Six decades in Detroit: How abandonment, racial tensions and financial missteps bankrupted the city | The Detroit News:
It was called a city of magic, and many believed the best was yet to come.
For a week in July 1951, Detroit put down its tools to reflect on its magnificence.
The city that in four decades transformed from an unremarkable Midwestern community into a prosperous urban powerhouse was celebrating its 250th birthday.
A million people lined Woodward for a parade.
A musical written for the occasion, “City of Freedom,” ran for 11 days.
The city marked the anniversary by creating the Detroit Historical Museum and launching a fundraising drive for Cobo Hall.
“The magic of Detroit is the way it sprang apparently full grown, fully prepared, into a world-wide metropolitan eminence, virtually overnight, after two centuries of somnolent obscurity,” John C. Manning, editor of The Detroit Times, wrote in the anniversary’s program.
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