The Woodward Dream Cruise many things for many people. For car restorers it means a time to shine, for some it's a time for nostalgia, and yet for others, who live near Woodward, it's a time of car congestion and having your own street blocked off for parking. Regardless, what happens during the cruise is what made Detroit, well, Detroit. That's changing now-a-days... but, as the New York Times says, it's still the beating heart of the American automobile biz.

Excerpt:

Today, you won’t see much real racing on Woodward, and the Detroit Three are fighting their battles in other arenas. You will see some machinery that is obviously built more for go than show, and quiet negotiations are sometimes conducted at the side of the road. But if races take place, they’re probably held in some obscure and distant place.

For most Detroiters, Woodward is more about entertainment than competition. And perhaps more about the past and the future than the moment. Today, Woodward is the cruise, the party, the celebration and the affirmation. It’s a place where car folk can go to dream about the way things were and hope for better days. It’s the beating heart of the American automobile business.

Read the entire article here.

There's always another option for Desperate Housewives. A provocative new show about a high school gym teacher reinventing himself as a gigolo, shot and set in the Metro D, has recently premiered on HBO.


Excerpt:

The new HBO series Hung premiered last night, and while the premise of the show makes it intriguing enough alone (the main character becomes a male escort to solve his financial woes), as a Detroiter, the real anticipation was in finding out how much the city would be used in the plot.

At least in this respect, it did not disappoint. The pilot was shot entirely in Detroit, Birmingham, Livonia, Clarkston and West Bloomfield Township, as was part of the rest of the season (the rest was filmed in L.A.).

The opening sequence (which you can watch here) is jam-packed with familiar Motor City signposts, from the first shot of a barge gliding over the Detroit River, to Thomas Jane as Ray Drecker walking through Hart Plaza, below the People Mover and in front of the Joe Louis fist, Lafayette Coney Island and the abandoned Packard plant.

Read the full story here.

And read here for a review of the show.

Birmingham's newest loft development is pretty slick... and green.

Excerpt:

Take 735 Forest, a new 35,000-square-foot, three-story, brick-and-steel-panel "green" building in Birmingham's evolving Triangle District, for instance.

Today, the three-story structure houses the contemporary, street-level Forest Grill manned by chef Brian Polcyn; the offices of developers Mosher, Dolan, Cataldo & Kelly Inc.; Templeton Building Co.; and 10 chic urban lofts, which range in size from 763 to 1,236 square feet, on the third level. But it's taken four years of planning, designing, campaigning, negotiating and redesigning to get the green project off the ground.

Interior designer Ann Heath, a co-owner of the property (near the intersection of Woodward Avenue and Maple Road) and wife of builder Steve Templeton, took Homestyle on a tour of the model lofts, including her own, and explained what makes the building green.

Read the entire article here.

Whether you like Dearborn's Miller's Bar or Royal Oak's Red Coat Tavern, you favorite burger joint is bound to show up somewhere on the Freep's list of best burgers in town. Not into red meat? Don't worry, check out No. 24. Ferndale's Flytrap has a salmon burger just waiting for consumption.

Excerpt:

When we asked readers this fall to point us toward Detroit's best hamburgers, hundreds of you sent recommendations. We read every one, picked the places that sounded best and then hit the streets in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties to taste them. Six weeks and innumerable antacids later, here are our favorites.

Read the entire article here.

As the nation's population turns back toward downtowns, the country's suburbs may become the next ghettos, The Atlantic reports. Among the happy few likely to retain property values and viable populations? A little burg we like to call Birmingham.

As they wont to do each year, the Metro Times has released its annual "Best of Detroit" awards.

The Metrotimes annual restaurant guide runs the gamut: from coneys to caviar, from haute to simply hot.

Crain's has released its annual "40 in their 40s" list. It includes success stories from all over Southeast Michigan and from numerous industries.