Above, a 1943 amphibious vehicle test in Detroit's Rouge River (Photo: Charles E. Steinheimer./Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images). Life's Ben Cosgrove emails:
As Time's site has it: "For the next year, Time Inc. journalists will cover all aspects of the Motor City. Because the future of Detroit affects all of us." I believe that. I've always liked Detroit -- my first visit to the amazing Detroit Institute of Arts remains one of the most wonderful cultural surprises of my life; I was a callow jerk, expecting little, and was utterly blown away by DIA's collection -- and I thought I knew a little bit about the city. But somehow I never knew anything about Detroit's central role in helping the Allies win WWII. Well, when I did finally hear about it, I thought a gallery was in order.WWII: How Detroit Won The War
RSS Feed
Ah, simpler days; when a gentleman wasn't fully dressed if he went outside without his hat. Even if his excursion involved driving a card down the middle of the freaking river. Excellent.
I am much too young to remember this WWII stuff, but I remember that once Detroit was a place of economic vitality, where "working stiffs" could send kids to parochial school or buy a cabin "Up North" and had good health insurance. And Detroit built stuff...machines that moved the world. It saddens me now to see much of the Detroit (city AND SUBURBS) rotting away. And I don't think the decay was inevitable...
If you ride the green line on the dc metro from the Chinatown stop towards MD keep an eye on the back lots filled with junk. Just after you pass the Rhode Island Ave stop you'll see one of these amphibious trucks like the one above behind a rotting warehouse. It's been there for well over a decade.
the DIA is FUCKING AWESOME! Go through the front entrance rather than in through the parking garage for full effect (after buying ticket in the foyer, it opens up into a chequed-marble-floored room full of medieval armor and weaponry--classy!) There is another room about the size of a basketball court but with a higher ceiling which is fully muraled by Diego Rivera--all 4 walls floor-to-ceiling. IT NEVER FAILS TO BLOW MY EFFING MIND. Then, for the final touch of unintentional surrealism, leave the museum and drive around the block to see large, once-lavish mansions in disrepair similar to Pompei. Detroit's got problems, man, but it sure is neat to look at.
As optimistic as I am regarding the coming influx of "green jobs" to Michigan, it's really the kind of thing that would have helped us out here about 20 years ago. We could have phased our industry over and scaled down gently. Instead, we've been on a crash course since the middle of the last century, and the bumpy ride makes this region unattractive to anyone who wold come on board. This used to be where innovation came from, and I think it will be again, but it's going to take an awful lot of time and effort.
In the autobiography of one of the founders of Sony, Akio Morita, he tells of how finding a documentary on Detroit changed his life twice. He was in Naval Intelligence and was given some film salvaged from a sunken US supply ship to analyze. It had a great newsreel of a giant complex in some place called Detroit where you poured coal and iron in one end and tanks and artillery poured out the other end.
Comparing this with the backyard craftsman infrastructure of the Japanese military made him think "Ok, we've lost this one. I wonder what I'll do after the (imminent) end of the war? Maybe something in electronics...".
Later, on a his first tour of the States, he asked to see said complex in real life. It was exactly as he remembered: right down to individual markings on pilings and individual huge-ass machines. Comparing this to Japan's spanking brand new industrial infrastructure made him think "Ok, we've got this competition in the bag. This country will be hollowed out in no time."
Perhaps now the country will stop thinking about Detroit as something it's OK to hate, and start thinking of it like New Orleans after Katrina; a town that has given much and has needs help. Except in Detroit's case the problems have lingered far longer.
Well said, eti.