Last night a couple of friends and I went to see The Price Is Right Live at The Masonic Temple in Detroit.
The show was alright, it was about what I expected. We had fun, none of us won anything, but a lot of people were very excited and cheered loudly for a little bit. Good Time.
But the show came and went and left me thinking about the grassy lots of Detroit.
If you know anything about Detroit over the past 20-30 years, you know that the area surrounding the Masonic Temple has been, let's say, 10-20 square blocks of the worst parts of Requiem For a Dream or Trainspotting. It has not been a place you'd want to be without a group of friends, a gun, and lots of daylight.
Last night parking was scarce so I parked 2 blocks north of the theatre on a street that was for the most part abandoned. But just ahead of where I parked was a small building and through the windows sat white table cloths adorning well appointed tables with modern decor and candles around. It was 4:00, only a few people were in there. We came back to my car at 5:15 and it was packed with well-dressed suburbanites and urbanites enjoying dinner before a night on the town. Their cars parked next door on a grassy lot.
All around me on this street, Peterboro, were grassy lots.
The City of Detroit is full of grassy lots. They are everywhere.
Empty spaces that once held businesses, homes, apartment buildings. All gone as the tide of economic, cultural, and racial change swept through the midwest.
Today, in these empty spaces waits opportunity. Like the open fields of an 1800's land rush, these spaces wait for someone to claim them as their own.
And people are doing that. Block by block the city is returning to life. People are taking chances and digging their roots into those grassy lots and building up a community again breathing hope into places once filled with despair.