The pioneer settler of Mt. Clemens owned a distillery, was a prisoner of the British during the War of 1812, and founded a city that loved dancing.
Read more →Was Novi, MI really the No. 6 (get it? No.VI?) stop on the toll road?
Read more →A semi-restored 19th-century family graveyard nestled between an airport and a Meijer.
Read more →It was warmer and sunnier at last week’s end, so we went back to Maybury for another shot at finding the History Trail (and better photographic opportunities). Success! Near the former Power House. Dodger thought this would be a good place to become entangled. The former site of the Women’s Dormitory In the snow,...
Read more →We got off M-14 at Beck Road on our way home from a lunch date in Ann Arbor. My mom wanted me to pick up some cookies. I obliged. Since my parents moved to Novi in 2004, I’ve driven past Maybury State Park, bordered by Seven Mile, Eight Mile, Beck and Napier, hundreds of...
Read more →Besides feeling swamped with projects, I’m terrified that I’m coming down with some kind of flu, so here are a few items to keep you busy in the event that I become bedridden or shackled to my (other, metaphorical, paid-gig) desk this week. Katie Barkel makes neat videos The MetroTimes music department was kind...
Read more →UPDATE: Silas Farmer’s death certificate is in the Michigan state archives. He died suddenly on December 28, 1902, apparently of a heart attack. He was living in present-day midtown, at 52 Selden, and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery. Next stop, as my mom sassily pointed out to me on Twitter (MOMS ON TWITTER!!), is...
Read more →Shorpy — the online archive of vintage photos from the 1850s to the 1950s — ran this photo yesterday of downtown Detroit looking north/west on Woodward across Campus Martius. Take a look at this photo full-size: I love the streetcars and early Model Ts, the incredible clothes, the electric signs and billboards. (Also, apropos...
Read more →Construction continues on the new site, which should be up and running by the end of the week, although your friends aboard the Night Train aren’t making any promises. One of the luxuries of writing about history, though, is that isn’t subject to the hyper-fast timeline that directs our daily lives. Taking a few...
Read more →Two summers ago, over watermelon mojitos, I met with Captain Rick Hake of Adventure Charter Boats, who shocked me with stories of violent storms and deadly shipwrecks in the Lakes’ waters. “How many people, on average, do you think survived, per wreck?” he asked me. “Twenty,” I flat-out guessed. He smirked and shook his...
Read more →I love when people say Detroit is “a shadow of its former self,” or one of America’s “fallen cities.” The benchmark, of course, is Detroit at the height of its industrial success and the peak of its population in the 1950s. But I’ve been reading accounts of the city in the very earliest days...
Read more →It’s simple, participatory, and pleasant to look at. Did you buy something in Detroit? Post a picture and submit it to Bought in Detroit dot com. I know it seems banal, but how many times has someone from out of town called you to say, “HEY! I heard there are no grocery stores in...
Read more →Suzy Parker with Robin Tattersall and Gardner McKay, evening dress by Lanvin-Castillo, Café des Beaux-Arts, Paris, August 1956. © 2009 Richard Avedon Foundation. (*Edit: how could I have neglected to mention? Richard Avedon: Fashion Photographs, 1944-2000 runs through January 17, 2010 at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Golly.) Richard Avedon was 21 when he...
Read more →The kid’s comedy show “Lunch with Soupy Sales” launched in 1953 on WXYZ-TV in Detroit. The first time I ever heard of Soupy Sales was when he came to the Farmington Civic in 1999 to perform with a couple of ’50s Detroit TV stars Johnny Ginger and Mary Welch, and at the time I...
Read more →Yes, I am a vegetarian. Yes, my dad is a meat magnate. He’s Sy Ginsberg, President and co-owner of Detroit’s own United Meat & Deli, wholesale purveyors of gourmet deli meats including Sy Ginsberg’s Corned Beef and Gold Label Pastrami. He is a fixture of America’s Jewish deli scene and Detroit’s Jewish community. The smell...
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