America’s comeback kid
Virgin now f lies direct to Detroit — and it’s full of unexpected joys, says Jenny Coad
MoToR City may no longer throb to the sound of epic manufacturing (though Henry F ord’s factory in Dearborn still churns out one truck a minute), but Detroit is revving up for the future. People are moving back into Downtown, where once - derelict skyscrapers are now hotels; a new railway — the M-1 streetcar — is under construction, and small businesses are bubbling up all over the place.
None of this has been lost on V irgin Atlantic, which is backing the U .S.’s comeback kid, offering a direct, daily flight from London. You shouldn’t miss the chance to drop in — it ’s a fascinating place and locals are proud to say they are Detroiters, ‘born and raised’.
There’s art, inspired architecture, classic hot dogs and the warmest of American welcomes. of course, you cannot escape its dramatic history.
The city filed for bankruptcy in 2013 — representing one of the largest municipal financial collapses in U.S. history — and the rise and fall of America ’s greatest working -class city is documented all around you.
Driving from the airport, we pass burned- out houses, smashed windows and the decaying Michigan Central Station. one placard asks: ‘Where are you going — heaven or hell? Dial 855.’
As a result of its decades-long decline, Detroit is home to roughly 90,000 abandoned structures, from houses and churches to enormous factories — such as the 3,500,000 sq ftPackard Plant, which is now like a great inland shipwreck.
The authorities discourage what is called ‘ruin porn ’, but seem to turn a blind eye to graffiti, which has become an attraction in its own right.
Tracts of empty space are known romantically as urban prairies. At night, it’s dark, but street lights are gradually returning. It would make an all too realistic set for a disaster film. But Detroit is not beaten.
This is a city that once roared. In the Twenties and Thirties, workers determinedly fulfilled the American dream — and wealth poured in; art deco skyscrapers soared, suburbs burgeoned. At its height, the population was two million (now, it ’s 700,000). From my hotel, the Aloft Detroit, in the refurbished David Whitney Building, the city centre is easy to explore on foot or by taking the hyper-cheap monorail (the People Mover), which costs 75 cents (or 48p) a ride.
There are still plenty of empty buildings — like the decorative Wurlitzer, the old W urlitzer Music Centre — but others have been restored to former splendour. The Guardian Building, a deco masterpiece with a richly patterned interior, is a ten-minute walk away, and you can try squeaky Coney hotdogs nearby.
The city’s former prosperity is represented in the beautiful Beaux-Arts Detroit Institute of Arts, built in the Twenties and known as the ‘temple of art’.
It has V incent van Gogh ’s first self-portrait and Bruegel’s The Wedding Dance, as well as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo’s vast mural of workers in the Ford Rouge F actory. T his energetic piece, reminiscent of Soviet propaganda, fills a room and took the artistic couple more than nine months to complete.
RIVeRA spent three months sketching in the Dearborn factory , which you can, and should, visit. There’s a bombastic 3D experience showing the making of a truck — the monster F -150 — but seeing the machines operating for real is like watching a sci-fi film. Petrolheads will love it.
Henry Ford was also an avid collector, and his wide range of U.S. memorabilia, including the limousine in which P resident Kennedy was shot, the bus on which Rosa P arks refused to give up her seat — thereby triggering the civil rights movement — and edgar Allan Poe’s desk, is on display in the Henry Ford Museum. eclectic doesn’t begin to do it justice.
Music lovers will know that Detroit was also the birthplace of Motown and the diminutive museum — Hitsville USA , which has one of Michael Jackson’s sparkly gloves, Stevie Wonder’s harmonica and the studio where Marvin Gaye and the Supremes recorded hits including I Heard It Through The Grapevine and Baby Love, will stir musical souls.
A bicycle tour will give you a chance to explore even further afield. Jason Hall started the
‘Slow Roll’ with friends five years ago, traversing Detroit’s neighbourhoods: a community bike ride that now attracts up to 4,000 cyclists a week.
My Slow Roll begins at the riverfront, overlooking Ontario, Canada. We pedal to Indian Village, an affluent community full of enormous Arts and Crafts homes with clipped lawns and the Stars And Stripes flying proud. On the corner of parker Street and Kercheval Avenue, we pause to appreciate Detroit’s pioneering spirit — new businesses selling locally produced goods, from jars of ‘Jam Session’ to slices of salted maple pie.
At a large, empty plot where the Brewster-Douglass housing project once stood, our guide points out the Brewster-Wheeler Recreation Center, with its library and gym where the world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis — the Brown Bomber — trained. It was saved from demolition by the local community and there are plans for its reinvention.
‘Detroit no longer looks back’, our guide asserts. Yes, this is still America’s most dangerous city, but it is far from downtrodden.
Its Latin motto is: ‘ We hope for better things. It will arise from the ashes’. And I, for one, wish the city well.