Detroit Archives

Dr. David DiChiera, Composer, Founder/Director, Michigan Opera Theater in the lobby of MOT after restoration. 1999

Jorge and Grandpa cooling off under the fire hydrant, Bagley St. SW Detroit Summer 1994

Nightclub Owner Amir with assistant, The Shelter, Detroit. 1990s I think.

The staff at Todd's Seven Mile Road near VanDyke, Detroit mid 1980s

The manager at Todd's Seven Mile Road near Van Dyke, Detroit mid 1980s

Dymytro Szylak, Retired Auto Worker, creator of Hamtramck Disneyland, Summer 2007

WW2 Vet Sgt. Russ in front of his tiny barber shop, 1988. Russ died of a heart attack in the shop while working in 1990.

Ernie Harwell in Old Tiger Stadium, Michigan and Trumbull Ave, Detroit 1999

Burger guys, Michigan State Fair Summer 1985

Saturday Night at the Old Miami, Cass Corridor. photographed for Detroit Monthly, 1986.

Slum Village at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, Detroit Mi May 2000

Carl Craig at Fuse In (Detroit Electronic Music Festival 2005)

Audra Kubat, Detroit 2005

Albert of Albert's Hamburgers, a fixture in Old Redford (Northwest Detroit, where I grew up) Albert had been an active part of the community but was sadly killed in a robbery. Photographed in 1988.

Emma V and client, Grand River Baths, Northwest Detroit 1988. GR Baths was in one of the last old farmhouses along Grand River near Greenfield. The area was mass developed in the late 1920s, a cemetery at GR/Greenfield was removed for a Montgomery Wards Store. My grandparents once lived nearby.

The Legendary Detroit Poet Jim Gusfafson, reading at a literary salon at Alvins, Cass Ave, Detroit 1986

Detroit just sits there

like the head of a large dog on a serving platter.

It lurks in the middle of a continent,

or passes itself off as a civilization dangling at the end of a rope.

The lumpiness of the skyline

is the lumpiness of a sheet stretched over

what’s left of a tender young body.

Detroit groans and aches and oppresses.

It amounts to Saturday night at a slaughter house,

and Sunday morning bed

with a bag of bagels and the Special Obituary Supplement.

Air the color of brown Necco wafers,

a taste like the floor of an adult movie theater,

the movement through the streets

that of a legless wingless pigeon.

Detroit means lovers buying matching guns,

visitors taken on tours of foundries,

children born with all their teeth,

a deep scarlet kind of fear;

It breeds a unique bitterness,

one that leaves deep deep gashes in the tongue;

that doesn’t answer telephones or letters,

that carves notches in everything,

that illustrates the difference between

“rise up singing” and “sit down and shut your face.”

It forms a special fondness for uncooked bacon,

for the smell of parking lots,

for police sirens as opposed to ambulance sirens,

for honest people who move their heads whenever they move their eyes.

Detroit is the greasy enchilada

smeared across the face of a dilemma,

the sanctuary of the living dead,

the home of Anywhere But Here travel agency,

the outhouse at the end of the rainbow.

Detroit just sits there

drinking can after can of Dupe beer,

checking the locks on the windows,

sighing deeply,

know that nothing

can save it now.

A misty autumn Poetry Night at Alvins, Cass Ave Detroit 1986

Hamtramck Disneyland, Hamtramck MI Summer 2007

Gina's Beauty Salon, long a fixture of Joseph Campau decorated for the visit of the Pope, Hamtramck MI 1987

The quintessential Hamtramck Grandma, watching the visit of the Pope, Hamtramck MI 1987

The owner of a furniture store that sells faux-French Baroque furniture, Royal Oak MI 1986 for Detroit Monthly Magazine.

W. Jefferson Avenue. Delray, once a thriving enclave of Hungarian-American Culture. By 1986, much of the population had left, perhaps because of the terrible air quality (Oil Refineries, coke smelting and a large sewage treatment plant surrounded the neighborhood)

Lutheran Church Congregation, 1986. Delray, once a thriving enclave of Hungarian-American Culture. By 1986, much of the population had left, perhaps because of the terrible air quality (Oil Refineries, coke smelting and a large sewage treatment plant surrounded the neighborhood)

W. Jefferson Avenue. Delray, once a thriving enclave of Hungarian-American Culture. By 1986, much of the population had left, perhaps because of the terrible air quality (Oil Refineries, coke smelting and a large sewage treatment plant surrounded the neighborhood)

Retired UAW member, Detroit/Delray 1986. Delray was once a thriving enclave of Hungarian-American Culture. By the mid 1980s, much of the population had left, perhaps because of the terrible air quality (Oil Refineries, coke smelting and a large sewage treatment plant surrounded the neighborhood) .