DETROIT

In my quest to visit all 50 states, I must admit, seeing Detroit was not high on my list. I always imagined seeing the picturesque Mackinac Island while traversing northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula like Ernest Hemingway, drunk in a canoe. But when Alex found cheap direct flights from Huntsville to Detroit, I thought “eh, why not give it a chance? I like Motown!” I am very happy to say I was sorely mistaken in underestimating Detroit. Now that I have seen every midwestern state, I must say Detroit is the most beautiful, second only to Chicago. Detroit is committed to retro, which I love. The city reached its pinnacle in the 1960s, and even though sadly the riots of the 70s, the housing market bubble bursting, and the outsourcing of manufacturing have hit the city hard, there’s a strong effort to revitalize the city, which is still very much connected to its American-dream roots: the spirit of innovation.

(P.S. For more pictures and videos of my adventure in Motor City, follow me on https://www.instagram.com/rebeccamcqueenwrites/)

I want to give a special shout-out to my friend Kelcey, who recommended these places to me!

WHAT TO SEE

Downtown

I found downtown Detroit to be one of the most walkable and well-organized cities in the Midwest. I don’t know who the city planner was, but it’s as well-planned… as… well a Google search shows me that it the city architect was none other than Pierre Charles L’enfant, who designed Washington, DC. So yeah, that makes sense. The two most organized cities in America were designed by the same Frenchman. Have you ever strolled down the Champs Elysees in Paris, and you’re like “man I’m loving how organized and easy to traverse this is” and then you visit to the Washington Mall in DC and you’re like “oh okay so a French person designed this”?? Well Detroit has the same kind of thing going on. Downtown starts on the Detroit River. On the other side is Canada. From the Riverfront, the city has a spoke-and-wheel map: the roads are in a grid, but there’s four major roads stretching out from where I’m guessing the main port was. The middle road, Woodward Ave, stretches allllllll the way up Detroit, connecting every suburb of Detroit all the way to Flint. And if you look at a map, Woodward basically turns into I75, which goes all the way across the mitten, across Mackinac Island, to the Upper Peninsula. I’ll talk more about Woodward later, but my point is that downtown Detroit is well-planned, walkable, and I felt pretty safe. I definitely felt safer walking around downtown Detroit than I did anywhere in Atlanta, and I go there all the time. 

Riverfront/Spirit of Detroit: Labor Day weekend is Detroit’s annual Jazz Festival–which was free! It was so fun walking around downtown, listening to jazz, shopping from local street vendors. I’m guessing that like Atlanta, Detroit has all kinds of festivals going on downtown all year. But I’d recommend spending a Labor Day weekend here because the weather was great, and it was free! While you’re downtown, make sure to look at three monuments: 1) The Spirit of Detroit, which kind of looks like Prometheus, except much more positive. A green man holds a golden sun and a family with their arms held heavenward. The idea is that the spirit of God comes to man through family. It looks classic and timeless, but it also has the 1950s vibe that makes Detroit so charmingly retro. 2) The Gateway to Freedom Monument: just down the road (Woodward Ave) from the Spirit of Detroit is this hopeful yet somber monument to the Underground Railroad. 45,000 escaped slaves made their way to freedom through Detroit. I mean you can see Canada right there on the other side of the canal. It’s heart-wrenching to think of what hell the 45,000 went through, and this is the end of the road: freedom is right there, so close you can touch it. There’s an Underground Railroad stop in Downtown Huntsville, and thinking about the trip from here to there is… incomprehensible. 3) The Fist, a monument to boxer Joe Louis, is in between these two monuments. It’s cool and famous, but no offense to Joe Louis but I found the other two monuments to be personally striking (lol… cuz its a fist).

Guardian Building: Now that I’ve pretty much seen most of the major Midwestern cities, I notice that the Midwest has the prettiest architecture in America. I know I’m supposed to say NYC, but NYC has so many different architectural styles going on, it’s like a universe. The Midwest was established at a great time in American history: when innovation enabled style and substance in skyscrapers. What I mean is this: Boston (sorry) is one of the ugliest cities I’ve been to, and that makes sense, because those guys were just building brick houses as fast as they could to keep from freezing in the 1700s. The South is all Antebellum architecture which excuse me but SNORRRRE all these columns and plantations and hokey-pokey-Greek-revival buildings bore me to tears. The Midwest was established in the late 1800s, a time where people weren’t like “aaahh just build the buildings go go go” but could actually plan a city, with parks and museums and trolleys and electricity later, and then in the 1900s those cities were established enough to really build some great towers. So you have all these beautiful parks and nice tree-lined roads, and you have gorgeous skyscrapers that are beautiful tributes to Art Nouveau and Art Deco. And those two styles are where it’s at; Greek Revival can kiss my butt. Detroit’s skyscrapers are almost all Art Deco, and each one is a gem, but the Guardian is the cherry on top.

Okay, that was a tangent, but if you were like “yass queen art deco rocks” then GO SEE THE GUARDIAN BUILDING!! I mean this girl is beautiful from the inside out and she’s open 24/7. It’s like Art Deco meets Native American Huron art… it’s so, so beautiful.

Fox Theatre: oh my lord. What a theater. I mean just Google the inside of it. Wow. If you get a chance, see a show or a ghost tour or something in there. All the Motown greats have performed there, but chances are your favorite artist performed there too. And they were also going “wooowwww” when they were onstage.

Midway: A free retro park! 1970s-style roller skating, minigolf, swings, seesaws, basketball, tennis/pickleball, all with 70s-style stripes and murals everywhere. Joyful, family-friendly but also date-night-worthy, everyone’s having fun, and FREE!

Woodward Ave

Okay so you walked all around Downtown, now you want to see the rest of the city. You’ll be able to see pretty much all of these sites cruising down Woodward. Detroit has like over 60% of its population since its heyday in the 1950s; there are 50,000 abandoned buildings in the metro area. When I read that statistic, I was like “yikes”, but I gotta say, it’s weirdly charming. It gives the city a sense of being lost in time. Detroit is now bulldozing most of those abandoned houses, including Eminem’s childhood home off of 8 Mile, the one from The Marshall Mathers LP (take my advice… don’t drive all the way out to 8 Mile to see the empty lot unless you are the stanniest of Stans). Woodward Ave shows you the old Detroit, the 1950s utopia that once was.

Ford Piquette Building: My favorite part of the Library of Congress is this fresco that shows different countries’ contributions to humanity. America’s contribution to the world is invention and innovation, especially from the 19th century onward. I mean, look around you right now. Every modern invention used by humans today was either invented or innovated by Americans. Harnessing electricity through alternating currents? Lightbulbs? Computers? The internet? Telephones? The miracle of human flight? Going to the dadgum moon? Americans contributed to all of these feats of man.

So let’s give Henry Ford his due. (Even though, like Charles Lindburgh and Walt Disney and many other American innovators, he was super antisemitic and shouldn’t be lionized.) Did Henry Ford invent the car? No. Americans didn’t invent moving pictures either, but we sure invented Hollywood. Henry Ford’s contribution to assembly lines and mass production is what launched us into the modern age. INNOVATION. And it all started at the little ol’ Ford Piquette Building. Go see where the Model T was developed. The Model T factory, Highland Park Plant, is run-down and abandoned, but worth seeing as you pass it on Woodward. The Ford Piquette Building is the real museum. If you want, you can drive 15 mins west to Dearborn and visit the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, but it’s out of your way and tickets are $35, so… Piquette.

Motown Museum: BUY TICKETS IN ADVANCE. Look, this is one of the biggest tourist destinations in the city. It’s really cool. Unlike Capitol or Columbia Records, Motown is surprisingly grassroots. Barry Gordy, Jr. just scooped up talent from Detroit and the Midwest with the same idea as Henry Ford: mass production assembly line of major stars. But when you see where Hitsville USA is located, you’re like “man this really is a neighborhood gig”. Barry Gordy bought all the houses within the block and allocated each house to handle a different aspect of the record company as it grew. The second house, Hitsville USA, is where “My Girl” and “I Want You Back” were recorded, as well as pretty much every popular song played at the beginning of wedding receptions. And it really is just in some house’s basement.

Birmingham and Ferndale: Check out the suburbs on Woodward. Personally, I liked Ferndale more than Birmingham. Every big city has a cute lil’ suburb that’s been gentrified and snatched to the gods: in Birmingham it’s Homewood, in Nashville it’s Franklin, in Brooklyn it’s Williamsburg. Birmingham is that suburb in Detroit. Cute shopping, good parking. But if you’re like me, you want to know where all the gays live, because that is the true epicenter of culture and commerce. You know how on Bourbon Street, there’s the gross Hustler side, and on the other end there’s the cool gay side with Lafittes? Same basic principle. Ferndale is more retro, crunchy, and brunchy. Lots of 50s-style restaurants that have been renovated. Ferndale is also where the zoo and the aquarium are located, but if you have one weekend to see Detroit, why zoos?? I would do Motown in the morning, stop for lunch in Ferndale, see the Ford Piquette Building, see the Whitney, then head back to downtown.

SPORTS!

Detroit has sports! And if your husband is a huge sports history nerd like mine, then you need to carve out time to see some kind of sporting event! You could see the Lions play at Ford Field, but it’s more fun to go to beautiful Ann Arbor for a half day and cheer on the Wolverines. The University of Michigan’s campus is gorgeous; definitely see the law school quad. You can listen to little freshmen whine about their loser boyfriends while their mascara-tinted tears drop into their White Claws, and you can reminisce on easier times.

OR… go to Comerica Park to watch the Tigers! I gotta say, Wrigley Field is the coolest stadium I’ve ever been to, but this is a very, very close second. It’s new, but it’s tigers-and-art-deco-themed. Very pretty. Also, if you or your loved ones are sports history buffs, check out the old site of the former Tigers Stadium, which was one of the oldest stadiums in America.

WHERE TO EAT

Coney Islands, Soft Serve, and Detroit Style Pizza. These encapsulate the Holy Trinity of Detroit Delicacies. (There’s an argument to made for sliders and corned beef, but go with me here.) When I say Coney Islands, I don’t mean it’s a chain. I mean the people are obsessed with chili cheese dogs and they call them Coney Islands here. Here’s how the legend goes: Gust Keros, a Greek immigrant, moves to Detroit and opens “American Coney Island”, specializing in Coney Island hot dogs like what he ate passing through Ellis Island. In 1924, he brings his brother William over to help with the business, except the storefront right next to American Coney Island opens up on Lafayette St, so William buys it and opens his own Coney Island restaurant. Let me make this clear: Coney Islands aren’t a chain; they’re a hot dog. It was a completely different restaurant serving exactly the same thing, and they’re still right next to each other to this day. There’s Coney Island restaurants all over Detroit, but go to American Coney Island or Lafayette Coney Island for a legendary experience.

I don’t know why, but folks from Detroit go nuts for some soft serve. A waiter asked if we wanted dessert, and we replied we were saving room for soft serve later, and I watched his eyes physically light up. With joy. And he immediately recommended a place. I would recommend Huddle Soft Serve because it’s going to be close to all the cool bars you’re going to hit up. Mr. Dips is on the same block, but Huddle has a more retro feel, plus it’s open late. Buyer beware: if you might want to go for a kid’s size cone. This soft serve is richhhh.

Alright, now it’s time for pizza. I’m not gonna lie to you: I didn’t even want to eat the pizza here. I am so, so against Sicilian-style pizza. I’ll eat deep dish before I eat a bunch of toppings on basically ciabatta bread. BROOKLYN STYLE IS THE SUPERIOR PIZZA. Actually, no. Eating a so-delicious-it-will-make-you-cry-Neapolitan pizza on the Amalfi coast is the superior pizza. BUT Brooklyn’s floppy folded pizza is a close second. However, I opened my mind enough to try Detroit pizza at Como’s, a vintage Italian eatery in Ferndale. I love a veggie pizza, and I think that’s what enabled me to enjoy Detroit style: a Brooklyn style pizza could never hold all the delicious chunky veggies, but a Detroit pizza has the girth to withstand a lot of crunchy toppings. Plus, dipping pizza in ranch (gross) becomes delicious when you’re dipping broccoli, caramelized onions, and marinated tomatoes. Then it’s basically a salad, right??

The Whitney. The Whitney is an old Victorian (haunted??) mansion right on Woodward. (Remember when I said you could see all the sights driving on one road?) David Whitney, a lumber baron, had the house built but didn’t live in it for very long. Similar to the Vanderbilts and Biltmore, the late 1800s are a really interesting time: these magnate families come into a LOT of money because of westward expansion, they build HUGE houses for themselves like what’s in Europe, except those European manors took forever to build, so the magnates don’t get to live in the house for very long (what, 50 years at most?) before the Great Depression hits, and then the big house is turned into a museum, or in this case, a restaurant. This mansion is GORGEOUS, with big stained-glass windows from Tiffany’s. People come here for their 50th wedding anniversary, so unless you want to ball out, I would hit up Ghostbar at the top of the mansion, where David Whitney’s reflection can often be seen in the bar mirror. You can get a nice cocktail around 4-5 and get good and haunted on your way back to downtown before a rowdy evening out. If you like IPAs, they have a David Whitney’s ghost-themed beer with a holographic can.

Greektown. As I said, Detroit has a huge Greek and Middle-Eastern population. Do yourself a favor and head to Greektown, a small part of Downtown. There’s about ten square blocks between Fox Theatre and the riverfront, and that’s where most of the cool bars are. Very walkable and well-lit. I would eat in Greektown and then bar-hop. We went to Pegasus, which is below a casino, so if you like casinos that’s an option. I’ve also heard Golden Fleece is good, and it’s right across the street. Do yourself a favor and get a Greek salad. I know, I know. It sounds basic. But the size and flavor of these salads would make Zeus himself feel puny. This salad is like if Zeus turned into a salad to try to seduce the prettiest girl in Detroit. This illustration is getting away from me. Also get lamb, just like Aunt Voula told you.

Bars. This doesn’t count as a bar but people were wildin’ on pedal carts, so if that’s your vibe or if you’ve never tried one, this might be your opportunity. I think if you stay within the bottom right quarter of downtown, you’ll like wherever you go. Two retro bars I’d recommend are Sid Gold’s Request Room and Candy Bar. Sid Gold’s is a piano bar with a 1960s lounge feel, painted sunset ceiling in the bar and night sky in the lounge. Candy Bar is a lot like Tiny Lou’s in Atlanta: a very chic bar in a boutique hotel. The Skip is a tiki bar, Standby is a speakeasy, and there’s plenty of open-air bars with dancing and good music. But I would prioritize Sid Gold’s and make a reservation for Candy Bar, in keeping with Detroit’s blast from the past vibe.