NY Times writer spends election night in Detroit

After driving down Woodward Avenue, we dropped Marian’s Explorer at our hotel, then walked to Harmonie Park, a small, recently gentrified, triangular neighborhood near the baseball stadium.

At Lola’s, our favorite restaurant, the headwaiter said he felt like a kid on Christmas Eve, giddy with anticipation but afraid that he might wake up and be disappointed. A customer said she was on pins and needles, and her friend expressed the hope that Barack Obama would improve the country’s image abroad and “not just help the rich but the people who are really struggling.” An older man in gold earrings and a porkpie hat who owns a chain of art galleries ventured that an Obama presidency would give Detroit “a psychological uplift.”