JFK Heard of Flint

Gerald Ford Heard of Flint

Richard Nixon Heard of Flint

Implosion Party

While this may look like the aftermath of the infamous New Year's Eve parties at the Capitol Theater in the eighties, it's actually an eerie post Genesee Towers implosion photo from Glen Fairweather.

Never heard of the raucous Capitol Parties? Go here.

Flint Photos: Gilkey Creek by Mike McManaman

Photo of Flint's Gilkey Creek by Mike McManaman.

The Past, Present and Future of Flint

I want to comment on a recent article about Flint that was posted today on the PolicyMic website. Obviously, I didn’t write it. The author interviewed me for 45 minutes about Flint. I told her about my book — Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City — and my experiences growing up in Flint. As I always do, I emphasized that despite its well-documented problems, there are positive, hopeful things happening in the city where four generations of my family lived.  I pointed out that there are a lot of talented people working very hard to make it a better place. I suggested she talk to people like Michael Freeman and Perry Compton, who restored their home in Carriage Town, and Pastor Sherman McCathern of Joy Tabernacle Church, who is doing great things in Civic Park. I feel they represent the real essence of the city.

I also gave permission to use any photos I took from the Flint Expatriates website, but I didn’t choose the photos. Of course, I had no control whatsoever over the finished article, the angle, the content, or the headline. That’s a choice that’s left to the reporters and editors who interview me. But in this particular case, I wish the author would have devoted less space to all the negative statistics and old news about Flint’s decline, and more to the inspiring residents of my hometown who are using innovative approaches to improve the city.

Merry Christmas from Flint Expatriates

As Flint Expatriates embarks on its annual holiday break, Flintoid Tom Pohrt supplies some Christmas memories from Sears in Flint, circa 1960:

As I recall I was just notified that I was on the "naughty list" for that year. Even under a whithering look I was always quick on my feet. I countered, questioning whether Santa was up on his union dues. Got your number Mr. P2 14207.... and I'm 'checkin' it twice. It was a tense moment in negotiations when this picture was taken. That was a bummer as the Sears catalogue toy section was the BEST! Can't recall the outcome.

My brothers on the other hand always fared better than I as evident in their classic mid 50's Santa photo.

Check out the sadistic Santa on another photo card holder from Sears. Bah humbug! Wow man, the artist they hired that year to illustrate this must have had a rough one. Those reindeer look absolutely terrified under Santa's whip. CHILL SANTA CHILL !

Genesee Towers, R.I.P.

The demise of Genesee Towers on December 22, 2013. (Image by Shawn Chittle)

Genesee Towers: Dead Building Walking

Okay, this is totally irrational and based on no real evidence. I’m sure the implosion crew knows what its doing. So why do I have this nagging, crazy worry that somehow Genesee Towers will manage to take the Mott Foundation Building down with it? GT is arguably Flint’s ugliest building, and it can’t be easy residing across an alley from what many consider the Vehicle City’s loveliest structure. How would you like to be a poorly maintained, watered-down example of the International Style hulking next to the soaring, Art Deco splendor of the most important building in Flint? There has to be some pent up resentment there.

I don’t want to get into a discussion of class warfare, but GT has always had money problems.  And let’s be blunt, the Mott Foundation building is loaded! We like to pretend money can’t buy you happiness, but come on. The years of constantly being reminded of how the 1% lives can’t be easy. It’s a little like driving a Chevy Aveo when your neighbor cruises around in a Park Avenue. (Sorry, for the dated reference, but I’m unaware of what passes for a luxury car in the Buick line these days.)

Then there’s the whole plural name thing. It’s Genesee Towers, with an “s”. See, it’s supposed to be two buildings stacked on top of each other. Yes, the lower-level parking deck counts as a separate building. Constantly correcting people has to get old after a while. And trying to laugh it off with “The building so nice they named it twice!” doesn’t help. Just not funny. The Mott Foundation Building doesn’t have to deal with that sort of thing. It’s above it all. It’s just one building and that’s more than enough. When you’re old money, you just don’t have to prove yourself.

Desperate buildings do desperate things. Is it so far fetched to think that the spirits animating Genesee Towers might be staring at their next-door neighbor and whispering, “If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me”?

A father, a Son, and a Grand Prix

Randy Gearhart with his Pontiac Grand Prix on the day he graduated from Northern in 1968. He used to cruise through the Clio Road Arby's and the A & W. "I guess that a good many of the miles on this car were 'Clio Road Crusin’ Miles,'" he says.

Randy Gearhart may live in Georgia now, but he is definitely a “Flint guy.” He lived at 2314 Ohio Street, a few blocks from the A.C., before moving to 2913 Mallery Street, just off Ballenger. He went to Washington Elementary and Longfellow before graduating from Northern in 1968. He was home from college in the summer of 1969 working at A.M. Davison’s when he met his future wife, Debbi Reburn, across the street in the Carriage Room at Smith B’s. She worked the counter where he often went for lunch or a Tall Texan, more commonly known as a chocolate soda.
 
Even his name sounds like Flint.
 
Randy has a story to tell about his father and growing up in The Vehicle City. It was originally posted on Flint Expatriates on August 14, 2008.

My dad, Robert Gearhart, was superintendent of labor relations at Fisher Body Plant #2. In late November, 1964, he told me that I could pick out our family’s next car. It would be replacing our 1962 Chevrolet Impala.

Wow! Really? I had just turned 14 a couple months earlier. What a responsibility. What an honor.

I started looking through our most recent issues of Look and Life to see the new season’s offerings. Turning the magazine pages, I suddenly stopped. There she was. I had to look no further. The Pontiac Grand Prix.

The original magazine advertisement that caught Randy's eye.

I told dad that this was the car I wanted us to get. We got in our Applegate Chevy and rode over to Superior Pontiac/Cadillac on Dort Highway. Dad put in the order. A few weeks later, we got “the call” that our new car was ready for pick up.
One week after we took delivery of our new Grand Prix, on a gray December day, my dad suffered a heart attack. He died in the hall outside his office at Fisher Body.

He was only 40.

He had purchased an insurance policy that would pay off the car in case of his death. That was a good thing. But, that shiny, new, paid-off Pontiac became so much more than just a car to me. It was a connection to a man who loved his family and a dad who trusted a pimply-faced kid to make one of the most important purchase decisions a family can make.

The older I get, the more that act of trust means to me.

Thanks, Dad.