Detroit Interview

I interviewed two different people who both lived in Detroit at different parts of their life.

The first person I interviewed was Sandra Dennis. Dennis grew up in Detroit; the first street off of the Southfield Freeway. There was a fire station at the end of her street but after a while, she calims that the sirens became hardly noticeable. One of the things she remembers that was different growing up there than it is for kids growing up here is that in the city, garbage trucks came through an alley to pick up trash, instead of putting it at the side of the road in front of your house. One of her expiriences of living in Detroit was that there was a lot of violence. Her older brothers friend was in a store that got robbed and he got shot in the spine and is now paralyzed. Things like that don't happen to often in the suburbs. She recalls taking public transportation in high school to get to shopping mallssuch as Northland. During her college years, she had a car. Her car had gotten a flat tire on her way to school one day and she had to walk to a pay phone to call her husband, Jamal, to come help her. When she got back to her car from the phone, her battery had been stolen out of her car. These types of things could possibly happen anywhere but are sterotypical to happen in Detroit.

The second person I intervied was Jamal Dennis, Sandra's husband. Jamal moved to Detroit for college while his family lived in the suburbs of New York City. Jamal drove and old orange VW Hippy type van. He lived between Cass and 3rd where vehicles often got broken into by drug addicts and poor people. When his eight track player was stolen from his car, he was upset but not surprised. When he went to a gas station later that day, he saw it sitting on the counter. He told the guy working it was his and he told him he just bought it from his buddy for ten bucks. Jamal tld him that it was definitely his and if he didn't let him haveit he was going to call the police. Before Jamal let him respond, he took the eight track player and walked out with it.

When Jamal and Sandra got a house together, they didn't live in a great neighborhood. They lived in an old Alley House that was being lifed from the ground in certian parts (under the bathroom to be specific) by the roots of a huge tree. They also didn't have very goo neighbors. Their neighbors down the street stole their lawn furniture and put it in their own back yard. The neighbor across the street used to point a BB gun out of the window of his house and shot their cat, Tyrone, once. However, the bullet was lodged so deeply into his eye brow area that the vet said it was better to just leave it there. Another thing the expieriences living in the city of Detroit was the fruit man, milk man, and knife sharpener. There people came down the street to serve anyone in need of asistance. Because Detroit is so much more densely populated than the suburbs, this was a busy bussiness.