Motown Misconceptions

"We're not Detroit."

That's what a supervisor at work said to me during a discussion about urban blight and the last 10 years in the Midwest. Chicago is not Detroit. This particular supervisor is apparently an expert in urban planning. Her statement and the rest of our conversation only added to the perception I had of Detroit as a run down, "has-been" city. After that conversation, I had only a voyeuristic desire to visit Detroit. About two months later, during Super Bowl XLV, I saw the following Chrysler commercial:

This further piqued my interest in the Motor City. Then Jenny's sister, Tess, moved to a Detroit suburb for the summer and we had ample reason to make the trip.

Last Friday, I left work early, and Jenny and I headed southeast, around the bend of Lake Michigan, and then northeast towards Detroit. We stopped in Ann Arbor for dinner at Zingerman's Roadhouse, which I would highly recommend. I had fried chicken with mashed potatoes, and Jenny had sundried tomato pesto mac n' cheese. The waiter brought us a few random items, including a cheese plate (not really my thing when I'm half way through a meal), and some succulent sweet potato wedges with a spicy fry sauce (amazing). We shared a doughnut sundae for dessert that hit the spot. Over a thousand pairs of salt and pepper shakers lined the walls. Jenny's favorites were the mules. My favorites were the his and her flamingos (reminds me of my Dad for some reason).

Tess and Sheldon were gracious enough to host us for the weekend, and we caught up briefly on Friday night before falling asleep.

On Saturday, Jenny and I were up early. First stop: the Ford manufacturing facility in Dearborn, Michigan.

I have been excited to see this for a long time, and it exceeded my expectations (unfortunately we couldn't take pictures in the manufacturing plant.). After watching a couple of videos about Henry Ford and the manufacturing process, we meandered along a walkway above the assembly line. We saw pressed sheets of metal being turned into F150s. A retired assembly line worker told us about his 34 years in the factory:

"I'd get a cup of coffee in the morning and put it on a table next to my station. You gotta work so fast down there, that I wouldn't touch my coffee for three hours. I opened the door to a Mustang, bent underneath the dashboard, put seven bolts in, got back out, and the next car was right there. By the time I got to my coffee, it was covered in a layer of dust, and I had to go grab a new cup."

When I asked if he did that 50-100 times a day, he smiled and said, "500-600 times. It got repetitive."

A new F150 comes off the line every 60 seconds. I couldn't help but wonder who is buying all those trucks!

After leaving the assembly line, Jenny and I looked at cars a little differently, including the half-dozen cars in the lobby of the plant.

From the manufacturing facility, we went to the Henry Ford Museum. The best way to describe the museum is to say that it is the Smithsonian under one roof. It obviously doesn't have everything the Smithsonian has, but its collection does include impressive pieces from American history such as:

The limousine that Kennedy was shot in, along with other presidential limousines; a ridiculously large collection of cars - fancy, old, new, common, etc.;

a collection of trains, including the one below and a snow plow train;
the first car that Henry Ford built;
the bus in which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat;
(I thought the following sign was interesting - we don't always read about this part of it)
a disassembled Model T;
and hundreds of other items. There were impressive exhibitions on the Civil War, airplanes, watches, the Dymaxion House (including the only existing Dymaxion House), dollhouses, kitchens, and a really interesting exhibit that showed what a home and/or teenagers bedroom would have looked like in each generation from the early 1900s through 2000.

Jenny and I hadn't eaten all morning, and by the time we left the Henry Ford Museum, it was almost 2 p.m. Dearborn has the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the country, and we were eager to try some great food. Warren Avenue, the main drag in the Arab neighborhood was impressively Arabic. In fact, the most densely Hispanic parts of Salt Lake or Chicago are probably not as Hispanic as Warren Avenue is Arabic (ignorant as I am, my main points of reference are signs, shops, and restaurants). We ate at what I think was a Lebanese restaurant. The food was awesome: a great salad, hummus and pita, pickles, and a massive plate of kabobs and rice.

After lunch, we visited the enlightening Arab American National Museum.

We learned about early waves of Arab immigrants to the U.S., and why they ended up in and around Detroit: The first wave came over after WWI, and, naturally, they settled where there was work. The car factories were just starting to require enormous amounts of labor, so Detroit attracted many of them. The second wave came over after WWII, and they settled where their friends and relatives had 30 years earlier (It's crazy to think about the impact - intended and unintended - that those wars and the policy makers had on the generations that came after them). We learned about famous Arab-Americans (Doug Flutie and Rony Seikaly naturally stood out to me) Christian Arabs, and the exports of Arab countries.

From the Arab-American National Museum, we went to the Detroit Institute of Art. Like the Cleveland Museum of Art, the DIA totally surprised me. I always thought the Chicago Art Institute was the only game in town. I was wrong. Below are some of our favorite paintings from the DIA. I leave personal commentary under some of the paintings (I recognize that, my freshman art history 101 course aside, I know very little about art. At the end of the day though, I think it's the personal connection that counts).

I don't feel personally connected to this man (and I don't want to), but I liked the painting.
Nice light. Something pleasant about it.
I like the allusion to Christ's Heavenly Father (I assume that's one of the things that's going on). While Joseph doesn't get as much attention/credit as I'd like to see in a painting, I like that the family is together in nature.
Everything (including buildings, people, etc.) dies a mortal death. The only thing that lasts is nature. That's not my interpretation, it's the DIA's.

We liked the "vanitas" paintings. They include things that were important to someone (I assume the person who commissioned the painting, or to society), but those items, and/or other items in the painting also allude to the fleeting nature of life, and to the fact that our material concerns and possessions will only take us so far.
Just a nice set of flowers.
This is a painting of the cathedral in Olinda, Brazil. Jenny and I went there in March, and it was fun to not only reminisce, but to also connect the dots between the Dutch founding of Olinda (which we learned about in Brazil) and this Dutch painting.

A domestic scene. One of my favorite paintings in the museum.
I loved this bird, his sagging comb, and his indifference to (or alertness from) his wife's call.
These Diego Rivera Detroit Industrial Murals were unbelievable. They cover the walls in the Rivera Court. While they don't paint a very good picture of capitalists (Rivera was an artist, what do you expect?), they did make me proud of American strength and the labor that generations of new Americans put into creating a prosperous country.

Again, the capitalist isn't portrayed in a very positive light here, which I think is unfortunate. There would be no plant if not for the capitalist.

I loved this one. Nice colors. Probably a nice guy.
I felt obligated to include the Van Gogh paintings, but we also genuinely liked them.

This Renoir was Jenny's favorite painting. I also actually really like it. (I don't mean for that to sound sarcastic, I really do like this one).


"Les Noisettes" - The Nut Gatherers. It is apparently one of the most famous paintings in the museum. I actually think it belongs on the back page of the Ensign, but that's not a bad thing.
This one really stood out. It is a really big painting, and the perspective is unique.
This one reminded me of being at the top of Parley's Summit or Little Cottonwood Canyon in Utah.
Another one of my favorites. I had learned about this one in art history. The artist was making a statement about the confining nature of high society. These girls are engaged in "playtime," and yet they are as restricted in their fun as the fish are in a bowl. The screen behind them is like the confining glass of the bowl.



I'm not usually into Andy Warhol stuff, but I liked this one.
These paintings came from a movement where artists took a photo and tried to get their painting to look exactly like the photo. Pretty impressive, and cool to look at.




Cotopaxi, a volcano in Ecuador. I'm a big fan of South American themed nature paintings.

Different eras of architecture depicting the idea that no empire can last forever.
After leaving the DIA, we drove through downtown Detroit, looking for the monuments, streets, and buildings in the Chrysler commercial. The video is pretty true to form. Even on a hot July day, there was steam coming out of the sewers. The only thing missing from the picture was the Chrysler 200. Jenny and I were in a Honda. I have to say that Detroit's downtown was not spectacular, but the city as a whole was awesome. My supervisor was right - Chicago is not Detroit. But Detroit is not Chicago. They both have great assets. That being said, I much prefer living in Chicago.

At night we went with Tess and Sheldon to a mall near their apartment to see the movie "Crazy Stupid Love." We marveled at the differences between malls in Utah and malls in suburban Detroit. The movie theater (which I would describe as family friendly) shared a courtyard with a Hooters and a dance club called "The Liquor Store." The Liquor Store teemed with sweaty inebriates. Music shook the ground. Among the group outside, one girl wore remarkably scant clothing. Ballpark, I would say 6% of her body was clothed. The amazing thing was that these people were apparently trying to carry on serious conversations. Ask yourself, would you take me seriously if I wore a G-string around town on a Friday night?

The next morning we woke up late and had breakfast at a diner down the street. After a couple rounds of bowling, we got double scoops of ice cream (key-lime pie and butter pecan for me), and went back to the apartment to watch Disney's Robin Hood (which Tess had generously ordered on Netflix just for our visit), one of my all time favorites. After the movie, Jenny and I drove back to Chicago, but we are already thinking of how we can get back to the Motor City.