Downtown Detroit

Opening credits for HBO’s ‘Hung’ packed with Detroit landmarks

The new HBO series "Hung" is set in Metro Detroit and the opening credits are packed full of Detroit landmarks ranging from Joe Louis' fist to Burk's Igloo in Hamtramck.Watch the credits here.Read a Freep article about the show here.

The Bicycle Film Festival rolls through Motor City for the first time

For the first time since it started in 2001, the Bicycle Film Festival is coming to Detroit, adding the city to one of it's 39 tour stops. The Detroit BFF will have two-days of screenings, 40 shorts, and two features, at the Marlene Boll Theater downtown. For more information go here.

Cleveland’s enclave of entertainment could be mirrored in Detroit

OK, so Cleveland isn't exactly Detroit but this mixed-use entertainment project could be something that our city might see eventually. The developer of the project, who also restored the Book Cadillac has proposed something similar along Washington Boulevard.Excerpt:The current vitality of Fourth Street is the culmination of 15 years of work by the Maron family to turn a worn thoroughfare and its old buildings into a prime example of 21st-century urban redevelopment in the Midwest.“In the early 1980s, there were some people who wanted the unwashed, unloved warehouses and flats on East Fourth Street to be demolished,” said Thomas J. Yablonsky, the executive director of the Historic Gateway Neighborhood Corporation, a Cleveland nonprofit group focused on downtown development. “Give the Marons credit for the all-encompassing environment and experience they’ve put in one place there.”City leaders and local developers say East Fourth Street is confirmation of an entertainment-focused economic strategy that Cleveland’s development executives and lawmakers pursued in the mid-1990s when $650 million was spent on two new stadiums for its major league baseball and football teams, a new arena for the basketball team and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Read the entire article here.

French filmmaker doing project on ‘Detroit’s Wildlife’

French filmmaker Florent Tillon is in town finishing up his documentary on Detroit.Excerpt:Last summer, French filmmaker Florent Tillon traveled to Detroit to shoot scenes of the city and do preliminary interviews for what will eventually be a full length documentary about the city. Earlier this year, Tillon posted online a 30-minute video of his footage, which he put together to draw financial backing for the project. The video includes scenes of empty, overgrown fields and rambling trees mixed in with shots of the concrete-covered downtown.Read the entire article here.

Listen up: WDET’s ‘Home Is More Than Our House’ series continues through July

WDET 101.9 FM reporters Rob St. Mary and Zak Rosen continue their coverage this week in their "Home is More Than Our House" series on how Detroiters are facing and fighting the foreclosure crisis. Listen to Detroit Today on WDET this week for their stories. The program airs from 1-3 p.m. weekdays on 101.9 FM. This week, Zak will be talking about the collaborate effort to stabilize Boston-Edison with median-income families, which in turn stabilizes the surrounding areas. Also, check out the great piece he did on Habitat for Hamtramck here. Rob St. Mary offers a story on finding help for the Jewish community in Metro Detroit. For more on the series, check out their blog: wdetmortgagecrisis.com

1515 Cafe serving coffee and more on Broadway

10 things you should know about Detroit

eLovethisCity lists ten things you should know about Detroit that you might not already know. Excerpt of No. 3:In January 1920, the era of Prohibition began in the U.S. The Detroit River, barely one mile across in some places, was a smuggler’s dream. Enterprising smugglers carried cargo beneath boats, rigged mechanical cables across the river and utilized old underground tunnels to transport their illegal bounty. During cold winter months, the river became a highway, as daring smugglers in automobiles made their way across the ice from Canada to the United States. A number of government agencies, including the U.S. Customs Department, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Michigan State Police and the Detroit Police Department combined forces to patrol the waterways in an effort to stop the smuggling. Despite their efforts, it’s estimated that more than 75% of illegal liquor supplied to the U.S. during prohibition entered the country by way of the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River.Read the entire article here.

Meijer is in talks to come to Detroit

Detroiters could possibly be getting a Meijer to be erected next to the Michigan State Fairgrounds.Excerpt:Michigan grocery giant Meijer is in negotiations to open its first Detroit location as part of what may be the city's largest commercial real estate development in 50 years, The Detroit News reports. The Grand Rapids-based chain is looking to acquire and develop a portion of the long-planned Shoppes at Gateway Park at Woodward and Eight Mile, next to the Michigan State Fairgrounds. In addition to Meijer, the 35-acre center is expected to house close to 40 shops and restaurants. It is scheduled to open in 2011.Read the entire article here.

Quicken’s scaled down move to bring 1,700 workers downtown to Compuware

It's official, Quicken Loans will be moving their operation from Livonia to Detroit, into the Compuware Building.Excerpt:Livonia-based Quicken Loans Inc. is finishing the final details of a five-year lease and hopes to move about 1,700 employees early next year into 240,000 square feet of space on four floors of the Compuware Corp. building at Campus Martius in downtown Detroit. That move of the on-line mortgage company's headquarters, in the face of an economy in recession, comes instead of the new building that Quicken Chairman Dan Gilbert said two years ago he would build downtown to house 4,000 Quicken employees.Read the entire article here.