Feather bowling and other reasons to love Detroit
Call me a contrarian but to celebrate the rebirth of Detroit, I headed straight to a Prohibitionera speakeasy turned iconic neighbourhood bar to do something old and obscure.
Cadieux Cafe is the quietly famous home of feather bowling in the United States. I’d never heard of the strange sport that people liken to bocce, curling or sometimes even shuffleboard. The Belgian spin on bowling involves dirt lanes in concave alleys, wooden balls and pigeon feathers and was brought to Motor City by Flemish immigrants.
GO FEATHER BOWLING
With the cafe’s musical coowner away touring with Bob Seger and not available to play with me, I got the server to teach me the house rules. It’s easy enough. Divide into teams and roll six balls towards a feather at the other end of the lane. The team with the closest ball to the feather at the end of each round earns one point per ball. The first team to get 10 points wins. Feather bowling is best enjoyed with Belgian beer and steamed mussels.
I played against myself and won. That also means I lost, but eased the pain with Belgian frites dipped in mayo. A mother and son wandered in to take photos and told me you can also go feather bowling at the Bath City Bistro half an hour away in Mount Clemens. Or you can go fowling in nearby Hamtramck at the Fowling Warehouse. That Detroit invention involves throwing footballs to knock down bowling pins.
ADMIRE THE FABULOUS FIST
People have been talking about Detroit’s rebirth for enough years now that it’s almost old news. I saw the revival in 2016 when I first visited, and I saw it again this time after making the easy four-hour drive from Toronto for two nights.
This time I wanted to get a good look at the giant bronze Joe Louis fist that makes me think of the sentiment behind the “Nothing Stops Detroit” mural in Eastern Market. The Monument to Joe Louis — a right arm with a fisted hand suspended in a pyramid — commemorates a 1938 fight between the legendary African-american boxer from Detroit and a German boxer during the time of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Sculptor Robert Graham left it somewhat open to interpretation so it’s as controversial as it is powerful.
CHECK OUT THE POLICE MUSEUM
The big fist isn’t far from Detroit Public Safety Headquarters, which may seem like a strange place to visit until you discover it houses the Detroit Police Museum & Gift Shop. You just have to show photo ID and go through airport-style security to get inside a building that houses the police and fire departments.
This is my kind of museum — small, single subject and well cared for. Curator Jeff Lemaux is an ex-cop who gives me one of the “get out of jail free” cards that police used to quietly hand out and people apparently flashed for minor traffic offences and the like.
Lemaux has been collecting police memorabilia for 35 years and has a particular passion for old photographs. I’m partial to the seemingly out-of-place baby stroller, until I see the secret compartment that holds a liquor bottle. During the Depressionera
Prohibition, people desperate for money went to creative lengths to deliver illegal booze for a couple of bucks.
The stroller is next to a fetching bomb suit donated by the bomb squad and not far from four vintage lie detector machines. Too bad they’re not in working order, because I’ve always wanted to find out what a bad liar I am.
VISIT A BOOK LOVER’S PARADISE
Maybe it’s because Detroit is flirting with all things news, but I gravitated to the oldest things I could find. John K. King Used & Rare Books is an absolute treasure. It houses more than a
million books and has been in a four-level former glove factory since 1983.
Directed to the Canadian section by friendly and happy staff, I scored a book about Tilting, a community on Fogo Island in Newfoundland where I have a cottage. Coincidence or literary destiny?
CELEBRATE MOTOWN
I hate doing the same thing twice, but since this year is the 60th anniversary of Motown, I made an exception and revisited the Motown Museum. Berry Gordy Jr. started the record label in 1959 in a house on West Grand Boulevard that quickly got dubbed Hitsville U.S.A. and
now serves as art of the expanding museum that celebrates musicians like the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and Diana Ross.
The small, but slick, museum manages the crowds with carefully timed and orchestrated tours. Photography is strictly forbidden —apparently for copyright reasons — until you get to Studio A and they tell you to snap away for a precious few minutes. Sorry to ruin the surprise, but hopefully it will cut down on the temptation to flout the strict rules.
SAY THANKS
TO JACK WHITE
I grew up with records (before CDS were invented and not during the current vinyl resurgence), so was keen to see Third Man Records, the brainchild of Jack White of White Stripes fame. Tours of the Cass Corridor shop’s vinyl production facility were on hiatus so I lingered in the “record and novelties lounge” pining over the White Stripes’ “We’re Going to Be Friends” doll and book set.
HAVE AN ARTY INTERLUDE
In a word, Detroit is about art. The Detroit Institute of Art is a must see that’s best known for the Detroit Industry frescoes by Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. The four walls of what’s now called Rivera Court are filled
with 27 panels celebrating the city’s 1930’s-era manufacturing base and labour force.
CELEBRATE STREET ART
The suburb of Dearborn may be home to the Ford Motor Co., but Detroit has a parking garage called The Z. I didn’t need to park. I just wanted to see the 130 paintings done by 27 local and international artists. The view of downtown is pretty sweet, too.
I did need my car to get to the ever popular Heidelberg Project, an outdoor art environment along Heidelberg Street where Tyree Guyton builds installations with found objects. At the Dabls MBAD African Bead Museum, Olayami Dabls uses the better part of a block to sell beads inside a shop and create art installations outside.
EAT DETROIT-STYLE PIZZA
I generally ignore the coupons they put on the back of ticket stubs, but both the Motown Museum and the Detroit Institute of Arts encourage people to head to Buddy’s. It’s the local chain that invented square pizza with crunchy corners in 1946.
At the Conant Street branch, I got my first four square with the pepperoni hidden under the cheese and sauce so it doesn’t char. I wolfed it down in my car by a foodcentric mural that references the city’s Spirit of Detroit bronze statue.