0:02 [SPEAKER_00]: For some time now, Belle Isle has been the most surreal part of America's most surreal city. 0:10 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the little island getaway, with a 20th century American apocalypse, also known as the City of Detroit. 0:19 [SPEAKER_00]: In the middle of the Detroit River, between the ugly concrete shores of Windsor Ontario, in the mythical, but still ugly shores of urban Detroit, sits a little piece of northern Michigan called in French, the beautiful aisle, and sure it's fair to say it's beautiful, it's green and lush, and it's pretty hard when you stop and think about it, foreign island 0:48 [SPEAKER_00]: unless you're talking about barren, volcanic rocks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. 0:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Every island has a kind of living poetry about it, and even those rocks are attractive in a desolate kind of way. 1:02 [SPEAKER_00]: But Belle Isle has a more conventional appeal, or at least a used to. 1:08 [SPEAKER_00]: It still has the weeping willows and island reads of the glory days. 1:13 [SPEAKER_00]: But these have been joined, in recent years, by sprawling campus of ruins, and more leather in the meridian of the filthiest interstate. 1:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Most of the islands interior lakes are overflowing, and, like seemingly everything in this place, sprinkled with a generous helping of garbage. 1:37 [SPEAKER_00]: The access point to Bell Highell is a long marble arch bridge of the kind you might find over the Timbs in London or the same in Paris. 1:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Only this one is more than 2000 feet long. 1:53 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a pretty bridge in line with land posts, all of which leaves you utterly unprepared for the current state of Bell Highell. 2:04 [SPEAKER_00]: That is, at least until you approach the former Detroit boat club to the left of the bridge on the island shore. 2:12 [SPEAKER_00]: This once proud club competed against rival cities, like Chicago and New York, and the trophy cases inside are still full of evidence of its success. 2:24 [SPEAKER_00]: The Detroit Boat Club is the oldest yacht club in the United States, established in 1839 and predating those of cities like Boston and New York by roughly 30 years. 2:39 [SPEAKER_00]: But in the late 1990s, this club was forced to leave its home, and the building has become a landmark of the city's decline. 2:48 [SPEAKER_00]: With its yellowed exterior in balcony paddios, overlooking the lake, the former DBC looks more like the dilapidated home of a long dead Colombian drug lord, and a rowing club that once supplied seven rowers on a single US Olympic team in 1956. 3:10 [SPEAKER_00]: The last time I was inside this building, the caretaker told me a ghost story that he clearly believed about a small child living in the attic of this empty building. 3:22 [SPEAKER_00]: He showed me a picture taken from the river, ensuring enough in the left upper corner of the photograph and a small attic window was an even smaller white face looking out over the water. 3:36 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know anything about the supernatural or Photoshop, but I know I wanted to get out of there, Pronto. 3:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever was or was not happening in that photo, the haunted motif of this island 3:52 [SPEAKER_00]: That faded little face was basically a human version of every washed out building in the island. 4:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Especially the one I was standing in. 4:02 [SPEAKER_00]: And if there was any place he dead child from the 19th century would want to hang out. 4:09 [SPEAKER_00]: It certainly seemed like it would be here. 4:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, on the other side of the bridge is a little guard house where you're supposed to pay for entry to the State Park. 4:22 [SPEAKER_00]: You don't actually pay, because there is never anyone there to collect your money. 4:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Beyond the guard house is the casino and a huge marble fountain on the island south end. 4:35 [SPEAKER_00]: The outside of the building is imposing and attractive, built in 1908 in the Renaissance Revival Style. 4:44 [SPEAKER_00]: The inside is thoroughly non-descript, as it was updated in the 70s to remove all of its classical charms. 4:52 [SPEAKER_00]: The marble, soda counter, and the main hall was too large to remove, so they smashed it with sludge hammers and carried it out in pieces. 5:03 [SPEAKER_00]: The marble fountain outside the casino, that has not, or at least has not yet been smashed 5:14 [SPEAKER_00]: James Scott was a notorious Detroiter during the city's first boom era. 5:20 [SPEAKER_00]: He died in 1910 and when he did, he left his family fortune to the city with one condition. 5:27 [SPEAKER_00]: that they use the money to build a fountain, on Bell aisle, featuring a large statue of himself. 5:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, to understand the comedy in this request, you have to know that Scott had a reputation for being a pretty bad person, and he knew this, and he knew the city hated him, and he knew that they wanted his money. 5:49 [SPEAKER_00]: So, he put his political enemies in a good old-fashioned pickle. 5:54 [SPEAKER_00]: They could have his money, but only if they built a massive monument to someone they despised. 6:01 [SPEAKER_00]: According to his public reputation, Scott was a crude, bullying figure, who exploited the disfanaged and celebrated his own vices. 6:13 [SPEAKER_00]: The comments from his rivals on learning the conditions of his fortune are priceless. 6:19 [SPEAKER_00]: One of them said he'd be happy to erect said statue, so long as it was about two and a half inches high. 6:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Another said, only a good man who has wrought things for humanity should be honored in this way. 6:35 [SPEAKER_00]: In another, Mr. Scott never did anything for Detroit in his lifetime, and he never had a thought that was good for the city. 6:44 [SPEAKER_00]: One prominent Detroit historian described him simply as a vindictive, scurrelous, misynthro. 6:52 [SPEAKER_00]: But, in spite of all that, you have to give Scott credit. 6:56 [SPEAKER_00]: The Marble found him joke, it's a touch of genius. 7:00 [SPEAKER_00]: It's still funny, every time you see his smoke face, looking out over his final masterpiece. 7:07 [SPEAKER_00]: He knew his money would win, it always does. 7:13 [SPEAKER_00]: But the time you reach this fountain, you'll likely lose self from service. 7:18 [SPEAKER_00]: You will have passed the halfway point of the Detroit River. 7:21 [SPEAKER_00]: In your provider will think you've left United States. 7:26 [SPEAKER_00]: All of which only enhances this nagging feeling of having left the normal world behind. 7:32 [SPEAKER_00]: The longer you're here, the more it starts to feel like you've discovered a wormhole in the space-time continuum, but has stuck you someplace between 1900 and some distant, dystopian future. 7:46 [SPEAKER_00]: You can't use your phone, and you're surrounding environment of world-class Victorian architecture, and discarded white castle hamburger boxes is kind of hard to get your head around. 8:02 [SPEAKER_00]: If you didn't know better, you would think the Michigan State Flower was an empty styrofoam cup. 8:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, the Belle Isle Aquarium and Connected Garden Conservatory, just down the loop from the fountain, are you welcome relief from the chaos outside? 8:20 [SPEAKER_00]: These buildings are small, but endearing, as they communicate a level of civic care and 8:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Both buildings were designed by one of the greatest architects in American history, the Detroiter Albert Khan. 8:39 [SPEAKER_00]: But because they're so small, you can't stay inside the aquarium or conservatory for long. 8:47 [SPEAKER_00]: After just a few minutes, you're back on the loop, headed for the bell aisle athletic field, which are in themselves a fabulous public complex. 8:57 [SPEAKER_00]: In this complex, there are tennis courts and basketball courts, and even eight individually numbered handball courts, dating to whenever people actually played handball. 9:10 [SPEAKER_00]: In the middle of all this, are two massive baseball diamonds, with white towers for night games that would be more appropriate for a professional stadium, but as pleasant as all of this is, it's still on bell aisle. 9:26 [SPEAKER_00]: So, the grass is perpetually overgrown and the entire complex on whatever day of the week you choose to go there is empty. 9:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Though I did want to see an older woman throwing tennis balls to her dogs and handball court number two. 9:43 [SPEAKER_00]: And if all of this civil utility hasn't just failed you with sadness, don't worry. 9:50 [SPEAKER_00]: You haven't yet been to the bell aisle zoo. 9:53 [SPEAKER_00]: And you actually won't ever go, because it's been de-funned since the disgraced Detroit mayor Kawami Hill Patrick closed it in 2002. 10:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Once the home of more than 150 animals, it's now a popular destination for urban explorers. 10:13 [SPEAKER_00]: The property is gated, and its turn styles are locked. 10:18 [SPEAKER_00]: But anyone who climbs the fence will be able to tour the shooting location for one of the robot fights from the Hugh Jackman movie, Real Steel. 10:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Seriously, they filmed it here on the island. 10:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Apparently when the director was looking for the perfect setting for two robots trying to kill each other in a jungle village, he couldn't think of a better place than 10:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And in some ways, that tells you everything you need to know. 10:50 [SPEAKER_00]: But when Kilpatrick closed the Bell Isle Zoo in 2002, he replaced it with a newer zoo, about a half mile to the north, which is really just a nature center, roughly the size and shape of a tank at a water treatment plant. 11:07 [SPEAKER_00]: and rather than housing kangaroos, and polar bears, like the last zoo, this one contains fish tanks, with turtles and frogs, and a traveling exhibit filled with plastic animal droppings, titled, what's cat, is that? 11:26 [SPEAKER_00]: But if your heart is at this point just brimming over with confusion and despair, go across the street to the bell aisle golf course. 11:35 [SPEAKER_00]: you'll shoot the best score of your life. 11:37 [SPEAKER_00]: I guarantee it. 11:39 [SPEAKER_00]: The reason for this guarantee is simple. 11:42 [SPEAKER_00]: The course only has six holes. 11:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Then, just pass the golf course, you come across the islands second boat club, also one of the oldest in the country. 11:53 [SPEAKER_00]: The Detroit Yacht Club, on your right, is the largest Yacht Club house in the United States. 12:00 [SPEAKER_00]: But it's not actually on the island. 12:03 [SPEAKER_00]: The DYC is on its own tiny private island, literally, a stone's throw off the bell-eil shore, and there's another dose of sad comedy, and the fact that the only thing currently thriving on bell-eil isn't actually on bell-eil. 12:23 [SPEAKER_00]: You never know it wasn't connected without looking at a map. 12:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Beyond the Yacht Club is the Belle Isle Beach, with a fantastic view of the city. 12:33 [SPEAKER_00]: It's narrow, like most Lake Huron beaches, but a great place for families, to get out of the city without really having to leave it. 12:43 [SPEAKER_00]: On my way back to the bridge, I saw one poor soul in a tan vest, picking up individual pieces of litter, with one of those metal trash pickers. 12:53 [SPEAKER_00]: He had this blank look on his face, a kind of hopeless stare, like someone had just asked him to mow a golf course with a pair of scissors. 13:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Whoever you are, brave soldier, a futility, at the last outpost of our civilization, I hope they get you some help soon, and I hope they start finding the people responsible for this, and that they find some way to bring the beauty back to Bellehile. 13:21 [SPEAKER_00]: In our next episode, we'll head north to the cold waters of Lake Superior to the largest fresh water island in the United States, Iowa Royale, as a highly protected and uninhabited national arc, Iowa Royale will give us our best look at what these islands looked like before the arrival of European peoples, with their kings and forts and styrofoam
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