On Detroit Yes!

[kathy2trips]

Heh, heh. Witty much? What I was implying was that my environment influences me, my surroundings, past and present. Maybe that's one reason I am such a home-improvement, DIY fan.

[Wintersmommy]

I became aware of this site by going thru the pics and tours in the Fabulous Ruins of Detroit..I dont remember how I came to find the fabulous ruins but I spent hours the 1st day looking at everything I could.
I came to enjoy this site because I enjoy Detroit and I am insatiably curious about the city. And as we all know this site is a treasure trove of info. I honestly cannot begin to explain all that I have learned from this fourm.
I have never lived in the city, my mother grew up on San Jaun [[sp?) but they moved to Royal oak back in early 60's.. My father on the other hand never lived in the city but he hated it and bashed it and the residents every chance he got [[he was one of those burn the place down people) but he taught me to LOVE history. So I grew up with my mother’s memories, my love of history and a deep seated desire to rebel against my father [[so naturally I fell in love with Detroit to spite him).
I come from a generation not burdened by the riots and its legacy so I am somewhat free and clear to love the city without all the pain and memories of what once was. I love this site because I can read about the past and read about the future...And for the most part I can do so without the overdramatic and negative postings I find elsewhere. Lastly this site rocks because I know without a doubt if I ever have a Detroit related question I can find the answer on this site..its a one stop shop

[Gistok]

I lurked for a few years, and just joined a few weeks ago. My grandparents owned two houses in Detroit, one west of Grosse Pointe, south of Jefferson and one on Iroquois [[north of Indian Village). They were members of the Detroit Boat Club. My father used be an engineer at Chevrolet [[he is NOT responsible for the Chevette!). They moved out of the city to Farmington Hills before the 67 riots.

I have been very interested in the history and architecture of Detroit. I am amazed at the information some of the Detroit Yes people post about old buildings and events. One little quirk that I have is that I like to create models of Detroit Buildings out of LEGO bricks. Some of the photos and discussions posted in these forums have been quite useful making my models more accurate. I currently live in Redford - that is as close to Detroit as I could convince my partner to get.

Welcome to the forum Deco Jim!!!!

Those of you who have been posting here for years know that I am a LEGO nut and historian [[there are a few other Adult Fans Of LEGO... AFOL... on this forum).... but whatever my LEGO interests.... nothing can compare to the eye popping beauties that Deco Jim has produced and showcased at several venues around town. I had the pleasure of first meeting Deco Jim about 3 years ago at the NMRA [[National Model Railway Association) annual convention at Cobo Hall, where he displayed some of his famous Detroit landmarks in LEGO.

Check out some of his spectacular Detroit creations....

http://www.mocpages.com/folder.php/8777

[canuck]

There was a faint knowledge that Detroit was a tough city from time immemorial, but apart from a 2008 Tele-Quebec documentary about Detroit's plight [[Lowell was an interviewee) where the Iraqi community offset the decline of this mighty city, I had no idea how bad the physical decay was.
I decided out of the blue to scan google streetview, and was appalled. I remembered my dad telling me his mother was born in Michigan, but where? I didnt know. I did some research on genealogy.ca
and found her brother's birthplace in London,Michigan but never found hers. I will sometime soon though. Her grandfather lived in Ishpeming, Mi when her parents were married in Quebec in 1890.
Anyways I felt a family connection even if remote to Michigan. I also felt a connection to the french history, the familiar street names, etc... Check out the corner of Atwater and St Antoine streets in Montreal. http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=fr&q=s...-8&sa=N&tab=wl

I feel a sympathy for the ongoing struggle for afro american identity , and Detroit is an ambivalent place in this respect. It has probably been a better city for black southerners to flock to than many other northern cities.
It may not have been a free ride for european immigrants either, but descendants of slaves had to pay more than their fair share in humiliation and stolen opportunities in a country that has adopted freedom as its buzzword from the get-go. I am saddened by the fact that there is less fanfare possible, less of a platform for success for the majority black population. For african americans to show their full potential against Detroit's industrial decline is a hard task, since the backdrop only points to inadequacy and impotence.

I also found a correspondant decline that started in the late fifties in Montreal. Both cities had boom periods and
their respective regions grew, the sixties still showed a lot of promise and then events such as the riots in Detroit and the terrorism and 1970's war measures act in Montreal sure didnt help.

Detroityes is an amazing forum, it certainly clears the air for a lot of folks, vents some of the frustration and celebrates the victories, and attunes folks to what is happening or what should and shouldnt happen.

I have noticed a few things about Detroit;

There is a defeatism maybe due to the large segment of working class mindset, maybe a mix of afro-american sense of unentitlement and the former which certainly needs to be checked and steered in a positive direction. I wish there was a strong leadership in the arts community that would showcase a renaissance of motown on festival stages. I wouldnt worry about the out of state tourists for now but the kind of happening that brings people together on a massive scale. Detroiters need to get unreal. The industrial imprint needs to be shaken.

Downtown looks deserted and in spite of that a lot was done to keep it spiffy. It has good bones as everyone knows.
The city is maligned by those who hate it and those that love it. But there is a sense that a renaissance is imminent.

It is strange to think that his city which has had a strong presence and good infrastructure [[extensive transit, great parks, museums, universities, etc...) has become a symbol of failure. But Detroiters must be careful when they assess Detroit's state every time a negative event happens. There are plenty of fuck-ups everywhere, and there is still a lot of know-how and capability in Detroit. Ditto about the corruption. It shouldnt be downplayed but Detroit is not alone in this situation. Every big city experiences this in boom or bust.

One thing that most cities relate to is how they are pictured by Hollywood or the national media. Detroit is no exception. People complain about outside perception but the promotion or pride in a certain toughness is a sign of the times I guess. There is a cool factor to the bad-ass image that is hard to shake off, and yet it detracts from the fact that most people go on with issues that are sometimes difficult but not related to criminal activity. The sense that Detroit on top of its economic woes has to compose with harsh crime statistics, and less protection than other urban areas compounds the issue. I am not into branding much, but if a plan for Detroit such as the Kresge foundation is about to propose
leads to a new city, then Detroiters should bang their drums and herald the coming of a new age in Detroit. While it is important to tackle problems head-on which I think mayor Bing
is doing, Detroit needs some dreams and a series of projects to look forward to. And I dont mean Brewster projects.

I also started a series of paintings this winter [[stopped for now, I am working on film sets) with two pictures that include a Detroit setting. This is the result of hanging on too long in this forum. I really enjoy the bickering and especially am fond of the good ideas and smartness of most of the posts on this forum. I think that people do care about their history and environment but a system that equates accumulation of stuff to happiness and success is part of the dream that sparked Detroit, so that too is hard to shake. The abandonment also reveals the throwaway society we have become. Yet when I scan the near empty square miles of some hoods, there are neat front yards where people hold on. I also see block upon block of well tended lawns and shrubs all over Detroit. My hope is that you experience a radical redesign of major arteries linking neighborhoods.

I hope the suburban/urban conflict will be resolved. It is long overdue, it is the key to Detroit's future. Unless the federal govt intervenes and dumps tons of bucks on Detroit proper,
there will not be anew Detroit to speak of. With land and property values as they are, there is incentive to dive into this without a commitment on regional issues.

Detroit Rocks!

[doctors]

I discovered this site in June 2003. I was more more active poster in the past, now I check in every now and then.

[RickBeall]

Every few years I would stumble upon the website. Check out the pictures on DetroitYes. But I never had time to read much, though what I did read was fascinating. That all changed in I guess Oct of 2008 when I read the GarWood Mansion thread. It read like a novel, with flashbacks and characters popping in unexpectedly. I was hooked, and started posting, and I have been stuck on this site like a fly to flypaper ever since. A happy fly.

[Bearinabox]

Every few years I would stumble upon the website. Check out the pictures on DetroitYes. But I never had time to read much, though what I did read was fascinating. That all changed in I guess Oct of 2008 when I read the GarWood Mansion thread. It read like a novel, with flashbacks and characters popping in unexpectedly. I was hooked, and started posting, and I have been stuck on this site like a fly to flypaper ever since. A happy fly.

That's a pretty funny story, given that I've always viewed the Garwood thread as an incoherent mess populated by living testaments to the perils of substance abuse. Maybe you're seeing something I'm not.

[bartock]

There was a faint knowledge that Detroit was a tough city from time immemorial, but apart from a 2008 Tele-Quebec documentary about Detroit's plight [[Lowell was an interviewee) where the Iraqi community offset the decline of this mighty city, I had no idea how bad the physical decay was.
I decided out of the blue to scan google streetview, and was appalled. I remembered my dad telling me his mother was born in Michigan, but where? I didnt know. I did some research on genealogy.ca
and found her brother's birthplace in London,Michigan but never found hers. I will sometime soon though. Her grandfather lived in Ishpeming, Mi when her parents were married in Quebec in 1890.
Anyways I felt a family connection even if remote to Michigan. I also felt a connection to the french history, the familiar street names, etc... Check out the corner of Atwater and St Antoine streets in Montreal. http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=fr&q=s...-8&sa=N&tab=wl

I also found a correspondant decline that started in the late fifties in Montreal. Both cities had boom periods and
their respective regions grew, the sixties still showed a lot of promise and then events such as the riots in Detroit and the terrorism and 1970's war measures act in Montreal sure didnt help.

Detroit Rocks!

With all due respect to everything else you said, I was struck by these parts the most. Sam Roberts Band's tribute [[as he put it) song about Detroit [[absolutely fantastic tune, probably discussed at length on this site before I joined), and wonder if these are relatively common sentiments about Detroit in Montreal?

I like this site because, as a kid growing up in Rochester Hills, I used to actually go to the roof of my house with binoculars and look at downtown Detroit [[yes, you could see it, albeit not that well). My parents moved out of the West Side when my mother was pregnant with me. My grandmother lived near Gesu/U of D when that area was in what was considered a decline for that neighborhood in the 1980's. I was young and had no idea, I was just fascinated by the big city.

My parents grew up in Detroit, like so many parents of suburban kids, and the resentment they felt regarding the city's decline was, well, palpable. As someone who did not live through the '67 riots, I've never considered it appropriate to really comment on the reasons for the mass exodus to the suburbs, and am sometimes struck by the sentiments of those who may have grown up in suburbia and had a fascination with the city, as I did. The roots of all of that were, I believe in many ways, irrelevant to many of the then-younger people that just saw things burning. Perhaps as a father now, I feel even stronger about this, since simple things such as safety and schools [[and the means to leave) are things that trump any deep seated reasons that are sometimes suggested. I reiterate that I believe this is most folks.

So...fascination turned to reality when I accepted scholarship at U of D and lived in the neighborhood near there and went on to Wayne State and lived at Forest Arms and in Hamtramck. I consider myself a "Detroiter" in the broad sense, but my formidible years spent there [[18-mid 20s at various times) have made me realize that, as much as we are the same, there is a difference between those who either grew up in Detroit or have lived their lives in Detroit, versus those who have just lived in Detroit as adults, and those adults who live in Detroit now for the first time.

I have strong criticisms of many things I see, but I have always been a through and through supporter because I believe that any major city should have a major urban center at its core, and I couldn't imagine seeing the place where I grew up become what many neighborhoods are today [[for that part, Rochester Hills has tripled in population since I was a kid; talk about irony...I closely monitor I guess as a hobby what goes on now, and spend 50-60 hours a week working downtown. I do believe that on a smaller scale that someday the city will have the core I imagined as a kid [[so much has already happened in the WSU area since I went to school there, which was not SO long ago). In the meantime, I enjoy the knowledge shared on this site.

[terryh]

One thing that most cities relate to is how they are pictured by Hollywood or the national media. Detroit is no exception. People complain about outside perception but the promotion or pride in a certain toughness is a sign of the times I guess. There is a cool factor to the bad-ass image that is hard to shake off, and yet it detracts from the fact that most people go on with issues that are sometimes difficult but not related to criminal activity. The sense that Detroit on top of its economic woes has to compose with harsh crime statistics, and less protection than other urban areas compounds the issue. I am not into branding much, but if a plan for Detroit such as the Kresge foundation is about to propose leads to a new city, then Detroiters should bang their drums and herald the coming of a new age in Detroit. While it is important to tackle problems head-on which I think mayor Bing is doing, Detroit needs some dreams and a series of projects to look forward to. And I dont mean Brewster projects.

I dont know how to seperate sections of type to quote: you mentioned a Kresge Institute proposal?

[canuck]

[/QUOTE]=bartock;162438]With all due respect to everything else you said, I was struck by these parts the most. Sam Roberts Band's tribute [[as he put it) song about Detroit [[absolutely fantastic tune, probably discussed at length on this site before I joined), and wonder if these are relatively common sentiments about Detroit in Montreal?[/QUOTE]

I think Montrealers are no more no less touched by what is happening in Detroit. North Americans are in denial and have been living above their means for so long. As far as french canadian sentiment, there is a traditional detachment and willful ignorance of the strides our ancestors made in continental exploration and settlement. After the conquest in 1760, French Canadians emigrated to western provinces or american states mainly in the mid to late 19th century. Settlers were catered to by a catholic clergy that reminded them of their homeland [[Quebec or Lower Canada at that time) The role of the clergy was to educate and keep the french culture alive which became more difficult as masses of immigrants swamped their new settlements from Duluth to Winnipeg, from Terre Haute to Butte Montana, from Detroit, Minneapolis, Chicago, Calgary, and so forth. Nationalism in Quebec exists as a sort of rebuke to the anglo majority in North America. On the other hand, Quebecers remain ambivalent toward France for capitulating. It is not nihilistic per se, but nationalists tend to downplay the historical connections to the rest of the continent in order to focus on what is left of their turf. In colonial times, Detroit was seen as a real threat to Montreal as a further outpost on the trade routes with indians. Traders in Montreal were afraid of competition by new trade routes
unknown to them, that might be found by Cadillac since he was a maverick no pun intended.Cadillac was an adventurer who spent a couple of times in jail at Quebec city and in Paris because he was threatening established settlements. In other words there was a hex of sorts on Detroit. There is a wealth of correspondence between Pontchartrain, the nobleman who acted as colonial fundraiser advising the king of France in colonial affairs and Cadillac and his foes. Cadillac's role was to govern Detroit, but he pleaded all his life to be granted the title of marquess and given a sizeable pension. His foes were the company men who had commercial jurisdiction over Detroit's fur trade. There is a weird parallel between this monoindustrial declining fur trade affecting all of french north america and today's demise. The colonial governors were asked repeatedly by merchants in Quebec City and Montreal to cease operating Fort Detroit.

[canuck]

I dont know how to seperate sections of type to quote: you mentioned a Kresge Institute proposal?

Yes, Terry, you can check out the Kresge Foundation site. The governors decided to fund a plan for a new Detroit. The plan will include downsizing, urban farming, transit strategies, and cooperative
solutions for a future city. I think it will be a spark that ignites a more comprehensive plan. Urban planning for a city this size and this problematic deserves a massive overhaul. There will be no new Detroit without major funding from your federal govt. But this gesture from a corporate foundation
just like the M1 street rail, is what the city needs in order for state and federal funding to happen.