Detroit thread. Post Kwame, Monica, and $1 houses here.

[MadImmortalMan]

So do the auctions start the price on the delinquency amount, or can I sweep in and buy up several square miles of Detroit for fifty bucks of there aren't any other buyers?



I'd like to build a monument to Brutus Buckeye there.

[Savonarola]

So do the auctions start the price on the delinquency amount, or can I sweep in and buy up several square miles of Detroit for fifty bucks of there aren't any other buyers?



I'd like to build a monument to Brutus Buckeye there.

At the first auction the minimum bid is the property taxes owed on the parcel.  At the second aution (held a couple weeks later) the minimum bid is $500.

You might want to save your money; most of the neighborhoods in Detroit with large amounts of abandoned property don't usually have a lot of University of Michigan graduates.

[Ed Anger]

Brutus must be worshipped.

[Neil]

You know, this would be an awesome opportunity for OCP to buy up Detroit and build a new, better city.  However, that could never happen in the real world.  Even if somebody bought all the land, they'd still have to deal with the Detroit municipal goverment, elected by the lunatics that populate Detroit.

[garbon]

they'd still have to deal with the Detroit municipal goverment, elected by the lunatics that populate Detroit.

Well they can be bought too.

[Savonarola]

A tree grows in the D.

Nature takes root as Detroit's Lafayette Building rots
Charlie LeDuff / The Detroit News
A poplar tree stands atop the historic Lafayette Building in the heart of Detroit. Her crown reaches 20 feet above the terra cotta cornice, her roots puncturing deep into the roof. Her leaves are yellowing and crisp. They sing a forlorn little tune.

The tree is in the last days of her life.

Demolition of the landmark building -- sitting on a pie-sliced plot bound by Michigan Avenue, Shelby Street and Lafayette Boulevard -- began in September and is expected to be completed by March.

And when the building goes down, so too will the poplar, which has become something of a symbol of a great city's backward march to nature.

The view from her trunk is telling of our times. The former Federal Reserve Bank is empty while the Federal Court House is full. The monstrous Ford River Rouge automobile factory works at a fraction of its capacity. The grandiose Penobscot Building is in foreclosure proceedings. Ford Field, host of the great distraction of professional football, squats to the north. Directly below are the American and Lafayette Coney Island restaurants, both of which claim to be the first in the United States.

"It's an epic battle trying to control nature and it looks like we lost," said Jay Sawson, a laborer for Adamo Demolition Co. who escorted a reporter up the 276 crumbling steps to the roof. "Without constant maintenance, buildings fall. That's the way nature works. This tree. It's interesting, it's beautiful, but the tree destroyed this building."

The building -- completed in 1924 -- was permanently closed a decade ago. A seed -- brought either by bird or wind -- took root. Other trees have sprouted. There are two other large poplars and a dozen saplings turning the roof into forest. There is also sweet grass and field daisies and moss. In the interior, on the seventh floor, a set of yellowed-curtains billow in the windowless frame. The innards of the Lafayette resemble the aftermath at ground zero, having been set upon by vandals and scavengers and nature.

The history of the building on which the poplar grows suggests that as much as we would like to pine for the glory days, the glory days were never really that good.

That the more things change in Detroit, the more they remain the same. The decline of this city has been a longtime run.

The triangle of the Lafayette Building was once known as the Bressler Block and featured small landmark buildings.

The land was purchased by the Edsel Ford family in 1910 and sold seven years later. The Bressler buildings were razed to make room for the Lafayette, an Italian Renaissance structure with a v-shaped design built by a syndicate that promised "Michigan's finest office building."

And it was among them, featuring 14 floors trimmed in walnut and marble and bronze.

The city boomed. The nearby Book-Cadillac Building was built around the same time and the Free Press Building a few years later.

Nevertheless, the Lafayette building had financial problems from almost the day it opened. Like the Michigan Central Depot, it was never fully occupied, despite tenants such as the Michigan Supreme Court and some railroad companies. In the early '30s, the owners defaulted on the taxes.

The building limped along during the war and the auto boom of the late '40s and early '50s. Then a series of events combined to cripple the city and doom the Lafayette.

In 1950, Deere and Company of Moline, Ill., began the mass manufacture of the two-row mechanized cotton-picker, making thousands of Southern sharecroppers -- both black and white -- irrelevant. Over that decade, the Detroit black population grew from 300,000 to a half-million, many of them poor people from the South looking for work that was not here. During the same time, a million -- mostly white -- people moved to the suburbs. In 1956, Packard closed its east-side plant. In 1958, a deep recession struck, sending 20 percent of working Detroiters to the unemployment line. Still, the city paid generous welfare benefits, and people kept coming.

During all this, the Lafayette -- like much of downtown -- began to empty out and fall into disrepair. The building was sold in 1961 to the Tenney Realty Corp of New York, one of the largest real estate investment companies in the country. Its partners believed their investment in the Lafayette would "grow with the renaissance of downtown Detroit," according to an article in The News.

The mayor at the time was Louis Miriani, who would later serve a year in prison for enriching himself while in office and failing to report the income or pay taxes.

The expected renaissance of Detroit did not happen. The riots of 1967 led to more white and capital flight and the Lafayette was bought and sold a number of times. In 1988, it was purchased by J. Wolf Realty of Brooklyn, N.Y. for $3.3 million, just $300,000 more than it cost to build 65 years earlier.

"We feel the downtown will turn around," Abe Fastener, a partner, told The News then.

Years of mismanagement ensued. The Supreme Court moved out. The building was boarded up in 1997 and turned over to the city.

Sometime after that, the poplar took root.

Soon, the poplar and the building will be gone and the only physical memories of them will be photographs and the yellowed newspaper clippings made from trees.

"Nothing lasts forever," said Sawson the laborer. "Nothing that man makes, anyway."

[charliebear]

Aha!  We are finally going to find out who killed the stripper.

Dancer's murder probe reassigned to task force
BY BEN SCHMITT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER



Detroit Police Chief Warren Evans has reassigned the investigation into the death of Tamara Greene to the multi-jurisdictional Violent Crimes Task Force.

Evans said he considers the task force, comprised of Detroit Police, FBI, Wayne County Sheriff's and State Police investigators, to be an elite unit.


"People have an expectation that cases should be thoroughly investigated," Evans said. "Whether this was or wasn't, people don't believe it was. The task force has great cops who are great investigators."


Greene, an exotic dancer nicknamed Strawberry, was shot and killed in a Detroit drive-by shooting on April 30, 2003. No one has been arrested in connection with her death.


Greene's slaying has drawn attention because of a never-proven party some say former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick held at the Manoogian Mansion, then the city's mayoral residence. Some say Greene, whose stage name was Strawberry, danced at the fall 2002 party and was later assaulted by Kilpatrick's wife.


Coincidentally, a former Detroit police investigator from the task force claims in a lawsuit that he was transferred for looking into other allegations about Kilpatrick.


Ira Todd asserted that he was transferred from the task force after he turned up an allegation linking Kilpatrick to a reputed upper-level drug dealer.


Todd said in the lawsuit filed last year that he established a possible link between alleged hit man Vincent Smothers and a reputed drug dealer in Lexington, Ky., who claimed to have personal and professional connections to Kilpatrick.


After telling his superiors about the drug dealer's claims, Todd said, he was transferred.


Evans said he read this week depositions given by some of Todd's colleagues, including a sheriff's employee whom Evans trusts.


"These depositions jarred my mind about the Tamara Greene case, because it's another case that doesn't have closure," Evans said.

http://freep.com/article/20091001/NEWS01/91001085/1320/Dancer-s-murder-probe-reassigned



Drugs, conspiracies, the mayor's wife...this is getting good.

[Savonarola]

Detroit school board member testifies in assault trial
Board member Thornton tells trial that she shoved heckler 'after he bumped into me'
Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News
Detroit --Her accuser assaulted her, Detroit Public School Board member Marie Thornton testified Wednesday in the third day of her misdemeanor assault and disorderly conduct trial.

The Rev. Loyce Lester accused Thornton of knocking him down with a forearm and spilling gravy on his suit after a typically raucous Detroit School Board meeting Sept. 13, 2007.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy charged Thornton with misdemeanors punishable by fines and up to 90 days in jail. After almost two years of legal challenges, the woman who has been sanctioned by fellow board members seven times for unbecoming conduct is on trial in the city's 36th District Court.


But Thornton testified Wednesday that Lester is the one who should have been charged. She's on trial, she said, because she has exposed wrongdoing as a board member and because Lester is chairman of a subcommittee that oversees and controls the school district's in-house police department. He isn't a member of the school board, but she said he regularly attended meetings and heckled members.

"The officers didn't come to my defense," Thornton said. "I feel they didn't come because of all the stuff I've done, all the investigations I've done."

Witnesses testified that Lester shouted crude remarks from the audience throughout the meeting. His comments were particularly aimed at female board members. They included uncomplimentary taunts about hairdos and dresses. Shouting objections from the audience is a tradition in Detroit, which even Thornton admitted she participated in before being elected to the board four years ago.

After the meeting, witnesses said Lester thrust his belly against Thornton's. Thornton suggested the jostling was sexual.

"I felt degraded," Thornton said. "I had never been sexually assaulted, but it made me think of those people who get raped. It made me feel like I didn't want to talk about it."

The two engaged in a loud, crude shouting match. Witnesses said Lester made obscene threats. Thornton admitted, "I said things that I don't normally say."

The pastor of Original New Grace Baptist Church in Detroit has a violent past. Lester pleaded no contest in 1992 to felony solicitation of assault. He said he beat the man with a golf club.

Thornton on Wednesday said, "I shoved him. I shoved him out of my space after he bumped into me."

We have the best traditions in Detroit.   

[charliebear]

The Rev. Loyce Lester accused Thornton of knocking him down with a forearm and spilling gravy on his suit after a typically raucous Detroit School Board meeting Sept. 13, 2007.

By chance, was that the same meeting where members of the audience were pelting the school board folks with grapes?

[sbr]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8288149.stm

A man from the US city of Detroit has been sentenced to two years in jail after stealing the car of a woman he was on a first date with.

After a restaurant meal, Terrance McCoy said he left his wallet in the woman's car, asked for the keys and drove off, AP reported, quoting the woman.

McCoy pleaded no contest to the charge of unlawfully driving away a vehicle.

Defence lawyer Terri Antisdale said his client was "a very nice man who made a bad decision".

A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt under US law but counts as a conviction at sentencing.

[charliebear]

Piece be with you: Detroit pastors packing heat

DETROIT - The Rev. Lawrence Adams teaches his flock at the Westside Bible Church to turn the other cheek. Just in case, though, the 54-year-old retired police lieutenant also wears a handgun under his robe.

Adams is one of several Detroit clergymen who have taken to packing heat in the pulpit. They have committed their lives to a man who preached nonviolence and told followers to love their enemies. But they also say it's up to them to protect their parishioners in church.

"As a pastor, I'm referred to as a shepherd," Adams said. "Shepherds have the responsibility of watching over their flock. Do I want to hurt somebody? Absolutely not!"

Responding to a break-in at his church Sunday evening, Adams surprised a burglar carrying out a bag of loot and shot the man in the abdomen after the man swung the bag at him.

The burglar survived — for which Adams is grateful — but the reverend said he could have been hurt or killed if he had not been armed.

Detroit had the nation's highest homicide rate last year among cities of at least 500,000 residents. The city has been losing manufacturing jobs for decades, and these days about one in four working-age residents is without a job.

The northwest Detroit neighborhood surrounding Adams' church isn't one of the city's most dangerous. But there have been many recent reports of crimes in the area, including four burglaries, three auto thefts, one armed robbery and four assaults, including one with intent to murder.

"It's getting worse because of the economy," Adams said. "People are out of work and feel they have to provide for their families."

Prior to 2000, anyone who wanted to carry a concealed weapon in Michigan had to show a need to do so. Now, gun owners simply have to pass a stringent background check and complete eight hours of handgun training.

"I get people from all walks of life, including pastors," said Rick Ector, owner of Rick's Firearm Academy in Detroit. "But it's not anything specific to pastors. Detroit is not a very safe place."

Michigan allows pastors to decide if someone registered to carry a handgun can do so for protection inside churches.

The clergy in Detroit who arm themselves say they do so because of the high overall crime rate. But churchgoers elsewhere have been the target of violent attacks several times in recent years:

Last year in a New Jersey church, a man fatally shot his estranged wife and a man who intervened in the attack.
A pastor was found stabbed to death in August in an Oklahoma church.
A Maryville, Illinois, preacher was gunned down during his Sunday sermon in March.
In December 2007, a gunman killed two people at a Christian youth mission center near Denver and two others at a megachurch in Colorado Springs.
Near Detroit, a man was shot to death in 2003 while worshipping in a Catholic church. And an attacker fatally shot a woman and wounded a child inside another Detroit church three years ago because of a domestic dispute.
"I don't know what kind of issues people are bringing with them. You could be running from estranged husband, boyfriend," said Bishop Charles Ellis III, pastor of the 6,500-member Greater Grace Temple in Detroit.

Ellis said he sometimes carries a gun, but never in the pulpit. His church has a "ministry of defense" for Sunday services made up of about 18 armed congregants who are off-duty law enforcement officers.
Clergy are adjusting to society, said the Rev. Kenneth J. Flowers, pastor of Greater New Mt. Moriah Baptist Church in Detroit.

"In addition to their faith, they are carrying weapons," said Flowers, who does not carry a gun. "There used to be a time when everybody respected a pastor. Even a drunk would straighten up if a preacher came by."

Many people are uncomfortable with the idea of an armed clergy, because Christ preached against violence and taught people they should love their enemies.

"But the scriptures also are clear that civil authority is part of God's plan," said Claude Wiggins, a former pastor and current assistant at the Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary.

"In our country, it says in due process that you may bear arms to protect yourself. While we should be committed to trusting God, that doesn't prevent us or command us to be totally passive," Wiggins said.

'What would Jesus do?'
Al Meredith, pastor of the Wedgwood church in Fort Worth, said some off-duty police officers who are deacons at his church carry guns, but he's uncomfortable with the idea of an armed congregation.

"It discourages the crazies from acts of violence if they see uniforms around, but I don't want everybody bringing guns," Meredith said. "My ultimate conviction is what does the word of God say and what would Jesus do? Can you in your wildest imagination ever see Jesus packing a .38? I can't imagine Peter and Paul carrying .45s."

The Rev. William Revely, who sometimes wears his .357-caliber handgun while preaching at the Holy Hope Heritage Church in Detroit, does not worry whether it might be wrong for a man of God to carry a firearm in church.

"I've always felt that the only way to handle a bear in a bear meeting is to have something you can handle a bear with," said the 68-year-old pastor, who practices at a gun range with another pastor. "We have to be realistic. I know too many people who've been shot, carjacked."

Adams said most — if not all — of Westside's 50 members have supported his actions after encountering the burglar.

"People want to look at Christians and the church as believers in God and ask 'Why doesn't God protect you?" Adams said. "The reality is God has given man free will. We have to use our God-given talents and protect ourselves."

So there you have it.

[Malthus]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8288149.stm

A man from the US city of Detroit has been sentenced to two years in jail after stealing the car of a woman he was on a first date with.

After a restaurant meal, Terrance McCoy said he left his wallet in the woman's car, asked for the keys and drove off, AP reported, quoting the woman.

McCoy pleaded no contest to the charge of unlawfully driving away a vehicle.

Defence lawyer Terri Antisdale said his client was "a very nice man who made a bad decision".

A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt under US law but counts as a conviction at sentencing.

So ... did he get a second date, or what? 

[DGuller]

So ... did he get a second date, or what? 

I wouldn't be surprised.  Chicks dig guys with cars.

[Darth Wagtaros]

So ... did he get a second date, or what? 

I wouldn't be surprised.  Chicks dig guys with cars.

She probably believes she can change him.

[Malthus]

So ... did he get a second date, or what? 

I wouldn't be surprised.  Chicks dig guys with cars.

She probably believes she can change him.

She already did.

From a guy without a car, into a guy with a car; and finally, into a guy with a jail sentence.