Flint Artifacts: Zimmerman School 9A Prophecy of 1945

Click to enlarge for a good read. Thanks to Flint Expatriate Bill Boles for this artifact.

Flint Portraits: Howard Bragman

Need advice on getting famous? Flint Expatriate and PR guru Howard Bragman has advised everyone from Cameron Diaz to Paula Abdul. The Coolidge Elementary and Zimmerman veteran offers up his secrets in a new book called "Where's My Fifteen Minutes?"

Howard described his early experiences dealing with public opinion while growing up in Flint in a recent email:

"I know what it’s like to be an outsider—I grew up a fat, Jewish, gay guy in Flint. In Hollywood, those are the first three rungs up the ladder of success, but in a town like Flint, it’s three strikes and you’re out. It’s a little like that Twilight Zone episode with a whole planet full of deformed people and they make fun of the normal guy. You just have to be in the right place for you. I’ve been out of the closet—open about my sexual orientation—for a very long time, going all the way back to when I graduated college and began my professional life more than thirty years ago. I made the choice early on to live honestly and authentically for me.

"Early on, I was doing PR for the Lou Rawls Parade of Stars concert to benefit the United Negro College Fund in Flint. The day before the concert, the local paper did a huge story on Lou Rawls. My grandmother read the paper and called me.

“'What a coincidence,” she said to me. 'You’re here for a Lou Rawls concert…and there’s a big article about him in the paper today.'

“'I did that,' I said modestly.

"'You did what?' my grandmother asked.

“'I got the article in the paper,' I said.

"Long pause.

“'So,” my grandmother asked, confused, “where’s your name?'”

Flint Portraits: Thomas Wirt

Thomas Wirt — a.k.a. Jar With Most — has graciously let me use several of his photos on Flint Expatriates. Here's an interview where he discusses his photography and his life in Flint.

The Jade Shoppe

Most Flint Expatriates define themselves by where they went to school. What’s your academic history?

I grew up on the west side of Flint, my family's house is on Downey Street, two blocks away from Zimmerman School. My parents still live there. I went to Zimmerman, when it was an elementary school, from kindergarten to the second grade, 1963 to 1966. In 1966 Eisenhower Elementary School was built, and I went there from 3rd to 6th grade, then back to Zimmerman for junior high, from 7th to 9th grade. I went to Southwestern from 1974 to 1976, but I skipped a lot of school, and had to make up my last year of school at the Flint Schools of Choice on 5th Avenue, graduating with a Southwestern diploma in 1977.

A mural in Brush Alley

How did you get started in photography?

I got interested in photography in the mid '70s, it helped a lot that my father had a darkroom in our home's basement that I used. My father worked at The Flint Journal, and later at Smith-Bridgman's, as a commercial artist in the 1960s.

After I graduated from high school, in 1977, I went to work at JD Color Lab on Corunna Road, working in darkrooms and developing film. I worked there until 1983, then went to work at a 1-hour photo lab in the Eastland Mall (now the Courtland Center) until 1986. At that time, I wanted to get another job, but I couldn't find anything in the photographic field in the Flint area. I moved to Lansing in 1986, and worked at a custom photographic lab until 1997, when film-based photography started to decline. I am no longer employed in the field of photography. I take more pictures now with my digital camera then I ever did with my film cameras when I was working in photo labs, and when I had my own darkroom.

The D. Levasseur Building on the corner of North Franklin Avenue and Leith Street.

You have a gift for capturing the reality of Flint in an affectionate way, if that’s the right term. How do you choose your subjects?

Some of the subjects I choose are for nostalgic reasons, places that were important to me when I was growing up, such as Southwestern and Zimmerman schools, and St. Matthews school, where my sisters went to school. My parents had a hobby shop in "The Jade Shoppe" building, before I was born. Your observation that my shots "seem to capture the promise Flint once held and the reality of its present state" and "are depressing and nostalgic at the same time" is very astute, that is exactly what I think about and feel when I see these scenes and take the pictures.

Stevens Moving and Storage near the site of the old Buick City factory complex.

Where are you now?

I've been living in Lansing, only about an hour away from Flint, for the last 20 years, and come back to Flint kind of sporadically, sometimes I go several months between visits. Being away for such long periods, I haven't seen the changes that slowly happen, and I'm struck by how different it is from when I lived there. Like how there is razor wire all over the place. I don't remember seeing that when I lived there. And how there are almost no signs of the factories that were once what Flint was all about. I think that if I was living in Flint all along, I may not be as interested in my home town as I am now. When I started taking my digital photos of Flint a few years ago, it was just for my own collection, I just wanted to have some pictures of home that I could look at. I've done Google searches for pictures of Flint, especially the Flint that I remember growing up, and could find almost nothing on the Internet about it, so I decided to share the photos that I have with the world. I will continue taking, and posting more pictures of Flint.

The Durant Hotel renovation project

Zimmerman Panorama

Zimmerman School, in all its glory, courtesy of Jar With Most, who's been saving Flint on film since the seventies.

Age of innoncence

A.C. Spark Plug decorated for the holidays. (Photo courtesy of Lori Wenzel)

Lori Wenzel looks back on the Flint she remembers:

I feel as nostalgic as you do about this city. I’m 49 years-old and went to Pierson Elementary and Zimmerman Junior High before graduating from Southwestern in 1976. I grew up on Lyndon Avenue off Harvard & Pierson Roads. I now live in Grand Blanc Township. The older I get, the sadder I feel about “what used to be.”

My mom worked at Federal's Department store. I still have my nametag from working at Monkey Wards when downtown was bustling and fun. I later worked at AC Spark Plug and just retired two years ago. Even that was sad. When I hired in, there were about 7,000 people there. When I retired, just 1,500.

There was a real innocence when I was growing up in Flint. We hitchhiked; rode our bikes to Flushing Park; weren't scared to walk to our friends’ houses after dark; went to Mary's Sunshine Food Stores for cigarettes that were 50 cents a pack; hung out at the fountain at Genesee Valley; drank M & S red pop with New Era potato chips; and went to concerts at the old IMA and at Richfield Park for their Super Sundays. I even have my ticket stub from my first concert at IMA. It was Deep Purple in 1972.

I went down to the Hot Dog Stand in Grand Blanc the other night for the Back To The Bricks Cruise. I was looking for someone with my first car — a 1969 Grand Prix. I found one parked along the route. The guy let me take pictures and sit in it. I was 16 when I got that car. It was a huge thrill!

I hung around with four other girls through junior and high school. After graduation, we all went our separate ways. Luckily, I reconnected with them a few years ago, and now we go on a trip every summer together. It's great how we all still get along when our lives are so different. We still talk about what we did in the good old days. We had lots of fun.

I'm thrilled that I grew up when and where I did, so I can remember when people were good and we weren't scared for our safety like it is now. I can't even visit my childhood home because it's a drive-by neighborhood now.