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Photo: First Love Project installation at Eastern Market. Credit: Hunter Franks. Hunter Franks, an artist and founder of the Neighborhood Postcard Project and League of Creative Interventionists, is in Detroit for three weeks using creativity to build community with Knight Foundation support. I could see the stark blue of the sky piercing through the repetitive square windows on all sides of the massive abandoned brick building. The windows were gone, letting light seep in slowly. It was an odd sight, one which I had never seen before — and it was the first thing I saw in Detroit. It is what most people probably know of Detroit. The media has extensively covered the city as a blighted wasteland, and that was indeed what struck me at first. But there are upsides to blight and disinvestment — an opportunity for Detroiters to creatively reimagine their city with shared spaces and opportunities. When local Phil Cooley wanted more space for a woodshop, he purchased an available building in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. He then opened up the space to Detroiters with a similar desire to grow their small businesses and called it Ponyride. Veronika Scott rented one desk in the corner of a large room at Ponyride when she was launching the Empowerment Plan, a nonprofit that employs homeless women to sew coats that turn into sleeping bags, and then distributes the coats to homeless individuals living on the street. Two years later, she has nearly 20 employees and rents out all of that same large room at Ponyride.
