While the main thoroughfares of Detroit are relatively clear, the roads in the city's neighborhoods are anything but.

Many streets were unplowed and clogged this afternoon with knee-high snow drifts, forcing many residents to walk on the road because the sidewalks were buried.

Terrell Henderson wished he had kept his 1992 Ford Taurus at his east-side home. The 36-year-old father was driving to the store this afternoon for cold medicine when his car got stuck in a deep snow drift a block from his house.

"Same old, same old," he said, walking back home for a shovel. "Just another day in the city."

But for many cash-strapped Detroiters, snow brought opportunities.

Hoping to make a little cash by shoveling sidewalks and driveways, Justin Graham, 23, walked up and down snow-clogged streets in search of someone willing to pay $5 to $10 for his service. But after two hours, there was only one taker
"It's tough out here," said Graham, who is unemployed and rents an east-side house for $250 a month. "You do what you got to do, but sometimes it's not enough."

A few miles away, walkers-by and artists began the arduous task of shoveling entire blocks around the Heidelberg Project, a popular outdoor art experiment in the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood.

"This is what art is about – bringing people together as a community," said Lisa Marie Rodriguez, an artist who lives at a house within the project. "It's a peaceful existence because we care about each other."




Source: http://www.freep.com/article/2011020...still-unplowed