Southwest Detroit : Buzz

Any news about people volunteering to clean up and "makeover" a Detroit city park is good news. All the better is that the project is being headed by some law students. 

An excerpt:

The 313 Project, started in 2009 by then first-year law students Aisa Villarosa, Erika Riggs and Juliana Rivera as a community-service student group, offers free legal clinics to underserved groups. But they also spend time each month with their Motion to Makeover project, which took on a major project -- Southwest Detroit's 26-acre Romanowski Park.

What started as a casual idea to work on a park took root when the group decided on Romanowski and approached Home Depot about getting materials, not expecting it to turn into a $16,500 grant from the company's foundation.

Read the rest of the story in HuffPost Detroit here.

This story in the Detroit News confirms what we knew already -- that the street art that went up on Detroit and Hamtramck buildings this spring is radically beautiful and that the idea was hatched by a Hamtramck-based group called Contra Projects.

An excerpt: 

Hamtramck officials and property owners were so accommodating to the Beautification Project that most of the murals went up there first. It's part of the city's plan to spotlight its artistic side, head off illegal graffiti, and, perhaps grab a little of the global cool Detroit has been enjoying on the international art stage.

Jason E. Friedmann, Hamtramck's director of economic and community development, said the town has long been an art haven for creative types, but that side hasn't always been visible to outsiders.

"We're trying to get our underground creative thing out in the open to underline that this is part of what Hamtramck is all about," he said.

Well said Jason, well said.

Read on here.

Chef Dave Mancini takes us on a tour of his favorite food places, including the Sunday Dinner Company on the East Side and Pupuseria Y Restaurante Salvadoreno in Southwest Detroit. Totally awesome piece in GQ. Go here for more awesome.

Looking at problems to provide hints for solutions is a smart way to look at community. This is even smarter: Looking at the assets a community might provide and leveraging that social capital. The Alley Project (TAP) didn't mushroom up magically, although there was a strong community base for it to begin with. It evolved in a partnership of participatory design.

We couldn't agree more with those words by Lee Schneider in HuffPost Detroit. Read on here.

The pictures say it all. Well, no: Data Driven Detroit's Kurt Metzger and his charts say it all during episode 11 of DetroitUnspunTV. Plan to spend a good half hour getting an education on proper council re-districting that manages to keep the integrity of neighborhoods intact. Metzger knows his stuff.

Watch the video, commercial free, here.

It was a lazy month for London ad agency owners Davey and Erin Spens. The pair, fascinated by magazines and travel, took an unusual vacation -- renting an office in Sarajevo, bringing their two coworkers along to pen a magazine offering readers a true glimpse of the formerly war-torn city.

After some help from writer Dave Eggers, who introduced the first issue of Boat Magazine with one of his short stories, the pair are at it again. They came to Detroit to produce their second issue -- a $12 "antidote to lazy journalism," printed on beautiful matte paper, with an article from Jeffrey Eugenides and interviews with Ben Wallace, Alex Winston and Jessica Hernandez.

We found one excerpt, a photo essay on Detroit food, in The Guardian:

We headed down there on a Saturday morning to find a bustling area filled with vegetable stalls, and thousands of people from all over Detroit and the surrounding states shopping for produce for home or business. The must-haves are the ribs from Berts, but we were as taken by the market across the freeway, with its walls painted in murals of meat, fish and cheese, which are sold inside.

Buy it here.

There's just no stopping Detroit Restaurant Week.

Event producers Paxahau reported that the 10-evening dining promotion lured 36,046 gourmands to 21 restaurants across the city of Detroit, an 18.4 percent increase over 2010. It's the second-largest tally ever for the $28 prix fixe dining bonanza, which has counted 150,000 customers since launching five years ago.


"We are pleased the enthusiasm Metro Detroiters have for Detroit Restaurant Week has continued to grow over the years," said Jason Huvaere, Director of Detroit Restaurant Week. "It has been a terrific way for our community to experience the tremendous fine dining restaurants Detroit has to offer. With each campaign we hope we’re developing a new crop of customers who will frequent the restaurants all year long."

Stay tuned for the announcement for a Spring 2012 Detroit Restaurant Week date and more here.

Close to 4,500 bikers made the Motor City a two-wheeled adventure course for a day on Sept. 24; choosing a police-escorted 30-mile jaunt through Detroit's streets or a whopping 62-mile slog from the tour's home base at Roosevelt Park (check out Tour De Troit wrap-ups from the News, Freep and MLive).

Tour De Troit's explosive growth (it drew less than 50 cyclists for its first outing in 2002) mirrors the bicycle's increasing popularity as an accepted form of transportation in the D. A growing network of greenways and bike lanes, wide avenues and more tours have helped grow cycling by 192 percent in the past ten years.

Excerpt:

"(Riding a bike) shows the city on a human scale, and you see a lot of detail that you wouldn't see when you were in an automobile," said Bill Lusa, 37, director for the tour. Lusa, who lives in Woodbridge, uses his bike to commute to places around the city. "It's not always about smashing the system and ending the automotive hegemony," he said. "It's about having fun and being in slightly better shape."

More available here.

It's quite the contradiction that Detroit, a city of more than 700,000 residents, is often photographed as if it were totally empty. That's what inspired Nancy Barr to curate Detroit Revealed: Photographs, 2000-2010, which opens Oct. 16 at the DIA. Enough of the abandoned buildings -- Detroit Revealed draws on a mix of home-based and out-of-town photogs to document life in the city; workers in the Ford Rouge Plant, children and immigrant gardens.

Excerpt:

Great photography is not only about good technique; it's also about access to people and places that are unique to a particular community. I would welcome more work that takes into consideration the diversity of our city, its people and the culture, by photographers from all types of backgrounds. Their perspectives would (and will) enrich Detroit's photographic legacy and identity.

Slide show and more available here.

After spending much of the past year in storage, a mural completed by famous graffiti artist Banksy will be on display at the 555 Gallery as early as November.

The painting, which depicts a boy holding a can of red paint, alongside the words, "I remember when all this was trees," was removed by gallery artists from the Packard Plant in May 2010. 555 Gallery, in contest with the owners of the Packard Plant, won clear title to the piece for a mere $2,500 -- a fraction of its estimated $100,000 worth. It's the culmination of a saga which pitted graffiti purists, arguing that place is intrinsic to the meaning of the mural, against preservationists, who contended the removal saved Banksy's work from certain destruction.

Excerpt:

The controversy itself has now become part of the accrued meaning of the mural -- what Becky Hart, associate curator of contemporary art at the Detroit Institute of Arts, calls "a patina of narrative."

"The piece is different now that it's not in its original location," said Hart. "But part of the meaning is its accrued locations. 555 entered into that dialogue about abandonment and re-use when they relocated the piece."

Read more here.

What can a shared meal of soup teach us about brand loyalty and market growth? Plenty. At Detroit SOUP, a monthly shared dinner where participants pay $5 to hear new ideas from the community before voting funds to the crowd favorite, democracy and community concern are the buzzwords. A new article from Fast Company calls SOUP an example for companies, not just concerned citizens; noting the co-creativity spawned by having the right guests to dinner, so to speak, is the future of crowdsourcing.

Excerpt:

Back in Michigan, Detroit SOUP co-founder Kate Daughdrill is putting these principles into practice: "We're figuring out how to engage civically, how to be engaged citizens," she explains. "We've been excited to create this practical experience in democracy. Brands that embrace this mindset will experience deeper engagement, richer collaboration on innovation opportunities and the gratification of shared value creation.

Sample the article here.

The Discovery Channel's new miniseries, Detroit in Overdrive, appearing on Planet Green, digs in deep. While familiar faces like Motor City Denim's Joe Faris and Kid Rock get their due, this vid searches out the "tangible faces behind those big buildings" for the three-part special, which originally aired Aug. 4. That means Maria's Comida, the Sphinx Organization and CCS student and designer Veronika Scott are among the long list of the city's community members and do-gooders sharing the spotlight with Detroit's superstars. We like it.

Excerpt:

The Russell Industrial center functions as a community space for artists, craftspeople, and small businesses. Edith Floyd stands up for what she believes in by building an urban garden where abandoned houses once stood. Last, Kristyn Koth and Malik Muqaribu feed Detroiters in their 1956 Airstream, the Pink Flamingo, bringing fresh organic food to Detroiters in a unique mobile food truck, spearheading a local food movement.

Find out more about Detroit in Overdrive here.

"Young, Broke & Beautiful" -- there's no way a TV show aiming for that demographic could pass up a night in our fair city. This intrepid series from the Independent Film Channel spotlights indie culture and creators across the nation. Their hour-long travelogue on the D makes friends with plenty of our favorite people and places, from the Imagination Station and DJ Kyle Hall to late-night parties and Coneys (natch).

Excerpt:

Stuart will pull the Scion into the most beautiful, broken down parking lot in the world. There's no doubt that all these YBB's will know where the dopest, most off the chain, unsanctioned warehouse party is happening, and Stuart will find himself closing down the night, partying with his people.

IFC will rerun the Detroit episode all week, beginning Tuesday at 6 p.m. Find out more about the channel's tour Detroit here.

What do longtime activist and casino investor Jane Garcia, state representative Rashida Tlaib, and Slow's BBQ have in common? They are just a few of the honorees of this year's Community Investment Breakfast, sponsored by Southwest Detroit Business Association. The event, themed "The Detroit of the Future: Built One Community at a Time," will be emceed by Fox 2's Huel Perkins, and feature remarks from Dave Bing and Henry Ford Hospital's Dr. John Popovich. Belda Garza, The Ideal Group's Frank Venegas and the City of Detroit's Brad Dick will also be recognized for their leadership and support of the Southwest community.

The event will be held at The Display Group, located at 1700 West Fort Street. Tickets are $50. Visit the SDBA website to learn more, or click here to purchase tickets.

This gem of a link comes from Sandra Yu, program manager at Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice. An MIT grad who chose to return to Detroit (and couldn't be happier about the decision), Yu authored eight reasons why the Korean population of Michigan should embrace Detroit, and then turned to some of her friends for their say. The article's printed in Korean, but scroll down to read what Yu, Sean Mann, Sheu-Jane Gallagher, Leor Barak, and other city dwellers have to say about what this town's given back to them.

Excerpt:

Detroit is the ideal city for the immigrant spirit. A century ago, Detroit was 33% foreign-born, mostly immigrants from Europe and the Middle East. During the Great Migration that spanned 55 years from 1915 to 1970, 6 million African Americans fleeing brutal conditions in the South migrated to Northern cities like Detroit searching for a better life and a fair chance for themselves and their children. Now, immigrants from Latin America make up the only growing demographic in the City of Detroit, and have created one of the densest, most vibrant districts in the city. Detroit is not a city that is kind to the lazy, the selfish, or those who feel entitled. It is a city for the entrepreneurial, the creative, the hardworking, the determined. If you are adventurous, engaged and committed, there is a community in Detroit that will embrace you, make you one of their own and give you a say, whether you are an artist, an activist, a farmer, an inventor, or an entrepreneur.

Read this collection of quotes and thoughts on choosing Detroit here.