Bizdom U gathering entrepreneurs for Detroit

Entrepreneur.com - a web site for, well, you know - features Bizdom U as a source for entrepreneurship in the city.Excerpt:When deciding where to start a business in this economy, Detroit may not be the first city that comes to mind. With the highest unemployment rate in the nation (12.6 percent in March) and the Big Three automakers struggling, Michigan's economy is in a serious state of disarray.Bizdom U is out to change all of that. A no-cost, two-year program that assists entrepreneurs in launching businesses, Bizdom U takes driven people with business ideas and provides the guidance, training and support necessary to put these ideas to work and create successful growth-oriented businesses in the city of Detroit, according to the program's website. The Bizdom U team is determined to usher in a new, prosperous era of entrepreneurship in the Motor City by empowering tomorrow's top entrepreneurs to start-up and lead successful businesses. As a Michigander myself, I think this is exactly what Detroit needs right now.  Read the entire article here.

The Art Deco masterpiece Guardian Building turns 80

The architecturally stunning Guardian Building turns 80.Excerpt:The Guardian Building, downtown Detroit's art deco "Cathedral of Finance," is celebrating its 80th birthday this year. Forty stories of architectural delirium, the orange brick pile at Griswold and Congress streets opened in the heady days just before the 1929 stock market crash.Yet the optimism surrounding its inauguration was short-lived. Just 11 months later, the financial company that built it -- the Union Trust -- would go down in flames, after the stubbornness of one Henry Ford scuttled a government rescue package.Of Detroit's three great art deco skyscrapers from the late '20s, architect Wirt Rowland's Guardian is neither the tallest -- that falls to the Penobscot Building, also by Rowland -- nor as well-known as Albert Kahn's Fisher Building.The Guardian, however, trumps its more subdued cousins in sheer visual extravagance, from the exterior brick color -- matched to one of Rowland's drawing pencils -- to the visual riot of Pewabic and Rookwood tile both outside and in. Take the stairs up to the five-story upper lobby, passing through an "altar screen" topped by a Tiffany clock, and you can't help feeling that you've entered some glittering cathedral. Read the entire article here.

Who needs cars when you have urban gardens?

There may be a shortage of content auto executives here in Detroit but there isn't a shortage of urban gardens.Excerpt:This unique cityscape today offers a fertile opportunity for urban agriculture. Projects underway are not centrally led by city institutions but, to push a metaphor, grow organically from the grassroots up. Many downtown residents are active urban farmers in their downtime. Adam explains that Detroiters have always cultivated their lots for food, often out of economic necessity, whereas recent arrivals are attracted by the potential for sustainable urban living - land is cheap, buildings are ripe for adaptation to efficient green technologies, there is even a resurgent cycling scene in motor city - and home-grown food is central to this vision.Read the entire article here.

Tourist comes to Detroit, leaves with love

NCAA's Final Four brought in a lot of out of towners and here's one that decided to write about it.Excerpt:I was seeing your city as a guest and not a resident; I can’t speak to the stupid political decisions or the inadequacies of automotive executives as compared to bank executives.But I do know this: The nation needs cities such as yours. It needs them to show us what we’ve been and what we can still be. I’ll be back, with my family in tow this time, and hopefully others who visited this past weekend will return to visit your stadiums and museums and casinos and restaurants. Maybe the picture will be clearer then, the contradictions erased through hard work and by implementing a shared vision. Until then, hang in there, Detroit. You have to, for all our sakes.Read the entire article here.

Detroit tweetin’: Detroit’s tweet of the week

Passionate Detroiter Jim Boyle answers a few questions

Jim Boyle - you may remember him from his answer to Mitch Albom's "And yet..." piece - answer a few questions about his city.Excerpt:The youngest of four sons of born-and-bred Detroiters, Boyle says his passion and commitment to the city is hard to avoid. “The people are out of their minds and pull you in.”Not that it’s easy championing a city with problems that are routinely trumpeted in the national media. “I have my days, but I can really see how far its come since I moved here and how great it can be if we pull it all together.”Eight months ago, Boyle, 39, accepted a vice president of integrated marketing position at Lovio George Inc., where he helps clients like United Solar Ovonic, the world’s largest producers of flexible solar panels, and Midtown Detroit, communicate their value through marketing programs.Lately, Boyle’s been working with the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy to open the Dequindre Cut on May 14; The Parade Co. on the Target Fireworks on June 24; launching new creative positioning for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra brochures and blog; and promoting a new cocktail hour for Michael Symon’s Roast starting May 11.Read the entire article here.

Detroit News blogger shares view from 40 stories up

On top of the Guardian Building with the Detroit News and the photos are stunning.Except:One of ArchBlogger's longstanding desires was fulfilled on a sunny day a week ago when he finally scored access to the Guardian Building's 40th story roofdeck. Many thanks to the Sterling Group, which manages the building, for the chance, and the really great tour by facilities manager Rick Hohn. Just getting to the roof was deeply satisfying. You take the main elevator up to a very high floor. Then switch to a smaller, upper-stories-only elevator (it reminded A.B. a bit of the World Trade Center, which had the same idea), with the last several stories accessible only by stairway. Then you open the door, light floods in, and -- bam! -- all Detroit lays itself out at your feet. Alas, the roof isn't open to the public.Read the entire article here.

Model D TV: A Look Inside Roast

Want more Roast? Check out the Detroit hot spot with Model D TV in this week's video clip.

Hip Hop Meets Architecture in the Work of U-M Detroit Design Center Prof

We need new solutions and new ways of looking at space and design, says architect and professor Craig Wilkins, director of U-M's Detroit Community Design Center. His lens: hip hop.