Can Anything Gold Stay In Scripps Park?

I am a huge fan of Access Arts and their projects, having enjoyed their exhibitions on Belle Isle immensely. They branched out this spring to partner with Forward Arts and the Woodbridge Neighborhood Development Corporation to clean up Scripps Park and present a show there. 

They included a "student artist" component to the show as part of their mission to create opportunities for  youth arts education. The piece above was my favorite of the student entries, with its description below:

 This edge of the Woodbridge neighborhood is a point of contact between two Detroits.... one of homelessness, joblessness, lack of education and skills, sometimes mental illness, and soul-sucking poverty; and one of hopefulness in the form of a relatively stable neighborhood core, and a cadre of energetic, idealistic and determined students, artists, activists, and residents young and old... I hate to use the word hipsters because it can be hard to see the individuals past the word, but sometimes the shoe does seem to fit.

I am very interested in points of contacts like this to find ideas on how (as we try to build the city back up) we can "gentrify" without "disenfranchising". I put those words in quotes because I think they're both loaded with heavy baggage.

The people behind the show, who worked so hard on cleaning and fixing up the park and creating the installations, have been a little discouraged and dismayed by some events of the past weekend. Whole exhibits and improvements to the park made of materials as precious as plastic shipping crates, tires, and plastic bags were rearranged and even removed.

The day the show opened, the park was filled with people picnicking, walking their dogs, and generally enjoying their day. Maybe nothing gold can stay, but the golden glow of that day returns, again and again, in every creative act it inspires. Rising from the ashes, right?

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.
Robert Frost

Horses of Many Colors

Today was the Michigan Black Horseman's Association Trail Ride on Belle Isle. I only caught the tail end of it (no pun intended), but it was so much fun to see the horses, worn out from their adventure on the island.

The horse's history on Belle Isle predates the establishment of the park. Horses were used on the island to haul blocks of ice when ice harvesting was big business, and for moving supplies and equipment around the island when the marshes were being drained to establish the park.

There were two stable complexes on the island, one for the general riding stables (now removed to Greenfield Village, to be rebuilt someday), and one to house the workhorses of the island (designed by Mason & Rice, now the island's maintenance complex).

The riding stables (above, in their original incarnation) were built from Detroit's old central market, located where Cadillac Square is today, in 1894.

The maintenance complex stables (old entrance, above) are planned to be the next big project that the Belle Isle Women's Committee undertakes.
A more current view of them...

I wish you could have seen the horses flying in full gallop across the meadows of Belle Isle today. The riders and horses were colorfully attired and in high spirits, waving and strutting for passers-by.

Historical information on the stables comes from Janet Anderson's book, Island In the City, and the Friends of Belle Isle website. Old photos from the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

A Little Less Conversation**

When I started writing this blog, it was actually to help me learn how to use my new laptop and to learn Web 2.0 kinds of things. I hoped but didn't really imagine that other people would read it. It has been a gratifying and enlightening experience.

I started writing the blog from a place where I was standing on the sidelines, observing the happenings around town and getting to know my city better. The creative people and amazing places I've gotten to know through the blog have inspired me, gradually, to move off the sidelines and back into the thick of things (or at least the version of it that I am suited for).

I started grad school last week. Since I decided to go to grad school sort of last minute (like, the end of January), time for the blog has been shanghaied by various applications, tests, and technology interventions that I needed to perform on myself to get up to speed.

I also have started trying to put my time where my mouth (or my keyboard) is, and I'm putting in a little time in a small way with some groups that do things that are close to my heart... historic preservation and community development.

This is a roundabout way of saying, "Guys, I want to keep up the blog, but posts will be shorter and less frequent." I feel like I have built something here that I don't want to quit on, but at least until I get my sea legs in school, I may have to do "Belle Isle Home Lite".

I hope you still enjoy it. Thanks for reading, especially to those who noticed I was in absentia.

Warm regards,
Belle

** Thanks to Elvis, too.