Tours : Buzz

Fat Tuesday is big, we mean huge, in New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro and ... Hamtramck? That's right, except here it is properly known as Paczki Day, the day before Lent begins in the Polish Catholic religious calendar.

It's become so wildly popular (bands, DJs, food, drink) that organizers thought a run would be a nice addition to the schedule -- four days before Paczki Day. Get ready to burn some calories before Fat Tuesday by participating in the inaugural PaczKi Run in Hamtramck this Saturday, Feb. 9. The 5K run begins at 10 a.m. at the corner of Holbrook and Joseph Campau. Each person finishing the race fittingly receives a paczek and a beer. The PaczKi Run is presented by Tour-De-Troit in partnership with the Hamtramck Downtown Development Authority.            
 
Several Hamtramck businesses will be offering runners a “bib discount” after they cross the finish line on this Saturday, they include:
 
$1 domestic draft beers @ New Dodge Lounge, 8850 Joseph Campau
$1 beer specials @ Whiskey in the Jar, 2741 Yemens St.
35 percent off the regular retail price of clothing @ Chiipss, 10229 Joseph Campau
10 percent all items @ Detroit Threads, 10238 Joseph Campau

And: Free samples @ Srodek’s Campau Quality Sausage, 9601 Joseph Campau
Free Prince Polish candy bar @ Polish Art Center, 9539 Joseph Campau
$1 off records @ Record Graveyard, 2610 Carpenter St.
$5 off any purchase of $15 or more @ Amici’s, 9842 Joseph Campau     
 
Advance registration only costs $25 and is available through Tuesday, Feb. 5. That's today, runners. Sign-up early here. 

All proceeds will benefit City of Hamtramck’s non-motorized trail plan.

Impressive group of sponsors, too: Detroit Threads, Talmer Bank, McClure's Pickles, Jurkiewicz & Wilk Funeral Home, Whiskey in the Jar, The Belmont Bar, Polish-American Chamber of Commerce-Michigan, Simply Suzanne Granola, New Dodge Lounge, Record Graveyard, Polish Art Center, New Palace Bakery, New Martha Washington Bakery, Sam's Market, Alexis G. Krot, P.C., Plante Moran, Glory Supermarket, Miller Canfield and Giffels Webster Engineers.

We found this dandy report on the Michigan Radio site, and thought "it's about time that Hostel Detroit and its general manager, Michel Soucisse, some more love.

An excerpt:

One of (Soucisse's) guests is Chloe Dietz, a student who goes to school in Portland, Oregon who grew up in Brooklyn, Michigan. She’s on a cross country tour by train. Another guest is Jonathan Dowdall who is an artist from Canada.
Dowdall says Detroit’s art scene drew him to the city.

“Detroit has always had a mythical presence in my mind and I’ve always imagined it a certain way. I really wanted to come here and see on the ground what it was like, in particular street art,” Dowdall says.

Our first stop on the trip is an outdoor street art project on the East Side of Detroit called the Heidelberg project created by artist Tyree Guyton.

Read on here.

Motor City Brew Tours and Show Me Detroit Tours will partner to present four Detroit Automotive & Brewery History Tours on Saturday, Jan. 19 and 26, during the 2013 North American International Auto Show. Tours start at 11 a.m. and at 3 p.m.

The 3.5 hour bus tours will look at Detroit then and now, including Downtown and Midtown today, early brewing history, the Eastern Market, the Packard Plant, the Ford Piquette Plant, architect Albert Kahn’s work, and the brewery and dairy operations at the Traffic Jam & Snug Restaurant in Midtown.

According to Kim Rusinow and Pat Haller, Show Me Detroit Tours co-founders, interest is higher than ever in seeing and understanding Detroit’s rich history, as well as its current challenges and triumphs. It’s a tale of two cities as greater Downtown continues to attract new residents, workers, visitors and investors while many neighborhoods seek a viable 21st century reuse.

Steve Johnson, Motor City Brew Tours founder, noted that the tours will make a brief stop to view a video presentation at the Ford Piquette Plant -- the city’s most authentic automotive site and the birthplace of Henry Ford’s iconic Model T. Ticket sales will support restoration efforts at the Piquette Plant -- with $5 donated for every tour ticket purchased.

The $39.95 tour ticket price includes expert historical commentary, guided bus transportation, admission at the Ford Piquette Plant, and a brewery tour with sampling and light appetizers at the Traffic Jam & Snug. Tickets must be purchased in advance online. Tour guests must be 21 and over. Both tour companies offer gift certificates for gift-giving.

The tours will start and end in front of the Detroit Fire Department Headquarters Building directly across from Cobo Center at the corner of Washington Boulevard and Larned streets (250 W. Larned, Detroit).

We'll keep it short and simple: all need you need to know is that the Villages, a fabulous, historically-significant neighborhood a quick jog or bike ride from downtown, is hosting a real estate tour of select properties this weekend. More info here.

It coincides with the re-emergence of the pop-up Tashmoo Biergarten, which will pour Michigan craft beers Saturday and Sunday from noon to 9 p.m. More on the beer here.

Co-owners Karen Gage and Kelli Kavanaugh say they have always wanted to operate their Wheelhouse Detroit bike shop year round. The next best thing is a pop up shop in a great location. And it doesn't come much better than the Compuware Building, across from downtown's Campus Martius.

It's now open through Christmas Eve. Get all the info you need to go shopping here.

This LA Times' trip to Detroit found an "artistic haven" of old structures, committed art dealers and vibrant examples of how community and culture intersect.

From the DIA, which the writer calls "America's most overlooked major museum," to the sculpture park outside the College for Creative Studies, and even a stop at Heidelberg, this travelogue details a city teeming with creativity. Russell St. Deli, Cafe D'Mongo's, Cass Cafe, and yes, Slows, were a few of the destinations the LA Times raved about.

Excerpt:

When I asked his inspiration, Guyton responded with questions of his own: "What is art today?" "Does it have to be in a museum?" "How do you revitalize a neighborhood?" "How do you get people to come to Detroit despite what they've heard?"

One of Guyton's motifs is New York taxis, painted on plywood boards. "A lot of people think you have to go to New York to make it," he said. "I'm saying I can make it right here, and I will. Watch me. I'm just getting started."

Find out more here.

There's just no stopping Detroit Restaurant Week.

Event producers Paxahau reported that the 10-evening dining promotion lured 36,046 gourmands to 21 restaurants across the city of Detroit, an 18.4 percent increase over 2010. It's the second-largest tally ever for the $28 prix fixe dining bonanza, which has counted 150,000 customers since launching five years ago.


"We are pleased the enthusiasm Metro Detroiters have for Detroit Restaurant Week has continued to grow over the years," said Jason Huvaere, Director of Detroit Restaurant Week. "It has been a terrific way for our community to experience the tremendous fine dining restaurants Detroit has to offer. With each campaign we hope we’re developing a new crop of customers who will frequent the restaurants all year long."

Stay tuned for the announcement for a Spring 2012 Detroit Restaurant Week date and more here.

Some skeptics questioned the logic of Detroit's new Public Dock and Terminal, which opened at a $21.5 million cost this summer on the banks of the Detroit River. According to this new story in the Freep, the new dock is already paying off in an influx of well-heeled tourists. The number of cruise ships planning stops at the Dock in 2012 is 13 -- a massive increase from the two ships who anchored in Detroit in 2011. At least 2,500 luxury tourists bound for the Great Lakes will set foot in the city next year.

Excerpt:

"What's terrific about the new dock and Detroit is the proximity to the upper part of the Great Lakes," said Chris Conlin, president of Great Lakes Cruise Company in Ann Arbor, which markets the cruises. "I believe the new port in Detroit is the reason the Yorktown is sailing out of Detroit and not Windsor or Toronto."

Anchors away here!

Selling real estate in Detroit has been a uniquely difficult challenge since the 2008 recession; the city is now prime territory for reinvestment and development.

On Nov. 8 and 9, real estate professionals, developers and students of land-use topics will convene at Cobo for "Detroit: Forged By Innovation," a two-day conference sponsored by the University of Michigan and the Urban Land Institute. Manhattan-based creative developer Tony Goldman and Peter D. Cummings will headline the speakers' list -- workshops, walking tours and bus trips around the city are on the list for the conference, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

Click here for registration information and more.

Hotels that banked on Detroit's future as a travel destination are reaping their just rewards.

Based on increases in occupancy rates over the next 12 months, the website travelclick.com predicts the city and surrounding areas will experience a 2 percent increase in travel to the city in 2012.

Excerpt:

Finally, Conran says, the Detroit area is seeing "significant" year-over-year gains in business travel thanks to the recovering auto industry."We can't underestimate the fact that the health of the auto industry has improved dramatically," Conran says.

Let's not forget that worldwide media acclaim of Detroit as a paradise for an off-the-beaten-path vacation.

More here.

While art and commerce can be uneasy bedfellows (how to put a price on creativity; and whether it should be judged in those terms), a new study from the Center for Creative Community Development at Williams College proves one Detroit attraction satisfies both spheres.

Tyree Guyton's Heidelberg Project is more than an indoor-outdoor art exhibition -- it's a serious revenue-builder for the city. The study found that the project attracts $3.4 million in economic activity to Wayne County every year. That's partly because 70 percent of the more than 50,000 visitors who make their way to Heidelberg Street every year are from outside the county. Guyton's vision has also created 40 jobs in the region.

Excerpt:

"The Detroit and wider Detroit region faces a wide array of challenges," Sheppard said. "I don't think it's correct to say that art and cultural organizations and projects alone can completely turn around the economy of Detroit ... but I think arts and culture projects like the HP are (part of that)."

Connect the dots here.

Detroit's newest bed-and-breakfast will offer guests a dose of original style along with their pillow and key.

Meghan McEwen, founder of the amazingly cool DesignTripper blog, posted a few thoughts on her latest venture, Honor + Folly, which will bring the inn concept to Corktown's Michigan Ave.

Writes McEwen, "I’ve been so inspired by all the people and places I’ve been writing about for the past year, I’ve decided to join ‘em. I don’t have photos yet ... and you’ll have to bear with me while I paint, stock, source, sand furniture, adorn walls, make beds, knit pillows and hang a shingle."

While details are limited, McEwen tells us Honor + Folly will feature cooking classes and lotsa cool furnishings from local designers. It will open to guests in mid-November.

Click here to read McEwen's post, and keep tuning into Model D for more Honor + Folly.

Close to 4,500 bikers made the Motor City a two-wheeled adventure course for a day on Sept. 24; choosing a police-escorted 30-mile jaunt through Detroit's streets or a whopping 62-mile slog from the tour's home base at Roosevelt Park (check out Tour De Troit wrap-ups from the News, Freep and MLive).

Tour De Troit's explosive growth (it drew less than 50 cyclists for its first outing in 2002) mirrors the bicycle's increasing popularity as an accepted form of transportation in the D. A growing network of greenways and bike lanes, wide avenues and more tours have helped grow cycling by 192 percent in the past ten years.

Excerpt:

"(Riding a bike) shows the city on a human scale, and you see a lot of detail that you wouldn't see when you were in an automobile," said Bill Lusa, 37, director for the tour. Lusa, who lives in Woodbridge, uses his bike to commute to places around the city. "It's not always about smashing the system and ending the automotive hegemony," he said. "It's about having fun and being in slightly better shape."

More available here.

Most every city newspaper has taken a crack at the "Detroit travelogue" this year -- a Lonely Planet-esque tour though the city, combining the D's often mercurial history with present rebuilding efforts. In Detroit, writes the Irish Times, we're successfully re-inventing 200 years of history into a tour for every traveler -- be it the Motown music-seeker, the Underground Railroad tracer or the merry Prohibition buster. Rather than dwell on ancient memories, IT also lauds Detroit's thriving downtown as a cosmopolitan attraction all its own.

Excerpt:

Take a trip up to the restaurant on the roof of the Detroit Marriott hotel, officially the tallest all-hotel skyscraper in the western hemisphere, and have a drink. It’s pretty jaw-dropping, on a par with my favourite, the rooftop restaurant in the San Francisco Hilton. Back on the streets – as they say in the cop shows – head to Midtown and the Detroit Institute of Arts, which, despite its prosaic name, houses one of the finest art collections in the US. Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry cycle of 27 fresco panels – gifted by another Ford, this time Edsel – is considered the best work of his career.

Keep traveling here.

Who better to design a clue-laden scavenger hunt through the streets of downtown than the CBD's foremost tour guides at Inside Detroit?

A new fundraiser for the city's welcoming team asks Detroiters to park their cars and hit the pavement for an Amazing Race-style contest testing denizens on their knowledge of local history, businesses, culture. Teams of 4 have two hours to master a 50-clue scavenger hunt -- and possibly win a $500 bundle of gift certificates and prizes. The $120 team registration benefits the nonprofit Inside Detroit and downtown's Welcome Center. It all begins at 3 p.m. Oct. 1, with an afterparty at Hard Rock Cafe at 5 p.m.

Register your crew at Inside Detroit's website.