Sometimes conflicts and the suffering that they bring force people to leave their homes in search of a place where they can survive. It’s not easy for refugees to leave everything behind: their house, a secure job, a way of life and a family.
On the east side of Detroit sits an old two-story house washed sky blue. The paint is chipped and the windows are barred with thick grey metal. It is my grandmother’s house of over fifty years.
The building at Mack near Chalmers resembles thousands of Detroit properties: abandoned, in tax foreclosure, burned-out, dangerous, overdue for demolition.
Detroit is bankrupt. Does it hurt to write those words? Honestly, it doesn’t. It hurts as much as ripping a Band-Aid off. Detroit is bankrupt. Detroit is bankrupt.
It is with great pride that we at Belt announce the birth of our newest book: Aaron Foley's How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass, which officially hits the streets today.
The record store was about two miles from our neighborhood and about one mile beyond the city limits. As teenagers a friend and I would go there whenever we had a little money ...
The boy looked back at me, his eyes defiant. Dressed in head-to-toe black, he was standing in a Detroit police station, holding evidence of his crime ...
In 1988, We in Detroit were at one of the great turning points in history. Detroit’s deindustrialization, devastation, and depopulation had turned the city into a wasteland ...
Matt Bell’s new novel Scrapper, out this month from Soho Press, begins with a sweeping history of Detroit told from the Packard Plant floor. “See the body of the plant,” the novel directs us, as if sung by a ghostly chorus.
Don’t call it a renaissance. Or a revival. Also out: Revitalization. Do not, do not, bring up Brooklyn when you’re talking about Detroit, not unless you’re ready to have that conversation with Gary Wasserman.
This magazine is now two years old--still a toddler, but steady on her feet. Happy Birthday to us! Here [...]
In 1968, the students returning to my suburban Detroit Catholic high school, Bishop Gallagher, had a surprise waiting for them: For the back-to-school dance that September, someone had booked the MC5