Detroit, MI, USA

In choosing to come to Detroit I didn’t really know what to expect (to be honest, before planning this trip I would have put it somewhere else on a map of the US!).  Leaving, I am I am still not sure (although I know roughly where it is now)!

Obviously Detroit has had its problems over recent years.  Famously the city itself went into bankruptcy a few years ago, and as somewhere so based on auto manufacturers it has struggled during the financial crisis.  However, as you explore move you find that it is a city that suffers from cycles; there have been several other auto slumps over the years that have impacted on its fortunes.  You do see poverty and begging about – although you see that in many places in the US, along with abandoned buildings (there were several that I saw during my trip along Route 66).  I didn’t venture much out of the core central area, but even this comes in waves.  There is a core downtown area by the river, then essentially a rundown “gap” until you get to the area around the main museums and university, and then another gap (where once car factories were) until you get to the “new centre” (which itself isn’t really bustling). 

 

The initial impression I got was probably not helped by the trip to the hotel on a crowded bus in high temperatures along a very dusty road.  The road is actually dusty for a good reason – there is a major investment going on into building a new tram system along the road, but it can give a misleading impression!  Generally there does appear to be some optimism around the city, with a lot of start-up businesses in the area – and the car manufacturers are starting to do better too.  Also, despite the city going into bankruptcy, there are still public services such as libraries about and open (which is better than some councils in the UK are doing in the management of their finances).  The people are friendly – I even got asked for directions by locals a couple of times despite looking very much like a tourist!

I can also report that, as a tourist there is a lot to see and do.  My first stops picked up on some of Detroit’s history.  I went first to the original home of Motown music, which started off from a standard house 9and eventually took over a number of other houses in the road!).  Here you got to see the original “Studio A” where many famous hits were recorded, and find out more about how the label(s) developed.  Strangely, despite a lot of the museum being set out as a standard museum (with exhibits, labels etc) you could only go round on a guided tour.  Interesting to see where it all began.

My next historical stop shared many qualities with this.  The reason Motown was so named is because Detroit is Motor City, with almost all significant US (and therefore world) car firms starting out there.  Perhaps the most famous is Ford, and the Piquette factory is where the company started out and where the Model T was designed and originally built.  Again, you get taken round the museum on a tour – less heavily scripted than at Motown though (I think it depended a bit on the person taking you round) and you are able to go off and look yourself.  It has a collection of old cars as well as the story of the cross-fertilisation between the different car firms at the time (with people leaving one firm to start another).  There is a bigger Ford museum out at Dearborn – which is where the assembly line production eventually took place – but naturally you need to get there by car!

As I mentioned, the Downtown area is somewhat separate and therefore doesn’t have the same tourist attractions that some cities might.  However, it still has a number of things worth seeing, including some impressive buildings from the golden age of Detroit.  There is also a monorail system (the Detroit People Mover), which goes around the limited area of Downtown in a loop.  Frankly, it feels very much like the “Marge vs the Monorail” episode of the Simpsons with a vanity project rather than a useful investment in public transport.  Certainly when I used it there were very few other passengers on it (compared to the buses – the main public transport provision – which were usually packed).  It also spends more time stopped at stations rather than moving; unlike the Toronto Subway which stops for as little time as possible with the People Mover it was possible for me to leave the train, go down two flights of stairs and get half-way down the street before it moved off from the station!  Lovely for a tourist to have a go on (at only 75 cents too) but I would be surprised if there weren’t better things to spend money on!

The Downtown area is where Detroit meets the river.  There is a good area for walking long its side, including a nature garden and fountains for children to play in.  Also there is the headquarters of General Motors and the fantastically named COBO centre.  A short(ish) walk from Downtown (and not served by the People Mover!) is John K King’s Rare and Used book store.  This warehouse of a building has 4 floors filled with almost any book you could imagine and many you couldn’t (if you happen to need a copy of Roy Jenkins’ Mr Balfour’s Poodle they have two!).  Great fun exploring for someone like me, even if I am limited in my purchasing by airport baggage limits!

 

The main art gallery in Detroit is the Detroit Institute of Arts.  This has a large collection spanning the ages (far bigger than I expected!), which it actually takes time to try and explain (what makes a particular artist unique?  How did styles develop?) in one of the best approaches I have seen (and I’ve been to a few galleries in my time).  On a Friday night it is open until 10pm, and also puts on free concerts (which you may have already read about!). 

Also visited in and around this area were a number of other museums and galleries.  The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit only really had three exhibits – and one of them was a painting of President Obama from each day of his presidency, so was a bit repetitive!  The Museum of African American History was interesting and had some good insights.  They did though have an annoying habit of showing timelines that theoretically showed what was happening in Detroit, Africa and the World over the same period, only for the periods to start and end at different years for each row!  Maybe that’s why I appeared to be the only visitor they had (no, it was just early and you had to follow a route which meant I would have been ahead of anyone else).  The Detroit Historical Society museum had a variety of different exhibits on different aspects of the city, including a (small part of a) working car assembly line!

All in all I am glad I went to Detroit.  There was certainly more there to see than I imagined there might be, and it was interesting to get a measure of it as a place.  I will be interested to see how it develops.

 

PS - Richard Branson was in town at the same time I was launching a new route to the UK.  He attended an event at a college I could see from my hotel room window.  It was big news on all the local TV stations (Branson, not me)!