Hoffa '96

Fisher W and Rosa Parks. A Hoffa 2001 sign has been removed and the '96 is starting to expose a a sign beneath indicating a party store.

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Free Advice

Billboard messages offer free advice about parenting almost everywhere you go in Detroit. On Oakland in Highland Park, two identical messages proclaim the need for children to use car seats until they reach the height of 4 feet 9 inches.


Photoshop? No. Sadly, a decision was made to place these identical billboards next to each other. Notice the sign in the foreground proclaiming a "Drug free school zone". There are no schools currently operating in this area. The street is lined with abandoned and occupied industrial buildings and leaning street lamps.






Across the street

OK, let's forget for a moment the poor decision to place the same message next to itself. Let's forget that there are no schools along this avenue and probably not very much parent traffic. Let's ignore how difficult to discern the message, "4"9' Is The Magic Number!" is. One question remains: how many parents in this neighborhood can afford to buy child seats for 4"8' children?

Car seat prices range from about 50 to 300 dollars.

The boosterseat.gov website advertised on these billboards includes a link, "Where can I find a booster seat?" It suggests, "...stores that sell toys, children's furniture or other items aimed at parents" and to "Try typing 'Booster Seats' into your favorite search engine."

I know of only one effort to provide car seats to low-income families. A local auto parts chain partners with the Detroit Tigers in a (self-) promotion to provide car seats to "qualified families."

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) argues with statistical data that children as tall as 4"9' have better chances of surviving auto accidents if they are in booster seats. Their point is well taken. However, their use of advertising funds and "efforts" to get this message out seem misguided. Why not spend that money on discounting car seats for low-income families?

Other free advice billboards in the city ask questions like, "The Crossing Guard Knows Who Your Kid Hangs Out With, Do You?" Such questions are intended to berate bad parents into taking more interest in their kids' activities.

There's no shortage of free parenting advice, but who are the ad wizards that came up with this?


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Coverups

Detroit erases its physical history. Europeans arrived in 1701, but the oldest surviving home dates circa 1840. Only vague traces of Native presence remain, like the burial mound that still sits inside Fort Wayne. Much of the Detroit's 18th century buildings were erased in a great fire in 1805. Very little of the rebuilt Detroit from the early 19th century remains. Antebellum Detroit was erased and replaced (the Monroe Block is a notable example). The architecture that can still be found abundantly in the older parts of the city doesn't begin to get built until after the Civil War.

We're still erasing, of course. While a lot remains, the majority of what was built between the Civil War and Great Depression in Detroit has been erased. Dramatic and idiotic "refurbishments" of theaters and other buildings in the decades after World War II erased much of the previous eras grandeur and replaced with colder, simpler designs.

Sometimes, entire neighborhoods get erased. Paradise Valley had the highest concentration of African American owned businesses anywhere outside of Harlem in the 1940s. It was erased by the venom and misguidance of politicians and planners. In the late 1990s, construction of the Detroit Lion's football stadium bulldozed the only remaining night club (The 606 Horseshoe Bar) of the neighborhood.

Paint can erase a lot of history. Century old advertisements have clung to the tops of buildings before finally being covered over. Murals have come and gone. Statements are made and then replaced with other statements. The billboard at the SW corner of Michigan and Trumbull was purchased this past election season by the challenger for Governor, DeVos. The retort simply painted over the "os" to spell "DeVil for Governor", and changed his hackeneyed "vote for change" mantra to "vote for satan". The DeVos people quickly and sometimes not so quickly changed the message back. The editors repeated their efforts on their other local billboards...



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