Urban Neighborhoods: Detroit's Indian Village
The City of Detroit is nationally known for its struggles with white flight and urban blight. However, the city still is home to it's share of impressive urban neighborhoods featuring well manicured lawns and tree lined gridded streets. Today, Metro Jacksonville takes a brief tour of two: Detroit's Indian Village and West Village Historic Districts.
Indian Village is a historic neighborhood located on Detroit's east side and is listed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The district has a number of architecturally significant homes built in the early 20th century. A number of the houses have been substantially restored, and most others well kept up.
Many of the homes were built by prominent architects such as Albert Kahn, Louis Kamper and William Stratton for some of the area's most prominent citizens such as Edsel Ford. Many of the homes are very large, with some over 12,000 square feet. Many have a carriage house, with some of those being larger than an average suburban home. Some of the houses also have large amounts of Pewabic Pottery tiles. The neighborhood contains many historic homes including the automotive entrepreneur Henry Leland, founder of Lincoln and Cadillac, who resided on Seminole Street.
Indian Village has a very active community including the Historic Indian Village Association, Men's Garden Club & Woman's Garden Club. The neighborhood hosts an annual Home & Garden Tour the first Saturday of June, a neighborhood yard sale in September, a holiday home tour in December, and many other community events.
Click HERE to read the full article!
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11:18 AM
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11:00 AM
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When people talk about the resurgence of urban America — the shift of people, jobs and commerce back to downtowns and center cities — they're usually talking about a narrow group of elite cities like New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston, and San Francisco.
That's why a report [PDF] released this week on the transformation of downtown Detroit is so interesting. It documents the ongoing regeneration of a decent sized swath of the city's urban core. Detroit's Greater Downtown spans 7.2 square miles (reflected in the title of the report). It runs across the city's riverfront from the central business district to trendy Corktown, home of Slows Bar B Q and Astro Coffee; Mies van der Rohe's verdant Lafayette Park and Rivertown, north to the Eastern Market, Detroit's farmer's market; the Cass Corridor, with arts institutions; Midtown, home to Wayne State University, up Woodward Avenue to Tech Town and New Center (see the map below)
The report draws on new and unique data from local surveys as well as national data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey and other national sources. It is the product of a partnership between the the Hudson-Webber Foundation, the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, the Downtown Detroit Partnership, Midtown Detroit, Inc., D:hive, and Data Driven Detroit.
The Greater Downtown corridor has a population of 36,550 people or 5,076 people per square mile. It might not be not downtown Manhattan, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, or Philadelphia, but it compares favorably to other Midwest city-centers, like downtown Minneapolis, with 3.4 square miles and 28,811 people; downtown Pittsburgh at 1.3 square miles and 4,064 people; and downtown Cleveland at 3.2 square miles and 9,523 people. Of these downtowns, only Minneapolis has greater density than Greater Downtown Detroit.
Greater Downtown forms the Detroit region's commercial, educational, and entertainment hub home to major higher ed, arts and cultural institutions, its football and baseball stadiums and hockey arena, and several hundred restaurants, bars and retails shops. Each year, 10.5 million people visit the Greater Downtown area, according to the report.
While Greater Downtown is more affluent than the city as a whole, it lags behind other urban centers. The average per capita income of Greater Downtown residents is $20,216, considerably higher than $15,062 for the city as a whole but behind the nation ($27,334) as well as other urban centers like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Residents of Greater Downtown are also more educated than the city as a whole. College educated residents between the ages of 25 and 34 made up eight percent of the population for Greater Downtown compared to just one percent for the city as a whole, three percent for the state of Michigan, and four percent for the nation. More than four in ten young adults (42 percent) in Greater Downtown were college-educated, compared to 11 percent for the city, and higher than both the state and national rates of 29 and 31 percent, respectively.
Click HERE to read the full article!
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11:54 AM
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"Searching for Sugar Man" won Best Documentary Feature at the 85th annual Academy Awards.
The award for Best Documentary Film honors the best in non-fiction filmmaking.
"Searching for Sugar Man" was the leader of a strong pack of nominees. The documentary focused on the search for Sixto Rodriguez, a failed singer-songwriter from the 1970s who was an unexpected hit in South Africa. Directed Malik Bendjelloul, "Searching for Sugar Man" was an audience award winner at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and won Best Documentary from BAFTA and the Producers Guild of America.
Click HERE to read the full article!
What do you think of when you think of Detroit? The Motor City? Ruins? Segregation? Abandonment? A cautionary tale?
Then ask: Have you been to Detroit? Have you researched it? How much time did you spend coming to your conclusions? What led you to think of Detroit that way? From what I've seen, few of the modern-day notions about Detroit come from a robust understanding of the place at the ground level. Not even my own.
We are all prone to snap judgments and stereotyping at some level. That's not always a bad thing. If we examined in depth everything we came across, we'd never accomplish anything at all. For example, to label Detroit as "Rust Belt"—a label for cities with older industrial buildings, many of them closed, and a troubled legacy resulting from that deindustrialization—does capture a portion of the truth.
But there's a bigger danger when storytellers—journalists, artists, filmmakers, and pundits—go beyond just shorthand labels and instead use a city merely as a canvas on which to paint their own ideas. Alas, this has all too often been Detroit's fate. In some ways the city has become America's movie screen, onto which outsiders project their own pre-conceived identities and fears. The real city, beyond a few iconic images and so-called "ruin porn" shots, need feature little if at all in these. And it is amazing are nearly devoid of actual people.
Consider some of the identities projected onto Detroit:
America's Bogeyman. As Detroit native Pete Saunders noted when calling Detroit "America's Whipping Boy," Detroit is an all-purpose bogeyman leaders in other cities can use to frighten voters when proposing their next boondoggle. "Better approve this stadium tax. Do you want to end up like Detroit?"
The Really Bad Sinner. Much as we minimize our own failings and justify ourselves as "good people" by comparing ourselves to serial killers and other "really bad people," cities can defend their own manifest failures by saying, "At least we're not Detroit," a tack humorously exploited by one of the Cleveland tourism videos.
Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland. Climate change activists try to outdo each other by presenting ever more apocalyptic visions of what will happen to the planet if their preferred solution isn't implemented immediately. Likewise, many writing about the legitimate problems of Detroit seem to compete with each other in creating the most spectacular depictions of total urban collapse.
"Fear of a Black Planet" (a term I'm borrowing from the name of a Public Enemy album). Racist views are no longer acceptable in society, but for some criticizing Detroit, America's blackest big city, makes an acceptable substitute. By talking about Detroit's crime or poverty or graduation rate, people can pretend to be criticizing "Detroit" when they really mean to criticize African Americans.
Click HERE to read the full article!
The Michigan Film Office announced today the feature film Need for Speed has been approved for a film incentive from the state. The DreamWorks Studios’ film chronicles a cross-country journey at impossible speeds and will film in part in Detroit this summer.
In addition to filming in the state, two Michigan businesses – Race Car Replicas in Clinton Township and Technosports Creative of Livonia – are being utilized to build and enhance cars being featured in the film.
Cast for Need for Speed includes Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad, Mission Impossible III), Dominic Cooper (Captain America, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), Imogen Poots (Fright Night, 28 Weeks Later) with Scott Waugh directing (Act of Valor).
“Need for Speed was initially just looking at Michigan to do car builds for the film, but we were able to make the case that this was a terrific place to film the movie as well,” said Margaret O’Riley, director of the Michigan Film Office. “This project fits so well into both our reputation as a great state for filmmaking and the automotive heritage Michigan is known for; it’s a strong investment all around.”
Need for Speed was awarded an incentive of $1,370,852 on $4,993,623 of projected in-state expenditures. The project is expected to hire 111 Michigan workers with a full time equivalent of 11 jobs.
The project has tapped Race Car Replicas to build chassis for several of the “super cars” that will be raced in the film. Technosports Creative is working on a vehicle that will also be showcased throughout the film. The work being done at Race Car Replicas and Technosports Creative is not included in, but is in addition to the work being incentivized.
The film adaptation will be a fast-paced, high-octane film rooted in the tradition of the great car culture films of the 70s while being extremely faithful to the spirit of the video game franchise. In Need for Speed, the cars are hot, the racing is intense and the story keeps players at the edge of their seat.
In Fiscal Year 2013, nine projects have been awarded a total of $10,695,291 on $37,346,227 of approved production expenditures for the year. These projects are expected to create 679 Michigan hires with a full time equivalent of 215 jobs.
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) Film Review Committee, comprised of senior MEDC staff including the Michigan Film Commissioner, reviews all completed applications using the statute to guide approval decisions.
The Michigan Film Office was created in 1979 to assist and attract incoming production companies and promote the growth of Michigan’s own film industry. The Film Office also administers the incentive program for film, television and other digital media production in Michigan.
For more on the Michigan Film Office, visit: MichiganFilmOffice.org.
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation markets the state with a focus on business, talent, jobs and helping to grow the economy. For more on MEDC and its initiatives, visit: MichiganAdvantage.org.
Dan Gilbert has a vision for downtown Detroit that many would find hard to square with the long, painful decline commonly associated with this city: a vibrant urban core full of creative, innovative and talented young people.
Yet Quicken Loans, the mortgage lender Gilbert co-founded in 1985, has invested $1 billion over three years, bought some 2.6 million square feet of commercial space in the downtown area and moved 7,000 employees there in a bid to make that vision a reality.
The company is in talks with 80 to 100 retail outlets and restaurants to open downtown space, and Gilbert and other business leaders have fronted most of the money for a $140 million light rail line in the heart of the city. Quicken has also invested in an incubator for technology startups, which now number 17.
Gilbert, who grew up in a Detroit suburb, wants to brake the exodus of educated young people from the only state in the country that lost population between 2000 and 2010. Among those who set up home elsewhere in recent years are two founders of daily deal marketer Groupon Inc, University of Michigan graduates from the Detroit area whose startup took root in Chicago.
"Young people are fleeing the state and we need to give them a reason to be here," Gilbert, 51, said in a recent interview in the Madison Theatre, one of many buildings his firm has bought.
Part of his zeal comes from his own need to attract top talent to Quicken Loans, which runs a nationwide online lending business that Gilbert says makes it "a tech company that happens to sell mortgages." Having avoided the subprime mortgages that crippled many of its competitors in the housing crash, the company has grown rapidly in recent years.
Click HERE to read the full article!
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11:16 AM
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The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit by Rice and Lipka Architects and James Cornerfield Operations was described as "an inspirational project that combines past and present in a well resolved and convincing manner". "It creates new space for new creativity in a post-industrial city," the judges said.
Click HERE to see the full photo stream of projects!
A recent online spoof to raise half a billion dollars to save Detroit went viral. Now the filmmaker behind it, has another message he'd like to share.
Oren Goldenberg's latest video is a quick-cut stream of logos for Say Nice Things About Detroit, Made in Detroit, Imported from Detroit, Seed Detroit, Popup Detroit and dozens more. As a robotic voice reads each one out loud over the course of three minutes, the point hits home. Invoking the city's name for marketing purposes can work for nearly anything and yet mean almost nothing.
"I'm fascinated by this idea: Who is Detroit? What do you mean when you say it?" said Goldenberg. "We don't have any consensus on what Detroit is, so how can anyone come up with a plan to revitalize, regenerate, save, (do) anything (to) Detroit?"
The 29-year-old Detroit filmmaker is best known for his serious, unblinking documentaries about the city. But at the moment, he's switching gears to comedy, the language of political and socially relevant discourse for a generation that finds truth in The Daily Show and instant analysis on Twitter.
And if people are forced to think about what his videos are trying to say and whether they're real, well, mission accomplished.
A couple of weeks ago, Goldenberg posted a clip of a perky young woman pitching a Kickstarter campaign to raise $500 million to save Detroit. She explained how a $1 donation would get you a ride on the People Mover, $500 an abandoned home, $20 million the city's entire water department and so on.
So far, the video has drawn nearly 23,000 views on YouTube, as well as comments like, "This is a joke, right?"
Goldenberg's Kickstarter campaign is for real. He's trying to raise $15,000 for a six-part online comedy series, Detroit (Blank) City, to be directed by him and co-written by Ari Rubin, a childhood friend who is now a New York voice actor.
The project is described on the popular crowd-sourcing site as absurdist comedy. "Through humor, we will laugh to breathe another day," the text explains. In person, Goldenberg describes laughter as a catharsis for what's happening here -- both the problems of the city and the sometimes surreal ideas floated as possible remedies.
A University of Michigan graduate who studied film and video, Goldenberg has worked on everything from indie drama (he was the editor of Bilal's Stand, which screened at Sundance in 2010) to music videos.
"He's an excellent storyteller. He takes his work very seriously. He takes Detroit very seriously. He's committed to it," said acclaimed local filmmaker and educator Harvey Ovshinsky, who applauds Goldenberg's attempt to stretch his creative muscles with comedy.
Read the full article HERE!
CLICK HERE TO CONTRIBUTE TO OREN GOLDENBERG'S KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN!
When Ralph Watson, the Executive Creative Director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, told his wife in 2011 that he’d been asked to move from New York to Detroit to head up the advertising company’s new office to rebrand Chevrolet, her reaction was immediate and to the point. "There’s no fucking way," he recalls her telling him.
Who could blame her? For more than three decades, Detroit has been portrayed in the press as a city in decline, beset by unemployment, crime, civic corruption, and wholesale abandonment by anyone and everyone who could afford to get out. Hundreds of buildings stood vacant, whole tracts of the city reclaimed by nature with urban explorers and photographers parachuting in from all over the world to capture it in all its decaying glory. To many, the city that had birthed the auto industry, armed the Allies during WWII, and given the world some of the best music of the 20th century, was nothing more than a failed state, America’s answer to the Roman Ruins.
And yet, on a cold Thursday morning in the beginning of 2013, Watson, who somehow convinced his wife to move with him to the Motor City, is sitting in his corner office across from Todd Grantham, GSP’s Managing Director, at the company’s newish office in the Palms Building, an historic spot downtown, a home run hit from Comerica Park. The office, which opened in 2011, occupies five floors and has 275 employees focused on Chevrolet. Together they’re working to rebrand the carmaker as it expands globally with the new slogan, "Find New Roads."
On Watson’s window, which faces onto Woodward Avenue ("the first paved road in the U.S.," he noted) is a stenciled message that’s been used in a series of Corvette print ads being developed: "THIS IS AMERICA."
So, how does he like Detroit? "It’s Startupville," Watson says. "It’s anything goes, which I really like. It’s almost no rules."
"There’s massive opportunity here," adds Grantham, who relocated from San Francisco around the same time as Watson. "It feels like there are more interesting things here. People feel like there’s more wide open space than anywhere else"
GSP is among a small but dedicated cohort of creatives, entrepreneurs, and techies who are trying to stake a claim in Detroit and, they hope, help the city as they do so. Just down the street from the Palms Building is The M@dison Building, home of Skidmore Studio, a design and branding firm that started with auto illustrations in the late 1950s and has grown to a full service creative agency. The company moved back to Detroit three years ago after several decades in the suburbs, since, as Tim Smith, Skidmore’s President and CEO, puts it, "If the city is gonna come back, the creative community is gonna be part of that." Smith remembers a time when he’d fly out to meetings with clients in other cities and they’d say, "Oh, you’re from Detroit. We feel so bad for you." Now, he says, "We get off the plane and go 'We’re from Detroit,' and they say, 'That’s kinda cool.'"
"Damn right, it’s cool!," he tells us. "I think the bravado is coming back."
Click HERE to read the full article!
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11:33 AM
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New Detroit Business
It looks like 2013 may be a better year for the Detroit housing market. In the first month of the year, all multiple-listing service sales rose by 9.4% from a year earlier, according to data from Realcomp.
This stands out in a market that suffered so much throughout the housing crisis, and in a market that the Obama Administration considers a struggling economy.
In the Obama administration’s monthly scorecard for January, the U.S. Department of Housing of Urban Development revealed that the administration’s efforts have helped nearly 100,000 Detroit households avoid foreclosure.
"Every foreclosure avoided has positive impacts for families, communities, and our economy," said Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability Tim Massad.
Additionally, an estimated $208 million has been provided for the city via HUD’s stabilization program in order to aid redevelopment and assist resident property purchases, the scorecard revealed.
The median sales price for all homes for sale jumped 27.1% from $63,000 to $80,091 year-over-year in January. The median sales growth varied from metro to metro, with some metros seeing as much as a 65% increase since last year, the Realcomp report showed.
It looks like buyer demand grew as the Detroit market continues to become healthier, with the average days on the market dropping from 89 to 81.
The true indicator of a market turnaround in Detroit, however, is the decline in foreclosure sales, which dropped 11.7% from last month to January 2012. Some metros saw a much larger drop of foreclosure sales, such as Grosse Pointe, whose foreclosure sales fell 40% year-over-year.
Click HERE for the full article!
Challenge Detroit, a national initiative focused on revitalizing Detroit by retaining and attracting top talent to the city, has launched year two of the program and is now accepting applications for its 2013-2014 fellows.
The program recently received a $230,000 grant from the Live
WorkDetroit initiative of the Michigan Economic Development Corp. that will be applied toward programming and recruitment for the upcoming class.
Challenge Detroit chooses 30 fellows based on a combined public voting-private selection process to live and work in the city of Detroit. Every month the group also works on a community "challenge."
The current team on Friday kicked off the fifth of its 10 challenges – helping revitalization efforts along the storefront districts on Livernois in Detroit, near The University of Detroit Mercy. That team of 30 fellows started the program in August.
The organizers' goal by the end of the program is to turn the fellows into 30 advocates for the city.
The fellows work 32-hour weeks at their host companies and spend the fifth weekday on community service projects around the city.
Partner nonprofits include the TechTown Detroit and the Detroit Regional News Hub.
It will be accepting applications until March 3 and is still looking for companies to participate.
Click HERE to read the full article on Crain's Detroit!
The program recently received a $230,000 grant from the Live
Challenge Detroit chooses 30 fellows based on a combined public voting-private selection process to live and work in the city of Detroit. Every month the group also works on a community "challenge."
The current team on Friday kicked off the fifth of its 10 challenges – helping revitalization efforts along the storefront districts on Livernois in Detroit, near The University of Detroit Mercy. That team of 30 fellows started the program in August.
The organizers' goal by the end of the program is to turn the fellows into 30 advocates for the city.
The fellows work 32-hour weeks at their host companies and spend the fifth weekday on community service projects around the city.
Partner nonprofits include the TechTown Detroit and the Detroit Regional News Hub.
It will be accepting applications until March 3 and is still looking for companies to participate.
Click HERE to read the full article on Crain's Detroit!
Detroit Harmonie's Top Chef Challenge Application
Online Application Deadline - February 8th, 2013 at 5:00PM EST.
Competition Overview:
The prize breakdown is as follows:
• $7,500 – Top Chef Award: determined by a panel of judges
• $2,500 – People’s Choice Award: determined by the event attendees
Process:
Step 1: Apply online with your own creative recipe and spin on the Coney Island dish by February 8th.
Step 2: Detroit Harmonie will select and notify 20 semifinalists on February 14th.
Step 3: 20 semifinalists will prepare their culinary masterpieces for a panel of judges on February 23rd and 24th.
Step 4: 5 finalists will be selected and notified on February 25th. Each finalist will be assigned a specific ethnic cuisine for the final event on March 23rd.
Step 5: Winner selected at the Detroit Harmonie International Experience on March 23rd. Chefs prepare tastes for 500+ person crowd.
Entry Requirements:
For an entry to be eligible, it must:
1. Carry an ethnic theme – examples may include Japanese, Arabic, Mexican, or Indian. Chefs must incorporate flavors from a specific ethnic cuisine into their dish.
2. Contain each of following ingredients (or alternatives for the ingredients)
- Meat (or veggie substitute)
- Chili
- Mustard
- Onion
- Bread
Judging Criteria:
Initial submissions will be judged based on the following criteria:
1. Originality of the idea/dish
2. How you will use the $10,000 to go toward furthering your culinary path and strengthening the Detroit food movement
3. Culinary background
Questions? Drop us a note at allie@detroitharmonie.co
APPLY HERE!!!!!
As one of the most influential musical artists, Duke Ellington has made significant contributions to jazz and society, documenting meaningful moments in African American culture. The Detroit Jazz Festival will celebrate Ellington’s impact, presenting his “Black, Brown and Beige” symphony for big band and other noteworthy works – including “Creole Love Cal,” “Diminuendo and Cresendo in Blue,” “Black Tan Fantasy” and “Black Beauty” – with the first concert of the 2013 Detroit Jazz Festival Community Series on March 10, 2013, at 3 p.m. at The Fillmore, Detroit.
“This symphony, the only symphony Ellington created, is rarely performed. It’s a truly historic opportunity for the Detroit Jazz Festival Orchestra,” said Chris Collins, artistic director of the Detroit Jazz Festival. “Ellington’s ‘Black, Brown, Beige’ symphony has a powerful cultural message, it’s an inspirational piece for all. We are proud to commemorate his exceptional work and influence on our history and the jazz community.”
Joining the Detroit Jazz Festival Orchestra will be world-renowned conductor David Berger, featured Detroit-native tenor sax soloist James Carter and Detroit vocalists Alice McAllister Tillman and Shahida Nurullah. To highlight the meaning behind the music, Berger also will offer narrative and background on each of the pieces, as well as insight on Ellington’s original performance of “Black, Brown and Beige” at Carnegie Hall in 1943.
“We want to bring once-in-a-lifetime opportunities like this concert to our communities, whether that be through concerts, in-school education or other community events. Presenting this symphony, which Ellington only played in its entirety once, is an exceptional experience,” said Gretchen Valade, chair of the Foundation Board of Directors, Detroit Jazz Festival.. “We make it our goal to present these unique opportunities as much as possible “The Detroit Jazz Festival’s year-round efforts are meant to inspire and enrich the lives of music lovers in our region.”
The Detroit Jazz Festival is more than just a one-weekend event, concerts and community initiatives are held throughout the year to celebrate the jazz culture and history. Programs that have continually enriched communities will still be in place in 2013, including JC Heard Jazz Week@Wayne and the Jazz Guardian Award.
Tickets to the concert range in price from $15 to $35 and can be purchased online HERE.
“This symphony, the only symphony Ellington created, is rarely performed. It’s a truly historic opportunity for the Detroit Jazz Festival Orchestra,” said Chris Collins, artistic director of the Detroit Jazz Festival. “Ellington’s ‘Black, Brown, Beige’ symphony has a powerful cultural message, it’s an inspirational piece for all. We are proud to commemorate his exceptional work and influence on our history and the jazz community.”
Joining the Detroit Jazz Festival Orchestra will be world-renowned conductor David Berger, featured Detroit-native tenor sax soloist James Carter and Detroit vocalists Alice McAllister Tillman and Shahida Nurullah. To highlight the meaning behind the music, Berger also will offer narrative and background on each of the pieces, as well as insight on Ellington’s original performance of “Black, Brown and Beige” at Carnegie Hall in 1943.
“We want to bring once-in-a-lifetime opportunities like this concert to our communities, whether that be through concerts, in-school education or other community events. Presenting this symphony, which Ellington only played in its entirety once, is an exceptional experience,” said Gretchen Valade, chair of the Foundation Board of Directors, Detroit Jazz Festival.. “We make it our goal to present these unique opportunities as much as possible “The Detroit Jazz Festival’s year-round efforts are meant to inspire and enrich the lives of music lovers in our region.”
The Detroit Jazz Festival is more than just a one-weekend event, concerts and community initiatives are held throughout the year to celebrate the jazz culture and history. Programs that have continually enriched communities will still be in place in 2013, including JC Heard Jazz Week@Wayne and the Jazz Guardian Award.
Tickets to the concert range in price from $15 to $35 and can be purchased online HERE.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African American woman who worked as a seamstress, inspired a social movement when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., city bus. That singular act of courage helped spark the Civil Rights Movement and a new era in the American quest for freedom and equality. On Feb. 4, 2013, The Henry Ford will acknowledge Rosa Parks’ 100th birthday and her inspiring life through a National Day of Courage, encouraging every American to take a stand and commit themselves to do something courageous just as Mrs. Parks did back on that day in 1955.
The day-long celebration taking place inside Henry Ford Museum will feature nationally-recognized speakers, live music, and dramatic presentations. Current scheduled speakers include American social activist and leader in the Civil Rights Movement Julian Bond, contributing Newsweek editor Eleanor Clift, Rosa Parks biographers Jeanne Theoharis and Douglas Brinkley and author and Wayne State University Assistant Professor Danielle McGuire.
The U.S. Postal Service will also be recognizing Mrs. Parks’ extraordinary life as an American activist and iconic figure in the Civil Rights Movement by unveiling the Rosa Parks Forever Stamp during a special First-Day-of-Issue dedication ceremony at The Henry Ford. Guests can become one of the first to purchase the stamp throughout the day inside the Museum.
Guests in attendance will also have the opportunity to take a seat on the Rosa Parks bus, which is on permanent display inside the Museum. In honor of the event, admission to Henry Ford Museum is free courtesy of Target and the Museum will extend its hours of operation until 9:30 p.m.
For those unable to attend the day’s events in-person, Detroit Public Television will be providing a live national broadcast via satellite and across the Internet. Visitors to The Henry Ford’s Facebook page can also participate by sharing what they have the courage to do in honor of Rosa Parks’ birthday on Feb. 4.
Over 30 area cyclists will take to the virtual streets for Detroit’s first indoor bike race on cycling simulators in Downtown Detroit this month. Endurance Fest 2013 pits riders against each other, hashing it out tournament-style on Computrainer equipment that measures their exact power output, even factoring in drag and weight.
Participants will race on simulated real-life courses from the comfort of an indoor training facility.
“This is the same equipment that USA Cycling and USA Triathlon use to test and train their team athletes. For indoor cycling, there’s really nothing like it,” says Landall Proctor, owner of Detroit’s newest fitness facility, Detroit Endurance Lab.
Proctor, 31, moved to Detroit last year with his wife and son to fulfill his dream of operating his own endurance training facility that caters to every level of athlete. His Detroit Endurance Lab offers group and individual training, indoor cycling classes, and a built-in cheering section to athletes interested in triathlons, running events, and cycling.
Both beginner and experienced cyclists will participate in the race that will take place Saturday, February 9th just off the Dequindre Cut. “With Detroit’s frigid winters, we think cyclists and health-conscious folks in and near the city are really going to benefit from having easy access to the technology,” says Proctor, “And we’re excited to be kicking it all off with Endurance Fest.”
For more information, visit detroitendurancelab.com
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