A Very Detroit Problem

This post is part two in the "Shit's Gettin' Realz" series. Click here to read part one.

Here's the thing about navigating the experience of Detroit: What are normal, reasonable assumptions often turn out to be quite wrongheaded and yet serendipity seems to be built into the social fabric of the place. This is how you can buy a historic house for $7500, within a week meet 20 people who genuinely make you feel like you matter, and still wonder what the frick you have gotten yourself into. How things work here reminds me a little of the Mad Hatter's tea party except that everyone is pulling up a chair for you.

By late April, Chai had finished the final tweaks on the architectural drawings and we had gathered 6 names of contractors from neighbors and local architects we have met. Six seemed like plenty, and so we sent out the drawings for bids. Weeks passed. Crickets chirped. Planets spun on their axes. And we got nearly no response to first emails and to second emails. We were baffled--I mean, we wanted to throw 10s of thousands of dollars of work to people in an economically depressed area. You'd think that would be a welcome opportunity, right?

First free-fall jump from a plane - June 21, 1914

Thanks to earlyaviators.com

On June 21, 1914, Miss Georgia "Tiny" Broadwick, demonstrates air-jumping techniques to the US Army in San Diego, CA, by pulling her release manually and becoming the first person to make an intentional free-fall parachute jump from an airplane. (Thanks to northnet.org.)

An idealist and pragmatist walk into a bar ....

I've been pretty quiet while this project has been incubating over the last few months. It has been hard to balance the possibilities of the house with the realities, especially considering that Chai and I respectively embody these competing ideals. The process has not been easy on our relationship. From the get go, I advocated for limiting the design effort to simply the things that needed to be done to get the place habitable. But Chai pointed out (rightly so) that we could waste a lot of time and money working piecemeal if we didn't have a vision of how we'd ultimately like it to look so that we can prioritize work and avoid paying for doing things twice.

The problems started when it came time to pare the list back down to something we could afford.

Vigorously good, Coca-Cola - June, 1914

Now, with only a hint of cocaine!

Thanks to magazineart.org

A man's drink, a woman's drink, everybody's drinks. Coca-Cola. Vigorously good--and keenly delicious. Thirst-quenching and refreshing. The national beverage--and yours. Demand the genuine by full name--Nicknames encourage substitution. Whenever you see an Arrow think of Coca-Cola.