Distance Pain

"In Wales, for example, Welsh is spoken by barely 20 percent of the population, so we can only hope that the evocative Welsh word hiraeth will somehow be preserved. It means 'distance pain,' accompanied in extreme cases by tuneful lamentation (mine never got quite that bad). But, and this is important, it always refers to a near-umbilical attachment to a place, not just free-floating nostalgia or a droopy houndlike wistfulness or the longing we associate with romantic love. No, this is a word about the pain of loving a place."

— Sally Mann, Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs

Flint Photos: Chevy in the Hole

A cozy little spot for a picnic. Delphi Flint West, better known as Chevy in the Hole. And just how would a picnic table find its way to this particular spot...management or labor?

Flint Postcards: New Chevys for Sale

Tales of a Flint River Rat

Reposting from May 31, 2008.

Gerry Godin remembers his harrowing adventures on the Flint River in the days when kids could have unscheduled, unsupervised fun and bike helmets were not required:

The area of Gray and Maxson was my old neighborhood. We were known as "river rats" by the city kids.

My friends' houses down there are gone now. One of my old friends was caught off guard when it flooded in the '70s, and I don't think he even had time to move his car.

I probably was gone by the time of the yellow cloud, but does anybody remember when the river became florescent green in the late '60s? It looked just like the fake water in a View-Master slide. We followed it back to "Chevy in the Hole" and it was still being discharged when we got there.

We used to walk down the middle of the river all the way to downtown at the Saginaw Street bridge when the buildings were still built on the bridge. The river was most shallow in the middle with the deep spots near the bank.

One time when we were bored we came up with a game where we all put "dares" in a hat and drew them out. One kid had to swim across the river in high flood with ice flows and he almost drowned. My way of saving him was a bit odd but it worked. I dove in and got him to the opposite shore and, not wanting to walk two miles back, we dove back in with him holding my neck. We made it but were carried by the strong current almost to the I-75 overpass. I knew better because my father always helped drag the river for bodies and even got on the front page of The Flint Journal once.

Another time some of us got stuck during flood time on one of the I-75 bridge foundations and we had to be rescued. I remember it was shown on channel 5 news.

Being a river rat I have many stories.

Flint Photos: Chevy in the Hole with Cloud Shadows

Great photo of dear old Flint. Chevy in the Hole is front and center. Michigan School for the Deaf is lower left with the Crescent Drive mini neighborhood and park in front of it. Atwood, with a baseball diamond, is at the far right roughly in line with Chevy in the Hole. The big field just above Chevy is the park behind Durant-Turri-Mott Elementary, with Ballenger Park above it. You can spot Dupont Street, follow it up to Welch Blvd., take a left and it wraps around to Clio Rd., which runs off the top of the map. Those with good eyes can identify the big fields that form Bassett Park, Haskell Community Center, and nearby Civic Park School.

Watch Chevy in the Hole Transform into Chevy Commons

Flint Postcards: Chevy in the Hole at Night

Flint Artifacts: Chevy Employee Badge

Flint Photos: Chevy in the Hole, 1979

Another dearly departed Flint landmark. Chevrolet Avenue looking southeast in March of 1979. Photo courtesy of Bryan P. Snyder.

Flint Photos: Chevy in the Hole

Photo courtesy of Tom Pohrt.

Flint Postcards: New Chevys

Flint or Ground Zero?

 Originally posted on September 14, 2007.

Meet Me at the Corner of Cottage Grove and Bluff Street

The recent Chevy in the Hole post reminded my mom of her old friend Pat Lindner, who used to live on Cottage Grove Avenue near Bluff Street and lived for a time with my mom in New York City in their younger, crazier days. Pat's mom was a nurse at Chevrolet Manufacturing and used to walk to work. If anyone has any memories, thoughts or recollections of those streets, please chime in. One thing I was wondering was if there were other options for crossing the river besides Stevenson Street before the big flood control project turned the river into a cement culvert near Chevy in the Hole. My mom seems to remember some steps leading down to the river from Bluff Street. Thanks in advance.

Chevy in the Hole

So, um, why was it called Chevy in the Hole?

Is it simply because the factory complex was located in the valley formed by the Flint River?

Flint Postcards: Chevy in the Hole

Behold the tranquil beauty of Chevy in the Hole.

Even the Abandoned Bars Aren't Safe

The oddly agrarian style of the Bottom Street Bar, abandoned but still standing. (Photo by Thomas Wirt)

Another fire, another unexpected vista. (Photo by Gordon Young)

I had another one of those now-familiar disorienting moments when I drove by the site of Chevy in the Hole earlier this month and discovered that the Bottom Street Bar was gone, along with the nearby bank, both victims of arson. (This used to be the Sundown Lounge, perhaps The Sundowner. Hard to remember.)

You can now stand on the edge of the rubble and see Hurley Hospital across the vast, empty plain bisected by the river.

I never stepped foot in the place, but it holds a prominent spot in my memory of Flint. If you happened to be driving on Chevrolet during a shift change when the traffic backed up, you could come to a stop directly in front of the bar door, which was often propped open during the summer. This was a big thrill for me as a kid. I loved mystery books and I imagined that it was the kind of dark, smokey place where somebody could get murdered. (Perhaps somebody did over the years.) This is how I discovered that it was acceptable to drink at 7 a.m. in Flint.

Me: What are they doing in there?

Mom: Drinking.

Me: In the morning?

Mom: They just got out of work. It's night time for them.







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Flint Photos: Chevy in the Hole Redux

Thanks to Mo Arvoy — of Stride Rite shoe party fame — for the great photo.

Cars to Compost

Mayor Dayne Walling is launching a program to turn Chevy in the Hole into a depository for leaves and compost and, eventually, a park. According to the City Speak blog:

This new process will provide a significant savings to the city. “We currently pay $300,000.00 a year to have our leaves and compost taken away and an additional $400,000.00 to have top soil brought in to backfill demolition sites,” said Green Cities Coordinator Steve Montle. “By filling in Chevy In The Hole with our leaf and yard compost it is expected to save the city a half million dollars a year, while at the same time moving us one step closer to repurposing that site as a park and green space for the community.”

Flint Photos: Chevy in the Hole

Chevy in the Hole photographed from the Atwood Stadium parking lot during my recent visit to Flint.

Chevy in the Hole photographed from Bluff Street in 1995 by Jar with Most, who has a great collection of Flint photos.

The Flint List

A friend just asked me to run down the list of every auto-related factory that has closed in Flint, along with approximate locations. I got a little nervous because I feel like that's a list I should be able to just rattle off, along with the roster of the '84 Tigers and every party store in town that wouldn't card you in the eighties, but I'm pretty sure I came up short:

Buick City
Chevy in the Hole
Fisher Body
A.C. Spark Plug

What am I missing here? Fisher Body had more than one plant, right? Fisher Body 1 was the site of the Sit-Down Strike, but how many other Fishers were there? Or was it all one big plant with different sections? And Delphi's Flint East Plant was just AC with a different name, right? And are there plants and factories that are closed and still standing, or has everything been torn down? Somebody help me out here. It's clear that you're expected to know this depressing list if you're from Flint.