Thrift Store City

We had a Friday show in Dearborn leaving Saturday completely free for us, a rarity in this job. We spent the day at Greenfield Village, but in the evening I headed into Detroit to catch a Tigers game. This past week was the 40th anniversary of the Detroit riots and I was watching a report about them on NBC. The commentator mentioned that in many ways, Detroit still hasn’t recovered from that violent eruption that ended in 43 dead and 2000 buildings burned. Driving through the city it appears that estimation is accurate. Detroit is weathered and worn, with many buildings and signs that look like they haven’t been touched since the 1970s. If you could buy cities at thrift stores, this is the kind of city you would find--dingy and well used with only a part of its former luster remaining.

As I arrived in Detroit, my first stop was going to be the Lafayette Coney Island, one of the town's two legendary purveyors of hot dogs smothered in chili, cheese, mustard, and onions. The Coney Island, as they call them in the Midwest, is the number one cheap eats in this part of the country and I wasn’t about to miss out on one. Luckily for me, I stumbled upon another landmark while searching for the Lafayette: old Tiger Stadium. Still standing proudly along Michigan Avenue, although looking a bit geriatric, the stadium is one of the oldest ballparks still standing along with Fenway and Wrigley. But unlike it’s colleagues, baseball hasn’t been played in Tiger Stadium since 1999 and demolition is lurking around the corner. How I wished I was headed there that evening to take in the game.

After grabbing my heart-clogging Coney dog, I drove just east of downtown to check out the Heidelberg Project. Heidelberg street is not in the greatest neighborhood and has shared the struggle of many of Detroit’s neighborhoods over the years. However, in the 1980s an artist (whose name I can’t remember) decided to start a public art project in this location. What has developed over the years is a smorgasbord of sculptures, sidewalk paintings, and plywood murals mostly comprised of junk and found items. A pile of brightly painted doors sits in the middle of a yard like the leftovers of a tornado’s dinner. A tree trunk is covered in dirty and decaying stuffed animals. Another yard contains row after row after row of vacuum cleaners each topped with rubber gloves. Rusty shopping carts accompany mannequin heads covered in red paint while a dilapidated boat carries a hundred or so stuffed animals and shoes across the brown summer grass. It’s a wonderland of amateur art and rusty junk, painted and decorated with multi-colored polka dots and anti-war messages. Possibly the coolest neighborhood I’ve ever been in.

From junk lined streets to Comerica Park, the Tigers’ new home. A beautiful ballpark nestled into downtown with one of the smallest capacities of any Major League park, making it surprisingly intimate. Well, intimate for tens of thousands of people. And even though I wasn’t watching the game in Tiger Stadium, the players were playing in old Negro league uniforms as a tribute giving me at least a small taste of yesteryear. I actually got momentarily confused a few times seeing the Royals in another color besides blue.

And now, on to the U.P.