Next, we checked out the Heidelberg Project. This was our second walk-about during this tour.
Tyree Guyton attended the College for Creative Studies. He decided to take action to call attention to the plight of the urban poor by turning dilapidated houses and adjoining property into a large art installation.
At first glace, I thought it sort of amusing, that he had covered this building with stuffed animals, but the closer I look, the creepier it seems.........
Much less creepy -- heat-flattened bottles.
Totally not creepy -- smiling faces on the sidewalk. Though, I suppose, those are creepy, too, if you think of them as smiling faces getting walked on by people who Do Not Care....
Looking back at our bus.
It seemed very weird, in the distressed neighborhoods we drove through, to be riding up high in an air-conditioned tour bus, looking out at their uncomfortable circumstances.....
Paint on the trees, as well as the sidewalks.
The dots look very cheerful, but I suspect that if you got up close, you'd see something creepy.....
Dots on the road. With bus.
Some of the messages were spelled out.
Some weren't.
Speaking of creepy.....
An unspoken theme of this tour was barbed wire. We saw tons of it, here, there, all over the place......
Just beyond the end of the Heidelberg project, what looks like a beautifully pastoral "suburban" block. (I'll bet it isn't, but from here?)
Right, 90 degrees, from the above, is this lush garden of beans (and a little corn).
I had been wondering, looking at so very many vacantly green lots, where were the vegetables? Is it the case that people in these neighborhoods do not have the emotional wherewithal (or the knowledge?) to grow tomatoes, beans, squash.... These neighborhoods aren't exactly replete with farmers' markets, or even regular grocery stores.
If I were a crusader, maybe I'd come here and build vegetable gardens, and teach people how to take care of (and cook?) the veggies..................
In any case, I was glad to see all those beans (though I wonder if anyone is actually picking them -- they look like an untrammeled jungle.........).
Yet, again, something completely different -- less than two miles from the Heidelberg Project is the Indian Village neighborhood. Big, nice, houses, taken care of nicely.
Here are several, to give you an idea, taken from a moving bus.
In Ann Arbor, I'll bet the smallest of these would be over $500,000, easy, and the bigger ones closer to a million. Here, we were told, they are about $250,000.
I heard someone say "You could walk to work at the RenCen from here!" But googlemaps says it's 3.6 miles....... Not very far, but pretty far to walk.
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5 comments:
I'm loving these posts.
I've read that Detroit has become a mecca of sorts for artists looking to build a community on the cheap. Did y'all see any evidence of that?
Thanks!
The Heidelberg Project was the only non-sanctioned-by-people-with-lots-of-money art that we saw. Well, aside from graffiti, which may or may not be art, in my humble. :-)
There has to be a ton of cheap real estate, and given so many old dead factories, I'd think that loft-type space must be in excellent supply..... If those really nice Indian Village houses are a quarter of a million, run-down beat-up space has got to be really cheap.....
I forgot to say -- it was a reallly great tour. We saw so much, of such a variety of things! Good, bad (though I'm sure that compared to how bad it is, in some places, the "bad" we saw wasn't, very), art, trash, history, new-ness, factories, museums................. We saw contrast. We saw things we could relate to, and things we could not relate to............
What a great opportunity, to go with someone who knows Detroit so well, and be taken around in comfort to see so much.......... Very glad we went!
I agree! I might have to look for similar activities in my (very hot) neck of the woods this fall.
I feel lucky that this opportunity dropped into our laps!
It was hot on the 29th. Not compared to what Texas has been suffering, but hot, for here. It was a relief to get back on that air-conditioned bus after walking around at Hart Plaza........
It was enough later when we were at the Heidelberg Project that the sun was lower in the sky. And it was shadier there, too, than it had been downtown.
This is definitely one of our hottest summers ever.
I don't do heat well...........
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