Week 7: an experience in humanity

When I read the prompt for this blog post, I simultaneously knew exactly what I wanted to write about, and was hesitant to do so. Although I could share why I felt this way now, it might make more sense to just tell the story.

For some background, there’s a community member who works at my office. Lets call him J for the purposes of this story. J is a very cool guy, very down to Earth, and incredibly personable. He always says hi, or literally “peace and love”, and always asks how you’re doing. He’s someone who knows the neighborhood I’ve been working in like the back of his hand, and loves it even more than that. I can only comprehend the connection he has to this space in Detroit through the attachments I have to my own roots and home spaces. It’s something that transcends the physical or even experiential attachments someone can have. He knows the neighborhood’s past, he knows the generations that have passed through, and he, I undoubtedly think, can see a future for this place that few others are either privy to or care to see.

So, to get back to the main story which, as you may surmise, has a lot to do with J. One day, J calls Shaylynn and I for a meeting about a project idea. He tells us about a neighborhood school that shut down some time ago. He himself went to the school as a youngster, and knows several generations that have also gone through the school. He wants us to make a video covering the history of the school through the eyes of alumni past, and make the case for creating a community center in its place. He has a group of DTE volunteers, something like 70 of them, that are going to help clean the building up and get it in shape to start moving forward. So the video would ideally include neighborhood alumni interviews, and footage of before and after the cleanup.

Since the school has been abandoned, scrappers have been through the building for copper and other miscellaneous items which I can only assume sell well. This being the case, it’s easy to imagine what the building looks like after some time being empty. It’s a medium sized single floor brick school, overgrown with weeds and grass on the outside, with some broken windows in the back.

J takes us in the middle of the day for a tour of the neighborhood, and we’ll end up at the school. These hours Shay and I spent with him were really when we learned just how much work he has put into the neighborhood, lending to the strong attachment he has with the people and place. Every corner we turned held a story, and every person we passed, he knew. He greeted them, asked them how they were, and introduced us.

I was acutely aware of the fact that if not for his presence, neither me nor the person J knew would ever have spoken or likely been comfortable in the situation without J there. I was quietly excited and astounded at this new world I was being allowed in to witness. I’ve lived the majority of my life about a 30minute drive away, and I know that Detroit has some bad neighborhoods, but I have never been in them, and I have no way of knowing just how unsafe any given area is. As we walked through the streets, it truly felt like we were getting to know the area for what it was, good bad and in between, whatever those words mean to you.

As J eventually told us, yes, there were drug houses on this block or that block, and yes there was a crack problem here, and yes there are youth not from the neighborhood pushing drugs out on this corner. But there were also families living here, there were houses with people who had lived, like J, for generations in this area. Beneath the immediate appearance of the neighborhood was a small and intricate ecosystem, just like any other neighborhood.

It was easy for me before this to think I knew this, that I logically understood there was a history to each and every neighborhood in Detroit that I couldn’t expect to comprehend without having learned and lived it. However, the actual experience of being there and being introduced to Detroiters, to being given a tour of someone’s neighborhood, especially someone who has invited you into the space, is so remarkably humbling.

We eventually make it to the school, and it immediately becomes clear to me that this isn’t the type of abandoned building where the doors are open or gone, and windows are smashed in, making it easy work to wander in. No, the two main doors are very firmly locked, windows are closed from what I can see, and I’m concerned we’re not going to be able to get in. I’m also concerned that we shouldn’t be going in. J, ever the creative solution finder, finds a broken window in the back, walks through to the front, and opens the door for us from the inside. I’m always up for a new experience and something exciting, so I was really excited to see what was inside.

What we find inside is a ruined building stood still in time. There’s something really eerie about secretary desks, cafeteria rooms, and school room clocks covered in dust and detritus. The air really felt like it was standing still, almost like time didn’t count in this space. We got up onto the roof and looked around as J told us of stories of his time here.

We came for footage of the space, and while we got that, we got so much more than I could have ever expected.

Although this experience happened during work with a coworker, it definitely falls outside the spectrum of tasks and experiences I would expect at my placement, and its truly one of the moments that stands out to me from this summer.

Fun aside to end on- as we walked around the school in the dark, J called out for me to watch out for a bolt cutter on the floor, I have selective hearing I guess, and it cut through my shoe and sock. It was such a good time. For readers who get this far, if you exist, hope you enjoyed, you’re amazing, and thanks.