Detroit - Something Fun to Do?
 

Mr. Pickle and I are flying to Detroit a week from Thursday so we can attend a family reunion in Ontario that weekend.

We have a free morning in Detroit before we have to drive to meet the family. Is there anything we can do or see before we head out of town? I realize this is vague, but we just returned from another trip and I haven't had time to research.

Thanks for your help, Fodorites!

Lee Ann

I thought the Institute of Arts was spectacular! A lot of people forget that Detroit was once the wealthiest city in America, and those auto barons raided Europe and dragged their loot back to Detroit.

We also enjoyed visiting Pewabic Pottery. If you're not interested in arts and crafts pottery, this will leave you cold, though.

We didn't visit the Motown Museum, but it was on our list, sounded fun.

The Motown Museum is small but enjoyable.

The Motown Museum can fill a couple hours. The Art Institute can fill as much time as you want. Across the Art Institute is the Historical Museum. It's free, so if you just want to run in and see one or two things you haven't spent lots of money. Their site is: http://detroithistorical.org/ You could also pop into the main branch library and see Adam Strohm Hall on the third floor.

The Henry Ford is an indoor/outdoor museum complex in Dearborn, between the airport and the city. The indoor museum has the bus on which Rosa Parks was arrested, the chair in which Abraham Lincoln was shot, most of the presidential limousines and collections that detail the evolution of trains, planes, decorative arts, industrial machinery, home appliances and just about everything else.

The outdoor museum has the Wright Brothers' home and cycle shop, Thomas Edison's lab where he invented the stock ticker, light bulb and phonograph. Stephen Foster's house, Noah Webster's House where he wrote the dictionary, H. J. Heinz's house and the Logan County (Illinois) Court House where Abraham Lincoln practiced law. You can also ride the steam railroad, paddlewheel boat or a model T. Check https://www.thehenryford.org/

Just east of the city in Grosse Pointe Shores is the estate of Edsel and Eleanor Ford which is now a community center and open for tours. http://www.fordhouse.org/

I hope these help.

How did I forget to mention the Henry Ford museum?? That was really substantive and interesting.

Thanks, everyone. I think Mr. Pickle has been to the Henry Ford Museum, but not since he was a kid. The Motown Museum sounds good too.

Lee Ann

The Detroit Zoo is another wonderful place. It is not in downtown Detroit but just 15 minutes north. They just opened the world's largest penguin exhibit. You have to get timed tickets(free)so getting there when they open is best.

The Detroit Historical Museum is nice and it also has a motown exhibit. However, check for new exhibits. This weekend is the 150th Anniversary of Vernors and they are having an exhibit and party.

If you do not have a lot of time there is Belle Isle. There is a small aquarium on the island. Pewabic Pottery is just down the street from the bridge to Belle Isle.

On Griswold is the Guardian Building. The outside of the beautiful, covered with Pewabic tile, but the inside is breath taking. More Pewabic tile and beautiful artwork on the walls.

With a free morning you do not have time to go to outlying places like The Ford Museum or Greenfield Village as those take a lot of time.

You can check out Downton Detroit however - the GM WorldHQs has a museum of sorts of cars new and future on its lower levels. And a walk along the Detroit River on the esplanade is sweet - seeing Canada across the way and seeing how beautiful the river is and interesting with many large freighters plying it.

The Detroit Institute of Arts is a world class museum - and is nice for a few hours but you can see art museums anywhere.

Lafayette Coney Island, right downtown, is an iconic Detroit eatery - so if you have not been to a coney island restaurant here's the chance - coney island restaurants are I think unique to Detroit.

Another popular thing in Detroit is the Heidelberg Project, a top art naive thing that has gained worldwide attention - bunch of old decrepit houses turned into works of art themselves. Here you also see the desolate side of Detroit with blocks and blocks of empty lots of falling down houses.

http://www.heidelberg.org/

If you went to The Henry Ford (Greenfield Village) you could have a pic of The Pickles visiting the Heinz house for your Christmas cards. ;)

Both the museum and village have been extensively remodeled within the last 10-15 years.

The Ford also has the car that JFK was shot in in Dallas - blood marks too and the chair that Lincoln was shot in - blood stains too still on it.

http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/in...ation_cha.html

:-)) Citylghts!

Such great ideas, everyone. We'll have to sit down and figure out what we want to do now. Thanks!

Lee Ann

Lee Ann, you do not indicate where or if you are actually staying once you land in Detroit. Please be aware that one of our major north/south expressways(I275) is closed for most of the summer. The alternate routes are The Southfield (M39) and I75. Both have very heavy traffic most of the day. To get the The Ford from almost anywhere, you will take the Southfield Freeway. To get into downtown from the airport you will take 94 to I75. I would plan an extra 30 minutes for travel time depending on where you are going.

In Michigan, summer is referred to as "Orange barrel" season because there is construction everywhere.

Lee Ann, you do not indicate where or if you are actually staying once you land in Detroit. Please be aware that one of our major north/south expressways(I275) is closed for most of the summer. The alternate routes are The Southfield (M39) and I75. Both have very heavy traffic most of the day. To get the The Ford from almost anywhere, you will take the Southfield Freeway. To get into downtown from the airport you will take 94 to I75. I would plan an extra 30 minutes for travel time depending on where you are going.

In Michigan, summer is referred to as "Orange barrel" season because there is construction everywhere.

Lafayette Coney Island is very cool. 99 years old and still in the same family.

But if you can't make it there, the National Coney Island at the airport is good.

Bookmarking --Detroit is on the old bucket list...

And the Ford Factory Tour to see a state-of-the-art auto plant - this one making Ford pick-ups:

https://www.thehenryford.org/visit/f...EJpRoC5C3w_wcB

Someone who has a whole day and night in Detroit can take a sweet boat ride up and down the river - leave in late afternoon - seeing Detroit and Windsor from a neat angle - note that to cross the Ambassador Bridge to Canada from the U.S.you go nearly due south - Canada yes lies south of Detroit in part:


https://diamondjack.com/coupon-code/...mGRoCBmrw_wcBt

Gardendiva, we're staying close to DTW Thursday night, then picking up the car and heading out Friday morning. Google Maps says we should take I-94 and then ON-402 E to get to Woodstock.

I guess we'll trade our orange barrels for your orange barrels! :-) Summer is also construction season here.

Lee Ann

Leave plenty of time for big backups at the Ambassador Bridge - endemic though coming the other way is a bit worse - leave plenty of extra time. We are building a new additional bridge because the present one is so so overloaded - Customs checks add to the problem.

If you are taking 402 to Woodstock you will be crossing into Canada at Port Huron on the Blue Water Bridge. Port Huron has a cute little downtown area. I have not been there in a few years but it maybe a nice stop for lunch.

If you are coming back into the US to fly out of DTW watch for a sign just before the 401/402 interchange that will give you the estimated time to cross over at the Blue Water Bridge and at the tunnel or bridge in Detroit. It is usually very accurate. You would take 401 to cross over in Detroit.

Now I am sure that you have way more information than you need to know. Safe travels.

Thank you for the driving info!

Lee Ann

Yesterday I visited the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House for the first time. Beautiful. Great way to spend about 2 hours.

Of course everyone knows you need a valid passport now to enter Canada or return to the states.

Or an enhanced drivers licence.

As it turned out, we would have had to wait an hour to tour the Motown Museum, so we went to the Heidelberg Project instead and enjoyed talking with Tyree Guyton, the artist behind the installation.

We're currently enjoying time with family in Woodstock, Ontario this weekend. Thanks again, everyone!

Lee Ann

Or an enhanced drivers licence.>

Yes forgot about that.

Heidelberg Project has sadly suffered lots of arson lately destroying some of the structures. But still a gem of naive art.

What a treat to get to talk to the artist.

I have been doing some sightseeing of my own these past few weeks. I did notice that a lot of places don't open until 10 or 11. Good for me because I am not a morning person but not so good for actual tourists that need to maximize their time.

The 'worth' of visiting the Heidelberg Project is not only in the 'art' but seeing a very desolate area of Detroit (safe in the daytime at least) - you can see blocks of boarded up houses and empty overgrown lots - a sobering thought that this could happen in the world's 'most advanced country'!

some parts of this most advanced country lack civilization.

tomboy - yes incredible that these images could come from such an advanced country as ours:

https://www.google.com/search?q=detr...w=1745&bih=868

Detroit once had a population of 2.2 million at its heyday - now 600,000 or so - El Paso just passed Detroit in population - Detroit which was once one of the top five populated cities in the U.S.

I grew up in the Detroit suburbs and remember as a kid our family going to downtown Detroit - everyone did for shopping - no malls, etc and the downtown was hopping - Detroit itself had propserous ethnic enclaves - Italians, Poles in Hamtramck, Germans, Irish, Afro-Americans and many others - it was such an interesting and alive city- so sad now to go into Detroit - the downtown with casinos and GM HQs and sports arenas is booming but outside of that--- a wasteland- a black mark on the U.S.

Wow PalenQ. Do you still live here? Yes there are some rough areas just like there are in most cities. However, there are also many beautiful areas that are not near the sports arenas, etc. I don't know of any city that has stayed exactly the same as it was 50 years ago.

I don't know of any city that has stayed exactly the same as it was 50 years ago.>

Yes but no city has suffered the citywide deterioration as Detroit has. I do not live in the Detroit area but not far away.

I'm not sure that 50 years is quite right for that. The longest year of my life was 1968 to 1969, which is very close to 50 years ago, teaching in Pontiac. The riots were sort of over, and Detroit was a total mess. I've actually heard it's better now than then. No?

No IMO it is not better now than then - Downtown is much better but the wide swathes of empty overgrown lots and derelict buildings have only increased.

Pontiac has deteriorated too though its downtown is vibrant with many pubs and nightspots - Flint though is a mini-Detroit.

I've been to every large city in the U.S. and none is so awful so many places - all over outside the downtown - that Detroit must be the very worst.

The riots actually exacerbated white flight of what little whites were left. in 1969 there were still some auto plants now there is just one left in the city itself.

Yes lots of artists have flocked here for cheap rents and a kind of ambiance they like but that is just a dent in the rubble. But murders are down - over 1,000 a year in the 70s but now much less as there are simply much fewer folks to be murdered I guess.

The big thing that gets me is that suburbia - afluent for the most part - could give a rat's rear about Detroit and the poor old folks who are stuck there, afraid to leave their homes often, and too poor to relocate.

Detroit white cops were often racists and that sparked the riots - my racist uncle was a Detroit cop in the 50s and he would brag to use about stopping 'n-word-s and asking for the license and giving them a ticket - he said many would simply tear up the ticket so he cleverly put the driver's license inside the ticket he handed them so they would rip both up.

Dearborn, adjacent to Detroit was all-white (which includes Arabs of which there have always been quite a few of) and any black driver daring to drive there would be instantly pulled over. Dearborn had a racist Mayor Hubbard who was proud of the big signs at the entrance to Dearborn from Detroit "KEEP DEARBORN CLEAN" and everyone knew what that meant!

PalenQ Quote ". I do not live in the Detroit area but not far away."

Not far away? Your profile says that you live "on the banks of the Au Sable" River. Even to a closer Au Sable River community such as the Mio area, that's at least 200 miles away from the City of Detroit. Other River communities might be as far as 250 miles. I would not define that as "not far away".

Let me guess - you're a retiree who left metro Detroit 10, 20, 30 years ago, and haven't been back more than a couple of times since. Does Detroit have problems? Sure it does, many (but then so does Mio - I can take you to places near Mio where you would be afraid to stop your car.)

The desolation, gloom, and doom you paint of Detroit is at minimum 5 years out of date, and more like 15 or 20 years out of date. (By the way, yes, thing were extremely bad in Detroit the past, but that does not excuse you from making things up for dramatic effect - you quote "murders....over a thousand a year in the 70's"? NEVER. Not even close.)

It's one thing for you to get together for breakfast at the local north woods diner with all of your other retired buddies who moved "up north" decades ago and recount your memories of the 60's, 70's, and 80's in Detroit; I am sure you all like to extrapolate that since Detroit was such a horrible place then, therefore it must still be horrible today. Feel free. But don't go spreading these misconceptions on the internet.

Instead of promoting your own personal agenda, why not stick to the original poster's question of an entertaining activity that she can spend a morning doing.

Hey, they are using those ruins to film movies. Transformers is the current resident of the old Packard Plant.

MT - I go to Detroit regularly - I have residences in the Detroit area where I spend a lot of time and also Up North. My opinion was meant to be sympathetic to Detroit's plight and to ignore the obvious is not it - but anyway you feel that Detroit outside of Downtown is not a horrible place - seems you may not have visited that part of Detroit lately - the photos are not from 1960s, 1970s or 1980s but very recently.

I do wish that folks outside of Detroit, from the Gov on down would care more about Detroit rather than doing terrible things like the un-democratic Emergency Manager thing.

Anyway maybe painted too bleak a picture but certainly not as rosy as you make it out.

Actually, Palen, I visit all parts of Detroit quite often. As far as my painting a rosy picture of Detroit, as you say, I don't see any thing I've written that is "rosy" - in fact, I wrote that Detroit has "many problems".

All I want is BALANCE and FAIRNESS. When I see you say,

"But murders are down - over 1,000 a year in the 70s but now much less as there are simply much fewer folks to be murdered I guess"

it makes me slightly upset, because, first, it's just flat inaccurate, and the smirking crack about "fewer people to murder I guess" doesn't add any information to the discussion except make you feel better.

There ARE many good thing happening in Detroit, both downtown and in the neighborhoods - not only from the point of view of visitors, but also from the resident's perspective - I could list them, but this is not the place to do so. I also would be the first to tell you that it might take decades for things to get to the point of an acceptable urban environment in Detroit.

Let's try to answer the OP's question without going on any editorial excursions.

The OP has left Detroit thus I went off in a tangent - OP got the info.

One thing we have in common - we love Detroit and wish it can bounce back and yes there are many efforts - I agree that I may have sensationalized a bit too much.

the fireworks show last night was well bombastic as usual - downtown is hopping - new hockey arena, baseball and football stadiums, casinos, new shops and a wonderful riverside walkway.