Middlesex

A few weeks ago, Stef, Caleb and I went on an expedition down into the heart of Detroit and then out into Grosse Pointe. It was a journey of nostalgia as well as a literary pilgrimage. While we've never gone to find Salinger so he can hit on our girlfriends or sought out the wisdom of Ray Bradbury, we did find Middlesex.


But I'm getting ahead of myself, that's the end of the journey. The beginning was a drive down Michigan Avenue, the mainstreet of our hometown of Dearborn and one of the main spokes that radiate out from the center of Detroit. We drove into Detroit past beautiful old buildings, some shoddy, some painted gaudily, some in wonderful condition and housing Mexican restaurants. Soon enough Downtown was visible, but we took a bit of a detour as we past the wreck of old Tiger Stadium, one wall left emblazoned with two defiant tigers and headed up Trumbull towards Warren.

While I had been into the city plenty of times, never had I done so at such a leisurely pace. We weren't heading to a ball game or a concert or driving around in the middle of the night because we're stupid and eighteen, we were exploring. I was to come see what I would soon be leaving behind, coming to appreciate what I had always taken for granted as my home, but never truly stopped long enough to take it all in.

We took a turn down a lonely little street and looped past the Michigan Central Station, one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen, even though it is now only the deteriorating shell of an idea.

Michigan Central Station

We headed along Warren past Wayne State's campus and then hit Woodward and took that down into the heart of the city. We drove passed Grand Circus Park, Campus Maritus and to Hart Plaza, dwarfed by the skyscrapers above... the Penobscot Building and the Renaissance Center especially.

Downtown Detroit from Belle Isle

We headed northeast up Jefferson and crossed the river to Belle Isle, where we parked and wandered about the south end of the island. Avoiding goose poop, we walked down to the water's edge where huge rocks are piled up and looked at Downtown, then headed over to the beautiful statue before the pond. Eventually, we hopped back in the car and circled the island, stopping by the Aquarium to peek inside (it isn't open anymore) and the Conservatory. We drove past the Detroit Yacht Club (looking quite pompous) and the Detroit Boat Club (the burned out husk of a building) and then headed back to the mainland and up Jefferson once more. We drove around Indian Village, marveling at the beautiful old houses of the revived neighborhood and then into Grosse Pointe, which while beautiful and old, had a definite flavor of aristocracy.


It was there where we found Middlesex and on that street a house which seemed to us suspiciously like the house from Jeffery Eugenides' book by the same title. It looked smaller than I imaged it from the book, but it did seem to stretch back quite a ways and we didn't go traipsing about the backyard or anything, but it seemed to fit the image of that big-windowed monstrosity of modernism.

I'm not sure I can capture what I felt staring at that house, but I must have been part pilgrim, part detective, part wonder-struck child...

Middlesex

We spent a bit more time in Grosse Pointe, just soaking in what the city (or cities, I should say) felt like, before heading back into Detroit and then home. We stopped by a Mexican place to eat and then by a comic book store on our way back up Michigan Avenue and into Dearborn.