SNAPSHOTS: The Strip District

In the shadow of Downtown Pittsburgh, you'll find a hive of activity - historically an area of mills, factories, warehouses and even of a manufacturing base of H. J. Heinz. Today the Strip District is alive with outdoor vendors, an eclectic mix of food stores to full wall artwork, where former warehouses are turned into marketplaces, nightclubs and restaurants. In fact it's very much like the area and spirit you'll find around Detroit's own Eastern Market. We had a super quick walk around when we ate the the infamous Primanti Brothers back in the summer of last year, it's always a place we head back to, walk or drive around while killing time. 

Admittedly driving around downtown and the Strip District makes me fall in love a little more with the city. Far too often do I crave those infamous oversized coleslaw and fries sandwiches to the views, the hills, hopefully we'll be heading back there soon until then this snapshot post will suffice. I have far so much exploring left to do there.

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It's always worth a visit if you happen to be in the 'burgh.

SNAPSHOTS: Belle Isle & The Snake Goddess

Detroit's Belle Isle is filled Native American legends, prior to it's current name the island was called Rattlesnake Island a name coming from all the water snakes once found around it's shores. A shore home to the Snake Goddess. Legend suggest the daughter of Ottawa Chief Sleeping Bear was so pretty he that hid her - putting her on a canoe to Belle Isle (an island in the Detroit River) for her safety. Furthermore he asked the Great Spirits to protect his daughter, the spirits in turn surrounding the island with snakes (hence Rattlesnake Island) and the Snake Goddess she became. Legend also notes she gained the ability to transform into a white doe, a creature many claim to have spotted. Or of urban legends, parking along Tanglewood Drive, offering three car honks into the night to summon up a Lady in White. 

Truth be told, I could think of a lot worse places to haunt. 

SNAPSHOTS: How Does Your Garden Grow?

Oh Michigan weather really can't make up it's mind. The result of this passing weekends downpours have resulted in some not only soggy looking squirrels but a far few droopy looking flowers, with temps forecast in the high 80's (that's in the 30's if you're in Celsius) it's all swings and roundabouts. It's also the season Michigan based bugs can't say no to trying my British skin, so gardening gets even more adventurous. With wigwags for creeping sweet-peas, the board leaves of sunflowers to the start of the wildflowers blooming, it's getting a little prettier and ever more colorful in the garden. From poppies to peonies, some roses and iris's, the gardens growing up rather well.

SNAPSHOTS: Pere Marquette Depot, Bay City

Trains are a big deal to me. I gues that's what happens when you grow up with an old disused railway line running through your home town (thanks to 1960's Beeching cuts) and with the National Railway Museum not only being free, but on your doorstep in York, train love was bound to happen. While Michigan is lacking in the public transport yet along having a decent train service around and about, I remain enchanted admittedly to old railway/railroad stations. I guess that's why the Michigan Central here in Detroit appeals to me as a train lover rather than a fan of it's abandoned state.

So for me, I love to imagine the days before the car of getting around by stream train. For people and goods the railroad was a vital life line between towns and cities and Bay City, a city here in Michigan, it was no different. From here you could travel to a couple of miles to Saginaw, further to Detroit, into Ohio or even to Chicago. Bay City's own train station was once abandoned but has found new life has a community resource facility, proof that stations can always have a second, or even third life. So when we were up in the area last year, a wander to the train station when I had time to kill was bound to happen.

The Pere Marquette Depot opened in 1904 and seemed to have been at the displeasure of many. As the Bay City Times reported:

"the exterior, with it's tile roof, and odd surroundings, presents a quaint appearance and many will probably say upon looking at it from the street, that it is not good enough for this city". 

Whether it's appearance was loved or hated, the station still saw the arrival and departure of over 30 trains daily in it's early years. Travellers were greeted with a two story waiting room, marble flooring and walls, a gentleman's smoking room and a ladies waiting room. 

Operated until 1937 by the Pere Marquette Railroad Company it was then acquired and merged by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in 1947. Sadly by this time rail travel was in decline on both sides of the Atlantic and the station closed in 1951. While the station found a second life as a terminal for the Greyhound bus company, they vacated in 1969 and the station was abandoned. It wasn't until 2003 when the Great Lakes Center Foundation purchased and restored the depot - rebuilding the tower, canopy and porte cochere which were all removed by Greyhound. It's now home to two local Bay City committees.

As someone that came from a rural town that demolished both the railway tracks and it's station, it's great to see old former stations finding new leases for life, if only the same could be side for the Michigan Central Station. Maybe one day.

SNAPSHOTS: Skyscrapers & Riverwalks

From whatever approach you comes to Detroit, be it road, rail or boat, there's one sure beacon you'll be able to spot - the Renaissance Center. Maybe you'll catch the blinding sunlight reflecting off it's windows, or the glow of it's changing colours at night, sometimes it's lost in the fog. Either way it'll catch your eye. 

The Ren Cen as we like to call it around here is not only the tallest building in Michigan, it's the headquarters of General Motors and the central, tallest tower is the worlds 3rd tallest all-hotel skyscraper in the western hemisphere, oh and the restaurant use to rotate. It's pretty darn impressive and you're sure to feel your neck ache as you lean your head back and try and take it all in. 

Construction began back in 1971, primarily financed by Henry Ford II as a project with intention to breath some life into Detroit's flaking economy. Today in 2015 you might say Detroit's economy is still a bit flaky, but improving and the Ren Cen still stands proudly over the city and it's riverfront. It fact it's a riverfront it shares with our neighbour Canada. 

The riverfront is the perfect place to stretch your legs, currently running 5 1/2 miles (and growing) a couple of hours along the riverwalk (first blogged about way back in April 2012) will entice you with a visit to two state parks (Belle Isle and the William G. Milliken State Park & Harbor), a dock, a popular bike trail, passing the Rec Cen, Hart Plaza to the international Ambassador Bridge.

I tell ya, it's a fun time to be in these parts.

SNAPSHOTS: Hauntings & Afternoon Tea at The Whitney

My snapshot posts have been in part, an excuse to redo some of the posts that I killed off when the images went dead. Our Valentines trip to The Whitney in Detroit, being one of them. The building is well worth talking about again, in fact I highly doubt I talked about it much the first time around being somewhat too worrisome to talk about Detroit on the blog because of stats (urgh). 

The David Whitney House stands proud as it did when first constructed between 1890 - 1984 for a mere $400,000 (approx $9.5 million in today's money). Named for David Whitney - a mightily wealthy lumber baron, then one of Michigan's richest inhabitants. Standing along Woodward Avenue, it's home to 52 rooms with 10 bathrooms, several Tiffany stained glass windows, a secret vault in the dinning room and the Detroit's first elevator (or as us Brits know them, lifts) in a residential building. It was one of the places to be for receptions, teas and evening parties often held by Mr and Mrs Whitney. 

The Tiffany glass windows are worthy of noting and are considered themselves to be worth more than the house itself. Their designs often come to reflect the role of each room, but in the case of the grand staircase, you'll find a knight (second photograph) - one who symbolize all those of the Whitney family line knighted and their royal lineage. 

Many believe Mr Whitney and his wife - both of whom died within the house in 1900 and 1917 respectively, haunt the building with disturbances noted on all three levels. Most particularly haunted is the elevator, which is known to move on it's own accord. Spooky! 

The house was turned into a restaurant back in 1986, offering afternoon tea, dinner service and hosting wedding receptions - which we actually looked into for ourselves. We visited on a chilly February afternoon all suited and booted while they were offering their Valentines afternoon tea - which itself was a delight and they welcome you going up the second floor and having a wander around. It's an enchanted building, one that has been beautifully preserved (although at a $3 million cost back in 1986). Dinning there is a great opportunity to sample how grand the houses of this era in Detroit must have once been and certainly a must stop if you're ever in the city. 

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The Whitney

4421 Woodward Ave.,

Detroit, Michigan, 48201

Where are your top places for a spot of afternoon tea?

SNAPSHOTS: Fists and a French Man - The Founding of Detroit

One day in 1701, a French man landed on the shoreline of a river. That man Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrian du Detroit, which be commanded until 1710 as a part grand old New France. One wonders what he would have thought about the fortunes - the making of the American dream, the city that became the automobile center of the world, the Paris of the Midwest and Motown, to it's modern state of ruin and rebirth.

Anyway the site Cadillac stepped on in that marshy swamping state that became Detroit is now Hart Plaza itself founded in 1975. While a bit of a concrete jungle, it's a downtown gathering place. Surrounded by towering buildings, sculptures within the plaza remember Cadillac himself, the underground railroad, Horace Dodge (Horace E. Dodge and Son Memorial Fountain) to the labor union legacy (Transcending - the arch). The later stands close to where Martin Luther King, Jr gave his first I Have a Dream speech in 1963. "The arc of history bends towards justice" - one of King's lines, is included in the sculpture. 

As Cadillac's statue stands guard over the riverside entrance to the plaza The Fist - a monument to Joe Louis often considered the first African American to achieve sport star frame within the US stands at the other. While the monument makes reference physically to Louis's powerpunch it's also symbolically aimed at racial injustice - something the city knows a lot about.

In the last five or so years, there's been studies and plans drawn up for a total redesign of the Plaza. Whether they'll happen I guess is another matter.

An all American post for an all American today tomorrow that is Thanksgiving. I wish you all a happy turkey day. Wherever you are in the world, take some time out to remember and appreciate what you are thankful for. I'm off to enjoy a long weekend with the husband, so I'll see you all on Monday!

SNAPSHOTS: A Weekend in Early October

This weekend has been all about burgers, bunch and possibly far too many photographs. Having finally got more of a modern contraption of a phone, I've finally moved to the darkside and started an instagram account (found here) - which has given me a great excuse for sharing even more photographs and will hopefully help in one of my 30 before 30 challenges (more of this to come) of trying to complete a full 365 photo tasks covering my year of being 28, starting October 1st. With Joe's mum popping up from Pittsburgh, we always love using their trips as a great chance to explore some more of Detroit and it's areas great places to eat and catch up. 

As it happens instagram is turning into my place to dump flower photographs and pictures of random places we drive pass, because that's basically summing up my life. My dahlia bulbs are in the oh look at me i'm so pretty flowering stage, they are so beautiful it would be hard not to want to take so many photographs of them on a daily basis (again, more photographs will follow). Saturday's late lunch was at the Mercury Bar down in Corktown - which we both agreed is our new favorite place for burgers - and to boot has a great collection of Michigan beers. Like Slows, the Mercury Bar is in the shadow of the Michigan Central Station which is always an obligatory thing to photograph whatever your position of the building (or even it's owner).

Heading home we drove along Michigan Avenue back from Corktown into downtown with moody grey clouds overhead but a blinding autumnal sun reflecting off all the skyscrapers. 

What's a better way to start a Sunday with a cocktail - cucumber and raspberry with some some tasty brunch served up at the Emroy in Ferndale. They also have a huge bloody mary bar which seems to be all the rage around here, and well, I certainly could get use to the brunch lark that's for sure. Our local fire station was having it's open day so I wandered down to have a nosey.

But this weekend one the whole, i'd say autumn hit like a thump. Chilly mornings and chilly days means perfect chance to get wrapped up in cardigans and scarves and admire the ever increasing golden of leaves in the trees. I always love the contrast between the golds, the reds and just how blue those autumn (however misleading they are about how "warm" they look) skies appear. But it's cold nonetheless, which doesn't help when our furnace gave up the ghost (or replace with technical words that I don't know) and we have no heat - sucks.

So if you'd love to follow more of my random every day photographs then you can always add me on instagram.