Detroit City Is the Place to Be (46 page)

  
2
. Europeans—particularly from Germany, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands—love a ruined American city. Every Detroiter I know who has ever photographed an abandoned building and possesses any kind of Web presence has been contacted by strangers from Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Paris, or Berlin, asking about the best way to sneak into the old train station or offering to pay for a local tour.

  
3
. Sure enough, by the following summer, much of the section of roof we stood upon had collapsed entirely.

  
4
. David Kahn, in
The Code Breakers
, writes of the incredibly still-in-use “Alberti cipher” being one of the first polyalphabetic codes.

  
5
. In a city weak enough to be routinely pushed around by wealthy power players, Moroun has managed the impressive feat of reigning, undisputed, as the most reviled member of the local oligarchy. A reclusive octogenarian billionaire, Moroun also owns the nearby Ambassador Bridge, which spans the Detroit River to connect the city with Windsor, Ontario, thereby controlling an unbelievably lucrative international border crossing. A quarter of the annual $400 billion in trade between the U.S. and Canada travels across this single bridge. Moroun is estimated to earn $60 million annually in tolls alone, and he has spent the past decade stymying efforts by the U.S. and Canada to build a second, jointly owned public bridge two miles down the river, necessary in part because the Ambassador Bridge is over seventy-five years old and sorely in need of refurbishment, and in part because of the outrageousness of the fact that a single private individual owns the busiest international border crossing in North America. Moroun’s counterproposal—that he will build
his own
second bridge, right next to the current bridge—has been given a cold reception by everyone but the Republican-controlled Michigan Senate, this despite the Canadian government’s offer to pay up front for the broke state of Michigan’s share of a second bridge. In the meantime, Moroun has gobbled up properties in both Detroit and Windsor, near the sites of both proposed bridges, most of which are maintained as lovingly as Michigan Central. The son of a Lebanese gas station owner who eventually bought a small trucking company, Moroun took over the family business in the seventies and has been widely despised ever since. An article about him in
Forbes
was titled “The Troll Under the Bridge.” (Moroun is also very short.)

  
6
. The term originated with Albert Speer, whose
Die Ruinenwerttheorie
(“Theory of Ruin Value”) proposed an architecture worthy of the thousand-year Reich—in other words, buildings that would eventually make cool-looking ruins.

Conclusion

  
1
. Much of the symbolism of the Matthew Barney performance hinged on Egyptian notions of death and resurrection, perfectly suited (thematically speaking) for a city like Detroit. But later, I found myself dwelling on the Houdini Belle Isle Bridge stunt, so inspirational to the piece. It had been Houdini’s first-ever bridge jump, and in subsequent retellings of the day’s events, he’d embellished the story, claiming the Detroit River had frozen, forcing him to plunge through a hole cut into the ice, and that after unshackling himself from the handcuffs, he’d been swept downstream by the current and spent eight minutes floundering in the frigid river while he searched for the lost opening, snatching breaths from the ribbon of air between the surface of the water and the underside of the ice.

In
Houdini
, the 1953 biopic starring Tony Curtis as the escape artist, the stunned crowd eventually begins to disperse, assuming the Handcuff King is dead; meanwhile, hidden from the spectators, we see Houdini paddling frantically along the bottom of the ice, his face a sputtering periscope. Not necessarily the metaphor I’d have consciously chosen to represent the struggles of Detroit. But I couldn’t seem to shake it.

Curtis’s lips, in the movie, come so close to the jagged underbelly of the ice, it looks as if he’s preparing to kiss some hallowed ground where a miracle had once occurred.

INDEX

The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

Adamo, John, Jr.

Adler, William

African Americans

emergency manager and

lack of mobility

leadership and

manufacturing jobs and

middle-class

northern migration of

radicalism and

riots and

ruins and

schools and

techno

upward mobility and

vacant land and

voting and

white flight to suburbs and

white return to city and

Young as first black mayor and

Agyeman, Jaramogi Abebe (Albert Cleage Jr.)

Alberti, Leon Battista

Ali, Muhammad

All About Detroit
(Farmer)

Allen, James

Allen, Matt

Allen Park (suburb)

Ambassador Bridge

“American Acropolis”

American Institute of Architects

American League Championship Series

American Motors

American Odyssey
(Conot)

American Revolution, The
(Boggs)

Ancient Evenings
(Mailer)

Andrews, Asenath

Angel’s Night

Archer, Dennis

Arc of Justice
(Boyle)

Assignment Detroit blog

Associated Press (AP)

Atkins, Juan

Auburn Hills (suburb)

“Autobahn” (Kraftwerk hit)

Autoextremist
website

auto industry

assembly line

bailout of

electric and hybrid autos and

fuel efficiency and

union concessions and job losses

See also
specific companies and plants

Automotive News
Annual World Congress of 2009

auto parts suppliers

auto shows

AutoWorld

Baker, General

Baldwin, Tiffini

Ballew, Paul

Barney, Matthew

Barnhill, Bryan

Barren, James

Barrow, Joe Louis

Barrow, Pete

Battle of the Overpass

Beatty, Christine

Beaumont, Gustave de

beavers

beehives

Belle Isle

bridge

Belleville Three

Benero, Virg

Bennett, Harry

Bennett, James

Benz, Karl

Berry Brothers

Bey, Hakim

Big Money, The
(Dos Passos)

Binell family

Binelli, Anita

Binelli, Clemente

Binelli, Italo

Binelli, Nonna Bianca

Binelli, Paul

Binelli, Rafaela

Bing, Dave

Bingay, Malcolm

Bizdom U

Björk

Black Bottom Collective

Black Bottom neighborhood

Blackburn, Thornton

Black Legion

Black Legion
(film)

Black Man with a Gun
(Blanchard)

Black Panthers

Blackwell, Arthur, II

Blanchard, Rev. Kenn

Bloody Run Ambush

Bloomberg, Michael

Bobb, Robert

Boblo amusement park

Bogart, Humphrey

Boggs, Grace Lee

Boggs, James

Boggs Center for Social Progress

Boileau, Lowell

Book Building

Bowles, Charles

Boyle, Kevin

Boyle, Robin

Bracciolini, Poggio

Brave New World
(Huxley)

Brewster-Douglass Projects

Broderick Tower

Brother Nature Produce

Brown, Gary

Brown, H. Rap

Brown, John

Brown, Mary

Brush Park neighborhood

Bryan, Tim

Bullock, Rev. David

Bunker, Nick

Burnley, Kenneth

Burton, Clarence

Bush, George W.

Butcher & Packer

Byars, James Lee

BYD (Chinese car company)

Byrne, David

Cadillac, Antoine de la Mothe

Cadillac Motors

Canada, Geoffrey

Car & Driver

Caracalla, Baths of

carjackings

Carlisle, John

carry concealed weapons (CCW) permits

Carter, Jimmy

Cash, Mr.

casinos

Cass Technical High School

Catherine Ferguson Academy

Cavanagh, Jerry

Céline, Louis-Ferdinand

census

of 1789

of 1794

of 2010

Center for Automotive Research

Center for Creative Studies

Chafets, Zev

Chaison, Gary

Chambers Brothers

Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History

charter schools

Cheeks-Kilpatrick, Carolyn

Chesnutt, Vic

Chevrolet, Louis

Chevy Volt

Chicago

Child Protective Services

Children’s Village juvenile detention center

Chippewa tribe

Chrysler, Walter

Chrysler Motors

Airflow

bankruptcy of

Design Studio

Fiat merger of

Jefferson Plant

300C sedan

Chrysler Museum

Cities Without Suburbs

City Airport Renaissance Association (CARA)

City of Detroit, Michigan, 1701–1922, The
(Burton)

Cleage, Rev. Albert, Jr.

Clinton, Bill

Clooney, George

Cobo, Albert

Cobo Hall

Cockrel, Ken, Jr.

Coleman, Aaron “Mikey”

Coleman, Jason

Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport

College for Creative Studies

Computer World
(album)

Conot, Robert E.

Considerations on the Substance of the Sun
(Woodward)

Conspiracy of Pontiac
(Parkman)

Conyers, John

Conyers, Monica

“Cool Cities” initiative

Cooley, Phil

Cooper, Des

Corktown neighborhood

corporate giveaways

Cosby, Bill

Couzens, James

Covington, Mark

Coy, Dorota

Coy, Steve

crack cocaine

Crain’s Detroit Business

Cranbrook art and design school

creative class theory

Cremaster
films

Criss-Crossed Conveyors
(Sheeler photo series)

Cromwell, Robert

Cupcake Girls

Curtis, Tony

Cusic, Marsha

Cuyler, Lieutenant

Cyriac of Ancona

Daley, Richard J.

Darrow, Clarence

Dateline: NBC
(TV show)

Davers, Sir Robert

David Stott Building

David Whitney Building

Davis, Sammy, Jr.

Dearborn (suburb)

Dearborn Truck Facility

Dearing, Jai-Lee

Death and Life of Great American Cities, The
(Jacobs)

DeBaptist, George

DeLorenzo, Anthony

DeLorenzo, Pete

Democrats

De Peyster, Arent

Detroit

abandoned buildings and ruins in

arson in

artists in

austerity and

budgetary problems of

bus system of

census and

city services cuts in

city-state consent agreement and

Core vs. Heartland of

corruption and

crime and violence in

decline of, and failed states

DIY activism and attempt to revive

early history of

emergency financial managers and

European romanticization of

gun ownership and self-defense in

homicide rate in

hopes for comeback of

leaders blamed for failure of

lighting department cuts and

light rail plan for

music concerts in

popular culture and

population decline in

population growth in, pre-1950

rebuilt after Great Fire

rediscovery of

reforms of 1960s and

return to, and tone of absence and blight

“rightsizing” plan for

riot of 1967 as turning point for

siege of 1760 and

suburbs and

urban farming and

urban renewal and

utopian post-urbanism and

Young as first black mayor of

See also
specific mayors; neighborhoods; and suburbs

“Detroit 2.0” initiative

Detroit 300

Detroit, I Do Mind Dying
(Georgakas and Surkin)

Detroit Advertiser and Tribune

“Detroit Arcadia” (Solnit)

Detroit Black Community Food Security Network

Detroitblog

Detroitblogger John (John Carlisle)

Detroit City Council

Detroit: City of Race and Class Violence
(Widick)

Detroit: City on the Move
(film)

Detroit Disassembled
(Moore)

Detroit Dog Rescue

Detroit Edison Conners Creek plant

Detroit Electronic Music Festival

Detroit Free Press

Detroit Institute of Arts

Detroit Lions

Detroit Metropolitan Airport

Detroit Museum of Contemporary Art

Detroit News

Detroit Planning Commission

Detroit Police Department

budget cuts and layoffs and

citizen patrols and

integration of

riot of 1967 and

STRESS program

Detroit Public Library

Detroit Public Schools (DPS)

state control of

See also
charter schools;
and specific schools and school buildings

Detroit Red Wings

Detroit Riot of July 1967, The
(Lachman and Singer)

Detroit River

“Detroit’s Beautiful, Horrible Decline” (photo essay)