Fosik, he'd love to hear from them if they want to drop him a line. His email is: mhodges@detnews.com.

Joy's signature image -- the multi-windowed grasshopper, which is also on other buildings around downtown. If you hurry, you might still be able to catch his "Storm Trooper Grasshopper" on the Lafayette Boulevard side of the structure. It's the all-white, creepy looking insect.