Detroit, MI
Metro Detroit must look forward, not back. Maybe it’s time to let our icons go. | Opinion
Remembering Boblo Island: A historic amusement park
Join us on a journey to Boblo Island, a historic amusement park located in the Detroit River. Learn about its iconic rides, scenic ferryboats, and why it holds a special place in the hearts of many.
A friend forwarded an email a while back, the daily come-and-click pitch from the other newspaper in town, touting a front-page feature on one of the two Boblo boats, the Ste. Claire, losing its National Historic Landmark designation.
“SINK THE BOBLO BOAT,” he wrote, adding a knife emoji so I wouldn’t miss his point.
I didn’t. He’s a millennial and I’m a boomer, but we’re in agreement on this one. Sink the Boblo boat. Drive the last muscle cars off a cliff. Stop playing Motown everywhere, all the time. Tear Detroit’s eyes away from the rearview mirror, and try looking through the windshield.
Nostalgia is a poison, and we need a good detox.
Our Maurice salads are killing us
It’s a Rust Belt thing, not confined to Detroit, but I’d argue we have the worst case of nostalgia poisoning I’ve yet seen. It’s understandable, given the city’s last 70 years of history, but that doesn’t make it right. There’s honoring history, and being mired by it. Sometimes a sharp break with the past is absolutely what the doctor ordered. Our Maurice salads, literal and figurative, are killing us.
Looking back, and not forward, leads to laughable episodes like 2023’s Growing Michigan Together Council, tasked with finding strategies to reverse the state’s abysmal rate of population growth (49th in the nation) and attract more Gen Z residents. The council’s co-chairs were both septuagenarians. When Gov. Gretchen Whitmer added three youngsters in midsummer, it dropped the council’s average age to … 52.
Beyond the comedy of those numbers, imagine what it says to those few young people who might be considering settling here, to hear over and over that the good ol’ days are gone for good, that you shoulda been here when the Tigers played at Michigan and Trumbull, when you could see Jack White at the Gold Dollar for five bucks.
Like most people in Metro Detroit, I live in the suburbs, where you can find people who once lived in Detroit, moved away during the middle-class diaspora, but can’t stop complaining about it. They drive back to the old neighborhoods to scowl and disapprove and mutter, as though merely sneering will somehow shame the city into pulling up its socks and fixing itself.
Miss Havisham is a character in Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations.” Jilted at the altar, she spends the rest of her life lurking in her dark mansion in her wedding gown, the cake uneaten and moldering on its table.
She’s a tragic figure; don’t we understand that?
Sometimes ‘classic’ just means ‘old’
I’m also convinced much of the rancor aimed at boomers is due to our generation’s coining of the term “classic rock,” which kept the genre mired in yesterday, replaying Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones for decades. I like oldies as much as the next girl, but damn, when I was a teenager my parents weren’t constantly playing Benny Goodman and the Andrews Sisters in the house and car, as many of us subjected our own kids to.
Nostalgia poisoning kept Tiger Stadium standing years past when it should have been imploded to rubble. Other teams manage to move to new fields and not look back; why was Detroit so fixated on an ugly, crumbling pile that grew uglier and crumblier by the year? But-but-but, Ty Cobb! Ernie Harwell! Mark Fidrych! I used to go there with Grampy! The limb had long ago turned gangrenous, but still we resisted amputation.
I was at the North American International Auto Show the year GM announced it was resuscitating the Chevy Camaro. The concept rolled onto the Cobo floor at the end of a parade of classics from the model’s golden era in the ’60s and ’70s, while a screaming crowd swooned.
A friend, not a Detroiter and unexcited by this news, told me about the last Camaro he owned, a car that didn’t so much wear out as decompose, shedding parts at a standstill in his driveway. It was, he said, a car defeated by gravity. When the roof liner fell gently onto his head one morning, he put it up for sale.
I thought a lot about what he said, and about the gearheads who lined up to drool over the concept Camaro at the auto show, every one of them at or past AARP’s automatic-membership threshold. Three years later, the Camaro landed in showrooms, a gorgeous car, but I never saw anyone under 50 driving one, if you don’t count Shia LeBoeuf in “Transformers.”
These days, I’m interested in the future
At this point I have to stop and reassure angry readers that of course I respect history. No one’s advocating we tear down the Penobscot Building. I mourn the lovely old buildings cleared for more parking lots in the central city. If someone offered me a ride in their ‘69 Camaro, I’d say thanks, and get in. Saving Michigan Central Station? A triumph.
But I’m done with the Dream Cruise. If you insist on playing Motown, it better be deep cuts, or we’re gonna have words. Hudson’s isn’t just gone, department stores in general are on their last legs. The future arrives every day, right on schedule, and that’s what interests me these days.
And yes, it’s time to give up the Boblo dream. The park’s been closed for 30 years, and that boat isn’t worth saving. Tow it to Lake Erie, push it over Niagara Falls. Then let’s all move on.
Nancy Derringer is a mostly retired journalist living in Grosse Pointe Woods. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.
“Slow down and move over” is the message that Michigan State Police is sending to drivers after one of its troopers in a parked patrol car was struck while investigating a crash this weekend. The driver of that vehicle fled the scene.
Michigan State Police tells CBS News Detroit that we’re two months into the year, and it has had six incidents across the state where patrol cars were struck by oncoming vehicles. One of those incidents occurred on Sunday evening.
“Could have been much more tragic,” said MSP Lieutenant Rene Gonzalez, First District public information officer.
Gonzalez says on Sunday, an MSP trooper was near M-10 and Schaefer Highway in Detroit, simply doing his job, when his patrol car was hit from behind.
“Trooper was out there, and he was investigating a crash when, at the time, a Jeep SUV drove into the rear of the parked vehicle,” Gonzalez said.
The impact slid the trooper’s car into a concrete wall. The 29-year-old Detroit woman driving the Jeep SUV struck the center median, got out of the vehicle, and ran away.
“Not sure why they did it. Maybe not paying attention if they were distracted. They’re attempting to locate her at this time,” said Lt. Gonzalez.
The trooper walked away with minor injuries. Gonzalez says this incident is an example of why Michigan’s Move Over Law was put in place many years ago. The law, which went into effect in 2019, requires drivers to move over into the next lane and reduce their speed by at least 10 mph when emergency or service vehicles — police, fire, rescue, ambulance and road service — have their lights activated.
Drivers who are not able to move over are still required to reduce their speed.
“Trying to do our jobs, however, people are not paying attention. The law is easy. It’s simple. You see us, you see our lights activated, you have to slow down ten miles below the posted speed limit, and then if able, move over to the next occupied available lane,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez says crashes like this can be deadly and often avoided.
“One life lost over something that was a totally preventable crash, it’s way too much. We’re asking that you slow down and move over when you see our lights. It’s a simple message that we’ve been pushing out for years,” he said.
Sunday’s crash remains under investigation. Michigan State Police detectives are still working to track down the 29-year-old suspect.
In the meantime, police are out enforcing the Move Over Law.
The impact and history of autos in Detroit, The Motor City
Here are some facts about Detroit’s auto industry.
Rex Satterfield hoped to see his 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible snag one of the BASF Great 8 finalist spots at this year’s Detroit Autorama. But winning the Ridler Award — one of the highest honors in the custom car business — was something he didn’t foresee.
“It’s just overwhelming right now,” said the man from Russellville, Tennessee, as he left a ballroom at downtown’s Huntington Place and made his way back to the show floor on Sunday, March 1. “We weren’t expecting this.”
Getting a car recognized as one of the BASF Great 8 vehicles is a win in and of itself as they are considered the “absolute pinnacle of custom automotive craftsmanship worldwide,” according to the show. The cars undergo an intensive judging process.
And this effort had an unexpected and emotional complication with the passing in December 2024 of the original builder, Jeff Wolfenbarger, who was battling cancer even as he continued working on the car named “Elegant Lady.”
Kevin Riffey of Kevin Riffey’s Hot Rods and Restorations in Knoxville stepped in to finish the work Wolfenbarger started. He’d had two other cars in the past make the Great 8. He said the goal with this vehicle was straightforward, calling it a “purpose-built show car.”
From its prominent spot at the front of the show floor, “Elegant Lady” sported a creamy exterior, dubbed Light Coffee. The car carries a 1,000 horsepower Don Hardy race engine. The gauges, wheels and gas tank are custom, and the dash is from a 1956 Pontiac.
Satterfield plans to show the car around some and enjoy the moment with it. He said he’s been a car guy since he was a little kid.
The Ridler Award, named in honor of Detroit Autorama’s first publicist, Don Ridler, comes with a $10,000 prize. It was awarded on the final day of this year’s Detroit Autorama, which ran Friday, Feb. 27-Sunday, March 1. This was the event’s 73rd year.
Eric D. Lawrence is the senior car culture reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Send your tips and suggestions about cool automotive stuff to elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.
When to call 911 and when to use non-emergency lines
This video explains the importance of knowing when to call 911 for emergencies and when to use non-emergency lines for less critical situations.
Detroit restaurateur and nightlife mainstay Michael “Mike B.” Brown was fatally shot early Saturday morning on the city’s west side, a violent incident that also left two other people injured and sent shockwaves through Detroit’s hospitality and entertainment communities.
According to Detroit police, the shooting occurred outside Suite 100, a cocktail bar on Schaefer Highway near Puritan Avenue. Investigators are urging anyone with information to come forward. As of Sunday afternoon, authorities had not announced any suspects or arrests.
“At approximately 4:30 a.m., Saturday, there was a triple shooting that occurred at 15789 Schaefer,” Detroit Police Department (DPD) media relations manager Jasmin Barmore wrote in an official statement Sunday afternoon. “Two of the vicims were found in front of the location and the third across the street from the location. Unfortunately, the victim found across the street from the location, Mikey Brown, succumbed to his injuries.
“The Detroit Police Department extends their condolences to the family and is asking the community for assistance with this incident. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to please contact DPD’s homicide unit or, they can submit an anonymous tip through Crime Stoppers or Detroit Rewards TV.”
Brown, 52, had spent decades building a name for himself across Detroit’s club and restaurant circuits, evolving from party promoter to business owner and, in recent years, a culinary entrepreneur with expanding ambitions. His death comes at a moment when he had been working to grow his “Sloppy” restaurant brand – a move that aligned with the rise of new Black-owned establishments reshaping the city’s dining landscape.
His first major restaurant venture, Sloppy Chops, opened in 2020 on West McNichols just off the Lodge Freeway. The steakhouse featured high-end cuts like ribeyes and tomahawks, but it quickly drew wide attention for its low-cost lamb chop specials – a dish with a fervent local following and long-standing ties to the city’s food culture.
A year later, Brown launched Sloppy Crab, later renamed the Crab Sports Bar, on East Jefferson Avenue near the Renaissance Center. The seafood spot mixed Detroiters’ love for crab dishes with the energetic, nightlife-forward atmosphere Brown had refined during his years in the entertainment scene. Occasional cover charges, signature strong cocktails and celebrity drop-ins helped make the venue one of downtown’s most animated destinations, placing it alongside longstanding nightlife pillars such as Floods Bar & Grille and Sweetwater Tavern.
Both restaurants emerged during a period when Detroiters were increasingly vocal about who new development served. Sloppy Crab’s proximity to the riverfront offered an answer to residents who wondered where Black diners fit into the city’s transforming downtown, while Sloppy Chops demonstrated that restaurants with the energy and polish of downtown destinations could thrive in the neighborhoods as well.
As of Sunday afternoon, more than 1,000 comments expressing sadness and shock had flooded a pinned post on Brown’s Instagram page, along with a number of posts on his Facebook profile.
On her own page, Darralynn Hutson, an award-winning journalist, author, documentarian and media strategist who has provided content to a host of media outlets including the Detroit Free Press, shared photos of herself with Brown.
“I had the opportunity to interview Mike a few years ago for a feature in Food & Wine and I remember how reluctant he was about sitting down to talk,” Hutson recalled. “Interviews weren’t his thing – he was much more comfortable building than explaining. I had to call him more than 20 times to set up the interview. He didn’t care about Food & Wine. But once we ate and got into conversation, what came out was his commitment to creating something for his Detroit.”
Brown’s influence stretched far beyond his menus. His establishments became recognizable gathering places, and his presence – familiar from downtown corridors to Dexter Avenue – made him a significant cultural figure in Detroit’s nightlife and, later, its dining renaissance.
His death leaves both industries mourning a personality whose ambitions were still growing, and whose imprint on the city’s social fabric remains unmistakable.
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