I was a kid, and of course I noticed the people around me freaking out, but I was in the University District [[not called that yet) and nothing actually happened. There was a report of a sniper on the Merchandise Mart roof on Livernois, but I don't think it was actually true. I remember counting 33 helicopters flying over my house in formation at the end of the riots, and I remember driving down through Highland Park to 12th Street to see the smoldering remains of buildings. Maybe I saw an actual fire, but mostly it was over.
Probably because I was young and not very much affected, the riot doesn't have much emotional content for me--I'm mostly interested it as a historical event that I had some tangential relationship to. The subsequent decline of Detroit, the neighbors moving away, the elms dying, the stores closing, those are the things that have more resonance for me.
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