Detroit, MI - August 2012

The Motor City, Motown, Dee-troit - I was up there this past week to visit a new client.  I'd been before very briefly but this time I was here for four days.  I decided to take a few hours and visit the city.  I only had a few hours to spare so I had to choose carefully.

A few observations:  The suburbs are really very rural looking.  I was staying in a town called Novi and all the highways were surrounded by foliage.  It's like they just put the road down where they wanted it to go and left nature as is.  I also noticed that none of the houses had fences.  I saw several homes that had decks on the back and they were wide open.  I guess here in Texas we like to put a fence around what is ours.  The people that I met were very nice.  Strangers would start talking to me like they knew me.  It was a little disconcerting at first.  Finally, coney's must be the office food of Detroit.  There were coney restaurants all over the place.  I just didn't picture Detroit as a 'hot dog' kind of city.

The first place I wanted to go was 'The Henry Ford' which is a huge complex in Dearborn.  There is supposedly lots to see here.  There's a museum, the factory tour and Greenfield Village all of which close promptly at 5.  How frustrating!  They also had a Titanic exhibit that looked really cool.

The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Mi.

The Henry Ford Museum.

Statue of Henry Ford. 

So I drove around Dearborn just a little bit and the whole town is Ford.  Right across the street were the corporate offices of Ford.  The parking lot is filled with Ford cars and one lone GM truck.  That guy was a brave soul!

I headed out toward the highway and I drove through a neighborhood.  It looked like a throwback to the '50's.  There's also no zoning.  On my right were single family homes, small but nice.  On my left was a school, then an office building and then a store of some kind.  All right together - no delineation.  It was interesting.

Next, I wanted to head downtown.  They have a little riverwalk down there and on the other side of the river is Canada.

One of the Dearborn neighborhoods seen from the highway.  These folks live on Edsel Ford Rd.  The street is named after Henry's only child. 

Directions to Canada.  There's also a tunnel.

So before I left, I looked up Detroit and the Canadian city across the river.  Windsor, Ontario was described on the web as a sleepy little village.  When I pulled it up on the map, it looked like nothing but green space.  I'd brought my passport with me to Detroit but I'd left it in my hotel room.  I didn't think I'd want to cross the border.

The physical Bridge to Canada.

Windsor, Ontario. 

Imagine my surprise when I see all this stuff!  It's like Vegas over there.  They have Cesar's Palace along with what appears to be a ton of other stuff.  Google maps let me down!

Same view of Canada as above but without the zoom.  The river is the Detroit River.

Further down the coast on the Canadian side are some nice looking houses.

 The Mariner's Church was established in the 1800's as a church for the seamen.  . 

The church sits in the middle of downtown right next to the GM Plaza and Promenade.  All the pews in the church are 'free' so that the sailors that came in could sit anywhere. 

I think this is an apartment house.  Away from the river front, a lot of the buildings looked more like this.

I would loved to have gone inside and checked out the room for rent.

This restaurant is a going concern.  They were open for business when I walked by.  It smelled pretty good too.

At the end of the block and to the left was all this.  There was the Greek casino all the way in the back. 

 This is the front of the building that had the room for rent.  It's a historic building called the Chapoton House.  The Queen Anne style townhouse was built in the early 1870's.  The lower floor is a jewelry store.

 A  view of downtown Detroit.  All these buildings are along the water front.

 I just thought this building looked pretty cool.  It used to be a restaurant but now is vacant.  The upper floor looks like it might have been flats.

Saints Peter and Paul Jesuit Church is the oldest church in Detroit.  The cornerstone is dated 1844 and was consecrated in 1848.  As I was walking by there was a lady sitting on the steps.  She said, "Hey, can you bring me back a pop?"

What the hell is a 'pop'?

Christ Church of Detroit, built in 1863, is the oldest Protestant church in the state.

I didn't get downtown until about 6:30 in the evening and I was afraid to be down there by myself after dark so I didn't have time to go into any of these churches, although I would have liked to.  There was probably a lot more to see down here.

What I really wanted to see was the Motown museum.  There's always next time....