Accordions! In Detroit!

March 17, 2010 in Uncategorized | 4 comments

I’m working on new history tour that should be up by, at the very latest, your bedtime (provided I can power through a nasty stomach flu that has rendered me delirious and bedridden).  Meanwhile, may I point you in the direction of this article I wrote about the story of accordions in Detroit? It’s in this week’s Metro Times.

Accordions? you might ask! In Detroit? Well, did you know that the country’s largest distributor of accordions is located in Warren? And that it was started over 80 years ago by an Italian immigrant who sold an accordion out of his car at a gas station, and that the business is still in the family?

If this at all strikes your fancy, check it out.

Yesterday was the perfect day for a long, ambling walk in one of Detroit’s many, many historic cemeteries. Come by later for everything you never knew you needed to know about Woodlawn, final resting place to Hazen Pingree, Rosa Parks, the Strohs, the Dodge brothers, J.L. Hudson, and several iconic Motown stars, including Lawrence Payton, Levi Stubbs and James Jamerson.

hecker fw

More soon!

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  1. Dominique’s avatar

    Dominique on March 17, 2010 at 12:35 pm

    Did you check out the Michael Jackson headstone in Woodlawn? I blogged about this strange tribute to MJ last summer at Midwest Guest. Been meaning to get back over there, and to some of Detroit’s other great graveyards, to do some more stories. Older cemeteries are sometimes the best places to find great stories, don’t you think?

  2. amy’s avatar

    amy on March 17, 2010 at 12:58 pm

    Oh god, yes! It’s so, so weird. I read that they buried like two hearses full of all of the mementos people left for him? Weird.

    And I agree – you never know whose acquaintance you’ll make at an old cemetery, and I love the grandeur (and the hubris) of well-kept 19th century monuments and mausoleums. Life-size weeping angels and 20-foot tall obelisks and the like.

  3. Todd Abrams’s avatar

    Todd Abrams on March 18, 2010 at 10:20 am

    Great piece! I enjoyed reading it.

  4. Dominique’s avatar

    Dominique on March 19, 2010 at 8:40 pm

    Yup, two hearses full of mementos. My SO saw the hearses headed to the cemetery-he knew what they carried when he heard about it in a news story later that day. I made him take me back over there so I could take a couple of pix and do the story for my blog. http://www.midwestguest.com/2009/07/photo-friday-motown-remembers-michael-jackson.html