Where were you during the 1967 Detroit Riot?

[mwilbert]

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.

[EASTSIDE CAT 67-83]

I was a kid, and of course I noticed the people around me freaking out, 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.

Your last few sentences tug at my heart strings...as I personally watched all these things happen in my own little corner of the city