Why Me? Why Detroit?

The one question I get asked more than any other in reference to this project is, “Why is a Boston guy making a film about Detroit?”

Here’s a little history about me that might shed some light on why I’m so enamored with your city.

(Lawrence, MA)

I grew up in Lawrence, MA, which for a while in the 80s earned the distinction of having the highest poverty rate in the country. But in the early part of the century, Lawrence was a thriving mill town, with a fantastic textile industry that employed the dreams of tens of thousands of immigrants from all over the world.

But when the wool plants closed in the 50s, the jobs went away, and poverty and welfare became the norm. The psyche of Lawrence has mirrored that distinction ever since, and they’ve never quite recovered.

Read this Wikipedia description about Lawrence and see if it reminds you of any place you know:

“Lawrence has often made efforts at revitalization, some of them controversial. [Under] the guise of ‘urban renewal,’ large tracts of downtown Lawrence were razed in the mid-1970s and replaced with parking lots and a three-story parking garage connected to a new In town Mall intended to compete with newly constructed suburban malls. The historic Theater Row along Broadway was also razed, destroying ornate movie palaces of the 1920s and 1930s that entertained mill workers through the Great Depression and the Second World War. Additionally, the city's main post office, an ornate federalist style building at the corner of Broadway and Essex Street, was razed. Most of the structures were replaced with one-story, steel-frame structures with large parking lots, housing such establishments as fast food restaurants and chain drug stores, fundamentally changing the character of the center of Lawrence.”

I was born into this Lawrence. My mom and I were on welfare for most of my childhood, until she put me in daycare and got herself into job training that eventually got us out of poverty. And not only that, over the course of the next 20 years, she got her degree at Leslie College and worked her way up to become the executive director of the very same organization that provided her with poverty assistance.

I’ve lived through both great poverty and great reinvention. I’ve seen what’s possible, on both sides of the spectrum.

So, the answer to the question, “Why is a Boston guy making a film about Detroit?” is simple. Your story is my story. Your potential is my potential. I know intimately about struggling and overcoming that struggling. And we’ve both got a lot to prove.

16 December 2010
Views
1 Comment
Permalink
Tweet

Lemonade: Detroit

Why Me? Why Detroit?

Lemonade, Detroit's Space

Archive

About Lemonade, Detroit

Lemonade Stories in the D

Follow Me