More Stuffed Animals

Day 301: More Stuffed Animals

How can a city whose population has declined from 1.8 million to just over 700,000 still have traffic jams? What must traffic have been like, back in 1950 when Detroit's population was at its peak?

My mother remembers those days. She tells stories about driving over the Ambassador Bridge from Windsor to shop at Hudson's flagship store on Woodward Avenue: 33 stories high, glittering with lights, full of glamorous women (like her mother) in silk stockings and stylish hats. Her mother would try on every shoe in the shoe department and not buy a single pair, leaving a wake of tissue paper and cardboard boxes and despondent sales clerks. A trip to Detroit was a special thing, back in the day.

I've got a goal of reducing the
stuffed animals down to one basket.
This dog is very cute but
a latecomer. The doll from the
slave plantation is interesting
but her features are running.
None of this has anything to do
with Detroit.

I understand the political, historical and economic factors that lead to Detroit's decline. But still, it's a bitter pill. The city's intrinsic beauty: the Great Lakes narrows - the Detroit River - with the Detroit skyline on one side and Windsor's on the other, spanned by the sweeping Ambassador Bridge. The many miles of riverbank, historic Belle Isle adorning it like a diamond brooch on a lady of substance. Rill to Kahn to contemporary architecture: burned out and abandoned buildings of heartbreaking beauty. How could a place with such gifts have turned into such a disaster?

My meeting this morning took place at Outdoor Adventure Center, a Department of Natural Resources museum in the making. They've reclaimed one of those grand, sweeping red brick former factories - the ones with twenty-foot ceilings and walls of windows - to create a monument to Michigan's outdoors. The place is filled with light, and from every vantage point, you see it all: the river, Canada, the Renaissance Center, and miles of open parkland.

So I'm driving through stop-and-go traffic all the way from the airport in Romulus to Detroit's riverfront. I'm watching the "Miles to Empty" dashboard reader count down, and I'm watching the minutes tick by, and I'm hoping no one's taking attendance, and I'm praying for Detroit. Out of bankruptcy, auto industry resurging, emergency financial manager finished.

May the Renaissance Center be aptly named at last.