When I first moved to Detroit this summer, I drove to work everyday from Midtown to Birmingham. I was still too nervous to drive on Michigan Freeways (I’m over it, sort of), so I drove down Woodward. It was my first introduction to Greater Detroit on a daily, normal, routine basis.

Detroit– compared to her suburbs– sometimes feels like a city that never left the 70’s or 80’s. Both pre and post war buildings are crumbling, many dDot buses look like they belong in “Back to the Future,” and signs on both open and closed shops haven’t been updated.
My favorite are those signs. Handlettering– on a large, technical scale– is dying, but in Detroit it serves as vibrant reminder of the past, both foreign and familiar. Eastern Market has seen a revival in murals lately (which is great!), but I prefer the old warehouse paintings, functional but whimisical. These old paintings are everywhere through Detroit: tire stores, barbershops, car repair shops, cafe’s, dance studios, not to mention directional signs between skyscrapers downtown.

Everyday this summer I drove between two bubbles–Midtown and Birmingham– through an America I never had seen. I’ve read books on poverty, on urban decay, on the invisible economic and social wars being fought daily inside our country, but I’d never seen it scrawled in the landscape. I drove through the North End, Highland Park, State Fair and then crossed into Ferndale, tidy and lined with open shops. And while it’s easy to only see decay inside Detroit, it’s better to see what that decay reveals. For a split second, these ubiquitous handlettered signs give a glimpse of the vibrancy of Detroit’s past and hope for her vibrant future.