Detroit over the decades has manged to garner the title as poster child for the smoke, dirt and dust that we associate with the Industrial Revolution. The mass production Henry Ford-esque assemblylines of the Motor City revved it up under the industrial sheets with a heavy metal Tin Lizzie frenzy, that has since entered into a Jurassic period of near extinct industrial might that has seen better days at the turn of the mass produced Model T Twentieth century. The era peaked in the muscle car era of the 1970's, but the oil gushing gas guzzling automotive marriage of asphalt and heavy metal art began to down shift to second gear during the Environmental Enlightenment Period of the 1970's! The Dukes of Hazzard and The General Lee were destined to run out of gas, while Smokey and the Bandit would get nailed at the next cinematic speed trap!
Environmental reason and ecological thinking began to dominate the dragstrip of the Motor City's blue collar/white collar industrial might, and strict evironmental standards were put firmly into place. Motorheads kicked and screamed at the castration of their muscle car masculinity, but, more of us than not realized that all this dependence on non-renewable resources had reached an impasse at a ludicrous stage. It dawned on us, we were as a nation and a culture, one step above a street junkie, tryng to score a petrol fix from the oil cartel pusher just to feed our pain in the vein "vehicular" habit.
On the lighter side of the factory floor, (and there were!) Detroit was dependent on steel from Cleveland in the days of the Late, Great United States, when we actually had union jobs that paid well, and we made products that made us the envy of the world! The joke was, Detroit would say to Cleveland, "We need more steel!" Cleveland would answer, "No problem, we'll send you our steel, but, first you send us your beer!"
There is no denying Detroit's industrial shroud of smog and haze, or it's tough guy industrial Wild One Marlon Brando machismo bravado public image of grey steel and rust colored sunsets, pollution spewing smokestacks, red eyes, and blue collars. All this may be true, just ask my union rep, but, being a born and raised Detroiter I can tell you, there are "green" roots that extend deep into the industrial heart and soil of the Motor City...In Detorit, the Rustbelt Goes Green!
Detroit's green urban legacy includes one hell of a farmers market. We're not talking a place with a couple of fruit stands and some blue haired little old church ladies at stalls with a few hand crafted sock monkeys! Hell no! This one rocks and rolls as the Rustbelt Godzilla of Urban Farmers Markets, and it all began hundreds of years ago, when the French, settled in the area which they called De' troit, meaning "the Straits" for the simple fact that the river was not as wide here as it was along the rest of it's route.
Preceding the age of supermarkets, people were self sufficient and grew their own through sustainable practices on a series of "ribbon farms" that ran perpendicular to the Detroit River. They were long, rather than wide, and the names of the those landowners remain today as the downtown street names such as Beaubien, Rivard and Cadieux. As more non farmer settlers settled in there was a need to feed, so a central marketplace was set up to accomodate this influx. Detroit ingenuity was more than able to tackle the exploding population problem, and the concept of a Detroit style farmers market was beginning to bear fruit, and as the population of the city exploded, the farms moved out of the population center and into the countryside, which meant the farms were larger now, and also had to bring their offerings into town and set up shop in a central location for the burgeoning city population to purchase their produce. Just twenty years before the first volley's of the Civil War, horsedrawn carts were bringing fresh produce into Detroit to the original Detroit Farmers Market, (today known as the Eastern Market)
In 1891 it was moved lock, stock and barrel to it's current location off Gratiot Avenue in the heart of the city. This 43 acre Godzilla of a market includes open air stalls, gift and kitsch shops and a plethora of palate pleasing restuarants. It's open six days a week, attracting more than 40,000 people on any give Saturday to sample the cornucopia of produce supplied by over 250 vendors from Michigan, Ohio, and Ontario. Saturday is party day at the market! It's a happy hipster atmosphere, that mixes the art of building murals with people from all walks of life. The street musicians perform as though they are on the stage of Carnegie Hall, rather than the streets of Detroit and their performances for the most part are worthy of a standing proletarian ovation. Guitars, harmonica's and saxaphones, oh my! Historically because of Detroits access across the short span of the Detroit River to Canada, the market area itself was a key component of the Underground Railroad where escaping slaves from the south were able to make it to safe haven to plaid and proud Canada just across the river.
All farmers markets have produce, rich juicy fruits and heaping helpings of healthy veggies, but, what makes the Eastern Market experience stand out is the mega opportunity for people watching from all walks of life. It's also "family friendly" where many of them look forward to the Saturday "market experience." Grab a quick breakfast in one of the many restaurants, visit the stalls and load up with goodies, then break for a Greek lunch and a beer and head back out to the stalls and shops you may have missed. You can enjoy the music of the streets, the cacophony of accents of the city from Arabic to Asian to Polish to Italian and then some. A compost of cultures converge to create a symphony of diversity.
Morels to murals, the Market has them all. Freshly gathered elusive morel mushrooms (in season) from the northland of Michigan find their way to the market and into the homes of connosieurs of this pricey fungi that can't be found fresh in many other places in the country. Murals are part of the artful ambiance of the market, including the iconic giant cow and giant chicken murals that adorn the open air stalls. The chicken seems to devour the market devout whole as they enter it's gaping maw!
To celebrate spring in near Druid fashion, the Market celebrates Flower Day where visitors pack the place to the tune of 150,000 for the weekend. It is the largest outdoor flower market and show in the country. The joint is jumpin' and visitors are gladiola all over! The diversity and variety of flowers available are remarkable, from perennials to annuals, and shade tolerant to sun tolerant. There are so many to choose from visitors bring their own wagons to haul the garden goodies away. Those who bring their own wagons are also asked to decorate them for the Wacky Wagon Contest that blooms during Flower Day at the market. Imagination runs wild, and the wildest, wackiest wagon wins a wagon load of Gardening Supplies. There is a separate childrens area with a butterfly habitat for study, face painting, clowns and music, farm animals and crafts. The best part, it's all free and the kids love it!
You can tour the market every summer Saturday as guides walk you through the market's 170 year old history of cemeteries, breweries, rum running, guns, the underground railroad and prisons! All in all..the market is magnifico. Postured in the middle of the Detroit River, a green jewell in the Motor City crown. is Belle Isle. It sits on the American side of the invisible dividing line between Detroit and it's Canadian alter-ego, Windsor, Ontario. This "island of green" is Belle Isle, and it is home to nature centers, biking and hiking trails, a woodland area with canals for canoeing and birdwatching that is populated by a herd of rare Albino Deer. There is also a childrens zoo, a greenhouse, a rose garden, and a hike/bike perimeter road that circles the island.
It is home to the enticing aroma of BBQ's that punctuate the air at summer picnics; a Kite Festival, and family renunions as locals enjoy the "wilderness of the island" and cityscape postcard views of Detroit with it's flotilla of freighters, sail boats and fishing vessels plying the waters below and above the Ambassador Bridge.
During the turn of the 20th century's industrial revolution, the Belle was the place to go for a Sunday outing of a parade of parasols and the cacophony of horsedrawn carriages who came to the lsland to escape the confines of the city, and enjoy the great outdoors, the casino and of course, the yacht club. The Ann Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory with it's botanical gardens of diverse flora, especially it's famed orchid display, is a masterpiece of organic orgasm. The conservatory is over an acre with a central dome with palm trees to greet you as you enter, but also inside the "pods" are succulents, ferns and cacti. There are other greenhouses on the island that are for research programs such as the Golightly Agriscience Program where students in tenth through twelfth grad are trained for future after college professions such as arborists, nursery owners, florists and other flora friendly and green oriented professions, representing the best that an educational system can produce for the futher greening of America's future. The nature center houses the Nature Zoo, and it too offers educational programs for all ages, especially younger school children.
Who says you need the wide open spaces or live in a retangular shaped state such as Kansas or Nebraska to plant a garden? Try urban "farming" on a city scale. In 1972, after years of living on the road on the West Coast, I returned to my hometown of Detroit. There I became involved with recycling programs, volunteering at a community organic (before the word was popular!) garden in Dearborn, Michigan as part of the University of Michigan Ag Program, and most rewarding was working with the homeless to establish a neighborhood garden at St. Patricks church in an inner city area of fixed income (damn near sinking below poverty level) senior citizens, residents of mental health half-way houses and the "invisible" homeless America does not want to admit even exists. It was a co-op where we all shared in the bounty, and in the process added a little "color" to the neighborhood. Watching corn reach to the heights of the urban sky in the middle of industrial America made us feel we could give those Nebraska Cornhuskers a run for their agricultural money! The garden not only produced food, it produced neighborhood pride.
Today as you enter the womb of D-Town from Michigan Ave. you are greeted with a towering garden of flowers and vegetables surrounded by protective skyscrapers. There are over a dozen non-profit community sponsored gardens and urban farms throughout the city, including the Hantz Farm which when completed will be the worlds larges urban farm. Other programs in the city train young persons for ag-jobs in such fields as animal husbandry, bee keeping, and of course organic practices. Urban agriculture is deep with roots whose mission it is to create access to fresh foods, and to promote healthier eating habits.
Other programs have somewhat of a mountain man purpose to them such as the Greening of Detroit Project aimed at improving the quality of life in Detroit by guiding and inspiring the reforestation of Detroits neighborhoods and parks through planting projects and educational programs. Dutch Elm disease destroyed much of the tree lined streets decades ago, and when growing up on the Eastside of Detroit in a wonderful treelined street with green leafy canopy, I also watched them one by one get cut down until the streets were bare and bald. No more morning doves or birdsnests, and no squirrels to chatter in the morning. My grandmothers house however, had a large garden in the backyard of fresh vegetables and flowers, especially roses, and great giant stalks of rhubarb! It may not have been the Little House on the Urban Prarie but ht was home, it was green, and it just seemed to be the natural way to grow up and live. Values I carry with me to this day. So when you think Rustbelt...re-think Detroit...in fact, think organic...and most of all, think green!