Comments on: The different Detroits.

By: Ricardo

Ricardo — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:30:11 +0000

There are some folks that say that General Motors and Ford Motors are misnamed. Engineers know that motors are electric and engines are fossil-fueled. Now is the time for correction! General Transportation, they should be responsible for restoring the mass transportation in the US in exchange for us bailing them out.

Just take a look on Google Earth and look at Southwest Detroit from the Rouge River to Lincoln Park to Wyandotte and on. You will see a visible line where Electric St and Electric Ave still exist as a right-of-way. They join in Trenton all the way to Toledo. I’m not sure, but I think they joined to MI Central, which I remember in better days. There are similar areas of LA and Orange County (Long Beach comes to mind) where you can find old Red Car right-of-ways.

The big three owes us to put their engineering to work to restore what they ruined. Mass transportation that serves the entire nation efficiently and timely. Bullet trains for long distance. Town cars, livery, and farm/rural vehicles on a mass scale.

I’m also still waiting for the flying cars. Can’t wait to have an accident at 1000′.

By: grapeshot

grapeshot — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 21:23:17 +0000

I went to college in Michigan’s UP in the late 70′s and early 80′s and had a lot of friends there who came from Detroit. They told stories of life growing up there (drag racing on Gratiot or shopping at the Hudsons downtown), but they all acknowledged that the city was changing for the worse. It wasn’t until years later, when I viewed the images on a website that formerly was called Detroit Mon Amour that I could see the faded beauty of Detroit.

But the story is hardly any different than that of Buffalo, NY, or Erie, PA, or South Bend, IN, or scores of other smaller cities in the rust belt. I hate seeing them all decay slowly, as much as I hated seeing N.O. wiped out in one fell swoop.

I once read a quote from Warren Buffet, where he said that there are some in our society that wants us to become a nation of share croppers. I don’t remember the exact quote, but it sure seems to me to be true that this is exactly what is going on.

By: Jeff (the mild-mannered one)

Jeff (the mild-mannered one) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 13:38:29 +0000

Wow. I’m halfway through what seems like an endless series of pre-Christmas conferences with so-called adults who have to be reminded, convinced, and/or cajoled into recalling that they love their child more than they hate each other (so far, we’re 3 out of 4, but we won’t know if those three stick until after Jan. 5). I feel as cranky as Nancy after reading a hit job on Detroit — there’s no love like convert lovin’ . . . or would this be migrant love?

As for the Detroit smacky-face, there’s nothing going on in the D that isn’t true from the Soo to Louisville, from even the new and improved Pittsburgh to the flats of Kansas City, KS. Vacant brick buildings from 1906 with a huge addition dated 1922, and three rail spurs spiked with grass and shrub diving into the basement; broken toothed grim smiling streetscapes as you look down close packed neighborhood avenues that saw the Spanish Flu and V-E day celebrations and Christmases when every lot had a house and every home had a tree; sclerotic civic administrations where corruption is a dirty word but graft and done-deals before the bids are opened don’t even warrant a news story that you can’t prove anyhow because no one talks because everyone’s dirty.

It’s a regional story, but it’s a big region. Detroit may be the capital in some ways, but it’s neither cause nor exemplar except for the lazy, trite writer.

The double-weird in the Labash piece: first, is this a LeDuff profile masquerading as a Detroit piece? Did his editors send him for the latter and he’s snuck in the former? Been there, done that, sometimes got away with it. But the line “Charlie was as much performer as reporter” just shouldn’t be able to sound like a good thing, should it? If i say of a pastor “she was as much performer as pastor,” or even a lawyer being “as much performer as pastor,” it would clearly be a bad thing. You have to edge over to “John Irving is as much performer as novelist” to sound approving, and not all writers would agree (on performers or Irving).

LeDuff sounds like a hard man to share an office with, even if the office is an entire floor of a building. That kind of cultivated pinwheeling arrogant self-spectacle persona has a tendency to step on colleagues even when you’re not directly in their way — and there’s already enough cleat-wearers who don’t ease up when they think your backside is on their career path as it is.

I’m hoping i get my “Peace on earth, good will y’all” mojo back by the 7 pm service, but much depends on the 3 pm family ‘tude. Mine will be cheerily relentless in any case, but i’d like to be unaffectedly cheery when my son does his reading from Isaiah.

Everybody be good to each other, OK? I need much coffee.

By: whitebeard

whitebeard — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 12:40:55 +0000

I have visited Detroit and its suburbs since I was a young whipper-snapper in The Soo and over the years as I wrote about cars in Montreal and Hartford from the 1970s onwards and was very much made aware of the three Detroits.
At the auto show, I was given a safe and secure route to test drive some new models and promptly became lost because I am directionally and geographically challenged.
I stopped several times and asked for directions and was treated courteously and with laughter every time as I explained my predicament (being a bearded, long-haired, bear in excess of 250 pounds might have encouraged friendliness in the daytime).
I peeked in what remained of the windows at Michigan Central Station as a longtime railroad fan, rode the people mover as a transit fan, but stayed at a motel near the tunnel entrance in Windsor that time because it was far cheaper (and I am a Canadian, after all).
Yes, Detroit has its problems. but what the Weekly Standard chap wrote could describe any older Northern city where factory shells remain if you deliberately look for them, where poverty exists if you hunt for it, where political malfeasence runs rampant.
But in the end, I wouldn’t turn down an invitation to visit Detroit again.

By: basset

basset — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 07:22:41 +0000

well, Detroit can’t be all bad, they have this little booger here:

http://freep.com/article/20081223/NEWS03/81223049

when you get done looking at him, go to the bottom of the page and check out the “best burgers.” might even be reason enough to leave the airport next time I’m in Detroit.

By: CrazyCatLady

CrazyCatLady — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 05:41:10 +0000

I was born, raised and have lived within Detroit City Limits my whole life. I was born and raised in Brightmoor area, educated in DPS schools and raised our daughter here. There are several “Detroits”, really. The White Detroit, the Black Detroit and the Motor City Detroit. It’s simply the way things always were. The three parts almost never mix and mingle. It’s segregated not by law but by habit. During Kilpatrick’s lies and cover-ups, his supporters were almost entirely black, and his enemies were, according to Hizzoner, simply racist haters. And once again the race card was played and from the bottom of the deck. I guess at this point I just say “It is what it is” and just go forward.

By: Dexter

Dexter — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 05:33:07 +0000

Columbus ain’t Florida (beautiful weather there the next few days) but it’s gotta be better than this icy-snow -rain combo that has people hunkered down in their homes until something melts…I fell on ice in a parking lot a few hours ago but got back up, OK…and just went back to my car and went back home. We’ll be on the road to C’bus in 9 hours…off to bed and up at 7 , chipping ice, and heading for 49 degree ice-free Columbus. Merry Christmas to all.

By: nancy

nancy — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 05:15:18 +0000

The Secret Service is keeping you far from the Obamas, right?

By: Danny

Danny — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 04:57:48 +0000

Ah, here is some Yuletide spirit Aloha-style with Sandy the Sandman. I think he is Frosty's cousin. I met him at the beach today. Hilarious, Gasman. Yeah, sometimes I wonder if my wife is one of these sea creatures. Aloha and Mele Kalikimaka!

By: Gasman

Gasman — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 03:49:29 +0000

Danny,
The fish pictures are beautiful. I remember from decades ago how fish will come right up to your mask while snorkeling or scuba diving. However, as we freeze our butts off and dig our way out from feet of snow, we are silently cursing you. I think that I dated a Sea Anemone in high school; she kept telling me, “Do NOT touch Me!!!”

As to the idea of living in paradise, I had the same fantasies 15 years ago about living in Santa Fe, and here we are. Hawaii is pretty appealing and there’s more Spam than you can shake a stick at. What more could you want?