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amanda_loddenI often stumble on webpages that spark a desire to write something about them. 99% of the time, I don't do it right away-- sometimes because I don't feel that I have time, sometimes because I don't feel that the thoughts I want to write have coalesced into something coherent. When that happens, I just add the page as a bookmark and move on, in the hopes that I will someday come back to it when I feel more comfortable writing about it.
At some point in the past, I stumbled into Photos from Detroit's Golden Age, and it ended up as a bookmark to write about.
I was born in the suburbs, and I grew up in the suburbs. For much of my childhood, the mantra was "never go south of Eight Mile" because it wasn't safe. It's poppycock, of course-- Eight Mile is not a magical barrier in which one side is "safe" and the other "not safe". But it's also a pervasive attitude amongst suburbanites.
My mother, on the other hand, was born in Detroit. Not "the metro Detroit area" but actual, honest-to-god Detroit. My grandmother often told stories of living in Detroit, but they were always just-before-they-moved stories, in which they were repeatedly burgled, so much so that she just stopped replacing her wedding ring. This view of Detroit has been reinforced by adult visits which started out in "a good area" but ended up going just a little too far out of bounds.
So I've never, ever had a good view of Detroit. I was vaguely aware that it wasn't always as bad as it is now, but I've never been able to picture that. The idea that my mother not only went to high school in Detroit but also rode the public busses to and from school struck me as completely, utterly terrifying.
The photos on that website are simply amazing, especially the videos at the end. It feels like a completely different city that just happens to have the same name... except that I recognize certain areas like Campus Martius. It also makes me incredibly sad to see just how far the city has fallen.
At some point in the past, I stumbled into Photos from Detroit's Golden Age, and it ended up as a bookmark to write about.
I was born in the suburbs, and I grew up in the suburbs. For much of my childhood, the mantra was "never go south of Eight Mile" because it wasn't safe. It's poppycock, of course-- Eight Mile is not a magical barrier in which one side is "safe" and the other "not safe". But it's also a pervasive attitude amongst suburbanites.
My mother, on the other hand, was born in Detroit. Not "the metro Detroit area" but actual, honest-to-god Detroit. My grandmother often told stories of living in Detroit, but they were always just-before-they-moved stories, in which they were repeatedly burgled, so much so that she just stopped replacing her wedding ring. This view of Detroit has been reinforced by adult visits which started out in "a good area" but ended up going just a little too far out of bounds.
So I've never, ever had a good view of Detroit. I was vaguely aware that it wasn't always as bad as it is now, but I've never been able to picture that. The idea that my mother not only went to high school in Detroit but also rode the public busses to and from school struck me as completely, utterly terrifying.
The photos on that website are simply amazing, especially the videos at the end. It feels like a completely different city that just happens to have the same name... except that I recognize certain areas like Campus Martius. It also makes me incredibly sad to see just how far the city has fallen.
