In Motown, Stop in the Name of Hope

"Awful," he barked, eyes rolling back as he shakes his head.

Okay, what about happiness? Can Forbes's misery assessment really be accurate?

"That's pretty much true," Keeler nodded, moving on to the next customer. A few minutes later he returned with a reassessment.

"It's not so bad here," he said. "We have fun. There's lots to do here -- we've got a lot of hospitals, we've got a lot of schools. . . . "

Those charms aside, Keeler said he eventually wants to leave Detroit. Maybe head somewhere new, like North Carolina.

An hour earlier at the DIA, a boy, maybe 4, stood looking up at a panel of stained-glass windows by John La Farge. The word "Faith" sat at the top of one. "Hope" at another.

"What does hope mean?" the boy asked, staring up toward the massive, illuminated images.

"Mmm, that's complicated," his father whispered, before dropping to a knee.

"Hope is when you think about the future," he explained. "And wish for good things."

* * *

We ate beneath the Greektown Casino that night, at a place called Pegasus Taverna. Every five minutes or so, a plate of cheese was lit on fire and a server matter-of-factly called out "Opa!"

I wish we had ordered more than one. It's called saganaki and it's bliss-by-dairy-product: salty, melted and not nearly enough for two people (assuming I'm one of the two).

Above us, slot machines beeped and flashed, inviting what city officials had hoped would be a new engine of economic growth. There are three casinos now, plus a fourth just across the river in Windsor, Ontario. So as gambling-on-a-budget destinations go, Detroit should rank right up there.

Hard to say, though, if casinos are the force that will bring collective happiness back to the city. They don't do too much for me, so we hopped a cab over to Nancy Whiskey's, a Corktown dive known for its blues.

All around it was overgrown grass, streetlights blinking on and off and an eerie absence of movement, sound or structure.

Inside, Nancy Whiskey's was hopping. People were jammed wall-to-wall in the wood-paneled tavern, ordering cans of Miller Lite and dancing between tables as the raucous five-piece band played Van Morrison and "Mustang Sally" from the stage.

If there was sadness in the city, it wasn't at Nancy Whiskey's that night.

* * *

Knowing it would at least be open for business, we swung by the MGM Grand, Detroit's newest casino, for breakfast the next day.

Just outside the downtown nucleus, the upscale casino was a quarter-full by midmorning, its smoke ventilators humming in the background while the employees of glitzy boutiques unlocked their doors.

Our next stop was Hamtramck, a city within the city recommended by the guidebooks and our man Nathan from the Majestic. ("It's got the most bars per capita in the country -- or something like that," he'd offered.) And my grandmother had lived in the area during college and had told stories, later, about its cosmopolitan verve.

Hamtramck was historically a Polish enclave and is now an immigrant melting pot. It is also a neighborhood, like so many others, in decline. Closed department stores, seedy corner shops, run-down fast-food huts. In the place my grandmother found thrilling, we couldn't find a reason to stop.

For the couple of hours that remained before my return flight, we headed to Belle Isle, a storied city park that covers the length of a 982-acre island in the middle of the river. Designed by the same landscape architect responsible for Central Park in New York, the isle is gorgeous: dotted with elegant fountains, a domed conservatory and aquarium, a stately yacht club and picnic areas that were being well used as we passed through its drivable loop.

Then we stopped driving and started watching other people do it. In the center of this serene patch of earth is a racetrack, and on it cars were lined up by the dozen, waiting for timed runs through an intricate, cone-lined course. Tires screeched as mesmerized kids hung their elbows over the fence, necks craning with every hot rod's turn.

We pulled ourselves away to walk to the edge of the island facing the city's skyline. From a distance, Detroit looked as it had in the dark: beautiful.

Happiness here was the intention and, in truth, it was met. For two days we had great times in Detroit. But the misery gurgling through the metropolis was undeniable.

I learned later that the city's seal comprises two Latin phrases, "Speramus Meliora" and "Resurget Cineribus." The lines were chosen after a fire ravaged the city in 1805. Together they mean: "We hope for better things. It will rise from the ashes."

There's a lot to be said for that kind of hope -- for thinking about the future, wishing for good things.