Adventure #81: Detroit, Michigan

The year is 2013. Detroit lies in ruins. Roving packs of Juggalo roam free. They are the law. And the only hope lies in one penguin. This penguin. This is Pen Pen being this penguin.

At the show in Wyandotte, the state of Detroit was a constant and unavoidable topic of conversation. How did it happen? Can we fix it? Should we fix it? Statistics were cited. Population numbers. Demographics. Budgets. These sorts of things are easy to talk about with numbers, because how it effects individuals is hard to talk about. Because no matter the solution, someone will be hurt. Someone's way of life will be disrupted. And no-one wants to be the one to say “This group. This is the group that should get screwed so the city can rebound.” So we talk about “greedy unions” but not the retired union members barely scraping by on their state pensions. We talk about the drugs and the crime but not the hopelessness of the people who feel they have no other escape. We talk about developers coming in and “revitalizing” neighborhoods, but not the people who have lived there their whole lives and are suddenly being priced out because their neighborhood is “rebounding.” This is Pen Pen and Detroit, both debatably alive.

So I woke up after the show at the Rockery with the king of all hangovers, determined to head downtown and just see for myself. I didn't really have a plan. Just a camera and a few hours of free time and a nagging urge to feel what a dying city feels like. This is Pen Pen and the source of some really really weird dreams (not pictured: whiskey).

I headed downtown and pulled off the highway. Rows of abandoned buildings sprouted up like weeds; boarded up windows were the norm. A massive building with classic early 20^th century architecture lay gutted, it's windows broken, surrounded by rows of barbed wire. You could tell the difference between a property that had been abandoned and one whose owners were simply waiting to see how this all turned out to rebuild by the amount barbed wire lining its periphery. This is Pen Pen and devastation and neglect.

As I wandered around the property, I was approached by two guards. Troy and Kevin. (I will never forgive Kevin for not being named Abed. Because references to beloved but poorly rated TV shows is the sort of thing Troy and Abed do! Meta meta.) “What are you doing?” Kevin-called-Abed asked. “Just taking some pictures,” I said, hiding the stuffed penguin that one could accuse me of using to trivialize and mock the economic hardship of Detroit. “You're not tagging, are you?” “Nope. Just taking some pictures.” I hold up my bag, volunteering. “You can search it if you want. No spray paint.” The tension subsides. All morning I've been feeling a palpable tension from just about everyone I've encountered. Sideways glances and a thread of suspicion in their voices. This is Pen Pen not tagging.

Still not tagging.

Not even this one. (No, seriously!)

I end up in an interesting conversation with Troy and Kevin. Troy is soft spoken and warm. Kevin is opinionated and stern, but not unfriendly. They tell me it's going to cost some $20 million to restore the building, but the owner is in his 70's and isn't interested in doing it. He's hoping for some investors to come in and share the cost so he wont have to take a potential loss on his own. Kevin talks a lot about revitalization. He feels like the news isn't showing that Detroit is coming back. He seems personally hurt by some graffiti that says “Hipsters Go Home.” (I couldn't find it or you'd be damn sure there'd be a picture here...) I tell him maybe some folks are scared that “revitalization” means gentrification and some people wont be able to afford the homes they've had for 20 years anymore. He responds with a shrug. “All I mean to say is that there's hope. Make sure you tell people there's hope.” Shortly after my chat with Troy and Kevin in the morning, I'd find some hope. This is Pen Pen still not tagging.

I wander by a burned out hotel. Gutted and covered with rubble. Then something catches my eye around the back; a familiar line of fake green grass. 18 little white signs. I laugh as I realize in the back yard of this corpse of a building someone has built a mini-golf course. And suddenly I start to see how Kevin can be right. There is hope. But it's not about tearing down abandoned buildings so high priced boutiques can take their place operating at a fraction of the cost of anywhere else. It's about free public art. It's about urban farming. It's about community building. It's about using the land that capitalism abandoned for projects that wouldn't be feasible anywhere else. This is Pen Pen and hope.

I get back in the Hatchback of Notre Dame (noting that basically everyone in Detroit also drives PT Cruisers) and headed off arbitrarily. I come across St. Aubin street thinking at worst I'd take a picture of street signs and send them off to my buddy Drew St. Aubin. This is Pen Pen buying Drew a hotel.

The Danny Brown song “Fields” runs through my head as I walk by rows of abandoned lots interspersed with dilapidated houses. The neighborhood is eerily quiet. I wonder how many of these houses are still occupied. Many of them, I bet. This is Danny Brown being awesome.

For the first time in all of my years of going places I probably shouldn't go, I realize I'm actually afraid. Maybe it's the total lack of people on the street. Maybe it's the way the few cars that drive by slow down to take a look at me. Maybe it's the way relics of recent habitation cover the ground around spaces that look to have been long abandoned. A car that had slowed down to take a look at me earlier turns around and heads back towards me on an otherwise desolate street. Paranoia sets in. I've strayed too far from my car to make it back, and it's not like there's anywhere to hide among the rows of abandoned lots. No-one knows I'm here, and it's not exactly a heavily trafficked area. They drive by again, this time without slowing down. They continue up the road. I feel like an idiot, but conclude taking some pictures of a stuffed penguin posing in front of graffiti in abandoned warehouses is probably not actually worth the anxiety, so I head back to the car. This is Pen Pen posing in front of graffiti in an abandoned warehouse.

A man, maybe 50, wearing a black hat with a gold plastic dollar sign, yen, and euro fixed to the front, rides by me on his bike. We smile. I continue a few blocks back to my car, pausing a few times for a few more photos of a house covered in Dharma Initiative logos in the middle of a field. This is Pen Pen and Jacob.

He rides by again. “You tagging?” He asks. “Nope. Just taking some pictures.” “You wanna see some of my favorites?” “Of course.” We walk for a little while. Is it better to go into abandoned buildings now that I have a companion I've never met before? I get told often that my naivety will get me killed one day. Maybe. But I'd rather be dead and naive than cynical and alive.. This is Pen Pen, naive and alive.

He tells me his name is Dean. I ask him what the neighborhood used to be like. “Man, it used to be beautiful. I've lived in that red house over there all my life.” Each empty lot we walk by he points out what it used to be. Who used to live there. Work there. Memories from growing up there. When they pulled each building down. And slowly I realize I've done this day all wrong. Documenting the graffiti and public art and community gardens and urban decay is good and all, but I'm not much of a photographer. Other better photographers will do that. I'm a storyteller, and there's hours of history to be told about this block alone, in danger of being erased by the combined efforts of bulldozers and weeds. I vow when I return I'll bring a voice recorder and collect the stories from the people who have lived here all their lives. “I'll be in that house on the corner. Just ask for me.” Dean says as we part ways. This is Pen Pen realizing the story behind this smashed car is probably better than the picture.

I head off to Jackson for the show. And again conversation centers on Detroit. And Flint. And Jackson. The same story repeats over and over. But always with Kevin's glimmer of hope. “Now's our chance to rebuild into the world we want to create.” Maybe it is. Even Kevin admitted that the urban farms that have sprouted up through the concrete would be the backbone of a revitalized Detroit. “There's room for improvement with how they're doing it,” he said, “but the farms are a good thing, and you gotta start somewhere.” This is Pen Pen watching the rebirth of a community sprouting up from the hands of a gardener, not a developer.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share it with your friends.