Hamtramck : Features

The Tour de Troit-sponsered 5K PaczKi Run is set for this Saturday, But that's just the beginning of a Mardi Gras-esque week of fun, fun, fun in Hamtown. Kelli Kavanaugh tells us how to prepare and what we should check out.

Hamtramck is a rock 'n' roll town, no doubt about it. When the Blowout decided to split time with Ferndale, some Hamtown folks decided to step up and fill up the first weekend of March with groovy, rockin' local bands. MJ Galbraith leans in for this preview. 

A city bus system can only withstand so much disinvestment, and DDOT is on the brink. Mayor Mike Duggan recently appointed Dan Dirks, former SMART manager, to lead DDOT’s turnaround effort. Model D spoke with Dirks to find out how he plans to get the system back on track.

This is a healthy sign: we can't remember a Valentine's Day in Detroit proper (and Hamtramck) filled with so many events, from music to skating to indie retail fun in a long, long time. Kelli Kavanaugh puts together a hot list of cool things to do this week. 

The fab Write A House project has gone viral, and we welcome all the out-of-town budding literati that it will spawn, but we wanted to focus on the "where" as much as the "what." The neighborhood called Banglatown, NoHam or Power House is what Matthew Lewis is talking about.

We welcome back Kelli Kavanaugh, Model D's former development news editor and now East Riverfront bicycle entrepreneur, who will be writing about cycling in the city over the coming months. First up: all you needed to know about bike sharing but were afraid to ask. 

Only seven days left to get the rest of your holiday shopping on and, thanks to a growing number of creative urban entrepreneurs, your options are increasing. Nicole Rupersburg compiles a list of places you need to go.

Essayist Keith Owens says Detroit needs to polish off its 'international gold standard' as a music city and re-emerge as a creative powerhouse to rival Memphis and New Orleans, at the very least. Let's start by helping to keep local talent in the city, he says. 

We're excited to partner again with the Revitalization and Business Conference on Dec. 6. Presented by the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, "IdeaLab" is a fast-paced, two-hour session with a stellar line-up of Detroit innovators.

Living without a car has never been easy in Detroit. But with Zipcar’s recent launch of a fleet of 40 vehicles across the city, the car-free dream just got a little easier. Nina Ignaczak looks at how the program works, Marvin Shaouni shows us visual proof.

The mercurial Tunde Wey is a swashbuckler, a poet, a writer for our sister UIX project and a food and drink romantic. We asked him to bliss out over (revolver), the Hamtramck restaurant he co-founded with biz partner Peter Dalinowski.

In Hamtramck, where immigrant families from all over the world have settled for generations, students are as likely to speak Arabic or Bengali as they are English. Amy Kuras discovers how the public schools are meeting the challenges of a multicultural population.   

Now in its fourth year, the Hamtramck Neighborhood Arts Festival covers the length of this "city-within-a-city-neighborhood" plus parts of Detroit up to Davison. Creative critical mass is accelerating, says Walter Wasacz, who suggests coming early and staying late at this daylong event.     

This year's riders surpassed last year's total by 500. Proceeds from the Tour and other biking events held by the non-profit organization support the planning and implementation of greenways across the City of Detroit. Nina Ignaczak recaps.

A dozen years after forming, the Tour de Troit has evolved from a small, leisurely group ride into an annual juggernaut attracting over 5,000 cyclists. Nina Ignaczak recaps the history and looks ahead as the organization forms a nonprofit to fund greenways.