as we may blog

A spur of the moment decision sent us into a foggy, chilly night for an opening by a group of artists in the Compuware building in downtown Detroit last night. It was my first trip to the megalopolis to the east, unless you count the trip to the Crate and Barrel in the suburbs a few months back (yeah, that’s right, we had a pretty nice little Saturday planned). In short, Detroit is easily one of the strangest, most intruiging places I’ve ever been.

Perhaps Hollywood’s interest in downtown Detroit is the best way to explain the feel of the place. The Island, a Michael Bay joint starring Ewan McGregor and that busty creature from Lost in Translation just finished shooting there recently. Apparently the movie is set in some sort of dystopian future in which Hawke is running from the law or something. So there’s that. There are also rumors that Spielberg’s War of the Worlds remake will do some shooting in downtown Detroit as well.

So perhaps you’ve got a picture of this place as a surreal mishmash of war-torn buildings and futuristic glitz. And your mental image would be right on. In the space of about two blocks we wandered past heaps of rubble and a deserted downtown to an ice-rink opening complete with local media and a big band ensemble playing tunes. The Compuware building itself reminded me of one of the last levels in the original Max Payne (Scott, help me out here). Walk two blocks in another direction and it looks like the city was bombed fifty years ago and no one decided to clean it up.

But that’s not to imply that it wasn’t an enjoyable night. Clearly Detroit is in the middle of some sort of a revival (it’s hard for me to say from one visit whether it’s totally planned or not). Most of the construction going on is a result of preparations for the Super Bowl. But I picked up on a real sense of vitality despite the surroundings, like people were happy to be spending some time downtown on a Friday night. We went a couple miles down Woodward, passing the Fox Theatre, Comerica Park, and Ford Field for dinner at this great little restaurant across the street from the Majestic. I had a huge burger. The waitress was really kind.

So yeah. It’s not that I had expectations for Detroit. But it’s a striking, intruiging place, a city that seems to have a real identity to it, warts and all. I’ll definitely return.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 21st, 2004 at 1:15 am and is filed under Boring self-indulgence, Michigan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.