{"id":5826,"date":"2024-05-27T22:12:43","date_gmt":"2024-05-27T22:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/?p=5826"},"modified":"2024-06-25T14:26:44","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T14:26:44","slug":"sunday-may-27-chicago-south-bend-detroit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/05\/27\/sunday-may-27-chicago-south-bend-detroit\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday, May 26: Chicago – South Bend – Detroit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We took off quite early from Chicago this morning, after I tried out an elliptical in the ENORMOUS fitness center at the Palmer House Hilton and–since there was no coffee maker in the hotel room–patiently stood in a long line for a cup of coffee and tea at the in-house brand-name coffee place that shall not be named here. We again took the El back to Midway (a short 20 minutes’ ride) retrieved our car for $24.00 for two days (really a good deal) and took off for South Bend, IN. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Leaving downtown Chicago<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This former steel-and-Studebaker city is about two hours from Chicago on the road west to Detroit, and after a peek at the unspectacular downtown and quick lunch at a ramen place, we went to see a friend of mine for a short visit–our reason for coming. She suffered a severe stroke two years ago and has had some bumps on the road to recovery, but we were able to visit for about 20 minutes, and I was so happy to be able to see her rather than just writing postcards, which is what I usually do. After our visit we continued our drive for about 3 hours through the Indiana and Michigan countryside, which for some reason looks more “German” to me than Nebraska, probably because there are more trees and little woods between the fields. But something about the farm architecture also seems to resemble German farms a bit more. It was lush and green and we are always just ahead of some weather, so we had a dry and unremarkable trip to Detroit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chicago to Detroit via South Bend<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We arrived around 5 pm in Detroit with our friends Randy and Angye, who had lived there for many many years, moved away for job-related reasons and came back very happily two years ago, again for job-related reasons. They lucked out and took over a glorious mid-century apartment\/townhouse in a larger apartment park \/ complex \/ co-op that was designed in the late 1950s by Mies van der Rohe. These are basically modernist rowhouses with a shared park in the back and top-to-bottom windows in the front and back, surrounded by beautiful mature trees, and only about a half mile from downtown. Their apartment was freshly renovated before they moved here and it is just gorgeous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Outside view of the Lafayette Park apartments designed by Mies van der Rohe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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On the inside of the Mies van der Rohe town home <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Even as it was threatening to rain, we took a drive through parts of Detroit to get a first sense of the inner city. We saw the two “downtowns” along Woodward Ave.–what is still the downtown area right by the river and the “New Center” which was built up during the boom years of the early 20th century, when the town was growing so fast with the beginnings of the auto industry and Henry Ford that one area full of bank and business buildings wasn’t quite enough. We also drove by the origin point of Motown, which were just two modest rowhouses where Berry Gordy started his recording studio. Then we headed to the old Irish part of town, Corktown, to have burgers at Mercury Burger and Bar (which was yummy) and also take a peek from there at the old Michigan Central Station, which was abandoned for decades after Amtrak stopped using it in 1988, but has just been lavishly renovated and will open in the next couple of days as a location for restaurants, bars, a hotel and businesses. It was a good first introduction to the incredible contrasts that mark Detroit and that Randy and Angye love so much. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Where Motown started–in two rowhouses<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

More photos tomorrow!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We took off quite early from Chicago this morning, after I tried out an elliptical in the ENORMOUS fitness center at the Palmer House Hilton and–since there was no coffee maker in the hotel room–patiently stood in a long line for a cup of coffee and tea at the in-house brand-name coffee place that shall … Continue reading “Sunday, May 26: Chicago – South Bend – Detroit”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2024midwest","category-photos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5826"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5978,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5826\/revisions\/5978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}