  Tiorted Member Username: Tiorted Post Number: 15 Registered: 02-2006 |
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10 /04/us/04detroit.html By NICK BUNKLEY Published: October 4, 2006 DETROIT, Oct. 3 — If only this entire city could reverse its fortunes as quickly and dramatically as its baseball team has. The Tigers snapped a 12-season losing streak, and fans old and new came out to cheer them on Monday. Three years ago, the Detroit Tigers were a laughingstock, a once-great franchise that drove away fans while accumulating the second-worst record in major league history. This year, the Tigers not only snapped a streak of 12 losing seasons, but also held the best record in baseball for most of the summer. In doing so, the Tigers, who lost 8-4 to the New York Yankees on Tuesday in their first playoff appearance since 1987, have done more than just bring back October baseball to Detroit. Their resurgence has given residents hope that the Motor City can recapture some of its past glory, too. The remarkable run has been a rare source of optimism amid shrinking and closing factories that cost Michigan 200,000 manufacturing jobs from 2000 to last year, leaving it with the highest unemployment rate in the nation, 7.1 percent in August. “It’s good to have the Tigers back, because this is the heart and soul of the city of Detroit,” Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick said Monday at a rally outside Comerica Park, the Tigers’ home. The success has attracted hundreds of thousands of additional visitors to a downtown that even people living in the suburbs have largely ignored in recent years. Attendance at each game was 7,500 higher than last year, when it averaged 25,306. The influx of visitors is invaluable for a city that has desperately tried to fill vacant stores and fight perceptions that it is unsafe. Mr. Kilpatrick said 66 businesses and 38 restaurants had opened downtown since 2000, evidence, he said, that doubters were wrong “when they said in 1974, ‘The last person out of Detroit, please turn off the lights,’ and when they said Detroit was dead.” Chris Costa, a middle school teacher who attends many Tigers games every year, said: “People are more comfortable coming down here. Everybody’s jumping on the bandwagon, and that’s fine with me.” The transformation occurred almost as if the Chamber of Commerce had planned it. Detroit, whose population of 900,000 is half as large as it was 50 years ago, spent years improving the look of its downtown before crowds arrived in July 2005 for the All-Star Game at Comerica Park and in February for Super Bowl XL on the Detroit Lions’ adjacent home field. Efforts to revitalize the city core ahead of those events led to the construction of the first major new office buildings here in a decade and of residential lofts in long-abandoned high-rises. When the Super Bowl parties ended, many acknowledged that downtown looked more appealing than it had in a generation but wondered what would continue to draw people from the suburbs — until the Tigers established themselves as a postseason contender. “It’s been great for the city,” a lawyer here, Larry Dudek, said as he walked to the game on Sunday with his two sons. Mr. Dudek pointed to the new stores and restored facades along the main thoroughfare, Woodward Avenue. “Three years ago, this was literally just planks and busted-up storefronts,” he said. Brenda Cornelius, who worked downtown until the mid-1980’s, was pleased to see more activity as she walked to the game, her first since the Tigers moved to Comerica Park in 2000. “It’s changed a lot,” said Ms. Cornelius, who lives in Romulus, about 20 miles away, near Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. “I’ve been down here probably three times since then,” she added. “I used to shop in these stores down here.” Cheli’s Chili Bar, a four-story restaurant a block from Comerica Park that opened a week after the Super Bowl, was overwhelmed with diners all summer. Its owner, Chris Chelios, a defenseman on the Red Wings hockey team, hopes that people who ventured downtown to see the Tigers will return in the off-season, having been impressed by the growing number of restaurants and entertainment options. “We owe everything to the Tigers,” a manager at Cheli’s, Adam Reed, said. “There are so many new fans this year. Detroit has a bad reputation, but it was never as bad as people said it was.” Near the end of the Tigers’ season, a group of Detroit businessmen inspired by the pre- and postgame crowds announced plans for an entertainment district aimed at persuading suburbanites to visit downtown on evenings and weekends. The Tigers’ owner, Mike Ilitch, who built Comerica Park in a blighted area and moved the team there from Tiger Stadium six years ago, is negotiating with national retailers and a luxury grocery store that want to open in the neighborhood. The poorest large city in the United States, Detroit has few large grocery stores and has had no major department stores since the 25-story J. L. Hudson building closed in 1983. The new growth might spur Mr. Ilitch, founder of the Little Caesars pizza chain, to build a new hockey arena for his Red Wings nearby, replacing a collection of vacant lots and empty buildings. Detroit has always had a particularly close relationship with its sports teams, and none has arguably had a greater impact than the Tigers. Their 1968 World Series victory helped calm racial tension after deadly riots in 1967. And the struggles since its most recent championship season, in 1984, seemed to mirror Detroit’s woes as Japanese automakers challenged and ended the city’s dominance of the automotive industry. As Michigan’s largest employers, General Motors and Ford, eliminated thousands of jobs, the Tigers pushed some of the grim news off the front page. “People have been able to take their mind off of it because of what the Tigers have done,” said County Executive Robert A. Ficano of Wayne County, which includes Detroit. “There’s an energy that had been missing,” said Dave Gaines, who took his son Bryan, 15, to see the Tigers close their regular season at Comerica Park last weekend. “Now if the Lions would ever get their act together, this place would go nuts.” | ||
Dabirch Member Username: Dabirch Post Number: 1889 Registered: 06-2004 |
Bread and circus, baby. Bread and circus. | ||
Supersport Member Username: Supersport Post Number: 10720 Registered: 10-2003 |
Yes, because everybody knows that no Red Wing fans live in the suburbs. Not to mention, it's not like the Wings have been contenders since the mid 90's. Yawn. | ||
Cmubryan Member Username: Cmubryan Post Number: 301 Registered: 11-2003 |
"The poorest large city in the United States, Detroit has few large grocery stores and has had no major department stores since the 25-story J. L. Hudson building closed in 1983." Wrong-Crowleys was around well into the 1990s in New Center. | ||
Tiorted Member Username: Tiorted Post Number: 16 Registered: 02-2006 |
"The poorest large city in the United States, Detroit has few large grocery stores" There are plenty of "large" grocery stores in the city, its just that they are mostly independant, run down pits | ||
Itsjeff Member Username: Itsjeff Post Number: 6990 Registered: 10-2003 |
The national media needs to make up its mind. In the last two years I've seen as many stories talking about our comback as much those describing Detroit as a craphole. | ||
Focusonthed Member Username: Focusonthed Post Number: 495 Registered: 02-2006 |
I think for a city the size of Detroit (in area AND population), "few" is quite accurate. | ||
Upinottawa Member Username: Upinottawa Post Number: 549 Registered: 09-2005 |
Itsjeff: as you know, Detroit is a glass half-full and glass half-empty city. The national media is starting to see Detroit this way, rather than just focusing on the negatives. | ||
Detroit313 Member Username: Detroit313 Post Number: 200 Registered: 02-2006 |
Interesting way of looking at Detroit Upinottawa. 313 | ||
Mackinaw Member Username: Mackinaw Post Number: 2132 Registered: 02-2005 |
The NY Times covers us better than our own newspapers. It dealt in generalizations at times, but turned out to be a good piece of writing. | ||
Sparty Member Username: Sparty Post Number: 206 Registered: 02-2004 |
The writer of the story used to work at The Detroit News | ||
Southwestmap Member Username: Southwestmap Post Number: 602 Registered: 01-2005 |
Bumping this a little: who else now writing for the New York Times used to work for Detroit papers? I remember when NYT Fashion writer Cathy Horyn worked for the Free Press. I can't remember if NYT sports writer Joe Lapointe worked in Detroit, but he was a neighbor of mine growing up on the east side. I'm pretty sure that Frank Bruni worked here. I'm always amazed at how mean and judgemental the Times editorial stance is toward Detroit when so many of the bright stars came from here. | ||
Innovator Member Username: Innovator Post Number: 28 Registered: 07-2006 |
Where has the NYT been "mean and judgemental" towards Detroit in an article? | ||
Scottr Member Username: Scottr Post Number: 55 Registered: 07-2006 |
the writer was right, this is almost as if the chamber of commerce planned it - in fact, i don't think anyone would have ever imagined this, let alone plan it. the super bowl may have shown the world that detroit isn't so bad, but bringing 30-40,000+ fans downtown for 81 games during the summer (when it's definitely more pleasant to walk around) will go much further to proving it to the suburban residents. The view of downtown from the stands doesn't hurt either. not much can compete with a baseball game downtown on a beautiful summer day. as for supersports comparison to the red wings, the joe only holds 20,000 and only has half the games, and during the winter at that. i love the wings, and hockey, but there really is no comparison, especially when it comes to benefiting downtown detroit. now imagine if we didn't have the super bowl, or if this season had happened a few years ago, before the super bowl improvements happened. really, the timing of all this couldn't be better. | ||
Innovator Member Username: Innovator Post Number: 29 Registered: 07-2006 |
wow. I did not know that "bread and circuses" was a term that had been used before (in terms of the Detroit area), Dabirch. This is from a 1983 (a little bit before my time) NYT article on the city: "If bending metal and making cars is not the guarantee of prosperity it once was, however, Detroit has nevertheless used its strengths to score some small triumphs in the area that has come to be called ''bread and circuses.'' The big car makers applied some muscle to make the city North America's last downtown Grand Prix auto racing circuit, and offshore-class speedboat racing has been added to Detroit's historical role as the site of unlimited hydroplane racing. All of this helped pull into downtown Detroit thousands of suburbanites who had long since stopped considering the city their own. And in September the Montreux Jazz Festival will draw musicians from around the world." | ||
Ray Member Username: Ray Post Number: 800 Registered: 06-2004 |
This is not bad publicity. | ||
Jjaba Member Username: Jjaba Post Number: 4383 Registered: 11-2003 |
Ther NY Times doesn't do neighborhoods. That's the real truth about Detroit. jjaba. | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 2900 Registered: 08-2004 |
The NYT did an awesome article several years ago on the Detroit Opera House. They were in disbelief that an old Vaudeville barn could be restored into such an accoustically perfect and magnificently opulent venue that even the greatest of the worlds Opera stars have been clamoring to perform in. They said that Detroit got performers that usually only go to New York or San Francisco, if anywhere in the USA. And that Detroit was now becoming one of the premier Opera cities in the USA. | ||
Ray Member Username: Ray Post Number: 802 Registered: 06-2004 |
The productions at the Detroit Opera House are really good. I was thrilled (and totally shocked) when I went to my first Detroit opera last year. It's the real deal. A cretin like me can't tell it apart from SF or Chicago. I'm sure the pros would pick us apart, but I was totally impressed. |
