DETROIT’S REVIVAL
Downtown redevelopment paying off
The exodus is over. Let the pilgrimage begin.
Welcome to Detroit, where an image of urban gardens, riverfront cycling, and warehouse lofts inhabited by hip 20-somethings is beginning to erase one of burntout homes and the urban porn of once-grand buildings left in ruins.
Industry once made Detroit one of the fastest-growing and grandest cities on the continent, known for a time as the “Paris of the West” and in the 1950s it had a population of 1.8 million people. It’s now 700,000.
While the past 60 years have been rough on Detroit, the believers and rebuilders have been many and their efforts are paying off, starting with downtown, where millions have been invested in refurbishing scores of art deco, neo-renaissance, and neo-Gothic buildings.
Among them is the 1924 Westin Book Cadillac Hotel, which was renovated in 2008 at a cost of $200 million, after being closed for 20 years.
The Book Cadillac, located on Washington Avenue, is a popular choice for visiting sports fans both because of proximity to Comerica Park, a 10-minute walk away, and history.
It was in this hotel’s lobby that Lou Gehrig told the New York Yankees manager to leave him out of the starting lineup in 1939, ending a streak of 2,130 consecutive games.
Major league sports — baseball’s Tigers, hockey’s Red Wings, and football’s Lions — are titans in drawing tourists to Detroit.
The baseball and football stadiums were built side-by-side on Michigan Avenue.
Joining them in September 2017, will be the Little Caesars Arena, new home of the Red Wings and part of a 50-block residential-entertainment redevelopment called The District Detroit.
While The District Detroit may be the city’s most impressive tourism undertaking, it’s by no means the only one.
The art scene is well represented by the internationally known Detroit Institute of Arts Museum and its iconic Diego Rivera Detroit industry murals.
But also celebrated are works of urban art such as the 27-foot bronze Joe Louis fist on Woodward Avenue and new edges such as the Belt, a mysterious alleyway separating the mural-filled Z Garage and a fine art gallery called Library Street Collective. The Belt is just a small part of Detroit’s large street art scene.
Along the Detroit River waterfront, where rows of gritty industries and warehouses once stood abandoned, I left for two afternoon cycling excursions following an abandoned railway track known as the Dequindre Cut Greenway and city street bike lanes.
The first, led by newly published craft beer author Steve Johnson, pedalled past ghosts of mega breweries such as Stroh’s, which is no longer brewed in Detroit, and some of the city’s craft brewers, including Atwater Brewery.
The second, a tour of Belle Isle and residential neighbourhoods led by Kelli Kavanaugh of Wheelhouse Detroit, was an eye-opener.
But no trip is complete without a glimpse of the auto industry.
See where Henry Ford perfected the automobile assembly line and built thousands of Model Ts in the early 1900s. The Piquette Plant building is now home to an impressive collection of historical automobiles and is owned by the Model T Automotive Heritage Complex.