Tell me more about DETROIT

[quote] What's it really like?

In Detroit all seems to breathe freedom and peace and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.

Howard Stern said he moved there, to work at radio station early in his career, and hadn't realized it was north of Canada.

Why do you do this R1?

I love this photo of 40s Detroit, when it was USA's 4th biggest city.

Well yeah I guess like, technically R2

R4 You never hear of any stories or old classic films talking about going to Detroit. It's always NY and Chicago and Cuba.

[quote] It's always NY and Chicago and Cuba.

And Malta.

Just seems souless. Even the name Dee- Troit sounds robotic.

Or Rio, Buenos Aires and Montevideo

I kinda want to move there.

Or River, Good Air, Mount View

Agreed, R8. Detroit is a French word, meaning "the strait". And when you pronounce it in French (De-Twa), it sounds like a much nicer place!

Amazing food.

Like many of those shrinking cities, there are nice places to live. Affordability means a lot. If you want a decent house for a decent price - more than access to a major gay city - it’s a decent place to live.

The suburbs are nice. I understand that Royal Oak is a gay mecca.

It's great if youI want to be near the auto in-duss-try

r10 Boy do I have good news for you!

The stupidest person in the world thinks Detroit "seems souless."

Is there any gay life?

Soulless? Just ask Berry Gordy.

Most of the people are fat. And if they aren't fat, they're on meth!

A few years back I had to be in Detroit twice a month for quite a while. This coincided with the year I decided to be super slutty. I have never had more sex, or had more fun in a bathhouse than in Detroit. It was weird, because I went there really griping and complaining, and just thinking it would be a shit hole. It was a shit hole. BUT, sooooo many crazy hot men, and that bathhouse was over the top. I hope it is still the same! (this was 2017/18)

Yes there is Detroit, R19. I went to a gay black club in Detroit many years ago, and it was a lot of fun.

Those with money live in the expensive suburbs like Birmingham.

R18 Excuse me but I was thinking about 1940s white people from the picture. Maybe they had more soul than people today, who knows.

Yeah that's why I was asking. Saw a fine black man today from Detroit.

R19 Lots

R2, Howard needs some help with his geography. The only thing north of Canada is the Artic Ocean.

But...Michigan. 🤮🖕

The winters suck.

Put Your Hands Up for Detrot

R28 Look at a map. Standing in downtown Detroit, looking directly south over the Detroit River, you see Canada. A small portion of Ontario is south of Detroit.

R32, hun, I know. However, you see only a small portion of Canada from Detroit. It doesn't mean Detroit is above the whole country. I was pulling Howard's admittedly small penis.

- R28

Years ago, Royal Oak was the only place where I saw foreign made cars- does that still hold?

Rock city

R34 No

When I was a teen in Detroit, the first bath house I ever went to was in Windsor, Ontario, just a short hop over the border. For some reason they allowed underage boys to come on in. But this was when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Detroit made this

I love it but feels like a third world county. It was devastated in the 80s-90s when the auto industry there collapsed. It’s come back a bit but everything feels makeshift. Reminds me of a lot of what I saw in the Roma District of Mexico City.

But it’s one of the few cities in this country that isn’t homogenized. Definitely has its own voice and tons of rough charm. My spouse grew up in Grosse Pointe so I’m in the area often. Wouldn’t mind living there. Great deals on huge, grand old homes from the auto industry’s salad days.

It’s so cold

r29 not in Detroit. I live near Ann Arbor and we are very much Blue.

'51

I live here. I was born 10 minutes south of the city and moved here at 19. Im 40 now. I live in what is believed to be a not-so-great neighborhood. It has had its challenges but its unlike any other city I have ever been to. Its definitely not for everyone, but I kind of like the “you-do-you, Ill-do-me” way of life here. Idk, maybe Im kind of a bohemian but the lawlessness of it has always appealed to me. I was fascinated with the city growing up in the 80s and 90s and always knew this was were I was going to live. I live of a street with Bosnian people, Black people, Iraqi people and White people. I just couldn’t live in an all white suburb.

Bosnians aren’t white?

Iraqis are also classified as white.

Where’s the nightlife for gays there?

Is it friendly generally? Just curious.

Made in Detroit

(Recorded at United Sound Systems in Detroit)

R34 No

The first thing I think of is Detroit techno.

It is a complete blight. White flight. Unless you like the worst of humanity has to offer.

The last gay bar in the area I used to frequent was Pronto, but that then changed ownership & was no longer a gay destination. Where is there to go now that isn’t just for twentysomethings?

R44 R 45 I said all white

I grew up listening to CKLW

Give Bargain Block a watch if you want to see how a gay couple lives there.

My view of Detroit is tainted by a job I had there - briefly - working with some of the most horrid people I’ve ever encountered professionally. I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there, though I did love my house in Royal Oak.

What happens when a majority white city adopts a "get tough on crime" policy aimed at Blacks.

A lot of the big businesses have moved out to places like Southfield, leaving downtown Detroit fairly empty. So it depends on whether you are talking about the actual city of Detroit or the metropolitan area of Detroit.

[quote]I just couldn’t live in an all white suburb.

No, this isn’t racist.

And come you didn’t capitalize white?

[quote]What happens when a majority white city adopts a "get tough on crime" policy aimed at Blacks.

How come you didn’t capitalize white?

I did not capitalize White because I was typing fast from bed and had just woken up. It meant nothing, I assure you. I capitalized it in my first post. There is nothing wrong with all White suburbs I just prefer variety in life with most things.

I feel like the vibe of Michigan in general got worse since Trump was elected. Before that, for years it seemed to be getting better. But the last few times I have visited it has been more progressively downtrodden.

Awesome Institute of Arts, a real surprise.

[quote]I feel like the vibe of Michigan in general got worse since Trump was elected. Before that, for years it seemed to be getting better. But the last few times I have visited it has been more progressively downtrodden.

You don’t live here, you’re completely wrong.

If you’re visiting for a weekend - strictly as a tourist - what neighborhood would be best to stay in? Safety wise.

[quote]I did not capitalize White because I was typing fast

😉

R67 Have you been to Detroit? Would you like to add something or just want to troll?

Yes, I live here.

R37- Sit down 🪑

We need to talk

You were a WHORE darlin.

The airport is surprisingly very nice

R57, maybe if they didn't do so much crime.

R63, here's a thought, maybe you're just projecting what is in your own head. I know you think this unlikely.

Here ya go OP.

Love the airport, love the oddly-gay-friendly vibe

I googled videos of gays in Detroit and this is the first result. A fight!

Oh my, that went from 0 to 100 in no time.

I thought it was very polite that they smashed windshields instead of brains.

Royal Oak was the home of right-wing, anti-Semitic, Catholic menace, Father Coughlin. He was our parish priest!

I’ve heard the Hotel Yorba is pretty great.

Oh, tasteful friends ...

Why does Detroit get so much love here and Philly doesn’t?

It's Destroyt. And dont' get us started on Drearyborn.

Detroit has lost more Olympic bids than any other city

Techno comes from Detroit:

*

The Detroit Institute of Arts is opening a blockbuster Van Gogh exhibit today.

I'm considering flying in for a few days to explore. What else should I see? Other good museums? Old historic mansions?

I had a co-worker who grew up in that neighborhood, (81). I recognized the street name when I saw your link. That neighborhood you highlighted here with that real estate listing has lots of curving streets which is uncommon in Detroit proper.

It's still a lovely neighborhood and it's north central city location can easily be picked out on a map via it's departure from the basic grid pattern of streets with which Detroit is generally laid out that's interrupted by angled streets that radiate out from the central core like spokes. Chicago & Milwaukee also have this same grid and spokes pattern in place while also similarly sitting on a waterfront of impressive dimensions..

Detroit has fascinated me via my numerous google street view "walks" throughout many of it's neighborhoods. My reactions and emotions are all over the place as I explore the cityscape.

If I just wanted to fly in see the museum 1 day then take a private tour of downtown, where in the city would be a safe hotel w/restaurants & bars nearby?

It's a tribute to corporate greed, corporate incompetence, U.S. industrial policy, and globalism (these last two may be one and the same thing).

I would love to explore the blighted areas

R91 has a death wish. What a tool. ☠👹💀

If you've never been there, you should know ahead of time that a lot of what you've heard as happening in Detroit actually happened in the surrounding areas, like Oakland County

The same way people way people refer to parts of LA and Atlanta, when actually they are 30-60 miles away from city lines

Little Known Fact: Valerie Bertinelli lived near Pine Knob in Clarkson with her family within a year before she got her role on "One Day at a Time"

Eddie Van Halen came by a school in the area a few years before he died and donated a guitar

R89 I was wondering the same thing. Looked on Reddit and they all seem to say downtown or midtown. Many of them recommended this hotel specifically…

Palmer Park art deco apartment district was once one of the finest gay neighborhoods in the country. But by 1980 it was a slum and now a lot of them have been torn down.

Crime killed Palmer Park area. Gays did their best but people will only take but so much.

More...

There’s a lot of Detroit info on this forum in the link.

No one wants to move or travel to Detroit. Wow, some of you gays are delusional...and have a death wish. Travel elsewhere!

I went to Detroit almost exactly a year ago for the first time. I was fascinated by it and thought that the old Art Deco skyscrapers were so beautiful. I have ancestors that lived there during the heyday of the automobile industry, who had migrated up there from the south. It felt very familiar in some ways, like a northern New Orleans. I want to go back during the summer when it’s warmer and also explore the upper peninsula.

Not sure about the current mayor, but Ferndale has had openly gay mayors and still has a strong gay community. Ferndale is around 9 Mile and Woodward, which is just outside Detroit borders.

They just opened a Gucci store downtown!

After Palmer Park some people thought West Warrenville would become a gayborhood since it was separated by downtown Dearborn from Detroit ( Arabs were so prominent in Dearborn and they weren't having the gays). Others though Seven Mile and Livernois or the area around Detroit U, or a revitalized Midtown or even a gentrified Hamtramck. A move to Royal Oak ran afoul of tire slashers, and although there were incidents in Ferndale too, so many lesbians moved in that it became Detroit's new 'hood.

Arabs here are not that fond of gays, not just Muslims, Arab Catholics too. I avoid places with lots of Arabs because it’s not safe.

R93 You are wrong. There is nothing going on but plazas in that dreary county. Its happening in detroit. Google restaurants, art, eastern market, bars.

There actually used to be a great photojournal - detroitblog.org - where this author would break into the abandoned buildings and post long treatises about the loss in the decaying city. It was fabulous and as a born-n-raised Michigander I loved it. I remember him writing about how the Superbowl was in town (Feb 1, 2006 if you look on wayback):

[quote]Strangest of all downtown right now are the prophylactic wrappers they’ve strapped around the perimeters of the empty lots and less-alive buildings in town, plastic sheeting featuring images of iconic Detroit landmarks that are often actually just to your left as you’re looking at this building with its representation of said landmarks. A rather ham-fisted effort at hiding the city’s flaws, but it’ll do in a pinch, I suppose. I’ll take fake wrapping over hasty demolition any day.

Some time during the latter Obama years, he completely changed tack into positive human interest stories like how some black lady would bake muffins on a crackhead block or some shit. I think there was some $$$ changing hands somewhere along the way to not make Detroit seem like the dead shithole it became (and still is).

You can poke through via the wayback machine, linked.

R105 Arab Catholics? All two of them?

Some of the best music came from Michigan.

There are huge Assyrian and Chaldean communities in Michigan, R108.

R108, please shut up. Asshole.

I would say Chaldeans here are like Muslims over in the UK, you need to be very cautious around them, if you’re gay. Muslims too, definitely, but Chaldeans are much more aggressive.

And Lebanese Catholics.

R108 clueless and staying that way

Degeneracy, overcast, cold, and bad drivers.

I fucking hate it. Always have always will.

This is the type of foolishness I grew up around. And then people wonder why I have such a fucked up attitude. -_-

[quote] They just opened a Gucci downtown

That's very encouraging. If ultra high end designer boutiques are going in, this might be the time to snap up dirt cheap real estate near this new shopping district. I've never been to MI, but I am always looking for liberal, hot men, and cheap real estate.

I like that show Bargain Block about the two guys who buy and renovate abandoned houses.

R12, I was once flying from De Gaulle to Detroit, and pronouncing it "day-trwah" with the boarding agent gave me a little frisson.

Bunp