Long-time readers may remember an earlier discussion of The Tiles, the elevated sewer pipes just off River Valley Drive near McLaren Hospital. There was some back and forth about where The Tiles were located, or if they even existed, before Gerry Godin provided the details on the place where kids went to prove they were men:
"This was where you went to prove your bravery in the '60s.
"My friends and I were not that stupid; if you fell off while crossing you would either kill yourself or be maimed for life.
“This was the main sewer line for the city of Flint running all the way to the waste treatment plant located off Beecher Road. There is now a subdivision located next to the black pipe, but this was all field in the '60s. We always heard the legend about the kid who crossed it on a bike but that would have been impossible due to the large joints which protruded outward. I walked out about twenty feet on it before turning back, so I guess I was a little ignorant.”
Now Tom Wirt (a.k.a. Jar With Most) has provided these stunning 1974 photos — including one with Tom strolling nonchalantly across the ravine — proving that we weren't imagining The Tiles after all.
But this conclusive visual evidence does raise another intriguing question: Is there anything in Flint that Tom Wirt hasn't photographed?
Tom Wirt provides photographic evidence that Flint is at least a one-horse town.
I have to admit I was always a little skeptical of my sister Marty's claim that she met some guy in downtown Flint once riding a horse and wearing a Mexican poncho. I thought it might be some sort of Clint Eastwood fantasy. She even had a name — John Kotarski.
Keep in mind that Marty claims she can't remember anything that happened to her before the 9th grade and, at 15, regularly drove the family car to get to her driver's training lessons, which seems slightly illegal, even in a car-loving town like Flint.
But Flint Expatriate readers have backed her up on this one. It seems the urban cowboy lived on Avon Street and even had a fictionalized children's story written about him in The Flint Journal. And, as I should have expected, Tom Wirt even has a photo of the horse nibbling grass in a Flint backyard. I find it hilarious that Tom lived next door to the horse, but never met John. I guess when you live in Flint and your neighbor has a horse and a poncho, you just assume he also has a rifle and it's wise not to ask too many questions.
So Marty...I apologize for doubting you, but I'm still not buying the story that you smashed up the family station wagon trying to avoid a squirrel in the Powers' parking lot.
And John Kotarski...we expect to hear from you soon.
"Oh, I knew John Kotarski well, and yes, he was a big East Village character. He did have a horse, boarded via a grandfather clause on Avon Street. In the early 80s I wrote a serial Christmas children's story for the Flint Journal featuring a fictionalized version of Kotarski -- I think I named him Cliff; when the story finished, on Christmas Eve, John and his horse Ali rode through downtown in the Christmas parade. One famous story about him was when he tried riding the horse into Doobie's and was forever after banned. He's now happily married to an Ann Arbor academic. I don't know if he still owns any places in Flint. Yes, he did gut a place on Second Street. Remember when the "sheet people" rolled through town? I had dinner with them in that place on Second Street -- some young lovelies were feeding a long-haired guru brown rice. Really, really strange. John put them up for a couple of weeks. He was a bit loud and overbearing but had a good heart and I was and am fond of him."
Marty's original question...
"Does anyone know anything about a guy named John Katarsky? He was kind of a hippie lawyer (supposedly) who left the profession. When I met him he had a roller skating rental kiosk in downtown Flint. When you rented skates from him he also offered you a glass of wine (whatever). He was quite eccentric and he rode around town on a horse and wore a Mexican poncho and a hemp woven hat. NO...I am not dropping acid! He's a real guy!"
John takes El Azan for a spin on the Flint Public Library lawn in 1979. (Photo courtesy of John Kotarski.)
One of my favorite Flint Expatriates posts deserves another run. The story of Flint's legendary downtown horse and its colorful owner last ran almost three years ago. Here it is... At last, the legendary John Kotarski has made contact and supplied a treasure trove of photos capturing a time when horses roamed the yards of Avon Street and the thoroughfares of downtown. John wrote:
I am enjoying the stories about this character called "John Kotarski." In fact, I recognise some of the tales myself.
Kotarski with El Azan and Jill Ackles with Arthur Donaldson's Arabian on Avon and Second. (Photo courtesy of John Kotarski.)
The horses of Avon Street. (Photo courtesy of John Kotarski.)
Go here for more photos. And here are the original posts...
Tom Wirt provides photographic evidence that Flint is at least a one-horse town.
I ran a post in January called Pale Rider Revisited about the days when horses roamed Flint. (Full post is reprinted below.) Now we have an update on John Kotarski's horse, which we now know was named Alazon:
That horse was mine before John bought him, and before me, it was owned by the family who had the stable and room for three horses in Flint. Another girl in the neighborhood, Michelle (I forget her last name) was also a co-owner of Alazon (a Mexican Creole and former race horse). It's a strange and wild story, the family who owned the property was definitely not your Ozzie and Harriet variety. And the old man was an exhibitionist who lived to wear next to nothing claiming it helped him "breathe" since he had emphysema. He was an odd and basically harmless guy. But you could still have a horse in the city at that time and teen girls flocked to that stable. I'm sure the clause is no longer in effect, because once the horses were gone, the clause would be void. We lived a block away from John, who was a friend of my family's. I was relieved when he bought Alazon, I had already moved away to college. But then john told me Alazon was kicked by another horse in the paddock where he boarded him and this shattered a front leg, which could not be repaired. A sad way to go for a strong horse.
I have to admit I was always a little skeptical of my sister Marty's claim that she met some guy in downtown Flint once riding a horse and wearing a Mexican poncho. I thought it might be some sort of Clint Eastwood fantasy. She even had a name — John Kotarski.
Keep in mind that Marty claims she can't remember anything that happened to her before the 9th grade and, at 15, regularly drove the family car to get to her driver's training lessons, which seems slightly illegal, even in a car-loving town like Flint.
But Flint Expatriate readers have backed her up on this one. It seems the urban cowboy lived on Avon Street and even had a fictionalized children's story written about him in The Flint Journal. And, as I should have expected, Tom Wirt even has a photo of the horse nibbling grass in a Flint backyard. I find it hilarious that Tom lived next door to the horse, but never met John. I guess when you live in Flint and your neighbor has a horse and a poncho, you just assume he also has a rifle and it's wise not to ask too many questions.
So Marty...I apologize for doubting you, but I'm still not buying the story that you smashed up the family station wagon trying to avoid a squirrel in the Powers' parking lot.
And John Kotarski...we expect to hear from you soon.
"Oh, I knew John Kotarski well, and yes, he was a big East Village character. He did have a horse, boarded via a grandfather clause on Avon Street. In the early 80s I wrote a serial Christmas children's story for the Flint Journal featuring a fictionalized version of Kotarski -- I think I named him Cliff; when the story finished, on Christmas Eve, John and his horse Ali rode through downtown in the Christmas parade. One famous story about him was when he tried riding the horse into Doobie's and was forever after banned. He's now happily married to an Ann Arbor academic. I don't know if he still owns any places in Flint. Yes, he did gut a place on Second Street. Remember when the "sheet people" rolled through town? I had dinner with them in that place on Second Street -- some young lovelies were feeding a long-haired guru brown rice. Really, really strange. John put them up for a couple of weeks. He was a bit loud and overbearing but had a good heart and I was and am fond of him."
Marty's original question...
"Does anyone know anything about a guy named John Kotarski? He was kind of a hippie lawyer (supposedly) who left the profession. When I met him he had a roller skating rental kiosk in downtown Flint. When you rented skates from him he also offered you a glass of wine (whatever). He was quite eccentric and he rode around town on a horse and wore a Mexican poncho and a hemp woven hat. NO...I am not dropping acid! He's a real guy!"
Flint's economy my have been in the death spiral in the eighties, but the punk scene in its various guises was exploding if you knew where to look. I've written before about Take No Prisoners, the all-encompassing Flint musical archive created by Aaron Stengel. But now he's adding amazing photos like these with the help of Joel Rash, Ty Shick, Blair Jones and the members of the Guilty Bystanders. Of course, Tom Wirt (Jar With Most) also helped out. Was there anything Tom wasn't taking a photo of in the eighties?
As you can see, deindustrialization and almost no curbs on underage drinking can be a lot of fun. This is just a small sampling of shots Aaron has at Take No Prisoners. He's encouraging everyone to visit the site and comment on the photos. Just go here and click the "Photos" tab.
Tom Wirt — a.k.a. Jar With Most — appears to have been just about everywhere in Flint with his camera in the seventies and eighties. He recently posted these shots of a memorable liquid propane explosion in 1976. The photos not only capture the disaster, but they chronicle Flint fashion in the seventies as well.
Here are the details from Jar's Flickr page, which has several more photos:
On Thursday, August 19, 1976, at about 7:30 p.m., a tanker truck carrying liquid propane crashed over a guardrail on the I-69 entrance to northbound I-75 just south of the Miller Road exit in Flint Township, Michigan, and exploded. Police speculated that the propane truck driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel.
The propane truck driver, an auto haulaway truck driver, a Flint woman, and a mother and daughter from Grand Blanc, were seriously burned in the accident. As many as 25 other cars were burned, but none of their drivers required hospitalization.
The propane tanker hit a guardrail on the I-69 entrance ramp to northbound I-75, tumbled over it, and exploded. The rear portion of the tank was blown a quarter of a mile away. The truck cab and the driver were blown back to the I-69 entrance ramp to I-75, about 50 feet above the gully where the tanker exploded.
Another great shot of Flint in the fifties from the Mary Fisher Collection.
UPDATE: The location is E. Kearsley and Stevens, now part of UM-Flint. Go here to see a another shot by Tom Wirt of the Brooks with the UM-Flint campus encroaching in the seventies.
Another shot of the Brooks by Gary Custer from the venerable East Village Magazine. It's really worth checking out a great collection of the magazine's photos here.
So you think you know Flint? Expatriate and current New Yorker Shawn Chittle has offered up a challenge to readers. These screen shots were taken from a 16mm movie shot in 1977 in the Vehicle City. Where is this street? Where is this factory? And where is this house?
Shawn has a few ideas, but let's see what you can come up with. This is sort of an industrial version of the Mystery Shots by Mary Fisher post a while back.
Update:
Anonymous said...
Looks like a neighborhood behind AC..... unclebuck Pitkin??
I believe that is Mathewson and Bluff st, showing the building that was used as a parts warehouse in the 70's. I also think it was used for Chevy Personnel. I hired in at that building. The water tower is located at the powerhouse on the Flint River at Chevrolet ave. On Google maps that house is still standing.
November 23, 2009 9:11 AM
Anonymous said...
Is it Cadillac St. facing Bluff right behind the GMI apartments. I guess it could be any of those streets down through there, looks like Chevy in the hole though from memory.
November 23, 2009 9:13 AM
Anonymous said...
This is embarrassing. I worked at Chevy parts in the hole in the sixties and didn't even catch the locale. My memory must be fading fast...unclebuck PS. The four factories I worked at,- I thought were indelibly etched in my mind.
I think anonymous has it right. Look at the change in the color of the street pavement -- reddish to grayish -- as if from brick to blacktop. While Mathewson (named for surveyor Stephen Mathewson, by the way) also runs south from 3rd to Bluff, parallel to Cadillac -- Cadillac was, into contemporary times, brick north of 3rd. Mathewson, as near as I can remember, was never brick. ( ...though, I will, of course, defer to Gerry or any Mathewson resident.)
I think it's Chevy in the Hole, on Bluff Street, viewed from Cadillac Street in the first photo, and from Mathewson Street in the third photo. The room with a view must be near the corner of Mathewson & Bluff.
Here's a Google Map looking down Mathewson toward Bluff. That looks a lot like the house in the photo on the right. Notice the porch post if you zoom in on it.
Another Update: Mystery Solved
Shawn Chittle says:
YOU GUYS NAILED IT! I had my suspicions it was near Cadillac & Bluff Streets but your confirmation is all I needed. Great Google map that is exactly the house. Wow. Just wow.
I worked at the Chevy-In-The-Hole factory summers 1992-1994, well it was one of my runs along with every other GM factory back then. I was a document courier. We called Chevy "AC West." and the one on Center Road "AC East."
Being a dumb, stupid, kid I didn't know how historical or significant the place was. I was just trying to get out of Flint as fast as possible.
These photos are screen caps from a movie called "With Babies & Banners" a 1977 Academy Award nominated movie about the Sit Down Strike as told from the Women's Auxiliary Brigade. 1977 was the height of the ERA movement and this film certainly bolstered the idea these women were not to be messed with.
They wore berets, armbands, and carried slapjacks, wooden sticks and took sh** from no one. They fought with the police, GM security, and were captured in "Roger & Me" smashing the factory windows out when GM gassed the workers. Without them the Strike might not have been won.
Their fearless (literally, fearless) leader, Genora Johnson, is someone who, after discovering and reading more about, has rapidly moved to the top of my "coolest people who ever lived" list.
Her book "Not Automatic" is required reading and is available at Amazon.com
Remember the little kids striking with the signs? Remember in particular the little 2 year old that had a sign that read "Our Daddy Strikes For Us Little Tykes" that was Jarvis Johnson, Genora's two year old son. He died in a car accident a few years after that photo was taken.
I have "With Babies & Banners" on DVD - it was never released to the public. It's beyond belief and one of my most prized possessions.
It's a very emotional, heart-wrenching film, and parts of the movie are too hard to watch. It will choke you up big time.
Thanks again Gordie for the venue and to everyone for your time!
Darwin writes: "Ironically, the 'looking up' picture of the building is taken from the exact spot where kids went to smoke various things. They were often targets of large paper or Styrofoam cups filled with water dropped from one of the top windows, which was the student lounge. Photo by Jar With Most (a.k.a. Tom Wirt).
I'm a Valley School alumni (Class of '82) and I spent a number of years at the old St. Matt's. I have many fond memories of my time spent in that building. At the time, Valley was going strong and that old building rang with life from top to bottom.
It makes me sad to see they tore down the place. I saw the pictures of the demolition and recognized the blue color of the walls of the classroom where I struggled through 3 years of French with Madame Heitman. It's like they tore down a piece of my childhood. I always felt that big old pile of bricks was more like my second home than just a school. From that school as a base, I explored the best remnants that late seventies/early eighties Downtown Flint had to offer. We'd sign ourselves out in the main office at the top of those long granite stairs and head out into the world.
We were regulars at Halo Burgers, and spent a lot of time at the Montgomery Ward's lunch counter too. I remember 99 cent Spaghetti Wednesdays and Fish and Chips Friday, Not to mention all the lunch and after school hours and quarters burned on the Asteroids machine at Perry Drugs or the Gorf machine at Doobies.
We hit the A&W, taunted the inmates at the jail, never got questioned at Hat's or the Torch. We never ripped off the blind attendant who ran the concession stand in the basement of the PO across the street. It just wasn't done, no matter how bad you wanted a Twinkie or a bottle of pop. We spent many an hour at the park up on Church Street playing softball or baseball and practicing soccer for our hopelessly outclassed small school sports teams. To train for a distance race, I once ran around the school building 100 times on that wonderful blacktop. When the Red Dragon Hobby Shop opened downtown to complement Bachman's Hobby Shop, I was in geekboy heaven.
I can still almost hear the creak of the old tongue and groove hardwood floors in some of the classrooms, and see the marble mosaic tiled floors worn smooth in the main hallways and on the stairs; the massively overstocked library; and the huge circular hand washing fountains in the boys room. If someone saved the front doors, you can scrape off the new paint and find the green layer of paint that I put on them so many years ago.
I never knew it as St. Matt's, only as Valley with its Led Zeppelin mural painted hallways, student decorated lockers, bright red carpeted rugrat dungeon, massive basement art suite with potter's wheels, kilns, and silk screening presses, the darkroom, and the ever popular 3rd story student lounge.
Well, at least the Gym is still standing and it's gleaming, ferociously waxed floor — home to many intense basketball and floor hockey games, as well as the karate tournament that paid for our graduation — and the dank, never quite clean locker rooms (with showers that no one ever used!) will live on to remind us of what once was.
The Capitol Theatre lobby. (Photo courtesy of sarahrazak)
Here's a re-post from New Year's Eve last year with some good comments:
Anyone recall a New Year's Eve party at the Capitol Theater in the mid-eighties, maybe 1984 or 1985? There was an icy snowfall that night and everyone streamed out into the street afterwards, sliding all over the place. The son of a prominent Flint politician at the time "accidentally" tackled some sort of beauty pageant winner — Miss Michigan? — in the slush outside the theater. She was wearing a white dress and some kind of white fur coat. She was not happy. It's all a little blurry. I think Mark Sanford and Bill Custack were in attendance. Someone help me out here. Am I imagining all this? I hope it actually happened because it's one of the few times in my life I actually had fun on New Year's Eve, excluding my younger years when I'd excitedly sip chilled Vernor's from a Champagne glass with my mom and the rest of the family.
Gene Conley hosted the parties and used his profits to buy a red porsche...Very good times...as i recall, he had two parties, roughly 83 to 85 ish.....I know you could bring in your own keg, we did...there were also some good times at the capitol for the two ROMANTICS CONCERTS.....
I remember the Romantics concerts. I'm pretty sure I attended both with Steve Herzog and Carole Hopkins. When I saw them the first time, I foolishly believed I was attending a punk show.
I remember the New Year's Eve at the Capitol... I had always thought it was Kirt Suomela, Brian Dutil and Mike Wiley that hosted it, but Gene was friends with them too I believe... they had a Halloween party once too.
Those were the BEST parties... BYOB and everyone was there. To this day when I hear "How Soon is Now" I remember watching some Flint Public Library black and white movie that was playing that night of some guy getting hung and remembering his life.
I feel sure I attended a Romantics show at the Capitol, but I don't remember it being as late as '84 (I left town in '82). I recall running into =Kevin= Dutil there. I thought I was the coolest chick in the room because I was wearing clothes I'd brought home from 'punk' England: a huge T-shirt, hem tied in a knot at my hip, with 'footless' tights. When Gillian and I lived in Pontiac, we used to run into the Romantics (or subsets of the group) when we went out dancing. And we saw them at least once after we moved to Boston. Boston =loves= What I Like About You, btw. I mean REALLY loves that song, it's used out here in far too many ads and promos.
I'd love to see Cooley's EVM graphic from back then. Like Cooley, I'm an old geezer compared to most of you but I distinctly remember that icestorm of '84. I was 35 and living with my not-yet-lst husband in a walkup apt. on Avon Street (everybody who's anybody in Flint has lived on Avon Street sometime in his or her life) and Danny and I struggled out to a party at Prof. Paul Peterson's Tudor house on Blanchard that night. He was still married to Sue at the time. We all thought we were really something for making it to this comfy party in Flint's academic ghetto. I wasn't working at UMF yet and envied all the people at that party, who seemed much more prosperous and settled than I. Later, of course, I realized almost nobody was happy that night. It's interesting to think of all the other parties going on that same night in Flint.
ps. I don't recall any incident with Miss America... but I do recall Scott H. sitting in front of the Capitol, screaming that he'd trade a little gold nugget for a 40 oz of bud. Then again, that may have been in the summer... my time back then is a bit fuzzy...
There was a Romantics show at the Capitol on December 26, 1981. That was before Talking in your sleep. I still think What I like about you is one of the best dance songs ever.
Very true, Macy ... I also lived on Avon St., in 3 separate yet distinct old houses. Ed and Casey own (or did, last time I saw them) one of the places, next to where the elder Custers (and Ed) lived when I was there. Casey lived in the other half with Penny McMullen (it was a duplex, but the side I lived on had 2 apartments).
I think it's directly behind their house on Crapo, if they still live there. #11, maybe?
And yes, we did see Romantics members rather frequently, for a while, in Detroit. That lead singer (Wally?) was really tiny. I think all the clothes they owned must have been made of leather ...
It was definitely 1984 turning to 1985. I distinctly remember it because I was a freshman and had to beg my parents to let me go. It was the best and I wasn't even drinking. Those parties brought the very best of the Flint together: High Schoolers and collegiates, nerds and cools, city and suburbanite. I am proud that it was the brainchild of my some of my Haskell bretheren. God bless 'em.
You are not imagining things GY. Jimmy Rutherford was trying to give his date a hug and remain standing at the same time, and well... I still chuckle when I see a curb full of that soupy stuff that happens when snow, rain, salt and dirt combine. Those parties were great! The fact that they were BYOB (or keg for that matter) explains alot. As I remember, I also got to display my 12 beer expert driving skills that night. The ice storm froze, for what seemed like forever (maybe a week), my tire tracks as I searched for the driveway. The view from any second floor window was especially good.
My recollection is that the mid-80's Capitol NYE parties were held twice, maybe 3 times. The group was a loose confederacy, led by Kirt Soumela, and by leading, I mean that Kirt staked the cash for it. He had some Engineering school co-op gigs at Buick, and was the kinda guy willing to stake 800 bucks on a party, hoping to make it back in cover charges. Many of buds were involved, Mike Wylie and Brian Dutil were prime operatives, along with others like Gene Conley and various girlfriends at the time. It was definitely Mike Wylie's idea to go multi-media and get the films from the Flint Library and show them from the balcony - he is a production designer now, so this may have been the first step toward landfing a gig like 'pushing daisies'...lol.
I was in charge of sound, and the DJ duty was rotated among the hosts - I still recall my disasterous turn at the wheels of steel, killing Kirt's favorite song (icicle works i think), while he danced with his gorgeous GF suzanne black, with me cutting to the #2 in the middle of the song when he really was giving me the 'crank it' signal. The music came straight from the record collections of the hosts. I think the final year, Rob McKenzie's band the Iodine raincoats did the gig.
The first year the Capitol was more or less unused for anything in a long while, and the rent was cheap, maybe 400 or 500 for the night. We ran amuck exploring the building ( i recall exploring the remains of a drug store and some bowling alleys???) and working with Troy to lock up places where folks shouldn't go. I think we spent 200 bucks renting amps and cabinets, plus a couple of off-duty cops to work security. I think people took turns working the door and cover was $5 that first year. I think the door was over $2K, which just seemed hilarious, to throw a wicked party, in a giant room, with a monster stereo, all your favorite records, and everyone you know and more, and make a buck on it. Kirt kicked back to just about everyone, even though it was mostly sweat equity and he was the one taking the cash risk. A cool dude.
I must admit that in retrospect, this is a great thing about Flint, there was a great DIY ethos about the place. You knew we were a town that would be passed over by the outside world, so if you wanted fun, you made it. And having a run-down downtown, some cash, intitiative, and not giving a crap about lawyers and liability, made of a hell of a night.
I think year 2, the rent got pricy, we spent more on sound, security, etc. and it was marginally profitable. I still can't recall if there was a year 3 or not. I think folks started finishing college, etc. and it faded away.
I know there eventually was a much larger captol scene in the 89+ era, but with a different set of actors.
SO yes Gordie it really happened, and Rut did have a little scene out front, I don't think it was miss MI, but sequins and slush were involved.
I'm now remembering that I got the Miss Michigan idea from one of the onlookers outside the Capitol after Rut and the girl ended up in the slush. Someone said something along the lines of "Miss Michigan just wiped out."
There definitely was a Halloween gig too because I distinctly recall Kevin K. dressing up as a doctor or dentist or something... no clue what I came as...
I remember we checked out the view from the roof too... so that must have been the Halloween one as well.
Those were definitely the best new year's eve parties. I think they probably stopped because of liability insurance since so many were drinking...
The Halloween party was 1986, and that was the one where Rob M's band played. There was another New Year's Eve party that year too... that may have been the end after that... not sure.
I played drums with the Iodine Raincoats, but by the time of the Capitol gig, the bassist (Rob Rawson) and I were in a new band. We warmed up the Iodine Raincoats at the Capitol Theater. It was awesome. The first time in my life that I had a drum riser! What fond memories. Go Flint.
Kirt Suomela was definitely the main money man. There were many others involved that made the parties happen. We all set up, worked the doors, cleaned up, and I don't recall there being any arguments about money.
My band, the Iodine Raincoats did play the second party. I have a great story. Weeks prior to the party I asked a girl out and she said no. Alright, nothing new, but she saw me on stage at the Capitol theater party and came backstage and offered herself to me. I turned her down (What an ass I was.). I told her she had had her chance, and now I had moved on. It was either the coolest thing I've ever done, or the stupidest (I tend to think the latter).
I remember the funnest thing about those parties was exploring the facility, and worrying about the risk. After the party, a bag full of musical equipment was stolen in our loadout. Kirt made a thousand or so, and I lost the same. It was still fun. Email me at robertpmckenzie@gmail.com.
Erik & I went with Denise & Jen in the 1959 caddie, John & Cammie rode with us (Hi Cam)... it was the best New Year ever. We all stayed over at Lisa's house that night. We all brought out our boxed & imported vinyl. In setting up the party, we got the stars in the dome ceiling to light up. Kris
Tom Wirt tempts fate on The Tiles
Would you ride your bike across this thing?
