Motown and the perils of preconceptions

Good Morning! I hope you all had a Happy Easter!

A picture that nicely defines Detroit, a bustling city centre in the 30s and a empty shop front today

I would like this post to serve as a little warning to you about the perils of preconceptions. There are a lot of people who will not visit Detroit, they have heard the reports - A drop in population from over 2 million during better times to under 1 million today, 70% of murders go unsolved, police response times vary from an hour to never, two thirds of the cities ambulances are in a state of disrepair, the highest homicide rates in the USA and the list goes on and on. These facts may very well be true but by no means mean that you should avoid Detroit. A lot of the crime is concentrated in certain sections of the city (a little like East Cleveland) away from downtown and so I felt as safe if not safer wandering around Detroit as in any other US city. In fact I felt a darn sight safer wandering around in Detroit that in New York City.

Chess Anyone?

I went there mainly to watch a baseball game but decided to make it into a day trip to give me an opportunity to see the city at the same time, I had heard about all issues and the abandoned buildings and wanted to see it for myself. Well after getting of the bus the first thing that surprised me was how 'nice' it was, I had imagined a very dirty, rundown city with lots of potholes and rubbish everywhere but I thought the city looked quite sharp, Detroit was very much designed for the car and has these wide tree lined boulevards which give the city a nice European feel. It also means there are really wide pavements, which they have fully utilized by putting giant chess boards on the sidewalks which people were enjoying, unfortunately I did not get time to destroy someone at chess myself as there was only an hour or so till game time and after the game I could not find the street again for love nor money.

I picked Michigan Avenue as my road to take to the centre of town and I am very glad that I did as it lead me to the Lafayette Chili Dog restaurant. There are two Chili restaurants right next to each other with quite the competition going between the two of them as to which is best. I was about to walk into the Coney island chili dog shop until one of the punters walked by and told me to try the Lafayette instead... I certainly wasn't going to refuse the advice of a native now was I?! I have absolutely no idea how good the chili dogs are inside Coney island, but the dogs in the Lafayette shop were delicious!!  I got a chili dog and some chili fries which I was busy devouring when the fellow sitting next to me gave me some rather ominous news... he said the chili may only take a matter of seconds to consume... the the farts are guaranteed to last for days! It is a good job Amanda is in Florida then!

I picked the chili shop on the right, Although I much prefer the shopfront on the left.

So cheap that I left a tip!

The food lasts for seconds but the farts last for days.

A little further down Michigan Avenue I came across capitol square and I am fairly certain that every building on it is abandoned (See Below). Detroit certainly does have a high proportion of abandoned skyscrapers but I quite like that, I think it adds a certain edginess to the city that I find quite appealing.

Capitol Square, I am 99 percent sure every single building in it is abandoned.

It was then time for the baseball game! The home team was called the Detroit Tigers and they have a great Ball Park, It has these two huge tigers standing guard over the main entrance, friendly security guards, a very expensive gift shop and an even more expensive bar... Just like any other stadium around the world then. I also think that to go a along with all of the Detroit Tigers world series victories the team can also be proud to say that it has the tackiest score board video thing I have had the pleasure of seeing. Before the games begin, the team like to play a video on the scoreboard to pump up the fans - a nice idea but Detroits video is staggeringly tacky! It involves clips of the the team from the year before achieving great things like hitting a home run, thiswill then morph into a video of a angry tiger clawing at the screen, the video would of course not be complete without the customary fire appearing from the bottom of the screen whenever the Tiger roars. Quite honestly I think I could have made a better video for them in Microsoft paint! I have desperately tried to find it on youtube for you but to no avail. Rest assured that when I do I shall add it to my blog!

It is a lovely stadium but I wish they would paint those Tigers!

They sure do love their Tigers in Detroit

A view of downtown from the stadium

After the game I took a walk down to Hart Plaza (:D) on the waterfront. It was nice with some great views over the water to Canada and with some statues with  quotes by famous poets and whatnot but quite frankly I thought the coolest thing about Hart Plaza was its name. I think it is quite a quirky little fact that if you look South over the river from Detroit you see Canada.

A Great Spot :D

A Selfie of a Hart in Hart Plaza :)

So after my little stroll along the riverfront I was getting peckish again and this led to by far and away my favourite part of the day, my visit to the Grand Trunk. This is an old pub in the bottom of what used to be the Metrople Hotel, The hotel is now long gone but the pub remains and is well worth a visit,  I had a local Michigan brew called the Founders ale 'Dirty Bastard' It tasted just like a Guinness except a little sweeter, really really nice :) But this beer was nothing when compared to my dinner.... I had a Shepherds pie!!!! It was the nicest dinner I have had for 6 months... it tasted just like my Mums and even the Cheese tasted good! Cheese tasting good is an incredibly rare occurrence in America! I wanted to take a picture of it for you, but I just couldn't stop eating it for long enough to take the shot, I shoveled it down my throat so fast that by the time I had got my camera out the Shepherds Pie was all gone :(

This once housed the famous Grand Trunk Shepherds Pie, but as with a lot of Detroit it now lies empty.

The Grand Trunk... Yum!

Here are some pictures of the old home of the Detroit Free Press. It was amazing and slightly sad to see such a beatiful building fall into disrepair, but I thought it was extremely cool that you could walk round to the back of it and see the old loading bays where they used to get the papers into vans and dispersed around the city. The building made for some nice pictures :)

The old home of the Detroit Free Press

The back of the Free Press building, you can still see all the old loading bays where they used to send the newspapers out over all of Detroit.

The main entrance to the old Detroit Club, looks like it was once a really posh place but has now gone the way of the dodo!

The day ended on a positive note as well, My bus was supposed to arrive back into Cleveland at 12.40 with the last train leaving to our school at 1am, however due to the bus leaving late I was resigned to an expensive taxi ride home but decided I would go and check if there was a bus heading my way... I was delighted to find out that the bus that runs past our school in the daytime becomes the airport bus at night and so it runs 24 hours a day!!! I'll take a 2 dollar bus ride over a taxi fare any day :)

In other good news I have finally gotten around to passing my driving test!

Catch up soon love from Greg x

p.s do not be afraid to visit Detroit!