What Would Jane Think of Foxtown?

Comerica Park reflected in the doors of the Fox, below.

Jane Jacobs and her influential urban planning ideas have been on my mind since I read about Jane's Walk in late April. Ever since then, I can't surf the net without running across her in some way. Tomorrow night, MOCAD is showing a movie about her. With Jane on my mind, I walked around the Ilitch part of town... the Fox Theatre, Comerica Park, and the Park Avenue Historic District.

I was excited about the lively bar scene along Park Avenue. There weren't exactly hordes of drinkers descending on the area, but for 7 o'clock on a Thursday night, the Town Pump, Centaur Bar, Bucharest Grill, the Park Bar, and Cliff Bell's were respectably busy.

People were hanging out at the corner bar watching TV, and walking their dogs. A woman driving by stopped to ask directions. There were people walking around who looked like they lived in the neighborhood, coming and going from the Kales and other residential buildings on Grand Circus Park. Park Avenue is lined with beautiful buildings...the whole area feels like it is on the verge of...a normal city neighborhood.

Above, detail from the Blenheim.

The Detroit Life Building, renovated by the Ilitch family and used for office space.

Pewabic tile surrounding the door of the Women's City Club.

The back of the facade of the Fine Arts Building, with 1920's skyscrapers framed by its windows. The building, designed by Louis Kamper, was damaged beyond repair by years of abandonment. The Ilitches, to their credit, preserved the facade.

Then there is the big, flashy, Woodward Avenue part of the neighborhood. The Fox Theatre, beautifully restored, immaculately maintained. And zero street life without an event going on. Absolutely nothing to do.

Comerica Park, baseball park by Disney, great-looking, mega-zilch happening without a game going on.

Unless you count the steady stream of tourists who were taking pictures of themselves with the tiger out front. In the 10 minutes we spent in front of the park, we saw 2 different groups of bicyclists, 3 different groups of people in cars, and the folks below taking lovey-dovey couple pictures.

All of whom looked like they had plenty of money to spend on Tigers paraphernalia, if there were even one tiny little stand open selling merchandise, hot dogs, and peanuts. Pick up tickets for the game tomorrow? Sorry, the carpet rolled up at 6pm. Sit in the plaza on Woodward between the Fox and the baseball stadium and watch highlights from last weekend's concerts and games on a big screen? Oh wait, it's not a plaza. There's nowhere to sit. It's a parking lot..VIP parking? All the way around Comerica Park and Ford Field, I walked the dogs down the middle of the street, no problem. Way to further empty out an already-too-empty town.

The only people for blocks..and oops, they're statues.

Maybe I'm being unfair and expecting too much. After all, the Fox is a great place to see a concert, and Comerica Park is a great place to see a baseball game. As stand-alone monoliths, they are very successful in fulfilling their purpose, but as Jane Jacobs-style contributors to everyday street life, they fall short.  I hope that when the Ilitch family builds the new hockey stadium, they will consider the tremendous positive impact on the fabric of the city it could have, versus settling for having it be a movie set that comes to life when the suburbanites drive in. (Don't even get me started about Fortress: The Joe.)

Jane Jacobs' ideas about what makes a vibrant cityscape are simple and powerful. You don't have to be an architect, or an urban planner, or a developer, or anything other than yourself to take her ideas to heart and find some small way to put them into action mending the fabric of Detroit's often frayed and threadbare street life. Here are a few of the basic concepts, if you're interested:

1) Mixed use
"The district, and indeed as many of its internal parts as possible, must serve more than one primary function; preferably more than two...
"The district must mingle buildings that vary in age and condition, including a good proportion of old ones so that they vary in the economic yield they must produce. This mingling must be fairly close-grained." 
2)Human, walkable scale
"Most blocks must be short; that is, streets and opportunities to turn corners must be frequent." 
3)Dense population
"There must be a sufficiently dense concentration of people, for whatever purposes they may be there..." 
4)Safe sidewalks
"First, there must be a clear demarcation between what is public space and what is private space. Public and private spaces cannot ooze into each other as they do typically in suburban settings or in projects. 

Second, there must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be oriented to the street. They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind. 

And third, the sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce the people in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks in sufficient numbers. Nobody enjoys sitting on a stoop or looking out a window at an empty street. Almost nobody does such a thing. Large numbers of people entertain themselves, off and on, by watching street activity." 

Quotes are from The Death and Life of Great American Cities.