My experience so far with Detroit 300 has been fantastic. I love the Compuware building and it is pretty cool to see tons of people going about their days… working… for real and actually taking part in that for a summer. It’s especially crazy to see the floods of people going out to eat at noon-ish, I guess I never realized just how many people actually work downtown.
The goal of the Detroit 300 — the group I’m working with — is to help turn downtown Detroit back into a vibrant community space where people from all over Southeast Michigan (and beyond) want to be. This includes the many summer events happening at Campus Martius, Grand Circus Park, Capitol Park, and Paradise Valley that Detroit 300 is orchestrating this summer. There are some crazy exciting events happening this summer and they’re all available for viewing on the website: http://campusmartiuspark.org/events (which is also an example of the work I’ve been doing so far — adding events to the events page on the website). I love my office space/coworkers already and it’s really cool to see the behind-the-scenes view of a summer concert season. It’s so impressive how capable everyone in our office is in carrying out their responsibilities to make these summer events happen. From contacting and setting up contracts with 5 or 6 musicians (or their agents) a day to choosing which flowers, chairs, tables etc. should go in the parks for which events what my fellow workers do is pretty awe-inspiring. The level of competence they exhibit coupled with the ease with which they can make important decisions quickly (such as the price a musician/act will receive for their performance) is for me astounding. I can not imagine years into a job like this having the level of confidence that my co-workers exhibit.
In conclusion, it’s been a great, awe-inspiring first week. I think what Detroit 300 is doing is great and I’m happy to be part of it, even if it’s just for the summer.
I am slightly jealous of you because this project was near the top of my list. I go downtown very often and Campus Martius is always a great experience. Next time I attend an event down there, I will be like hmm I wonder if Grace help set this up. I’m sure you will do a marvelous job and if you meet some really famous people don’t be shy to get me an autograph. I hope they don’t have you working too hard down there allowing you to enjoy your experience. Keep up with the good work from Lamar.
Ohh your project is really interesting! I’ve heard quite a few plans to help revitalize Detroit and unfortunately a lot of them involve some kind of gentrification. Detroit 300 sounds pretty promising because it involves the whole community and it’s fun for everyone! I can’t wait to hear more about your research as the summer goes by and talk to you about it some time
Thanks for the replies guys! I’m hopeful for the summer too and I’ll see about the autograph Lamar… ;D