When we left the Grosse Pointe-Detroit border story on Monday, Steve Neavling at Motor Coty Muckracker had reported Grosse Pointe Park was officially closing off Kercheval Avenue at the city limits for a farmers' market.
Now Rod Meloni on WDIV-TV reports the city has put up a wooden barn at the spot where the relatively affluent suburb meets a desperately poor side of Detroit, a border that has long been notorious nationally for its radical transformation.
The divide between the Grosse Pointes and Detroit has always been stark, but Friday night a lot of people were wondering what was up with a newly constructed building that seems to purposely separate the two cities.
Meloni quoted a Detroit woman who said the new construction appears to be designed to discourage Detroiters from entering Grosse Pointe Park, which has shut other streets that connect the two cities.
But Mayor Pro Tem Greg Theokas told Meloni "exclusion is not at play here."
"No, it's designed to create a space where there can be foot traffic so that we can close it off during the weekend and holidays, and have an open-air area," said Theokas.
