More stimulus funds for Detroit mean more infrastructure improvements. This time, just under $2 million is headed to New Center for streetscape improvements along Woodward Ave. from I-94 to Baltimore […]
University program brings students to the city to discover Detroit for a semester.Excerpt:People in coffee shops and restaurants will treat you like royalty — they will start to remember your name and your favorite items as you become a regular, as I have at Avalon International Breads. I’m Carolina, sweet cream butter scone and large "meaning of life" coffee blend. Strangers on the streets will say good morning, hello or start a conversation with you, and they will open the doors for you as you pass. In the eight years that I've been in the United States, I’ve never encountered people friendlier than those in Detroit. I’ve had some very interesting conversations with strangers in this city — people sitting next to me at Avalon while I devour my sweet cream butter scone or people sitting at the bar at Cass Cafe ordering the same local beer I’ve grown to love (Ghettoblaster, on draft). And it doesn’t take long to learn that Detroit is a city of communities. As the city tries to recover, communities and personal relationships thrive. Population loss to the suburbs and to other states is no secret here, and as a result, there are too many empty lots and less than a million people living in a city designed for two times that many. But on the bright side, those who live here know and help each other, because most of them cannot rely on anyone but themselves and the people around them.Read the entire article here.
The Inn on Ferry Street offer a bed and breakfast in some of Detroit's finest mansions.Excerpt:The Inn falls under the rubric "boutique urban hotel," but it's not nearly as stupid as that sounds. The building renovations were A-plus, and the period furniture -- much of it gorgeous art deco stuff -- was sold at cost by the Masco Corporation, which allowed for a huge step-up in quality and overall gorgeousness. Both bedrooms and public rooms -- the Inn functions as a bed-and-breakfast -- are handsome enough to make you smile. A.B. has a personal reason for his enthusiasm -- the central house, 84 E. Ferry -- the one where you register and eat breakfast -- was the Hodges family home from 1905 to 1969. As he always likes to say, the Hodges were something in this town before the Depression.Read the entire article here.
Detroit techno artist is starting inch into the spotlight.Excerpt:Get him talking about what inspired him to create his own personal sound factory in a modest house on Detroit’s far north side and he gushes like a little kid. Smith grew up in nearby Conant Gardens, an extraordinary square-mile area that produced such talents as Amp Fiddler, Slum Village, Frank-n-Dank, and Platinum Pied Pipers. As a youth, he was thrilled to the marrow by Detroit’s rich musical legacy. “Man, it was Motown and Levi Stubbs—may he rest in peace—the greatest voice ever produced in Detroit,” says Smith about the Four Tops’ singer. “It was P-Funk and Prince … then Inner City, ‘Big Fun.’ Before Basic Channel it was Kevin Saunderson and [late mastering engineer] Ron Murphy that started all that dub [techno] shit.”Read the entire article here.
The USA Today drops in on Detroit's entrepreneurial bootcamp, Bizdom U.Excerpt:"We love Ph.D.s, but a specific kind of Ph.D. — poor, hungry and driven," says Gilbert, a graduate of Michigan State University and Wayne State University Law School. More than 1,000 people have applied in Bizdom's first two years — though only a fraction make the cut after a laborious battery of background checks and interviews. Students also are recruited from colleges, high schools, local business-plan competitions and entrepreneurship training fairs. Those who are admitted attend class three days a week, from 9-to-5, in space leased from Wayne State University. There, they are lectured, tested and given practical business tasks to perform. Gilbert is considering expanding the program to other cities, starting with Cleveland. "Knowing Bizdom was created by Dan Gilbert gives us confidence that a model like this could accelerate urban entrepreneurship elsewhere," says Bo Fishback, vice president of entrepreneurship at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the world's largest foundation devoted to entrepreneurship. "There is no other program like this in the country. It is difficult to replicate its powerful mix of classroom learning and hands-on practical experience at a university."Read the entire article here.
Maestro Leonard Slatkin has made the DSO his own.Excerpt:Well, that didn't take long. In the four months since Leonard Slatkin's official debut as music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, he has gone a long way toward reinventing the institution in his own image. He has already stamped his DNA on the orchestra on and offstage, from a rapidly maturing rapport with the players and new seating arrangement to programming, outreach and fund-raising. Slatkin returns to Detroit this week to conduct the fifth and final week of concerts of his first season, which makes this an ideal moment to take stock of the 64-year-old conductor's jackrabbit start.Read the entire article here.
One of Detroit Tigers' and all of baseball's brightest personality, pitcher Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, died last week. He was 54. He was rookie of the year in 1976 and made it to the cover of Rolling Stone in '77. Additionally, Fidrych is the subject of a documentary that was just completed the day of his death.Excerpt:Former Detroit Tigers pitcher Mark Fidrych, 54, died after an apparent accident on his Northborough, Massachusetts farm, ESPN reports. Fidrych, or “The Bird” as he was called because of his blond curly hair and resemblance to Sesame Street’s Big Bird, became the first baseball player ever to grace the cover of Rolling Stone after a 1976 rookie season in which Fidrych was named both American League Rookie of the Year and an AL All-Star while playing for the Tigers (read the story: The Tale of the Bird).Read the entire article here.Read about the documentary about the Bird here.
A Detroit developer is taking an unconventional path to sell off remaining condo units at Riverfront Condos and the Ellington. Excerpt:With 49 units remaining at his two Detroit condo projects, Peter Cummings is taking a unique approach to selling them. Today, he’s starting the advertising campaign for a one-day auction in which he’ll try to sell off the remaining units at the Riverfront Condos and the Ellington. Through the process, he’s using a minimum bid of $65,000 for a one-bedroom at Riverfront and $95,000 at the Ellington. While he expects that the minimum bids will grow, he’s willing to risk selling the units for half what he sold them for in past years.Read the entire article here.
Detroit Cheers is a new local currency -- the city version of exchanging grain for flour or darned socks for a loaf of bread. Only it's more like beer for pizza, or housewares for a bike tune up.
The Detroit Economic Growth Association (DEGA) Finance Committee has approved up to $89,000 in grants to a new restaurant and an artist's studio under its Jefferson Avenue Retail Readiness Program. The grants are expected to generate more than $200,000 in new investment along East Jefferson.
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