Facing the fall of Detroits empire and realizing the potential for meaning

My only affiliation with the state of Michigan is the few young years I spent growing from an infant into a toddler. I grew my first teeth, learned to walk, learned my first few words, was potty trained, and had the first of many fights with my older sisters, in a little ranch house with a large basement, three houses down from the Gottlieb's who only took baths once or twice a week. But this was all in Holland, MI, not Detroit. So where my affiliation, deep interest, turmoil, and unwaning grief for this lost city comes from, who knows? But. There is a reason why, Detroit lingers, hidden beneath the everyday stack of “to dos” and “life lists”, in the darkness of my mind. What is the reason?

Is it because of the people, so displaced.

18th floor dentist cabinet, David Broderick Tower


Is it because of the 60,000 parcels of abandoned land.


Former Housing Plots.


Is it because of the buildings, schools, libraries in need of repair. And the beauty I find in these ruins, in a place that some say has been “left to die”.

Classroom at Saint Margaret Mary School


Is it because I see the potential of a city once so deeply enthralled in its industrialized lifestyle, mesmerized by the mechanics of automotives that it missed its own going away party.


Fisher Body Plant No. 21, Interior. Former Automotive Plant.


Is it because decline is inevitable. I speak even of our own species.

Packard Motors Plant


Is it because of revival. My own, Detroit’s, and yours.

William Livingston House


Or maybe it’s because of nothing. Or all of these and none of these at the same time. Or fear. Or hope. Or just plain want.


Melted clock, Cass Technical High School


It is. Does it even matter?

I have been thinking, I know a dangerous thing, but, I have been thinking: how can I help the city of Detroit?

This is what I imagine. I imagine a city cover in dust and trash. Everywhere you turn you can find the beauty and devastation captured in Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre's images. I imagine streams and snow and bitter cold and wind. I imagine land, full of rodents, little mice growing into rats the size of house cats and in the summertime, snakes.

Miles and miles away in North Carolina, I imagine riding a bus to work each day to sit in front of a computer. I write about a city in ruins, but in reality, I know nothing about this city, it’s lifestyle, it’s people, it’s devastation and it’s fears. If I had the money, I say, I’d move up there and buy cheap land, build or restore a little house, tend the land: possibly a community garden, clean the streams, clean the city, work hard to restore Detroit. And little by little, Detroit would transform. If I had the money. . . Maybe some of my friends, those looking for meaning, like me, would come with me. Maybe we’d start a little non-profit, get some grant money, get our hands dirty, defend a city that we have little to no affiliation towards, but a city that helped define America (at least some of it), help the people, help the city. Could it work? Would we help? Could we transform the city, be the next “Dark Night” or “V”? (I imagine Seattle, Asheville, Brooklyn, little bohemians hidden in what was once the automotive capital of the world.) Would this create meaning? Does it matter?

I guess if you need a reason, it’s the octopi the Redwings throw on the ice. What’s yours?

Things to read and think about:

Left Behind: The Ruins of Detroit. http://www.etsy.com/storque/handmade-life/left-behind-the-ruins-of-detroit-11659/?ref=fp_blog_title.

Detroit in ruins: the photographs of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jan/02/detroit-ruins-marchand-meffre-photographs-ohagan.

http://detroitworksproject.com/

http://www.visitdetroit.com/