Contents
Introduction
Camilo Vergara's Detroit, by Robert Fishman
Game Changers
American Acropolis: The End of an Idea
Traces of Past Grandeur
Neighborhood Landmarks
This Is No Rome: Ruins and Desolate Cityscapes
New Life for Former Banks
To Reach the Lost: Churches Where Everybody Is Somebody
Spirits of Motor City: Folk Signs and Murals
In Detroit, Jesus Is the Only Star
Business-Oriented Signs
Celebrating Black Heroes and Heroines
“It Has Nothing to Do with Race”: Snow White, Snow Green, Snow Brown
“Gone but Not Forgotten”: Memorials
“You All Came Here and Just Marked Up Our Entire City”
Brightmoor: The Search for a Bucolic Utopia by the Rouge River
African American Artists: History, Remembrance, Turf
Persistent Blight, Concentrated: An Abbreviated Street Guide
Inner-City Billboards
Extinguished Neon Signs
Street Vendors
Doing Business Behind Plexiglass
Oases Amidst Desolation: Detroit’s New Architecture
“Farm City”: Replacing Blight with Beauty
Detroiters
“In the Ghettohood”: Things Get Better Slowly
Detroit’s Evolving Ruins
Giving Back to the Community
No Dry Bones
Acknowledgments