Michigan Avenue

October 19, 2017

My final walk was on Michigan Avenue. I liked that it stretched west out of Detroit across the entire state of Michigan, through Indiana and up into Chicago become the Michigan Avenue of downtown Magnificent Mile fame. I liked the poetry of the final road leading me home. 

Michigan Avenue was built on a Native American path that white settlers called the Great Sauk Trail or the Potawatomi Trail. Its construction by the U.S. government served the twin needs of settler colonialism -- to facilitate transportation for both settlement and military defense. The Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi nominally granted the U.S. government permission to build this road through their lands in the 1821 Treaty of Chicago.

The day aptly started with reference to transportation, specifically the auto industry. Theophilus, my Uber driver, was an African American man in his late 60s or early 70s. Born in Memphis, he had migrated to Detroit in 1965 and worked as a pipe fitter at GM for 37 years. He told me how they had built cars "from the first bolt" at his plant in Pontiac. After retiring in 2000, he had moved from Detroit’s west side to Southfield, and now passed time with his pinochle club. 

My friend Tim joined me for this last embarkation from Hart Plaza. We set off on a sunny fall day, through downtown, past the old Tigers Stadium, with Michigan Central Station looming in the distance. 

So many people had asked whether I was documenting with video, I thought I should at least try. It turned out that walking and shooting video were different activities. I felt self-conscious and entirely stupid when Tim took video footage of me. It was worse when I shot video myself from a GoPro. I realized that I bounced when I walked, and that the footage was entirely unwatchable -- an invitation to seasickness. Regulating the bounce made me walk slowly, stiffly and unnaturally. 

After a few hours of walking and experimenting, we crossed Highway 94 and entered the first suburb, Dearborn. This part was the Arab section of Dearborn, where we walked by supermarkets, restaurants, and the Arab American National Museum. 

Passing through the center of Dearborn, the road widened and split with local lanes on each side. The Dearborn police headquarters building emerged across what was starting to feel like a highway. Then the sidewalks disappeared. A previous drive down Michigan Avenue had prepared me for this, but it was entirely different to actually navigate these sections. 

At first it felt risky but ok. The Ford headquarters was a distracting novelty, as well as the mysterious field of sunflowers next to it. But the section afterwards felt actively dangerous. There was no way to tell if a car was coming over the hill to run me down in the middle of a ramp.

Each time this happened on a walk, I felt exposed and humiliated. The sidewalk sanctioned my presence, but walking on grass, I was a target -- an isolated figure who could be spotted and picked up as an outcast, a criminal, a psychotic -- someone outside of society. 

I plodded on, past the ramps, by the edge of the forest. Pavement re-appeared, then buildings. Back in “civilization,” it turned out I had reached downtown Dearborn. This was the west side, where the white people live in Dearborn. Building construction demonstrated levels of investment in this place.

From Inkster into Westland, the landscape became more sparse. I passed a strip club, trying to walk both briskly and nonchalantly at the same time. Vast expanses of lawn stretched around an abandoned hulk of a hospital. Downtown Wayne sported a movie theater. 

After that things became more rural. I passed a union hall, with a stern sign at the parking lot entrance warning away foreign cars. Across the street in the distance was a large industrial site, with multiple factory-looking buildings sporting domes and pipes and towers, surrounded by parking lots.

Approaching another highway entrance, the sidewalk disappeared again. I navigated another set of exit ramps, trying to look as if I belonged there and the cars were the declasse intruders. After that point, Michigan Avenue itself felt like a highway -- no sidewalks, concrete divider, few businesses. I passed a couple of signs indicating the imminent development of malls and corporate complexes. 

Entering this indeterminate landscape of sprawl is when I became irrationally angry at what I decided to call "vanity sidewalks." One church had miniature lengths of sidewalk on either side of its parking lot entrance, with a sign posted at both extremes declaring "SIDEWALK ENDS."

As light faded, I worried that I wouldn’t reach the end before total darkness. I worried that someone in a car would stop to ask me questions. I worried that my phone would run out of charge before I could call my friends picking me up. 

And yet, I did have a moment of pleasure. In the last 30 minutes, my gait became smoother and longer. My hips, my knees, my feet, everything was in sync, feeling good. And the sunset was beautiful. 

I finished at a Target surrounded by acres of parking. I found a spot to sit and an outlet for my phone, and felt the stiffness permeate my legs. My friends took the last set of finish line photos, and then we went for burgers.

Sources:

 

Some photos taken by Tim Johnson and Jennifer Lindemer.

 

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