Detroit is only a four-hour drive from our home, making it the perfect distance for us to visit this area for a weekend escape. It was mid-April, and the main attraction for us was the opening of Greenfield Village, but like everything we do, there are always other places we visit as well.
Our last planned Detroit stop was the Detroit Historical Museum. Many places have their own museums, and since we have been visiting Detroit regularly, I made sure we saw the museum dedicated to the history of this famous city. Like any museum of worth, it featured the best of what Detroit had to offer and also the worst. One of the last exhibits was a brief description of The Heidelberg Project.
I do a lot of research when planning and executing our trips, but I also miss so much. There is so much to explore, but it is also impossible to explore everything. Once I have enough to do in a particular area, I stop my research and begin looking at my next destination. I had not even heard of The Heidelberg Project, and had I seen it in my initial research, I might have dismissed it because its name alone does not sound interesting.
But it was interesting.
At least it was for Charlene.
For me, I had no desire to see this place.
The museum had only a few paragraphs describing The Heidelberg Project and a picture that was less than appealing. The picture was either discarded junk or modern, contemporary art. I was not interested in either of these.
But Charlene was.
After a bit of insistence, I looked up the location, and for some reason, when I did so, my Google Maps was on satellite view. What I saw made me more hesitant when visiting this large outdoor art exhibit. It was in the centre of an area called “Black Bottom.” A place that, even in the daytime, was historically somewhere you never felt safe. Also, the area was hit by riots in the past and is now largely abandoned with homes that have been torn down or should be torn down. In essence, the bad part of town.
Charlene and I travel a lot, and sometimes, we find ourselves in less affluent locations. In an effort to instill pride in a community and stop vandalism, some places commission large artwork projects. The most common is the painting of murals on the side of buildings. We like to explore and visit these, and we have never felt uncomfortable or endangered at any time during our explorations. I felt uncomfortable by simply looking at an overhead image of an abandoned neighbourhood.
Charlene was insistent, and it was only ten minutes from our location. With a great deal of apprehension, I put the location into my phone, and we drove there.
The street where this Project is located is Heidelberg. The original artist who started it all was shocked to see how much his neighbourhood had deteriorated. As a protest, he began collecting items from abandoned homes and displayed them for all to see, drawing attention to how a once-thriving community was allowed to fail.
This Project of protest has been tried to be destroyed several times, and it has experienced arson and protests against it. But since its creation in 1986, it has drawn people to this community where everyone can see what has happened on Heidelberg Street.
We arrived. As I feared, it was not a part of the city I would ever want to explore, but here we were. I was impressed that a number of people were already there, visiting what we came to see. And while we were there, the number of people coming and going was steady.
We got out of the car and wandered around. Like all modern contemporary art, it takes a little getting used to seeing the message. Once we figured that out, the message was clear: this was home. Home for many people. Home of families with hopes, dreams, struggles, disappointments and ultimately desertion. Toys, dolls, TVs, and even cars. Heidelberg was once an area where there were plans. Evidence of car parts is abundant, and the future plan of repairing a broken down vehicle became as abandoned as this neighbourhood. Flower pots were found because everyone wanted a beautiful home, no matter where they lived, and now, these dreams have been abandoned, too.
The thing that stood out for me was all the dolls. So many children must have played in this neighbourhood, all doing what every other kid has done: playing, living, and learning. High chairs were abandoned, toys were abandoned, and homes were abandoned.
In any other community, this would be long buried in a landfill and forgotten, but not at Heidelberg. The point here was to show that people in a community once lived, loved, worked, and thrived here, only to become victims of events they essentially had no control over.
It was sad.
Many towns and cities thrive only to die. Here, the large emotional impact of lives uprooted and dreams lost is on display. The Heidelberg Project became a more powerful statement than I was expecting.
- View All The Places We Have Been to see where we have all travelled. It is incredible just how much there is to see and explore in this world.
- Wikipedia Page and the official website of Heidelberg.
- The majority of the buildings in this area are either abandoned or torn down, but some are still occupied. Please respect those who live near this Project by not blocking their driveways.
- The Project is constantly evolving. Next year, it might look different with new displays and new items.
