Things you see along Woodward
Kasia June 11th, 2007
Very quickly, since I need to get cracking on my evening job work here…
I drive up and down Woodward with some frequency. I drive up it almost every weekday, as my day job is near Grand Blvd. and Woodward and my evening job is at Twelve Mile and Woodward; I drive down it when I need to go to the head offices for anything.
First, any time you drive past Nine Mile and Woodward these days, or at least any time I do, there are protesters holding up signs saying “Bring our troops home now!” and “Honk if you want Bush out!” and such. Don’t ask me what this is supposed to accomplish. I have no idea. But they’ve been doing it with some regularity ever since we went into Afghanistan, so one does get used to it. I admit I have a little moment of wicked glee when I manage to get through a whole light cycle without anyone honking at them…but I paid for that today when there was a big gawker delay on account of their being there.
But today I saw something I’d never seen before: a man bicycling down Woodward with an accordion strapped to his back. It tickled me pink, let me tell you; all I could think about was my dad at age six, being forced by his mother to take accordion lessons (though he didn’t bicycle to the lessons). Associations can be a funny thing.
Now I’m thinking about the Quaker woman who used to show up at all sorts of liberal functions I went to as a child, who always brought her squeezebox. She was the highlight of any event for me, let me tell you.
Enough rambling – back to work. 
My favourite thing to see on Woodward was at about 5 mile or so, where there was a nicely-kept house with a chainlink fence and a decent lawn – and a tree growing out the windows of the garage or shed or whatever it was. This was in ‘94. I like to imagine that the tree kept growing and lifted the garage into the sky, like a treefort.
Oooh, I think I’ve seen that house! I don’t know if it’s still got the tree growing through the garage…but I know I’ve seen it.
I love the image you paint with that…
You work around Woodward and the Blvd? Dude, so do I. I’m in the Fisher Building. Do you ever hit up any of the beautiful old Churches down here for noon(ish) Mass?
Anytime I think of the strangest thing I’ve seen, it’s either the one-armed sign twirler outside a taqueria on Grand Avenue in Santa Ana, or an elderly gentlemen I saw one day, driving along with a sweet smile on his face, happily listening to “Blister in the Sun” by the Violent Femmes at full volume.
Hee…I’m trying to imagine a one-armed sign twirler now…
Timmay, I didn’t know you worked down here. We should meet for lunch sometime. I’m at Woodward and Trowbridge, so just north of West Chicago.
I haven’t gone to a noon or noon-ish Mass yet. Here’s what happened: when I was still at my old job (which was at WSU) I did a search on the Archdiocesan web site for churches in the area that had a lunchtime Mass. However, the site isn’t really geared for what I wanted, which was to find any churches within a particular radius of zip code X that had a noon Mass. It let me search by city (but Detroit is a pretty big target), and it let me search by zip code, but with clustering and such there aren’t nearly as many parishes in a given zip code as there used to be.
So I found out that one parish in the zip code does, but had shied away from it because I’d heard reports that the pastor was pretty heterodox. I suppose I should really go check it out for myself rather than believe rumors…but anyway. I think I’ll try another search. I’d love to go to a noon Mass at St. Josaphat or Sweetest Heart of Mary, for example. I know the Cathedral doesn’t have a noon Mass. Actually, the Cathedral doesn’t even have a daily Mass, because it’s clustered with three other parishes and the rector has to balance out the daily Masses (on top of his other pastoral duties and heading up an Archdiocesan office).
Have you found a noon Mass around here? I believe St. Aloysius downtown has a noon Mass, but I hate to drive down and pay for parking…not that the Lord isn’t worth a few bucks a day, but you know…
Wow, you’re only a mile up the street. We should meet for lunch one day. Shoot me an email sometime (are you able to grab my email from the comment?).
Within a couple miles of here, there’s several noon(ish) Masses, most of them more downtown. I say ‘ish’ because one is at 12:10, one at 12:15, one at 11:45. But they’re all around lunchtime and are about 30 minutes, so you can easily go on a lunch hour. I try to go at least once or twice a week (especially when I miss 7:30am Mass at home). Not all of them have Mass every day, due to clustering, but there’s always several options a day.
– St. Aloysius is daily at 12:15 (I was there yesterday, actually). Metered parking, 75c for an hour.
. Friday’s at Noon, free parking.
– Old St. Mary’s in Greektown is daily at 12:15. You can either pay $5 to park in the lot next to the church, or get there a little early and park in the casino deck for free (just be sure to remember to get validated in the casino).
– Ss. Peter and Paul Jesuit is at 11:40 or 11:45 daily. Metered parking. Right on Jefferson by the Ren Cen. They’re ok, but not my favorite to go to.
– St. Joseph’s on Jay St., near Gratiot. Mon-Wed. at 12:10. Monday and Tuesday are in Latin. I LOVE this church. Fr. Paul Ward usually has a couple of the Masses, Fr. Fares does one or two of the Latin Masses. Fr. Fares tends to mumble and rush his latin, but he’s a great confessor! Various weekly devotions after each Mass. Free parking.
– St. Josaphat near I-75 on Canfield. Thursday at Noon. Devotion to the Black Madonna with Benediction after Mass. Free parking.
– Sweetest Heart of Mary, just across the freeway from Josaphat, on Russell. I love the design of this Church. If I didn’t know better, I would say they adopted every statue that every other church in the archdiocese got rid of.
There may be one or two more I haven’t gotten to yet. I think St. Patrick’s on Parsons has Mass Thursdays at 11… Haven’t been there, though. I’d love go to to Ste. Anne, but I’m not sure if they have a lunchtime Mass. I keep meaning to look into it.
Very cool – and thank you for the information! I e-mailed you…
Alas, Ste. Anne’s only noon Mass is on Sunday. No weekday lunchtime Masses.
I think I’ll try some of the Masses you suggest…I was trying to get to a morning Mass by me, but #1, a 7 a.m. Mass is painful for me to get to (I’m usually UP around 7, not already at my destination by 7)…and #2, the Mass at the parish by me is even more painful for me than the 7 a.m. bit. I’ve even tried it on Sunday, which was a little better, but not much. I guess I’m just hopelessly spoiled by St. Anastasia and SS. Cyril & Methodius… :-/
Drat. I would have loved to do old Ste. Anne’s. Oh well.
I’m not a morning person either, and if morning Mass weren’t right down the stairs from my room, I wouldn’t be there. Even then, sometimes it’s rough getting up for it.