Detroit, the once-thriving motor and music capital of America, last week filed for federal bankruptcy protection. Reading the announcement was like attending a memorial service for a cherished friend of my youth. Growing up in the small town of Chatham, Ont. in the 1950s, I was saved by Detroit. Only 50 miles away, it became my personal mecca, the first big city I came to love, the place where I encountered the speed and density I craved. Before I left home for university, I visited “Dee-TROY-at,” as Chathamites liked to call it, to see family and eat exotic food, but mostly to shop at the J. L. Hudson Company, a 32-storey department store on Woodward Avenue.
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