Rubric
Spotlight
Smaller pieces — a venue, a night, a person, a block — caught at the moment it matters.
Twenty-five painted drums put American stories across Detroit for the 250th
The Stories of Us has installed 25 painted drum sculptures around Detroit, free through July 22 at the main library, Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park, and the Warren Gateway. The national project marks the country's 250th anniversary.
Detroit's Museum of Electronic Music is looking for a building
Adriel Thornton wants to give Detroit techno a permanent home.
At Movement this weekend, women DJs are no longer an exception
Stacey Hotwaxx Hale has been on the Movement lineup since the festival's first year. DJ Stacye J, DJ Killa $quid, and others who followed her are at Hart Plaza this weekend.
Motor City Cinematheque steps in where Detroit's art theatres left off
After Main Art Theatre was demolished and Cinema Detroit lost its fixed home, John Monaghan and Kevin Maher launched Motor City Cinematheque to keep independent and art cinema alive in the metro area.
After the pulse drops on Kercheval
When Movement clears out of Hart Plaza, West Village's Foxglove becomes one of the clearest readings of how Detroit comes down.
Marrow's West Village restaurant closes June 7
Founder Ping Ho is consolidating around the Eastern Market flagship, ending eight years on Kercheval. The Birmingham location will transition to a new concept after Memorial Day.
Editor's note: ahead of Movement 2026
Hart Plaza in May, before the stages go up. The river is still doing what the river does. The festival isn't here yet. We're getting ready to cover it.
The Detroit Riverfront filled with anglers for the seasonal walleye run
The Detroit Riverfront filled with anglers this week for the seasonal walleye run, the spring spawn when fish move up from Lake Erie into the river system.
East Side residents launch data center study group to shape city policy
The Eastside Community Network is hosting a biweekly study group starting in May to build resident knowledge about data centers and produce policy recommendations before city officials move forward on permits.
Hamtramck joins Michigan Main Street and the Jos. Campau bet gets bigger
Governor Whitmer announced on March 3 that Hamtramck has been selected by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation for the Select Level of the Michigan Main Street program.
Marrow in the Market opens in the Capital Poultry building
Ping Ho opened Marrow in the Market on November 13, 2025, in the former Capital Poultry building at 2442 Riopelle Street in Eastern Market. The space is 14,000 square feet across two floors.
Pingree Detroit makes Detroit a shoe city again, by hand
Pingree Detroit opened its first storefront at 11:11 a.m. on 11/11. Veterans Day, intentionally, because most of the company's co-owners are veterans.
Wilson Park opens on 22 acres of riverfront
Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park opened on October 25, 2025, on a 22-acre stretch of riverfront between 8th Street and Rosa Parks Boulevard.
A Victorian pub on Mack Avenue is booking the Belleville three
Cannons Bar opened in October 2025. It serves oysters and books techno.
Murals in the Market comes home for year 10
Murals in the Market spent two years in Islandview after 1XRUN moved its headquarters there. For the 10th anniversary edition, the festival came back to Eastern Market.
BLKOUT Walls paints 10 new murals across Detroit under “A Beautiful Resistance”
BLKOUT Walls Mural Festival returned for its third edition from September 4 to 14, 2025, with 10 new large-scale murals painted across Detroit.
Detroit Month of Design at 15, UNESCO at 10
Detroit Month of Design ran the entire month of September. The 15th edition of the festival lined up about 95 events featuring more than 1,000 designers and creatives across the city.
Capitol Park reopens after a $3.5 million reset
The triangle of grass behind the Westin Book Cadillac is the first thing in Capitol Park that catches the eye after a six-month shutdown.
Detroit Bookfest fills three Eastern Market Sheds for the eighth time
The 8th annual Detroit Festival of Books ran from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, July 20, 2025 Eventbrite, in Sheds 4, 5, and 6 at Eastern Market BridgeDetroit.
Purrfiction is a bookstore and a cat adoption center, intentionally
Emma Spadafore left corporate after six years to open the kind of store that probably sounds like a joke at a bachelorette dinner. Bookstore. With cats.
From J Dilla to HiTech: Detroit hip-hop and electronic still share the same room
James Yancey died in February 2006. Nineteen years later the Detroit hip-hop catalog he helped build is still in conversation with the city's electronic scene, and the conversation is structural, not coincidental.
Haraz coffee opens its 30th location, in Corktown
Haraz Coffee opened its second Detroit store on Wednesday, June 11, on the ground floor of The Brooke on Bagley at 1501 Church Street. Mayor Mike Duggan cut the ribbon.
Movement 2025 took its 25th anniversary as a question, not a victory lap
Movement Music Festival closed its 25th edition on Memorial Day. What the anniversary framing actually meant on the ground was less a celebration than a question put to the room.
Movement 2025: the sets that defined the weekend
By the end of Monday night, several Movement 2025 sets had separated from the rest of the lineup and become the weekend's reference points.
Movement Music festival hits 25 years on Hart Plaza
Movement Music Festival ran May 24 through 26, 2025, at Hart Plaza, marking the 25th anniversary of Detroit's flagship electronic music festival. Memorial Day weekend.
Pocket Change's first rooftop pop-up brought Mink's Sarah Welch and Cameron Rolka shucking above Gratiot
The first Sunday after Pocket Change opened, the third-floor rooftop was hosting a husband-and-wife oyster pop-up.
Pocket Change hides a cocktail bar above Eastern Market
The signage is one neon sign that says COCKTAILS in red. That's it. Walk past it and you will.
DJ Minx played the Pistons halftime
DJ Minx played the Detroit Pistons halftime show in March 2025. It was her second halftime booking at Little Caesars Arena.
Bar Chenin tucks a 10-seat wine bar into the Siren
The room seats ten people. There is a narrow shelf along the opposite wall where another handful can stand and lean. There is no reservation system.
How Detroit clubs survived 2020 to 2022 and what came after
Movement was cancelled in 2020 and 2021. Detroit's club rooms closed in mid-March 2020 and most did not reopen at full capacity until summer 2021. The story of how the rooms came back is about which ones did.
Detroit house: where it diverged from Chicago
Chicago house and Detroit house are usually filed as the same lineage. They are not. The two cities share a starting decade and a roster of mutual influences, then diverge sharply around 1990 in ways that still define both scenes.
AC Hotel Detroit at the Bonstelle opens
The AC Hotel Detroit at the Bonstelle started taking guests in early January 2025, the first AC Hotel in southeast Michigan.
Temple Bar fell down and got back up
Part of Temple Bar collapsed in May 2024. It reopened seven months later.
From warehouse parties to Hart Plaza: how Movement got its venue
Detroit techno spent fifteen years homeless before it got Hart Plaza. The festival came out of the warehouse circuit, not the other way around.
Five alebrijes now live on Bagley
Five life-size animal sculptures went up along Bagley Street on Friday.
The High Dive reopened in October with new owners, a hibiscus tea base, and Jeopardy nights
David Lew, the L.A. artist who goes by Shark Toof, sold the High Dive in September 2024.
The old Lincoln motor factory is a techno venue now
Detroit has a new techno venue. It used to make cars. Dreamtroit opened in September 2024 inside the former Lincoln Motor Factory.
Detroit jazz at Hart Plaza: how the festival economy shares the riverfront
The 45th Detroit Jazz Festival closed on Labor Day. The festival is free, runs at Hart Plaza, and shares the same downtown riverfront acres with three other major Detroit festivals across the year.
Florian East opened in Hamtramck after eighty years without a brewery and put the name on the front in seven languages
The last brewery in Hamtramck closed in 1941. Auto City Brewing Company, gone since the early 1940s.
Collect beer bar opened its license at 4 p.m. on a Friday and was pouring beer at 4:10
Collect spent six years on the second floor of a Gratiot building in Eastern Market, above what used to be Gather. In June 2024 the lease ran out.
From Detroit to Berlin: how the city's sound went global
Detroit techno was a UK and German phenomenon before it was a Detroit one. The Berlin half of that story runs through one club and one record label, both founded inside two years of the Wall coming down.
How techno started in Detroit: the Belleville Three story
Three Black teenagers from a Detroit suburb — Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson — built the foundation of techno between 1981 and 1988. The story is shorter and stranger than the genre suggests.
Michigan Central comes back, with Diana Ross opening and Eminem closing
Six years of restoration, $300 million in tax incentives, and a lineup deeper than any single Detroit show in decades.
Movement 2024 by the numbers
Paxahau released attendance and operating figures Tuesday from the 24th edition of Movement. The numbers, in plain terms: the festival held.
The Skrillex booking, and what it said about Movement 2024
Sonny Moore closed the Movement Stage Sunday night under the name he stopped being able to outrun. The booking had been a subject of argument since February.
Looking back: how Movement survived on Hart Plaza
Movement returns to Hart Plaza Memorial Day weekend for its 24th edition. The festival has changed names, owners, and economic models since 2000. The location has not.
OMA drilled 1,353 holes in a bakery to build LANTERN
The first thing you notice on the south facade of LANTERN is the holes. There are 1,353 of them, drilled through the concrete masonry of the south wall and filled with cylindrical glass blocks.
Detroit People's Food Co-op opens after 14 years of organizing
After 14 years of organizing, Detroit's first Black-led, community-owned grocery store opened at Woodward and Euclid on May 1, 2024.
The Aladdin Sane opens beneath Book Tower with 32 seats and a bowie-coded cocktail menu
Most new bars in Detroit pick a moment to announce themselves. The Aladdin Sane skipped the moment.
Movement 2023 was the festival's full return: a recap
Movement Music Festival ran May 27 through 29, 2023, at Hart Plaza, the 23rd edition and the first Memorial Day weekend that ran without pandemic-era operational constraints. Total attendance roughly 109,000.
