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. 
As a former Detroiter, the kindness of strangers surprised me at times. I liked Kelly O’s story when the guy named “Nub” gave her some $. It reminded me of the time my car window got smashed on a freezing winter night, and a fellow named “One Eye” helped me out. He was a homeless dude and was really kind to me. He cleaned out the glass for me and helped tape a garbage bag to the window. The owners of a nearby bar were also really kind. I gave “One-Eye” some fries and five bucks. He was just genuinely nice. I do love Detroiters. 9 times out of 10 they will be good to you, if you’re cool. Sounds like Kelly was in culture shock (totally understandable as she was from a completely different environment), felt like an outsider and never got over it. I really enjoyed the article as a snapshot of one person’s view of Detroit. Incidentally, I love the old train station and have some beautiful photos of it.
Pop lock and stop it is right. But I don’t think Kelly O or her fans are really prepared to grasp how entitled and superficial the tone and content of this article is.
t 84: I was right there with you until you used the phrase “post-modernism”. Now, for most people, I’d offer a polite reminder that postmodern is a buzzword that applies to anything you want it to. But, you’re a BAD DETROIT MOTHERFUCKER. So: Listen up, jackass. When you use the word “postmodern”, and you are NOT talking about ARCHITECTURE, then you are a PRETENTIOUS TWAT. You’ve just destroyed whatever credibility you may have had as a hardcase survivor of urban decay. While I’m at it, did you ever stop to question why Detroit is worth yelling into your keyboard? You’re just jealous that she got to experience what little good Detroit has to offer WITHOUT having to experience the same crack-addled bullshit upbringing you (no doubt) had to survive. Congratulations are in order — you’ve missed the point entirely, latching onto and offering a voracious defense of only the very worst things in life.
@105…I am confused. I think poplock accurately nails the tone of Kelly O’s article, and most likely has pegged her “type”. Why can’t the writer be a BAD DETROIT MOTHERFUCKER who also knows that a term like “post-modernism” is exactly what priveleged 20-somethings like to use, especially in their first year(s) of college in the “City”. Did it occur to you that he is using the term “post-modernism” sarcastically? As in, it is an over-used term that assholes like Kelly-O have probably muttered thousands of times? That is how I read it….
I am indeed a pretentious twat, no doubt about it. However, that doesn’t change the fact that Kelly O. needed to be called out on her tourist status. Keep in mind that I’m not offering a voracious defense of the very worst things in life either. I made a point of saying that it wasn’t Detroit that I was complaining about, let alone defending. I lived there, then I left, end of story.
I would like to thank The Stranger for giving me the opportunity to briefly mention post-modernism and rimming in the same thread, which was long over due.
That being said, I took a break from reading ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ and downloading big butt porn long enough torture myself by reading Kelly O’s article again, and I think we all missed the point. A cat spoke, and that is pretty fucking amazing.
One weekend, I was staying at my father’s house. It was always a strange house and he had two cats. One was friendly and would crawl all over you the moment you stopped moving, the other was always hidden.
One morning upon waking I decided to walk out of my room and get some water. The elusive cat was sitting at the base of the stairs just staring at me. I stopped and looked back at him, as he said “morning” in a very human-like voice, licked his paw and walked away. I went straight back to my room and waited until everyone else got up to leave again.
Talking cats are traumatizing :/
I am from Windsor, the over the river, canadian cousin of Detroit. Every morning I would pass by downtown Detroit, seeing it on the other side of the bridge, on the bus to school on riverside drive. Sometimes, if you were far enough up Downtown Windsor, you could swear that there was no river between us when you look out between the buildings. It’s something that stays with you. Everyone is wrong and right about Detroit, its an anamoly. Your perspective of it, like any other place in the world, changes depending on the kind of character you have.
Lawl at all the real old-skool dyed-in-motor oil and corpseblood Detroiters out there.
Look fuckwits, it doesn’t matter how “real” people are in Detroit, whether or not it has a cool music scene, whether Kelly O is white or “entitled” (she isn’t, read her post half-way up the page) nor whether she was just a “tourist” or not. The things she wrote about are real, they happened to her (well, OK, except that thing about the possessed cat, I don’t believe that shit) and they are common enough in this wonderful mecca of urban “authenticity” that they resonate with everyone and touch a nerve on even the defenders of the cities.
It doesn’t matter how you play your identity politics cards, call Kelly names and cast aspersions on the people who stand up for her in these comments, or front about how “real” you are and how “abercrombie” she is. Detroit is a burned out, blighted, economically ruined shithole full of crime and fail, the murder capitol of the US and a massive sinkhole draining the wallets of economically disadvantaged people in other parts of Michigan and more recently the rest of our country as a whole.
All of your liberal- and white-guilting is smoke and mirrors bullshit that cannot hide the hideous fact that is Detroit.
Kelly… maybe Grosse Isle or Wyandotte is your kind of town.
Put your hands up for Detroit!
Kelly, I was there on the same streets as you ten years earlier (that’s a long walk from Willis to CCS). I was ready to give you shit, but I think you got it pretty much right in spirit. So Travis writes for the Metro Times? They are worse than the Weekly! Nothing but ads for clubs WAY north of 8 mile. Nobody back home gives a shit what they think. Detroit is beautiful and sad and dangerous and has some of the best greek, deli, and Middle Eastern food in the US. Go see it before they plow it all under.
Fuck all you “Detroit is REAL” mouthbreathers. I have a friend from Philly who’s always carrying on with the same load of horseshit: “Philly’s REAL, yo.”
Balls. Death to that. I’m originally from Seattle but spent time in LA and Chicago, both times in super gang-y neighborhoods where gunshots were heard on a nearly daily basis. While at the time I may have appreciated the “realness” of the streets, it was a tremendous ballache to have to look over my shoulder when I walked at night, to have to at times be racist. If it was two AM and six hard looking Puerto Rican dudes in sideways caps and baggies were coming my way, my ass was crossing the street. End of. Call me the Grand Wizard of the Klan, but sometimes this shit is just practicality.
For the record, I was never mugged or fucked with in the least and almost never had to resort to such tactics of avoidance. But getting mugged or fucked with was always on my mind.
I live abroad now in an Asian country with pretty much zero street crime, and I CAN’T IMAGINE moving back to a place where predatory violence is so rife that walking at night is out of the question.
America is insane. Have fun being “real,” you silly silly people.
I lived in Northern Michigan also, for nineteen years. Every weekend I drove to Deroit and partied. One time, one time, I got mugged at 3am in front of Motor. The man had a gun and he decided to let me live. I drove home got some sleep and made it back to see Ritchie close the DEMF. I drove a grand cherokee and it never got broken into, on the west side south of seven mile or anywhere else in the city, Mt. Eliot or Archer Cony Island, Greek town, nowhere. And my vheicle was left for hours with no damage. Detroit is no scarier than anywhere else in America. I think that you should go and live in Fresno, Ca. The central valley is for real. At least in the D you have to do something to get shot. In California you just have to be the frist target they see, Try going to high school with gangsters calling you mark, and its not your name and they mean it. Wayne State isn’t so bad. Did you see the hookers working the johns in public, fuckin? Well thats not very hood of you if you haven’t. How many shootings on your block a week? In your neighborhood? The best hotel in Detroit is on the campus of Wayne State. Wayne Stae is also one of the leaders of Tech Town. Turns out Cracky has something to offer the world in tecnolgical innovation. I think a semester at Fresno State or UCLA maybe would open up your eyes. Detroit is not so bad. As a matter of fact I feel safer in downtown Detroit than I do on University Ave in Seattle most of the time. True story: I told a cop that a man was choking a woman on The Ave., he seemed to be her pimp. And he told me that I would be arrested if I interfeared with him writing a ticket to a street vendor without a licence. That is a little imtimadating. In Detroit the cop wouldn’t have been so dismissive. In my humble opinion,Seattle is a bubble full of the santorum deposited by the asses of the folks like you who hated their home and came to kvetch in the pacific northwest. I do believe thats how the progressives got here in the first place, am I wrong? Detroit What! Enjoy Detroit. By the way Lachine has hunting accidents and Detroit has murders. There are more fatal hunting accidents than murders in Michigan, there usually is. And those deer ambushing mutherfuckers are wearing orange and have blinds that are in the same place all year, on their land, and they feed the deer to attract them to the kill zone. You don’t go into the woods in November because there are crasy drunk fuckers fireing at shadows in Northern Michigan. In Novembver I can go to Detroit. Fuck your assesment of Detroit, it is infintesimal at best. Your anticdotes are as racist as they are pointless. And your writing needs work, you just aren’t Oscar Wild. Thats what you were going for right, the drunkin rambalings of an asshole?
This article was great, and furthers my desire to visit.
@7 you’re a douchebag
@10 Of course YOU had to comment here. Invite me over to drink all of your alcohol and say stupid shit.
I’m sure that you can find good things to write about Detroit, but I’ve been there and the grittier side is more interesting. Since I have moved to Michigan, I’ve met a lot of people from all corners of the state and I can say that Kelly O’s perspective is interesting as someone who apparently grew up in the Northern parts of the state coming to the city. Since being here I have made a few friends from those parts and I can say one thing , they are the kind of people you invite over if you want an interesting evening. From my friend who drinks only fine liquor and eats porterhouse 3x a week, but literally lives in a closet, to a woman who in the course of one evening, taught me how to hotwire a bulldozer and thwarted a would be car stereo thief by beating him with a hockey stick (strikingly gorgeous too, I should have married that girl). I don’t know if it’s the lack of anything interesting other than beautiful scenery that makes these people create their own ridiculousness, but no matter what you say about this author of this article’s perspective of Detroit, its that of someone who grew up in an white-solated area of the state coming to a crime ridden, deteriorating city. I could sit here and knock this article for its underlying racist tones, but I think that it seems that the author is embracing the difference of culture. In all the places I have lived, but especially in comparison to the NW, you won’t find many places other than Michigan that have such a vast difference in cultures throughout the state.
Dear Kelly,
Please stick to writing unfunny captions on pictures of drunk people.
Thanks,
Kelly, your drunk-driving ass was probably more dangerous than any of the other elements you encountered in Detroit. I don’t even want to know why your license was already suspended when you decided to get smashed and drive. The hookers, gangsters and Nub are lucky you didn’t run them down.
Trespassing on private property and tearing stuff up for an art project?
Losing car parts off your piece o’crap mobile while you’re speeding at 90mph down the freeway? It’s called car maintenance, and there is a reason for it.
Throwing potatoes from the upper stories of a building at the people below simply to mock their chosen lifestyle? Potatoes are hard! Damn.
You didn’t survive Detroit… Detroit survived you!
this story gives me the warm fuzzies for detroit. was there about 5 years ago going to CCS and was also a tenant of judith, the prude, on e. willis. never saw any cars get burned but watched one get broken into once.
I am detroit at heart. I grew up in southwest detroit until i was 25. It is nice to read a true article about someone who apperciates the city for what it is. I now live on capitol hill ,and am still pround to call detroit my REAL home. It shaped me to be the person that i am today. It always bothers me when people have such bad things to say about it when they have never even been. Thanks kelly for a good true insight.
I will openly admit that I am white and I guess sort of privileged. I mean, I’m from Lynnwood, if that helps you put me into a box.
I’ve lived in six cities over the past eight years and I’m tired of moving around. I’ve been looking for somewhere to spend the next few years and I’ve been toying with the idea of Detroit because it seems to me like it would be a city full of opportunity. It seems like a place where I could maybe afford to do some shit, and where there might be some space for some shit to be done. I realize that this may make me seem like one of those assholes who moves to third world countries to “educate” people and bring in their culture or something, but know that I don’t so much want to move to Detroit to try and “save it” as I want to move there for selfish reasons.
I think it’d be cool to live in a city where there might be some space for me to get shit done that I’d like to get done for myself: make radio docs, plant an urban garden, maybe start a new dance night at a club, and, long term, maybe open a used clothing store kinda like Buffalo Exchange/Redlight (yes, I am this generic).
To “research” the city, I started reading some of the Weekly Detroit papers, one of which is one that fellow commenter Travis R. Wright writes for. Reading these papers I started to think that Detroit was full of white hipsters, painting murals while riding tall bikes. And to give you some major perspective on myself, I didn’t necessarily find that completely unappealing. At the same time, I wasn’t so naïve to think that this was actually what I’d find in Detroit. Part of the allure of Detroit for me, is that it’s got a grimey, big city culture that probably none of the other cities I’ve lived in could hold a flame too (except maybe Glasgow, which, btw was once the murder city capitol of Western Europe).
I started telling friends and family that I’m thinking of moving to Detroit. When I tell them this, they usually say, “Why?!” And then they say, “Well I guess I’m not that surprised.” I can’t entirely explain to you why they say this. I think it’s because they know that I am one of those people who is attracted to what may seem unappealing to most people. Maybe in part because I idealize flaws, but in part because I usually genuinely do like these types of places. I loved living in Charleston, WV—even though my drunk neighbor (who I had never met) climbed up my balcony and into my apartment while I was home alone. Apparently he was locked out. Also, apparently it is not a good idea to live alone as a young woman in sketchy parts of town. Lesson learned. Except for the risk of stray bullets, I feel like I’m mostly only a target for getting mugged, and I think I can deal with that. Most people just want your cash and then they leave you alone.
Reading Kelly’s story I am equally more attracted to the idea of moving to Detroit, and equally second-guessing myself. As someone not from Detroit, if I moved there then I’m sure some of the stuff that I would witness probably would scare the shit out of me and maybe even prompt me to write some stories that would get some of you to call me a racist as I’d tell the stories from my “raised-in-Lynnwood” perspective.
I’m going to Detroit at the end of the month, for two conferences that are being held there. The Allied Media Conference, which is apparently an annual Detroit Conference, and the US Social Forum. I’m going to these conferences, in part, as an excuse to scope out Detroit, meet people who live there, and see if it’s really where I want to move.
The reason I’m writing this post is because you guys seem to have a lot more perspective on Detroit than I do. So, of course, as just mentioned, I’m gonna see for myself, but I was wondering if any of you opinionated ass mother fuckers had thoughts on whether or not I should move there. I know you don’t know me, but that’s why I spent a lot of time in this comment trying to give you some kind of a vague idea of what I’m about. I welcome your opinions. Thanks for reading this long-ass post. And Kelly, thanks for writing your article. It’s nice to read someone else’s thoughts on a place that I’ve been thinking so much about lately.
#121 – a great read from The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/us/10s…
I’m happy this particular article didn’t turn you off to Detroit as a possibility. These are just my memories of living there, in college, back in the early 90’s.
It seems to me, Detroit is still forever-full of creativity. And opportunity. *IF* you’re creative. For instance, my brother and cousin live there – they’re school teachers. It’s trickier to find those jobs.
The Times article says it best…
and @ 119 – Judith is still there???? No way. I lived there almost 14 years ago. That poor lady. As much as we battled with her, my heart goes out to her too.
Mainly because of this story: My family called, a week after I moved out-of-state, and told me Judith’s boyfriend murdered the building’s fix-it man, the guy who lived in the apartment right under ours. Boyfriend waited for him to come home, and shot him dead with a gun. Ugh, if we’d still lived there, we would have *heard* it. Family told me the news said it was a “crime of passion” – that Judith was secretly having an affair with fix-it man, and boyfriend found out and went beserk. They told me he got as far as Ohio, on the run, before (can’t remember) he killed himself, or cops killed him
Maybe that’s why these people, on this website, refer to her as “strange”? Um, as “wack job” and “raging alcoholic” ? http://bit.ly/bsUuys and http://bit.ly/bMURuj
If this murder love-triangle story is indeed true (my family told me this, I don’t have printed proof) – if it’s a true story – I bet the walls are REALLY talking in that building now. The walls, the televisions and radios, and… THE CATS.
I am way more proud to say I am from Detroit than to say that I live in Seattle. The thing that most people around here are lacking is this thing, oh, what’s it called, um, personality? The people who are actually from Seattle are everything that is wrong with this place. The longer I am here, the more I realize how that I look for transplants, fellow Midwesterners to kick it with because the people from here as shallow as fuck. And whoever out there thinks we Detroiters are talking shit because we are behind a computer screen, you don’t know us. Talk to one of us and you will figure it out right away-the most upfront and honest people you will ever meet. Not the phony as hell, fake to your face skills that people in Seattle have perfected. Damn this beautiful city in the Northwest is wasted on the lamest mother fuckers in America. Sad…
Laughing my ass off that she didn’t know who Plastikman was. Hope you enjoyed watching one of the world’s best dj’s play a set. He just headlined the Movement festival last weekend. Coming home party for him (he is from Windsor).
I grew up in the Cass corridor,on Peterboro and East side Detroit. It’s been almost a couple decades since my departure. Every few years I make my journey to Detroit to pay homage to my home city. Detroit is a beautiful monster. Forget NY, the “D” is the home you should make just once in your life. Detroit will brand your heart and spirit. Your senses will be amplified 10 folds-you’ll forever impress your friends with your uncanny sense of danger, muggers beware! If you make it out of the “D”, you’ll come out a better person. You will always somehow manage to see the beauty in every dark situation. I heart Detroit.
@66- Is this the same Travis that lives in Southfield? What are you about 26? Where did you grow up? It sure as hell wasn’t Detroit.
Thanks for the stories Kelly. Made me miss it a little… Cass Tech!
Great vignettes, Kelly, and I thoroughly enjoyed your writing style, as well!
For those who thought the writer a pretentious bigoted something-or-other: I am sorry for your closed-minded hate. I saw an honest article written by a woman who looks back fondly on her college adventure that was also an inner city adventure, who now picked out the choicest shocking stories from her reportoire of experiences there to share in an entertaining fashion with the public here. No doubt she also has stories that shed the city in a positive light (like the one she did share about her homeless friend) that could have balanced out the article further, but then it would not have been in The Stranger, and at the same word count, it would have meant eliminating some of what was included. I wouldn’t have wanted to read it any other way.
I, too, grew up in Day-twah, and anyone who doesn’t believe Kelly … BELIEVE HER! I do look back on the Motor City fondly, albeit with a subsequent shiver. I loved watching the Wings play at the Joe, hearing great jazz at Baker’s and the best blues at the Soup Kitchen Saloon. I don’t miss the terror of getting lost or turned around on the streets, the rampant racism on both sides, the iron bars on all the doors and windows. Detroit is a sad and beautiful place. Like Chernobyl. Or Baghdad. May it come back healthy, wealthy, wiser and stronger for its suffering.
And Kelly, just keep writing. I’ll keep reading!
This was a GREAT read! Good job 😉
Thanks for visiting my hometown and favorite city in the WORLD.
Please don’t come back, unless you plan on contributing something positive next time.
Detroit doesn’t need any more negative people like yourself.
my car got stolen from that dirt lot nextdoor!
Yo Kelly? Define up north. Were you a Yooper or upper down below?
I’ve owned property in both Detroit AND the UP.
You poke sticks in the eyes of a city…do you know how easy it would be for me to poke sticks in the eyes of a Yooper or Tawas locale? Please…..that city gave you a college education I trust, and now you wanna trash it?
Meh….
My first thought was something along the lines of “Why not spend a couple of years in Toppenish and write about that”.
But in retrospect, it’s not like your article was bad, it’s that you didn’t seem to put any effort into your time in Detroit. If you go into a city with an attitude that says “It’s gonna be bad”, by God, it’s gonna be bad. An article like this could be written about parts of any major (and many mid-sized) cities in the United States.
“Nub” as you refer him died 5 years ago. His name is Tyrone btw.
WHAT? no mention of mexican town? kelly o, you cheap racist whore.
this is garbage. what is your purpose in writing this?
I lived here 22 years and I believe it is one of the most flawed cities on earth, but nonetheless incredible, with so much to experience and enjoy. There is so much more to it than your sensationalized stories. Believe it or not, when you were there– and still today– reasonable, civilized people live in the City of Detroit. By the hundreds of thousands. Most by choice. Sounds like most of your problem was that you behaved like an idiot, went looking for the sort of trouble that you could find in ANY city if you looked, and always saw things through your own semi-racist, anti-city lens. We all make choices. You chose to drive down an urban freeway at 90 mph and confront deranged poor people on the street (using the conclusion derived therefrom to disparage an entire city decades later), but apparently you did not make it to one of the finest Art Institutes in the world or any of the landmark theatres or historic residential districts. You were immature then and are immature now.
I also recommend that you go back to your midtown Detroit campus again today. It is a beautiful section of city and functioning more highly than it ever has in recent decades, with scores of new residents and new investment along the Woodward Avenue neighborhoods.
Michigan,my Michigan…If you seek a pleasant penninsula,look around you…Kelly O, you seem like the typical Art-Fag little rich girl caught up in the wonderland that the ghettos of Detroit inspire in those of you whose daddies supply the financial means to absorb.
Get a real perspective, ala Jack Kerouac, and travel the famed mitten and north ward to discover the ultimate white flight enclaves of Travis City, Charlevoix and Petosky…..See the blond baby makers and welfare queens of the east side of the state and don’t forget your wonderful motherland, the U.P., where knuckle dragging Neanderthals still exist and poverty and lack of a work ethic outshines Detroit.
Maybe that woolen cap you wore on your head in summer’s blazing heat, to be ever so stylish in hipster chic, fried your brain. Stay in Seattle until your daddies money runs out, bitch!
Thanks for the shout out to HFH on the Boulevard. Yes, we do loves us some blood gases.
Oh, and you owe us $2K.
@66
Travis,
As a ‘journalist’ I’m sure you know that the proper term is ‘drivel’ not ‘dribble’.
Look it up if you know how.
awesome feature…
Kelly O’s writing style is uniquely her own – she’s truly an original.
I wish I had a whole book of her stories to read. a few sentences in ‘drunk of the week’ just isn’t enough. more please!
to steviewondersgoodeye:
you’re a jerk.
@ 134, lighting a candle… I did know his name was Tyrone. I’m sad to hear he’s gone. I’ve looked for him every time I’ve ever been back over the past 13 years. I always wanted to check in, just see him….
He used to call my boyfriend “Red Bone!!”… ’cause he had red hair. “Red Bone an’ Tyrone!” He was an Old Soul. The kindest – the best kind of human.
Also, we were dorks. Poor kids. Not cool. No Mommy-Daddy money…
I’m sorry so many people think I’m trash-talking Detroit, present day.
These were just a handful of *MY* memories, from back in the 90’s. As a reckless stupid college kid…
I love Detroit. And always will.
While this article touches on very true aspects of the D, it seems to be naively written. But then again I wouldn’t put it past a Northern Michigan “cracker” to ride through Cass corridor just to see what the prostitutes will verbally hurl at you next…This is why we have so many issues being white in the D. We have all these creative types who come in and see the potential in all the blight, but we laugh and marginalize the culture that is already ingrained there…
@137 sludgedaddy
You are a moron. Try reading other comments before spewing your nonsense.
I’ve never been to Michigan. If you are a prime example of the type of person I would encounter there, I’ll stay far away, thanks.
Hey, Lachine’s just a suburb of Alpena.
I went to Maple Ridge Elementary myself after leaving Dearborn. I’m in Detroit now.
It’s great that you love Detroit, but throwing shit at people is sadistic and mean. I guess you were drunk though. And no, you didn’t need to drive drunk either. You should have learned the bus system or biked or asked one of your friends for a ride and gotten your car in the morning or even passed out at the party. Look up “teens killed in drunk driving accident gratiot” on Google. One of those kids was the brother of my friend who went to Alpena High School. You’re lucky your incident ended up just as an anecdote for the denizens of Seattle.
You did seem to miss out on everything that was and is happening to make the city better though. It sounds like you went to CCS. You can’t live here and miss out on the beauty and the energy and the chaos though.
My favorite part is your description of the dogs.
I also noticed that some of the cafes you mentioned don’t exist anymore. Alvin’s just reopened though.
@145. In case you wanted to know, your northern Michigan school doesn’t exist anymore either. RIP Maple Ridge School. Ella M. White Elementary lives on bitches!
Yeah I know. They just closed Long Rapids too. And Hunan’s belongs on the lake!
Kelly O. has a unique & compelling writing style. Her respect for Detroit is evident. I hope that she continues to write and share her perspective. I like her and I like Detroit. I am a native from the Midwest and now live in the Pacific Northwest. We are all the same. Location is just a place.
I love Detroit. And have a serious, respect for my fellow Detroiters. This is my home. My friend who recently moved out to the Seattle area, sent me this. And honestly, I don’t think the situation is that deep. Being from Detroit, you have a lot of pride being where you’re from. Because you work hard. And have a family, no matter where you go. Yes, there are a lot of bad things that can happen. But we are trying to make our home better. Such as with things like, The Heildelberg Project or Theatre Bizarre. And no matter where you go, you will always have the good and the bad. But if, you do go to Detroit you will feel a sense of community that I promise you can find no where else. So please, don’t necessarily jump to conclusions without actually experiencing it for yourself.