Once in a Great City : : a Detroit Story

Locations
Call Number: Adult Book / Nonfiction / History / United States / Michigan / Maraniss, David, 977.434 Ma
On Shelf At: Pittsfield Branch, Traverwood Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / History / United States / Michigan / Maraniss, David	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / History / United States / Michigan / Maraniss, David	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	977.434 Ma	4-week checkout	Due 05-08-2024
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	977.434 Ma	4-week checkout	Due 05-20-2024
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / History / United States / Michigan / Maraniss, David	4-week checkout	Due 04-29-2024

Gone -- Ask not -- The Show -- West Grand Boulevard -- Party bus -- Glow -- Motor City Mad Men -- The pitch of his hum -- An important man -- Home juice -- Eight lanes down Woodward -- Detroit dreamed first -- Heat wave -- The vast magnitude -- Houses divided -- The spirit of Detroit -- Smoke rings -- Fallen -- Big old waterboats -- Unfinished business -- The magic skyway -- Upward to the Great society -- Now and then.
"As David Maraniss captures it with power and affection, Detroit summed up America's path to music and prosperity that was already past history. It's 1963 and Detroit is on top of the world. The city's leaders are among the most visionary in America: Grandson of the first Ford; Henry Ford II; influential labor leader Walter Reuther; Motown's founder Berry Gordy; the Reverend C.L. Franklin and his daughter, the amazing Aretha; Governor George Romney, Mormon and Civil Rights advocate; super car salesman Lee Iacocca; Mayor Jerome Cavanagh, a Kennedy acolyte; Police Commissioner George Edwards; Martin Luther King. It was the American auto makers' best year; the revolution in music and politics was underway. Reuther's UAW had helped lift the middle class. The time was full of promise. The auto industry was selling more cars than ever before and inventing the Mustang. Motown was capturing the world with its amazing artists. The progressive labor movement was rooted in Detroit with the UAW. Martin Luther King delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech there two months before he made it famous in the Washington March. Once in a Great City shows that the shadows of collapse were evident even then. Before the devastating riot. Before the decades of civic corruption and neglect, and white flight. Before people trotted out the grab bag of Rust Belt infirmities-- from harsh weather to high labor costs-- and competition from abroad to explain Detroit's collapse, one could see the signs of a city's ruin. Detroit at its peak was threatened by its own design. It was being abandoned by the new world. Yet so much of what Detroit gave America lasts"-- Provided by publisher.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Your post captures t submitted by terasa07 on October 16, 2015, 4:14am Your post captures the issue pefetcrly!

Learned so much about Detroit submitted by mowjac on June 30, 2016, 7:14am This was excellent! History of Detroit 1962-64 about so many things: Ford Motor, Motown and Berry Gordy, the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. King's march in Detroit, the way institutionalized racism tore the city apart by destroying black neighborhoods, Detroit's bid for the Olympics (who knew?) and Walter Ruether. Excellent excellent reading for anyone interested in Detroit, Michigan history, or the ways great cities come apart. Also: the audio was good. Authors aren't always the best readers but he was very good.

A Gem, a Time capsule submitted by patricia alvis on November 27, 2017, 5:19pm The author catches a pivotal time in 20th century Detroit's history, in a way a history of any large city in America. It is special to Detroit because of the auto industry, which gave industrial workers a degree of stability, included black workers, built roads to drive cars on, and at the precipitating moment facilitated White Flight. In these crucial years, mayor Jerome Cavanaugh fought corruption,Walter Reuther built the union, federal slum clearance and freeway building modernized the city. It was the site of a peaceful Freedom March down Woodward, of Motown. But it contained some bad seeds. Slum clearance frequently meant disruption of black neighborhoods to be replaced by freeways. In the future lay the Detroit riots of 1967 and desegregation busing, and the flight of a major share of the tax base. A lot to learn in this thoughtful book.

Interesting submitted by Miriam Wasserman on July 19, 2018, 8:43pm I am really glad that I read this book, because reading it gave me a lot of insight about Detroit, a city, that before reading this book I had known little about. This was a beautifully written nonfiction book, that drew you in, and helped you make connections to the modern day world. What I mean by this is that long before the economic downfall of Detroit, it was predicted that it would happen, but the city officials put it off. They were probably thinking: “How could a great city like Detroit have such a perilous fate”. It really goes to show you that kind of mindset is not very good. It’s basically just saying the problem isn’t happening now, so why bother trying to solve it. I think we can all take a lesson from what happened in Detroit to some of the things going on in our lives, and to the planet, like climate change. To sum it all up, I thought this book was really interesting, and helped me make connect to the modern world. The only complaint I had about this book as that it took forever to read.

Great read for Detroit history buffs submitted by bookher on June 26, 2022, 2:20pm I enjoyed this more than expected. I wanted to learn more about Detroit history but without reading a history book. This book was packed with interesting details and I really enjoyed it.