Artist in Residence
MENOMONEE VALLEYEDDEE DANIEL
ESSAYS
Why have an AiR in the Valley?
I read a news article recently about a guy named Jesse Welter who has started a tourist business in Detroit. He guides clients through abandoned buildings because... Click here to continue reading
Construction Season
It snowed again overnight. Just east of the 35th Street Viaduct in the Menomonee Valley there is a vacant lot below the curve in Canal Street. This morning the surface of the lot looked as if a sheet had been spread over it with military precision.
Canal Street & Placemaking
Sometime around the turn of the millennium I stood on the stub end of Canal Street and looked across the west end of the Menomonee Valley at a scene of devastation. Near at hand stood Falk Corporation, one of the few old heavy manufacturing industries left in the Valley, which once had been full of such factories.
At Midwinter: The Rebirth of the Menomonee Valley
I went for a nice long walk in 3 Bridges Park on Sunday afternoon, Groundhog Day. There was no sign of a groundhog, but also no doubt about seeing shadows. The sun was bright and the temperature surprisingly comfortable.
Nature & Community
On a trip through the high Sierras John Muir came upon a particularly lovely glen with a river running through it. He climbed a large boulder in the river, which he likened to an altar.
Bearing Witness
The bend in the Menomonee just downstream from Miller Park is one of my favorite haunts in the Valley. There the river makes one of several ninety-degree turns that remind us, if we attend to them, that the watercourse is not “natural” but as manufactured as the industries that replaced the wild rice marsh from which the river was carved.
Why I am Here...
A constant, rhythmic thunder reverberates from the steel underside of the wide freeway overhead. Below, the Menomonee River slides silently between tilted flanks of concrete. Colorful graffiti decorates floodwalls on both sides of the channel; a skull motif interspersed with a surprisingly aesthetic tagging style.