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Happy Devil's Night

Started by Savonarola, October 30, 2013, 06:14:04 PM

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Savonarola

October 30, 2013, 06:14:04 PM
About 20 years ago tonight would have been the worst night of the year to be either a firefighter or a police officer in Detroit (outside the occasional riot.)  Every year on October 30 the people would come together and burn abandon houses and buildings.  It was a Detroit Mardi Gras.  Some of the fires were vigilante justice as neighbors would torch crack houses.  Some of the fires were landlords torching worthless properties for insurance money.  Most were just teenagers with nothing better to do.  Then Mayor Coleman A. Young responded by blaming the suburbanites for going to the city and starting fire and by blaming the news media for reporting them.  This solved the problem about as well as any other problem was solved in Detroit during Coleman's tenure.

In the mid-90s things changed; the new mayor, Denis Archer, organized citizens groups to work with law enforcement to report fires.  Within a few years things died down considerably and now tonight is no more dangerous than any other night in Detroit (not that that's great; but it's a step in the right direction.)

I see from the language maps that only Michigan calls tonight "Devil's Night."  Does anyone else live in a place where tonight is a "Mischief Night" or something similar?
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

Ideologue

#1
October 30, 2013, 06:55:26 PM
I'd like to set some buildings on fire in Columbia, but really I wouldn't even know where to start.
Kinemalogue
Current reviews: The 'Burbs (9/10); Gremlins 2: The New Batch (9/10); John Wick: Chapter 2 (9/10); A Cure For Wellness (4/10)

Razgovory

#2
October 30, 2013, 07:07:11 PM
Is it possible you guys just ran out of things to burn down in Detroit?
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

derspiess

#3
October 30, 2013, 08:06:20 PM
I have my motion sensors & paintball gun ready.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

Caliga

#4
October 30, 2013, 08:11:59 PM
We had Mischief Night in the Philly area, and people liked to burn shit down in Camden, NJ much like they did in Detroit.
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merithyn

#5
October 30, 2013, 08:14:30 PM
This is Beggar's Night in Des Moines, and it's the night the kids go trick-or-treating. It's been that way for at least the last 50 years. :)

I don't remember there ever being a night of devilry or mischief growing up.
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

Savonarola

#6
October 30, 2013, 08:31:34 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on October 30, 2013, 07:07:11 PM
Is it possible you guys just ran out of things to burn down in Detroit?

Heh, no, Detroit has lost about three hundred thousand people since the mid-90s; there's even more abandoned property now than there was twenty years ago.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

Savonarola

#7
October 30, 2013, 08:33:35 PM
Quote from: Caliga on October 30, 2013, 08:11:59 PM
We had Mischief Night in the Philly area, and people liked to burn shit down in Camden, NJ much like they did in Detroit.

Yeah, they set the bar in the D.  In the early 90s you could watch the city burn in real time on cable.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

Savonarola

#8
October 30, 2013, 08:34:29 PM
Quote from: merithyn on October 30, 2013, 08:14:30 PM
This is Beggar's Night in Des Moines, and it's the night the kids go trick-or-treating. It's been that way for at least the last 50 years. :)

That's interesting; do they do anything on Halloween?
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

merithyn

#9
October 30, 2013, 08:35:06 PM
Quote from: Savonarola on October 30, 2013, 08:34:29 PM
Quote from: merithyn on October 30, 2013, 08:14:30 PM
This is Beggar's Night in Des Moines, and it's the night the kids go trick-or-treating. It's been that way for at least the last 50 years. :)

That's interesting; do they do anything on Halloween?

That's when the parties were.
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...
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