Started From The Bottom Now We....

Hey you just moved here? Welcome to Detroit! I’m glad you decided to join us. I know, I know. It took you awhile to actually find a decent apartment, with Midtown, and Corktown so full. Where did you end up moving? Oh Indian Village good for you! So real quick let’s go over some things you’ll need to know now that you moved into our beautiful city. The Club? Ok good. The phone number to a car window replacement shop? Great! The number to the Police? Ha! Just kidding! They won’t show up anyway…Here's a question though.

Seriously though, what the fuck?

When you live in Detroit you have to look commonsense in the face at some point and ask that very question. 

Seriously, what the fuck?

Most of your days are spent in this sort of hypnotic kumbaya. Moving around with horse blinders on to the sense of reality that is unraveling before you. Your perpetual orb of optimism cannot burst as people rattle off the facts of crime, the police response to crime, bankruptcy, theft, blah, blah, blah. Fuck it. Those facts can be ignored since it’s nearly impossible to find a decent place in the city because they’re all rented up. Everywhere I go I’m seeing more people opening businesses, buying homes, riding their bikes, but occasionally it all has to come crashing down.

Because this city is fucking retarded.

Detroit is like someone who ate bad sushi the night before. They can’t stop throwing up or shitting and they don’t know which to fix first so they keep puking and shitting till they’re lying on the floor dying. On top of all that they’re really excited to eat the leftovers when they feel better. They just can’t fix it because they don’t know where to start.  All these feelings came about when I saw this.

Now, I’m not any sort of architectural expert but this building looks pretty pristine.  You look at that building and wonder why on God’s earth would anyone tear this building down and there’s no way the city will allow it. Then reality starts to creep in. And let the shitting commence.  Detroit has no idea what to do with anything.  When everyone took off to the burbs Detroit became a sort of a scumbag Monopoly game set for a bunch of rich dudes. Now they just sit on ass while their buildings collapse waiting for some guy with moneybags to ride in on a unicorn.

For example:
Look at the CPA building across the street from the now infamous train station. The dipshit is asking 1.2 million dollars for that building. Which probably won’t happen BUT might’ve had a better chance if it remained functional which it was ten years ago when it was occupied.  I’ve heard that the city actually came in and shut the building down because the owner was stealing power. Wait it gets better! The building got completely scrapped and on top of all that a man who was living on the second floor would walk up to the third floor and use a room for a toilet. Now there's a room in that building completely full of shit (TRUE STORY).

That is/was a beautiful building. Now it’s going to sit there until a bum fire turns it to ash because the city doesn’t have the balls to ticket him for violations for fear of this guy’s scumbag lawyers.  Not like city has anywhere to talk when it comes to their buildings.
Take the Burton International School on Pine Street and Trumbull.  The school closed probably no more than five years ago and I took a special liking to it because it has a full court basketball hoop right in front of it.  All day and night I’d play pick up games with whoever passed by.  I remember playing one on one with a pastor, and with a young kid who was walking home from the hospital after getting a cast for his broken arm all in the same day.  I would dream about owning that building. I had no real idea what I would do with it but its beauty roused in me a sense of responsibility. I felt it was my duty to make sure this building didn’t end up like the constant stream of destroyed buildings decorated across our city. One day I ran into a gentleman who intended to buy the building. His idea was that he would turn the building into a business incubator. It would have an array of services that included a full sized industrial kitchen and people on-site to help with your business plan. People would rent a classroom for a hundred dollars and it would give them full access to everything. He wasn’t full of shit either.  I saw him over months where he introduced me to business partners and a small staff that was appraising the building. He would offer to give me a tour of the building. He was legit.  One day I ran into one of his staff and I asked her how it was going. 

This is why we can’t have nice things

She proceeded to tell me that in negotiations for the building the city had the power shut off.  Everyone started calling frantically reminding the city that when you cut the power you CUT THE ALARM. They would call everyday, and the city said they were taking care of it.  Which of course they never did and scrappers came in and caused three hundred thousand dollars in damage to the building. Tearing through walls for tiny pieces of whatever in the plumbing, throwing radiators down stairs.  With that the deal fell through and the city has another building that they let funnel down the toilet.  I was so fucking furious. If I saw a city official in that moment I would’ve worn their face Silence of The Lambs style. It’s so frustrating.  Fuck it let’s get a pizza.