National Geographic Traveller UK 10.2019

As we explore, Dan points out works by Detroit

artists. There are the signature stylised lowers

of Ouizi, a marching band by Pat Perry, and

works by Olayami Dabls and Tyree Guyton.

“A lot of local artists started out doing

graiti right here, before the clean-up,” Dan

tells me as we enter Dequindre Cut, a two-mile

sunken greenway between Downtown and

Eastern Market. The leafy corridor, created

along a defunct railroad a decade ago, is a

picture of urban progress and harmony; street

art brightens underpasses, while joggers and

cyclists weave around us on the footpath. “I

remember there were just layers and layers of

graiti,” Dan says. “It’s crazy to see it now.”

We part ways in the marketplace from

which the area takes its name. It’s Saturday

— market day, a cornerstone of city life since

1891 — and 225 vendors have taken over the

‘sheds’, many selling vegetables or honey

from urban farms set up in some of the city’s

tens of thousands of empty lots. The whole of

Detroit seems to be here.

Down the road, I stop at Bert’s Market

Place, one of the city’s oldest jazz clubs,

where people are tucking into soul food on

street-side tables. Ribs sizzle on a barbecue

and there’s Motown on the stereo. An excited

wedding party piles out of a bus and begins

lining up for photos in front of a psychedelic

mural. In the distance, Downtown’s huddle

of art deco skyscrapers cuts a striking

silhouette against the cloudless sky. The city

feels alive and safe, and it looks gorgeous. I

have to admit, it’s not at all what I expected.

ON THE WORLD STAGE

Karin Risko, owner of City Tour Detroit,

clearly enjoys opening travellers’ eyes to their

misconceptions about the city. “Not how you

imagined, is it?” she asks, as we amble along

the River Walk. Part of Detroit International

Riverfront, the 5.5-mile promenade leads all

the way from Downtown to bucolic island

park, Belle Isle, past pavilions, lowerbeds

and even a sandy beach. “A lot of what people

think of when you say ‘Detroit’ are these

grand, empty skyscrapers going to ruin, or

Michigan Central Station, with its windows

boarded up,” Karin says. “It’s been the focus of

a ruin porn feeding frenzy for years. That was

the only story the media wanted to tell.”

Built in 1913, Michigan Central Station was

created by the same architects who designed

New York’s Grand Central Terminal. When

it closed in 1988, its vaulted ticket halls

became a magnet for techno raves and urban

scavengers. The building — in Corktown,

the city’s oldest immigrant neighbourhood,

now a burgeoning bastion of small bars and

brunch spots — is inally about to be brought

back to life, by Ford Motor Company, no less:

a colossus of the automotive industry that

underpinned the city at its peak.

The poster child for Detroit’s fall from grace,

the station is a beacon for its triumphant

regeneration. But Karin is keen to stress the

recent uptick in Detroit’s fortunes isn’t — for

anyone with at least a passing interest in

history — the most interesting thing about

the city. “People think Detroit is some new

discovery. All the new restaurants and hotels

in the centre are great,” she concedes, “but we

have a long history of contributing not just

to America, but to the world.” To illustrate

her point, Karin tells me about Detroiters’

pivotal role in the Underground Railroad — a

network of safe houses and people that helped

escaped slaves to cross the border to freedom

in Canada. She then relates sensational tales

of speakeasies and smuggling gangs from

the Prohibition era — an estimated 80% of

America’s bootleg booze entered the country

here — and stories of how the Motor City

swung the tide of the Second World War by

mass-producing munitions. This is the city

that produced sporting legends like the boxer

Joe Louis; Motown music and epoch-deining

singers like Stevie Wonder and The Supremes.

It was also the birthplace of Fordist

industrialism and a place where a migrant

labourer could make a middle-class wage.

“We had more theatre seats than anywhere

outside of Broadway,” Karin tells me proudly

as we pass under the multistorey neon

marquee of the Fox Theatre cinema.

Touring Downtown with Karin, it’s easy to

imagine the grandeur of the city during the

Roaring Twenties. Ornate skyscrapers make

canyons of the wide boulevards, and steam

escapes from vents in the road, the product of

an antique cooling system still used by over

100 buildings. Half a century of stagnation has

resulted, inadvertently, in the preservation of

the architectural charms of another era. Best

of all, there’s not a Starbucks or McDonald’s

Kind words // ‘Say Nice

hings About Detroit’. he

ubiquitous, unoicial motto

of the city, seen on everything

from T-shirts to bumper

stickers, was coined by local

woman Emily Gail in the

1970s. “I just wanted to create

a place where all of us who

loved the city could join

hands,” she explained

FROM LEFT: Street art at

The Belt; the Anna Scripps

Whitcomb Conservatory,

Belle Isle

October 2019 143

DETROIT