Belle Isle

Not every chapter of Detroit’s electronic story happened in a dark room. Belle Isle — the island park in the Detroit River, designed by the same landscape architect as New York’s Central Park — is where the city has always come to let loose. On summer weekends it filled with cookouts, car cruises, and sound systems, and the soundtrack was often ghettotech: the fast, raunchy, joyful booty sound DJs like Assault and Godfather built from sped-up techno and Detroit rap, with jit dancers spinning to it.

It’s the people’s side of the music — less reverent than the labels and clubs, but every bit as Detroit. Today Belle Isle is a state park with an aquarium, a conservatory, beaches, and the best skyline view in the city, and on the right weekend you can still feel the party in the air.