Semester D

As part of my internship at Southwest Detroit Business Association (SDBA), I am organizing a neighborhood clean-up event.  The event will be using funds obtained from a Community and Property Preservation (CAPP) grant to board and bolt vacant and abandoned homes, paint over graffiti, landscape vacant lots, post signs, and clean up illegal dumping in Southwest Detroit.  The efforts will be focused in three neighborhoods: Hubbard Farms/Mexicantown, the 48210 zip-code area, and Springdale-Woodmere. 

Southwest Detroit continues to grow in population and experience significant investment.  Investment in the area’s business district is also an investment in the community, as the work that improves business viability also tends to improve residents’ overall quality of life by making the neighborhood a more desirable place to live.  Vacant properties can become havens for illegal activities that harm the community, including prostitution and drug dealing.  Furthermore, these properties tend to become sites of illegal dumping, which is hazardous to the health of the community and unsightly.  SDBA continues to invest in the abatement of nuisances on such properties, as identified by the community.

For this event, I am working with community members from the different neighborhoods.  They are identifying to me the properties that they consider to be the biggest nuisances: commercial buildings with highly visible graffiti; abandoned homes in high traffic areas that are open to trespassers; and abandoned lots that have become illegal dumping yards.  On the day of the event, SDBA will provide volunteers with all of the supplies and basic orientation needed to complete the work themselves.  I am recruiting student volunteers from UofM, but we hope that most of the volunteers will be community members and neighbors of the nuisance properties.

Events like this are important because they encourage communities to take blight into their own hands.  Hopefully, this spirit will continue into the future and not just on this day.  For example, we will provide paint to neighbors of buildings that are frequent targets for graffiti so that they might continue to paint over the incidents if they reoccur.  City government does not have the capacity now to properly attend to all of the nuisances – we are more likely to see action if we do it ourselves. 

I’d like to invite everyone to participate in this event with SDBA! Again, it’s Saturday, April 10th from 9am-1pm.  The rain-date is set for the 17th at the same time.  Contact me at leeyac@gmail.com if you would like to volunteer.  We will be having a celebration at the completion of our day and pizza will be provided!  Refreshments will be provided in the morning as well.  This will be an energetic event and a great chance to be a part of a proactive approach to taking on blight in Southwest Detroit.  Also, I’d like to put a call out to any artists out there – we are looking for local artists to paint or somehow decorate the boards we’ll be using to board up properties, to add some vibrancy to otherwise drab looking properties.  If you have any skills in spray-painting or other styles you think might apply, please contact me.   I hope to see you all there!

SDBA Clean-up event in Hubbard Farms, November 2009

In the past four years, I’ve spent a lot of time getting to know Detroit. I can’t count how many hours I’ve spent just driving the city’s streets, exploring the different neighborhoods. I know my way around the Woodward corridor, the East Side, and Southwest, and now that I live here, I’ve walked just about every block of Midtown. I’ve also been to my fair share museums, festivals, and nice restaurants.

So what’s left to explore? Well, everything. Detroit’s the kind of place where not everything meets the eye. Bars that look sketchy on the outside might have a great ambiance and clientele. Buildings that look abandoned might be artists studios or private clubs. I’m reminded of that every time I read Detroit Blog. The author is constantly uncovering new places and people I’d never have guessed existed. So I know there’s always more to learn about this fascinating city.

Already this semester I’ve been to quite a few new places: the Detroit Boat Club, the Redford Theater, the Charles Wright Museum of African and African American History, Mudgies, Russell Street Deli, Shangri La,  Woodward Coney Island, Cafe d’Mongo’s, and, briefly, the Cadieux Cafe. But I’d like to keep discovering new things. Where else should I go? Who should I meet? Here are some ideas I have so far:

• Drive through the West Side. Yes, I know it’s huge, but I think Grand River is a good place to start.
• Walk through Detroit’s major parks. I love Belle Isle, but I’d like to see Palmer Park, Rouge Park, and Eliza Howell, too.
• Visit historic churches. I’ve been to a few (mostly Catholic), but I’d like to see more.
• Learn more about Detroit’s labor, social, and religious history — and see the sights that connect to it.

This reminds me of the stories Ive heard from my grandma about the London Chop house. It was like a super elegant resturant that all the celebs would frequent when in Detroit. Like Cary Grant was a regular there etc. There were others too I cant remember but its worth checking out.

I’d like to make a list of my top ten experiences/discoveries of the past two months in Detroit (somewhat chronologically):

Let’s start with the good…

1.

THE HUB/BACK ALLEY BIKES

2. Cass Cafe has a spelling bee on Monday nights. ‘S-e-r-g-e-a-n-t’ is harder to spell than you might imagine.

3. The Polish Village Cafe in Hamtramck (maybe this shouldn’t count for not being in Detroit?) lets you mail your check in.

4. Seeing Adam Green perform and getting to talk to him which probably wouldn’t be possible in any other city(okay okay, so this is another non-Detroit event, but Ferndale is close enough).

5. Goodwells Natural Food Market famous pocket sandwich. Food in general.

6. Boring my fellow classmates with experimental short-films. I thought they were funny…

7. Revisiting Catherine Ferguson Academy. There’s no limit to what this school can do.

8. Discovering the joys of winter biking.

9. Learning anything about Detroit’s past, present, and future.

10. Meeting all sorts of new and diverse people. From self-taught bike mechanics to a man named Malcom who wanted to know if I do modern dance, and small business owners and extremely talented artists and the list goes on and on.

Not everything in Detroit has been fun and games. There’s plenty of things that make it difficult to live here. Such as looking at the Motor City Casino. The joys of winter biking are well, not always so joyful (turns out it’s not easy to get around in this city without a car, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done). And back to my friend Malcom with the modern dance who told me that he loves this city but doesn’t have any money to enjoy it anymore because he lost his pension and is homeless now. I’m certain I have no experience with the real hardships of living in Detroit. I’ve realized, with more surprise and pain than I care to admit, that not everyone thinks it’s good that Semester in Detroit exists. We’ve been compared to spectators at a zoo and been accused of “slumming” by coming to Detroit. My only response is that I really love living in Detroit and Michigan and I want to stay for as long as possible. If I should have to leave I hope I can come back real soon.

So as most people are aware Hamtramck Blowout is coming up! It is a really great music festival happening in Hamtramck bars featuring 200 bands from Detroit going from March 3rd to the 6th. I am very excited its always great. Theyre are alot of bands playing this year (go to my friends’ shows… Kommie Kilpatrick, Divine Comedians and Superdollar!). I have posted a blog that has been doing video interviews with every band playing this year. Check it out. I also am posting a schedule of the line up this year!

A lot of people have asked what I’m doing at my internship. If you looked at my computer screen at any given time (and I’m generally in front of it on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 to 5:30), there’s a fair chance I’ll be looking at a map or you’ll catch me browsing the web. Wait, let me explain — the two are related in a good way.

My job is to explore ways that Data Driven Detroit can put some of the datasets they have online in ways that make it easy for people to access them. Nearly all of the data we have is geographic in some way: it’s tied to places in the Metro area. That place might be an individual house, a street, a census block, the whole city, or just a latitude-longitude point.

It turns out there a lot of good ways to put information on maps, and I wanted to highlight a couple that might be helpful to you and the organizations we’re working with.

The first place to start is (you guessed it) Google Maps. Click the “My Maps” link in the upper-left corner of the window and you can create your own maps. Google lets you add points (with custom markers), lines, and shapes. You can also invite others to work on the map with you.

If a simple Google Map doesn’t meet your needs, the MapTogether project publishes the Illustrated Guide to Nonprofit Geographical Information Systems and Online Mapping – a free, plain-English PDF you can download to learn why mapping matters to nonprofits and how to do it.

It also turns out that map data is expensive. It costs a lot for a company to collect all the records, drive around and update them, and refresh their websites. Cities charge for this mapping information, too.

That’s where Open Street Map comes in. It’s the Wikipedia of maps. Anyone — yes, you too — can edit the map to add and remove points (like bus stops and churches), draw in parking lots, and adjust roads to reflect reality. Give it a shot: jump to this view of the area we live in and click the edit button. You’ll need to create an account (free), but it’s worth it.

The best part is that the data that makes up Open Street Map is freely available for anyone to reuse. You don’t have to pay to download maps of the entire world (or at least, the entire world that people have catalogued so far).

But sometimes off-the-shelf products don’t work so well, and you have to draw your own maps. It turns out you can make your own, using the Open Street Map data and your custom styles to highlight the features that are important to you. It’s like building your own Google Maps! But that’s a post for another day.

CONGRATS to our very own SiD Gahl Liberzon, for taking home the first place $50 prize at tonight’s poetry slam in the dorm.  There was stiff competition and a 3-way tie for first.  It came down to a slam-off (or something) and Gahl brought it home.  Way to go!

Our orientation concluded with an assignment in which we were asked to ride the city bus and then write a reflection paper about the experience. This bus trip surprised me in many ways. Several other Semester-in-Detroiters and I were lured to Hamtramck by the promise of good Polish food, and decided to use the trip as an opportunity to travel and eat there. We took one of the main lines along Woodward Avenue and had to transfer because Hamtramck, though closely related to Detroit in many ways, is technically not a part of the city, but rather a city within a city. This trip consequently required the usage of two different buses – one that runs within the city and one that runs throughout the Detroit metropolitan region.

One aspect of the bus trip that resonates with me is the fact that there were so many people riding the city bus. Today many people writing about Detroit emphasize its emptiness – whether that is what is lacks financially, its abandonment, or its dwindling population. I guess that my exposure to these thoughts on the city contributed to the feeling of surprise I experienced on this trip, despite the fact that I realize this representation of the city as empty is not entirely accurate. For example, when waiting to take the first bus on Woodward, I was with a few other Semester in Detroit students and we could not all fit on the same bus. Some of us went on the first bus that arrived, and others needed to wait for the next bus because the first was at capacity. Even while riding the bus, I rarely sat because all the seats were occupied. My experience riding the bus was a contrast to many of the things I have read about the city. I know the bus is not analogous to the city and its conditions, but it was surprising to see a bus jam-packed full of people, after reading and hearing so much about the city’s emptiness. I realize this is partially because Detroit has high rates of poverty (and let’s face it – between paying for gas and car maintenance regularly, having a car is expensive for anyone these days), and therefore, it is not surprising that in such a city there would be a high demand for buses, which are a cheaper alternative to driving a car. But this got me thinking about Detroit transit. The buses here already run far less frequently than they do in many other American cities and there are also complaints abound about the reliability of buses in the city. I’ve heard that they are often late, or do not show up as scheduled at all sometimes. This makes me think that there are many citizens whose transportation needs are not being met. This experience ultimately reminded me that Detroit is not empty, regardless of what some have written about it. In fact, it’s home to many and it doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves of that, especially amid current discussions on the future of Detroit transit and the city’s future in general.

The past few years have been quite devastating for Detroit Public Schools. Many teachers have been laid off, countless schools have been closed and most recently, performing arts curricular activities have taken a turn for the worse in the DPS system. As a graduate of Lewis Cass Technical High School and an active member in the performing arts department at U of M, I realize the importance of the arts in educational institution, particularly for intercity students. Performing art programs give students an opportunity to express themselves in a more unique way that traditional classes cannot accommodate.

More and more teachers are being laid off by the month. Even the most dedicated and professionally trained educators are being asked to leave. Marc Haas, the director of Cass Tech’s orchestra and music department, is scheduled to be laid off on March 7, 2010. Mr. Haas is a brilliant man that has basically reshaped Cass Tech’s music department. He has lead Cass Tech’s orchestra to countless victories around the state and country. Unfortunately, this program will come to an end after Mr. Haas is laid off.

Many staff members and students are furious about Mr. Haas departure. Some students have taken matters into their own hands by composing petitions and writing letters to the school board and other political officials in Detroit. But, no one is heard. It seems as if the city has no concern for education. I for one believe that education is key to restoring Detroit and bringing back the world renowned “Motor City”.  If education is no longer looked upon as an essential aspect of the city, then there is absolutely no hope for Detroit and its future. Get it together people!

Last weekend, I took my first trip to New York with my mom and neighbors.  I was thrilled to experience the city…but how could I not be? New York is one of the most well known cities in the U.S., if not the world. It is a major center of finance (Wall Street), shopping (Times Square), and entertainment.  Not to mention that Jay-Z and Alicia Keys recently dedicated a song to New York, calling it a “concrete jungle where dreams are made of.”

Let’s just say I was not impressed by New York.  In fact, the city was so overwhelming it was more of a headache than anything else. Granted, we did stay in the middle of Times Square and went on an especially busy weekend (it was Valentines weekend, Chinese New Year, and there was a fashion event going on).  But in talking with local New Yorkers, this weekend was not out of the ordinary…there’s a reason it earned the nickname, “the city that never sleeps.”  And to my surprise, it’s that aspect of New York I was not fond of.  I hated constantly being surrounded by masses of people, tall buildings, and traffic (I’d really like to know what taxicabs think they’re accomplishing by honking their horn every two seconds…).  How ironic is that? The issues facing Detroit are abandonment, blight, and deindustrialization and for reasons opposite of that, I disliked New York.

I was expecting New York to be this “ideal city.” Far from it.  I have a new appreciation for the quiet streets and “open space” in Detroit. I was relieved to get away from the congestion in New York. I would love to see more people come and live in Detroit but would that mean sacrificing the “openness” that New York City lacked?