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I've lived in the Detroit area since 1987, and lived in Detroit from 1989-2001. I saw the neighborhood I lived in go from a liveable one to hell. I drove down my old street last week and there are several abandoned houses that were quite beautiful only 3 or 4 years ago. I live in Warren, just north of 8 Mile Rd, and drove by the trailer park from the movie every day while they were shooting it.
If you want to see the devastation, Detroit is not as dangerous as the media plays it to be, at least during the daytime. There is plenty to see, both good and bad.
1. Downtown is getting rehabbed, but it is a Potemkin village. Plenty of those older skyscrapers are completely empty. 2. There are few good grocery stores left in the city. Kroger just closed their only store left, and Farmer Jack's are now Food Basics, and allegedly aren't really full service grocery stores. There is no WalMart, no Target, no Meijer in the city. There is one super K-Mart, but it is on Telegraph and is only in the city by about a half mile or less. The other grocery stores are small, usually dirty, and sell poor quality food (some even smell like rotting meat). 3. The neighborhood where Rabbit and his friends burn down the crackhouse is in Highland Park, which is a suburb within the city. HP is worse than the rest of Detroit. It used to be where Chrysler's world headquarters was-they moved to Auburn Hills and left the city to die. 4. The incident in the movie mentioned above was somewhat based on real events. There were some guys who were aquitted of arson by a jury who burned down a crack house. Also, there was a series of attacks on girls on their way to school-men would drag them into abandoned houses and rape them. This was 4 or 5 years ago, and scared parents to death. 5. Some of the buildings on Chene that you see in the bus scenes have burned down since the movie was made. The gun range is still there, as is the abandoned golf-themed bar. That's a stretch of road that still had viable businesses on it in 1987. My office isn't far from there.
When I was a kid, my grandparents lived in Detroit and we visited them frequently. In the late 60s, it was a beautiful city. In the early 70s, the elm trees started dying from dutch elm disease. After the riots, white people started moving out en masse, and selling their homes to rental companies. Banks wouldn't make business loans to african americans very easily in those days, and arabs came with the cash to buy the corner stores and such. Rental companies did not keep the houses up properly, and that helped lead to the decline of neighborhoods. African americans were cut out of the business end of their own community. Then, the bottom fell out of the automotive industry and that was followed up by 8 years of Reaganomics.
If you come to Detroit in warmer times, I can recommend some interesting things to do. One is visit the Heidleburg Project, a community art project on the city's near east side. Tyree Guyton, the artist behind it, is like an urban Howard Finster. Take a Diamond Jack boat tour on the river. You can see some really cool architecture of houses and apartment buildings built along the river. Visit the Detriot Institute for the Arts. It is a world class collection. The Detroit Symphony is also awesome, as is the hall they play in. The Fisher Building, Symphony Hall, and the Operal Hall all have some amazing ceilings-The Fisher Building in the New Center area is a classic deco building. The museum of african american history is a cool building in and of itself, plus it has a great collection of ancient african musical instruments. The Science center is next door-it's not as good as Chicago's or Toronto's, but it is still good and has an IMAX theater. The New Center/Wayne State area is the artistic center of the city, except for the opera house, which is downtown. Visit Belle Isle. Remember there used to be horses to ride there, a children's zoo, and snack shops and other buildings now closed. They are currently closing the aquarium, unless someone donates a whole lot of money in a hurry. Don't try to use a bathroom there, however, rumour has it that the facilities are rarely cleaned and absolutely disgusting. Don't go swimming, either-the Detroit river is nasty and has an undertow. Drive by the old Tiger Stadium at Michigan and Trumbull. It'll probably get torn down in the next few years, so see it while you can. Eat at Southern Fires, Magnolia or Sweet Georgia Brown's for some really good soul food. Eat in Greektown for flaming cheese and moussaka. Don't waste time or money in the casinos,theres an underground railroad station in the basement of the baptist church on the corner of Monroe and Beubien, and a historical marker on the front of the building. The people mover is kind of fun to ride in, and you can guess which buildings you pass are empty and which ones aren't. The Pistons don't play in Detroit, but the Tigers, Lions and Wings (if the NHL ever starts up again) do.
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