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I have a travel-editor friend whose open enthusiasm for Detroit I’ve always found hard to comprehend. Sure, it’s got a good cultural and arts scene and a vigorous melting pot going for it. But the larger picture overshadowing it all has always seemed to me that notorious blight, the derelict buildings, the stench of what to many is practically a failed city.

But when I found myself having to make a sudden trip to New York with a six-hour layover in Motown courtesy of Spirit Airlines, I decided to keep an open mind and take advantage of what could have been an annoyance to get out of DTW airport, get a taste of the town, and try to draw some of my own conclusions. After receiving no response from a request for suggestions sent to Visit Detroit and Pure Michigan, I posted a question on our own Ask a Travel Pro forum and came away with a handful of good ideas to get me started.

On the flight I sat next to a local lad maybe 13 years old coming back from a Florida vacation with his family, who as we touched down informed me, "You’re not going to like it.” Hey thanks, kid. Undeterred, after landing we sought out the ground transportation area outside the clean, modern, well-equipped airport. Asking one employee if there was bus service to downtown, she replied, “This is Motor City, baby – everybody’s got a car.” Ah, sauciness – I like that in a woman. 

Get Him to the Greek

It was about 20 minutes and $43 by cab to downtown, past Dearborn’s big Uniroyal tire out alongside highway 94, over past Joe Louis Arena and finally up into Hart Plaza, in a high-rise business district that was pretty much deserted at 10:30 on Easter Sunday morning; looming off to the right was the General Motors headquarters, and off to the left, to which I headed, was a compact area called Greektown (left). Once a Greek immigrant “ghetto” of sorts dating back to the 1880s, now it’s mostly a dining and nightlife zone centered around Monroe Street, though still anchored by 20 or so Greek restaurants like Laikon Café, Pegasus, and Plaka. As the area started waking up this Sunday morning, loudspeakers blared a mix of authentic diatonal drones and latter-day schmaltz (Exhibit A: “Zorba the Greek”). I can see that on weekend nights especially, this area must be tons o’ fun. Peeking in some of the restaurant windows was a trip and a half, too – fluted columns, classical statues, the whole nine yards. Opa!

Actually, the most Olympian thing about Greektown, at least sizewise, is the Greektown Casino, a hotel and shopping/dining/entertainment/gambling complex connected by an enclosed walkway over Monroe Street. Greeted by gold-lamé furniture in the hotel lobby, we took a stroll around the place, including the casino area – the usual forest of beeping, blinking one-arm bandits – then headed across to check out the Easter brunch buffet ($25 a head) at another local dining icon called Fishbones. Cool soaring atrium, tasty-looking grub – but I had my heart set on another joint that had been recommended by my editor pal and others. 

Detroit Restaurants' Dining Star: Best BBQ in Town 

So we hopped into another cab and off we cruised up broad Michigan Avenue toward a nabe called Corktown, the oldest in Detroit (named after County Cork, where many of its original Irish immigrants hailed from). This is where you can really get a taste of the urban decay that defines Detroit for so many Americans these days. Not all of the neighborhood, apparently, but that particular broad, broad expanse of Michigan combined with dereliction along either side definitely gives off a creepy, almost Mad Max-ish kind of vibe. When I alighted at the corner of Michigan and 14th I spotted off to the left in the medium distance a huge, hulking Beaux Arts slab sitting completely derelict. It’s Michigan Central Station (right), built in 1913 and abandoned in 1988 (you might remember it from the Eminem movie 8 Mile). Several redevelopment plans have failed, and now nobody knows if it’s finally going to get rehabilitated after all, or just torn down. 

The reason I came to Corktown, though, was for lunch. In an unassuming brick building now accented with a mod wood door and fencing around its outdoor eating area, Slows Bar BQ (left) has become a Detroit institution in the half-dozen years since Brian Perrone and partners set up shop after scouring the South for the best BBQ and other recipes. The brick-walled interior has the feel of a hip, upscale college hangout, and after sampling “The Big Three” (pulled pork, chicken, sliced brisket, right) with various table sauces, sides of sublime mac and cheese and waffle-cut fries with cheese, it was apparent that those recommendations I got were on the nose and then some. I haven’t had barbecue this smoky and spectacular since a ramshackle roadside joint in Eunice, Louisiana back in 1997 which will live forever in my gustatory memory. That was followed by a carrot cake that was the lightest, airiest, and all around yummiest I have tasted on this planet. I didn’t have the ribs or chicken wings, but I’m told they’re signature stars of the house, too; wash it all down with some excellent local microbrews. Service, courtesy of a bright, friendly young man named Thomas, was superb. Reading some comments on Foursquare, though, I realize that I was also lucky, since I waltzed right in though normally on a weekend I’d be waiting on line for 45 minutes. “People are going to the big Easter brunches or barbecuing at home,” Thomas explained. 

A Monumental Museum 

There was some time left before boarding back at DTW, so I squeezed in one final stop, hopping a third cab to the next-door city of Dearborn, which early settlers conveniently placed on the way back to the airport. The ride itself was a treat, thanks to cabbie Olivia, aka “Lady Mac,” who regaled us with tales of her independent filmmaking and her group Detroit Hot Girlz, which does bike rides for charity. Before my final destination, of course, I had to stop off at Osama's Islam-o-Rama for a regulation beard to be in compliance with local Sharia law (for the humorless out there, that was a joke; some wingnuts have been saying that Islamic law has taken over Dearborn due to its high Arab population). Finally we arrived at the Henry Ford Museum, across from the main Ford Motors headquarters. With a façade like something out of Colonial Williamsburg or Philadelphia’s historic core, this museum is on a par with the Smithsonian in terms of its documentation of American technological innovation and history. The cavernous indoor space holds some of the most impressive artifacts of this country’s past, including presidential limousines such as the one in which John F. Kennedy was shot; the bus in which Rosa Parks sparked the seminal Montgomery Bus Boycott (above left); the chair in which Abraham Lincoln was shot; a period replica of America’s first train; the “Oscar Meyer Wienermobile”; and various and sundry planes, cars, locomotives, machines, furniture, appliances and a gazillion other items. Ever heard of Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion House? It was once going to be the house of the future, but was never put into production; the only surviving example is here, and it’s utterly fascinating. There’s also stuff we didn’t get to see/do, such as the outdoor Greenfield Village, with more historical reproductions; an IMAX theater playing various nature films; and a modern-day assembly-line tour. As it was, it was hard to break away for the last ride back to the airport.

My overall assessment, then? There’s a helluva lot more here than grit, blight, and despair. I knew that, of course, but what did surprise me most was that I’m actually looking forward to going back! There’s so much I missed. To name just four:

• Gospel masses at black churches like Second Ebeneezer Church and Perfecting Church
• Dearborn’s Arab-American Museum 
• Detroit Institute of Arts
• Motown Museum

I found people friendlier than I expected, and not in that vapid, polite-but-distant way – like the lady at the airport, Thomas, and Olivia, they had real flavor and personality, and weren’t afraid to show it, honey. Overall, then, a great lunch, a great museum experience, and a tantalizing taste, all in about four hours! Now, flying Spirit has never been a treat, especially of late with all the cheesy fare add-ons and chaotic baggage check-in – but today I must confess, I'm grateful to Spirit Airlines for an unexpectedly cool experience.