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An internationally prominent journalist recently returned to Detroit, where he worked at the Freep from 1990-95, and gushes about the city today in his New York Times column.
"Detroit is a gauge of our soul," writes Frank Bruni.
We’re all tied to this city and reflected in it, because it’s so central to the American narrative, so emblematic of our triumphs and humiliations, such a referendum on what we’re capable of, in terms of neglect and in terms of salvation.
"Sister Pie is exactly where it belongs, in a city whose future hinges on a new generation of entrepreneurs" such as Lisa Ludwinski (above), Frank Bruni writes.
His rhapsodic essay on the paper's opinion page opens with a visit last week to Sister Pie, a half-year-old West Village bakery where Bruni savors more than sugar and crunch in a peanut butter cookie. He recalls "tasting hope, or something like it." (Hey, the man likes his baked goods and Detroit.)
Sister Pie is unusual, and not just because it makes scones with cauliflower and puts rosemary in its shortbread.
Even more noteworthy is its location: a stone’s throw from dozens of the deserted houses and decrepit lots for which Detroit is notorious. Sister Pie shouldn’t be here. That was my first thought when I walked through the door last week to find the kind of hipster crowd and funky scene that I’m accustomed to in Brooklyn, where the shop’s owner, Lisa Ludwinski, lived for six years.
My second thought was that Sister Pie is exactly where it belongs, in a city whose future hinges on a new generation of entrepreneurs, the risks they take and the ingenuity they muster.
Frank Bruni: "Detroit is a gauge of our soul."
The New Yorker also salutes "all these shoots of growth, all these glimmers of promise." He stops at Central Kitchen + Bar, "a dashing month-old restaurant on Cadillac Square downtown. . . . Cadillac Square bustles in a way that it didn’t years ago, when I routinely passed through it."
During his five years at the Freep, Bruni covered the Persian Gulf War for three months and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing for profiling of a convicted child molester. In 1994-95, he was the paper's movie critic.
Two decades later, he takes "a run along a stretch of Detroit riverfront more prettily landscaped and painstakingly maintained than I’d ever seen it."
I had to work off the wages of Sister Pie.
I spotted a poster: “America’s Great Comeback City.” Yes, I thought. Please. If we can rebuild Detroit, we can rebuild anything.
