High and lonely in Detroit

I’m sitting on the 54th floor of the Detroit Marriott hotel as the wind shakes this 73-story perfectly round skyscraper, the middle tower of the Renaissance Center. It moans and groans. The windows behind me keep creaking. This is the tallest hotel in the Western Hemisphere, and it’s right on the river across from Windsor and it was the skyscraper I first fell in love with. I could even see it from my house, out in Windsor exurbia. In fact, you can see it from pretty much anywhere in Windsor and flat Essex County — it’s the CN Tower of the Sunparlour of Canada. I will admit it is fun to sleep in the landmark of your childhood, and I requested the highest possible room from the man at the check in desk who said “alright” and smiled. I explained the stuff about the childhood landmark, but I think that made him regret helping me out. It’s also fun to simply sleep in Detroit — a city I lived next to for 25 years and visited often but never stayed overnight.

I’m here for the Creative Cities Summit. I will be Twittering about the conference here should you want to follow — which might end up being a completely boring exercise — but I’ll look for interesting points to pass on in 140 characters. It’s taking place in the bowels of this ultra-fantastic-horrible-wonderful 1977 building by architect John Portman, the man who invented massive modern hotel architecture. When built, the 5 building complex was meant to revitalize downtown, but massive concrete berms were built around it, separating Detroit from its renaissance. The berms have been removed so it’s less (wonderful) horrible, and a new river walk has been opened that even had a few actual people sitting on it on this warm (and windy) night. Most strikingly, a giant GM logo has been attached to this building, as the complex is the world headquarters of the corporation.

I just went for a walk around nearly deserted downtown Detroit. This is all familiar territory as we spent nearly a decade coming over here from Windsor to see shows and play in Clinton Administration America. I didn’t find what I was looking for (non-deep fried food that didn’t involve meat) and except for people around the Greektown Casino and in the occasional bar, I had the 10 block area of downtown I quickly roamed to myself, save the occasional homeless person and dudes on high-powered racing motorcycles who screamed down the street, their engines echoing off the abandoned skyscrapers. I still hear them down below. Do they do this all night?

It’s an intensely lonely feeling to be in Detroit without a car facing an empty city. The usual urban rules don’t apply here. Looking across the river at hometown Windsor is also strange as giant red CAESARS signs glow like they’re on fire on the recently expanded casino.

Back in this creaky hotel room, complete with a Book of Mormon (true to Marriott’s Mormon missionary roots), I watch wonderful American cable that has everything. Right now they are showing classic fights, and a bunch of guys are talking about the 1991 Evander Holyfield and George Foreman match. Holyfield won. I think I might drag the bedding right up against the floor to ceiling windows. It would be neat to wake up and for a split second think you’re flying above Detroit. It shimmers into the distance, as if it’s a real city, as if you could go down there and walk around it and find people and things and spectacle. But you can’t.