My response to the "WTF is going on in Detroit?" thread.

[Barack_America]

For people who are really interested in the REAL story of Detroit, past and present, check out detroitblog.

http://www.detroitblog.org/

This blog is the creation of a local (anonymous) journalist who knows the city, researches the history and actually interviews the people. This blog is committed to understanding how Detroit got to be as it is and, more importantly, how it can become something more.

It's the best blog I've ever read and I warn you, it is highly addictive.


This is how the author describes it:

Detroitblog is a collection of photos and articles about the Motor City.

It started as a way to share local, personal happenings with a handful of former Detroit-born friends who had moved out of state, and consisted mostly of anything Detroit related, which amounted to faintly amusing tales of me being drunk around town, among other instances of silly behavior.

Then I started inviting myself into abandoned skyscrapers and photographing the architecture, posting the results with some researched history, so that transformed the site and gave it focus. The Metro Times wrote a profile at that time.

Now it’s got stories about all sorts of things in and of Detroit.

I’m a local journalist who prefers to remain anonymous, for a reason or two. Some of the articles appear now and then in the Metro Times under the byline Detroitblogger John.

There’s also Facebook, myspace and Twitter.

http://www.detroitblog.org/?page_id=271

[susanna]

1. K&R - excellent recommendation. n/t

[Barack_America]

2. Thanks. Only problem is that my weekend is now screwed.

I haven't checked in on it for a while, and now that I have, I'm mesmerized.

:D

[susanna]

3. I know! I promised myself I'd get a jump on my homework today.

So much for that...a couple of the recent entries look very intriguing! :-)

[ninety lives]

4. People should prioritize....

If you are satisfied that a Democrat is in the White House, then places like Detroit ought to be a priority for you.

[Barack_America]

6. I agree. The author of this blog asks people what happened to their neighborhoods...

...the "living history" approach. That's the best way to find out what really happened.

You'll see the same themes show up time and time again; corporations and politics creating and then taking advantage of racism, fear and desperation.

What happened to Detroit is an important lesson to the entire country and metropolitan areas both thriving and in decline. It can happen to them, and will happen to them, if we don't change the ways we look at and treat our inner cities and the people who live in them.

[madrchsod]

5. oh great....another fascinating site to while away the time.....

good thing i`m retired and the weather is going to be crappy this weekend....thanks for the link :thumbsup:

[Barack_America]

7. Let me know what you think of it.

I'm really curious to know.

I hope you find it interesting.

People always wonder how I can love a city like Detroit so much. I think this blog does a good job of explaining what I could never find the words to explain myself.

I guess it has something to do with a city that has been so stripped of everything material, that there's really nothing left but its heart and soul.

[ellie]

8. I love Detroit!

My husband is going to Wayne State in the fall for grad school and we went up to check it out. We walked across the street to the public library and were blown away by how beautiful it was. A very nice security guard gave us a mini tour and told us the history of the building.

I hope Detroit recovers.

[Barack_America]

9. I spent 7 years at Wayne.

Doing a BS and MS in biology.

I'd be happy to give you tips on places to go, eat and live anytime.

Congrats on the grad school acceptance!

[ellie]

31. Thanks!

I bookmarked this thread for him. He posts on DU but not often.

[angstlessk]

20. the people of Detroit are AMAZINGLY kind and helpful...I have nothing but love

for the people here. We just moved here a year ago from Norfolk VA and I would not go back to VA for all the money in the world!!! Even though we froze our touches (is that how you spell ass nicely?)off this winter!

[Romulox]

23. Welcome home!

It will take you two or three winters to get used to it. After that, you'll be an old pro! :toast:

[angstlessk]

24. WOW..see, that brought tears to my eyes...welcome home...

you have heard of soul mates..well this is my soul home...thanks for the welcome! and we are not friendly folk, kinda stay to yourself folk, but every single person we have had ANY interaction with here are friendly almost to a fault...again thanks for the welcome!

P.S. I am an old white woman so it ain't as though I came here to gang bang or anything...and I was born and raised in Norfolk,VA and lived in Rhode Island (my first out of state love) then Florida where everything leather moulded..including my VERY EXPENSIVE LEATHER BOOTS..and California were the weather men were just recordings...BOREING..and not very green!!! Detroit is my TRUE LOVE HOME!

[hunter]

10. I'm gonna pass on couple's nights at the steam room...

... but that television shop looks inviting.

I've got some pretty mad tube type television repair skills. For a while I was fixing computer monitors, but these days people are disposing of perfectly good monitors as hazardous waste when they upgrade to LCD. Some of these old monitors get shipped overseas to places like Thailand or India and turned into inexpensive televisions for the masses.

Detroitblog.org is a wonderful site. Thanks.

It makes me think how most places in the U.S. have communities that are ignored in every way by the mass media and completely forgotten by "mainstream" Americans lost in a shallow affluence of box store consumer goods and a tranquilizing fog of vague advertising induced desires.

[butterfly77]

11. Kick &Recommended

[Barack_America]

12. Thanks!

:hi:

[snot]

13. Apparently he feels non-anonymously reporting real news would jeopardize his career as a journalist?

[Barack_America]

14. Probably not. But the trespassing in these abandoned buildings could.

Which is my guess for why he chooses to stay anonymous.

[Bluebear]

15. What a find!

Thank you for the link!!!

[AngryAmish]

16. Lots and lots of swinging is going on in Detroit?

[Barack_America]

18. Doesn't every city have swingers at Jewish mafia steam rooms?

:shrug:

;)

[AngryAmish]

22. Of course. I can't cross the street without running into Jewish mobsters

I should not laugh. I know of some jewish mobsters.

[kwassa]

30. Jewish mobsters loom large in Detroit's history: The Purple Gang

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purple_Gang

The Purple Gang was a mob of bootleggers and hijackers in the 1920s. Under the leadership of Abe Bernstein, the gang operated out of Detroit, Michigan, in the United States, which was a major port for running cached alcohol products across during Prohibition, since it is on the border with Canada. The history of the organization was recounted vividly in Paul R. Kavieff's The Purple Gang : Organized Crime in Detroit 1910-1945. Perhaps the most ruthless bootleggers of their time, they may have killed over 500 members of rival bootlegging gangs during Detroit's bootleg wars.

The Purple Gang consisted primarily of young Jewish immigrants who engaged in theft and armed robbery along Detroit's notorious Hastings Street. They operated between Detroit and Chicago, and would meet behind the Bohm Theatre or in secret places in houses of Albion, a small town halfway between the two points. The gang supposedly received their name during a conversation between two Detroit market owners, each of them gang victims. One owner made the comment: "They're rotten, purple like the color of bad meat."

"The Purples were really a very loose confederation of mostly, but not exclusively, Jewish gangsters. The gang started as a group of juvenile delinquents on the lower east side of Detroit, a group of about 16 or 17 children from the same neighborhood. Mostly they were involved in the usual petty crime of juveniles... rolling drunks and stealing from hucksters", according to Paul Kavieff.<1>

Due to their murderous reputation, Al Capone supposedly borrowed Purple Gang members George Lewis and brothers Phil and Harry Keywell for the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

17. Thanks for posting the link!

I haven't been there for a while and I have some catching up to do. :D

[angstlessk]

19. thanks for that link..I just spent, I don't know...1/2 hour 45mins? an hour just

reading all about the different places of interest that gets left out of the normal course of discussion .. I even called the TV shop cause I need digital converters, but they do not sell them, and his voice was almost sad...wish I had a TV needing repairing! Some of our DVD's don't seem to play all our movies through maybe it needs to be repaired rather than replaced...considering it.

[angstlessk]

21. There is a building here I called the 'Suede' building because someone had climbed the building

and graffitied 'Suede' .. I found out it was the Lee Building...I knew it was an impressive building in a different era, hell it is impressive even after years of neglect...too bad there are not enough people here to support its rebuilding! On West Grand Boulevard.

[Bozita]

25. Thanks. Recommended. Here's a link to my favorite Detroit forum, DetroitYES

http://www.detroityes.com/

Some of the posters sound a lot like DUers.

[Blue Diadem]

26. You're right it's addicting.

Thank you for the link.

[Union Yes]

27. Saving Detroit will take an Americanwide effort.

So lets roll up our sleeves and git busy!

[Barack_America]

28. Thank you for that post.

It brought tears to my eyes.

It often feels like the only value America finds in Detroit is to be the butt of jokes about crime and poverty.

Detroit is more than that and it means so much to hear people recognize it.

:hug:

[Barack_America]

29. .

Blatantly kicking this thread up to counter the thread with those ridiculous youtube videos.

:hi: