Here's to Detroit

There are things I miss about Detroit: The Magic Stick, Detroit Tigers, People's Records, The Metro Times, WDET (especially Ed Love's Destination Jazz), The Lagerhourse ... the list goes on. I definitely don't miss the roads.

While I wasn't born and bred in the Motor City, I spent much of my youth seeing countless bands and show in and around Detroit. My Mom was born in the 'burbs of Detroit. My maternal grandparents and their siblings all made a living in Detroit during the 1950s and 1960s. My grandpa is also a proud graduate of the University of Detroit's dental school, class of 1957. My hubby also founded the popular Detroit music blog, Motor City Rocks, in 2003 -- big props to my friend and fellow MSU alum, Big Wave Dave aka Dr. Detroit for keeping it going.

And today, as GM emerges from bankruptcy after 40 days, I wanna give a shout out to my old rock'n'roll stomping grounds. Here are some interesting facts you should know about the D. [Thanks eLove This City]

1. First City to Pave a Concrete Road
In 1909, Wayne County built the first mile of concrete highway in the world on Woodward Avenue between Six and Seven Mile roads. Until then, a surfaced road was gravel, and often a horse was employed to pull a car out of the muddy muck. Road builders from near and afar came to see how concrete stood up under the heavy traffic of that period. It cost $13,537, including $1,000 in state aid.

The success of this experiment led to other transportation-firsts. In 1919 the nation’s first 4-way three color traffic light was installed on the corner of Woodward and Michigan Avenues in Detroit 1. In 1930 the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel was completed making it the first traffic tunnel between two nations. By 1942, the world’s first urban freeway opened to the public, the Davison Freeway.

2. Home to the Ice Cream Soda
Long before A&W introduced their root-beer float the ice-cream soda was being served to thirsty Detroiters along Boston Boulevard. Many historians claim Detroit’s own Fred Sanders, a confectioner and owner of The Pavilion of Sweets first served the drink to two customers in 1876. A popular drink at the time was the sweet cream soda. One day when the ice delivery truck failed to show Sander’s day-old cream went sour. Improvising, he instead mixed ice cream with the carbonated beverage and hence the drink was born.

By the 1880s the most popular combination for this drink was Ginger Ale with ice cream aka the Boston Cooler; specifically Vernor’s Ginger Ale & Sander’s ice cream. The beverage was named after the Boulevard and not the Massachusetts city. James Vernor’s drugstore located a short distance away made the unique combination seem very natural. Vernor’s produced an intense golden ginger ale, unlike most modern dry ginger ales. Until the 1920s ginger ale was the nation’s most popular choice of carbonated beverage, and Vernor’s happens to be our nation’s oldest soda. Soda connoisseurs still advocate to this day that if you want to taste ginger ale the way it was meant to taste locate a Vernors.
** Oh how I miss you, Vernors!

3. Supplied 75% of liquor during Prohibition
In January 1920, the era of Prohibition began in the U.S. The Detroit River, barely one mile across in some places, was a smuggler’s dream. Enterprising smugglers carried cargo beneath boats, rigged mechanical cables across the river and utilized old underground tunnels to transport their illegal bounty. During cold winter months, the river became a highway, as daring smugglers in automobiles made their way across the ice from Canada to the United States.

A number of government agencies, including the U.S. Customs Department, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Michigan State Police and the Detroit Police Department combined forces to patrol the waterways in an effort to stop the smuggling. Despite their efforts, it’s estimated that more than 75% of illegal liquor supplied to the U.S. during prohibition entered the country by way of the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River.
** My Croatian great-grandmother had her hand in this ... so much that they got caught and my great-grandfather had to go to prison in her place for a year, leaving her alone with eight children.

4. First Ever News Radio Broadcast
Going on air in August 20, 1920, 8MK, later renamed WWJ, is believed to be the first station to broadcast regular news reports. Financed by The Detroit News, 8MK was initially licensed to Michael DeLisle Lyons. He assembled the station in the Detroit News Building. As was common practice in the early days of radio, the Scripps family asked Lyons to register the station in his name in case this rather new technology was only a fad.

Newspaper owners at the time were worried radio might replace newspapers and put them out of business. Almost 100 years later and we’re happy to report both The Detroit News and WWJ Radio still operate today.

5. Only Floating Post Office in the U.S.
The J. W. Westcott II docks just South of The Ambassador Bridge along the western shore of the Detroit River. She is America’s only floating ZIP Code [48222]. Delivering over 100 years of “mail-by-the-pail”, the J.W. Westcott Company was originally formed in 1874 by Captain J.W. Westcott to inform passing vessels of changes in orders.

Today the 45-foot vessel’s duties include U.S. mail delivery; freight delivery, storage, forwarding; message service; passenger service to and from vessels and pilot boat services for the Port of Detroit. The Westcott also sells nautical charts, postcards, books, and has been known to deliver the occasional mid-river pizza.

Check out eLove This City to learn more facts about Detroit, including trivia behind Belle Isle, the birthplace of Techno and more!

Portrait of Art Spiegelman

Many thanks to Julie for bringing this to my attention! The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit is featuring one of my favorite graphic novelists, Art Spiegelman. The "Portrait of the Artist As a %@&*!" exhibit -- on display May 29-July 28 -- features his earlier works entitled Breakdowns.

Originally published in 1978, Breakdowns gave comics a socially acceptable name and landed in mainstream libraries and universities. What Spiegelman did was test the spheres of comics, while also redefining their social impact as a form of art. MOCAD's exhibit will showcase several excerpts from this iconic book as well as Spiegelman's many films, drawings and mementos. In his near 40 years in the art world, he's constantly questioned life and its behavior. That's exactly why I love his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Maus.

"It's a manifesto, a diary, a crumpled suicide note and a still-relevant love letter to the medium I adore." -- Art Spiegelman

If you find yourself in the Motor City this Friday (May 29), head over to MOCAD (4454 Woodward Avenue, Detroit) for the opening of this fantastic exhibit! At 8pm, the event will open with performances from Pittsburgh/San Diego dance duo, Extreme Animals, and Detroit-based hardcore funk outfit, Will Sessions.

Get your hands on the recently reprinted Breakdowns hardcover here.

[Photo courtesy of MOCAD: Art Spiegelman, Breakdowns (Process sketch)]

Remembering "The Bird"

Sadly, former Detroit Tigers pitcher, Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, passed away today after an accident at his home in Northborough, Mass. He was 54. [Boston Globe article here]

My family attended a many Tiger baseball games in the '80s and '90s, and I grew up hearing a lot about "The Bird" courtesy of my Dad. He was a star the year before I was born, but with all these stories, I knew this guy was pretty special. His disheveled blond curls, nice-guy grin and larger-than-life persona charmed Detroit and the nation alike, for he became as popular for talking to the baseball or "manicuring the mound" as he did for his athletic prowess. His biggest fans were pegged as "Bird Watchers."

In 1976, 21-year-old rookie won 19 games and only lost 9, and led the American League with 2.34 ERA. That May, at his major league debut, he threw a two-hitter against the Cleveland Indians. But it was in June that Fidrych's true-celeb moment came into action. In front of nearly 48,000 fans at Tiger Stadium, Fidrych pitched a seven-hitter against the New York Yankees, wowing both Detroiters and fans watching the excitement via ABC's "Monday Night Baseball." Plagued by injury during his last years in baseball, Mark Fidrych retired in 1980.

"When you're a winner you're always happy, but if you're happy as a loser you'll always be a loser."

-- Mark "The Bird" Fidrych (R.I.P.)

*Fidrych was the first athlete to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone. During my internship in 1999, I scanned the famous wall of covers for Fidrych's beaming mug. My picture is featured above.

I said 39 times that I love you

You have to love Jack White. He keeps it real no matter what. Oddly enough (or is it?), the White Stripes frontman recently (re)professed his love for the Motor City in a poem exclusively for the Detroit Free Press. Say what?

May I ask why? Why the hell not is the question. Since leaving the dirt and grime of that old automotive town behind for Nashville in 2006, some questioned White's loyalty to his former hometown.

Say what you want about Jack White's poetic imagery of the D. He's still the coolest MF in rock'n'roll.

'Courageous Dream's Concern,' by Jack White

I have driven slow,
three miles an hour or so,
through Highland Park, Heidelberg, and the
Cass Corridor.
I've hopped on the Michigan,
and transferred to the Woodward,
and heard the good word blaring from an
a.m. radio.
I love the worn-through tracks of trolley
trains breaking through their
concrete vaults,
As I ride the Fort Street or the Baker,
just making my way home.

I sneak through an iron gate, and fish
rock bass out of the strait,
watching the mail boat with
its tugboat gait,
hauling words I'll never know.
The water letter carrier,
bringing prose to lonely sailors,
treading the big lakes with their trailers,
floats in blue green chopping waters,
above long-lost sunken failures,
awaiting exhumation iron whalers,
holding gold we'll never know.

I've slid on Belle Isle,
and rowed inside of it for miles.
Seeing white deer running alongside
While I glide, in a canoe.
I've walked down Caniff holding a glass
Atlas root beer bottle in my hands
And I've entered closets of coney islands
early in the morning too.
I've taken malt from Stroh's and Sanders,
felt the black powder of abandoned
embers,
And smelled the sawdust from wood cut
to rehabilitate the fallen edifice.
I've walked to the rhythm of mariachis,
down junctions and back alleys,
Breathing fresh-baked fumes of culture
nurtured of the Latin and the
Middle East.
I've fallen down on public ice,
and skated in my own delight,
and slid again on metal crutches
into trafficked avenues.

Three motors moved us forward,
Leaving smaller engines to wither,
the aluminum, and torpedo,
Monuments to unclaimed dreaming.
Foundry's piston tempest captured,
Forward pushing workers raptured,
Frescoed families strife fractured,
Encased by factory's glass ceiling.

Detroit, you hold what one's been seeking,
Holding off the coward-armies weakling,
Always rising from the ashes
not returning to the earth.

I so love your heart that burns
That in your people's body yearns
To perpetuate,
and permeate,
the lonely dream that does encapsulate,
Your spirit, that God insulates,
With courageous dream's concern.

(Photo courtesy of Big Matt)