Park Bar on NPR's "The Story"

Hi all . . . don't believe I've seen this posted, maybe because reception on Michigan Radio is poor south of about Six Mile because of interference from CJAM Windsor on 91.5. Fortunately they are changing their frequency.

Anyway, NPR's "The Story," which is produced in North Carolina, devoted most of the hour to the Park Bar, its owner, and his new Detroit currency just now. It was as favorable a treatment of Detroit and its step-by-step Renaissance as I've ever heard, and it was entitled "Three Cheers for Detroit."

Podcast and .mp3 available here:

http://thestory.org/

I love the Park Bar AND the Bucharest Grill.

Small self-correction: "The Story" is distributed by American Public Radio, not NPR.

Awesome. I worked with Jerry briefly a few years back, and went to the Park just after it opened. He handed us a pad of paper to get our info because he said he was offering discounts to people who lived in Detroit, kind of like the Detroit currency he's created. People like Jerry are badass visionary heroes. Finally the rest of the world is appreciating this.

He said that on the night he opened, he was down to just $86 and ran out of gas on his way to the bar. He had to bounce a check in order to make his own grand opening.

The story also went into his own background--really interesting. Said he was still working on his second-floor theater.

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Originally Posted by g-dub

Awesome. I worked with Jerry briefly a few years back, and went to the Park just after it opened. He handed us a pad of paper to get our info because he said he was offering discounts to people who lived in Detroit. People like Jerry are badass visionary heroes. Finally the rest of the world is appreciating this.

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Texorama,

I get confused myself. There's "National Public Radio", but there's also "American Public Radio" [[maybe the teams on those leagues only play each other during the playoffs); and again we find programs originating from "Public Radio International" which is based in the states even though most of their announcers have those Africans-who-learned-English-from-the-British accent.

All of it seems to show up on the same couple of radio stations, though, so I don't think it's much of a distinction. I've always wondered how you can take a station that plays Ann Delisi and The Takeaway and This American Life, and then somehow fit in the Magliozzi brothers. But they manage.

Prof. Scott

Glad to hear that CJOM may not be creeping into my enjoyment of WUOM. With the recent changes on WDET I need morning NPR more than ever, but must be in my car or hear the boom-boom cjom in the background. OH yea, DET please Take Away the "Take Away"show which seems to play more jingles, and preview their stories more than actually share information.

That was a great story. I love the idea of a little theater downtown. As Jerry said in the article, there are small art theaters around town, but people either don't know about them or won't consider going because of their location. If he gets his going, it can be on a downtown - midtown theater circuit, and maybe traffic will pick up at the others. [[I can only think of one off the top of my head, Detroit Repertory). Detroit as a theater destination sounds good to me. How about we stay at the Book Cadillac and catch a few shows?

I looked some up:

Detroit Repertory
Bert's Warehouse
Plowshares
Furniture Factory
Walk & Squawk

I never heard of three of those, sounds interesting.

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Originally Posted by daytwa

I apologize for being critical but I've never had the chance to express this to anyone: Does anyone else think that the hosts of "Detroit Today" and "The Back Story" are total cream-puffs? I mean, if hear "understood" or "in a lot of ways" instead of hard questions one more time I am going to @#$% scream!

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Yes!! I think it's great that WDET has so much locally oriented programming [[way more than, say, KQED in San Francisco does). It's a great station [[though I wish they still had Morning Edition on instead of the Takeaway).

But Quinn Klinefelter---who I'm sure is a really nice guy, etc.---is just an awful radio host. So much hemming and hawing, so many crutch phrases [[really, how is saying "in many ways" every 20 seconds different from a teenager saying "like" all the time?). Great ideas and local commitment from WDET, but I think they would really benefit from getting a more linguistically assured host [[or, I guess, co-host, since Detroit Today is now team-hosted). I know I would listen more often.

craig fahle is the guilty party when it comes to "understood" and "in a lot of ways", and i feel the same way. its not quinn, though quinn's delivery and odd choice of words sometimes leaves something to be desired, despite his obvious wealth of knowledge on local issues.