Hamtramck

Here’s one more reminder: Model D is now on Twitter

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March 31, 2009

It's been great so far, the tweeting. Though we'd just drop in one more reminder. So, everyone, keep tweeting. Can we call it a Model D Tweet Shop? Follow us at Model D Twitter feed. Talk to us. Give us feedback. And stay engaged. Also, join our group on the other social media giant Facebook for updates. On top of that, we'll be out covering Detroit's nightlife during the NCAA's Final Four. There are sponsored events by the NCAA but there are also a lot of un-sponsored events... If you know what we're sayin'. So, let us know where you'll be and what you'll be doing and we'll do the same for you. See you out and about. www.twitter.com/modeld

Detroit’s border shouldn’t end at Eight Mile

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March 24, 2009

The Detroit city council, as of late, could probably have its own VH1 reality show with all the drama, controversy, and, some would say, flat out ignorance it has portrayed. Lately, the question of division has cropped up and what is and isn't a Detroiter? Division is only productive when it comes to math and recycling. Yet, it seems as if some on the city council haven't figured that out yet, according to Detnews columnist Nolan Finley.Excerpt:Why on earth would a city in such desperate straits build a wall between itself and its best potential allies? A smarter marketing strategy would be to encourage more people to boast that they are citizens of Detroit, in spirit if not by address. If more suburbanites identified themselves internally as Detroiters, it might put an end to our infernal turf wars. And we'd have more folks who gave a damn that Detroit is rotting away, that it's under siege by the worst forces of urban life, that it's been neglected and abandoned and nobody outside our small corner of the world cares. Instead, the council is advocating the very black-white, city-suburban divides that are responsible for Detroit's decline. Read the entire article here.Another piece from the Metro Times about being a Detroiter can be found here.

Dwell weighs in on Detroit’s developing design

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March 24, 2009

Dwell Magazine, who has been here before to check out Lafayette Park's Mies van der Rohe development, returns to talk to Design 99 and where Detroit design could go.Excerpt:The first Power house Project location is an architectural manifesto-in-progress, with fresh paint, new landscaping, and an attic camera obscura the latest additions. (Their status as urban-art homesteaders – and their feelings about being newly minted media darlings – is described on Detroit's Model D blog.) Spectators to all this interest in Detroit as smoldering metaphor and tabula rasa are the rest of Detroit's one million residents, who may have an opinion or two about outsiders' views of their city. In his Times article, Barlow mentions that some German artists are thinking of relocating to Detroit to build a giant, two-story beehive; as hopeful as all these stories are, when Germans pick your town to build their beehive, you know there's nowhere to go but up.Read the entire article here.

Could Detroit be the next Berlin?

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March 24, 2009

Berlin and Detroit have many parallels even though they are in very different positions right now. Berlin's post-industrial landscape coupled with the huge influx of artists and musicians has made the city a vibrant, growing place. Detroit could be that. Detroit may be a fledgling Berlin.Excerpt:Is Detroit the next Berlin? For the past several years, artists, musicians and others seeking time and space to work, and an inexpensive place to live have flocked to the German city. Now it seems that Detroit may be headed towards a similar influx of like-minded people.Read the entire article here.

NPR, 20/20 and Anderson Cooper put spotlight on Detroit, Design 99

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March 24, 2009

Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert have been busy since Toby Barlow's piece found its way into the New York Times. Here's a round up of the pieces that have made their way into the national media.Excerpt:"Our idea — instead of putting it all back and connecting to the grid, we wanted to keep it off the grid and get enough solar and wind turbines and batteries to power this house and power the next-door house," Cope says.He thinks he can make the whole place operate "off the grid" for around $60,000, a cost he hopes to help cover with grants. And, since the whole point of the project is to better the neighborhood, Cope wants to turn the first floor of the Power House into a neighborhood art center. The second floor will be a bedroom for visiting artists; Cope believes that if he can just get artists to visit the neighborhood, they'll want to stay. And he hopes the cheap real estate will lure them there.Read the NPR article here... and the ABC 20/20 article here... and Anderson Cooper filming from Warren (about Detroit) here.Also, Detroit blogger Supergay drops in on Anderson: "So Keira and I arrived and it turned out the only two seats remaining were at a table right in front. Like seriously front row. Let me be explicitly clear right here: I sat for three hours with an unobstructed view of Anderson Cooper's backside. It did not suck."Read more about Anderson Cooper's posterior here.Oh... and one more interesting piece about this topic and urban sustainability here.

Want a little more Model D? Then follow us on Twitter

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March 24, 2009

We're there. We've done it. We're on Twitter now. We have a Facebook group, might as well have a Twitter feed, too.Our hope is to offer a little more insight into what we're doing and when we're doing it. We don't want it to just be another RSS feedSo follow us. Talk to us. Give us feedback. And do it all right here: @modeld

Mother Jones blogs about Detroit, the new American dream

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March 17, 2009

Detroit writer Toby Barlow's piece in the NYTimes about the $100 homes went around and around a number of media outlets. One reference about it came out on Mother Jones. And though it was mostly snippets of the article, it put forth some interesting ideas. More so than most of the other reposters of Barlow's article.Excerpt:"Detroit right now is just this vast, enormous canvas where anything imaginable can be accomplished," says the Times author, Toby Barlow. "In a way, a strange, new American dream can be found here, amid the crumbling, semi-majestic ruins of a half-century’s industrial decline." I find this fascinating. Politicians talk all the time about the ingenuity and resilience of the American people. We all know that rhetoric can feel empty at times. But as this country begins its climb out of this recession, real life examples of that fighting spirit will abound. And the places that were hit the hardest will and already are seeing them first.Read the entire post here.

Englishman in Detroit says the ‘Blowout is the best festival ever put on anywhere in the world’

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March 10, 2009

New Detroiter, hailing from London, hits Hamtramck's Blowout and it blows his mind.Excerpt:Holy shit, I love the Blowout. I may have only just arrived home (at what I thought was 2 a.m. but what my computer clock is telling me is 3 a.m. – damn) and therefore still be enjoying the memories that are very fresh in my mind, but I think that this year’s Blowout is the best festival ever put on anywhere in the world. Ever. Frankly, you can stick your Woodstock up your ass.Having lived in London for 10 years and traveled extensively, I’m fairly sure that this is a festival that could only happen in Detroit. In London, New York or L.A., the venues wouldn’t pull together in this manner and there wouldn’t be enough decent local bands to make the thing work. As an Englishman who chose to live here 14 months ago, I truly believe that this is the greatest city in the world, and the Blowout highlights the fact.Read the entire blog post here.

When $100 homes aren’t always a bad thing

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March 10, 2009

Detroit writer Toby Barlow explains that Detroit's $100 homes aren't a bad thing, especially for artists.Excerpt:Now, three homes and a garden may not sound like much, but others have been quick to see the potential. A group of architects and city planners in Amsterdam started a project called the “Detroit Unreal Estate Agency” and, with Mitch’s help, found a property around the corner. The director of a Dutch museum, Van Abbemuseum, has called it “a new way of shaping the urban environment.” He’s particularly intrigued by the luxury of artists having little to no housing costs. Like the unemployed Chinese factory workers flowing en masse back to their villages, artists in today’s economy need somewhere to flee.But the city offers a much greater attraction for artists than $100 houses. Detroit right now is just this vast, enormous canvas where anything imaginable can be accomplished. From Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg Project (think of a neighborhood covered in shoes and stuffed animals and you’re close) to Matthew Barney’s “Ancient Evenings” project (think Egyptian gods reincarnated as Ford Mustangs and you’re kind of close), local and international artists are already leveraging Detroit’s complex textures and landscapes to their own surreal ends. Read the entire article here.

The Blowout gets a nod from NPR

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March 10, 2009

National Public Radio looks in on the Blowout in Hamtramck.Listen to the audio here.