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Night Train to Detroit: The Book. Sort of.

September 23, 2011 in Hidden History of Detroit, Uncategorized | 4 comments

Have we ever met over drinks? If so, you may have witnessed this thing I do, mostly when I’ve been drinking: I get excited about some story, and start it some distance from the natural beginning of the story, and embroider it the whole way through with side-winding detail, and sometimes forget the story at hand completely, and sometimes repeat things over and over again, because I am lost in the story and trying to machete my way out of it.

Allegedly, I once told a story about how much my dad likes Wayne Newton — for 45 minutes. In which time I must have indulged the unabridged and tangled tale of my entire family. Starting from Russia. Ending with an elopement in Las Vegas. Or something.

If you’ve never had the fortune/misfortune of watching this happen (people tell me it’s really entertaining!) — or if you have, and you want that experience available to you at a whim, in your very own living room, without worrying whether I am going to spill my beer on you — I have some good news.

Today I am proud to announce that my book, Hidden History of Detroit, is available for pre-order.

It looks like this!

It’s a slim volume, but it’s packed with stories teased from the margins, asides and back-alleys of Detroit history. Stories that sprawl and bend recklessly around the curves of chronological time. Stories like the ones I tell over drinks:

  • The haphazard history of Detroit’s city-owned cemeteries, and some of the people therein we lost track of
  • Historic homes of early Detroit that sat empty and vandalized for years, lamented in newspaper editorials
    and by preservationists, and torn down to make way for high-rises and hotels
  • The parties. Oh my gosh, the parties. Parties so famous that people celebrated the centennial anniversary of those parties. Parties where dignified state officials got drool-drunk. Parties that people wrote odes to!
  • French ponies, pony races, pony-carts, and the narrow, muddy streets those pony-carts slogged through
  • Liquor laws — did you know that Michigan was under prohibition from 1855 – 1875? — and the rowdy saloons that defied them
  • And, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, LOTS of familiar faces: Silas Farmer, Gabriel Richard, grouchy Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, Jim Scott, Stevens T. Mason (and his foxy sister Emily!), amusement king David McKinstry, and, of course and always and forever, General Friend Palmer

It’s a curiosity cabinet, a laboratory of memory, a crowded barroom, and, I hope, a hell of a fun read.

More details to come soon. Including and especially the RELEASE PARTY! Which I hope people will write about 100 years from now as one of the great release parties of the era.

So far, the support from friends, loved ones and readers has been overwhelming and I am so grateful to all of you for making this possible. I can’t wait to meet some of you in person, give huge hugs to total strangers, and maybe get tipsy and splash my drink around while gesturing wildly during a run-on tale about something obscure.

Cheers,

THE NIGHT TRAIN

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Finished!

August 19, 2011 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

So I turned in my manuscript on Monday. I’m still kind of confused (but happy) about it. I expected a wave of joyous relief and a week of staying up late drinking champagne. Instead there have been a lot of last-minute pieces to scrabble together, a frantic rush to complete non-book-related tasks that I’ve been putting off for months, some hard-earned naps, and a sap of residual stress. (Cocktails at The Oakland have helped.) We visited both sets of parents to say, ”Hello, thank you for lending me to Detroit history for the summer.” Today we leave town, mostly to avoid the Dream Cruise. Next week, we are moving to a new place.

I just want to say hi, and thanks for your patience, and your lovely cheerleading notes and emails, and I will be back to blogging in no time at all. And once again, huge gratitude the fabulous friends who guest blogged while I was away: Emily, Mary Catherine, my mom and Christina. There will be more guest posts next week, too, from Midwest Guest and Gourmet Underground.

As a token of gratitude, here are some photos I loved but had to cut from the book.

The first steam railroad passenger train: Looks pretty much like a stagecoach on a track.

The People’s State Bank, Detroit, c. 1905-1915. Library of Congress.

I love the lady with the umbrella.

Plan of Fort Lernoult (L’Arnaud). National Archives of Canada. c. 1812.

A ticket to see Felix Meier’s American National Astronomical Clock. 25 cents!

Voyageurs passing a waterfall on the French River. Painting by Frances Anne Hopkins, 1869. I had to cut it when I realized it wasn’t a period piece, but a painting of the artist and her husband on a business trip. See the passengers in the middle?

Let them be numbered with thy saints. Gov. Henry Porter Baldwin’s gravestone at Elmwood.

See you soon – with more details about the book!

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Street signs

July 7, 2011 in Uncategorized | 1 comment

“Detroit has no street signs,” reported the Detroit Post on August 20, 1883. ”… That is,  no signs with the names of the streets painted upon them.

“But,” the article continues, ”Detroit has signs of streets.”

OMG, VINTAGE DETROIT ROAD REPAIR JOKES? Bring it:

A rough, rotting, unrepaired pavement full of holes, such as jars and rattles the life out of a fine carriage to go over it faster than a walk, is a certain sign of a Detroit street. A lake of thin, slippery mud, caused by excessive sprinkling, sending up a continual stream of disease-breeding reek, spoiling the bottoms of ladies’ dresses and covering the polished shoes of gentlemen with filth, is a sure sign of a Detroit street. A driveway, nearly half of which is obstructed by piles of brick and building material, and half of the rest by loading and unloading wagons, is another sign of a Detroit street. A passage for teams where everybody digs up the pavement at pleasure to fix a gas or water pipe and puts it down again so as to leave either a hillock or a hole, is another sign of a Detroit street. Utter darkness of nights for two to four blocks, with nobody knows how many holes, piles of rubbish, or other obstructions there may be in the way, so that he has to depend solely upon the intelligence of his horse, is a very common sign of Detroit streets. And finally, to meet with a lost stranger every two or three blocks who stops one to inquire his way, is another continual sign of Detroit streets.

I think that last sentence is the only one that does not still ring true. Kind of poignant, is it not?

I say that through tears I cried while laughing at this.

Reprinted in The Electrician and electrical engineer, Vol. 4.

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Settlers beware

June 10, 2011 in Best of THE NIGHT TRAIN, History, Uncategorized | 1 comment

[Pioneers along the Detroit-Chicago Road, Roy C. Gamble. Source.]

This week in the news: Americans for Prosperity posted dastardly fake eviction notices on Delray homes to “get people’s attention” about the new public bridge to Canada. Scum move, dudes.

In 1837, the Whig campaign against Governor Mason’s re-election did the same thing to try to rile up settlers all over the state into voting for their fella, former Detroit Mayor C.C. Trowbridge.

Vote Trowbridge; keep your house. Vote Mason; YOU’RE MOVING TO DETROIT! Fear-mongering at its finest.

SETTLERS BEWARE!

Conrad Ten Eyck, U.S. Marshal, left Detroit yesterday for the Grand River Country for the pretended object of electioneering for Stevens T. Mason. It is well known here that his real object is to arrest the Settlers on the Government lands. Be on your guard, he has a large lot of blank capias* and after the election every Settler will be brought to Detroit.

Daniel Goodwin Esq., U.S. District Attorney, was seen on Saturday several times with Ten Eyck. Some forty or fifty persons have already been arrested by Mr. Titus, one of Ten Eyck’s deputys!

Gov. Mason has no doubt been advised by Ten Eyck of this movement. Settlers, are you willing to be dragged from your homes and brought three hundred miles at this season? If you are not, Beware — beware of Conrad Ten Eyck, U.S. Marshal, and Silas Titus, his deputy.

Ten Eyck is the same man who has tried to rob the state of $13,000 for the passage of the rail-road across his farm. If Trowbridge is elected he cannot get it. He will dupe you and then arrest you. Mark him well.

Detroit, Oct. 30, 1837

*Arrest warrants

(Source.)

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Links for Friday, 5-20-11

May 20, 2011 in Uncategorized | No comments

Wow, it’s nice outside, huh? That’s about all we can think about today. Bike rides this weekend? We think so.

[Via Virtual Motor City]

Kickstarter of the week: Did you know that Eleanor Roosevelt broke ground on the Brewster-Douglass housing projects in 1935? We did not. But news of this project encouraged us to learn more. So we donated! Also, there are kittens in the trailer.

High nerd season: Preservation Wayne walking tours (Saturday mornings/Tuesday afternoons) are afoot (HAR HAR). Also: sesquicentennial fever! The Henry Ford’s summer blockbuster Civil War exhibit opens tomorrow. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look. I’m sure you’ve heard that the Emancipation Proclamation is coming to town, but did you realize that it will only be here for 24 hours — and the Museum will be open the entire time? I can’t be the only person that thought, “OH MY GOD HUGE PARTY FOLLOWED BY 3 A.M. EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION VIEWING” when I learned that.

emancipation proclamation

No bad prank goes unpunished: Does the rascally spirit of Jim Scott seek to destroy its very creation? Or is it just bad luck? During his Fountain’s restoration, most of the Pewabic tiles in its basin were trashed. Friends of Belle Isle is hosting a fundraiser on June 3 to help cover the costs of recreating the tiles to original specifications. We should all attend. Dressed as Jim Scott, in top hats, bow ties and carrying canes. (More on Jim Scott here and here.)

Epic: Sweet Juniper does it again. A witty post in epic poem form would have been enough. Throw in cute pictures of a kid in a Greek warrior costume AND delightfully fanciful cemetery photography and you have something pretty damn special.

Three cheers: Thanks to The Detroit News for helping the Detroit Public Library correct an accounting error that would have forced the closure of up to 10 branch libraries and hundreds of lay-offs. Journalism is still alive, well and relevant in Detroit! SO ARE BOOKS! It’s a feel-good story for the ages, as long as you don’t think about it too hard.

What else? I’m still catching up from all that time off AND I’m on a book deadline now, so I feel really out of the loop.

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Detroit’s most annoying lawyer

May 19, 2011 in Best of THE NIGHT TRAIN, Uncategorized | No comments

Ebenezer Hurd Rogers (1815 – 1885) was known in Detroit for two things: his “carping, dogmatic, fault-finding disposition” and an enormous and unrelenting appetite.

Oh, wait! Three things: his attitude, his appetite, and his bad teeth, which earned him the nickname “Squirrel-Tooth.” A.k.a., “Old Famine.”

Ebenezer came to Detroit from Vermont in 1838. Though well-regarded as a teacher and a scholar, he was notoriously unpleasant to be around. The joke around town? If Ebenezer Rogers came to the free happy hour lunch buffet at your saloon, he’d eat you clean out of your oyster pot.

[Honore Daumiere, "L'Amateur d'huitres," 1836]

Writing in this book, Robert B. Ross described Ebenezer’s general temperament as ”mean, sordid, avaricious and parsimonious.” On occasion, writes Ross, “He would relax and tell Rabelasian stories when he found an appreciative auditor, which was not often.”

An “uncleanly” man (in an age when, one must imagine, no one smelled particularly great), Rogers was reputed to be  ”redolent of rank odors” to the degree that fellow tenants of his apartment building frequently complained to the landlord.

On one day, Ebenezer found himself in three different fist fights with three different members of the bar.

Ross called Ebenezer “a street connoisseur of female beauty,” but “being short-sighted, his inquisitive and searching glances not unfrequently caused great annoyance to fair pedestrians, whom he would often follow to their homes to learn where they lived.”

But this, by far, is my favorite story about Ebenezer Rogers:

For many years he was in the habit of calling at the houses of the late Gov. William Woodbridge and Dr. E. Hurd, but he was not a welcome guest, and the visits were gradually reduced in number until they became annual visits on New Year’s, on which occasions he always wore a ruffled shirt front. When fruit was ripe he came often to the Woodbridge mansion, where he paid particular attention to the fine old orchard. He was not content with plucking and eating the cherries, currants, gooseberries, apples and pears but, opening his umbrella, would drop them in until the receptacle would bulge out like a balloon.

Ebenezer was a good lawyer, but “his low tastes made him unpopular; his practice was almost wholly confined to unimportant cases, tried in justice courts.” Gradually, he stopped practicing law and became a dealer in delinquent tax titles.

On New Year’s Day, 1885, Ebenezer attended a banquet at Rice’s hotel, where he ate a huge quantity of (presumably free) food. The next day, he died of “congestion of the stomach” at 70 years old. A life-long bachelor, he left no heirs.

You can’t make this stuff up.

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Opening day!

April 8, 2011 in Uncategorized | No comments

Happy OPENING DAY, Detroit!

You may want to revisit this post to celebrate.

Play ball,

THE NIGHT TRAIN

Happy birthday to the Captain

March 28, 2011 in Uncategorized | No comments

It’s the 175th birthday of this blog’s grandfather, the good Captain Frederick Pabst. His story is dear to my heart, but not really germane to Detroit.

But that’s OK.  To celebrate, I found this photo for you from an unknown bar in Detroit in 1941.

[via Library of Congress]

You’re welcome.

Belle Isle Winery Y/N?!

March 11, 2011 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

We were doing research late on Tuesday night when we came across a modest little news piece about an idea to put a winery on Belle Isle. Despite my love for both Belle Isle and drinking wine, I felt skeptical, but I couldn’t pinpoint why, so I dashed it off on Facebook and cc’d my trusted source on all things Belle Isle: the blogger Belle Isle Home.

It seems she was up late, too. Even before coffee was ready the next morning, she’d shared her thoughts on the matter:

Before we dive in head-first on this vineyard thing on Belle Isle, I’d like to see a conservancy established to run the island, like the conservancies that successfully run Central Park in New York, and Campus Martius and the RiverWalk here. With a conservancy in place, I would feel more confident that a vineyard plan or any other plans for the island would have safeguards in them to make sure that Detroit’s  public playground and park doesn’t get chopped up into a bunch of private parks that benefit their private owners, while making it harder for us regular folks to enjoy the river.

I think she nailed it: this isn’t really about whether or not a winery on Belle Isle is a good idea. It kind of is! And in some way, I think it rings a nice note of salud to the pastoral orchards of Detroit’s early past. (See also: Solomon Sibley’s pear.)

Compared to some of Belle Isle’s eyesores — the mess left over from the Grand Prix, and the abandoned slips of the Boat Club, and the miserable old zoo come to mind — a Belle Isle winery seems like an idyll and a non-issue. What’s the big deal, right? But it’s the same damn story as always: we should probably undertake problems (and solutions) like this one in an organized, strategic way, and according to some kind of understood process and plan.

Unfortunately, the answer seems to have been an offended and resounding “NO!” from the Friends of Belle Isle and the city. (To be fair, isn’t this idea just a little presumptuous? Like, did anyone bother to ask if it would be cool to put a vineyard on Belle Isle? Or was this guy just like, “Oh, hey, you’re not using that beautiful old Casino for anything else, are you? Because I need it. For my vineyard.”)

But there’s really no need to be hasty, right? This could be a great opportunity to go through a productive and open process as a community that puts some standards in place. Even if we don’t get a winery out of it, it would be nice to get some standards for how to approach these proposals in the future.

And the good news for this dude is that even if Belle Isle is a nonstarter, there is so much vacant land on the riverfront it’s obscene. Vineyards for everyone! It’s your new potato patch plan.

Cheers,

THE NIGHT TRAIN

Links for Monday, 3-7-11

March 7, 2011 in Uncategorized | No comments

PSA: Nothing is better for a hurting heart in winter than 20 minutes at the Conservatory.

It’s been a rough run, and at a time when I would like nothing better than to escape into the rabbit hole of old books, snowy cemeteries, and pre-industrial heroes of early Detroit with you, my time is at the mercy of many other hands.

We’ll try to get back on track this week. Meanwhile, some things you might want to know about:

Atlas Obscura’s Obscura Day is Saturday, April 9, and here in Detroit, your master of festivities is Arthur of Tour de Hood. He’ll be leading a bicycle adventure that includes detours through Indian Village, the Heidelberg Project, St. Anne’s, the former Michigan Theater, the Dequindre Cut & more, time permitting. Yours truly plans to be there, but it’s also the Saturday before yours truly’s wedding, so we’ll see how that shakes out. I do love bikes, and tours, though, and I hope for more of both of them this spring & summer.

Efforts are underway in Hamtramck to put one of the country’s five surviving Negro League ball fields on the National Register of Historic Places. Yes!

Speaking of Hamtramck, today is Pulaski Day. Tomorrow is Paczki Day. That’s a lot of Polish goodness packed into one week. Who wants to drink tatankas with me? Preferably in the streets.

Friends of the Night Train SingleBarrel Detroit are seeking a Kickstart for an ambitious new project that involves making 4 films for one prominent, to-be-disclosed, we-probably-all-know-who-it-is-though lcoal band. If you’re grouchy about the possible loss of the film incentives, this is a feel-better way to support grassroots local filmmaking.

Also on the topic of what a bummer it is to live in a cash-strapped state, please consider contacting your representative to speak up for Michigan’s Historic Preservation and Brownfield Redevelopment tax credits. This should be a serious no-brainer for anyone who cares about Detroit’s history and its present/future recovery and growth. I know Detroit’s empty buildings are super-cool but they’re really much better for everyone when they’re restored and occupied. John Gallagher for the Free Press gets into more detail here.

The Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue is last surviving congregationally-owned synagogue building still operating as a synagogue in the city of Detroit, if I have all of the qualifiers correct. And it celebrates 90 years with an afternoon lunch celebrating Detroit’s Jewish history on 3/27. Golden-throated Noah Ovshinsky of WDET fame hosts. Maybe check it out?

What else? How was Blowout? I was sick in bed for most of it. Detroit Works? It snowed more?

This week: Belle Isle, excruciatingly dweeby history/wedding projects, and maybe it will warm up enough for a field trip.

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