Detroit Underground – February 20, 2024

Amelia Benavides-Colon leads a tour of Detroit tunnels, while ML and Marc try not to get too scared without big, brave Shawn here to protect them for most of the show.

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Wayne State University journalism student Amelia Benavides-Colon has taken Detroit by storm with her latest report for the Detroit Free Press exploring the many tunnels we didn’t even know where there. She talks about how she got the idea for the story and what she found. Read all about it here.

Marc asks Amelia about social media, while ML wonders out loud whether Tik Tok is a platform … or a pocketwatch.

It’s been a l-o-o-o-ng time, but Highland Park was once one of the wealthiest suburbs in Michigan. Amelia tells us how to find the entrance to the tunnels that used to run underneath the city’s streets – and why they were constructed.

Midtown Detroit and Pleasant Ridge are just two of the other locations where underground tunnels were once widely used. Listen and learn where they are, and whether you can still use them.

Amelia tells us which tunnels are still accessible and ML recounts how one tunnel was used in the early days of the 1990s newspaper strike to shuttle scabs and bosses into the Detroit News.

When she’s not writing blockbuster stories about hidden Detroit history, Amelia digs into an alleged cult based right here in Michigan. Check out her latest here.

Marc gets the bell ready as ML tells the story of how Kwame Kilpatrick did a favor for Matty Moroun and blocked a land sale that would have helped bring more goods and jobs into Detroit from Windsor by converting a rail tunnel that pops out behind the Michigan Central Depot.

Marc says an urban legend about a decapitation in the Detroit-Windsor tunnel is TRUE – and he can prove it!

Shawn struggles with technology as he zooms in to take the show off the rails JUST as we were about home free. He tells more psychadelic tales of his travels and odd acquaintances, including a dude who claimed his testicles once dented a motorcycle’s gas tank. ML is incredulous.

GEEK OF THE WEEK

The CFP, for giving nitwit U-M AD Warde Manuel a big role, is this week’s geek.

ROOM 7609

Holden Caufield sends us a jeremiad against American football along with a tune from Buju Banton called “Til I Am Laid to Rest.” Send us your favorite deep cut or track from an obscure band – and a story about them or why they mean something to you – by writing to [email protected].

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