1515 Broadway: Detroit’s Little Black Box Theater Needs US Now

January 25, 2012

Authors’ note:  I would like to offer a personal note of gratitude to Richard Isenberg and Susan Mills of Citi for taking the time to discuss this situation with me, understanding what was at stake for the arts in Detroit and taking immediate and decisive action to bring a halt to the foreclosure and eviction of Chris Jaszczak and 1515 Broadway. No strangers to the ongoing mortgage crisis, I commend both of them for doing the right thing in this particular case.

Detroit is an insanely complex urban fabric for many to understand, perhaps most difficult for institutional banking entities sequestered high above the fray in NYC and elsewhere. I sincerely do not expect the ‘shirts’ at Citi to ever really understand the Chris Jaszczaks of the world but, thankfully, there are a whole lot of people who do, people who mobilized and were prepared to physically stop this eviction, myself included.

We remain a very long way from justice for the thousands and thousands cast out of their homes as a result of the ‘shitty paper’ created by the likes of Citi and others. The unraveling of this web of greed will surely continue for years to come. I for one will not however lose faith in human decency and our ability to recalibrate our inner moral compass.  Richard and Susan: Thank you.  Read more here.

-N

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1515 Broadway is not just an address. 1515 Broadway is not just a ‘coffee shop’, which is all Detroit’s hipsters may know it as. 1515 Broadway is, and has been, synonymous with emerging arts, theatre and music in the heart of Detroit for over 25 years. Being as Detroit is continuously plucked globally as an incubator for such, one must comprehend the role of this classic, 115 seat black-box theatre in a frame far more extensive than the city alone.

1515 Broadway is the atomic nucleus of cool. Period.

Chris Jaszczak is the visionary/entrepreneur/raconteur/aficionado who has steadfastly kept the house lights on year after year, during some of Detroits darkest years. When many others, pardon me, gave up and got the f*ck out of town, Chris hung in there. Over the years, he has sacrificed personally time and again in order to enlighten us just one more time, with just one more production. He has steadfastly kept Detroit out at the edge of a globally significant cultural scene. Iconic.

When Chris wasn’t carving a path for us through the creative universe, he was, and is, opening his doors to political and humanitarian causes organizing in the city and in need of a place to meet. 1515 Broadway has been at the intersection of art and activism relentlessly for over two decades.

Now Chris needs OUR help. Please take a moment to read this and participate as best you can. -N

SixamtoSixam I Am

Over a 24 hour period in Detroit, August 14/15, 2011, 16 people were shot leaving 7 dead in unrelated occurrences. But they are related, we are all related and violence such as this does not occur in a vacuum no matter how removed we feel our lives to be.  SixamtoSixam I Am is dedicated to those lost or still struggling with violence. May God Bless the families of those lost this horrific weekend in the city’s history.

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6:00 a.m. Friday to 6:00 a.m. Saturday.

Detroit, Michigan.

FRIDAY

8:12 a.m. | A 36-year-old man was approached by a man on the 16700 block of Biltmore and was fatally shot. The suspect, 30, ran away. Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide section at 313-596-2260.

I AM walking through a stable yard gazing across a freshly mown meadow at a herd of deer grazing in the remains of a morning mist.  The pads of my dogs feet fall gently in the soft morning grass, collecting dew.

6:50 p.m. | A 20-year-old man was walking to a basketball court in the area of Dexter and Davison when a man in a vehicle pulled up and fired shots. The victim received a gunshot wound and was listed in temporary serious condition. The suspect, who escaped in the vehicle, is 24-years-old. Anyone with information is asked to call the 10th Precinct Investigative Operations at 313-596-1040.

I AM wrapping the legs of an old schoolmaster, softly holding the tension in the bandage as it comes round his fetlock and back again, round and back again.

7:55 p.m. | A 40-year-old man was traveling at a high rate of speed at Warren and St. Antoine when he struck a pole and a tree. He was taken to a local hospital, where he died. He had received a gunshot wound. Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide section at 313-596-2260.

I AM feeling the work of the day in my bones, joints thick. I move through a slow cooked meal and a deep red wine.

9 p.m. | A 14-year-old told police he had an altercation with a person driving a vehicle at Harper and Bluehill. The suspect fired shots and escaped in the vehicle. The teen was struck and listed in temporary serious condition. The suspect is unknown and police, on a synopsis of the shooting incidents, noted: “The victim is being less than truthful and has had three different versions of what occurred.” Anyone with information is asked to call the Eastern District’s Investigative Operations at 313-596-5940.

I AM doing a night check of 8 horses whose countries of origin span continents.  I climb the loft stairs, throwing each a flake of hay to keep their guts occupied till the break of dawn when I will come again.

9 p.m. | A 15-year old told police he was walking in the area of Colfax and Oregon when he heard a shot and felt pain. He received a gunshot wound and is listed in temporary serious condition. Police said the investigation indicates the victim shot himself.

I AM walking through the moonlight, the sound of horses and the smell of hay fading behind me, the gentle noises of the night descending across the meadows, the pond and the woodlot.

SATURDAY

12:01 a.m. | Shots were fired at a backyard party on the 200 block of W. Greendale and five people were shot. The party, police said, was to celebrate the return of a person just released from being incarcerated in connection with a crime of assault with intent to murder. During the celebration, shots were fired, killing a 16-year-old and wounding another 16-year-old, two 18 year olds and a 19-year old. According to the synopsis of the shootings: “Persons fathering are not providing information on the shooter(s).” Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide section at 313-596-2260.

I AM dreaming of contorted faces morphing out into magazine glossies of people I do not recognize.  I wake, gazing at the red semicolon parked between the ’12′ and the ’01′.  I pull the linens close and let my eyes slide again into darkness.

1:50 a.m. | A 20-year-old man was approached on the 17300 block of Greenfield by several suspects as he changed a tire. As they attempted to rob him, the victim ran. Shots were fired, striking the victim, who is listed in serious condition. The suspects are unknown. Anyone with information is asked to call the 6th and 8th Precincts’ Investigative Operations at 313-596-5640.

I AM lost in sleep. Outside, the coyotes pace, measuring the light beams from the motion sensor floods, the scent of a bitch taunting them into a dodgy dance between the darkness and the light.

3:25 a.m. | Three men were shot on the 4000 block of Harding. Police said the men – ages 35, 38 and 46 – were gambling inside of the location when an altercation occurred and shots were fired. The 35 and 38 year olds were killed. The 46 year old is listed in critical condition and was arrested. Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide section at 313-596-2260.

I AM awoken by an ancient force: the Hour of Mercy. I reach for my Rosary in the soft red glow of digital lights, pulling it to my chest to pray in the quiet of the night. In the darkness my lips move, a whisper cuts the air…”Eternal Father I offer you the body, blood, soul and divinity of…

3:25 a.m. | A 21-year-old man, attempting to help his mother during a physical altercation with a man on the 9000 block of Robson, was fatally shot by the suspect, who is 39, police said. The suspect fled the location. Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide section at 313-596-2260.

I AM feeling the beads fall into the folds of my bed linens, in the darkness, one by one in silence, each cloaked one more time in my whispers…”for the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”

In this hour, around the world, an unbroken chain of prayers whispered for both the dead… and the living.

I AM.

Light breaks. I wake, pull my boots and walk, half drunk on a sorrow I cannot explain, to wide-eyed horses asking questions I cannot answer.  I firmly grasp the rake, drop my brow to my work, and begin to shovel the dregs of the day.

I AM.

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© 2011, 2012 Nancy Kotting.  All Rights Reserved.  Reproduction with Permission Only Contact: NancyKotting@Gmail.com 

Inside Out In Detroit

Detroiters always come home. Living in the city, intrenched in our valiant efforts, we burn out, get angry, say we are done and go to great lengths to put the heartbreak behind us, through rearview mirrors our final farewells cast. No matter how strong, visionary or devoted to truth, justice, or even a fleeting moment of psychological break-even we may be…Detroit eventually breaks even the stoutest of hearts. And yet, we come back…

Over the years I have watched wave after wave of ‘fresh troops’ come into her bosom, on fire with dreams ignited by the scent of her ashes. The most carnal instinct erupts at the sight of embers and no flame: we rush in to keep the fires lit knowing somewhere in our DNA that our life depends on it. They arrive from any and all points beyond: taunted, haunted and doomed by her motto: Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus.  Translation: We hope for better things, it will rise from the ashes.  Just as she pulls in the ‘first-time-is-free’ clients, she pulls back the repeat offenders. A city caught in the relentless skip of a scratched vinyl 45. For those addicted to resurrection mythology, Detroit is your slipstream.  A city of addicts, both chemical and mythic.

There are good addictions and there are bad.  Detroit is a good one and I’m back for another hit. When I first came into the city in 1988 I sought to rip apart her fabric thread by thread in all my cat-killing curiosity. I wanted to know Detroit politically, racially, aesthetically. It was daunting but deeply fulfilling for the span of 10 years. I fled and quickly returned in 1999, only to be met with a resounding ‘not now’ in my soul to which I answered with a firm foot to the accelerator pedal and the slow fade of her embers in my heart.

When in Detroit last I was agnostic, a wonderful protective device. Back then I drove the cobble streets fooling myself into thinking I was deep cover in my research of the city’s guts, an urban surgeon let loose with her scalpel on a cold cadaver. If I could see it, I knew it. The architectural ruins of pie-eyed capitalists surrounded my explorations, kept company by grand mansions, conformist worker housing and the occasional lone brick church, spires relentlessly pointing, asking us to shift our gaze from the surrounding hell to the heavens above. Intellectually and with a true open heart, I soaked up the scene I found myself immersed within. I lived it, owned it, sent it to the printer in my mind as a final draft.

Now, I know better. Fate returned me to Detroit as a Catholic. It is this that allows me to see Detroit within a frame I never imagined.  Ever.

It came to me as I sat in the Trinitarian Mass at St. Albertus.  I had caught glimpses of it over the course of my last sojourn in the city: a side lot newly planted in spring vegetables; an open window four stories up, above three abandoned, Thornetta’s voice falling out of it; the gentle nod of an elder as I waited, my wheels on the line at the cross-walk. But I didn’t quite get it then. I do now.

I targeted St. Albertus for Mass that day for two reasons: first, they are a parish that no longer exists and therefore it is nearly impossible to enter so I had to take the opportunity while I could. Secondly, a devout group steadfastly continue to keep the structure alive by holding Mass once per month, more importantly, the High Mass in latin which I am often hard pressed to find and attend.

As I approached the block of St. Aubin street adorned by St. Albertus, I found myself hoping for an attendant who might watch over the vehicles whilst we did our thing inside. St. Albertus is surrounded by the scenes of headlines, the scenes of the Detroit we all recognize: burned out houses, vacant lots of tall grass, a wandering soul in rags never afraid to make and hold eye contact with a passing motorist.

A 7′ tall wrought iron fence surrounded the church, the front gate open for the occasion, massive padlocks dangling in wait for the Mass to end. On the exterior, St. Al looks a part of the landscape which surrounds it: spalled bricks, ledges shrunk from dry rot, her stained glass windows barely perceptible behind protective plexiglass, iron and years of soot. The massive arched entry doors are held by iron hinges, the decorative false hinges long scalped, leaving their ‘ghost’ outline impressions lest we forget.

To walk into any of the Historic Catholic Churches of Detroit is to experience something beyond words. To do so feels akin to a radical action. To do so constitutes the most astounding shock to the psyche, in real time. These days we are acclimated to adjusting our perceptions in nano-seconds as pixels and bytes infiltrate our brainscapes at alarming speed.  But such is wholly a cerebral test of ones mind-width.  To cross the threshold of St. Albertus, or any of these churches, to go from the post-apocalyptic subject matter itself into a surviving sanctuary of unfathomable and pristine beauty, built in a time long past, alters the senses in a way that renders the term ‘virtual’ a joke, something you immediately, almost violently wish to eliminate from your life as a pathetic passing fancy.

Nothing defines real as starkly as stepping across the threshold of St. Albertus or any of these spiritual oasis of deep beauty from the darkness of an endless urban night.

Sitting in the nave listening to the Priest bellow in perfect Latin, I gazed out the open door of the South transept upon the barren field next door, a rusted water tower in the distance. This view from my pew in its totality constituted the very juxtaposition which I had sought for years to put into words for all those inquiring minds from locales beyond Detroit who inevitably asked me: why Detroit?

Her beauty is only found from within.

You will never see what it is that keeps we Detroiters here, that thing that keeps us coming back if you continue to gaze upon her from a safe distance.  Even when I walked her streets a decade ago, thinking I knew her, I didn’t.

In these churches I have found the metaphor I have searched for, stated in architectural terms much more clearly than the human random acts of grace I previously referred to as markers of what kept me here. They are the metaphor I somehow knew was there, just beyond my perception, the one I needed to truly understand Detroit: that her beauty is found deep within, and that beauty has remained, untarnished, in spite of the forces of time and socio-economic travails, in spite of what one may see from the outside.

In Detroit, no matter what life brings, no matter how deep and ugly the scars, her heart remains strong and true, a thing of beauty, a beacon of hope beyond destruction.

Dedicated to David Blair 1967-2011

© 2011, 2012  Nancy Kotting  All Rights Reserved   Reproduction by Permission Only

Irreconcilable Differences: Detroit, U.S. Auto Industry File For Divorce

Dateline Detroit:

The City of Detroit filed for divorce yesterday from the U.S. Auto Industry citing abandonment and irreconcilable differences.  A laid-off Wayne County employee, who wished to remain anonymous after years of feeling anonymous, tipped off SurReal Detroit Media shortly before noon at a clandestine meeting on Belle Isle. The report was later confirmed via text by a long-haul truck driver while delivering a load of charred Chevy Volts back to the assembly line under cover of night.

Detroit and the U.S. Auto Industry (aka: HotRod) married quietly in a civil ceremony at the turn-of-the-century, the turn-of-the-century before the last turn-of-the-century.  Their relationship had been the envy of the world for decades with entire nations trying to emulate them.  ”We admire very much them, perfecture marriage of industrialness and urbaness.” said Xu Zhi han of Shanghai between gasps for breath in the city smog.  In a brief Skype interview, German Peter Meinhard expressed little sympathy: “Vaz iz das future? Vee alvays knew zay made sheet together!”  Though we could feel their glow, the Japanese could not be reached for comment at press time.

Long suspected, the filing came as no surprise to residents who have worked to assume an identity autonomous of the auto industry.  ”I want my own life” said Detroit resident Athena Sunshine as she worked in her warehouse art studio.  ”Like, every time I hear the word ‘Detroit’ in the news, like, they are not talking about me, they are like, you know, like, talking about HotRod.  HELLO!  Do I LOOK like the auto industry? Hell no!  Just look at me: white girl natty dreads, I’m covered in plaster, eating Slows-to-Go and creating my OWN future ALL BY MYSELF!” she said while hurling plaster into what appeared to be a vat of nude barbie dolls.

HotRod and Detroit simultaneously tweeted of the impending split, having shared the news with family first.  With a smoke stack as an Avatar, HotRod tweeted: “It is with great sadness that I must keep this to 140 rpms…the chrome is gone from our relationship as is the vroom vroom of yesteryear.”  Detroit followed with a not-so-kind tweet: “HotRod has been on the sofa munching subsidies for years and I’ve given up. I’ve moved on and I’ve become someone I’m really proud of.”  HotRod fired back: “Detroit never appreciated my pistons!” A tweet riot ensued. While Detroit’s tweets remained coherent throughout the night, HotRod was backfiring all over the Twittersphere, not ceasing up until well after 4 a.m.  Eventually, HotRod’s account was stripped and blocked.

At the crack of dawn, in the fields of Brightmoor on Detroit’s Northwest side, Virgil Ploughforth Rakewell hollered at our reporter over the noise of his spit-shined Kaboda: “been farmin my part fer years now and I can’t member see’un no autoworkers, natta one. Seems they dispaired ‘fore my time. Cuz says heez seen some down t’ward Tennessee but I dunno, never been thar.  Deevorce jus seems like the right thing ta do at this point.  I gotta git, sun she’s a burnin, pleasure speakin ta ya.”

In Berlin, in a haze filled cavernous club, our strung out stringer caught up with Techno-turned-House-turned-Hip-Hop-turned-Trance-turned-Electro music magnet and former Detroiter Juan Attitagin to get his spin on the split: “I knew it was coming years ago and to be quite honest with you…” he screamed over the wall-fall inducing bass,  ”I’m surprised Detroit stayed with HotRod for so long.  They did fantastic sh*t together and it was beautiful, soulful, they changed the world man.  But now, Detroit needs to move on, the city no longer needs that fat a*s HotRod, they’re doin their own thing, makin their own rhymes, their own times, know what I’m sayin?”

Several newcomers to Detroit we interviewed had never known Detroit as something separate from HotRod and were somewhat surprised upon hearing of the split.  Transplant Jules Galore said it best: “Growing up in New York City, all I ever heard was HotRod this, HotRod that…HotRod ruled the world, from Havana to Tokyo to Tuvalu.  I had no idea there was this beautiful, soulful, strong, independent city-behind-the-industry. It was never allowed in the limelight, we never really knew Detroit.  And there it was all along, just working it’s fanny off behind the scenes while HotRod got all the headlines. That HotRod’s been two-timin Detroit all over the world and we know it.” He continued: “Detroit deserves it’s own identity now, it’s own freedom, it deserves to be recognized as a PLACE not an INDUSTRY.” When pressed and asked what he thought Detroit might be beyond a life with HotRod, he smiled and said: “Look around us, Detroit knows whats goin down. It’s prepared to be whatever it needs to be, whatever it wants to be.”

© 2011 Nancy Kotting    All Right Reserved    Reproduction with Permission Only   Contact NancyKotting@gmail.com

Charlie Sheen Gets A Detroit Whip Strip

I should have warned the guy.  An email, a post on FB perhaps, a call to his crew.  But I didn’t.

I let him run.

Detroit Rule #1: Come in here spewing your shit, wearing your strut like a slut and you’re in a back alley up on blocks before your curtain swings. And that’s what we LOVE about Detroit: if your deal ain’t real, stick around and it soon will be.  If ever I’ve seen a man who needs to find real, its Charlie.

I like the guy.  Brilliant talent, solid politics, capable of holding a through line….and like so many born of genius before, Hendrix for instance, who dance the fence-lines of the mind, give the dude a little lithium and let’s get on with it. Let the bi-polar among us do what they do: push us, test us, lead us and teach us. Safe zones be damned. Charlie Sheen has guts and I like that.  Takes guts to put a fractured show together, book 20 cities and launch it all in the toughest urban piece of WTF on the planet.  I truly admire anyone who plants a flag in the prairies of their own mental illness and commences a build out of a new reality.  God knows we need something new around here.

But first Charlie, you got to get back to the base. Last night you were given a grace: Truth. Detroit does that with the efficiency of an assembly line speed up. Whether you want it or not is irrelevant, Detroit doesn’t give a shit what you want but it does relentlessly deliver what you need: to see yourself naked, raw and unable to hide from yourself.  No floatin like a butterfly here: the dip, the dodge, the faint.  Its straight up or nuthin.  Meet the fist.

I know you’re probably cold turkey now.  I know the feeling.  Detroit did it to me and it was not pleasant. Sometimes looking in the mirror hurts, it goes beyond hittin bottom.  For you that would be easy: something to land on.  But you Charlie, are meant to fly.  You are smart, savvy, political in ways we NEED now in this country.  Last night Detroit did something for you nobody else has been able to do, and you know it.  You can keep going, doing what you’re doing, or, you can stop.

Listen.

Think.

And understand what so many of us already know: the world needs you Charlie Sheen. Naked, raw, and moving in truth. There is no other way. No slack, no flack, just straight up. In Detroit we don’t give a shit who you are or where you’ve been Charlie, not our business. What we want to know is this:

Now that we’ve done what we do, what are you going to do?

©2011 Nancy Kotting   All Rights Reserved  Reproduction by Permission Only

Touchstone: Detroit

March 18, 2011

Last week I hit a wall of sorts.  As with each and every morning, I awoke in the 3 a.m. hour, known as the Hour of Mercy. I have learned to be quiet, never complain of the sleep interruption, say my prayers and return slowly to my dreaming. I went on line in this hour only to find the horror that had just struck Japan as it appeared as a USGS email alert.  Thinking 8.9 was an error, I double checked.  Upon seeing the aftershocks occurring one every 5, 10, 15 minutes, I knew something very dark was occurring on the other side of the world.  Something so strong as to shift the very axis of the earth itself 4 inches, not so easy.

By Friday I needed to find a center somewhere other than the tundras of Ohio.  At the suggestion of a friend, I headed north to my home city Detroit for the weekend.  I am probably one of very few who would seek a weekend of peace and rejuvination in a place like Detroit.  But that is exactly what I set out to do.

Holed up at the far eastern edge of the city in a lovely 1920′s summer place situated in a garden like setting bordered by a deep canal on two sides, leading out to the river and the Great Lakes beyond, I awoke to the morning sun glistening over the distant view of Canada. Pheasants, cardinals and morning doves greeted my little dog and I as we walked out into the frost.  This little oasis sits just a few short blocks off Jefferson Avenue complete with its fortress like gas stations, burned out apartment bldgs, homeless wandering, children held firm by a mothers hand as they walked to the market.  Along this grand avenue later that day I would watch as a gentleman stood guard over 3 dozen leaf bags neatly lined up at the base of a stunning 1920′s building.  A glance up at the roof revealed approximately 1/3 of the rare blue slate had just been removed.  Detroit.

The late afternoon found me seated and engaged in a lively political conversation with three of my heroes/friends in the front lobby-cafe of a little black box theatre known as 1515 Broadway.  This pure Detroit moment remains the artesian well for emerging art and music in the city. Tap it next time you are in town.  After hearing all about the Electronic Music Festival plans for 2011, commiserating with others over the new neo-fascist Governor, the privatization of the school system and that nights social event of the year, The Buck Dinner, I rolled on and headed out into the neighborhoods to check out the demolished vs. occupied ratios. Surreal is not the word. Orwellian? perhaps.  MadMax-esque might work but I settled on applying the term ‘Efficient Urban’ to describe the world of contrast that is Detroit these days.

Dodging potholes, odd assortments of metal and a few mysterious clumps of undefined marginalia in the back streets, I wandered the hoods, marveling at the cleanliness of the mowed vacant lots.  Once the grammatical punctuation that strung the city blocks into cohesive sentences of urban prose, the shift had happened in the ten years since I had last executed such a survey. Now, it was the houses that appeared as a coma here, a semi-colon there, a terminating period at blocks end.  Most stripped and burned out, others occupied with warm lights peeking through curtains, some accompanied by gardens in winters rest. One stood proud, newly painted in historically correct color tones, ignoring the carnage in the lots to either side.

As the afternoon sun faded I found myself coming beneath the rails of Michigan Central Station, the city’s current poster child building, coming from Mexican Town and emerging on the other side to observe first hand the gardens put in place recently to mirror the grand dame in her haunting glory.  Across the way was a sea of people in green spilling out of pubs and bars serenaded by a few ragged drunks with bag pipes: Detroiters getting a jump on the Irish Holiday.  Smiling at the revelry, I turned away, my eyes falling on yet another ghost.

The last time I had been in Detroit, Tiger Stadium still stood tall.  Several years prior I had worked on a plan that had called for the adaptive reuse of the stadium, recycling the structure for new uses long after the team had moved to its new facility.  Years of wrangling had buried that idea and eventually it came down, leaving a barren field. Surrounded by a tall but supremely penetrable fence, the footprint of the historic Tiger Stadium remained as simply a small mound of reddish dirt marking somewhat of a center point in the vast empty spit of land.

There in the middle of that field of memories I laid my eyes on the very reason I return again and again and again to Detroit to renew my soul: after all the years, the ghosts, the greats, there they stood in the field of weeds.

Ignoring the parties, the traffic and the world itself beyond that fence line, there stood the players. No need for a stadium. No need for tickets, or bat boys or hot dog stands. Crisp uniforms did not delineate the identity of the teams, community did.

I could see heads being thrown back in laughter, some arms-a-gimbo in impatience and others striking the pose of a big leaguer.  Nobody could come up with a bat so a split of old rafter from a nearby ghost house made do.  Somebody showed up with the ball.

And there they played.

Knowing nothing of the carnage in Japan, or the rape of workers in Wisconsin, or even the odes to Ireland happening across the street, they played.

They played.

In a city, a country, a world caught in a supernatural war made so very real,

they played.

Heading south to the state line early Monday morning,

I reached the crest of the overpass and looked east to the Rouge, her smoke stacks puffing amid the miles and miles of steel and stack. I smiled, thankful for such a place, a place that could touch me, piece me back together, ground me in its never-ending currents of Hope in a world torn.

© 2011, 2012  Nancy Kotting    All Rights Reserved     Reproduction by Permission Only

So Goes Detroit

In 1987, shortly after the last Wall Street crash, I left the affluent suburbs of Detroit and relocated into the city proper. At that time there was something in me that craved, after four years of trading securities, facilitating the debt of corporations and governments, something REAL. Something emotionally, even spiritually tangible. Beyond my comprehension at the time, circumstances had converged that served to catapult me into one of the most intriguing urban environments in the world.

During my years in Detroit, as a participant/observer, I came to realize that this city truly is a curiously accurate barometer in the American landscape. Socially, racially and economically. The axiom that I heard as I went through my days in the city, sometimes whispered, sometimes proclaimed, was indeed very true: As goes Detroit, so goes the country. Yes, history repeats itself. It also telegraphs its intentions for those paying attention.

This afternoon, I watched via live feed over the internet from 300 miles away, a half black man campaigning for President of the United States. He spoke on the steps of the Detroit Public Library. He was surrounded by a sea of faces of all ages, of all races. Some in street clothes, others in suits and virtually all carrying a portable communication device through which they were either taking pictures of the event in real time or speaking to another remotely about the rally. History is sometimes so very, very surreal. The concepts of time and distance seem to be ripe for re-evaluation by Einstein’s heir.

Miles away, tucked into my home office in a remote fishing village in Northern Michigan, I watched the image of Barack Obama speaking to me live. As I peered at the image on my laptop, the layers of history washed back and forth like a tidal recording in my psyche. One of those recordings of the oceans we buy and install in our bedrooms to either lull us into sleep or humanely wake us ahead of the morning light. Flashes of Rosa Parks and a bus; the riots of ‘68; the clearing of Hispanic communities to enable freeway systems; the bulldozing of an entire polish community known as Pole Town to make room for yet another factory; the election of the first African American mayor; the installation of Joe Louis’ clenched fist rendered in iron.

Peeling back further my onion of Motor City memories, I recalled my late afternoon drives, rambles taken through the warehouse district nestled along the shores of the Detroit River after I was done working for the day and not yet wanting to go home. The district is composed of a collection of modest brick buildings now being rather inhumanely cremated by time and the elements. Divided by cobbled streets and alleys named Beaubien, St. Aubin and Chalfont, they stand atop the tilled waterfront French ribbon farms of the late 1700s. Alone, I was looking to meet or at least glimpse, a ghost or two of the birth of the industrial revolution itself. I met many along those cobblestone alleys: Packard, Ford and the remnants of a 100 others. The silicon valley of the last century hallowed, rusting and deeply, deeply haunting, Detroit is the domain of the ghosts of revolutions past. Standing silently, teaching relentlessly. And we must go to school.

Barack Obama spoke today just miles south along Woodward Avenue from the home of the Model T in Highland Park. It was there, in the handsome red brick storefront, that the first retail auto showroom presented the early examples of Detroit’s greatest economic contribution to the world: built-in-obsolescence. Stretching back from the street-scape, behind the showroom the three story building continues, still housing one of the first, and revolutionary, assembly lines. Beyond this, the file archives of .the Ford Motor Company including all the legal documents surrounding small miracles of design and convenience such as the intermittent windshield wiper the dashboard lighter and the turn signal. I have walked the bowels of these buildings, kicked aside the dead rats and observed the wonders of the first factory radiant heating system, the overhead lifts for the parts carts and the rails of the original assembly line rusting in the dank industrial air.

In a city as complex and as beautifully designed as the urban core of Detroit, one can witness the American drama in all its incarnations. It is not the history of a generation or two, or even three that is revealed. It is the history of a revolution itself that is layed out in the streets of Detroit. And it is told not by the human voice of those residing there now but by the architecture of decades of hopes and dreams. From the workers seduced for $5 a day from the hills of Appalachia into the catalog factory housing built in the green fields of the outer rings, to shotgun houses of Corktown built by the Irish immigrants fresh from the trains that unloaded them at Central Depot direct from New York. From the wooded distant views of Olmsteads’ Belle Isle to the gilded ballroom of the Cadillac Hotel, Detroit speaks of the hopes and dreams of a nation as it met the challenges of race, economics and social hardship. In the fabric of both ruins and occupied structures, Detroit relentlessly and thoroughly tells a story of the true America. A story of seedling beginnings, a story of struggle, a story of repeated defeat, of hard earned redemption and a story of the sheer resilience of the American spirit to persevere through social as well as economic revolution.

The keen observer, the wise observer, the intuitive observer who has been watching the barometer that is Detroit, would have seen our current national reality forecast nearly a decade ago: failed housing, neglected infrastructure and the permeation of greed as the vehicle of a slow bloodletting. Today, I saw and felt, that barometer move. As Barack Obama stood and spoke I saw in the crowd of faces, a city that is in the enviable position of having weathered the storms of the past century in this country and gleaned the wisdom of having survived. I saw the intention of history telegraphed in the proud and determined faces of the citizens of Detroit.

There is no city on this continent more intrinsically prepared and indeed more deserving of the opportunity to now lead us into the next revolution than the city of Detroit.

-NK

© 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Nancy Kotting All rights reserved. Reproduction by permission only.