The New York Times: Rebuilding Detroit, One House at a Time

Toby Barlow and Sarah Cox are part of Write A House, a project whose goal is to acquire houses and give them to writers. CreditFabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

The message implicit in the prizewinning documentaries “Detropia” and “Searching for Sugar Man,” in Detroit’s declaration of bankruptcy in 2013 — in even a casual drive along Gratiot Avenue, past mile after mile of burned-out or boarded-up houses and stores — is that Detroit is in a pitiable state.

Yet when Toby Barlow reflects on Detroit, his adopted hometown, what he describes is potential, not pity — cheap real estate being the major reason.

“It’s fun to be here and be a part of those things that are re-emerging,” says Mr. Barlow, creative director at the advertising agency Team Detroit. “There are just a wealth of things that don’t exist in Detroit — and should.”

To create those things in the Motor City, Mr. Barlow, 48, who moved from New York to work on a Ford Motor account and stayed, has become an entrepreneur. He has opened a design store in Midtown, founded a nonprofit at Eastern Market that trains people in letterpress printing, and plans to open a restaurant in Corktown soon.

He has even found time to publish two novels since moving to Detroit from Brooklyn seven years ago. But his newest, headline-grabbing venture — with Sarah Cox, his partner in the project and another Brooklyn transplant — is one that aims to revitalize the city’s art community and potentially be a model for post-blight Detroit.

The project is called Write A House, and it is giving free houses to writers.

Click HERE for the full article! 

Take A Guess Who Made Fodor's "20 Must-See Art Museums in America" List

DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS

Where: Detroit

The Detroit Institute of Arts displays an impressive collection of African-American art, in addition to its holdings of American, European, Asian, African, Native American, and Islamic art. Look out for Diego Rivera’sDetroit Industry frescoes, which the artist considered his most successful work. The museum has occupied its home on Woodward Avenue since 1927, and contains more than 100 galleries, an auditorium, a lecture/recital hall, an art reference library, and a conservation services laboratory. A massive expansion completed in 2007 added 35,000 square feet to the museum. Established in 2000, the General Motors Center for African-American Art is one of the first curatorial departments dedicated to African-American art in a major museum.

Insider Tip: Don’t miss Van Gogh’s Self Portrait, which was the first Van Gogh painting to arrive in a U.S. museum collection.

Click HERE to see who made up the remaining 19!

The FreeP Film Festival Kicks Off This Week!

Festival arrives March 20-23

The inaugural Freep Film Festival will showcase Detroit and Michigan-themed documentaries, along with film discussions, panels and a few other surprises. The curtain rises March 20-23 at the Fillmore Detroit and the Detroit Film Theatre at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The lineup is now complete. Check out the full schedule with quick descriptions of every movie by clicking on "Films and schedule." 

Detroit Elememtary School's 'Happy' Video Goes Viral And Gets TV shows' Attention

The choir at the Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences has a lot to be happy about.

Tuesday morning, the “Today” show called. Tuesday afternoon, the “Ellen” show called. Late Tuesday afternoon, a representative of “The Queen Latifah Show” called.

Representatives of all three shows want the 40-member school choir to perform their rendition of Pharrell’s “Happy” on air thanks to a video of them performing the catchy tune that went viral.

The two-minute video has been viewed more than 461,000 times on YouTube.

Click HERE for the full article!

Detroit Beat Out LA, NYC, Honolulu AND Chicago On This List!

The Best Cities to Find a Job

 

Rank	City		Rank	City		Rank	City
1	Fort Worth, TX		21	Tulsa, OK		41	Chicago, IL
2	Washington, DC		22	Omaha, NE		42	El Paso, TX
3	Tampa, FL		23	San Antonio, TX		43	Philadelphia, PA
4	Arlington, TX		24	Santa Ana, CA		44	Portland, OR
5	Dallas, TX		25	Nashville, TN		45	Indianapolis, IN
6	Austin, TX		26	Columbus, OH		46	Sacramento, CA
7	Seattle, WA		27	Boston, MA		47	Virginia Beach, VA
8	Denver, CO		28	Wichita, KS		48	Albuquerque, NM
9	Mesa, AZ		29	New Orleans, LA		49	Anaheim, CA
10	Houston, TX		30	Miami, FL		50	Cleveland, OH
11	Raleigh, NC		31	Atlanta, GA		51	St. Louis, MO
12	Corpus Christi, TX		32	Louisville, KY		52	Oakland, CA
13	Aurora, CO		33	Bakersfield, CA		53	Long Beach, CA
14	Phoenix, AZ		34	Memphis, TN		54	Tucson, AZ
15	San Jose, CA		35	Jacksonville, FL		55	Milwaukee, WI
16	San Francisco, CA		36	San Diego, CA		56	Riverside, CA
17	Las Vegas, NV		37	Baltimore, MD		57	Honolulu, HI
18	Charlotte, NC		38	Detroit, MI		58	Fresno, CA
19	Minneapolis, MN		39	Oklahoma City, OK		59	New York, NY
20	Kansas City, MO		40	Colorado Springs, CO		60	Los Angeles, CA

Click HERE for the full article! 

Looks Like Jeopardy Is Also A Fan Of Detroit.....

Jeopardy Categories 3/13/2014 

Empowerment Plan Featured on GMA, Nominated For DVF Award

ABC Entertainment News | ABC Business News

 Click HERE to vote for the Empowerment Plan!

Run Du Nain Rouge Returns Sunday, March 23rd

The Run du Nain Rouge returns to Detroit’s Cass Corridor on Sunday, March 23 as a pre-cursor to the annual Marche du Nain Rouge parade. Race participants can help run the monstrous Nain Rouge out of town during this 5K, which starts at 11 a.m at the corner of Cass and Canfield (501 W. Canfield Street).

Tour de Troit is proud to bring back the Run du Nain Rouge for its second year after 500 runners participated last year. Participants can register for the 5K at active.com; online registration is $35 through Thursday, March 20 but will rise to $40 on race day. Registration includes a t-shirt, and the top 15 finishers will be rewarded with a Nain Rouge-themed prize— while the slowest 10 will be punished with gifts selected by the red imp himself. Run times will be posted at www.runmichigan.org.

“We’re so excited to bring back this run,” said Vittoria Katanski, co-director, Tour de Troit. “We had such a great turnout for its inaugural year, that we just had to do it again. It’s such a fun event, especially because of all of the theatrics and enthusiasm that surrounds the Marche du Nain Rouge. We are happy to add to the tradition!”

Everyone is then encouraged to participate in the Marche du Nain Rouge, which begins immediately after the race. Named one of the 100 things you must do in Detroit in 2013 by HOUR Detroit, this spirited march will head down Cass Avenue and feature Detroiters in costumes warding off the evil Nain, who is rumored to have been haunting Detroit since 1701. The Marche will conclude at Cass Park, where revelers will banish the Nain Rouge and rid Detroit of its woes. For more details and updates on Marche du Nain Rouge festivities, visit www.marchedunainrouge.com.

Sponsors Amicci's Pizza, Miller Canfield, Giffels-Webster, Plante Moran, Lovio George, The Majestic, Run Detroit

About Tour de Troit
The mission of the Tour de Troit is to promote and encourage bicycling and bicycle safety through education, public events, collaboration with community and government organizations and support for non-motorized infrastructure.

For more information visit www.Tour-de-Troit.org.

Slate.com: Old Detroit In Stunning Black-and-White Photographs

At 95, photographer Bill Rauhauser is something of a legend in the Detroit arts community. He’s spent more than 60 years taking beautiful street images that reflect the vibrancy and history of the city’s past. In January, Rauhauser was named the 2014 Kresge Eminent Artist, an honor that comes with a $50,000 prize. Later this year, Kresge will publish a monograph of Rauhauser’s career.

 Rauhauser started taking photos in high school with a plastic camera he ordered from a magazine for 39 cents. He later traded a stamp collection for a 35-mm camera. Rauhauser started his career as an engineer and only thought of photography as a hobby until he saw a Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art on a visit to New York. “His work was so fascinating and so strong. I just fell in love with it,” he said. “That made me think it could be an art form.”

Rauhauser spent 30 years teaching photography at the College for Creative Studies, which gave him the ability to spend more time on his craft. Getting a great photo, he said, requires a combination of being at the right place, shooting at the right time, having a broad cultural awareness, and a bit of luck. “Photography was something that was in my blood. I was able to use the extra time and inspiration to walk the streets of Detroit at the time and build up a large body of work while it was still a really beautiful city,” he said.

Click HERE for the full article! 

Detroit Lands On The 'Top 15 Apartment Boom Towns' List

Here is SpareFoot’s ranking of America’s Top 15 Apartment Boom Towns, in descending order.

San Jose, CA
Austin, TX
Houston, TX
Grand Rapids, MI
Nashville, TN
Dayton, OH
Portland, OR
San Francisco, CA
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
Oklahoma City, OK
Seattle, WA
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
San Antonio, TX
Des Moines, IA
Detroit, MI

Detroit, MI

Apartments per person: 0.06
Average population growth: Zero percent
Percentage of people spending more than 35 percent of their income on rent: 46.4 percent
Average per-capita personal income growth: 2.6 percent
Average per-capita GDP growth: 3.8 percent
Average growth in per-capita construction permits for new apartments: 44 percent

What’s Up With Detroit?
You might be wondering how Detroit made the list. It beat out the likes of Charlotte, NC; Boston, MA; and even New York City, NY, for a couple of reasons.

First, we focused our growth analysis on 2009 to 2012, so the starting point for measurement of growth in Detroit was when the Motor City essentially hit economic rock bottom.

Second, while GDP and personal income in Detroit have grown, the population hasn’t. We focused on per-capita numbers to adjust for cities of different sizes, meaning that no population growth plus economic growth helped a city’s ranking.

Now, this doesn’t mean Detroit fails to qualify as an apartment boom town. It simply means Detroit’s economic gains are spread among the same number of people, while other cities’ gains are spread among a larger number of people. That aided Detroit’s ranking.

Click HERE for the full article! 

11 Remarkable Ways Detroit Changed The World For The Better

Here are 11 incredible ways Detroit has changed the world for the better.

1. When Martin Luther King Jr. previewed the "I Have A Dream" speech.

Before the March on Washington, 25,000 Detroiters gathered in Cobo Hall to hear a preview of Martin Luther King Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech on June 23, 1963. Known as the "Detroit Walk to Freedom," MLK Jr. marched down Woodward Avenuewith Walter Reuther, the Reverend C.L. Franklin and 125,000 other civil rights believers. For the 50th anniversary in June 2013, thousands gathered to walk down Woodward Avenue in remembrance. Wendell Anthony, Detroit NAACP president, told WJBK that the march signified "that the work for freedom and justice must continue."

2. When the Red Wings won the first Stanley Cup in 42 years.

The Detroit Red Wings' journey to back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 1997 and 1998 ended one of the longest cup droughts in NHL history. A million people showed up to celebrate the team at a parade down Woodward Avenue in 1997. The Red Wings' first championship in 42 years gave some credence to the nickname "Hockeytown," that Detroit had adopted. It set the stage for greatness behind the Red Wings bench and on the ice (22 straight playoff appearances!), leading some to dub them the greatest franchise in pro sports. The team's integration of European and Soviet-style hockey strategies, best expressed by the famous Russian Five lineup, led the push to make hockey a truly international game.

3. When Hazen S. Pingree's potato patch inspired the nation to feed the hungry.

He was the greatest mayor Detroit would ever know. Hazen S. Pingree, an avowed social reformer and enemy of major corporations and monopolies, fought during his 1890-1897 tenure to expose corruption and negotiate fair costs for Detroiters. But Pingree is best remembered for his potato patch. The Panic of 1893 hit Detroit hard, and by late 1894, there was no money left to care for the poor. Pingree mounted an unprecedented public works campaign and opened the city’s massive holdings of vacant land for garden plots and potato patches. "Pingree’s potato patches broke the back of hunger," the Detroit Free Press later wrote, according to Historic Detroit. "They were nationally acclaimed and copied. They revealed a city of boundless energy and industry unwilling to live on doles."

Click HERE for the full article!