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Wildsam Field Guides #4
Wildsam Field Guides: Detroit (American City Guide Series)
From the publisher's For many, the mere mention of Detroit conjures a shock-and-awe response. They picture a city in decline, one wrestling with urban blight and crippling poverty. Headlines of bankruptcy and political scandal. But look further at the Motor City, and you’ll find signs of new life, large and small, springing up in all direction. An arsenal of ingenuity and new ideas encourages, yet begs the Does the surge of new restaurants, tech investments and young transplants serve the Detroit majority who struggle at the margins? What will become of the great American city once thought of as the Paris of the Midwest?
Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 19, 2016
Great little guide for non-Detroiters to lots of the cool spots around the city. Detroit is one of those cities where the best spots aren't by any means obvious, so a guide like this book can turn what might otherwise be a dead-end trip into an awesome vacation.
September 14, 2014
A guide like no other, one that gets to the soul of the city. Some history, some music, some poetry, life then and life now, people past and present, good times and struggling times. If you've ever lived in or around Detroit, ever wanted to know something about the city beyond the bad rep, you'd do well to spend some time here. I was born in what's now referred to, when referred to at all, as Old Providence (the hospital moved to Southfield in the mid-60s, thus necessitating the "Old") on West Grand Boulevard, just a few blocks from what would later be Motown, now the Motown Museum. (My son contributed an essay to the book on our family's life in North Rosedale.)
February 8, 2017
I was in Detroit for a week and picked up a copy at the Eastern Market. It was my first time in the city, and I wanted to have an introduction to its past, its present, and a travel guide with recommendations of sorts. I found that the guide served as an interesting primer to the city, but found it lacking the diversity of voices I was hoping to find. Since the city is over 83% Black, I hoped for an inclusion of more Black businesses, more Black voices, and more Black history.
April 25, 2020
1934
Philip Levine
You might hear that after dark in towns
like Detroit packs of wild dogs took over
the streets. I was there. It never happened.
In the old country before the Great War,
my people were merchants and butchers,
and then the killings drove the family
first to England, then Canada, then here.
My father’s brother had a shoe repair shop
for a time on Brush Street; he’d learned
the trade from his father back in Kiev.
My mother’s family was in junk. The men
were huge, thick chested, with long arms
and great scarred hands. My uncle Leo
could embrace a barrel of scrap metal,
laugh out his huge laugh, and lift it up
just for the joy. His wife, Rebecca,
let her hair grow out in great wiry tangles
and carried her little fists like hammers.
Late summer Sundays we’d drive out
to the country and pick armloads
of sweet corn, boil them in sugar,
and eat and eat until we couldn’t.
Can you believe those people would let
dogs take what was theirs, would cross
an ocean and a continent to let
anyone or anything dictate?
After dark these same men would drink
out on the front steps. The neighbors claimed
they howled at the moon. Another lie.
Sometimes they told stories of life
back in Russia, stories I half-believed,
of magic escapes and revenge killings,
of the gorgeous Ukrainian girls they had.
One night they tore up the lawn wrestling, until
Leo triumphed, Leo in his vested suit,
gray and sweat-stained. My uncle Josef
was different; tall and slender, he’d
come into the family through marriage
here in Michigan. A pensive, gentle man,
when stray dogs came to the back door
of the shoe shop he’d let them in, even
feed them. Their owners, he told me,
barely had enough to feed themselves.
Uncle Josef would take a battered pair
of work shoes and cut the soles off
with a hooked cobbler’s knife and then,
drawing one nail at a time from his mouth,
pound on a new sole. He’d pry off
the heel and do the same. I was just a kid,
seven at most, and never tired of watching
how at the polishing wheel the leather
took on its color and began to glow.
Once he made a knife for me, complete
with a little scabbard that looped
around my belt. The black handle, too,
was leather, taken from a boot no one
reclaimed. He pounded and shaped it
until it felt like stone. Whenever you’re
scared, he told me, just rub the handle
three times and nothing bad can happen.
Philip Levine
You might hear that after dark in towns
like Detroit packs of wild dogs took over
the streets. I was there. It never happened.
In the old country before the Great War,
my people were merchants and butchers,
and then the killings drove the family
first to England, then Canada, then here.
My father’s brother had a shoe repair shop
for a time on Brush Street; he’d learned
the trade from his father back in Kiev.
My mother’s family was in junk. The men
were huge, thick chested, with long arms
and great scarred hands. My uncle Leo
could embrace a barrel of scrap metal,
laugh out his huge laugh, and lift it up
just for the joy. His wife, Rebecca,
let her hair grow out in great wiry tangles
and carried her little fists like hammers.
Late summer Sundays we’d drive out
to the country and pick armloads
of sweet corn, boil them in sugar,
and eat and eat until we couldn’t.
Can you believe those people would let
dogs take what was theirs, would cross
an ocean and a continent to let
anyone or anything dictate?
After dark these same men would drink
out on the front steps. The neighbors claimed
they howled at the moon. Another lie.
Sometimes they told stories of life
back in Russia, stories I half-believed,
of magic escapes and revenge killings,
of the gorgeous Ukrainian girls they had.
One night they tore up the lawn wrestling, until
Leo triumphed, Leo in his vested suit,
gray and sweat-stained. My uncle Josef
was different; tall and slender, he’d
come into the family through marriage
here in Michigan. A pensive, gentle man,
when stray dogs came to the back door
of the shoe shop he’d let them in, even
feed them. Their owners, he told me,
barely had enough to feed themselves.
Uncle Josef would take a battered pair
of work shoes and cut the soles off
with a hooked cobbler’s knife and then,
drawing one nail at a time from his mouth,
pound on a new sole. He’d pry off
the heel and do the same. I was just a kid,
seven at most, and never tired of watching
how at the polishing wheel the leather
took on its color and began to glow.
Once he made a knife for me, complete
with a little scabbard that looped
around my belt. The black handle, too,
was leather, taken from a boot no one
reclaimed. He pounded and shaped it
until it felt like stone. Whenever you’re
scared, he told me, just rub the handle
three times and nothing bad can happen.
July 4, 2021
I am born and raised in the Detroit area, but this book still taught me about the city. It was a quick and fun read, and I look forward to trying out guides for other cities as well. The guide had a great blend of historic facts, recommendations for visitors, and statistics.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews