First day of college. A tour of campus, then a tour of the three-block radius separating us from the wilds of inner-city Detroit. Instructor tells students NOT to leave three-block “safety zone”—and if we DO, always “look people in the eye.” Don’t look like a “victim.” Walk tall and confident, and if someone demands money or a wallet, just give it to ’em.
I had no idea every other city wasn’t like this one. I had never seen a city before. I loved it—tall buildings, libraries, black people, freedom. On April 1, Mom calls to check in on me. My dorm roommate has a new Macintosh II, and we play gunshot sound effects as I tell her that my car has been stolen. It works too well. Then: “April Fool’s!!!” Mom doesn’t laugh. Next morning, my Plymouth Horizon is still where I left it, but every tire except one is flat and the passenger-side window is busted. The replacement window costs $200. Weirdly, nothing is stolen.
I get lost driving in Southwest Detroit, trying to find food. Factories, abandoned houses, dirt roads. Finally see a Farmer Jack, and while exiting the freeway, a big-ass hooptie—a great big green Lincoln Continental—hits the back of my Horizon so hard I fly into a 180-degree spin and lose my back bumper. I get out and ask the guy if I can get his insurance number. He pulls a 9 mm from his crotch and asks me why I hit him. I say sorry, get back in my car, and wait for him to drive away. Then I get out and throw my bumper in the trunk. When I finally pull into Farmer Jack, it’s closed. A guy with a shopping cart rolls up and asks me if I “want some rocks.” I say no. Farmer Jack—the biggest grocery-store chain in downtown Detroit in the 1990s—from that day forward becomes Farmer Crack.
Being a ‘billy from Up North, growing up as a little kid on a farm in Northern Michigan, I’d never seen a prostitute. One sunny summer day, while riding my ten-speed through the Cass Corridor trying to find something called “falafel”, I ride past a bunch of hookers. “Whatchoo doin’ cracka-biiiiiiiiiitch?” asks a funny and awesome curvy lady wearing nothing but a silk camisole and high heels, laughing. Getting catcalled, getting things thrown at you by the Cass Avenue hookers, becomes an official sport that summer. We keep a tally sheet on the fridge. Being called “bitch” gets 5 points. “Cracker” gets you 10.
I’m going to school for graphic art—”commercial” art. When a group of way cooler FINE ART students asks me to participate in a gallery show, I’m honored. The show has the loose theme of “time.” We’re each given only the motor of a clock and asked to build the rest. There is an abandoned two-story house over on Willis Street that I’ve always wanted to go in. The doors and windows are long gone, and grass and flowers are growing on the windowsills. My boyfriend and I go in to scavenge for clock materials. Being inside a house that’s still partially furnished and still has an old framed painting hanging over the fireplace is beyond creepy. Even in broad daylight, you can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching you. I go straight for a downstairs bedroom and find an old box spring. I pull at it and get a hunk of rotted wood covered in a perfect mess of rusty springs. My clock is gonna rock. Boyfriend wants to go upstairs. “No,” I say. “Let’s just go—I got what I need.” He calls me a wuss. We go home. The next day on the local news, we see the house with the windowsill flowers. They found a long-dead body in the upstairs bedroom. A woman. They think she was a prostitute. We don’t ride our bikes down Cass so much after that.
Can’t get any homework done in the dorm. Mom comes with a truck full of apartment stuff, and I tell her to follow me to my new place. I drive her all over the worst neighborhoods I know, then pull into the driveway of a boarded-up three-story house covered with graffiti. “Kill Whitey” is spray-painted on the front of it. I get out of the car just to see the terror on her face. Then: “Just kidding!” She yells back: “You BITCH!”
Move into a gorgeous brick brownstone called Phillips Manor—hardwood floors, fireplace, four bedrooms. My two roommates and I pay $110 apiece. The three of us are sitting and watching the huge Star Trek–looking TV I scored for $15 at the thrift store. All the remote controls are sitting in plain view on the coffee table. We’re watching VH1. The channel changes itself to The New Dance Show—the local, low-budget version of Soul Train. This is the first of many times that the TV switches itself to another station. The radio randomly switches itself, too. And always to a black TV show or song. Seems to be a friendly ghost. Most definitely an African-American ghost. The only other thing living in that house, aside from the three of us, is my roommate’s spooky black Persian cat. Always hiding somewhere. Can never pet it. Once, we can’t find it for almost a week. My roommate leaves to make a “Lost Cat” flyer at Kinko’s, thinking it somehow got outside. Boyfriend is sitting in the living room, and I’m at one end of the long hallway near the bathroom. The cat comes stumbling out of one of the bedrooms and just sits in the middle of the hallway, not moving, staring intently at me. I say, all sweet, “Kiiiii-teee, there you are!” The cat just stares. Then its mouth opens slightly and a very deep man’s voice says, “Hello.” With that, the cat walks back into the bedroom. Boyfriend says, “Who just said ‘Hello’?” Not making this up. I scream and lock myself in the bathroom. For hours.
Detroit’s freeways were built for TRAFFIC. Except there are no people left, just embankments, grass, cement. Pretty easy to turn around, because every exit has an overpass. I’m driving 89 miles an hour, late for class. Teacher says if I’m late again—expelled. WHAM! My hood flies up and hits the windshield. I’m going so fast and can’t see anything. Then the wind catches and it slams back down, but now the latch is broken, so it flies up again. HOLY FUCK. It slams down again and I start pulling to the right. WHAM! Hits the windshield again. Oh my fucking God, why is this happening? The next time it flies up, it doesn’t hit the windshield—it just flies right off the car. I watch it in the rearview mirror go end over end, airborne. I pull off at an exit, thinking my hood just caused a HUGE accident. Maybe killed someone? I travel south, then back north, looking for carnage. NOTHING. I go farther and do the loop again. And again. Nothing. Where the hell is the hood to my car? Somebody steal it? That fast? Never ever find it, and drive around the D with my engine exposed for over a week.
Some kids at school ask if we wanna go to a party. Sure! Okay, they tell us to go to Zoots Coffee to get directions. We go to Zoots. Barista looks us up and down, then tells us to go to Alvin’s and ask the bartender for the directions. Weird, but all right. After Alvin’s, we get sent to Cass Cafe, and someone at Cass Cafe says to go to Showtime Clothing, then finally someone there tells us the party is at the long-closed Packard Plant—a huge auto factory built in 1903, now a maze of 40-plus abandoned buildings on 35 acres. We go. Holy shitballs, it’s scary at night. A couple kids are outside directing people. We follow a tunnel made of black garbage bags that empties out into this gigantic open room. There are crazy lights everywhere, some guy named Plastikman is DJing, and over a thousand people are dancing, partying, screwing each other in the dark corners. Some guy asks me if I want some “E.” I say, “What’s that?” He says, “Oh, child, is this your first rave?”
One day, my friend calls. She lives in the same apartment building, but on the fifth floor. “Come quick! Come up here!” We go to the window and look down at the street. There’s a view of the Majestic Cafe parking lot, Detroit Medical Center, more brick apartments, and Woodward Avenue, the main drag. Three men in brightly colored ski masks are pouring gasoline all over our landlord Judith’s Buick Riviera. One of the men throws a book of matches on it, and then they walk away. We clap and laugh and LAUGH as Judith’s boyfriend tries to put the fire out with buckets then a garden hose. We didn’t like Judith very much. Apparently, the drug dealers down the street didn’t like her either. Especially after she called the cops on them. Another time at that window, we watch a drunk guy with a cinder block smash out the windshields of five cars in a row. The cops actually show up that time.
One night, I get kinda shitty on OE. We thought it’d be fun to drink Olde English 800 malt liquor from the “party store,” just like everyone else did in the D. All fun until I have to drive home. I mean, walking was ALWAYS out of the question, unless you wanted to maybe die, and cabs were rarely around. It’d be good to take all the side streets, I think to myself, kinda creep my way home. “Creeping” was all I’d done anyway since I lost my driver’s license. If you lose your license, and you’re a 22-year-old girl living in downtown Detroit, you have no choice but to keep driving. I’d been driving very carefully for almost a year, with no trouble. When the cops pull me over, my neck immediately breaks out in hives. This is it—I’m going to jail, oh sweet Mary mother of God, I’m going to jail. Two football-player-sized black policemen come up to my car. Instead of asking for my license, they ask if I know I’m driving the wrong way down a one-way street. I try to explain. Oh fuck. My speech is slurry. “What’s that?” policeman one says, pointing to the red gas can in the back of my car. “I ran outta gas two days ago,” I say. “Don’t you know it’s Devil’s Night?” says policeman two. (Devil’s Night, the night before Halloween, is the Detroit phenomenon where residents set fire to empty buildings. One year, over 800 houses burned to the ground in less than 72 hours.) “You know, you can go to jail for even having that in your possession.” “I wasn’t gonna burn anything, I swear to God, please believe me,” I say. “Okay, okay,” one says, “but I gotta take that can.” “What are you doing down here anyway, blondie? This is a bad neighborhood,” says the other. “Where are you trying to go?” “Home. I live on Willis Street.” “Okay, then, follow us. We’ll give you an escort. You really shouldn’t be here.”
Walking home from the Detroit Institute of Arts—my first museum, with so many real Van Gogh paintings that I get overwhelmed and physically nauseated—I see the infamous, majestic “yellow dogs” running down the street. Unlike Mexico, which has a sunshine-y warm climate and loads of feral dogs, Detroit’s wild dogs are so furry and dirty they almost look like they have dreads, or like smallish grizzly bears—maybe once domesticated, maybe once someone’s pet, now alien creatures worthy of scientific study. You can tell the lead dog—he is always leading the pack—used to be a yellow Lab. The rest are a mix of breeds, but for some reason, everyone calls them “the yellow dogs.” They are always silently running somewhere—never barking. The rumor is that you have good luck for a week if they cross your path.
I’m working at the college and at the Majestic Cafe on Woodward Avenue. I lied my way into a waitress job there: When they asked if they could call my former employer, I gave them my mom’s number and told her to answer the phone for a few days as “Torsch’s Bar and Grill.” She did. And it worked. The Nub Man is a homeless, toothless, one-armed vet who spare-changes in front of the Majestic. I see him almost every day. He used to scare me a little, but I try to give him change or bills when I can. One night, after a super-long, hard shift, someone steals my apron with all my money in it. I’m livid. So tired and angry. I start to walk home. The Nub comes running after me. “No, you know what?” I say. “I DON’T HAVE ANY FUCKING MONEY! Someone stole it, and now I can’t fucking eat! I don’t have any food!” Then I start crying. “Oh it’s okay,” he says, and hands me five bucks. “You’re gonna eat. Just take it.” I pay him $10 back the next day, and after that, the Nub and I are friends. One sunny day, we even play Frisbee in the parking lot. Last time I ever see him: He comes running up to me for his typical high five—he’d hold up what was left of his arm and say, “Give the nub some love!”—then says, “Girl, whatchoo think?!” I say, “‘Bout what?” “What’s different?” he says with a huge, cheesy grin. “You got teeth!” “Ah, haaaa! I did! They tried to give me an arm, too, but I didn’t want no fake arm.”
One day, I’m in so much pain I can’t walk. Feels like a knife in my girly parts. I’m crawling on our dirty hardwood floors in Hamtramck, the little Polish hood north of downtown. Since I live with a sculptor, there’s clay dust on everything. The Midol my boyfriend brings me doesn’t work, so he throws me in his Ford Festiva—the tiniest car in the world—and takes me to Henry Ford. “What’s wrong with you, girl?” the ER nurse asks. I’m pouring sweat. I’m dying. I feel like I’m going to start hallucinating. They roll me into the maternity ward. A group of gigantic and gorgeous super-pregnant black women surround me. I’m in the fetal position, weeping. Only white person for miles. (My stepdad would have died before coming in here. “I don’t even like driving past Detroit,” he used to say. In the five years I lived there, he never visited once.) One of the women pets my head. I can’t stop crying. “This is a blood gas,” a nurse says, plunging a needle into an artery in my wrist. It basically feels like she’s cutting my hand off. Next thing, someone’s saying, “It didn’t work, gotta do it again.” And then I’m alone in the room. And then, suddenly, all the pain just stops. Instant gone. I can hear them coming back for my second blood gas. No more “blood gases.” No way. SORRY. I find my street clothes, carefully pull the IV line out of the vein in my other arm, and walk out of the hospital. According to the $2,000 bill I get later, I passed a kidney stone.
One night, my friend calls. “Come up here!” “Is someone torching Judith’s new car?!” “No, just come up, CLOWNS!” We go to the window and look down. “I think they’re called ‘Juggalos’—some band called ICP is playing at the Magic Stick across the street.” We start throwing paper airplanes at them. Then various other crap, including some potatoes we have on the kitchen counter. This angers the clowns. They start yelling at the building. Then throwing bottles of Faygo at the building, except they don’t know which apartment the potatoes are coming from. Judith goes outside to see what’s going on. We clap and laugh and laugh some more.
The best part of living in Detroit is the ruins. The whole place is one giant urban-ruins park. Though it’s sad and broken and abandoned, there is art everywhere. It’s beautiful. From the graffiti and street art to all the overgrown empty places, where nature is slowly but surely reclaiming its place. When school ends, it’s time to leave and find a job. The last summer we’re living there, we break into 50-plus buildings. Not to destroy things, but to pay our respects to all those grand old dinosaurs. We spend so many nights sitting on top of the old train station, Michigan Central Station. We climb 18 stories—it takes almost 45 minutes—with food and beer and blankets on our backs, and then just sit on the roof and watch the sunset over our pretty city. I think I miss that place the most, out of everything. I spend my last day thinking I should go over to the train station one last time to say good-bye to her. Gonna miss this Detroit. I’ve been robbed, mugged on the light rail (thanks, People Mover, I mean People Mugger, I mean MUGGER MOVER), and almost carjacked once, but I’m still really gonna miss it. I step outside my apartment and take a huge breath. Suddenly, a big gust of wind picks up a plastic Farmer Crack grocery bag filled with nasty trash—some old Kleenex, some cigarette butts. The bag hits me in the face. Nope. No train station today. Gotta go. 
Sorry, ‘think Spahn Ranch at ST ANdrews in 1989’
Or was hat Majesty Crush at St ANdrews in 1991? Who the fuck knows.
Detroit is and has always been packed with more trustafarians from Grosse Point, Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills than you can shake a stick at. Easy to spot them in the 80s and 90s by their tattoos, UM college degrees, heroin habits and parents in mansions. Bored white kids trying to piss off their parents by their only vaguely dangerous alt lifestyles in Indian Village.
Most now do PR work; it’s what happens after 20 years in a failed band.
You must’ve lived in the gray building on Willis, about a half-block from Woodward? I used to live in the Rinaldo, next door and saw some crazy shit. I know the nub guy, and lived there when ICP came to the Majestic. Stupid shit. No Faygo at the party store across the street. Detroit is a unique place.
Everybody who feels insulted by this article should calm down. Yes it’s a little annoying. White people commenting on their experience with being a minority is always annoying. But, remember if this was a story about any other race being the minority in a community where they are not immediately welcome, you would be praising their courage. It’s all the same. Just harder to hear coming from a white blondie. Being different builds character. and don’t judge her based on what her step dad thinks, she obviously wrote it in to make a point.
Seeing Sham 69 at Blondie’s on 8 Mile ave. was one of the most surreal experiences in my life..Bastion of punk rock in the heart of the 80’s crack epidemic. One of the scariest nights of my life.
surreal, scary and REAL.
Kelly O, tell us more!
The sheer amount of blind privilege in this article is almost impressive. Kelly O, do you honestly not realize how entitled you sound in these stories? You moved to Detroit of your own volition for a college education, knowing you’d be able to leave when you were done. That last bit is key – you *knew you could leave,* and that (hugely privileged) knowledge colors all of these stories, whether you realize it or not. The tone of your article assumes a level of familiarity with Detroit you don’t actually have. The deeper Detroit experience isn’t a transient one; it’s entrenched, stuck, struggling, and in it communities come together because they have to, people watch out for each other because they have to.
You, on the other hand – it sounds like you came into the big bad city prepared to treat it as a joke, with a pre-set (and fairly racist) view of it you never bothered to challenge by actually engaging with the community and the culture. Detroit can in fact be a dangerous, hostile place to live, but it sounds like that’s *all* you saw – or at least, all that stuck with you – and there’s so much more to it than that.
(For the record, I spent most of my life in the neighborhoods described here. I should also point out that I’ve been treated many times at Henry Ford, which is one of the best hospitals in the country.)
Count Cyril Petrovich Tolstoi
I don’t think it was racist. I think it was written by a white female from the position of being a minority, with appreciation of other cultures, wisdom, and a sense of humor. just because someone mentions that someone else is black in a story, for story-like purposes, that doesn’t make them a racist. In fact, the only two black people that she describes in the story other than the helpful policemen she describes as “beautiful” and “awesome.”
Fun read, Kelly. I always associated your kind of tough beauty with women I’ve met from Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. I’ll add Detroit to the list.
@ 60: you took the words right out of my mouth. Well put.
Perhaps “racist” is not the best term, however, there is a huge spectrum of racial bias, misconception and preconcieved notion in this country regarding minorities*. Kelly O just proved with this stupid article that she’s on that spectrum.
*I mean actual ethinc minorities. Going to Detroit for college does not make a middle class white girl a minority any more than me going to Qwest Field for a football game makes me a Seahawk.
Hey Kelly, do you rememeber what “G T” sprayed on all the train trestles and overpasses really meant? I do!!! Great article.
Whoa, you’ve really shed new light on Detroit here. I’ve never heard or read any of these sentiments about the city before. This is ground-breaking, shit, indeed. “The best part of living in Detroit is the ruins.” I say that everyday when I wake up!
Get the hell out of here. Was this published as supposed fact or fiction? The liberties you take come with consequence. Also, no matter how many exclamation points, put things in all-caps or drop F-bombs, you are moderately funny at best.
Seriously,though, you should be ashamed for this publishing this dribble. You know nothing of Detroit, and this article is not representative of Detroit or Detroiters. You should at least have more respect for your readers.
— Travis R. Wright, Metro Times (Detroit)
Detroit WAS great. It is now a National embarrassment, no matter how many chest puffers say it’s REAL because it’s hard. The list of really hard places to live that are flailing is long and a sad comment on the values of our institutions. Anybody want to go to bat for Juarez?
wow, it sounds like Baltimore but with more abandonment and decay. i’d love to visit and check out all the abandoned places.
Wow . . .what a smarmy little article wreaking with white privilege.
Congratulations on having to put up with black people and poor people while you received a college education and mommy furnished your apartment. I really don’t know how you managed.
I’m glad so many of you enjoyed this . . .aren’t people who are trapped in heart-breaking cycles of poverty HI-larious?
#17 Deemeana wrote:
“So when Kelly O sees me will she also describe me as a gigantic black lady? Is that all you saw was the “black” on people but not the humanity of those people including Nub? Post racial society my ass. Every other paragraph seemed to mention black this, or black that. I can not stand folks like that. Moving to the city to be surrounded by black folks is part of the cool factor? Are we fauna? It seems like you lived amongst Black folks, but not with them. Sad.”
yeah, Deemeana, I’m sure “Kill Whitey,” “Bitch” and “Cracker” made Kelly O. feel right at home amongst ‘Black folks.’ Typical hypocritical reverse racism bullshit. Sad.
Decided to read some Travis R. Wright to get a feel for Real Detroit Detroiters since Kelly-O’s experiences don’t count. And weather it’s punk rock culinary shows or reviews for fuck machines, Wright provides an insight into the D that truly respects its readers. I guess that’s why there are so few comments on Wrights articles –he nails the topic every time!
I love this ongoing debate of what real cities and real people actually are. I thought for sure I would never here it again after McCain and Palin were defeated.
And if two big black (or white, or hispanic) cops approach you and the details of the experience don’t invoke a sense of subjectivity, then go hang out with fucking Tom Cruise.
Also, this isn’t a travel brochure, it’s someone’s personal experience. And I know, it infuriates me too when other people don’t have exactly the same experiences as me!
Allow me to add my own article on Detroit so that everyone can enjoy this piece equally.
Ahem…Last summer I went to Detroit and it was great! I saw men and women and buildings, ate meal and walked dog! Uh oh! Time for bed! Good night dog. Good night moon. Good night D.
#69 – It’s too bad you assume so much. A lot of you in this thread, are assuming so much, wrongly, about race. I LOVED living in Detroit. And I loved *finally* having black friends – there weren’t any black people where I grew up in Northern Michigan. I think there was ONE girl in my high school, and I didn’t even get to meet her until 11th grade.
Is it my fault I was born somewhere where there was zero racial diversity? Could I control that?
When I finally made it out – went to college – it changed everything. For the better. These are a few stories of human experience. Not race. I wouldn’t change any of it. If I could go back in time, and choose anywhere to go to school, I’d still choose Detroit.
You can also stick all the white-privilege assumptions somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine. I grew up on a small farm, in the middle of nowhere – Lachine Michigan. I shared a tiny bedroom, in a tiny house, with my younger brother until high school. We heated our entire house with wood, and one year, when we were too poor to buy enough food, my parents illegally poached deer so we’d have something to make Hamburger Helper with.
You shouldn’t assume, that if someone’s white, that they have money, and/or are a member of suburbian middle class.
That truck wasn’t full of Mommy-provided nice-new apartment furniture – it was filled with thrift and garage sale crap I’d collected, for my dreams of making it the hell out of Northern Michigan. I bought most of it myself doing in-home nursing jobs. I changed many an adult diaper to buy that beat-up dresser. And the college education? I’ll be paying those loans back until I’m old and gray.
Maybe I should have written about my memories of being poor white trash.
That story, however, has already been told.
http://amzn.to/ak5Tmf
Decided to read some Travis R. Wright to get a feel for Real Detroit Detroiters since Kelly-O’s experiences don’t count. And weather it’s punk rock culinary shows or reviews for fuck machines, Wright provides an insight into the D that truly respects its readers. I guess that’s why there are so few comments on Wrights articles –he nails the topic every time!
I love this ongoing debate of what real cities and real people actually are. I thought for sure I would never here it again after McCain and Palin were defeated.
And if two big black (or white, or hispanic) cops approach you and the details of the experience don’t invoke a sense of subjectivity, then go hang out with fucking Tom Cruise.
Also, this isn’t a travel brochure, it’s someone’s personal experience. And I know, it infuriates me too when other people don’t have exactly the same experiences as me!
Allow me to add my own article on Detroit so that everyone can enjoy this piece equally.
Ahem…Last summer I went to Detroit and it was great! I saw men and women and buildings, ate meal and walked dog! Uh oh! Time for bed! Good night dog. Good night moon. Good night D.
I’m weirdly proud about being from Detroit (or, you know, the suburbs thereof). I think it has something to do with the tv commercials from when I was a kid, “Stand up and tell ’em you’re from…Detroit!”
Kelly O. is fucking shit up punk style by telling it like she lived it.
If you’re offended, you probably think you have a corner on reality. So fuck you.
More Kelly O!
Born and raised in Detroit. I don’t believe these stories. How can someone like me, who has lived there her whole life, ride public transportation to public school for 7 years – never experience anything remotely like this?
Hmmm.
sounds similar to philly!
The New Dance Show is amazing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS6Vb63Zc…
For all you boobs that think Detroit is the best thing since sliced bread, I’ve got news for you. I just returned from the Murder, oops, Motor City. Got myself a nice new t-shirt with a picture of a fist holding a smokin’ gun with the caption of “Come back to Detroit, we missed you the first time”. Also, the lovely city made it to #1, again, as the most dangerous city in the US. Nice……I wanna live there!!!
Detroit has always had a sense of lawlessness. Much of the city is like the wild west. Make it up as you go along. All traffic laws/signs are mere suggestions. You can drive 80 mph on the freeways and get you doors blown off. No one stops at red lights for fear of carjackings. I grew up in the suburbs but have had some of the best times of my life in Detroit. There is always something to do.
I lived in Baltimore and when I told my stories about my life there, people ALWAYS said, that sounds like Detroit! So true.
I would’ve liked to heard more about the individual human beings that actually live in these areas and their stories. This article treats these neighborhoods as if they are some kind of decrepit amusement park.
Thanks for the great piece. As a long ago refugee who sometimes returns I thought you told the truth. The abandoned properties do make it like an archeological site and the culture of poverty and crime do evoke comparisons to the third world. In the old days they used to call us poor white trash instead of crackers. As you and other commenters mentioned there are also good things there.
Hopefully present Mayor Dave Bing and others will succeed in reshaping the city. At present the consensus seems to be that there aren’t enough people or funds to support all the present neighborhoods. Unfortunately politics and economics prevent reuse of much of what would otherwise be reserviceable old infrastructure. It seems likely that much of it will be demolished and converted back to agriculture or other open space and that people will be encouraged to live in areas that match what the tax base can support.
Lifting people out of poverty and reducing crime there may be more challenging and complex than changing land use.
Beware that given a few decades Seattle infrastructure could go the same way. There are many similarities between the conversion of open space to suburbs around Seattle and what happened around Detroit in the 1950’s. As with Detroit lack of maintenance fails to match what is needed to maintain Seattle infrastructure. Given a few decades some of the present Seattle area mega-mansions may be abandoned or converted to rooming houses, group homes like many of the once magnificent mansions on Grand Avenue in Detroit.
=Made in Detroit=
I’m from Detroit, and when I say that, I mean De-troit Detroit. Known for being the hub of Polacks and Catholic Churches that in retrospect look like Liberace shit faberge eggs while on acid. On Devil’s Night there would be 800 fires burning throughout the city, and on two occasions the abandoned houses next door on each side and the one in back were torched. I was going through my formative years when the crack epidemic struck and Detroit was the murder capital of the nation. I never complained about any of this.
Here’s what I did complain about… You came into my hometown, kicked your feet up, and smiled in my face while telling me that you’re slumming it. I was supposed to be honored by your presence, and you were too self-centered to realize how condescending you were being.
I get to college, and you’re there. However, my classmates are predominately stuck up, trust fund, pampered Kaitlyns and Jacobs like yourself who patronize my world by making it their ‘urban experience’. I don’t think it’s cute that you got offered crack today by a guy with more genuine character than you will ever possess. I don’t think it’s quaint that you are willing to patronize us working slob natives by having a $4 pitcher of PBR with us at Third Street Saloon. Oh My God! You stayed up all night at Detroit Contemporary standing in a corner making fun of people? Hey! That makes you an artist! You and your Abercrombie & Fitch crowd from Sterling Wheights look like complete tourists when you show up the Magick Stick trying to act like you own the place. I don’t care that you’re in a band, your band sucks. College is not your second chance at being cool in high school. Yes, I know where you can get some marijuana. No, I won’t tell you. I don’t think its ghetto fabulous that you’re drinking St. Ides and Olde English.
Do you think it makes you tough that you braved the Cultural Center area bubble that is the two block radius surrounding CCS and WSU? That area is a pristine adolescent playground where you and your ilk wasted your parents’ money. I know who you are. Your work is shit. You do not possess a working understanding/definition of Post Modernism. Peter W. laughs at you. Mel R. chided you on because he thought he would one day fuck you, proving once again that he has no taste. You’re beyond adulthood now and have succeeded in accomplishing nothing other than looking to like-minded failures for passive affirmation about how the world scares and amazes you. Read that last sentence again and again until you get it. Seriously, grow the fuck up.
Years have past, and now we’re both in Seattle. Have you accomplished anything? Did you at least clean up the mess you made in Detroit before you left?
In the voyage that is life you will always be a tourist, and the postcards you write are not worth reading.
I’ve decide that the comment that I posted earlier is just the kind of in-your-face Detroit attitude that you’re so enamored with. You’re welcome.
DANG – this makes me miss the good old days when DC was Murder Capitol!
All of you Detroit defenders are completely full of crap. Its a blighted out, bombed out shithole. A sense of community? What community, a community of crackheads? If its so great then why don’t you move back? Have fun living next door to a crack house, not being able to take a walk anywhere, having your car stolen or broken into, putting up with the constant racism (from blacks and whites). I grew up there and I would sooner kill myself than live in that city again.
Kelly O, I really enjoyed your autobiographical writing style…it’s the tough but exciting times in life imbued with humor. Do you have any other writing I could read? I could see this as a memoir. It’s funny how nostalgia makes us look back on the times when we were growing up with fondness no matter what we had to deal with at the time.
A vivid piece of writing, KellyO. I grew up in the Detroit area about a million years ago. My family lived first in Lincoln Park, a shabby little downriver factory suburb, then later in Southfield, just north of 8 Mile Road. I never, ever say I’m from Detroit. It would be like saying you were a Vietnam veteran when in fact you were a Vietnam-Era veteran and you weren’t ever in-country. It just seems important to be accurate.
In the summer of 1967, a few girlfriends and I took the bus to a friend’s house near Dayton, Ohio. We got stranded there when the riots exploded. Some college friends of my parents, both teachers who’d returned to work in the Detroit school system, spent long hours huddled on the floor hoping they wouldn’t get hit by stray gunfire.
I don’t expect that’s what broke Detroit, but the collapse of the auto industry ensured that it was never going to recover. I left Michigan in 1970, before the Renaissance Center was built. My grandparents, who lived in a nice little house in Redford Township, on Bentler Avenue, had long since decamped to Florida. My best memories of Detroit are about Bentler Avenue, and my grandma walking us to the park, or to the dime store on Grand River Avenue. There were so many trees.
Thank you Kelly O for sharing your experience with us and evoking the continuum of emotions in many readers. I was “Made In Detroit” and grew up surrounded by the white, racist privilege of Dearborn, MI, although our family has never had money.
I went to Wayne State, although I dropped out to move to another amazing and unique place, Olympia, Wa, where I still reside. I really loved this piece. I really love all of the memories that came flooding back, of old friends, and incredible circumstances, and YES- the human condition. I loved going to school there. I loved all of the people I connected with… like the Nub Man!
My x worked at the Traffic Jam, and we used to go to The Majestic after they closed most Saturday nights. I swear I looked at a house (to live in) on the GP/D border that was across the street from a boarded up house that said “KILL WHITEY”.
Yes, I had many other parallel experiences, and I feel the need to explain the synchronicity involved in this. I rarely read The Stranger, but I feel like the only reason I went to our food co-op tonight was to look down and see “Those Days In Detroit”…. as I am still living with just enough to get by, but now I have a family, 2 kids and husband. Like that. We find ourselves about to embark upon a month of fund raising, Oly style (secret cafes, puppet shows, raffles…), so we can take our children to meet our beloved relatives who are all still there. Thank you. Yes, this piece is your experience, AND it speaks of the place where I grew up and came of age, and dreamed about living the life I’m now living somewhere else. Really, I got it. And now I have it. Thanks.
“Is it my fault I was born somewhere where there was zero racial diversity? Could I control that?”
Is this supposed to be an excuse? Pathetic.
I live in a Detroit suburb and I’d say half of this story is made up.
The author should teach herself “subject object predicate” before making fun of other people’s English too.
I live in a Detroit suburb and I’d say half of this story is made up. Apparently the thing the author remembers best is her own racism.
“Is it my fault I was born somewhere where there was zero racial diversity? Could I control that?”
Is this supposed to be an excuse? Pathetic.
The author should teach herself “subject object predicate” before making fun of other people’s English too.
I understand people’s need to be defensive about their home town, but fuuuuck. You couldn’t PAY me to go to Detroit. It’s a fascinating study on a modern faded city, but I feel bad for anyone, black or white, who has to endure there. And a word on racism: If black people get so pissed at stereotypes, perhaps more of them should do more to END the stereotypes.
@84 I wouldn’t be accusing others of being self-centered, friend. Your head’s so far up your own ass you can see light at the end of the tunnel.
Seriously, if that’s Detroit “heart”, I’m perfectly fine with letting you mean shitheads eat each other.
i’m not too sure how i feel about this article. But props to raggin on the juggalo kids. someone had to say it, and i’m glad it was someone as sick as K.O. i wish i was there throwin sh*t at them wit you!
Hey, Magic Lemur, I took my head out of my ass long enough to read your response to my post. Thank you for giving me permission for us mean assholes to eat each other. People say rimming is taboo, but I’ve always found it to be a great ice breaker.
Mean shitheads, my bad.
#84 definately needs some intensive psychological help. You sound like a real joy to be around. Wake up – Detroit really is the shit hole of the world!!! Maybe you should move to Miami (it came in at # 2 for the most dangerous place to live).
Hey Momma,
I may very well need that intensive psychological assistance you mentioned. But that’s another topic for another discussion. I never argued that Detroit wasn’t the shit hole of the world, my beef is with Kelly O.
I have a sneaking fucking suspicion that the only positive reviews of her article were written by her and the people that she owes money to, who want her to keep this job long enough to pay them back. I speak of course of her parents.
love you, pop lock
i can’t believe that you guys think this pedantic bullshit “white college kid bravely living in detroit” story is worthy of literary praise. get rid of it and give me a fucking break. as someone who worked in detroit factories for 10 years and spent 5 of those living in the city, i can honestly say that kelly o’s “recollections” come across as nothing more than some snobby kid who thinks it’s cool to scare the shit of out mom and dad by living in Detroit. Get the fuck out! detroit isn’t cool–detroit is real. it is fucking poor and people have to work for what they have there–shit isn’t just handed to them. you wanted to drink Olde English like “all the homies in the D”? Get the fuck outta here. All you seem to want to do is impress people with the fact that your racist ass lived in a city that’s 90% black so you could eventually write some bullshit article for some worthless weekly rag that usually isn’t worth wiping my ass on so some stupid coked-out Seattle hipsters plant a seed in their head that Detroit will be their next destination of choice ’cause “it’s so REAL, man…” BRAVO, girl, YOU DID IT! you are so BRAVE! KUDOS! fuck you.
@99 pop lock “I have a sneaking fucking suspicion that the only positive reviews of her article were written by her and the people that she owes money to, who want her to keep this job long enough to pay them back. I speak of course of her parents.”
True dat. Some of these gushing, super supportive comments are so out of the blue that it seriously makes me wonder.