I'm humming along right with you. I don't believe my hope is blind.
Beautiful piece. As a Los Angeles native, I find solace in the fact that I can look up at any location in the city and see the facade of a building that someone put thought and a piece of themselves into at some point in the past, even if a lot of those buildings are being replaced with soulless structures.
I can't help but feel sad for those men who never got the opportunity to learn why those structures are so important, and not just materials waiting to be stripped and sold.
Detroit is lucky to have people like you.
I work across the street from the projects and I too thought up until the other day they were occupied, but suddenly the windows were all gone and the refridgerators all pushed to the kitchen window (still trying to figure that one out)... I am waiting for the crushing boom when they decide to blow them up.. or maybe turn them into loft condos.....
I really want to get into that recreational center and see what is still there.
Oh that Detroit would turn out to be a Rome type situation in the future w/ at least some of that great architecure used as a jumping off point instead of the typical tear it down to build a new "cheap" building. I just hope the decline stage doesn't get too much worse before it starts to get better.
That last paragraph hit me right between the eyes. It's more true than most people know. Really awesome observation.
A good article written by my BFF on the on-going stripping of the city: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/art...9/SUB/
806090335
great post. can't help but think of the fw: fw: fw:>>> email i recently received with photos of a dead, electrocuted scrapper whose hand had been blown off.
coincidentally, i just read of a st. louis scrapper arrested for stealing brass and other metals out of a city graveyard. i guess he figured the dead didn't need the bronze & copper.
Wow
I remember reading that the reason the Coliseum is in its ruined condition is due to medieval and modern scrapping, not the ravages of time. That surprised me at the time, but has come to make a lot of sense.
Although I agree that America's position in the world should "slide slowly towards Europe where it belongs on the less relevant part of the world stage," I think there is a sense of entitlement bred into those whooping and hollering American college students. I can picture them chanting "We're number one! We're number one!" Why? They don't know. And these future cogs in the American machine will deny that anyone else "deserves" to be on top.
Anyway...great post.
Thank you for broadening what is on my radar and making this stay-home mom think about something other than changing diapers and preparing food. You are an awesome writer and as someone else said, Detroit is lucky to have people like you.
Damn, you are so insightful and just really bring all together so beautifully.
It's both a joy to read, and gives me something to think about.
I really do feel like it's continually raining bad news. I push it off, and think it has to get better, it's a cycle...yada, yada, magical thinking. But maybe denial is the only smart way to operate when you feel powerless.
I just moved out of Michigan (Muskegon) 2 years ago. Eminem is fucking dope.
i've been commuting to detroit just over a year now. i've made 21 trips so far this year alone.
detroit is amazing. the people are amazing. this city is a beautiful blank canvas with gorgeous bones.
here's to the glass being half full!
In New Orleans we have had the same problem, magnified times a hundred since Hurricane Katrina. People who are rebuilding their homes install new copper wiring in their houses to find it ripped out a day later. They replace it again and it is stolen again. Imagine the balls to rip off the same house twice.
We had a rash of cemetery thefts from people stripping hundred-year-old tombs of ornamentals and architectural details and selling them in markets in Chicago.
I don't give a fuck why they do it, that shit is lowlife.
so well said! i took 3 of our kids to say good-bye to tiger stadium sunday after the game. it was like a wake, people ringed the stadium trying to say farewell. like going to see a close friend who had been in a horrible accident- you just suck in your breath when you finally see the damages. senseless damage, indeed.
my husband and i were talking pessimistically the other night about our potential future overlords as well- it's hard not to have a sense of impending doom when there are so many things indicating that we need to get our proverbial shit together before it's too late- nero fiddling, indeed.
on a much lighter note, i was sharing your 'enter sandman' book w/ pnuts daddy last week ("he used precious moments? awesome!" ) and lo and behold what did the pnut get for her bday over the weekend? lets just say i hope wood's mom doesn't catch wind that gloria estefan is now a children's author. god help me.
great piece and food for thought.
Dispatches from the fall of an Empire! Cheers, Dutch. You're damn eloquent.
I'm a prosecco-gulping New York City namby pamby graphic designer who is about to transplant, by choice, to Detroit. Just put down a security deposit on an apartment in Woodbridge. I move in August 1st. Everybody thinks I'm crazy. I'm not crazy.
I'm PSYCHED.
nope, you're smart. detroit is interesting.
I think of the Juniper family often with this recession - Detroit sadly has often been hit with the brunt of nationalwide economic downturns over the years, and I'm always rooting for a comeback. Your post makes things sound promising. Maybe? Kinda?
I'm sorry you won't be at BlogHer. We'll fill the bladders for ya.
Fantastic read man. Seriously, I third the notion that Detroit is lucky to have your family here!
I do hope you compile your posts into a book for us one day.
I saw (not "read") this phrase: Dequindre Cut, a new below-grade biking/walking/
and thought it said "below-grade bikini waxing" -- interesting
You just keep getting better at this, Dutch. Nice post.
A statue of Sacagawea was stolen from Fort Clatsop in Astoria and discovered here in Bend, on the other side of the Cascades, chopped up for scrap.
When I lived in the Baltics in the late 90s people were stealing every piece of metal they could get their hands on, railroad tracks, everything. I'm not quite sure what to think about it happening here now. People over there in an odd way prided themselves on it, prided themselves on their resourcefulness. Not the RR stuff of course... They thought it was funny that people from the EU wanted to dictate how buildings were torn down. Just let us at 'em, they'd say.
Once again, stunned by the simiarities. In Mumbai, manhole covers and garbage bins get stolen by scrappers the very night they are installed and the next morning the police, the city administration and the media will all be moaning about the city's `lack of civic sense'. While to me, more worrying, is that someone needed that metal so badly that they scraped weeks of rotting garbage and dead rats from it. What in this constitutes a crime and who the criminal is has got to be debatable.
jim,
this entry is genius.
Good morning! Lansing native here happy to be reading something good about Detroit. They just got done tearing down our 75-year old Oldsmobile and Fisher Body plants near the river and downtown. So odd to not have those megaliths rearing up on the road at you as you cross the Grand River and Michigan Avenue. Makes me wonder how much of the scrap metal was stolen off the site during the demolition?
You should check this out if you haven't heard about it already http://www.detroitfunk.com/. A fellow Detroit blogger who appreciates the art all around him.
This piece reminded me of Tim Kirsch's photos of abandoned buildings. Have you seen them? I think you'd like them: http://www.opacity.us/
I always hoped Detroit would turn into something again one day, it's an amazing city. We just need a lot more people to see the potential in it, and not ruin it any more than it is. Excellent writing, as always.
Your post takes me back to history grad school. It’s refreshing to read an article that makes it point with such incredible clarity. I’ve lived in the mid-west but never made it to Detroit, now I’m sorry I didn’t. I guess it’s the same reason I preferred the grittiness of Budapest over its sparkling neighbor Vienna. It puts things in perspective when you realize that the same period, place or event can be viewed from so many opposing angles and still remain compelling.
when you are going to do a dissertation on Kid Rock?
in all seriousness, this is a wonderfully written piece. i really enjoyed it.
i saw the same piece on the chinese with ted koppel and my husband and i had the same reaction. our boys would rather play video games than learn something, we tried to explain to them how much the chinese value education, but they just couldn't get it (being 9 and 5 makes it more difficult) i better teach them mandarin as well. love your site.
I definitely believe that the more people talk about it the more it becomes a reality. It's really annoying actually.
As an archaeologist I'm often confronted by the idea that people build upon what others have built, using the same materials and sites. After being at University for X years (a lady does have her pride) I still couldn't say how you decide what you choose to preserve intact and what you choose to recycle. Contemporary destruction always seems wrong but then as someone above mentioned - there are bits of the Roman forum holding up 16C apartments and then it seems a right and natural progression. I feel that there must be a way of ending up with the Roman example rather than whole-sale destruction of our past to be replaced by newer, lesser objects, but is that something that can be anticipated? I'm not sure. Great post though, really thought provoking!
We're living in the Land of Ever Decreasing Relevance (Europe) and trying to figure out whether or not to return to Michigan. It sounds like such a scary time to go "home" and are trying to figure out if it's really all doom and gloom like the media makes it out to be. I hadn't realized that the scrapping had gotten so bad.
One thing is certain: the Chinese are going to kick our collective a$$e$ no matter which continent we're living on. To some extent they deserve it. Most of those kids seem willing to work a whole lot harder than ours. But they also simply have sheer numbers on our side.
If we do move back to Michigan, can Aldus take some of your Mandarin lessons with Juniper and Gram?
It all sounds like something out of a dystopian sci-fi novel, even the name "scrappers." (Did you come up with that, or is it just what they call them?)
It's amazing how many abandoned buildings there are in those big American cities. Seems a shame they can't turn them into homeless shelters or something.
Congratulations on the new grocery store though.
While much of Roman architecture was ripped apart and recycled, medieval Roman scrappers hammered untold amounts of architectural marble work and statuary into chips and dust to burn into lime.
The maggot imagery is apt. And if the scrappers didn't do it, then vegetation and the elements would be the ones slowly devouring our abandoned huts and idols dotting the globe.
I love the glimmer of hope shining in your world!
You are being featured on Five Star Friday:
http://www.fivestarfriday.com/20...edition-
15.html
I don't know where to begin-- this is a great post all around.
Rather than go on and on as I am wont to do, I'll just say that as much as I love freezing everything as it is and having nothing ever change, I can't help but think this destruction is a good thing in the long run. It's nicest to know that at least some parts of the forgotten cityscape are not being wasted, since, as we all know, waste is America's favorite pasttime.
Was reading the dooce-edited book of fatherhood essays last night, and was enthralld with your writing. So glad to have found you--
Now I'm going to check out detroitfunk.com. Go Motown! Love it here. Okay, except when it's 20 below.
Dutch,
Your blog has become one of my favorites, a must view before processing my agenda for the day. I see in your writing and views from the lense to be almost spiritual. A lot of the images you find are dreamlike, almost unbelievable, Hollywood back-lot-esque. I've always dreamed of living in a neighborhood on the cusp of a revival such as the ones you loiter through. Then I wonder if it is on the mend or not quite hit bottom. It seems like our country still has a way to fall. When will your subject neighborhoods run out of personality?
I hope not anytime soon.
Brad
http://flickr.com/photos/library...57603671370361/
I thought you might enjoy this link if you haven't already seen it. The Library of Congress has a flickr collection of color photos from the 30's and 40's. The contrast they provide in comparison to the more familiar black and white photos of that time is amazin.g
I just read in our newspaper that a man was arrested after stealing a famous sculptors metal sculpture off of a lawn and scrapping it for drug money! Timely post!
After so long I am now returned to my desk. It is a pleasant treat to pass a moment linked to a family through a post or two. You. Others. Patches over those 7 miles I am from my own two right NOW.
Nice to be back, at the comment box, I guess. Just saying.
And, as always a delight to find a Classics degree so well used. A challenge in itself.
I am surprised about your commentary from the European sojourn (?). I am so much older than you and likely was there years before -- or what do you mean on a trip when you were 12?? Boy genius??? Even in that 1990 trip wherein I bagged the p-man I felt that they were new. North America felt to me at that time as the New Old World and this rolled on through my visits in '95 and definitely in '01.
I found it so much modern and real, unfussed about technology for example. Dispassionate about the proprietary, or what might be toned the New Imperialism. It seemed to me that in fact North Americans were resting on our laurels, not the other way around. Is that what you meant? North America -- terse and haughty, inventors of all things, lazy but holding on to our old industries with a death grip. Ready for our closeup. NOT.
ps... I have wondered this while if you ever visited those photographs I forwarded to you of the Shanghai heaps. Photographs that made me think of your urban geography synthesis long before the thread exploded here.
Hope you and the kids had a nice day today.
BBC Documentary crew? Mmm? Do tell.
Also, this reminds me of The Wire, there are a lot of scrappers in Baltimore too.
Great post.
I live here in Mi, just minutes from Flint.
As a couple other mentioned, the Coliseum was stripped of marble and, quite frankly, it's beauty by medieval scrappers. What is left is nothing but a shell.
Some parts of ancient Roman architecture might have been reused in wonderful ways, but a lot was just destroyed by greed and short-sightedness.
It seems a perfect analogy to what's going on in Detroit and other cities today.
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