Take the scenic route
Numbered stops, a route you can open in Google Maps, and a note on every stop about whether you can actually go inside.
Eleven stops, from the Southwest Detroit house where John Gillis grew up, past his ball field, his high school and the hotel from the song, to the Royal Oak room where, the story goes, Meg White poured drinks.
Ten stops, from a coney counter downtown to a pizza pan on Conant, where Detroit still makes the things it’s known for.
Three stops, from a University District street to a Wyandotte lot, where a comedian grew up, a magician took his last bow and a TV legend lost her father.
Thirteen stops, from the old Wall Street of Detroit on Griswold and the reborn train station to Albert Kahn’s New Center, and the architects who drew the skyline.
Eight stops, five bars and a lot of stories: Detroit’s ghost lore, told as lore, next to what the record actually says.
Nine stops, from the three downtown venues to the ballpark and the barn that came before them and the two buildings that made Detroit a fight town, plus the dome and the palace as optional extensions.
Six stops, from the club that lasted eighteen months to the block that named a genre and the radio station that started it, plus an optional drive to the small town the founders came from.
One mile of Livernois, seven stops: a tea house, birria, an organic bakery, a men’s boutique, a pottery studio and a jazz club that has been pouring since 1933.
Detroit’s code name on the Underground Railroad was “Midnight,” the last stop before freedom across the river. Seven stops: two churches, a riverfront memorial, a cemetery full of conductors, and one famous tunnel the record doesn’t back up.
Seven bars, from a downtown jazz room to a Belgian feather-bowling hall, and the dry years when the Detroit River carried most of America’s smuggled liquor.
Nine stops, two Marshall Fredericks bronzes, and the alley, the market and the block that turned Detroit into an open-air gallery.
Five stops from Eastern Market to Eight Mile Road, and the artists who put Detroit hip-hop and R&B on the map.
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