9-Hour Walking Day

Friday, May 15, 2015--Detroit

Our flights yesterday went fine.  United checked our carry-on bags all the way through for free, so that made the transfer of planes in Houston much easier.  We picked up our rental car and easily found our way to our motel where we are staying.  Tired from getting up early (and to bed late the night before), we just explored our neighborhood and ate locally.

Today, however, we made a full day of exploring.  We headed toward Midtown, a large area of Central Detroit just north of Downtown and just south of New Town, another section that makes up Central Detroit.  On the way, we turned the wrong direction (due to it being unclear on our small map which expressway went where as they circle the central part of the city).  That sent us off into East Detroit and allowed us to accomplish one of our goals of the trip:  to explore the areas of Detroit which have been greatly abandoned over the years.  We passed block after block that had maybe 2-3 houses with the rest of the block being open ground where everything had been removed.  Of the standing houses, many of them have had fires in parts of them and are uninhabitable or falling down.

In my opinion, what has happened over time will work to the advantage of this city.  Huge swaths of neighborhoods have disappeared.  But they were neighborhoods with sub-standard buildings that would never be worth rehabilitating.  By having the area cleared, it presents a great opportunity for redevelopment.  But it is such a large area, that it will take decades--probably building outward from the downtown area until it eventually reaches the far corners.

In the papers, we not only read about these (temporarily) abandoned areas, but we also read about the fall of population from 2,000,000 to 600,000.  But those people didn't leave the Detroit area.  The metropolitan population is around 6,000,000 people.  So as the redevelopment occurs, new residents and many who are now in the suburbs will likely decide to move closer to town to take advantages of the entertainment opportunities and the short commutes.


After finding our way back to where we wanted to be, we parked near the Detroit Institute of Art where we planned to visit later in the day due to its being open until 22:00 on Fridays.  We walked down Woodward Avenue noticing that it is already being revitalized with new apartments, new office buildings, etc.  Woodward is probably the most important artery within Detroit (not counting Interstate highways).  It runs from the riverfront all the way out to the suburbs.

As we entered the downtown area, we branched off Woodward wandering back and forth as we saw things that looked interesting--Comerica Park, the baseball stadium; Ford Field, the not so impressive football stadium; Greektown Casino; Renaissance Center, the home of General Motors; the Guardian Building; the Pnobscot Building; the Fox Theater; the Fillmore Theater; etc.  LOTS of redevelopment is taking place in the downtown area--not where buildings are being town down, but where impressive older buildings are being gutted and rebuilt within to create lofts, offices, etc.  Downtown Detroit has definitely turned a corner and will be progressively improving over time.  While there, we ate lunch at Lafayette Coney Island, a downtown institution since the 1920s--a hot dog with chili and onions.

Back out at the Art Institute after 6 hours of walking and exploring, we paid our admission and spent another 3 hours wandering its galleries.  It is considered one of the more important collections in the U.S. and has been in the news lately due to the threat that the city, in its bankruptcy proceedings feared that it might be required to sell all the paintings to pay off debts.  Eventually, the art was spared, and the museum kept its reputation which was enhanced in our eyes by the number of paintings that were missing from the walls with notes indicating that they were on loan for traveling exhibitions that are going to other major art museums throughout the world. 

We were very tired after such a long day of exploring, so we again ate near our motel and rested for the remainder of the evening!