Detroit Research Volume 1

170
I’ve been living in the same building for twelve years now – my bed plopped down in the midst of
what has become an indoor junkyard of dismantled installations. This is the longest I’ve ever lived in
one place. And a lot has changed during that time. Detroit has been through an economic collapse,
an auto industry bailout, a multi-faceted government corruption scandal, an emergency financial
manager, and many other problematic storylines that make it easy for lifelong residents to remain
jaded.
Yet, despite a continual drop in population, the inner city is gaining new residents from all over the
world. It’s more diverse and integrated than I’ve ever known it. I can’t keep up with all of the new
coffeehouses and start-up businesses. Community gardens are everywhere. The press and media
consistently focus on Detroit’s transition from decaying auto capital into burgeoning artist Mecca.
And there’s something intangibly different: an energy shift. Nostalgic memories of the heydays are
fading away, but so are the rock-bottom memories of the last decades, and people are focusing on
the future. It’s springtime as I write this; I’m surrounded by change.
Still, I can hear the cacophony of a metal-filled grocery cart being slammed over the potholes of my
alley in the middle of the night – just as often as I did twelve years ago.
Same alley. Same scrappers. Same middleman. Well, not the same exact guys – except for
Country, who passes by every now and then. But the routine is still there, and the metal
is still coming from somewhere. Anywhere, in fact, they can find it. As I read my account
from 10 years ago, much like reading an old diary, it’s striking how different some
things are these days. Many of the buildings I listed are gone. If they’re still around, they are
stripped clean, and they just aren’t squatted by scrappers anymore. You’ll find more urban
explorers in abandoned buildings than homeless guys nowadays. In fact, so many people have
flocked to photograph Detroit in the last decade, a new term was coined: ruin porn. Guys like
Country are disappearing, too. Junkmen from a different time, I suppose. Younger men,
hustling along, sometimes in groups, have replaced most of the older cart pullers. Crews
with nice tools seem to play by a different set of rules than those old guys. Last winter, multiple
bronze doors were stolen from the crypts of Detroit’s oldest cemeteries. Horrible.
About a week ago, a scrapper died in a sewer, apparently killed while trying to rip out the wiring
from beneath street lamps. That’s a new one. Though, going underground seems to be
the next logical step, since sewer grates and manhole covers have been scrapped for years
as well. Hell, my absolute piece-o-shit van was stolen for scrap last year. It feels a bit more like
‘anything goes,’ these days.
Epilogue
Spring 2013, Ten Years later
But I guess that’s the natural cycle at work. As the city grows and renews in many pockets,
the scrappers continue to evolve with it. It’s a kind of balance. Maybe even a fight. One of the
most telling examples of this dynamic happened while I was building a pyramid inside the
long vacant Fisher Body Plant 21 (where else would one build a pyramid). A group of scrappers
were cutting down huge galvanized pipes from the ceiling using gas-powered saws,
when suddenly the saws stopped, and all of the men got quiet. When I asked what was up,
one of the guys pointed out that the entire building was currently being re-fenced by city
workers. We were being fenced in. So... I got the hell out of there. The next day, I came back to see
if I could still get inside FB21 and continue my project. Yep. I could. No problem. Not only did this
band of gas-powered scrappers escape the newly fenced building with their metal – they scrapped
the new chain link fence, too. Cut it off, rolled it all up, and drove away.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.