Non-Fiction – Page 4 – Michele Oberholtzer

July 13, 2015

Another One Bites the Dust

Discussion of the demolition of the Park Avenue Hotel, as published by Deadline Detroit

View of the Park Avenue Hotel through the construction fence, shortly before it was demolished

“So devastating, but so controlled.” That was the eloquent observation of Uncle Nate, a homeless man and self-professed Detroit historian who summarized the demolition of the once-beautiful Italian Renaissance, Park Avenue Hotel Saturday morning. To him, the instantaneous obliteration of the massive, 13-story structure at 2643 Park Avenue in the Cass Corridor was a clear reminder of how much easier it is to destroy than to build. This is a truth that Detroit must reckon with every day, which is why it is so important to carefully consider what we allow to be taken away.

New York used to be the city with no past– beautiful edifices were sacrificed with minimal controversy to make way for the new and the better. New Yorkers who disagreed with such practices lamented the loses, but ultimately surrendered to their powerlessness to stop the forces of progress and change, the loss of something so irretrievable as a demolished building. That was, until, the original Penn Station was destroyed and replaced by the current iteration, which is to the old station what cardboard is to marble. Not coincidentally, the removal of Penn Station also made way for the construction of Madison Square Garden, the stale arena which is architecturally stale.

This was the final straw– New Yorkers, historians and architects organized to create the landmark preservation act, which was immediately used to protect Grand Central Station. It has been responsible for saving hundreds of historical structures since. It also paved the way for national preservationist movements of the same form.
Continue reading “Another One Bites the Dust”

June 27, 2015

Expanding Minorities

Reposting in honor of yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling. Ever forward.

May 30, 2015

Gone Spargeling

As I laced up my running shoes I told my Mom: “I’ll be at the turn in the road where the asparagus grows in 15 minutes.” She didn’t seem to want to go unless everyone could come and went about trying to rally the scattered troops. I finally left, frustrated that mom was going to miss out on something she wanted because it wasn’t going to be perfect. “Let’s just do it!” I thought. “Why does it have to be all or nothing?” I made mental markers of various patches of roadside asparagus as I ran and shook my head that we wouldn’t pick it after all. And then, as I rounded that one dangerous corner where the road cuts sharply and you can’t see cars or pedestrians or even tractors from either direction, there was mom. There was mom! Continue reading “Gone Spargeling”

May 14, 2015

Gone shroomin’

We went searching for morels. We knew, vaguely, where to find them– in moist woody areas along dead and rotting trees. We knew, more or less, what they looked like– small vertical sprouts with a white stalk and a dark cap. We knew that the time was right– more than a few of our tree-hugging Instagram friends had been showing off their bounty, and then there was also the man with waders and camo pants who had the decency to break the first rule of mushroom hunting and show us where to look. But that didn’t mean we could actually find them. Continue reading “Gone shroomin’”

May 7, 2015

On Hold, Hold On

as published on The Huffington Post

There is something infuriating and infantilizing about dialing a phone number and reaching a recorded message. Even if the amount of time lost in only a few seconds, the helplessness of interacting with a non-sentient being can be hard to handle. This is especially true when there is waste built in to the messaging. Like anyone, I’ve spent a lot of time on the phone with a recording on the other end, and it’s given me the chance to think about all the ways we could be doing better.

“Unusually high call volume”

Continue reading “On Hold, Hold On”

March 1, 2015

Troopers- looking well

The sunrise this morning is beyond description. Mom and grandma are perched on the couch, looking out the window at the horizon like children waiting for a mysterious visitor to knock on the door. Their innocence and wonder melts my heart and I join them. As the sun rises, is it pierced in half by a narrow thick cloud that creates two mini-suns out of the one. It looks like two egg yolks merging, or rather one egg dividing. I’ve this sort of thing in biology textbooks and through zoomed-in scopes but never at the macro level with my own eyes. We are watching creation, the origin of light, our eager anticipation is being rewarded.

Continue reading “Troopers- looking well”

February 26, 2015

Troopers- control

This morning, the weather is clear. It’s time to go.

Everything mom does is slow. Maybe not slow-slow but slower than I would do it and it’s frustrating me. Why can’t I be patient? Why do I see in each moment an opportunity to show her what she could be doing better? I feel out of control. There has never been a car with so much steering from the backseat. “Maybe you’d like to drive?” Mom says and I agree but we don’t switch right away. We are going the same place, we are going there together, and when we get there, we will still be together. Breathe. Two minutes later, a car slides down a hill into our lane and smashes into us. Continue reading “Troopers- control”

February 25, 2015

Troopers- for the love

Waking up in the hotel room is nothing like it was in the little cabin. There is no window to sit and watch the sunrise from. In fact, when I look out the window, I see nothing. The storm has subsided not at all and sunrise will serve only to change the hue of our blindness.

The storm is so serious that the people on the news have given it a name– Neptune. I am inclined to scoff at the dramatization borne of the 24-hour news cycle but there’s no question the storm is worthy of a proper noun. Downstairs, at the front desk I find out that all the roads are closed or closing. There is no way out of town. Snowmobiles are being blown off the road. “Would you like to make a reservation for anther night?” I’m sad to think about our little cabin, the place that mom and grandma love so much, sitting there at the opposite perimeter of that white throbbing blob on the Doppler. Reluctantly, we put that extra night on hold.

I take the opportunity to use the hotel sauna. It’s not the authentic Finnish variety that the UP is known for, but it’s something. It feels nice to be too warm, to take a break from my family. The only other person in the sauna is a middle-aged man who tells me about the ice caves he visited yesterday. I tell him I’d like to go with my mom and Grandma and he asks me if I’m married. I’m so caught off guard that I answer honestly– “no”– instead of appropriately– “what the hell?”

Being cooped up like this makes me think about the phenomena of “hurricane babies” where, in the prolonged absence of modern diversions of electricity and transportation, people commence to partake in some very old-fashioned distractions. Today happens to be Valentine’s Day and I smirk just to imagine the improvised celebrations that will come out of all those cancelled dinner plans. I predict that there will be a swell of bellies this summer, a sweep of babies this fall and that, for as may lives as he may take today, time will reveal Neptune to be quite prolific. Continue reading “Troopers- for the love”

February 23, 2015

Troopers- snow canoe

The streets in Marquette are closed off where the sled dogs will be coming through in the next few hours. We get a spot by the window in a downtown pizza parlor and watch the people congregate on the sidewalks. I’ve never see a sled dog race before but I’ve imagined it. In my mind, the starting line looks something like that of a horse race (though I’ve never seen that either), all the teams are lined up together, with animals straining against that boundary for the moment when the gun will blast and they can take off together in a mass of confusion and energy and competition. Continue reading “Troopers- snow canoe”

February 22, 2015

Troopers- take advantage

I wake before the sunrise to watch it come up.

In the safety of the warmth inside the cabin, I huddle up against the window and look out along the vast and might Lake Superior, not 20 yards away from me. There is a lone streak of color in the sky.

Sunrises are so different from sunsets. When the sun goes down, you know what you are working with– you follow the light with your eye until it is gone. When the sun comes up, you don’t know exactly when or where it will breach the horizon. My understanding of the inevitability of the sun’s rising is clouded with sleepiness and the illogical doubt that waiting for something unseen always brings– what if, this time, the sun doesn’t come up? Continue reading “Troopers- take advantage”