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CHRYSLER IMPORTED FROM DETROIT SUPERBOWL AD-AWESOME!

DETROIT NEWS-DETROIT CHRISTMAS PAST GALLERY

The Detroit News website has a gallery of photos showing scenes from past Christmas seasons in the city.  A few of the photos, shown here, go back to a time when most people did their Christmas shopping downtown, where Hudson's and Kern's were the city's signature department stores.  There are also several photos from the annual Christmas show at the Ford Rotunda, a mainstay of Detroit Christmas until the building burned down in 1962.

 
Along Woodward, near Hudson's.

 
Crossing Woodward.

 
Hudson's outdoor Christmas display visible in the background. 

 
And.....the Ford Rotunda.
 

LEST WE FORGET-DETROIT LIONS 1957 NFL CHAMPS. GAME VIDEO IN 3 PARTS

 

 

After yet another Thanksgiving Day Game defeat (Lions haven't won since 2003), and with talk about taking the game away from the Lions in the next NFL/players contract, let us remember that the Lions were once NFL Champs. In 1957, they beat the Cleveland Browns 59-14, with Bobby Layne out of the Detroit line-up with an injury, yet.

Here is a half hour summary of the game, broken down into 3 YouTube videos. Hey, it wasn't so long ago. It may not be HD, and that is the worst color quality I have ever seen, the pictures do move, and the film is a "talkie". Go, Lions!!

GREAT VIDEO ABOUT DETROIT'S REDFORD THEATER

 

Nice piece on the Redford from the Modeldmedia Channel on YouTube. 

I love the Redford.  I catch as many movies as I can there.  There will be Laurel and Hardy on the bill next week.  Can't wait. 

HAMTRAMCK-2008

Great video about present day Hamtramck, a city within the city of Detroit.  An almost exclusively Polish enclave in years past, it is now an extremely diverse community, while retaining much of its Polish heritage.

 

This comes from the Model D TV Channel on YouTube.  A great find for me.  More about this later.

NEAL SHINE ON SUNDAY-AND THE CHINA CLIPPER

I just finished reading Neal Shine on Sunday.  Mr. Shine (1930-2007)was a copy boy, reporter,columnist, editor and publisher at the Detroit Free Press from 1950 to 1995.  The book, published in 1986, is a collection of some of the best of his weekly columns, written in the mid-1980's.  By that time, Neal Shine, born during the Depression and raised during World War II, had been in the newspaper business, working his way from the bottom up, for over 35 years.  Many of the columns deal with the changes that occurred to his neighborhood, Church, school, family and city during that time.  There is a lot about the newspaper business, but the changes in the industry from 1950-1986 are minor when considered against what has happened since.  Electronic media has fundamentally changed the newspaper business and there are now serious questions as to its ability to survive.  Just take a look at the short-form weekday Freep you can't get home-delivered, even at a dollar a pop.

Mr. Shine's love for the city of Detroit, its people and its institutions, great and small, is the constant theme.  Mr. Shine and I do have a great deal in common.  His parents had the good taste to name their son Neal, as did my wife and I.  They also had the intelligence to use the correct spelling of the name.  We also share Irish heritage, Catholic faith and education, and a small neighborhood upbringing.  But, he is Eastside, I am Westside, and seldom doth the twain meet, still.  Interesting how Eastside still pretty much covers the same area now as it did back then.  There is still that old Detroit River as a boundary.  My beloved Westside, however, now extends to the Wayne County border, if not to parts of eastern Washtenaw.  Institutions are a little harder to establish out here, given the sprawl.

I enjoyed the Neal Shine book immensely, on many, many levels.  I recommend it highly, but it is very hard to find.  I first saw it back in December, when Janet Dillon, wife of the Honorable John "Jack" Dillon, and mother of four parochially trained, Irish Catholic kids (including Andy, currently running for Governor of this great state).  Neal Shine's Detroit is Janet Dillon's Detroit even to a greater extent than it is mine.   Knowing my interest in Detroit history, she showed me her copy of the book, which she was reading at the time, when I visited the Dillon home back in December of 2009.  Mrs. Dillon had purchased it at a local Catholic parish used book sale.

TIMELESS IMAGES OF DETROIT

 

It has been some time since I posted anything related to Detroit history.  This site, Timeless Images, has a large stock of vintage Detroit and Michigan photos for sale.  Categories include:

Detroit

Sanders

Strohs

Bob Lo

Belle Isle

Theatres

Tigers

Michigan Central Railroad

The Home Page rotates a few images in a slide show.  How a picture of the Three Stooges got in there, I can't explain--but I'm not complaining.

IT SHALL RISE FROM THE ASHES-DETROIT, MICHIGAN-ODD

Interesting video on YouTube.  It's title is the same as the title of this post (except for the comma and the "odd" part).

Great pictures and postcard images from Detroit's past, and interesting images of current decay.  Marvelous, inspiring music.  All this leading up to the promise of an event to occur in the Fall of 2008, that will, in and of itself, bring the city back from the brink of the abyss.

As I watch, I'm thinking, this is all very nice, but what is being referred to?  The re-opening of the Book Cadillac Hotel, which occurred about that time?  If so, this is a bit overly dramatic.  What else?  I don't remember anything in the Fall of 2008 causing Detroit to rise from the ashes.  Cliff Taylor was defeated for Supreme Court that November, but the whole state benefited from that event.

The event referred to is the opening of a building called the Detroit Energy and Transportation Tower, the DET (fortunately the building's name provided a convenient acronym).  The "Let the Light Move You" slogan is also catchy.  Info describing the clip states "A preview of a new building and an event that will change Detroit."  However, no rendering of the building is presented, and no website information is provided.  This is also the only uploaded video for the user named Resurget.

Well, the Fall of 2008 has come and gone.  No "the DET" building.  And there is no reference to such a building on the Net.  So, what we have here is someone who wanted an excuse to make what is, to be honest, a cool video, at very low cost, about Detroit, past, present, and fictional future. 

Take a look.  It is worth saving for a later time when we really have such an event to publicize.

 

BUILDINGS OF DETROIT-OLD CITY HALL

Here's a video from the Buildings of Detroit site, featuring old Detroit City Hall.  Built in 1871, it was torn down in 1961, and was replaced with Kennedy Square and an underground parking garage.  By the time I spent much time downtown, Kennedy Square had fallen on hard times, and was a dirty, gray crumbling concrete slab.  Square and garage have recently been replaced with the glass Ernst and Young office building.  The building doesn't impress me much-it looks out of place.  However, it is a vast improvement over what Kennedy Square had become.

NICE TIME LAPSE VIDEO ON THE AMBASSADOR BRIDGE

This is a nice, and very short video showing a time lapse of the Ambassador Bridge from 1954-2009. 

With the endless debates, international, state, local, public and private issues, delays, lawsuits and money issues, will we ever see a second bridge across the Detroit River.

Don't know, but, this is nice to look at for now.