Check Out Gwyneth Paltrow's "Goop" Guide To Detroit

The Detroit Guide

Detroit is not unfamiliar with change and reinvention, and yet for all its complexity, the Motor City is often primarily thought of as the land of automobiles. While this is undeniably a piece of Detroit’s fascinating narrative, the city has a great deal more to offer, particularly in the creative arts, which have long played a prominent role in Detroit’s past (from original urban murals to an iconic record label), and in continuing to shape the ever-changing city today. 

Museums like MOCAD share the work of brilliant Detroit artists with natives and visitors alike, while also making the case that Detroit is a destination for a diverse, international range of art. Throughout the city, there are extraordinary examples of storied architecture. In rare record shops, music from earlier decades lives on, while contemporary indie bands play in a mix of new venues and old (outrageously awesome) dive bars. 

Neighborhoods like Midtown (museum district, home to DIA and a transformed retail experience), Downtown (encompasses all of the city’s major stages from economic to operatic and athletic), and Corktown (a hipster dream) have seen waves of new chefs and restaurants come onto the scene. 

Several new boutique hotels are promised to debut in the next year or two. So, while what in part makes Detroit cool is that it doesn’t have all the familiar amenities and trends of frequently touristed cities, it is undeniably a city of reinvention, and we expect this guide to evolve with it.

Activities and Culture | Bars & Live Music | Eat | Shop | Specialty | Stay 

Click HERE For The Full Article! 

Movin' On Up! Motown Museum Announces HUGE Expansion (Photos Included)

The Motown Museum is planning a $50 million expansion to create space for interactive exhibits, a performance theater and recording studios at the Detroit tourist attraction, officials announced Monday.

The new space will be designed and built around the existing museum, which includes the Motown studio with its "Hitsville U.S.A." facade. Renderings released by the museum show a new facility behind the existing museum, with an entrance next to the existing studio.

Robin R. Terry, chairwoman and CEO of the Motown Museum, said in a statement that a goal of the project is to "inspire dreams and serve as an educational resource for global and local communities." The museum already is among Detroit's best-known tourist attractions.

The expanded museum "will allow us to narrate and celebrate on a much larger scale what the Motown legacy is recognized for: unmatched creative genius that transcends every barrier imaginable by bringing people together from all walks of life to share in that unmistakable Motown Sound," she said.

A team of designers and architects are collaborating on the details of the expanded space, the museum said.

The Motown Museum is located in the house where record company founder Berry Gordy launched his cultural and commercial music empire. The label started in 1959 and scores of stars and hits were created before it decamped to California in 1972.

"It was about music and so much more, Gordy said. "It brings me real joy, and I am proud and humbled to know that the inclusive legacy of Motown, and the most talented people who are so near and dear to my heart, will have their stories told in this new Museum."

Get Your Tickets For (Ghostbusters) Night At The Detroit Library

The Ghostbusters saw their first ghost at the New York Public Library over 30 years ago and you thought that was the end…

We promise that this Night at the Library Tour will be one of the most exciting evenings you’ve ever had in a Library! With access to the Main Library at night, you can experience its magnificent architecture and see why it's the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man's favorite Detroit hangout since moving from Brooklyn.

The tour is perfect for a date night, an evening with friends or a highlight of a Detroit visit. Our docents will share with you the secrets, backstories and hidden nooks and crannies of Detroit’s acclaimed Main Library. RSVP is required, tickets will not be sold at the event.

On your special night, you can expect:
- Customization: docents pick their favorites and mix them with your interests to make a totally unique tour
- Starlight: step out on the Loggia and experience it under the stars (weather permitting)
- The smallest group size of any tours we offer
- Photo-ops: Social media -worthy Ghostbuster shots to wow your friends
- Snacks and refreshments: wine will be served (MUST BE 21+) And plenty of surprises along the way

*Standard 60min art and architecture tour with a Ghostbusters themed Happy Hour after.

Click HERE To Reserve Your Tickets!

Detroit Is America’s Great Comeback Story

Photo: Vito Paomisano/ Detroit Metro CVB

You will feel the energy as soon as you get off the plane at Detroit Metropolitan Airport’s McNamara Terminal and make your way through an underground tunnel exploding with a colour-changing light and sound show.

The Light Tunnel uses LED lighting to illuminate glass panels with sand-blasted Michigan artwork in a dazzling, multi-sensory show that’s synchronized to an original score by an Ohio outfit.

“Welcome to Motor City,” the pilot said when we hit the tarmac.

“Welcome to Art City,” is what he should have said.

Something remarkable is happening here. The city is exploding with art and food and activity. Creative types are coming from all over to be part of the transformation.

Stop feeling sorry for Detroit.

Stop being scared of Detroit.

The story here is no longer automobile industry collapse, decline, decay and blight. It’s about a glorious city that birthed the Model T and Motown, that’s coming back better, stronger, artier.

Let Kim Rusinow of Show Me Detroit Tours give you a guided bus tour.

“We’re a blank canvas at this point — we have so many opportunities to be creative,” she enthuses. “Detroit’s coming back and you’re going to want to come back again and again and again.”

There’s Midtown with the “eds, meds and arts.” That’s short for universities, medical centres and Sugar Hill Arts District anchored by the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.

Downtown fills up with passionate sports fans when the Detroit Tigers are playing Comerica Park or the Lions are at Ford Field. Next year, Little Ceasars Arena will give the Red Wings a dynamic home between downtown and Midtown and anchor a new sports and entertainment district called the District Detroit.

Also downtown is Greektown with its three casinos, but I’ll be taking the kids on the Detroit People Mover, with art in all 13 stations. It’s just 75 cents and you can stay on the single-track train loop as long as you want.

Culturally cool Corktown is fully hipster and home to the Detroit Institute of Bagels, Batch Brewing (the city’s first nano brewery), music destinations, such as the UFO Factory and Hostel Detroit, with its free walking tours.

Nearby, along Grand River Ave., it’s all about the street art and graffiti murals. Rebel Nell, Rusinow explains, employs disadvantaged women to repurpose these very graffiti paint chips into jewelry.

“Adaptive reuse” is a term everyone uses here.

The Globe Building, part of an 1860s-era riverfront complex that sat vacant for decades, is now the incredible Outdoor Adventure Center, created by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Inside the centre (the name is a tad misleading), kids experience the great outdoors indoors with hands-on activities, exhibits and simulators. They touch a “waterfall,” climb an “oak tree,” walk across a suspension bridge, “fish” from a boat and take a simulated trail ride on a real snowmobile.

Speaking of transportation, this city is moving beyond cars.

Click HERE For The Full Article! 

National Treasure Status! National Trust For Historic Preservation Designates Detroit’s Jefferson-Chalmers

Yesterday, in Detroit’s Lower Eastside, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Jefferson-Chalmers District a National Treasure. This designation by the nation’s leading preservation organization marks the first National Treasure in the state of Michigan and represents the first project under the National Trust’s new ReUrbanism initiative.

“Jefferson-Chalmers is Detroit’s diamond in the rough—and we’re excited to bring our expertise and national spotlight to the great work happening here,” said David J. Brown, executive vice president and chief preservation officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “Not only do the buildings have the reuse potential to move Detroit forward, but revitalization of this historic neighborhood also has a lot to teach the rest of the country.”

The National Trust will work with city officials, residents, the business community and other stakeholders to bring increased capacity and pinpoint the best rehabilitation and reuse strategies to ensure Jefferson Chalmers’ older buildings evolve into assets that meet the 21st century needs of the community. Additionally, the National Treasures’ designation carries the full weight of the National Trust’s successful urban revitalization strategies, complemented by two of its programs playing roles in the city: 1) Preservation Green Lab’s Partnership for Building Reuse, a recent study focused on Detroit-specific barriers to building reuse that offers solutions to help realize the development potential of its older buildings; and 2) the National Main Street Center’s Refresh pilot program, a program to test new strategies and refine approaches for creating successful main streets.

“The City of Detroit is committed to innovative approaches that inspire the reuse and restoration of older buildings throughout its neighborhoods,” said Kimberly Driggins, director of strategic planning for the city of Detroit. “We are enthusiastic to work with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Jefferson East and the residents and businesses in Jefferson-Chalmers as we embrace new opportunities and conversations on the road to revitalization.”

As the National Trust’s new partners in Jefferson-Chalmers are demonstrating, preservation is about more than just keeping historic buildings in active use—it is also about managing positive change through direct community engagement that positions the needs and concerns of people at the center of the work.

“Jefferson-Chalmers is full of outstanding assets which will strengthen the restoration efforts, including its location and intact commercial structures,” said Josh Elling, ‎executive director for Jefferson East, Inc. “Through past hardship, engaged residents and business owners—the neighborhood’s biggest assets—have held together, maintained hope and crafted a vision to bring the neighborhood back to being a place where everyone thrives.”

Today’s event also codified the National Trust’s decades long involvement in the revitalization of cities across the country with the announcement of its ReUrbanism initiative, which positions preservation in the larger context of human needs as an essential element to creating the health and well-being of residents in communities, among other critical needs.

“It’s about putting people first, and using the remarkable powers of preservation and creative reuse to spur economic growth to help solve the problems neighborhoods and cities face today, and position them for an even brighter future,” said David Brown. “We believe that reuse should be the standard bearer for urban regeneration and that the demolition of historic places always the option of last resort.”

“It is an honor to see years of advocacy coming together in this great moment of naming the Jefferson-Chalmers District a National Treasure,” said Nancy Finegood, executive director for Michigan Historic Preservation Network, the organization first responsible for bringing Jefferson-Chalmers to the National Trust’s attention. “Our focus is to grow the capacity and number of single-family homes we can restore each year, but equally important is the number of local residents who benefit from the work as we move forward.”

Jefferson-Chalmers District joins a growing portfolio of irreplaceable, diverse places—from ancient sites to modern monuments—that have been designated National Treasures. Learn more at: savingplaces.org/jefferson-chalmers-district.

Sneak Peak! This Old House Comes To Detroit!

Watch Actor Terry Crews Tour Detroit On Celebrity Adventure Club

Belle Isle Conservancy Hosts 1st Annual Sunset At The Scott To Benefit The Scott Fountain Pewabic Tile Fund

The Belle Isle Conservancy is hosting Sunset at the Scott, an event to raise funds for the Scott Fountain Pewabic Tile Fund, in an effort to restore the historic Pewabic tile mosaic that once covered the basin of the James Scott Memorial Fountain.

Sunset at the Scott will take place on Wednesday, August 17 from 6:30PM-8:30PM on the Belle Isle paddock near the Scott Fountain.

The event will feature:

• El Guapo Fresh Mexican Grill
• Cool Jacks Handcrafted Ice Cream + Cookies
• Beer + Wine + Specialty cocktail
• Live entertainment provided by O N E F R E Q

“This promises to be a lovely evening celebrating the beauty of Belle Isle, and particularly the Scott Fountain,” said Michele Hodges, President of the Belle Isle Conservancy. “Our supporters are committed to the preservation of the original Pewabic tiles, and this event gives them a chance to help make that happen.”

To date, past supporters have helped the Belle Isle Conservancy raise nearly $75,000 towards the Scott Fountain Pewabic Tile Fund’s goal of $300,000 to complete the restoration.

The Belle Isle Conservancy continues to support its partnership with Pewabic Pottery with Pewabic on site at the event with limited edition Belle Isle tiles for sale. A portion of the proceeds from the Belle Isle tile series will be donated to the Scott Fountain Pewabic Tile Fund. The original tile mosaic was designed by Pewabic’s founder Mary Chase Perry Stratton and was removed from the fountain during a repair.

The event had previously been part of Pewabic Pottery’s annual house and garden show, but a scheduling conflict with another Belle Isle Conservancy event this year created the need for the event to take on an identity of its own with a new date and location.

Advance tickets for Sunset at the Scott range from $50-$250 and are available until August 1st. Admission is $65 at the door. Sponsorship opportunities are available. A recreation passport is required for admittance to the island.

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.belleisleconservancy.org/sunset2016.  

If You're Not Turned On By Detroit's New Energy, You'd Better Check Your Pulse

Photo: Robin Soslow

If you're not turned on by Detroit's new energy, you'd better check your pulse.

Boom and bloom have shattered the Motor City's gloom-and-doom reputation. Super-charged vital signs include a white-hot urban art scene, homegrown jazz, R&B, funk and electronic virtuosos, sensational bargain-priced food, coffee and craft beer, a fresh new riverfront, a greenway where lush foliage competes with street art-splashed concrete slabs, new urban bike and kayak tours, and friendly residents excited to share their cultural riches.

Abandoned buildings are surging back to life. The Aloft hotel opened last year in the David Whitney, a 1915 neo-Renaissance skyscraper with a jaw-dropping atrium. A labyrinth-like brewery now holds Red Bull House of Art's galleries and studios.

Russell Industrial Center, an auto body factory designed by Detroit starchitect Albert Kahn that opened 1925, now holds studios (Bill Poceta's glassworks, Dana Keaton's fashions), Michigan Hot Glass Workshop and galleries. Catch the Robots and Ray-guns exhibition.

An abandoned warehouse has revived as Ponyride, a business accelerator and home to Anthology, a new slow/ethical/heavenly coffee purveyor where you should savor it black.

Neglected storefronts now hold hip joints like Northern Lights Lounge, a retro outpost with no cover, even when Motown veterans take the stage.

As a stunning new hockey arena rises downtown, entrepreneurs are racing in from New York to snap up cheap big digs with character. Homegrown innovators are launching dream ventures. The 100 restaurants that have opened in the last two years include wildly popular Selden Standard, Republic and Katoi. New brewpubs include Batch Brewing and HopCat.

Click HERE For The Full Article! 

Airs Tonight! Follow Rockers Wes Borland & Carré Callaway’s Arden Park Rehab!

Our show airs tomorrow on the #diynetwork ... #sightunseen #hgtv

A video posted by Wes Borland (@thewesborland) on Jul 12, 2016 at 8:47am PDT

‘Sight Unseen’

DIY Network

10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Wednesday EST

Click HERE For More Information! 

Coney: The Hot Dog That Fueled Detroit's Middle-Class Dreams

Photo: David Gilkey/NPR

What does it mean to be middle class in America? Nearly a century ago, in Detroit — which was then the burning core of the country's middle class — the answer might have looked like a hot dog: a Detroit Coney, to be precise.

At its most basic, a Detroit Coney is a kind of chili dog — "a steamed bun, with a natural-casing hot dog, beef and pork," explains Joe Grimm, author of the book Coney Detroit. "And on top of that hot dog — which should be grilled, not boiled, not deep-fried — goes the sauce, the most important part."

All along the streets of Detroit, you see big neon signs advertising Coneys — a word that refers not just to the hot dogs but to the hundreds of eateries that sell them. Eateries like Red Hots Coney Island, which has been serving up Coneys since 1921.

Owner Rich Harlan has been working there for 48 years. He says his great-aunt and -uncle started the restaurant after immigrating to Michigan from Greece. "We are a block away from the first assembly plant that was made by Ford Motor Co.," Harlan says. "That's how they got started."

Indeed, the story of how the Coney became Detroit's signature dish is deeply entwined with the history of the city's auto industry.

In the 1920s and '30s, Detroit teemed with workers drawn there by Henry Ford's promise of a $5-a-day wage. "People came here from around the world to get that money," Grimm says. As a result, "the [city's] occupancy rate went over 100 percent." Housing became so tight that rooms were sometimes rented for eight-hour stints — long enough for one renter to sleep while another occupant was working a shift at the Ford factory, Grimm says.

Click HERE For The Full Article! 

PBS' 'This Old House' To Help Restore Home In Northwest Detroit

Photo: Kevin O'Connor 

"This Old House" will head to Detroit for the first time to help a retired firefighter and his family renovate their home in the Russell Woods neighborhood in the northwest area of the city.

The renovation project in Detroit will span 10 episodes that are scheduled to air in March. The Public Broadcasting Service television show has plans to renovate additional homes in Detroit, with more details to be announced in the coming weeks.

"There are some amazing housing stories in Detroit," John Tomlin, senior producer for "This Old House," told Crain's Detroit Business. "We heard beautiful stories of people working hard to improve their homes and we wanted to ... be a part of telling the story."

Tomlin said the producers of This Old House chose the Detroit project because they liked the family and "the house had some potential."

"We went through a lot of abandoned houses doing our research," he said. "A lot of them are borderline. You're not sure that the homeowners can finish it."

The two-story brick home was built in 1939 and was owned by the Detroit Land Bank Authority. The family recently purchased the home at auction and is required to rehabilitate the property and live in the house under the terms of the authority's auction program.

Click HERE For The Full Article! 

Detroit 1967 Riot Movie To Partly Film In the City

Photo: CBS

"Zero Dark Thirty" filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow's next project will partly film in Detroit.

Plans were announced in January for Bigelow to direct a film set amid 1967's deadly race-related rioting in Detroit. Colin Wilson, a line producer, tells the Detroit Free Press they want "try to shoot as much as we possibly can" in Detroit.

Wilson says filming also could take place in the Detroit enclave of Hamtramck. John Boyega, who played Finn in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," is joining the cast.

The crime drama written by Mark Boal is scheduled to begin production this summer and be released in 2017 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the riots. Bigelow and Boal previously collaborated on the war movies "Zero Dark Thirty" and "The Hurt Locker."

Anthem of Us: A Short Film About Detroit Presented by Bedrock

Will Detroit Makers and Small Businesses Win One for the Underdog?

Kaitlyn and Ryan Lawless of  Corbé.

A ceramic artist fires a plate in an industrial kiln in her bright studio loft, overlooking a community garden and a row of hip bustling eateries. This isn’t New York City. It’s Michigan.

There are parallel timelines in the history of Detroit. The popular version that gave the metropolis its “Motor City “ moniker and ended in bankruptcy and desertion is just one side of the story. Tell me if you’ve heard this one: the booming auto industry propelled the population to a whopping 1.85 million at its peak in 1950, providing over 296,000 manufacturing jobs, only to leave Detroit a rust and scrap metal graveyard, dependent on government handouts.

Sit back, put on some rose-tinted glasses and a Diana Ross LP, and let me tell you another version.

While industrialization and prosper gave way to plant closures and government scandal, a culture rich with music and arts maintained a constant, unwavering influence in the city. Detroit is the home of Motown Records, the birthplace of techno, and a driving force in the early-80s punk scene. The Detroit Institute of the Arts and The Scarab Club are centenarian fixtures in the community, a defunct GM design lab now houses the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Design Education, and The Heidelberg Project celebrates its 30th year.

It’s been said that hardship and suffering are artist-making. That the emotional aftermath of trauma makes beautiful music, and art that hits you in the feels. If there’s truth to it, Detroit embodies the tortured artist. In the wake of its collective financial suffering, the city has taken comfort in a steady old friend: the arts.

And what are abandoned buildings if not blank canvases? Who better to revive a city, while preserving its bones and honoring its roots than the artists and the makers?

Former NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg, once told a group of business grads:

"Detroit is like New York City back in the ‘70s. When everybody had written us off, there were people who believed.

I believe. Detroit is one of my favorite cities, and home to some of my best memories. I have a knack for spotting the potential in fixer-uppers – the city is just another curbside armoire in need of a little paint and elbow grease. Blocks of empty structures are opportunities for lush urban gardens, and endless crumbling walls are a street-artist’s dream. I see what I want to see. And it’s good.

Click HERE For The Full Article! 

Traditional Building Highlights Detroit's Preservation Efforts

The City of Detroit has had more than its share of big, bad headlines in the last few years, but the bigger news is that not only is the greater downtown area rising like a phoenix but that its renewal is, in large part, being fueled by the old. Iconic skyscrapers, along with bread-and-butter office and factory buildings, are being transformed into apartments, hotels, chic shops and entertainment venues that are bringing in a new generation of employers and reverse-commuting residents to the once downtrodden city.

These projects form the backdrop for a wider revival that includes a streetcar line, a bridge across the Detroit River to Windsor, Ontario, and a 44-block arena and entertainment district. “This is the dawn of Detroit’s next golden age,” declares developer David Di Rita, principal of The Roxbury Group, which was founded in 2005 and has been working in the city since then. The so-called Renaissance City is in the perfect place and perfect time for a revamping. The story, appropriately enough, starts and ends with architecture.

Founded in 1701 by the French trader Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, Detroit came into its prime as a mercantile center in the 19th century, and the Gilded Age structures it erected reflected its power and prowess. The oldest, 1895s United Way Community Services Building, soon was joined by an illustrious set that included Detroit Cornice and Slate (1897), the Romanesque Globe Tobacco Building (1888) and the Wright-Kay (1891).

The automobile-fueled building boom all but put them in the dust, adding a constellation of Art Deco and Neoclassical spectacular structures by the likes of Daniel Burnham, Albert Kahn, Louis Kamper and Smith Hinchman & Grylls that still define its mighty Midwest skyline.

Burnham’s Ford (1909), Dime Building (now Chrysler House) (1912) and David Whitney (1915) led the way for Kamper’s Book Cadillac Hotel (1924) and Book Tower (1926); Albert Kahn Associates’ Cadillac Place (1923) and Fisher Building (1928); Writ C. Rowland’s Gothic Revival Buhl Building (1925), Penobscot (1928) and Guardian (1929); and John M. Donaldson’s David Stott Building (1929). During the succeeding decades, other buildings by other architects rose, but, for the most part, they were eclipsed by these historic gems.

The city’s fortunes continued to rise and fall with those of the rest of the nation, and by the turn of the 21st century, the Motor City had sputtered to a halt. Unlike some other cities that scalped their skylines to modernize, Detroit pretty much left things alone simply because few were willing to invest in what was perceived as its bleak future.

Click HERE For The Full Article! 

The Born-In-Detroit Cocktail That Has Spawned Countless Variations

DAC Drink Menu From 1916

“We didn’t even take credit for the drink at first,” Kenneth Voyles, communications director and historian for the Detroit Athletic Club, told me as I scurried after him through the DAC’s art-and-mahogany-adorned hallways. “We just couldn’t find anything definite on it.”

I’d shown up at the worst possible time, the evening of a major wine dinner and the day before the Tigers’ home opener, and Voyles was rushing around trying to deal with a last-minute menu crisis. But he patiently answered the questions I directed to the back of his head, and he later accompanied me to the private club’s beautiful Tap Room bar so I could sample the Last Word in the place where it probably originated.

Dedicated cocktailers probably know the history: how Seattle bartender Murray Stenson pulled the drink from obscurity in the early 2000s, taking it from the pages of Ted Saucier’s 1951 cocktail book “Bottoms Up!” and adding it to the menu at the Zig Zag Café in Seattle, from whence its reputation spread. The Saucier book credited the DAC as the source of the drink and mentioned a well-known vaudevillian, Frank Fogarty, as having introduced it around New York.

Click HERE For The Full Article!

NYT: In Debt For Detroit Dream

Many residents of high-cost areas entertain the dream, at least occasionally: Give up the rent or mortgage grind, liquidate assets and start over someplace cheaper, perhaps one that could use a few spirited new residents.

Amy Haimerl and her husband, Karl Kaebnick, fell hard for Detroit and thought they could make their own dream of financial freedom come true when they moved here in 2013. But this is what happened: They put more than $400,000 (including all of their retirement savings) into a 3,000-square-foot, 102-year-old home in the city’s West Village neighborhood that was most recently appraised at just $300,000.

They claim, however, to be 100 percent satisfied and genuinely happy. Which raises a question: Are they insane?

Ms. Haimerl’s book about their migration and renovation adventure, “Detroit Hustle,” will be out on May 3. It’s a love song sung to a house and a city, but it’s also a money memoir, one marked by ignorance at the outset and a triumph of feelings over financial facts. It does not end in ruin, but it does end in debt.

So let’s start with those facts. Ms. Haimerl, who is 40, and Mr. Kaebnick, 44, had about $10,000 in liquid assets when they decided to move. They settled on a house on a block where only two homes were boarded up.

They bought the smaller one, a wreck with no wires or radiators or doors or pipes, for $35,000, liquidating Ms. Haimerl’s retirement account to close without a mortgage. “There is essentially nothing left inside the walls,” she writes in her book. “What we have is a pile of bricks with character.”

For the renovation, they were counting on the $110,000 that would be left from Mr. Kaebnick’s accounts. The previous owners had figured it would take $150,000 or so to make it habitable. What could go wrong?

Click HERE For The Full Article!

New Pure Michigan Ad Highlights Detroit's Soul

Eastern Market Announces 125th Celebration And 2025 Vision For Eastern Market District

Eastern Market, the public market that has nourished Detroit for decades, celebrates its 125th Anniversary this year. Eastern Market Corporation (EMC), the nonprofit organization that operates and promotes the market and the adjacent market district, announces two initiatives to honor and celebrate the Market’s rich history along with efforts to ensure the legacy of Eastern Market as a working food district in the years ahead.

After extensive public engagement and input, EMC is unveiling Eastern Market 2025, a 10-year economic development framework, to guide the market district in response to the changing development environment in Detroit and in the midst of sweeping changes in the food economy.

“Detroit has changed significantly since The Great Recession and the food industry is rapidly reinventing itself, so we decided to update our 2008 strategic plan with energy, resources and input like never before,” said Dan Carmody, president of EMC. “More than 600 Detroiters participated in this process, under the coordination of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center, along with outside advice provided by two firms that helped markets in London and New York mesh better with their adjacent neighborhoods.

The major barriers and opportunities that lie ahead made it imperative to more thoroughly assess global trends and clearly weigh stakeholder needs to correctly calibrate the interventions needed to help strengthen the market for the next 10 years and beyond,” Carmody added.

Eastern Market 2025 was made possible with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and builds on other market area plans funded by the W.K. Kellogg, Kresge and Erb Family Foundations.

“We welcome the potential of this plan to enhance Detroit’s urban core and help secure the city’s future growth by continuing the spirit under which it was developed – recognizing our city’s diverse voices, its entrepreneurial spirit and a desire for positive change,” said Katy Locker, Knight Foundation program director for Detroit.”

The full, 114-page plan is accessible online via easternmarket.com.

 Also, throughout 2016, the Market will celebrate its 125th Anniversary in ways that will touch each segment of the community that has benefited from the Market’s vibrant presence. This year, EMC is gathering at least 125 stories of how the market has played a role in the lives of shoppers, farmers, business owners, neighbors, community leaders and Detroiters. These stories will be displayed over multiple platforms to help Metro Detroit and the world better understand the true breadth and depth of the Eastern Market experience.

The 125th Anniversary celebration will include public events and opportunities to raise funds for the Market’s ongoing operations. “We hope everyone who has benefited from and appreciates Eastern Market will consider honoring this milestone anniversary by going online to become a Friend of Eastern Market and help ensure our mission will continue for at least another 125 years,” said Carmody.