The Parade of Rabbis’. Just prior to Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year) the Lincoln Barber Shop, Oak Park, Michigan was busy. Three Rabbis visited the shop within a span of an hour or two, along with other customers, while Luc Vrydaghs, Belgium documentary filmmaker and I were scouting for a barbershop with character. We […]
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ROBERT’O Beauty and Barber Salon sits on a busy part of E. Seven Mile Road in Detroit. Ned was seated in his chair awaiting a customer, while the owner Larry was handling a customer. “ We are not barbers, we are hair stylists’. They carry on the tradition of sculpting […]
Curtis Harry migrated from Alabama to Detroit in 1953 for a good paying job. He succeeded and worked in the plants. While working fulltime, he and his wife started a family of four children and trained to be a barber. He went into business in 1964. He celebrates 50 years of cutting heads. In 1976 […]
INITIALLY I thought that the man in the blue suit with white shoes, was a gospel concert groupee. Not true. At 65, Nelton Shorter has been “clean” for 20 years. He credits finding Jesus as the solution to past troubles. He attends gospel concerts to dance and “Praise the Lord”. He never stops moving. The […]
I was location scouting with Belgian documentary film maker Luc Vrydaghs. His new project documents barbershops as a cultural center globally. Detroit is on his list. As is South Africa, and Greenland. Funding comes from the Belgium government support of the arts. We visited Whitlow’s Barber Lounge, the oldest single owned shop in Detroit at […]
WHAT INITIALLY caught my attention on Hamilton Ave. was the Trayvon Martin memorial wall painting on the south wall of Sheps Barber and Beauty Shop. This is the second memorial image in Detroit. I met Terry cranking down the steel entry cover. We struck up a conversation and I set an appointment to visit. […]
Winter in Detroit. As the open landscape absorbs the loss of architecture a vast openness is evolving. Plains of snow lend to a quiet feeling where pheasant run wild.Now that the Michigan Governor has suggested that visas be granted to immigrants to re-settle in Detroit, a wide variety of properties and business […]