aqueduct project.\u00a0<\/a>It\u2019s open to architects, artists, etc., and I\u2019m completely unqualified to submit a proposal. However, that has not stopped me from parking my car under said aqueducts for an entire hour one (chilly) morning and literally staring at them. Driving home on the Lodge, I always get off early and make sure to drive down second avenue, slowing down to glance around as I drive under the Grand Trunk Rail.<\/p>\nThey are a strange thing, white washed, utilitarian arches, that\u2013 compared with other Detroit architectural splendors\u2013 are barely worth noting or seeing. Driving north under the rail road and between the arches, the majestic Fisher building lords over the arches\u00a0in all it\u2019s baroque 1920\u2032s glory. I had some ideas about what to propose, but I really started to think about these aqueducts when I drove through the Packard Plant for the first time.<\/p>\n
On our way to our weekly drive\/hang\u00a0in Hamtramck (long story), Ben and I decided to avoid the freeway and take surface roads. Suddenly, there it was in all its ruin porn glory\u2013 the Packard. I don\u2019t need to tell you anything about it other than if Detroit\u2019s biggest export is ruin porn, the Packard is the best seller. Over the summer, I\u2019d ridden my bike through it on a Slow Roll ride, but I hadn\u2019t really experienced it in its full, sun-lit glory and within the context of the surrounding neighborhoods. For instance, there is literally a graveyard in front of the Packard. Could I stumble upon an easier metaphor? Large swaths of land surrounding the plant were empty and grey and dead. A few buildings stood forlornly, faded signs advertising auto shops or long-closed party\u00a0stores. I guess I should be used to seeing this around Detroit, all this ruin and detritus left of manufacturing and \u201cprogress.\u201d \u00a0But still, I can\u2019t help but feel hopeless when\u00a0I see dilapidated clapboard houses, windows and doors gaping open. Sometimes I dare to peer\u00a0inside when as I drive by, but it feels like when you see someone\u2019s underpants unexpectedly and I look away in shame.<\/p>\n
During another\u00a0trip to Hamtramck, Ben and I got stopped by a train passing us on Holbrook. We stared for a while, trying to figure out where it\u00a0was\u00a0from (a Ford plant in Dearborn) and what was on the double stacked boxcars (Ford trucks). Later, I realized that this train was on the Grand Trunk Rail road and those trucks had ridden from Dearborn, over those aqueducts in New Center and past the Packard plant. The irony, of course, shouldn\u2019t be lost on anyone\u2013 that the newest, best selling truck (also the lightest and most fuel efficient) travels out of a\u00a0plant (I suspect\u00a0River Rouge, which is slowly poisoning the neighborhood around it), on a railroad built over a century ago, over aqueducts that are barely notable, past the architectural left-overs from a gilded age, through the remnants of the ruined Packard plant, and past me, waiting for all it to pass inside a Ford Fiesta.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know exactly what to make of all this, the ruins of Detroit, the emotion that sometimes grips me when I get on the 75 at eight mile and pass gaping homes or at the 94 interchange when\u00a0yet another factory sits wide open, holding icy, grey snow drifts. I don\u2019t know what to make of all these strange connections, the century-old rail roads, the aqueducts and the space between them, the fact I can hear those trains in midtown and in Ferndale, at night, when the sound travels through the frigid air. It\u2019s the same sound that\u2019s been howling through midwestern winters and midwestern towns for decades, and I\u2019m glad its still there. It\u2019s the same sound I heard in Portland, writing about my adolescent feelings and Provo, staying up late painting. But what do you do with these connections and ropes and tropes of Americana, stretching though time and place? What do you do with the ruins of ideas? Of production? What do you do with the trashed, physical remnants\u00a0that \u201cprogress\u201d leaves us?\u00a0If these things connect us\u2013 transportation, industry, ideals of hard work and production\u2013 what does it mean when the physical manifestation of the past are left to rot?<\/p>\n
We have no purposeful ruin in Detroit. We have no sacred ruin in Detroit. We have no places for reflection on what we broke here. We have no physical space to pause and wonder at the mistakes and triumphs that were forged here for all of America. Instead, we have continual hype\u00a0(hot air?) that Detroit hustles harder, is \u201cgritty,\u201d is the place to be, that nothing stops us. Except, of course, trains crossing our potholed roads, as we shiver in sunlight that gives no warmth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I think I speak for all of Michigan, when I say that winter cannot end soon enough. My weather app says today it is a balmy 45 degrees, but I am still sitting next to the radiator, cold and drinking jasmine tea. I\u2019ve resorted to refusing certain restaurants because they are too drafty (I\u2019m looking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}