I know this shot is not much to look at, but stay with me on this one. Is this an empty field on the west side of Detroit, or an opportunity? At one time this site was home to a large low- income housing project called Herman Gardens. Now everything is gone and nature is slowly reclaiming the old street grid. I understand there are plans to build new housing units, another ambitious plan of well intentioned government officials. Maybe I am old and cynical, but I can't help but think we've been down this path before. Manufactured urban renewal in what was once the manufacturing heartland.
That's what was running through my head while I was taking this shot. I was on my way to watch a football game at the folk's house out in the county north of Ann Arbor. Camera in hand, I took the long route, off the freeway down a couple unpaved roads. I passed many sparkling new developments in what were once corn fields. That's when an inspiration hit me- Plant Corn! The key to urban renewal in the industrial Midwest is corn. We spend all this time and energy trying to figure out ways to lure folks back into old cities like Detroit only to find years of planning and fighting result in projects nobody wants. All the while builders and developers are tearing up corn fields in a near sexual frenzy. The strippers on 8 Mile have nothing on 200 acres of good old maize with these guys.
What does this all means for Mayor Kwame and the fine folks in Washington? Put away your purchase orders for a new study on the latest in urban renewal. Take those bucks, buy a couple John Deere tractors and get to work plowing up every vacant lot in the city. Plant corn and watch the free market work its magic. Trust me. I know a bunch of these builder types. They are not too bright and very easily manipulated. And they can't help themselves.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Gardens
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Friday, October 5, 2007
Negotiation
Maybe it's just me. Over the last several years, I have noticed a subtle change in the nature of homelessness. The homeless seem less aggressive, less menacing than in the past. As you walk past them, often their frail voices draw you in. You hear a faint begging for change. No reason for asking for the change, just ‘do you have any change?’ in almost a whisper. Is it just me?
Friday, September 28, 2007
Slow motion decay
This past summer marked the 40th anniversary of the 1967 riot in Detroit. Even though I am a history buff, and the riot was a piece of history in my time, part of me said, "enough already." That being said, one of the most poignant lines I heard about the riot and the times since is, ‘Detroit has been going through a slow motion riot for over 50 years’. The point being, the city has been in a slow decline since its peak in the early 1950’s.
The causes are numerous and complex. Race and racism has played a role, but that is only part of the story. In many ways the decline can be traced back to the 1930’s when the auto industry started a major consolidation. By the early 1960’s what was once hundreds of auto manufacturers had been shrunk down to essentially four, then three. All the while these businesses still produced tremendous wealth and built an astonishing middle class. My own family benefited from this wealth creation. This applies to the decline because no longer did the working class need to live close to work and transportation. A factory worker like my father had the means to live pretty much anywhere, and decided to move from the city to the suburbs. Why not? More room to raise a growing family. New homes and spanking clean new schools. Multiply that experience by thousands of autoworkers and you get an understanding of how the city withered while the suburbs boomed. Not the full story, but a piece of the picture
The causes are numerous and complex. Race and racism has played a role, but that is only part of the story. In many ways the decline can be traced back to the 1930’s when the auto industry started a major consolidation. By the early 1960’s what was once hundreds of auto manufacturers had been shrunk down to essentially four, then three. All the while these businesses still produced tremendous wealth and built an astonishing middle class. My own family benefited from this wealth creation. This applies to the decline because no longer did the working class need to live close to work and transportation. A factory worker like my father had the means to live pretty much anywhere, and decided to move from the city to the suburbs. Why not? More room to raise a growing family. New homes and spanking clean new schools. Multiply that experience by thousands of autoworkers and you get an understanding of how the city withered while the suburbs boomed. Not the full story, but a piece of the picture
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Bad Day at OHare (7)
This was part of a very, very long day at O'Hare, aka the Death of Me. It started out as a good day. I completed my business in Chicago early and headed out to the airport for my 4:00 flight back to Detroit. I felt good. The training class I ran in the morning went very well and for the first time in several weeks I was scheduled to be home before dinner. I knew storms were on their way, but I felt certain they would hit after my plane whisked me down the runway and across Lake Michigan. That's what the weatherman said. They wouldn't lie, would they? The T.V. had never let me down before.
Around 3:00 a storm rolls into the Chicago area. Not just any storm, one of those wicked buggers that cause sirens to go off and flights to be delayed. For the first time I can recall, we were evacuated from the terminal gate area. The tower was shut down. A ground stop was called. The flight monitors laid it all out in ugly detail- cancelled, cancelled, cancelled. Except my flight.
I had a thin thread of hope. This shot was taken right before the evacuation. Right across the main aisle, the windows on the other side displayed a light summer sun. Very weird. Then came the news: another line of storms were on the way. My patch of sun was something akin to the eye of the storm. Damn. Next the gate agent announced our plane was in the air but diverted to Milwaukee. Double damn. And our 4:00 departure was looking like 10:30 or later. My life sucks. Shoot me now.
Mother raised no fool. I added up the numbers- a bazillion flights cancelled, times 100 passengers for each flight, divided by the number of hotel roo.....Trust me, it equals get a hotel room now or risk sleeping on a cot in O'Hare, full of hot, angry smelly travelers. With air conditioning not working. I found a room at the Marriott Residence in O'Hare. Northwest pleasantly rebooked my flight even though it was not officially cancelled. Things are looking up. I was soon to find out looking up as in riding a rollercoaster.
I grabbed my luggage and headed over to the hotel shuttle station. It was incredibly humid, still over 80 degrees and in the words of Forest Gump, dumping 'big old fat rain'. A made a dash across the street and arrived at a scene out of some third world new footage. Every time a bus pulled up a mad rush ensued. You could almost feel the wave of humanity as these business travelers pushed and jousted to get on the bus. My bus finally arrived and we poured in. I figure there must have been 30- 40 people crammed on the bus. I think some people my have been hanging on the sides. None the less we pulled out and headed to our comfy beds.
We get to the hotel only to find the air conditioning is out and the elevator is out. And my room is on the fourth floor. Sorry, Buckshot, your Platinum Status with Marriott means nothing tonight. I had to step outside in the rain to get to my room. The key to the door didn't work. I'm soaked. My luggage is soaked. I lug my bags up the stairs, open the door, rip my shirt on a piece of metal and throw my bags down. With the air conditioning out, I opened the windows where the rumble of planes taking off from O'Hare reminded me all night long that just maybe my flight actually took off. It was then I realized how evil and alive O'Hare is- the airport was mocking me.
Around 3:00 a storm rolls into the Chicago area. Not just any storm, one of those wicked buggers that cause sirens to go off and flights to be delayed. For the first time I can recall, we were evacuated from the terminal gate area. The tower was shut down. A ground stop was called. The flight monitors laid it all out in ugly detail- cancelled, cancelled, cancelled. Except my flight.
I had a thin thread of hope. This shot was taken right before the evacuation. Right across the main aisle, the windows on the other side displayed a light summer sun. Very weird. Then came the news: another line of storms were on the way. My patch of sun was something akin to the eye of the storm. Damn. Next the gate agent announced our plane was in the air but diverted to Milwaukee. Double damn. And our 4:00 departure was looking like 10:30 or later. My life sucks. Shoot me now.
Mother raised no fool. I added up the numbers- a bazillion flights cancelled, times 100 passengers for each flight, divided by the number of hotel roo.....Trust me, it equals get a hotel room now or risk sleeping on a cot in O'Hare, full of hot, angry smelly travelers. With air conditioning not working. I found a room at the Marriott Residence in O'Hare. Northwest pleasantly rebooked my flight even though it was not officially cancelled. Things are looking up. I was soon to find out looking up as in riding a rollercoaster.
I grabbed my luggage and headed over to the hotel shuttle station. It was incredibly humid, still over 80 degrees and in the words of Forest Gump, dumping 'big old fat rain'. A made a dash across the street and arrived at a scene out of some third world new footage. Every time a bus pulled up a mad rush ensued. You could almost feel the wave of humanity as these business travelers pushed and jousted to get on the bus. My bus finally arrived and we poured in. I figure there must have been 30- 40 people crammed on the bus. I think some people my have been hanging on the sides. None the less we pulled out and headed to our comfy beds.
We get to the hotel only to find the air conditioning is out and the elevator is out. And my room is on the fourth floor. Sorry, Buckshot, your Platinum Status with Marriott means nothing tonight. I had to step outside in the rain to get to my room. The key to the door didn't work. I'm soaked. My luggage is soaked. I lug my bags up the stairs, open the door, rip my shirt on a piece of metal and throw my bags down. With the air conditioning out, I opened the windows where the rumble of planes taking off from O'Hare reminded me all night long that just maybe my flight actually took off. It was then I realized how evil and alive O'Hare is- the airport was mocking me.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Time stops
Some things and some people never change. They create this signpost for society as we swoosh on by, headin' for a brighter future. Bless their hearts. They remind us of a different time, often a gentler, less confusing time. I know this is the fog of memory creating an illusion.
I was raised in the 60's. Not in that Woodstock sense. I was born in 1959, so the 60's for me were idyllic time filled with baseball and bike riding. The civil rights movement, Vietnam, all of that was background noise. We were focused on getting out of school and riding our bikes to Jim Robinson's house where we would play baseball until dark. We all imagined we were our heros from down on The Corner- Willie the Wonder, Al Kaline, Denny McClain. So I say, unless you stood at the plate with one foot in the bucket, ala Dick McAuliff, when it came to the 60's you weren't really there, man.
I was raised in the 60's. Not in that Woodstock sense. I was born in 1959, so the 60's for me were idyllic time filled with baseball and bike riding. The civil rights movement, Vietnam, all of that was background noise. We were focused on getting out of school and riding our bikes to Jim Robinson's house where we would play baseball until dark. We all imagined we were our heros from down on The Corner- Willie the Wonder, Al Kaline, Denny McClain. So I say, unless you stood at the plate with one foot in the bucket, ala Dick McAuliff, when it came to the 60's you weren't really there, man.
Existing
They have been called the invisible people of our cities, but that's not true. The homeless are always there, always visible. I suppose like most folks I have my opinions about the matter, but I'll set them aside for the time being. What I have noticed is how the homeless on the streets inspire either anger or this odd process of ignorance- creating the invisible myth.
The anger resides in the two extremes of the issue. Some folks are angry at the homeless, seeing character flaws or poor decisions as the reason for their wretched state. Often they may even come to believe that many of the homeless they encounter are "faking it", begging for handouts by day, driving back to the suburbs at night, essentially actors performing street theater for tips. Others are angry at a system that they say callously dump these poor souls on the street. Our culture, our society is simply too harsh to take care of people who clearly can't take care of themselves.
Most people, it seems to me, have developed the ability to walk past them, ignoring their existence. It is like when you click on a Flickr site that is outside your filter, you can hit the little button that says "take me to kittens". So off we go to our offices or shops. We see the homeless man sitting on the sidewalk with a cup, or the old homeless woman pushing a grocery cart, and we hit the button. Ah, kittens. What a relief.
The anger resides in the two extremes of the issue. Some folks are angry at the homeless, seeing character flaws or poor decisions as the reason for their wretched state. Often they may even come to believe that many of the homeless they encounter are "faking it", begging for handouts by day, driving back to the suburbs at night, essentially actors performing street theater for tips. Others are angry at a system that they say callously dump these poor souls on the street. Our culture, our society is simply too harsh to take care of people who clearly can't take care of themselves.
Most people, it seems to me, have developed the ability to walk past them, ignoring their existence. It is like when you click on a Flickr site that is outside your filter, you can hit the little button that says "take me to kittens". So off we go to our offices or shops. We see the homeless man sitting on the sidewalk with a cup, or the old homeless woman pushing a grocery cart, and we hit the button. Ah, kittens. What a relief.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Fenway and memories
Last year my brother asked if I wanted to go on a road trip to Boston. The “official” purpose of the trip was to help our other brother with the drive- he was picking up his step children after a summer with their father. From my perspective the trip was a hard sell. I travel all the time on business and was reluctant to take time away from home. Mark persisted, first hitting on my love of road trips, then waving Fenway tickets in front of me. He closed the deal when he said the Old Man was coming along too. Now I couldn’t pass up all of that.
The trip started out as a mad dash across Ontario and upstate New York at night. We rolled into Boston early in the morning with enough time to get a few hours sleep before a tour of the town and then the ballgame. My Dad does not get along well these days and needed some help getting to his seat. With all the pain I think just being with his boys made it worth the struggle. Between the feel of the ballpark and my Dad’s condition I was hit with a sharp tide of emotion and memories of old Tiger Stadium and my kid brothers’ first major league game.
Roughly 30 years earlier I had taken my brothers to their first major league game. I can’t recall the exact year; all I know is Mark “The Bird” Fidrych was pitching for the Tigers. The Tigers were in one of their periodic dark periods, but The Bird was filling the stands with his antics on the mound. Dad gave me a few bucks and told me to buy some tickets, I was lucky enough to fetch four seats out in left field, row M. That I remember the seats were in row M is essential to this story.
It was a cool night, as I recall. I must have been 17 or 18 at the time and my brothers were something like 8 and 10. Just a couple little guys. The three of us amble up to our seats, hot dogs and pops in hand, when I noticed a bunch of guys sitting in our seats. I should say a bunch of scruffy looking guys in our seats. I told the guy sitting nearest me that they are in our seats. He looked me up and down and spied the two little guys in tow and says, “These are our seats, dude. Seat 25 row M.” As he waved his ticket in my face.
I said, “I think your seats must be row MM. Because mine say row M.”
Looking angry and completely un- intimidated by me and the boys, he said, “No way, man. You must be in row MM. We ain’t movin’.” He turned to his buddies with a bully like smirk and they all had a good laugh at our expense.
About this time the Old Man comes shuffling up the aisle. It is roughly 50 degrees out and he is wearing a tee shirt with his tree stump like arms straining the fabric. The three of us were standing there, looking a bit confused. He asked why we weren’t in our seats. I explained, pointing to my newly found nemesis, that those guys are in our seats. He walks over to the tough guy at the end of the row, points one of his meaty fingers in his chest. Looking him square in the eye he says, “Then they better move. Right now.” Like that the smirk was replaced with a look of pure panic. They tumbled out of their seats into the row behind them, looking over their shoulders, hoping this gorilla of a man was not in pursuit. The boys and I had a good laugh.
I told a friend of mine, “You know when you were a little boy and you’d get in fight with one of your friends? Sometimes the fight breaks down to a war of words that ends with one of you saying, ‘Oh yeah! Well my Dad can beat up your Dad‘.” I laughed, “My Dad was really that guy.“ The Old Man was a big guy, a physical man, but really a gentle teddy bear. He was always the person we leaned on when we were in trouble. Wheeling him through the corridors at Fenway I see that he has learned to lean on us, his sons and daughters. He taught us well. The measure of character and love is whether those close to you can lean on you, depend on you when life has thrown you a curve ball you just can’t reach.
Thanks, Dad.
The trip started out as a mad dash across Ontario and upstate New York at night. We rolled into Boston early in the morning with enough time to get a few hours sleep before a tour of the town and then the ballgame. My Dad does not get along well these days and needed some help getting to his seat. With all the pain I think just being with his boys made it worth the struggle. Between the feel of the ballpark and my Dad’s condition I was hit with a sharp tide of emotion and memories of old Tiger Stadium and my kid brothers’ first major league game.
Roughly 30 years earlier I had taken my brothers to their first major league game. I can’t recall the exact year; all I know is Mark “The Bird” Fidrych was pitching for the Tigers. The Tigers were in one of their periodic dark periods, but The Bird was filling the stands with his antics on the mound. Dad gave me a few bucks and told me to buy some tickets, I was lucky enough to fetch four seats out in left field, row M. That I remember the seats were in row M is essential to this story.
It was a cool night, as I recall. I must have been 17 or 18 at the time and my brothers were something like 8 and 10. Just a couple little guys. The three of us amble up to our seats, hot dogs and pops in hand, when I noticed a bunch of guys sitting in our seats. I should say a bunch of scruffy looking guys in our seats. I told the guy sitting nearest me that they are in our seats. He looked me up and down and spied the two little guys in tow and says, “These are our seats, dude. Seat 25 row M.” As he waved his ticket in my face.
I said, “I think your seats must be row MM. Because mine say row M.”
Looking angry and completely un- intimidated by me and the boys, he said, “No way, man. You must be in row MM. We ain’t movin’.” He turned to his buddies with a bully like smirk and they all had a good laugh at our expense.
About this time the Old Man comes shuffling up the aisle. It is roughly 50 degrees out and he is wearing a tee shirt with his tree stump like arms straining the fabric. The three of us were standing there, looking a bit confused. He asked why we weren’t in our seats. I explained, pointing to my newly found nemesis, that those guys are in our seats. He walks over to the tough guy at the end of the row, points one of his meaty fingers in his chest. Looking him square in the eye he says, “Then they better move. Right now.” Like that the smirk was replaced with a look of pure panic. They tumbled out of their seats into the row behind them, looking over their shoulders, hoping this gorilla of a man was not in pursuit. The boys and I had a good laugh.
I told a friend of mine, “You know when you were a little boy and you’d get in fight with one of your friends? Sometimes the fight breaks down to a war of words that ends with one of you saying, ‘Oh yeah! Well my Dad can beat up your Dad‘.” I laughed, “My Dad was really that guy.“ The Old Man was a big guy, a physical man, but really a gentle teddy bear. He was always the person we leaned on when we were in trouble. Wheeling him through the corridors at Fenway I see that he has learned to lean on us, his sons and daughters. He taught us well. The measure of character and love is whether those close to you can lean on you, depend on you when life has thrown you a curve ball you just can’t reach.
Thanks, Dad.
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