I went to Detroit to find Aretha Franklin.
Not literally, of course, though that would have been divine -- I had a vision that during my weekend visit I would see her walking downtown, sporting a fur coat. I never did, but I came close.
When I landed in the Motor City in November, I was clutching Franklin's autobiography From These Roots, listening to "Oh Happy Day" and imagining Franklin in the city she strayed from but never left.
My plan for a quick $500 getaway was simple: Spend time with my aunt and cousins, and take in Detroit's cultural offerings -- those Franklin roots -- while not going over my budget.
Southwest Airlines -- with its $49 one-way Internet fares -- made it easy to afford a flight from Baltimore.
I saved a few dollars by using my aunt, Cathy, as a taxi service to and from the airport.
I also found a great deal on a hotel on priceline.com for $89 a night, although I had to explain to my cousin, Adrienne, who was turning 25, why I wasn't staying with her. She warned me to "be nice to Detroit" and ended up bunking with me at the historic Inn on Ferry Street.
By the time I paid for airfare and lodging, I had about $180 left to spend on my jaunt to Detroit.
There are guided tours of the city's cultural section that run May to September, but since my visit was out of season, I just made it up as I went along.
For many summers and every Christmas, my aunt and cousins visited with my family in Hopkins, S.C., bringing city stories that us country kids couldn't get enough of. Detroit seemed messy and busy and loud and a little dangerous, too.
Often, my aunt's tale of the city began with 1967 and the five days of riots that broke out after police raided an after-hours club.
"Black folks just got tired of police harassment," she said.
At the same time, whites were getting tired of the city and moving to the suburbs, where the auto industry jobs also went.
Today, those jobs are even more scarce. Detroit is still a car capital, as last month's North American International Auto Show at the Cobo Center demonstrated, but its position is wavering.
On the drive from the airport to downtown in my aunt's American car, we passed the famous Uniroyal Tire -- an eight-story monument that was originally a Ferris wheel at the 1965 World's Fair in New York.
In recent years, the tire had a $1 million facelift as part of an effort to revitalize Interstate 94, the main highway from the airport into the city. Facelift or not, it is at once tacky and touching, a totem to a world that no longer exists.
The newer Detroit is made plain with the swanky Gateway Bridge, a hulking royal blue accessory to an otherwise-bland stretch of highway just outside the city in Taylor. Rising nearly 85 feet above the roadway, the two steel archways were installed just before last year's Super Bowl.
They look like Alexander Calder's take on a creeping spider -- not large enough to make you wonder about the physics, but not small enough to fade easily from view.
"It looks like an erector set and I think it's much ado about nothing," my aunt said. She's no romantic when it comes to Detroit.
Revitalization
Over the past 15 years, I had been to the city three times. The first time was a road trip with my father where I spent five days hanging out in the city's far East side with my cousins. We ordered pizza, went shopping and watched the teen flick Can't Buy Me Love as many times as the day would allow.
On recent trips, I hit Greektown -- an area of restaurants, clubs and casinos about two blocks long -- with friends during one visit and stayed at The Atheneum, a hotel as fancy as its name, for a job conference during another.
In the years since my first visit, the city has seen something of a renaissance, like many urban areas. Along the Detroit River, a pedestrian and bike promenade called RiverWalk is sprouting up and slated for completion in July.
The recently opened Inn on Ferry Street is part of the revitalization of Midtown -- a two-mile stretch near downtown -- around Wayne State University. The area also includes most of the major museums, among them the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the New Detroit Science Center.
Made up of four Victorian mansions and two carriage houses, the inn dates to the 1800s and sits just off Woodward Avenue, the city's main drag. We headed to the hotel to check in after scooping up some hamburgers at McDonald's.
Standing in the reception area at the main mansion, I took in the roaring fire in the fireplace, stately grandfather clock and detailed wood molding and felt like I had stepped into one of those classic black-and-white movies where Bette Davis drifts down a winding staircase with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
My cousin and I stayed in the three-story Roehm House, which featured a wraparound porch that made me want to bring out some sweet tea and wave to the neighbors. But it was too cold for that. Our third-floor room was small -- more like an attic where we were sure the help must have stayed in another era. But with its olive and peach walls and its views of the garden terrace, it was snug and perfect.
Finding history
The next morning, we rolled lazily out of bed at about 10:30 and headed back to the main mansion -- called The Scott House -- expecting to see "some dried-out muffins and some orange juice," as my cousin said. Instead, we were treated to a spread of pineapples, strawberries, blueberries and waffles.
My cousin, Trina, joined us later and after a quick tour of our digs, she said: "Maybe Detroit is coming up."
That from the same jaded cousin who has a T-shirt that reads "Detroit: Where the Weak are Killed and Eaten" and who, before I arrived, had flatly claimed "there is no history in Detroit."
Our first stop, a one-hour tour of the Detroit Historical Museum, proved to be a crash course in the city's history.
Great for kids, the museum features interactive exhibits on the settling of Detroit, glimpses of the city's Native American past and its musical roots, including a black dress worn by the Queen of Soul, and listening stations that play Motown hits. A model automobile assembly line with a blue Cadillac reminded us of our Grandpa Irving, who, in his day, could be found behind the wheel of a pale yellow Cadillac, and later, a bright red one.
There's also a model of the first car driven in Detroit -- a big-wheeled gasoline-powered carriage that took a spin down Woodward Avenue in 1896.
Trina was particularly taken with Detroit's red, white, blue and yellow flag, and the city's motto "We Hope For Better Things; It Shall Rise From the Ashes" -- a reference to the 1805 fire that destroyed early Detroit and still applicable to Detroit today.
City of art
Armed with some history, we made our way across Woodward Avenue to the Detroit Institute of Arts.
With one of the nation's largest art collections, the museum has a cast of Auguste Rodin's sculpture, The Thinker, out front.
Inside, a troop of Cub Scouts milled around, taking in Monets and Cezanes, while art students reduced van Gogh's Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin, to a speed-sketching exercise in light and dark tonality.
On our visit, the institute showcased a series of photographs by Annie Leibovitz. The exhibit, Annie Leibovitz: American Music, featured Detroit legends Iggy Pop, Patti Smith and, of course, Aretha Franklin. Wearing a dark dress and standing against light furniture, the soulful singer looked away from the camera, appearing shy and pensive.
Later, we lingered under Mexican muralist Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry fresco, as kids sat at easels and copied the images of muscled men toiling in dungarees on a factory floor.
Commissioned by the museum and funded by the Ford Motor Co., Rivera's 1932 mural covers four walls and begins with the birth of a child, with symbols of hope and technology towering over humanity in the next panels. There are workers pushing and pulling against hulking foundry machinery, subduing and giving in to the rhythm.
Afterward, we planned to tour the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, but we were tired so our visit turned into a quick dip into the gift shop. I snagged a postcard of -- who else? -- Aretha Franklin in a New York City studio circa 1960, in a dress and stilettos, cigarette in hand.
We left the museum in search of food. The Olympic Grill -- near Wayne State, with its diner menu, neon wall clock and old-school decor -- suited our not-too-fancy tastes. We slipped in just as it was closing and slipped out with fried shrimp and chili hot dogs tucked away to eat at the hotel.
After scarfing down a greasy, low-brow meal, we were ready for some high-brow entertainment -- my first opera, Rossini's The Barber of Seville.
Whereas I would have been happy to spend the evening swilling watered-down drinks at the casinos, Adrienne, the birthday girl and opera buff, wanted to celebrate in style. So the opera it was.
Paul, the hotel's shuttle driver, drove us to the Detroit Opera House, which opened in 1996 as home to the Michigan Opera Theatre, and is another symbol of the city's continued revival.
"It's going through its little changes," said Paul, a Detroit native, pointing out the restored Fox Theatre and Comerica Park baseball stadium as he drove along Woodward Avenue.
Opera fans bustled inside the grand building with it's ornate blue and gold rococo ceiling, gilded balcony and art deco interior.
Attendance hadn't been great through the season, my aunt said, but that night, it was packed. As operas go -- and I don't know how they do -- The Barber of Seville was magnificent, once I understood what was going on.
Looking for Aretha
The next morning, Paul drove me to Detroit's West Side for a tour of New Bethel Baptist, the church Aretha Franklin's father founded and the place where her musical roots began.
The church sits on a street named for her father, C.L. Franklin Boulevard. I took a seat at the back on the maroon cushioned pews, next to a group of kids who were more interested in their gobs of candy than any sermon.
I had my own distractions. "Aretha Franklin was here," was all I could think. She married here, she sang from the choir stand here, she memorialized her father here. I recognized the blue neon cross with "One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism" from an album cover.
The church, a former movie theater, seats 2,500, but on this cold Sunday morning its curved balcony was empty and about 500 people filled the main sanctuary. The senior pastor, Robert Smith Jr., in a black robe with gold buttons, was up and running by the time I arrived, taking from the book of Numbers with a message about grasshoppers, segregation and Hank Aaron.
Smith was on a roll, coming down from the pulpit into the sanctuary, exhorting the faithful to "run the bases because God done already hit a home run." He stood on a pew, and then opened up in a raspy baritone, "Do Lord Remember Me," a Baptist standard.
After church, I wandered to the pulpit area. Smith pulled me in and hugged me tight as if he knew me. Twenty-five years earlier, he had taken over the church after Franklin died. Many times he took his son, now a preacher, to Franklin's bedside just to show him the great pastor who had invented a chanting style of delivery that many black ministers have mimicked.
All that history is on display in a side room off the church lobby. Black and white photos of the Franklin, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Adam Clayton Powell and an adolescent Queen of Soul line the walls.
"This was the place to be, the place to be seen," said Dion, a parishioner, as I took it all in.
On the way back to the hotel, I asked Paul what made Detroit, Detroit.
"It's just a city that's itself," he said. "And we'll always have our seasons."
Of course, the city also will always have its soul. And its queen. Whatever the season, Aretha will certainly be there -- with her fur coat on.
nia.henderson@baltsun.com
IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
Southwest Airlines frequently offers $49 one-way airfare to Detroit from BWI Marshall Airport. Round-trip tickets at the promotional rate are $118.80 including tax.
LODGING
The Inn on Ferry Street -- 84 East Ferry St. 313-871-6000 or innonferrystreet.com. Centrally located within walking distance to major museums and offers a free shuttle within a five-mile radius.
ATTRACTIONS
Detroit Historical Museum -- 5401 Woodward Ave. 313-833-1805 or detroithistorical.org. Admission is $6.
Detroit Institute of Arts -- 5200 Woodward Ave. 313-833-7900 or dia.org. The fifth-largest fine arts museum in the country, the institute has more than 60,000 works. Admission is $6. The next major exhibit features the photography of Ansel Adams and runs March 4-May 27.
Detroit Opera House -- 526 Broadway. 313-961-3500 or detroitoperahouse.com. The current opera season ends in June. Puccini's Turandot begins April 21. Tickets start at $28.
New Bethel Baptist Church -- 8430 C. L. Franklin Blvd. 313-894-5788 or detroit1701.org/NewBethel.htm. The congregation moved to its present location in 1963. Sunday services begin at 7:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.
DINING
Olympic Grill -- 119 W. Warren. 313-832-5809. Campy, 1950s diner serves favorites such as cheeseburgers, chili fries and fried shrimp. A favorite hangout for Wayne State University students.
Traffic Jam & Snug -- 511 W. Canfield. 313-831-9470 or traffic-jam.com. Equal parts restaurant, bakery and microbrewery. Visitors can view the cheese- and beer-making process.
INFORMATION
Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau -- 211 W. Fort St. 800-338-7648 or visitdetroit.com.
[NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON]
HOW THE MONEY WAS SPENT
Airfare -- $118.60 Hotel -- $199.28 Meals -- $48.66 Opera -- $80 Museums -- $16
TOTAL -- $462.54