On Monday, May 15th Slow Roll hosted their 3rd Monday bike ride at the historic Chene-Ferry Market in partnership with RecoveryPark and brought out roughly three thousands bikers as well as various businesses and food trucks to the community. You might say, “cool, but why does this matter?”.
Let me tell you why:
- The Chene-Ferry neighborhood, or more commonly known as Poletown East is one of the most depleted neighborhoods in the city of Detroit. At the height of Detroit’s auto industry and population it was home to around 2,000 immediate residents. The surrounding neighborhoods added up to about 60,000 residents. In the 1950’s Poletown East had 30,000 jobs within walking down and was home primarily to the Polish Community. Today, there are less than 50 immediate residents and 2,000 in the surrounding neighborhoods. 99% of the population left as well as 98% of the businesses.
- This leads to the next point, it’s crucial for people who are coming from the suburbs to join Slow Roll or businesses around Detroit that there is a greater economic need in these neighborhoods rather than the 7.2 miles that make up the greater downtown area. It’s also important however for them to see the economic opportunity around sites such as the Chene-Ferry Market which still stands despite the abuse it’s taken from scrappers. People need to see that these neighborhoods are prime for housing and business development first hand in order to understand.
- It was a great opportunity for RecoveryPark to showcase all that we are doing to serve the community we are in and the city of Detroit. There were people who grew up in the community, or had family who grew up in the community and were elated to see how we’ve taken care of the neighborhood as well as the market. Slow Roll also gave us the opportunity to get our farming areas in front of my eyes who otherwise would have no idea. RecoveryPark gained hundreds of social media followers, as well as emails asking about volunteer opportunities and even donations.
- Lastly, it’s important to restate that we have to show people from all over that these neighborhoods are often harmless for the most part. Crime left the Poletown East neighborhood with the decrease in population and there’s no reason these areas should be forgotten when it comes to money. It was a great opportunity to show that we can bring thousands of people out into a neighborhood that hasn’t seen that many people in decades and show them a good time.
RecoveryPark extends it’s thanks to Slow Roll and the opportunities they offered us through the partnership and are excited for future opportunities as well.