Social media being what it is these days, what with the Russians and NSA and all the other people who lurk out there collecting stuff, I will jut say that I have a friend in Detroit who works downtown in the RenCen.
That friend keeps me abreast of some of the the things that are happening in the Motor City, which might actually be having a bit of a resurgence. Who would have thought of Ferndale as a hipster venue? I certainly hope the place is coming back- the poor old town has been so depressing for so long, and yet it refuses to die. Now that Chicago- famously claiming to be the “City that works” isn’t any more, perhaps we have pioneered the way to the abyss and are climbing (slowly) back out.
Considering that there was not much lower my bedraggled home town could go, and the simmering anger that is manifesting itself in towns that are still semi-functional, it would appear that most of the anger in Detroit has been burned out with much of the former Paris of the Midwest.
My friend included a note from the Detroit Historical Society about the anniversary of the opening of Cobo Hall, now known as Cobo Center, located right on the waterfront where Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac
waded up out of the Detroit River and claimed the area for the King of France, Louis XIV. Not that he would want it these days, but you never can tell. Detroit is a bit of an acquired taste. The Center is named for Albert Cobo, Mayor of the city from 1950 to 1957, and of whom, curiously, I have absolutely no memory. The last Mayor I remember before Coleman Young was Louie Miriani, the last Republican Mayor of Detroit.
I do have a memory of when the place opened on this day in 1960. The American Motors Rambler display from that year’s Autorama, which I also remember, is pictured below.
Mom had a 1961 Rambler American in which she dragged her brood around the suburbs in a time and place that is quite impossible to imagine if you were not there to see it.
I remember the event vividly. The Ford Rotunda had not burned down yet- the event in 1962 that in my mind started the Great Collapse- and Dad would take us to both places for significant automotive events. He took us to all sorts of things as a diligent father, including the arrival of the first Boeing 707 to Detroit Metro, which had replaced the old Ford bomber plant at Willow Run as the international airport serving what had been the fourth largest city in the United States (1920s). It doesn’t break the Top Ten these days, and tumbled down the list after the great insurrection that started on 12th Street in 1967.
Years and years later, in 2011, the Blonde and I were scheduled to attend the big DoD Intelligence IT conference that was scheduled to be held at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee when we were bumped for someone else with more cash. The only alternative was the Cobo Center, and we wound up staying at the hotel in the RenCen. On day three of the conference, we had seen all the booths and listened to all the nonsense we could handle and we rented a coach to take people from the conference on a private tour of town to see the ruins. We drove past Baker’s Keyboard Lounge, toured MoTown’s original location, the haunting Masonic Temple, the New Center former headquarters of GM and all the old cool stuff while swilling beers and vodka tonics. Most poignant was parking the bus at what had been home plate at Tiger Stadium at Corktown, in front of the amazing Michigan Central train station husk.
I am proud to say that I am a Detroit kid. Maybe the old town will show us a way out of the mess we have gotten ourselves into. Or maybe not. But it sure was a grand place.
Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com